5 ms·

I'm actually somewhat interested to see something like this hit mainstream. Like smartphone-levels of mainstream. Because one of the first apps for it will like

by fooqux 1y ago

I'm actually somewhat interested to see something like this hit mainstream. Like smartphone-levels of mainstream. Because one of the first apps for it will likely be one that looks at people's faces and immediately digs up everything about them available online. There's already been videos of it working with older tech, so I'm sure it'll work even better now with newer hardware and AI. Anyway, once it goes mainstream and people see what we've done to ourselves, maybe it will open people's eyes and we'll start fighting for our privacy again.

lovich 1y ago
> Anyway, once it goes mainstream and people see what we've done to ourselves, maybe it will open people's eyes and we'll start fighting for our privacy again. lol
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
wmeredith 1y ago
I'm reminded of the "Gargoyles" in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. These are people with wearable computers that are plugged into the VR/AR internet at all times. The relevant passage... "Gargoyles are no fun to talk to. They never finish a sentence. They are adrift in a laser-drawn world, scanning retinas in all directions, doing background checks on everyone within a thousand yards, seeing everything in visual light, infrared, millimeter wave radar, and ultrasound all at once. You think they're talking to you, but they're actually poring over the credit record of some stranger on the other side of the room, or identifying the make and model of airplanes flying overhead. For all he knows, Lagos is standing there measuring the length of Hiro's cock through his trousers while they pretend to make conversation."
- sunrunner 1y ago
  > You think they're talking to you, but they're actually poring over the credit record of some stranger on the other side of the room, or identifying the make and model of airplanes flying overhead. So, the average Zoom call in 2025?
  - wpm 1y ago
    Eh, checking OrgWiki or LinkedIn is hardly as distracting as a salacious credit report
koolala 1y ago
Alternatively, the good version of that is AI giving knowledge on anything that exists naturally or artificially that we look at. To flourish we just need a distinction between general knowledge and individualized personal knowledge.
- basisword 1y ago
  Is that a good thing? Having the answer to everything before you’ve even asked makes life boring. There’s nothing fun about talking to someone who Google’s the thing you’re trying to remember or unsure about. That on steroids sounds like a dull existence.
  - vintermann 1y ago
    I gave your comment to chat GPT and it said that... Just kidding.
tootie 1y ago
I remain convinced that AR glasses will never ever be mainstream no matter how good the hardware is. They just don't solve any actual problem. Interacting with UI using voice or gesture is just way too hard.
- whimsicalism 1y ago
  oh i think we will see voice becoming a much more popular interface in the very near future, now that it’s actually getting very good
  - haijo2 1y ago
    Highly doubt it. As a species we have gotten accustomed to talking through text as opposed to voice/audio over time. People prefer it. Pure and simple.
    - fragilerock 1y ago
      Then how come in face-to-face interactions people generally communicate using speech rather than text? Clearly there's a disadvantage to using text in that situation, and I think it's that it almost always takes longer to express thoughts/intents using text. ISTM a sufficiently advanced computer voice interface would have the same advantage.
      - haijo2 1y ago
        People communicate with their friends more over text than in person. Am I really having to explain basic stuff like this? Lmao.
        sunrunner 1y ago
        Because it allows people to communicate when they're not in close physical proximity. Would you rather go out to dinner with friends and just speak to each other or sit there and type your conversation out in a WhatsApp group chat? It's a convenience/necessity thing, pure and simple.
varispeed 1y ago
They don't let you record phone calls (at least in my country, call recording is blocked), but they'll let people look up other people etc? I guess as long as the data is shared with three letter agencies and data mills, then why not. With phone calls that would be tricky, so at least they disabled it to protect scammers. When that feature did work, I was able to get money back from insurer as their sales person misrepresented the policy I paid for. I had it recorded and they had to pay up. With call recording no longer available, I don't do any calls if I don't have a tablet with me to record it.
potato3732842 1y ago
If this was possible at a reasonable price point the cops would already be wearing them.
- serf 1y ago
  volume is what makes things like this reasonably priced.
- nomel 1y ago
  This is reversed. If cops were wearing them, for a reasonable price, it would mean everyone else was already wearing them, for a reasonable price.
cyanydeez 1y ago
battery usage will continue to limit the commercial->public usage.
- sunrunner 1y ago
  It doesn’t seem to stop people being okay with <42 hour smart watch charges, so I’m not so convinced this will be the limiting factor unless you need the prescription version of these (which rules them out for me, I’m happy with my dumb-glasses that I’ve never had to plug in to anything)
  - cyanydeez 1y ago
    no ones playing games, recording videos, taking pictures or doing any kind of immediate activity with smart watches. Those sensor input-only arn't what would push people to want whole-ass screens & VR overlays. It's weird you think there's a similar power profile to a smart phone and a smart watch. They are not a gradient in use cases.
    - sunrunner 1y ago
      > no ones playing games, recording videos, taking pictures or doing any kind of immediate activity with smart watches. This is a good point, but my point was more that if a smart watches are doing less than a smart phone and people still seem to be happy to have to charge them everyday, I'm not so convinced that having to fast-charge a set of AR glasses for time-limited use would put people off if they felt it was useful enough. For context, I was imagining that most of the AR/VR overlays would be time or context dependent. Perhaps when travelling to aid with directions or on a commute for entertainment. Are people really going to be walking through life with an always-on HUD? If they are then yes, completely fair point around battery usage. Perhaps once a global network of wireless charging is fully operational this will be a problem of the past...
      - cyanydeez 1y ago
        Right, they're _passive_ devices that don't need active engagement. That's not a good case to make that active devices that consume orders of magnitude more power are going to make it on the market if they can't last 8-10 hours on a charge doing active things. Maybe people misunderstand just how much power AR/VR require and think it's similar to wireless ear phones. There's just a huge band gap in power requirements. EVs have similar issues in the consumer confidence when it comes to matching range requirements. No matter how much on paper you explain to people what they actually do vs what they want to do, the salesman needs to sell at what they want to do. SUVs and Trucks are similar, except inverse: people want to do a bunch of things, but what they actually do is very little. They'd still never drive a small vehicle just because it gets them good range. So, when I say the tech/battery isn't there for the consumer, it's recognizing the consumer is an idiot, and the nerd-requirements are different than average consumer expectations.
ortusdux 1y ago
I wonder if any US states will ban the practice? Many states have laws in place that govern license plate reader use by individuals.
- mariusor 1y ago
  Yes, but people are not cars.
  - reaperducer 1y ago
    Facebook got nailed for tagging people in the background of photos. That's illegal in some states. I know because I was in the background of someone's snapshot and got a ~$500 check out of the settlement. Thanks, Facebook!
sunrunner 1y ago
> Because one of the first apps for it will likely be one that looks at people's faces and immediately digs up everything about them available online. How am I meant to opt out of this? A device that broadcasts an (inevitably ignored) do not scan signal? CV Dazzle? Am I resigned to just never leaving the house again? For now I’m hoping that the major factor against people adopting this is that you’ll look like a wanker. I’m not sure what to do once that becomes the norm though.
- fooqux 1y ago
  They will keep getting smaller and more powerful. It won't be long until they look close enough to normal sunglasses. As for opting out? I think the only chance you have is to have zero online presence, especially with pictures. Of course, many are forced into this by their careers.
- bugglebeetle 1y ago
  A Scanner Darkly
- addandsubtract 1y ago
  Move to the EU.
  - broken-kebab 1y ago
    Denmark's Justice Minister calls encrypted messaging a false civil liberty https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45248802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45248802
- LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
  High-powered infrared LEDs, surrounding you with a halo, blinding the sensors. Optionally pulse-modulated in specific ways, to make the software behind those crash by inducing cyber-epilepsy. IOACM (infrared optically active countermeasures)
- rafaelmn 1y ago
  What is your threat/concern that you will not leave the house on order not to be photographed in public ? I get it could be mildly to very annoying depending on what's available on you online - but not leaving the house ? The only things that come to mind are you have a hit on you and you did an identity change to ditch it or some thinfoil hat level theory. The way I see this is this is all being done for over a decade now we are just making it more widespread. In some ways I find it a good thing - where previously the government could track you through security infra, now the government servants are also surveiled in all public appearances. If we're inevitably going in this direction, might as well have the same rules for everyone.
mhuffman 1y ago
>Because one of the first apps for it will likely be one that looks at people's faces and immediately digs up everything about them available online. There's already been videos of it working with older tech, so I'm sure it'll work even better now with newer hardware and AI. The app in question[0]. I would imagine newer hardware and some Palantir APIs would be all you need to do this very reliability. [0]https://gizmodo.com/this-facial-recognition-experiment-with-metas-smart-glasses-is-a-terrifying-vision-of-the-future-2000506339 https://gizmodo.com/this-facial-recognition-experiment-with-...
zh3 1y ago
Similar to the Massive Attack gig that used facial recognition on the crowd - they put the captured faces (with labels against them) up on the big screens. Discussed a day or so ago on here:- https://www.gadgetreview.com/massive-attack-turns-concert-into-facial-recognition-surveillance-experiment https://www.gadgetreview.com/massive-attack-turns-concert-in... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45255400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45255400
- robertlagrant 1y ago
  I thought while it did "facial recognition", it was to draw boxes round faces, and not to identify people. And the labels were things like "ENERGISED". I don't actually see the difference between this and a crowdcam at a sporting event, other than many privacy-oriented publications have reposted pictures of the people at the Massive Attack event, presumably without their permission.
bonoboTP 1y ago
Yes, and a standard dashcam/bodycam on every person's head. Right now you can see when a person is recording you, they are holding up their phone. With this, it's just a tap on the glasses (or auto-record and tap to preserve the last X minutes). It will remember all your activities, help you find your keys and objects, remember what you bought when and if there's still toilet paper in your bathroom, etc. It will make helpful charts and statistics about your life, help to optimize it, notice if there is some product that it wants to advertise to you based on your activities etc. It's all going to be packaged and sold to ad networks. You will see AR ad objects floating everywhere, depending on what you do.
- robertlagrant 1y ago
  > It will remember all your activities, help you find your keys and objects, remember what you bought when and if there's still toilet paper in your bathroom, etc. It will make helpful charts and statistics about your life, help to optimize it, notice if there is some product that it wants to advertise to you based on your activities etc. It's all going to be packaged and sold to ad networks. You will see AR ad objects floating everywhere, depending on what you do. Presumably only if you wear it.
  - bonoboTP 1y ago
    Yeah but maybe slowly things will require it. Just like restaurants today that only have a QR code but no physical menu, maybe a bunch of stuff will only be virtually present in augmented reality in the future. If you take off the glasses, signposts will be missing, etc. It's hard to imagine now, but maybe it would be hard to tell someone from 50 years ago that entire stores, subway ticket machines, bakeries etc. will be cashless and people will tap their phones to pay, and if you have no phone or card, you're screwed. Or if you have no Android/iOS app, you can't book appointments with certain govt offices etc. Things that start as optional and convenience only can slowly become essentially mandatory. And then if you are already wearing it, it will push the ads.
    - robertlagrant 1y ago
latexr 1y ago
> maybe it will open people's eyes That is very wishful thinking and will backfire. What will actually happen is normalisation and increased erosion of privacy.
bamboozled 1y ago
It's never coming back , it's over dude. There is no more privacy. Self-driving cars, they will know absolutely everything, about everyone, all the time, combine that with delivery drones and glasses, the government, meta, google, they will know exactly where you are all the time. Even if you leave your device at home.
Gud 1y ago
What will happen is that Meta will capture this information for themselves and sell it to the highest bidder and drip feed some of it back to you. In a functional society, these always on, corporate controlled devices would be outlawed.
- reaperducer 1y ago
  What will happen is that Meta will capture this information for themselves and sell it to the highest bidder and drip feed some of it back to you. The highest bidder. And then the next-highest bidder, and the next highest bidder, and the next highest bidder…
  - vithlani 1y ago
    [dead]
randycupertino 1y ago
> Because one of the first apps for it will likely be one that looks at people's faces and immediately digs up everything about them available online. Reminds me of my single girlfriends who put every single person they talk to on online dating into facecheck.id.
Atomic_Torrfisk 1y ago
I used to work in the hardware side of AR until recently when I took a step back for my family. I've had hands on experience with many types of hardware, wave guide, birdbath and laser beam scanning to name a few. Technically these are all really amazing, and I miss working in this space. Unfortunately, while I want to see the technology succeed in the mainstream, it's never going to get there. Period. The AR use-case presented by tech giants to consumers fails to solve any real world problem that a cheaper and more accessible cellphone couldn't. Sure there are niche-use cases and cool demos for consumers, but until the hardware reaches the form factor and durability of traditional prescription glasses consumers will never adopt the technology in a meaningful way. If we actually want to drive sales of AR devices, we will replicate usecases where AR currently drives value, such as HUDs for aircraft. The same concept can be applied to other high workload environments such as EMS, truck drivers, ATC, law enforcement and handful of military applications. However sales in these domains will be somewhat limited except for military applications which is bad PR for the most of the leaders of AR tech. So for now its all essentially vaporware to generate hype for the stock market.

by fooqux 1y ago

lovich 1y ago

> Anyway, once it goes mainstream and people see what we've done to ourselves, maybe it will open people's eyes and we'll start fighting for our privacy again. lol

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

wmeredith 1y ago

I'm reminded of the "Gargoyles" in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. These are people with wearable computers that are plugged into the VR/AR internet at all times. The relevant passage... "Gargoyles are no fun to talk to. They never finish a sentence. They are adrift in a laser-drawn world, scanning retinas in all directions, doing background checks on everyone within a thousand yards, seeing everything in visual light, infrared, millimeter wave radar, and ultrasound all at once. You think they're talking to you, but they're actually poring over the credit record of some stranger on the other side of the room, or identifying the make and model of airplanes flying overhead. For all he knows, Lagos is standing there measuring the length of Hiro's cock through his trousers while they pretend to make conversation."

sunrunner 1y ago
> You think they're talking to you, but they're actually poring over the credit record of some stranger on the other side of the room, or identifying the make and model of airplanes flying overhead. So, the average Zoom call in 2025?
- wpm 1y ago
  Eh, checking OrgWiki or LinkedIn is hardly as distracting as a salacious credit report

koolala 1y ago

Alternatively, the good version of that is AI giving knowledge on anything that exists naturally or artificially that we look at. To flourish we just need a distinction between general knowledge and individualized personal knowledge.

basisword 1y ago
Is that a good thing? Having the answer to everything before you’ve even asked makes life boring. There’s nothing fun about talking to someone who Google’s the thing you’re trying to remember or unsure about. That on steroids sounds like a dull existence.
- vintermann 1y ago
  I gave your comment to chat GPT and it said that... Just kidding.

tootie 1y ago

I remain convinced that AR glasses will never ever be mainstream no matter how good the hardware is. They just don't solve any actual problem. Interacting with UI using voice or gesture is just way too hard.

whimsicalism 1y ago
oh i think we will see voice becoming a much more popular interface in the very near future, now that it’s actually getting very good
- haijo2 1y ago
  Highly doubt it. As a species we have gotten accustomed to talking through text as opposed to voice/audio over time. People prefer it. Pure and simple.
  - fragilerock 1y ago
    Then how come in face-to-face interactions people generally communicate using speech rather than text? Clearly there's a disadvantage to using text in that situation, and I think it's that it almost always takes longer to express thoughts/intents using text. ISTM a sufficiently advanced computer voice interface would have the same advantage.
    - haijo2 1y ago
      People communicate with their friends more over text than in person. Am I really having to explain basic stuff like this? Lmao.
      - sunrunner 1y ago
        Because it allows people to communicate when they're not in close physical proximity. Would you rather go out to dinner with friends and just speak to each other or sit there and type your conversation out in a WhatsApp group chat? It's a convenience/necessity thing, pure and simple.

varispeed 1y ago

They don't let you record phone calls (at least in my country, call recording is blocked), but they'll let people look up other people etc? I guess as long as the data is shared with three letter agencies and data mills, then why not. With phone calls that would be tricky, so at least they disabled it to protect scammers. When that feature did work, I was able to get money back from insurer as their sales person misrepresented the policy I paid for. I had it recorded and they had to pay up. With call recording no longer available, I don't do any calls if I don't have a tablet with me to record it.

potato3732842 1y ago

If this was possible at a reasonable price point the cops would already be wearing them.

serf 1y ago
volume is what makes things like this reasonably priced.
nomel 1y ago
This is reversed. If cops were wearing them, for a reasonable price, it would mean everyone else was already wearing them, for a reasonable price.

cyanydeez 1y ago

battery usage will continue to limit the commercial->public usage.

sunrunner 1y ago
It doesn’t seem to stop people being okay with <42 hour smart watch charges, so I’m not so convinced this will be the limiting factor unless you need the prescription version of these (which rules them out for me, I’m happy with my dumb-glasses that I’ve never had to plug in to anything)
- cyanydeez 1y ago
  no ones playing games, recording videos, taking pictures or doing any kind of immediate activity with smart watches. Those sensor input-only arn't what would push people to want whole-ass screens & VR overlays. It's weird you think there's a similar power profile to a smart phone and a smart watch. They are not a gradient in use cases.
  - sunrunner 1y ago
    > no ones playing games, recording videos, taking pictures or doing any kind of immediate activity with smart watches. This is a good point, but my point was more that if a smart watches are doing less than a smart phone and people still seem to be happy to have to charge them everyday, I'm not so convinced that having to fast-charge a set of AR glasses for time-limited use would put people off if they felt it was useful enough. For context, I was imagining that most of the AR/VR overlays would be time or context dependent. Perhaps when travelling to aid with directions or on a commute for entertainment. Are people really going to be walking through life with an always-on HUD? If they are then yes, completely fair point around battery usage. Perhaps once a global network of wireless charging is fully operational this will be a problem of the past...
    - cyanydeez 1y ago
      Right, they're _passive_ devices that don't need active engagement. That's not a good case to make that active devices that consume orders of magnitude more power are going to make it on the market if they can't last 8-10 hours on a charge doing active things. Maybe people misunderstand just how much power AR/VR require and think it's similar to wireless ear phones. There's just a huge band gap in power requirements. EVs have similar issues in the consumer confidence when it comes to matching range requirements. No matter how much on paper you explain to people what they actually do vs what they want to do, the salesman needs to sell at what they want to do. SUVs and Trucks are similar, except inverse: people want to do a bunch of things, but what they actually do is very little. They'd still never drive a small vehicle just because it gets them good range. So, when I say the tech/battery isn't there for the consumer, it's recognizing the consumer is an idiot, and the nerd-requirements are different than average consumer expectations.

ortusdux 1y ago

I wonder if any US states will ban the practice? Many states have laws in place that govern license plate reader use by individuals.

mariusor 1y ago
Yes, but people are not cars.
- reaperducer 1y ago
  Facebook got nailed for tagging people in the background of photos. That's illegal in some states. I know because I was in the background of someone's snapshot and got a ~$500 check out of the settlement. Thanks, Facebook!

sunrunner 1y ago

> Because one of the first apps for it will likely be one that looks at people's faces and immediately digs up everything about them available online. How am I meant to opt out of this? A device that broadcasts an (inevitably ignored) do not scan signal? CV Dazzle? Am I resigned to just never leaving the house again? For now I’m hoping that the major factor against people adopting this is that you’ll look like a wanker. I’m not sure what to do once that becomes the norm though.

fooqux 1y ago
They will keep getting smaller and more powerful. It won't be long until they look close enough to normal sunglasses. As for opting out? I think the only chance you have is to have zero online presence, especially with pictures. Of course, many are forced into this by their careers.
bugglebeetle 1y ago
A Scanner Darkly
addandsubtract 1y ago
Move to the EU.
- broken-kebab 1y ago
  Denmark's Justice Minister calls encrypted messaging a false civil liberty https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45248802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45248802
LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
High-powered infrared LEDs, surrounding you with a halo, blinding the sensors. Optionally pulse-modulated in specific ways, to make the software behind those crash by inducing cyber-epilepsy. IOACM (infrared optically active countermeasures)
rafaelmn 1y ago
What is your threat/concern that you will not leave the house on order not to be photographed in public ? I get it could be mildly to very annoying depending on what's available on you online - but not leaving the house ? The only things that come to mind are you have a hit on you and you did an identity change to ditch it or some thinfoil hat level theory. The way I see this is this is all being done for over a decade now we are just making it more widespread. In some ways I find it a good thing - where previously the government could track you through security infra, now the government servants are also surveiled in all public appearances. If we're inevitably going in this direction, might as well have the same rules for everyone.

mhuffman 1y ago

>Because one of the first apps for it will likely be one that looks at people's faces and immediately digs up everything about them available online. There's already been videos of it working with older tech, so I'm sure it'll work even better now with newer hardware and AI. The app in question[0]. I would imagine newer hardware and some Palantir APIs would be all you need to do this very reliability. [0]https://gizmodo.com/this-facial-recognition-experiment-with-metas-smart-glasses-is-a-terrifying-vision-of-the-future-2000506339 https://gizmodo.com/this-facial-recognition-experiment-with-...

zh3 1y ago

Similar to the Massive Attack gig that used facial recognition on the crowd - they put the captured faces (with labels against them) up on the big screens. Discussed a day or so ago on here:- https://www.gadgetreview.com/massive-attack-turns-concert-into-facial-recognition-surveillance-experiment https://www.gadgetreview.com/massive-attack-turns-concert-in... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45255400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45255400

robertlagrant 1y ago
I thought while it did "facial recognition", it was to draw boxes round faces, and not to identify people. And the labels were things like "ENERGISED". I don't actually see the difference between this and a crowdcam at a sporting event, other than many privacy-oriented publications have reposted pictures of the people at the Massive Attack event, presumably without their permission.

bonoboTP 1y ago

Yes, and a standard dashcam/bodycam on every person's head. Right now you can see when a person is recording you, they are holding up their phone. With this, it's just a tap on the glasses (or auto-record and tap to preserve the last X minutes). It will remember all your activities, help you find your keys and objects, remember what you bought when and if there's still toilet paper in your bathroom, etc. It will make helpful charts and statistics about your life, help to optimize it, notice if there is some product that it wants to advertise to you based on your activities etc. It's all going to be packaged and sold to ad networks. You will see AR ad objects floating everywhere, depending on what you do.

robertlagrant 1y ago
> It will remember all your activities, help you find your keys and objects, remember what you bought when and if there's still toilet paper in your bathroom, etc. It will make helpful charts and statistics about your life, help to optimize it, notice if there is some product that it wants to advertise to you based on your activities etc. It's all going to be packaged and sold to ad networks. You will see AR ad objects floating everywhere, depending on what you do. Presumably only if you wear it.
- bonoboTP 1y ago
  Yeah but maybe slowly things will require it. Just like restaurants today that only have a QR code but no physical menu, maybe a bunch of stuff will only be virtually present in augmented reality in the future. If you take off the glasses, signposts will be missing, etc. It's hard to imagine now, but maybe it would be hard to tell someone from 50 years ago that entire stores, subway ticket machines, bakeries etc. will be cashless and people will tap their phones to pay, and if you have no phone or card, you're screwed. Or if you have no Android/iOS app, you can't book appointments with certain govt offices etc. Things that start as optional and convenience only can slowly become essentially mandatory. And then if you are already wearing it, it will push the ads.
  - robertlagrant 1y ago

latexr 1y ago

> maybe it will open people's eyes That is very wishful thinking and will backfire. What will actually happen is normalisation and increased erosion of privacy.

bamboozled 1y ago

It's never coming back , it's over dude. There is no more privacy. Self-driving cars, they will know absolutely everything, about everyone, all the time, combine that with delivery drones and glasses, the government, meta, google, they will know exactly where you are all the time. Even if you leave your device at home.

Gud 1y ago

What will happen is that Meta will capture this information for themselves and sell it to the highest bidder and drip feed some of it back to you. In a functional society, these always on, corporate controlled devices would be outlawed.

reaperducer 1y ago
What will happen is that Meta will capture this information for themselves and sell it to the highest bidder and drip feed some of it back to you. The highest bidder. And then the next-highest bidder, and the next highest bidder, and the next highest bidder…
- vithlani 1y ago
  [dead]

randycupertino 1y ago

> Because one of the first apps for it will likely be one that looks at people's faces and immediately digs up everything about them available online. Reminds me of my single girlfriends who put every single person they talk to on online dating into facecheck.id.

Atomic_Torrfisk 1y ago

I used to work in the hardware side of AR until recently when I took a step back for my family. I've had hands on experience with many types of hardware, wave guide, birdbath and laser beam scanning to name a few. Technically these are all really amazing, and I miss working in this space. Unfortunately, while I want to see the technology succeed in the mainstream, it's never going to get there. Period. The AR use-case presented by tech giants to consumers fails to solve any real world problem that a cheaper and more accessible cellphone couldn't. Sure there are niche-use cases and cool demos for consumers, but until the hardware reaches the form factor and durability of traditional prescription glasses consumers will never adopt the technology in a meaningful way. If we actually want to drive sales of AR devices, we will replicate usecases where AR currently drives value, such as HUDs for aircraft. The same concept can be applied to other high workload environments such as EMS, truck drivers, ATC, law enforcement and handful of military applications. However sales in these domains will be somewhat limited except for military applications which is bad PR for the most of the leaders of AR tech. So for now its all essentially vaporware to generate hype for the stock market.