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Hands-On with Microsoft's New Holographic Goggles

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

#231

Post by taeric »

crsna wrote: post #219
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!!

This is actually a relatively silly use case for this. A lot of the actual difficult things that a mechanic can do for you usually involve more strength than you have. Or just experience in actually working with things that they can't see.

Now, a mechanic using this to "see" things that are actually in control of a remote robot? Pretty cool. Showing you the thing that is right in front of you? Cute, but ultimately silly.

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

#232

Post by shmed »

bd wrote: post #229

Here is fresh "back-to-reality" report from Engadget journalist who just tried working HoloLens device prototype (at the same event where it was announced): --------------- "Does it work? Yes, it works. Is it any good? That's a much harder question to answer." "I say this in the nicest way possible: Using Microsoft HoloLens kinda stinks. In its current form, it feels like someone is tightening your head into a vice.…

>There doesn't seem to be full hand tracking (as suggested by the demo on stage)

The demo on stage clearly mentioned that you used your gaze to select and then tapped with your finger. Which is also exactly what we saw the lady on stage doing.

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

#233

Post by azinman2 »

eli wrote: post #211
threeseed wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ya the screen wasn't that great and was awkward to look at. Seems like the photo taking is the best part of it -- for that you don't really need all the rest of the complexity. And too bad you also look like a douchbag wearing it, especially in SF where tech is stigmatized enough. Reminds me of a joke a comic said last night at an SF standup spot: "so I was on google last night... Do you guys know Google? It's this company making people homeless in SF"

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

#234

Post by randyrand »

frevd wrote: post #200
bentcorner wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd imagine that the target is a replacement of the PC. You could (theoretically) have the same utility as a PC with a wireless keyboard/mouse paired with the headset. On top of that is all the holographic applications that will be figured out.

Virtual, not wireless ;) Think this - size-adjustable holo keyboard, ergonomic natural of course.

For any serious work (coding), I'd still greatly rather use a laptop with a real keyboard.

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

#235

Post by randyrand »

watty wrote: post #25
_random_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and Oculus Rift is now less relevant as well (good timing for selling it to Facebook). Why buy a dedicated heavy wired non-see-throw helmet? To shit yourself when someone is tapping your shoulder?

To get fully immersed in another world. For example, playing games or watching a movie. I go to an IMAX theatre because it engulfs my senses, audio all around me, most of my field of view watching the screen. If the screen were translucent it simply wouldn't be the same. This will no doubt have some incredible applications, most of which augment reality. Not quite the same goal as Occulus.

Exactly. MSFT and Oculus are not at all targeting the same thing. The comparison is natural, but ill-fitting.

I bought an oculus and am excited by VR because teleportation IS FREAKING AWESOME. AR is cool, but a far cry from the sense of presence that we talk all day about in VR land.

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

#236

Post by vxNsr »

jwcooper wrote: post #84
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?

Depending on the resolution, it could replace your monitors at work (assuming the headset is light, comfortable, etc). Using a wireless keyboard and mouse, you'd have your computer with you anywhere in the home or office. As a developer, having a wall of holographic desktop screen space in front of me would be amazing. My home office would look much better too! I have no idea how far away this version of HoloLens is…

Very much this, being able to have 6 or 8 virtual displays projected on a wall would be great.

I know that this tech could do so much more (one giant display the size of the wall) but the different displays is nice bec it allows me to silo things into different categories.

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

#237

Post by aetherson »

taeric wrote: post #231
crsna wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!!

This is actually a relatively silly use case for this. A lot of the actual difficult things that a mechanic can do for you usually involve more strength than you have. Or just experience in actually working with things that they can't see. Now, a mechanic using this to "see" things that are actually in control of a remote robot? Pretty cool. Showing you the thing that is right in front of you? Cute, but ultimately si…

Yeah, I'm just not sure that I buy the idea that there's a big market for an expert coaching you through doing repairs via AR goggles.

How exactly does this work?

You still need to pay for an expert's time -- in fact, you probably need to pay more for it, because the expert is probably faster to do a thing than to explain the thing to you and then you do it. Also, the expert now needs to be someone with these additional skills of coaching someone through an operation.

Tools are still needed -- is there actually a big market for the kind of repairs you can do with the tools that everyone has lying around at home but which is complicated enough to need hand-coaching by an expert?

I mean, maybe! Especially if you can locate the expert in some place where labor prices are much lower (so: India). But then you also need the person to buy the AR goggles. And how often does this use case come up? Is this like 3D printers where people try to sell me on the concept that I could pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for something that can make me things that cost less than $20 and which I need three of every year?

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

#238

Post by aetherson »

eli wrote: post #211
threeseed wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This has become forgotten as the public perception of Glass became dominated by the whole "glassholes" phenomenon, but the Explorer Program was supposed to demonstrate that people could think up these kind of amazing life-altering apps that proved the utility of bothering to wear Glass.

They didn't. Years later, the reason to wear Glass remained "take pictures/videos hands free and shave 3 seconds off the time it takes you to check your text messages."

The MS product seems pretty clearly to be more broadly capable hardware, but I do still wonder if it will have actual applications.

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

#239

Post by redbeard0x0a »

discardorama wrote: post #161

I tuned out when I read this: "Sensors flood the device with terabytes of data every second, all managed with an onboard CPU, GPU and first-of-its-kind HPU (holographic processing unit)." I'm sorry, but there is no wearable device which can handle terabytes of data per second. Heck, my brand new Haswell has a peak memory bandwidth of 17GB/s; even to the L1 cache, its theoretical max is 700GB/s. This sounds like a puf…

The terabytes of data every second was also mentioned in the live stream of the announcement, when talking about the custom HPU chip.
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