Intel made smart glasses that look normal • Hacker News Board

Re: Intel made smart glasses that look normal

#191

Post by epmaybe » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:35 PM UTC

defterGoose wrote: post #172

epmaybe wrote: post #63

I watched the Verge video this morning where they tried to explain how the hologram projector works, but I am still confused. How can it ensure a sharp image shining directly through your own intraocular lens (not the glasses themselves) to the retina? If you have a "longer" or "shorter" eyeball the light ray's focus point will not be on the retina itself.

Laser light is "coherent" both spatially and temporally. Spatial coherence allows the beam to be "collimated", which basically just means that it looks like a cylinder and not a cone. That's why you can shine a laser at the moon and see the spot; most of the energy from the laser makes it to the same place, bounces back to your eyes, and you get a bright spot. Shining a flashlight doesn't work because the light sprea…

Thank you for the explanation! I had figured that laser light was indeed different than normal light rays, but couldn't remember my undergrad optics to explain why.

Re: Intel made smart glasses that look normal

#192

Post by com2kid » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

khedoros1 wrote: post #181

com2kid wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe change that to "many people"; "anyone" isn't accurate. For example, at my workplace, there are security cameras at a couple of the doors, but none in the office itself. I don't think I'd stay long if there were a bunch of cameras here. All the big tech cos I've seen have cameras everywhere. The cameras aren't typically for the employees, they are to keep visitors from walking off with valuables. I've heard of…

I'll explain my counterexample further. I work at an office of a large tech company. I've worked in this office for almost 10 years at this point, and was here as we acquired 3/4 of the building (we shared with 3 other tenants when I started, and now are renting the entire building). We did some massive renovations when the previous tenants left, and I was in-office during the buildout. There are cameras at some entr…

Fair enough. :) I imagine you have better front desk security than the places I've worked!

I'd still argue that the majority of workers are under surveillance, at least in cities.

Re: Intel made smart glasses that look normal

#193

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #182

nogridbag wrote: post #37

Despite all the negativity around Google Glasses' camera, that was actually the best feature. You could really capture some great moments directly from your eye's perspective at the wink of an eye. My mother recently passed and out of all the photos and videos, my favorite was a 10 second video of me handing her flowers shot from Google Glasses. It looks like she's staring right back into my soul. I have a three mont…

Despite all the negativity around Google Glasses' camera, that was actually the best feature The negativity around Google Glasses amounted to a mismanaged launch. iPhones were introduced to a public already familiar 1st-hand with cell phones, camera phones, and digital cameras. The public was already passingly familiar with smart phones. Google Glasses were introduced with maximum hype to as many early adopters as po…

[deleted]

Re: Intel made smart glasses that look normal

#194

Post by craigsmansion » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:44 PM UTC

nogridbag wrote: post #37

Despite all the negativity around Google Glasses' camera, that was actually the best feature. You could really capture some great moments directly from your eye's perspective at the wink of an eye. My mother recently passed and out of all the photos and videos, my favorite was a 10 second video of me handing her flowers shot from Google Glasses. It looks like she's staring right back into my soul. I have a three mont…

> You could really capture some great moments directly

That should be, "you could really capture some great moments directly on film..."

You already captured these moments; you were there; they are ingrained in your memory.

> My mother recently passed and out of all the photos [..] staring right back into my soul."

First of all, my sincere condolences.

Again, you were there. That moment, that specific wonderful moment you witnessed, nice as it is to have something to remember it by, it feels very personal, not something you could share unless you were there, and you were you.

Back in the days of photo-lab development, there existed magic moments caught on camera as well, but it was the luck of the draw. Since they were so rare, there was no fear of missing out, but any such moment caught on camera was all the more special for it.

Maybe this fear of missing out on your own life, pushing one to commit everything to camera, comes at the cost of actually missing out. Life is made better by witnessing these magic moments, but I'm unsure the drive to capture them all enhances the experience, witnessed and remembered in that particular fashion by no one but yourself.

Re: Intel made smart glasses that look normal

#195

Post by giobox » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

jwr wrote: post #176

nradov wrote: post #112

I think there's definitely a market for endurance athletes. Runners and cyclists would like to see time, speed, distance, cadence, power output, navigation, etc without having to look down at a wristwatch or bike computer. Those people are accustomed to spending a lot on sports equipment. There are existing products like the Everysight Raptor and Garmin Varia View but they're bulky or goofy looking or obstruct vision…

This was the idea behind https://www.reconinstruments.com/products/jet/

Recon are also owned by Intel (they bought them several years back IIRC as part of their largely failed "wearables" push).

FWIW I also agree there is a strong market for endurance athletes - the progress of Recon Jet has been followed pretty closely by many in the Cycling/Triathalon community, where getting Garmin Edge computer style realtime metrics for things like speed/power output etc into glasses has been a dream of many for a while. This is a market already used to high priced electronics for training (a good bicycle power meter regularly runs over $1000 alone).

Re: Intel made smart glasses that look normal

#196

Post by rgoe80nt43nhoe » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #125

jclardy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think they are cool and could be useful, but not to the point of making someone that doesn't wear glasses want to wear them. My main problem is what does it give me over wearing a smart watch? The only thing I can think of is being slightly more discreet and the "gesture" not being rude to activate when you are in company. That is something I found out quickly when I started wearing an Apple Watch - even if you…

> My main problem is what does it give me over wearing a smart watch? Turn by turn directions when riding a bike. Easy to track countdown timers that don't require swiping/navigating through a smartwatch UI. Limited purpose devices are useful because the UI can be optimized to just a handful of use cases. Just like the original Palm Pilots were (IMHO) better for organization than modern smartphones. (The original Pal…

> Turn by turn directions when riding a bike.

FWIW, the Apple Watch offers this. It buzzes or audibly signals one way for turning left and another for turning right. I use it when walking around a new city sometimes.

I love the idea of the shopping list, though not integration with Amazon or having it automatically progress. It doesn't know where things are in my store (and they change), so that doesn't make sense to me. But having it there and being able to see it without taking out my phone would be nice.

Re: Intel made smart glasses that look normal

#197

Post by nradov » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #51

jotm wrote: post #31

I don't see the point of these overpriced smartwatches and glasses that can barely do one thing (display notifications), but I want my future full AR/VR glasses, so I'm glad the early adopters pay for it. Right now, what I'd want is a very simple, slim, long-lasting watch that would notify me of emails, messages, phone calls and notifications based on their origin (business account, work account, personal, random). I…

Fitbit Ionic has a five day battery life, give or take. But a smartwatch pales in comparison to how convenient Glass was to use: I used to be able to be read and reply to texts while doing anything, including driving, safely. And not having to interrupt a conversation when I noticed the incoming call or message was unimportant was fantastic.

I don't believe that you could read and reply to texts safely while driving. That simply isn't plausible.

Re: Intel made smart glasses that look normal

#198

Post by KirinDave » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #95

mjlangiii wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just my two cents; I'm a father of 4 and I'm okay with not capturing those moments on film. And I mean that in two senses. One, I'm fine using my very imperfect memory to recall special moments and two, because of the logistical problems with grabbing the camera I'm not willing to risk missing out being fully in the moment. The occasionally photograph from an event or time period seems sufficient to conjure up the fe…

I hate that I lost it, will have to spend an afternoon on the internet achive, But these are so tired. It's the exact same things people were spouting when phones started to have cameras. That came, and it turned out, having a quality camera you take with you is pretty cool and the end of the world didn't happen. Button cameras have existed for literally decades, if someone wants to take discrete pictures of you the…

It is regrettable that you're being downvoted so hard because I too recall these discussions. I also recall discussions about how toxic digital cameras would be with an "explosion of photography" "diluting the art" and causing an end to privacy. It's weird how prohibitionist people here are about cameras, but how other types of prohibition are axiomatically bad.

Turns out that there is a big difference between capability and intent, but no one really wants to talk about that in those discussions. If a thing COULD be used for a purpose but almost no one does, it seems difficult to really blame the tech for empowering people who breach the social contract.

Nevermind that in fact the proliferation of private cameras actually brings more parity between governments (which have proven the world over that they refuse to be trustworthy with that data) and private citizens (who can hardly do a worse job).

Re: Intel made smart glasses that look normal

#199

Post by adrianmonk » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:57 PM UTC

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #155

These are only normal if you enjoy keeping up with the latest fashions. I don’t like huge thick rimmed glasses and I never will.

Whether it fits your personal style has no bearing at all on whether it's normal. I don't like v-neck shirts, so personally I never wear them, but they're definitely normal.

Re: Intel made smart glasses that look normal

#200

Post by grzm » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

syshum wrote: post #190

grzm wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll sign off after this, as it's not clear to me whether I'm being effective. I'm going to take a step back and look at the behavior you're describing. I'm going to use as a starting point that the moderators penalize behavior, not position.† * Member begins commenting in a way that's unconstructive. * Mods rate-limit the member, in an effort to limit the opportunities the member has to continue to post unconstructi…

>>>I'll sign off after this, as it's not clear to me whether I'm being effective. I hope not, I believe this is a decent conversation. I understand your point, and yes some of my comments are flippant and oneliners, I personally believe those kind of comments are relevant and constructive as well. hell the last election was won with bumper Sticker rhetoric. Not everything needs to be a dissertation I seems to me that…

A point of clarification:

When I describe moderator action, I'm speaking specifically of action by HN admins, who are able to rate-limit. As I understand it, downvotes on their own do not result in rate-limiting. I can understand why you may have misread this, as the conversation started out discussing downvotes, and while I was careful in the language I chose, I didn't point out that I was also excluding downvotes from my last comment.

I did so for a couple of reasons: you brought up rate-limiting and banning, which are actions only a mod can take, or change; downvotes are by far the action of HN members, and as such, much harder to categorize systematically. People downvote for all kinds of reasons, and not everyone agrees on how downvotes should be handled, and why they were given in any particular instance. A distinct impression I have is that often people view downvotes as disagreement, when they could just as easily be interpreted as a downvote for an unsubstantive or uncivil comment. And I believe that a disagreement couched in a civil and substantive way is much less likely to receive a downvote than one that is rude, snarky, and unsubstantive. You'll note a recurring theme here: it's more often than not what you say, but how you say it. You mention parody: parody is really difficult, and while I appreciate the wit of those who are able to wield it, most are not able to do so in a manner that's enlightening, and the misses hurt discourse much more than the rare win helps.

There's not a lot else I have to say with respect to the rest of what you've commented here. I think I've addressed most of it, if not specifically, in a way that's pretty easy to derive given other things I've commented. Operating from a position of defense and opposition does not lend itself to good faith and moving forward. Some games are played to win, and some are played to keep playing: and conversation, particularly on contentious topics, is most definitely the latter.