Hands-on with HoloLens: On the cusp of a revolution • Hacker News Board

Re: Hands-on with HoloLens: On the cusp of a revolution

#51

Post by jameshart » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 2:47 PM UTC

usrusr wrote: post #40

13of40 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are two fundamental reasons it's "janky": 1. It's version 1. 2. It's an interface that nobody's used before. Neither of these is a mark against the technology. Go ask a caveman to use a version 1 iPhone, and see if he falls in love with it or just trash-talks it on an internet forum.

But the iPhone did not require you to "step inside" of it. There's a whole world of difference in the threshold for "good enough" between a device you hold in your hand and one that you put on your head, overlaying your whole view. With a smartphone, you can still go all xkcd:303 during periods of waiting. Head mounted? Not so sure that works out well. That being said, maybe the hololens can be good enough nonetheles…

I don't think there's a different level of 'good enough' required here - it's just that we're so early in the development of AR UI that we don't yet know what good enough will look like. The iPhone was the first touch interface that was low enough latency to feel like you were touching and sliding the images around behind the screen. Making those scroll and pinch-to-zoom interactions feel right was critical to its success. Certainly right now these Hololens interactions are not as slick and gratifying as flick-scrolling was in the original mobile Safari. And Apple and other manufacturers have now spent years optimizing screens to make the image seem closer to the surface of the glass and playing with varying success with haptics and pressure sensing and so on.

Re: Hands-on with HoloLens: On the cusp of a revolution

#52

Post by spacecity1971 » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 3:19 PM UTC

VonGuard wrote: post #21

I played with Hololens at Build this week. I believe, after seeing it, using it, and even developing a little with it, that this device is truly revolutionary, and Google is wasting its money in Florida. I shook my head back and forth like a dog trying to dry itself off, and the images I saw barely wiggled. The images are bright enough to completely occlude reality. The software dev stuff is from MS, so it is polishe…

So you've demoed Magic Leap? What differences did you see that would make it a waste of Google's money?

Re: Hands-on with HoloLens: On the cusp of a revolution

#53

Post by JabavuAdams » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 4:03 PM UTC

badsock wrote: post #50

VonGuard wrote: post #21

I played with Hololens at Build this week. I believe, after seeing it, using it, and even developing a little with it, that this device is truly revolutionary, and Google is wasting its money in Florida. I shook my head back and forth like a dog trying to dry itself off, and the images I saw barely wiggled. The images are bright enough to completely occlude reality. The software dev stuff is from MS, so it is polishe…

What does Hololens do that Magic Leap doesn't? Information is very sparse, but I had the impression that the latter is a superset of the former.

It exists and is available to developers?

Re: Hands-on with HoloLens: On the cusp of a revolution

#54

Post by ggoss » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 4:27 PM UTC

I'd love to see this coupled with a cheap thermal-IR camera, or microphone array (to see the spatial localization of sound around you; e.g. where is that darn leak coming from?!), or really with any sensor that collects spatial information outside the range of natural human perception. Some of these exist already in other forms (e.g. 'night-vision' goggles), but the power of this + that would be incredible, especially when you start combining multiple sensory 'images' into one seamless visualization.

Re: Hands-on with HoloLens: On the cusp of a revolution

#55

Post by iamleppert » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 4:40 PM UTC

Once again, nothing at all to do with holography. Its amazing the shameless way tech companies who know better allow their marketers to misappropriate words to promote their parlor tricks. Microsoft is simply using their version of the Oculus with some overcomplicated video rig for AR to do something far from new. Yet another Rube Goldberg machine destined to be a punch line.

Real holography doesn't require glasses to view, and is not subject to the limitations and discomfort of route stereographic effects. This has been around in one form or another since the early 90's, it never gained wide appeal because of the fact you are secluded from your environment by the headset, and because using it (due to the inherent nature of stereographic effect with fake, nauseating parallax) can only be done for short time periods.

History repeats itself, and life imitates art.

Edit: For more on why I think this is a huge fad, just read this article about the death of 3D TV (which is fundamentally based on the same stereoscopic concepts):

https://www.avforums.com/article/in-memoriam-the-death-of-3d...

Choice quote:

"However the single biggest obstacle that 3D faced wasn't different versions, incompatible glasses, exclusivity, lack of content or screen sizes, it was simply that people didn't like wearing the glasses at home. Consumers were happy to wear 3D glasses at the cinema, which are predominantly the cheap and light passive variety but they were less keen to do so in their lounge."

Consumers didn't like wearing glasses then, and they won't like wearing them now.

Re: Hands-on with HoloLens: On the cusp of a revolution

#56

Post by VonGuard » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

spacecity1971 wrote: post #52

VonGuard wrote: post #21

I played with Hololens at Build this week. I believe, after seeing it, using it, and even developing a little with it, that this device is truly revolutionary, and Google is wasting its money in Florida. I shook my head back and forth like a dog trying to dry itself off, and the images I saw barely wiggled. The images are bright enough to completely occlude reality. The software dev stuff is from MS, so it is polishe…

So you've demoed Magic Leap? What differences did you see that would make it a waste of Google's money?

Magic Leap is based on super complex tech that draws images right onto your retina. It's the kind of tech that will take them another couple of years to make small enough to package, and possibly another few years to build the tools to develop for it and to ensure it's not actually blinding people by shining bright lights right into their eye. A friend of mine used it and said Magic Leap, initially, is like trying to breath liquid oxygen in the Abyss: you fight it and can't really take that bright ass light shining in your eye. You have to really get used to it and relax yourself for it to work.

Hololens is just a screen in front of your face. It could never blind you or hurt your eyes. It just works, it works today, it fits in a product form factor today, and after using it for a while, I really don't see much need for an also-ran here. Hololens can do everything Magic Leap is supposed to do, and it can do it a LOT cheaper and safer. Plus, MS dev tools. You just know that Google's Magic Leap dev kit will, basically, be targeted at super intelligent people and require a lot of do it yourself stuff.

Re: Hands-on with HoloLens: On the cusp of a revolution

#57

Post by goldfeld » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 4:55 PM UTC

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #34

bijection wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AR is VR with transparency, wouldn't that mean that AR is a superset of VR, in the same way that RGBA images are a superset of RGB images? Or looking at it another way, isn't VR just AR with the lights off?

Isn't AR just VR with a re-projection of real-time video stream from front mounted cameras?

No, my wetware vision apparatus captures more information than any camera in existence, thus it would be a lossy filter.

Re: Hands-on with HoloLens: On the cusp of a revolution

#58

Post by sghodas » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 5:08 PM UTC

iamleppert wrote: post #55

Once again, nothing at all to do with holography. Its amazing the shameless way tech companies who know better allow their marketers to misappropriate words to promote their parlor tricks. Microsoft is simply using their version of the Oculus with some overcomplicated video rig for AR to do something far from new. Yet another Rube Goldberg machine destined to be a punch line. Real holography doesn't require glasses t…

Technically it's not holography, but using the term is the simplest way to convey the idea to the average person. What would you suggest calling it instead?

Re: Hands-on with HoloLens: On the cusp of a revolution

#59

Post by imh » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 5:10 PM UTC

VonGuard wrote: post #56

spacecity1971 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you've demoed Magic Leap? What differences did you see that would make it a waste of Google's money?

Magic Leap is based on super complex tech that draws images right onto your retina. It's the kind of tech that will take them another couple of years to make small enough to package, and possibly another few years to build the tools to develop for it and to ensure it's not actually blinding people by shining bright lights right into their eye. A friend of mine used it and said Magic Leap, initially, is like trying to…

Magic Leap apparently can draw things at more than one distance from you, unlike the hololens's fixed 2m away. That's a massive difference.

Re: Hands-on with HoloLens: On the cusp of a revolution

#60

Post by spacecity1971 » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 5:15 PM UTC

VonGuard wrote: post #56

spacecity1971 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you've demoed Magic Leap? What differences did you see that would make it a waste of Google's money?

Magic Leap is based on super complex tech that draws images right onto your retina. It's the kind of tech that will take them another couple of years to make small enough to package, and possibly another few years to build the tools to develop for it and to ensure it's not actually blinding people by shining bright lights right into their eye. A friend of mine used it and said Magic Leap, initially, is like trying to…

Thanks for the reply, even though I was hoping it wasn't basically hearsay and speculation (which it unfortunately is). Abovitz has repeatedly said that they absolutely want their tech to be safe enough for kids to use, so perhaps the safety concerns are not based on facts? Magic Leap apparently has active occlusion, and can run the spectrum from VR to AR/MR; pretty sure that makes it the potential leader, not an also-ran. I guess we'll see soon enough. Exciting times.