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A big unanswered question I have is what the level of transparency is going to be when the display is inactive. For me it needs to be basically 100% to enable a

by tb100 12y ago

A big unanswered question I have is what the level of transparency is going to be when the display is inactive. For me it needs to be basically 100% to enable an "always worn" piece of hardware. The patents around the lightfield waveguides suggest polarization is used to allow independent optical paths for rays from the real world vs rays coming from the virtual image. Again, I don't know much about optics so wonder if there's an electronic way to have that polarisation turned off for areas without any virtual content, or if there's always going to be a darkening effect on the real world.

seren 12y ago
Given they have hired creative writers, filmmakers, etc, I don't think they want to create an "always on" device but rather an entertainment device you use at home. See also the article about Brian Cox describing something which sounds similar to a Planetarium like experience on BBC.
- tb100 12y ago
  My main point is that making the ideal AR display is hard. To get anywhere close needs controllable opacity and virtual focus planes. From the patents that's definitely the direction Magic Leap are heading in. If such a device exists and is 100% transparent when not in use then there are reasons why you might want to wear it all the time - think notifications like Google Glass but that can be embiggened and responded to on demand in a much larger portion of your field of view. Early hardware is probably not quite going to be there in terms of portability, battery life, fashion, etc. So perhaps it makes sense to focus on in-home use cases first. However in the home-use scenario the value of AR is less clear; an Oculus planetarium may well be better than an AR one in my living room - I don't really want to limit the awesomeness of the size of the universe by the small size of my flat. A lot of cases where AR adds value is in small experiences but deeply context-relevent ones. The consumer value equation for those experiences only really makes sense if the device is always-on. That's the future I think we're heading towards.

by tb100 12y ago

seren 12y ago

Given they have hired creative writers, filmmakers, etc, I don't think they want to create an "always on" device but rather an entertainment device you use at home. See also the article about Brian Cox describing something which sounds similar to a Planetarium like experience on BBC.

tb100 12y ago
My main point is that making the ideal AR display is hard. To get anywhere close needs controllable opacity and virtual focus planes. From the patents that's definitely the direction Magic Leap are heading in. If such a device exists and is 100% transparent when not in use then there are reasons why you might want to wear it all the time - think notifications like Google Glass but that can be embiggened and responded to on demand in a much larger portion of your field of view. Early hardware is probably not quite going to be there in terms of portability, battery life, fashion, etc. So perhaps it makes sense to focus on in-home use cases first. However in the home-use scenario the value of AR is less clear; an Oculus planetarium may well be better than an AR one in my living room - I don't really want to limit the awesomeness of the size of the universe by the small size of my flat. A lot of cases where AR adds value is in small experiences but deeply context-relevent ones. The consumer value equation for those experiences only really makes sense if the device is always-on. That's the future I think we're heading towards.