China’s Nreal raises $15M to shrink augmented headsets to size of sunglasses
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
It feels like these types of glasses suffer from an effect similar to the uncanny valley. They either need to look EXACTLY like a normal pair of sunglasses, or embrace what they are and make them look very different from sunglasses. Looking sort of like sunglasses, but not being quite right, I think has the inverse effect of getting them to "blend in".
Aesthetics aside, I think the reduction in size and weight is impressive.
They should've gone for full-on 50's bottle bottom nerd glasses. Maybe take a cue from Brutalism, Frida Kahlo, and EletroBOOM and branched out with it's own pseudo monobrow aesthetic. (Is it just me, or do a lot of Brutalist buildings seem to be trying to convey an abstract sort of monobrow look?)
Although we'll have to see it to believe it.
https://images.evo.com/imgp/700/106475/515568/smith-i-o-gogg...
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0213/0060/products/4590_3a...
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2574/2802/products/product...
I wonder if in a couple of years everybody will be wearing iGoggles.
With 5G on the horizon, it might be time to re-launch such a product. Having the ski route traced out in front of you is not only helpful safety-wise, but could add a social dimension if key stats could be shared live--and visually, calling to mind a video game--between friends (or broader).
Whatever on glass/goggle should just be headup display/maybe small camera with small wire connection.
No, it is not like that at all. Wifi/cellular radio do not generate even close to the power required to affect you in any way. [1]
[1] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/19285/if-microwa...
The "researchers" bought a cow brain and cut a rectangular slab of it. So far so good. They put the slab in a plexiglas box and waited for it to reach thermal equilibrium with the room and air.
Then then held a cell phone directly against the brain tissue for 15 minutes.
Yes. That's right. They held the phone DIRECTLY AGAINST THE BRAIN.
They have the gall to describe this as being "exactly as a person was communicating with a cell phone." Yes, I always hold my phone directly against my brain tissue.
The effect measured was that the tissue got a fraction of a degree warmer. Of course cell-phones are very warm devices and will warm up any slab of flesh they're resting on.
Did the "researchers" isolate the radio energy by testing again with the phone on airplane mode? Nope. Did they in any way distinguish between radio energy and thermal energy from a battery-operated supercomputer? Nah bro. No discussion of that whatsoever.
Meanwhile, the paper is written like an undergraduate report by somebody who doesn't speak english very well and who doesn't have an editor. How could this be? Well, the paper was published in the International Journal of Preventive Medicine, a publication of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in Iran. This journal has an impact factor of 0.98, putting in the bottom third of all journals.
This isn't science in any way, shape or form. It should never be cited by anybody except as an example of a shitty, shitty paper.
At that last scene, he was training the Cell phone executive: "Repeat after me: There are no conclusive evident that cell phone usage can cause brain cancer." Since I worked in Nokia at that time, that scene just etches into my mind even after so many years.
I was afraid that 20,30 years from now, some percentage of generate of kids grow up with cell phone next to their head were detected with some brain abnormality. Someone will do an experiment by putting cell phone / wifi next to lab rats and find some correlations between long extend exposure of wifi/cell signals and some kind brain damages.
Wifi/Cellular microwave can't cook turkey with its 1 watts output. But I can certain feel the warm on the side of face/ear next to it for just a few minutes. I definitively WILL NOT do that for an extend period of time.
I asked my family to reduce the bluetooth headset usage although I know for sure BT's power is much lower than wifi. Using wire headset or speaker is much better in my mind.
Hell, AirPods looked ridiculous 2 years ago.
So even though I agree with you entirely, I’m prepared to recognize that the world may change around us fairly quickly.
Oh, they still do.
Wait until Robert Scoble gets his pair, he'll make them mainstream :)
As for making them smaller to fit in normal glasses, is there a physics limit or just waiting for things to get smaller?
Based on what they have said in the article, it sounds a little too good to be true. $1k price tag, lightweight, and good resolution? Maybe someone more familiar with this line of hardware can chime in on plausibility?
“AR” is a pretty loose term. You definitely won’t be getting HoloLens/ARKit level tracking or 3D rendering in these. Tech just isn’t there yet.
I’m guessing there are also some serious non competes in place on those employees.
I really don’t understand the push to make AR “goggles” look like glasses. Either make them look 100% like natural eye/sunglasses such that no one can tell, or don’t even bother getting close. Just embrace it and make them legit goggles of their own.
No one is going to wear or buy these just like no one is going to wear or buy magic leap’s terrible product.
Having said that, I feel like these companies are getting us started. Once they fail (including magic leap) they should open source everything they’ve done so the next wave can get it right.
The $1000 price point is a total dealbreaker though. Expectations at that price point are that it is going to work perfectly right out of the box and solve some problems, but these are going to be at best a novelty and probably buggy for at least a couple of iterations. That price point is way too high for something that doesn't work right.
No photos or videos of what the display actually shows.
Problem is the nausea, Virtual reality sickness to be accurate.
Addressing the bulk alone wouldn't fix the issue of long term VR use. Audi showcased VR entertainment[1] for passengers, reporters who tried out said the moving vehicle didn't produce motion sickness. Though a moving vehicle for VR wouldn't be the scalable solution, I just want to point out that the motion sickness is a definite inhibitor.
I doubt adding a virtual nose would fix either of those issues i.e. where the mind isn't able to process what it is seeing.
I cannot play FPS like DOOM for more than 60 minutes, but TPS games doesn't cause any problems.
Related to lag and sensor responsiveness.
This is way more important than the external look of the device.
How about Daft Punk inspired Sci-fi helmet? Lots of job site functionality could make use of hard hat plus safety goggles aesthetics. Welder's masks?
Let's look across world history at people who have used masks to conceal their identity while breaking the law -- especially those whose activities impinged upon politics. Overall, it's pretty skeezy. Even the ones who are still held as heroes in their culture's histories strike me as a bit skeezy.
One pattern that seems to differentiate masked heroes from masked villains, is that the heroes generally hold to strict codes of justice, conduct, and decorum. The villains are often foul mouthed and readily reveal bitterness and hate and commit arbitrary destruction and violence. Sometimes, groups start out fitting the former description, then devolve into the latter.
$1000 is a tough sell. I bet if they somehow manage to lower it down to around 200, they'll take off regardless of how "dorky" they look.
As long as the features are good, the weight is low, the screen door effect is reduced, the refresh rate is high, the lag is kept at minimum, it will be a good product.
These are the important questions. This is hacker news, not fashion news.
You should always care whether your favorite product is sellable to a wide audience.
People will distrust someone who always has a camera recording their faces, this is a privacy problem.
No glasses will be good looking enough for that.