Magic Leap’s technology may be years away from completion

What's a significant amount of money?

Solexa raised 130MUSD pre-launch: http://41j.com/blog/2016/01/a-solexa-story/

Quite a new life science/biotech companies do.

You want to integrate rendered objects onto the physical world, so you have to know exactly the pose these objects should be rendered at as if seen from your point of view. The objects transforms are piloted by the head tracking. Usually with pose prediction thrown in the mix to squash latency.

We distinguish "video see-through" and "optical see-through" Augmented Reality.

The first one is mainly solved, the second one is way harder due to head tracking latency, computer vision latency, and user-dependent eye projection.

It's hotly debated, and the literature is often in conflict as to the exact cause of simulator sickness. Regardless of the exact reason, sickness of roughly half the population appears to be somehow fundamental to VR.

Here's some interesting reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulator_sickness

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5265985

> In a study conducted by U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences in a report published May 1995 titled "Technical Report 1027 - Simulator Sickness in Virtual Environments", out of 742 pilot exposures from 11 military flight simulators, "approximately half of the pilots (334) reported post-effects of some kind: 250 (34%) reported that symptoms dissipated in less than 1 hour, 44 (6%) reported that symptoms lasted longer than 4 hours, and 28 (4%) reported that symptoms lasted longer than 6 hours. There were also 4 (1%) reported cases of spontaneously occurring flashbacks."

Simulator Sickness in Virtual Environments (PDF): http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA295861

Some interesting quotes from the report:

Expected incidence and severity of simulator sickness in virtual environments

> In an analysis of data from 10 U.S. Navy and Marine Corps flight simulators, Kennedy, Lilienthal, Berbaum, Baltzley, and McCauley (1989) found that approximately 20% to 40% of military pilots indicated at least one symptom following simulator exposure. McCauley and Sharkey (1992) pointed out that pilots tend to be less susceptible to motion sickness than the general population due to a self-selection process based on their resistance to motion sickness. Since VE technologies will be aimed at a more general population, such selection against sickness may not occur. Thus, McCauley and Sharkey suggested that sickness may be more common in virtual environments than in simulators.

Findings

> Although there is debate as to the exact cause or causes of simulator sickness, a primary suspected cause is inconsistent information about body orientation and motion received by the different senses, known as the cue conflict theory. For example, the visual system may perceive that the body is moving rapidly, while the vestibular system perceives that the body is stationary. Inconsistent, non-natural information within a single sense has also been prominent among suggested causes.

> Although a large contingent of researchers believe the cue conflict theory explains simulator sickness, an alternative theory was reviewed as well. Forty factors shown or believed to influence the occurrence or severity of simulator sickness were identified. Future research is proposed.

Vection

> One phenomenon closely involved with simulator sickness is that of illusory self-motion, known as vection. Kennedy et a1. (1988) stated that visual representations of motion have been shown to affect the vestibular system. Thus, they conclude that the motion patterns represented in the visual displays of simulators may exert strong influences on the vestibular system. Kennedy, Berbaum, et al. (1993) stated that the impression of vection produced in a simulator determines both the realism of the simulator experience and how much the simulator promotes sickness. They suggested that the most basic level of realism is determined by the strength of vection induced by a stimulus. For a stimulus which produces a strong sense of vection, correspondence between the simulated and real-world stimuli determines whether or not the stimulus leads to sickness. Displays which produce strong vestibular effects are likely to produce the most simulator sickness (Kennedy, et al., 1988). Thus, Hettinger et al. (1990) hypothesized that vection must be experienced before sickness can occur in fixed-base simulators.

> While viewing each of three 15-minute motion displays, subjects rated the strength of experienced feelings of vection using a potentiometer. In addition, before the first display and after each of the three displays, the subjects completed a questionnaire which addressed symptoms of simulator sickness. Of the 15 subjects, 10 were classified as sick, based on their questionnaire score. As for vection, subjects tended to report either a great deal of vection or none at all. In relating vection to sickness, it was found that of the 5 subjects who reported no vection, only 1 became sick; of the remaining 10 subjects who had experienced vection, 8 became sick. Based on their results, Hettinger et al. concluded that visual displays that produce vection are more likely to produce simulator sickness. It is also likely that individuals who are prone to experience vection may be prone to experience sickness. It was mentioned earlier in this report that a wider field- of-view produces more vection and, thus, is believed to increase the incidence and severity of sickness (Kennedy et al., 1989). Anderson and Braunstein (1985), however, induced vection using only a small portion of the central visual field and 30% of their subjects experienced motion sickness.

Microsoft is surely targeting gamers, they showed Robo Raid during the presentation, including even an unreleased version of Minecraft. Robo Raid & Fragments are way more polished and utilize significantly more capabilities of HoloLens compared to any other app.