4 ms·

What you're experiencing is largely that now everything is nearly instantly discoverable. In the 1980s and 90s, you would find out about new technology or produ

What you're experiencing is largely that now everything is nearly instantly discoverable. In the 1980s and 90s, you would find out about new technology or product at a computer store. You might read an article in a computer magazine about a technology, but for a product, you're as likely to learn about it from a knowledgeable clerk. And clerks had to be knowledgeable because they were that initial discovery mechanism. Now, you find out about a new technology or product instantly, and you learn about them constantly. It is rare that a company develops something new enough that it's significantly differentiated from something you already know about (or even have) that it's exciting. Even Apple had a lot of leaks before Vision Pro (which is potentially the most exciting new technology product, at least for me, in years). They had to balance when to announce it with the leaks - to maximize the impact while ensuring you didn't have to wait too long to get one.

sublinear 3y ago
I think you're missing the point. Even the Vision Pro is just incrementally better than Hololens almost a decade later.
- zimpenfish 3y ago
  > the Vision Pro is just incrementally better than Hololens Hololens had 1268x720 per eye[1] or 1.8MP across both eyes. Vision Pro is 23MP across both eyes. Are you seriously saying that's "incrementally better"? It's a literal order of magnitude more pixels! [1] https://www.pcworld.com/article/419869/we-found-7-critical-hololens-details-that-microsoft-hid-inside-its-developer-docs.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/419869/we-found-7-critical-h...
  - lagrange77 3y ago
    It's still 'vertically scaling' the number of pixels of hololens like devices. That might have needed innovations in manufacturing, but the product itself is not much of an innovation in my book.
  - II2II 3y ago
    If that order of magnitude more pixels doesn't enable people to do more, make the old and impractical the new and practical, or even leave people with the desire to upgrade, I would argue that order of magnitude more pixels could be incrementally better. Then again, sometimes incremental ends up sneaking up on us and being revolutionary in the end. There are many technologies that appeared in the 80s (if not earlier), yet did not turn out to be practical until several decades of incremental development happened.
    - lukevp 3y ago
      I’ve personally used a HoloLens, and I would consider it not useful outside of very specific edge cases. The viewport is extremely small (as in, most of your vision is not the hologram despite it still restricting your vision considerably), it’s hazy, low res, not very bright, and objects were not perfectly stable. It still was exciting as crap to use one, but a HoloLens vs the hardware of the vision pro is about on par with an original PlayStation vs a PS5. It’s more than a generational leap. I haven’t seen a vision pro in person, but I’ve seen a Vive, and that’s already leaps and bounds above a HoloLens in quality. The HoloLens works differently than the vision pro, which is really an extremely sophisticated VR headset, so they’re not even the same product category really. A HoloLens is more similar to a Google Glass.
      - II2II 3y ago
        That said, AR goes back decades with the early implementations being as primitive (if not more primative) relative to the HoloLens as the HoloLens is to the Vision Pro. While every new step may see the technology become more desirable and it may even garner higher adoption rates, it has no impact upon the lives of most people. Heck, as far as I can tell, it has no indirect impact upon the lives of most people. While the specifications may grow in leaps and bounds, I wouldn't really call it a technological leap until it has a greater impact. (That said, the Vision Pro is a bit young to tell how much of an impact it will have.)
- Schiendelman 3y ago
  That's honestly very similar to saying "4K Blu-rays are just incrementally better than VHS", by ignoring most of the differences and just considering that they're both media for video.
  - zdragnar 3y ago
    And yet, you're doing exactly the same thing with both. The experience is better, and there's some novelty with extra features you can interact with (though aside from subtitles, I don't think I've ever used them myself). In terms of what they do for the user the difference is, in fact, incremental compared to when VHS first became available. VHS enabled you to choose what to watch whenever you wanted. Prior to that, you got whatever was on whatever channels you had access to. I will definitely grant that enabling subtitles was a profound difference for a subset of viewers (those who enjoy foreign media and the deaf) but even that came about with DVDs, not Blu-ray.
    - sublinear 3y ago
      > enabling subtitles was a profound difference for a subset of viewers (those who enjoy foreign media and the deaf) but even that came about with DVDs, not Blu-ray. Closed captions were available on many, but not all, VHS tapes. Not all DVDs had subtitles either. The problem with CC on VHS was that it was often the first thing to degrade before the picture and then the sound. Foreign films often had subtitled releases "baked in" to the video. Here's another hit of nostalgia. There were times you'd walk into a Blockbuster in the USA and the only available version of a hot new Hollywood release was the Spanish or French subtitled version. You had to deal with the lost sections of image dedicated to subtitles in a language you might not even understand!
causality0 3y ago
It feels like the consumer base is much less diverse than it used to be. Tech used to look like a cornucopia of different shapes, colors, features. Now it's all the same. Twenty years ago the "gaming phone" was an Ngage and the "fashion phone" could pass for a tube of lipstick. In 2023 the "gaming phone" has an extra pair of invisible touch sensors and the "fashion phone" comes in pink.

sublinear 3y ago

I think you're missing the point. Even the Vision Pro is just incrementally better than Hololens almost a decade later.

zimpenfish 3y ago
> the Vision Pro is just incrementally better than Hololens Hololens had 1268x720 per eye[1] or 1.8MP across both eyes. Vision Pro is 23MP across both eyes. Are you seriously saying that's "incrementally better"? It's a literal order of magnitude more pixels! [1] https://www.pcworld.com/article/419869/we-found-7-critical-hololens-details-that-microsoft-hid-inside-its-developer-docs.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/419869/we-found-7-critical-h...
- lagrange77 3y ago
  It's still 'vertically scaling' the number of pixels of hololens like devices. That might have needed innovations in manufacturing, but the product itself is not much of an innovation in my book.
- II2II 3y ago
  If that order of magnitude more pixels doesn't enable people to do more, make the old and impractical the new and practical, or even leave people with the desire to upgrade, I would argue that order of magnitude more pixels could be incrementally better. Then again, sometimes incremental ends up sneaking up on us and being revolutionary in the end. There are many technologies that appeared in the 80s (if not earlier), yet did not turn out to be practical until several decades of incremental development happened.
  - lukevp 3y ago
    I’ve personally used a HoloLens, and I would consider it not useful outside of very specific edge cases. The viewport is extremely small (as in, most of your vision is not the hologram despite it still restricting your vision considerably), it’s hazy, low res, not very bright, and objects were not perfectly stable. It still was exciting as crap to use one, but a HoloLens vs the hardware of the vision pro is about on par with an original PlayStation vs a PS5. It’s more than a generational leap. I haven’t seen a vision pro in person, but I’ve seen a Vive, and that’s already leaps and bounds above a HoloLens in quality. The HoloLens works differently than the vision pro, which is really an extremely sophisticated VR headset, so they’re not even the same product category really. A HoloLens is more similar to a Google Glass.
    - II2II 3y ago
      That said, AR goes back decades with the early implementations being as primitive (if not more primative) relative to the HoloLens as the HoloLens is to the Vision Pro. While every new step may see the technology become more desirable and it may even garner higher adoption rates, it has no impact upon the lives of most people. Heck, as far as I can tell, it has no indirect impact upon the lives of most people. While the specifications may grow in leaps and bounds, I wouldn't really call it a technological leap until it has a greater impact. (That said, the Vision Pro is a bit young to tell how much of an impact it will have.)
Schiendelman 3y ago
That's honestly very similar to saying "4K Blu-rays are just incrementally better than VHS", by ignoring most of the differences and just considering that they're both media for video.
- zdragnar 3y ago
  And yet, you're doing exactly the same thing with both. The experience is better, and there's some novelty with extra features you can interact with (though aside from subtitles, I don't think I've ever used them myself). In terms of what they do for the user the difference is, in fact, incremental compared to when VHS first became available. VHS enabled you to choose what to watch whenever you wanted. Prior to that, you got whatever was on whatever channels you had access to. I will definitely grant that enabling subtitles was a profound difference for a subset of viewers (those who enjoy foreign media and the deaf) but even that came about with DVDs, not Blu-ray.
  - sublinear 3y ago
    > enabling subtitles was a profound difference for a subset of viewers (those who enjoy foreign media and the deaf) but even that came about with DVDs, not Blu-ray. Closed captions were available on many, but not all, VHS tapes. Not all DVDs had subtitles either. The problem with CC on VHS was that it was often the first thing to degrade before the picture and then the sound. Foreign films often had subtitled releases "baked in" to the video. Here's another hit of nostalgia. There were times you'd walk into a Blockbuster in the USA and the only available version of a hot new Hollywood release was the Spanish or French subtitled version. You had to deal with the lost sections of image dedicated to subtitles in a language you might not even understand!

causality0 3y ago

It feels like the consumer base is much less diverse than it used to be. Tech used to look like a cornucopia of different shapes, colors, features. Now it's all the same. Twenty years ago the "gaming phone" was an Ngage and the "fashion phone" could pass for a tube of lipstick. In 2023 the "gaming phone" has an extra pair of invisible touch sensors and the "fashion phone" comes in pink.