Comment by guycook | Hacker News Reader

Comment by guycook | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Have you used any optical see-through HMDs? There's heaps, and they all have no problem displaying text. If you look at the spec sheet for the BT-300 for example [0] you'll see "Virtual screen size: 80" support (virtual viewing distance 5m)", or in other words you need to focus your eyes five meters away to see the display sharply, at which point it will appear to take up 80in of diagonal space in the real world (don't know why they mixed the units like this though). I'm pretty sure most people could read text off a 720p 80" screen 5m away.

As for not making things dark, yes that's true. You can of course tint the glasses or use an extra layer to darken the outside world, or you can really crank the brightness causes the user's iris to contract creating the impression of higher contrast in the dark regions. Best option is to combine the approaches with a camera observing the environment, which can even be done on a per-pixel basis as in the paper I helped write [1]

As for power/performance, it's all a matter of desired form factor. If you don't mind a cable to an arm or hip attached android device, you can have everything you need right now. Alternatively there's the Hololens style huge headset. But if you want slimline glasses yes you'll be waiting a few years.

A lot a people are bearish on the future of AR and I can appreciate that viewpoint, but the arguments you've brought for it are at best half true and I hope readers don't see this and think any of these problems are unsolvable (or indeed, haven't already been solved)

[0] https://tech.moverio.epson.com/en/bt-300/ [1] http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7523376/

Here's [1] minus the paywall: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.sci-hub.cc/document/7523376/

Whilst I am certainly supportive of open access science in general, and in the case of my own writing am glad to see it reach a wider audience, I'm surprised by the brazenness of linking to a pirated article whilst in discussion with its author. I don't know whether to be offended or impressed

Do you see a reason that, as an author, you wouldn't want your article to be pirated as widely as possible? You get no actual benefit from IEEE making money off of your article, right?

This is speculation, but perhaps there's a game-theory issue here. If IEEE loses money by people pirating (and you can apply the usual counter-arguments about whether the pirateer would have gone on to purchase it anyway) rather than paying then publishing costs increase to cover that loss, and therefore hurting the authors who must cover that increase in future if they want to publish in the journal again.

A better situation is where the preprint or open access version is available.

> then publishing costs increase to cover that loss, and therefore hurting the authors who must cover that increase in future

WHAT?! Does that mean it's the authors who pay publishers to get their work published? Is that really true? And then publishers also charge readers for what they were paid to publish in the first place?

If so then... I don't even... :)

Yes, this is actually how scientific publishing works.

I think the university insulates the author from the costs you mention. This also assumes that the market for articles is fair and rational, when it's anything but.

I know next to nothing about the process of writing and publishing scientific papers, so forgive me if the question is stupid, but: what difference it makes for you personally, as an author and researcher, whether people access your work via a paywall or not?

I think that science should be your ultimate goal as a scientist. Science is an inclusive goal, not an exclusive clique. You can certainly argue that your article was meant only for students and viewers who have access to IEEE's walled garden. But then you must also admit that your work isn't meant to benefit anyone else, except indirectly.

It also fosters discussion, since we can view your work and see whether it stands on its own merits, or whether it's related to the discussion past the title and the abstract.

The IEEE site also shows that your article has been viewed 238 times. My comment linking to the unimprisoned version was upvoted 5 times, and a good rule of thumb is that 4*upvotes = view count on a clickable link. (I've measured this in the past.) So your readership probably increased by at least 10%.

Lastly, I'm hopeful that IEEE and other institutions will eventually yield to the forces of technology, as the RIAA did. Attempting to stop technology by force doesn't have a good track record of success. It will be an unpleasant ride until then, but the world will be better off.

I think my manner of speaking was too wry. To be clear: I'm perfectly happy for people to read my research by whatever means they need to take. I too hope that scientific publishing gets its act together and moves away from hoarding knowledge behind paid subscriptions, and guerilla efforts to bring that closer to reality are appreciated. It was a tongue in cheek way of saying "I'm right here, you could have asked :)" (I would have said 'go for it')

To answer some of the sibling comments:

rspeer > You get no actual benefit from IEEE making money off of your article, right?

I'm well aware, although as an IEEE member I don't think it's fair to say no benefit, although it is very hard to quantify.

klibertp > what difference it makes for you personally, as an author and researcher, whether people access your work via a paywall or not?

None. As said above, I think my tenor wasn't communicated well enough. I was more just surprised that, given that sillysaurus3 and I have never communicated before, someone would take an action that could have potentially been quite upsetting (I know a few researchers where that would have definitely been the case).

klibertp > Does that mean it's the authors who pay publishers to get their work published? Is that really true? And then publishers also charge readers for what they were paid to publish in the first place?

Absolutely not in our field. As I understand it, in some fields there is a charge for very long form writing to cover the work required in reviewing and editing (though perversely the actual person who does that work is often unpaid), but generally pay-to-publish would indicate a low quality journal and would be an outlet of last resort.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com