Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles • Hacker News Board

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#211

Post by eli » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:37 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #201

nostromo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of Google Glass's concept video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R1snVxGNVs I think Google over-promised initially which lead to many being underwhelmed with Glass. I hope Microsoft isn't making the same mistake here.

No. The problem is Google kept trying to force Glass as a consumer product for use in public. And given that most normal people would know that it was socially awkward to use it in public only "glassholes" remained. This meant that buying/wearing Glass tarnished you with that label and associated you with that group.

It also just didn't work that well. Poor battery life, uninspiring apps.

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#212

Post by sand500 » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:37 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #40

plingamp wrote: post #33

How is this different than the Meta AR glasses? I have a pair, and I think they did a great job with the display and interaction.

Hey, did those end up being any good? I wanted to buy some to develop on, but they didn't really seem to have their act together.

I tried some out at a hackathon and they look cool, the technology still has a long way to go. The resolution and display quality is pretty shitty.

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#213

Post by oliyoung » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:37 PM UTC

It makes the Minecraft purchase make a whole lot more sense now.

I mean, it made immediate sense it's a cash cow, but long-term Minecraft is perfect, it's simple, easy, forgiving and fun - a perfect entrance into VR/AR

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#214

Post by sillysaurus3 » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:39 PM UTC

mkolodny wrote: post #166

rndn wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the product website with three promo videos on it: http://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us

I think this type of AR / holographic technology has many, many more potential real-world applications than VR. With VR, you're shutting yourself off from the outside world. Here, you're enhancing the outside world with technology. You still get to interact with others. Using HoloLens doesn't stop you from doing almost anything. What I'm curious to find out is whether HoloLens will run into the same core problem as G…

It's hard to understand how AR / holographic technology could help people in their day-to-day life. There are a zillion potential uses, but all of them seem extremely complicated and hard to pull off.

Take the example of fixing your car. For example, performing your own oil change, or replacing your alternator. That seems like a perfect use case for holo, right? The goggles would tell you what needs to be done and what the next step is.

But that would involve so many technical challenges that it seems very difficult. You, as the creator of FixYourCar holo app, would need need to detect what type of car the user is looking at, what part of the car they're looking at, render an overlay with the correct orientation, and so on. And at the end of all of that, it's not entirely clear that your app is more helpful to them than if they'd just look up a list of steps for fixing their car using their mobile phone.

I guess what I'm asking is, what do you think holo's killer app would be?

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#215

Post by hueving » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:41 PM UTC

rubencodes wrote: post #154

beloch wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes no sense at all if you think of an actual hologram, but makes perfect sense if you think of a Star Trek hologram. This is like a wearable holodeck. Just add a haptic body suit (no doubt in the works)!

Note to self: Add to list of things I should make.

Hacker news comments probably aren't the best place to store personal notes.

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#216

Post by oliyoung » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:42 PM UTC

mentos wrote: post #62

What is the killer app that will get people to go out and buy these? I don't think Holo Studio is it. Where is your imagination racing to?

They bought it a few months ago. Minecraft.

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#217

Post by 72deluxe » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:45 PM UTC

The technology looks very impressive but I do not see how this will be widely useful. The necessity to hold your arm out as far as it will go will only cause Gorilla Arm, and is the reason touchscreen desktop PCs are always abysmal failures. You need to move your arm far more than with a keyboard and mouse, so you'll never be productive. The technology looks impressive but I can't see it being useful unless used for holographic weather reports where excessive gesticulation is apparently mandatory. 3D modelling with that would be exceptionally painful. Perhaps gaming or something, but I wouldn't want to be sat there on my armchair waving my arms around like I am suffering some sort of uncontrollable seizure (no offence intended btw, just the best way of describing my actions to onlookers).

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#218

Post by swalsh » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:46 PM UTC

I'm going to take a guess, Microsoft is going to give out these to devs at build this year.

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#219

Post by crsna » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:52 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #214

mkolodny wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this type of AR / holographic technology has many, many more potential real-world applications than VR. With VR, you're shutting yourself off from the outside world. Here, you're enhancing the outside world with technology. You still get to interact with others. Using HoloLens doesn't stop you from doing almost anything. What I'm curious to find out is whether HoloLens will run into the same core problem as G…

It's hard to understand how AR / holographic technology could help people in their day-to-day life. There are a zillion potential uses, but all of them seem extremely complicated and hard to pull off. Take the example of fixing your car. For example, performing your own oil change, or replacing your alternator. That seems like a perfect use case for holo, right? The goggles would tell you what needs to be done and wh…

Imagine a car mechanic remotely helping you to do what's needed to be done. This use case is showcased in one of the videos and it is probably not as complicated as building an AI engine to help a user repair his car.

This thing is really crazy!!

Re: Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

#220

Post by hosay123 » Wed, Jan 21, 2015, 11:53 PM UTC

ljk wrote: post #70

mnglkhn2 wrote: post #4

Now it makes sense that Google just announced that they're stopping Glass from being sold retail. They did not want to have their device compared to the new product from MS. Actually I see this new device as more prone to success than the Glass. These devices are competing for the same markets: healthcare, education and entertainment. And here Glass is somewhat underpowered.

Do you mean that there are spies informing Google about Microsoft's new product?

It's possible.. they dropped their hugely incomplete Google Wave rotten egg on the public only a day before Microsoft announced MSN's Bing rebranding. Various project domains (waveprotocol.org) were only registered 2 weeks prior. Wave seemed like a weird and frivolous product until you look at it from this angle, at which point distraction seems like it could have been the only reason it was released.