Live data from Hacker News

Monocle: A pocket sized open-source AR device

brilliantmonocle.com

71–80 of 223 posts

Re: Monocle: A pocket sized open-source AR device

#71
post #20

Neat but (still) pricey. Not sold on the 640x480 display; it requires work to focus you eye to such a short distance and due to macular degeneration that will be increasingly impossible as you age. In my 20s I could focus on things a couple of centimeters (~1") away with the naked eye, in my 50 it's about 15cm (5-6"). You can still perceive color, movement etc so a ring of LEDs would convey information well, tut tryi…

> ...it requires work to focus you eye to such a short distance... Modern wearable displays have a focal distance between 1m and infinity to improve comfort. From https://docs.brilliantmonocle.com/monocle/monocle/#display > The result is a transparent floating display with a 20° field of view. About the size of a table display at arms length.

I'm fairly sure that quote is only to give a sense of how big "20°" is, as most people aren't intuitively familiar with vision cones.

I can't find anything that actually states the focal distance, though I agree there's a decent chance it's at infinity.

Re: Monocle: A pocket sized open-source AR device

#72
I want an open source monochrome vector display delivered by laser to my retinas directly. I would slambuy such a thing and dedicated the rest of my life to making the best pocketable chorded keyboard.

I, like many of you, am very good at telling a computer what to do with letters and symbols. I spend a lot of time in voice calls and I often write little scripts while I'm talking to answer questions, ballpark numbers etc. That's not to mention the power of tools like Wolfram Alpha and Google.

I would like that to be everpresent in my life. I know we'll get some semblance of this with conversational AI at some point soon, but for me I crave the determinism of real programming. I want to be able to summon a quake-style REPL from the sky at will, and while looking someone face to face google facts or compute probabilities. I want to be able to sketch algorithms while walking around in nature.

(Intel was working on something like this at one point but sadly the project was abandoned)

Re: Monocle: A pocket sized open-source AR device

#73
post #47

As someone with only 1 eye, this is quite suited to me! I am actually sad that the previous crop of "low cost, slim, not earth shattering" AR glasses all died out. A camera built into one stem and some simple text displayed for one eye would suffice for a ton of use cases. A killer app for me would be floating name tags above people's heads, but I imagine that would require better HW than what is available here. I'd…

>Shopping Lists (hard to do the interactions on this) with a companion app, you could scan the barcodes of the items as you place them in the cart, and then remove the item from the visible list in the AR HUD. shit, tie that into the actual store's check out system so you don't have to use their stupid POS self-checkout lines. just bag it up and be on your way. other than the products that are sold by weight, this se…

Even better, the device can have a camera that watches you put the item in your cart and marks it off the list.

Re: Monocle: A pocket sized open-source AR device

#74
post #70
post #47

As someone with only 1 eye, this is quite suited to me! I am actually sad that the previous crop of "low cost, slim, not earth shattering" AR glasses all died out. A camera built into one stem and some simple text displayed for one eye would suffice for a ton of use cases. A killer app for me would be floating name tags above people's heads, but I imagine that would require better HW than what is available here. I'd…

>* Turn by turn directions I wouldn't touch any kind of AR use case while driving. Seems ripe for lawsuits when you're obscuring a driver's view (especially with an eyepiece compared to putting a HUD on the windshield)

Once head tracking is working, couldn't you show the AR view in the exact same place that a windshield HUD would appear?

Re: Monocle: A pocket sized open-source AR device

#75

I want an open source monochrome vector display delivered by laser to my retinas directly. I would slambuy such a thing and dedicated the rest of my life to making the best pocketable chorded keyboard. I, like many of you, am very good at telling a computer what to do with letters and symbols. I spend a lot of time in voice calls and I often write little scripts while I'm talking to answer questions, ballpark numbers…

Seems like a good space for advertisement and pop ups

Re: Monocle: A pocket sized open-source AR device

#76
post #47

As someone with only 1 eye, this is quite suited to me! I am actually sad that the previous crop of "low cost, slim, not earth shattering" AR glasses all died out. A camera built into one stem and some simple text displayed for one eye would suffice for a ton of use cases. A killer app for me would be floating name tags above people's heads, but I imagine that would require better HW than what is available here. I'd…

> A killer app for me would be floating name tags above people's heads, but I imagine that would require better HW than what is available here.

This is a societal issue, more than a HW/SW issue. Google Glass explicitly bans this type of feature:

https://developers.google.com/glass/policies#c_what_you_cant...

> Don't use the camera or microphone to cross-reference and immediately present personal information identifying anyone other than the user, including use cases such as facial recognition and voice print. Glassware that do this will not be approved at this time.

This is in response to Congress raising Privacy concerns: https://slate.com/technology/2013/05/google-glass-facial-rec...

I wouldn't expect any "official" facial recognition on any of these upcoming AR devices any time soon.

Re: Monocle: A pocket sized open-source AR device

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not much, but https://www.instagram.com/p/CgAu-TTlBHS . They're not exactly helping their credibility with claims of 16x superZoom from a 720p camera.

It looks like it is actually a 5mp camera. Specifically a Omnivision OV5640. I wonder if it is a 720p camera at 16x zoom. https://docs.brilliantmonocle.com/monocle/monocle/#camera

[deleted]

Re: Monocle: A pocket sized open-source AR device

#78

I want an open source monochrome vector display delivered by laser to my retinas directly. I would slambuy such a thing and dedicated the rest of my life to making the best pocketable chorded keyboard. I, like many of you, am very good at telling a computer what to do with letters and symbols. I spend a lot of time in voice calls and I often write little scripts while I'm talking to answer questions, ballpark numbers…

Aren’t lasers high energy? Why would you ever want that pointing into your eye? Why not project regular light?

Edit: never mind above TIL lasers are light and can be dimmed

Re: Monocle: A pocket sized open-source AR device

#80
post #70
post #47

As someone with only 1 eye, this is quite suited to me! I am actually sad that the previous crop of "low cost, slim, not earth shattering" AR glasses all died out. A camera built into one stem and some simple text displayed for one eye would suffice for a ton of use cases. A killer app for me would be floating name tags above people's heads, but I imagine that would require better HW than what is available here. I'd…

>* Turn by turn directions I wouldn't touch any kind of AR use case while driving. Seems ripe for lawsuits when you're obscuring a driver's view (especially with an eyepiece compared to putting a HUD on the windshield)

It could work for walking though.
Post reply on HN