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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

#361

Post by tripzilch »

seanv wrote: post #169
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…

I got the impression that it was a write up of the demo video, not actually hands on... It's a confusing article and there's no 'real time video or images' of anyone actually interacting with it. I'm actually quite confused as to what this is, bad PR piece - more like a mocumentary on discovery channel... I'm confused Wire - please clarify

> I got the impression that it was a write up of the demo video, not actually hands on...

That's not really an excuse to dumbly repeat something which sounds so amazingly far-fetched (see other comment elsewhere, what sensors even produce TBs of data per second?), it verges on the physically impossible, reporting it without even blinking an eye--such as "yes, you read that right, we think it's hard to believe too", or preferably some explanation of how it can even be possible. How did the reporter not go "Wait what--terabytes per second?!!".

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

#362

Post by tripzilch »

benjaminl wrote: post #356
rbanffy wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magic is not possible. Whatever the HPU does is still constrained by physics. They can't explain away the engineering problem with an invented new name for a device we know nothing about except that it defies the laws of physics WRT computation.

What we do know is that fixed function ASICs can be can be 10s to 100s of times more power efficient than general purpose (Von Newman) computing. So noting they have described defies the laws of physics.

So, where would the terabytes per second come from? ... on a head-mounted device?

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

#363

Post by tripzilch »

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…

Don't forget actually having the right tools to do the job.

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

#365

Post by alexvr »

Someday there could be gloves that allow you to feel these "holograms" using cables that prevent your fingers from moving up/down, etc.

I also think this could be a short-term way to introduce full-body physical constraints in full-on virtual reality. (In the more distant future, we will probably know how to stimulate the brain directly to produce these sensations.) I envision a full-body suit (fitted to the user with near perfection) with a bunch of cables going in every direction. So if you try to push a virtual wall, the proper cables will be set to resist. Doesn't seem very practical, but the glove version might be.

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

#366

Post by erroneousfunk »

uchooseyourself wrote: post #360

This has the potential of making being rich kind of...obsolete. Think of it like this: can't afford an iphone? There's a Holographic iPhone you can download. Can't afford a fancy big screen TV, there are thousands out there you can download, etc. This will all depend on the quality / ease of use of Holographic Windows, but I can already see it's the future of computing.

The last few major purchases I made with my relatively plentiful disposable income: A pair of Doc Martens, two plane tickets to Kenya, yearly membership fee to my concierge medical clinic. None of these could be replaced by this technology. Arguably, I could make it look like I'm wearing new shoes when look down, and I could load up "Kenya" mode on my Holographic Goggles -- but nothing will replace the feel and protection of good shoes, or replicate the smells, tastes, and adventure of actual travel.

Also, I still own an iPhone 5 and don't have a particularly fancy TV...

Your same argument has been made (to a greater or lesser degree) with the advent of the industrial revolution, the Internet, cheap processors, 3D printers. There is no technology that will make wealth obsolete.

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

#367

Post by SixSigma »

losvedir wrote: post #353
SixSigma wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and just about everyone says "hoover" not vacuum cleaner I bet it would take along time for most people asked "how does a vacuum cleaner work?" to use the word vacuum, apart from as a name for the object.

Nah, "hoover" is just your dialect. American here, grew up in CA, and I've never heard or said "hoover". But yeah, I wouldn't say "vacuum" as a method of action unless you really drilled down. (Something about "pump" and "sucking", but I'd have to think for a bit to get to the actual physical "vacuum" aspect of it.)

You're right, I meant to type "in the UK" somewhere but it seems I forgot

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

#368

Post by aidenn0 »

losvedir wrote: post #353
SixSigma wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and just about everyone says "hoover" not vacuum cleaner I bet it would take along time for most people asked "how does a vacuum cleaner work?" to use the word vacuum, apart from as a name for the object.

Nah, "hoover" is just your dialect. American here, grew up in CA, and I've never heard or said "hoover". But yeah, I wouldn't say "vacuum" as a method of action unless you really drilled down. (Something about "pump" and "sucking", but I'd have to think for a bit to get to the actual physical "vacuum" aspect of it.)

In Indiana, a lot people said "sweeper" and they "sweeped" the room with it.

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

#369

Post by viewer5 »

cmdkeen wrote: post #326
jballanc wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes people learn new words, other times keeping old words (usually modified) works better. To take your example, in Turkish the word for vacuum cleaner literally translates as "electric broom", and cell phones are commonly called "cep" which actually translates as "pocket". Or consider the British who still use electric torches (that's a flashlight for all you non-Brits).

We Brits also call a cell phone a "mobile phone" which describes perfectly what it is.

In the US, a "mobile phone" is a cordless phone with a base.
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