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Comment by gonehome | Hacker News Reader

Michael Abrash wrote article about why hard AR is unlikely any time soon. It's not only that you need low enough latency for the human visual system, but also the ability to draw black (which is an unsolved problem).

I'd be surprised if Magic Leap was actually able to solve both of these problems in secret separated from the rest of the world.

Secrecy - for this long seems bad. It's also not the Apple secrecy where you say nothing and then have a big reveal. Magic Leap has put out teaser trailers with no information and talked about their 'revolutionary' technology without details. That doesn't inspire confidence.

I am surprised they're able to raise so much money though, but that's a mistake that's been made before.

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-...

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I think it's funny how much science fiction inspires current technology, but our expectations for quality are so much higher for real products than their sci-fi counterparts. In fact, in sci-fi advanced technology is often made inferior to be more relatable to current viewers/readers.

For example, the holograms in Star Wars: They are made to look lower quality than the world around them, so it's visibly clear this is a digital projection (and not teleportation or a wormhole or something). But could you imagine if Apple released a holographic "FaceTime3D", only the holograms were monochromatic, filled with scanlines, visual noise and crappy audio quality? Reviewers would blast it, and a poor experience like that could even do more harm than good to the popularity of AR.

Star Wars, however, has a run-down, lived-in aesthetic. That was part of its appeal: it was futurey, but it looked old. Star Trek does not have that kind of aesthetic, and its holograms do not look the same.

It could be worse, it could be Warhammer 40k tech.

Well, to be fair, they are typically talking to someone who is halfway across a galaxy.

Apple only has to get that signal partway around one measly little planet. ;-)

I think you're underselling the technology. The hologram appeared to be a small attachment to a multi-purpose droid that was recorded off of a single camera. Being able to record and project holograms on your phone would be extremely impressive even today, regardless of the fidelity. And the Palpatine hologram was likely monochromatic because it was being received in outer space.

The hologram standard for a dedicated device without transmission issues was much higher, seen in the holographic game board that C3P0 plays with Chewbacca on the Falcon. But in general Star Wars was smart enough to keep the technology basically gimmicky - the real targeting computers and useful stuff was 2-dimensional.

Does this connect at all with the OPs point or are you just pointing out your Star Wars knowledge?

Indeed. This reminds me of Louis CK - Everything Is Amazing And Nobody Is Happy [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8LaT5Iiwo4

Interesting blog post, but the conclusion seems hilariously optimistic to me:

>Eventually we’ll get to SF-quality hard AR, but it’ll take a while. I’d be surprised if it was sooner than five years, and it could easily be more than ten before it makes it into consumer products.

The post is already nearly 4 years old, and we've seen effectively no movement on the state of soft AR since it was written. I wonder if Michael still thinks we're going to see even very early prototype hard AR in the next 6 years.

As one of the commenters on the blog post mentions, AR in general is a whole order of magnitude beyond the next useful step. I don't need AR, just give me a wearable interface to my phone so that I don't have to pull it out of my pocket to interact with it. A simple heads up display has far fewer challenges to deal with than any AR system and would still be a huge leap forward in technology.

"I don't need AR, just give me a wearable interface to my phone so that I don't have to pull it out of my pocket to interact with it."

Isn't that the idea behind smartwatches and Google Cardboard?

Smartwatches, sure. I have one and it's definitely an improvement over my phone alone when it comes to email and messaging. Still, I think there's potential for a Glass like device to be even more convenient.

I'm not too familiar with Cardboard, but I don't see how it's related.

Google Cardboard is a piece of cardboard (& software app) that you fold up into wearable - if quite dorky - glasses that hold your cell phone about 2 inches in front of your eyes. It's not exactly stylish, but it works - you do get a real VR experience - and it's completely free. It does augmented reality as well, using the cell phone's camera. One of my Googler friends showed me a cool demo where if you stared at a QR code in a magazine, you'd see elves and magicians battling it out on top of the pages, like a storybook come to life.

https://www.google.com/get/cardboard/

One of my wife's friends is doing a startup where you can print out the "gun" for a first-person shooter as well, so you get an immersive VR experience using nothing but your cell-phone and a couple pieces of cardboard:

http://www.realiteer.com/#intro

I got to spend a day on the show floor at SIGGRAPH this year and AR/VR was the big trend. Most of the VR demos felt empty and lacked soul, but the Realiteer GermBuster VR demo was a blast! Definitely the highlight of the VR demos. I guess it demonstrates that (relatively) low-tech doesn't keep a game from being fun :-)

Disclosure: I work for Daqri

No-one I've seen in the space is trying to do hard-AR. It's all transparent displays - us, Magic Leap, ODG, Hololens, etc.

I think from the demos, it's pretty clear they won't be ale to 'draw black' - BUT - I think thats probably OK. Additive only AR could still be a really cool product, could still be widely adopted, be worth $5 billion, change the world, etc...

Is it not possible to just use it in the dark for more serious stuff and use the background for black? Maybe it's too much of a limitation..

It's not only that you need low enough latency for the human visual system, but also the ability to draw black

What about halos, glyphs, honeycomb shields, and ghosts? Translucent AR has plenty of potential without the ability to draw black.

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