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Another heavily-funded AR headset startup is shutting down

techcrunch.com

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Re: Another heavily-funded AR headset startup is shutting down

#71

Post by vertis »

Brief mention of Meta in that article. I had missed that they shut down, though I can't say I am surprised. Their first headset was uncomfortable and lacked the field of view or functionality of the Hololens. It was a cabled only experience.

They were secretive and lacked decent SDK support.

When we tried to buy the second one it was delayed again and again by an insistence on US manufacturing and an inability to scale.

When they finally announced that our preorder was available 18 months later they wanted me to create a completely new order since my credit card was no longer valid (I decided not to waste my time or money).

Re: Another heavily-funded AR headset startup is shutting down

#72

Post by ferongr »

abakker wrote: post #65
Robotbeat wrote: post #57

Can someone explain to me why sufficiently good VR can't function as AR? Just to lay out my point: AR has to have extremely good detail, framerate, and even depth of field to work well. It has to track everything perfectly and blend the two lightfields seemlessly or the immersion is broken and you risk nausea or at least annoyance. But if you have high framerate, ability to simulate depth of field, high knowledge of…

Potential legal minefield, too. Take drone flying, for example. It requires that you maintain visual line of sight (most of the time, without special exceptions). But, as a drone flyer in a commercial setting, you frequently want to see through the camera also. Given that, AR suits nicely, since you can overall both. VR doesn't because it is blocking your true visual line of sight. In a perfect world, I agree with yo…

>But, as a drone flyer in a commercial setting, you frequently want to see through the camera also

Commercial drone photo/videographers should be using a pilot to control the drone, while they themselves control the camera.

Re: Another heavily-funded AR headset startup is shutting down

#73

Post by Robotbeat »

ferongr wrote: post #72
abakker wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potential legal minefield, too. Take drone flying, for example. It requires that you maintain visual line of sight (most of the time, without special exceptions). But, as a drone flyer in a commercial setting, you frequently want to see through the camera also. Given that, AR suits nicely, since you can overall both. VR doesn't because it is blocking your true visual line of sight. In a perfect world, I agree with yo…

>But, as a drone flyer in a commercial setting, you frequently want to see through the camera also Commercial drone photo/videographers should be using a pilot to control the drone, while they themselves control the camera.

I think the idea is that even the pilot may want to see through the camera, i.e. first person flying.

Re: Another heavily-funded AR headset startup is shutting down

#74

Post by findthewords »

meheleventyone wrote: post #64
Robotbeat wrote: post #57

Can someone explain to me why sufficiently good VR can't function as AR? Just to lay out my point: AR has to have extremely good detail, framerate, and even depth of field to work well. It has to track everything perfectly and blend the two lightfields seemlessly or the immersion is broken and you risk nausea or at least annoyance. But if you have high framerate, ability to simulate depth of field, high knowledge of…

With sufficiently good cameras you can already pass through video. Setting up boundaries in the Oculus Quest has you do so doing exactly that. The current issues are: * A limited field of view. AR headsets are more limited but don’t interfere as much with normal vision. * Latency of video display causing a noticeable mismatch to head movement. * Shutting the rest of the world out. No one can see your face properly so…

I would like to note that the shortcomings mentioned above can be fixed:

- a vr passthrough can achieve a much wider FOV than any ar headset.

- latency isssues are debatable, I would say it's a non-issue

- eye-tracking and front-facing displays solve gaze opaqueness. we already have cut-out camera holes in consumer grade displays

I would say that THE current issues with passthrough vr is solving the convergence issue. varifocal lenses are not consumer level technology yet.

Re: Another heavily-funded AR headset startup is shutting down

#75

Post by pathartl »

misterprime wrote: post #36
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a disagreement, but I was thinking the other day that the most widespread practical (non entertainment) AR app has got to be backup cameras and displays in cars. Modern ones show both the actual live view + a composited on graphic of where your current backup line will take you based on the tire angle, etc.

I wouldn't have categorized this as AR, but perhaps you're right. Would this instead be called a "heads up display"? I guess not, since it's not something that's shown on the windows you're looking through.

I'd say it's more of a HUD. If there was a 3D render of where walls might be or bumps might be, then I'd consider that AR.

Re: Another heavily-funded AR headset startup is shutting down

#77

Post by Dylan16807 »

blululu wrote: post #60
Robotbeat wrote: post #57

Can someone explain to me why sufficiently good VR can't function as AR? Just to lay out my point: AR has to have extremely good detail, framerate, and even depth of field to work well. It has to track everything perfectly and blend the two lightfields seemlessly or the immersion is broken and you risk nausea or at least annoyance. But if you have high framerate, ability to simulate depth of field, high knowledge of…

A number of challenges exist for pass through AR. I’m short the camera system that you need does not exist. Cameras add latency. This causes nausea. Camera resolution is low. When the screen is less than 10 cm from your eyes the grain is very noticeable. Cameras only have limited focal range. Camera dynamic range is low. I’m many settings it is hard to capture images that your eye could handle.

> the camera system that you need does not exist

VR can work at 90Hz. If you spend money on a quality camera and a quality screen you can manage less end-to-end latency for AR. Focal range will be fine if you have a good sensor. Grain will be fine if you have a good screen. Compressing the dynamic range won't break anything. It doesn't have to work in every setting.

Re: Another heavily-funded AR headset startup is shutting down

#78

Post by RangerScience »

jackbrookes wrote: post #42
RangerScience wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumer AR is very, very different from industrial AR. The business case for industrial is huge, I have no idea what the business case is for consumer :P

Now instead of content being constrained to a tiny 2D rectangle - it can now encompass your entire field of view. The world will be overlaid with holograms that everyone can see and interact with.

I can see why other people want me to have that experience, but not why I would want to have that experience (as a consumer). Then again, I'm not exactly a representative sample.

Re: Another heavily-funded AR headset startup is shutting down

#79

Post by RangerScience »

Darkphibre wrote: post #69
chrisjc wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and whatever they draw stays where it is in physical space. Wow... that's a great way to utilize AR.

I've seen demos of this with Hololens. It really opens up new interactions. Neat stuff. Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft, but not on Hololens. All opinions my own, etc.

At Daqri we called this "remote expert", and it was always one of the potential products with the highest demand.

My favorite use-case is that in nuclear power plants, they have two people do everything - one to do, one to watch (not in a big brother sense, but more in like a pair programming sense), but this means two people in an irradiated environment. With the AR tech, the second person can be in another room.

(Although you run into other issues, like no wifi (or power!) inside reactors; although apparently leaky coax is a really effective solution to the first)

Re: Another heavily-funded AR headset startup is shutting down

#80

Post by RangerScience »

RangerScience wrote: post #22

I was at Daqri from employee ~12 to ~300. It was a wild ride and I've got some really amazing memories with only a bit of scarring to show for it :) Daqri was really good at recruiting amazing people, and really bad at turning them into a functioning company. Communication between teams (and particularly offices) was really lacking; I remember back when the helmet was built on Android (in LA) and all the vision scien…

PS - I can't actually offer an AMA - there's things I can't or shouldn't talk about - but I am absolutely up for questions :)
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