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Meta (YC S13) raises $50M series B

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26 pointssvig9 comments

I very optimistic about what AR can bring. To me, the biggest roadblock for AR as well with VR, is user interacting with the digital world constrained by the physical one (a problem that's been recognized since the beginning).

Even in AR you do not have haptic feedback, this to me is a critical component for a system to be truly adoptable outside of niche domains such as surgery, industrial processing etc.

I am sure many people are think of this. I have seen some research work out of the Media Lab at MIT trying to address this problem with deformable tables, likewise a Japanese group was doing air pressure haptics.

Could anyone working in this space comment on some state of the art stuff? And provide links? Thanks in advance.

Yeah, haptic feedback is challenging. The thing that gets challenging in my opinion with 3rd party haptic sensors is a low latency integration. Also, there are no hardware standards that define performance/latency requirements for a good AR experience. All those things will contribute to designing haptic devices.

I saw a paper recently http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10292/9652 around a low cost haptic game controller, which interested me a lot. There might be clever ways to create alternate haptic feedback like hot or cold sensations when an object is grabbed or interacted with (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151110082541.h...).

Because AR itself is not mainstream yet, it is quite hard to figure out what is the right haptic feedback that feels natural. I am hoping this will evolve.

I have worked with Meta in the past. They are not going to release a viable consumer product. I have serious doubts about Magic Leap achieving anything of the like either.

AR is a good idea, but the management over at Meta has about as much chance of making it viable for any customer as uBeam has of delivering on wireless charging.

Seriously?

Any concrete information from your time working with them?

And here I was thinking the bubble was beginning to pop.

Substantive critique is good, but please don't post generic dismissals.

What exactly is a bubble here? I think AR is going to hit high strides.

Also, at the very least, they have a finished product.

http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/02/hands-on-with-the-949-mind-...

I don't know how big the market will be, but I already have potential customers lined up for some very crappy forms of AR.

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