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Comment by dlivingston | Hacker News Reader

I have a hunch that the Next Big Thing (TM) will be augmented reality: though the technology is currently in its infancy, when compelling AR glasses are finally released (Apple is rumored to be released theirs in 2020) I think that it will have a massive impact.

AR frameworks are a dime a dozen, but if you're an Apple person look into ARKit + Swift.

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One of the big wildcards for widespread consumer use is the social aspect. We can envision what AR might look like in everyday life. What's far less clear to me is the degree to which people will accept AR glasses that are constantly using video and audio to deliver information to the wearer will be accepted. If I know that person I just met has inconspicuously scanned me and looked up all kinds of information that are now being displayed, am I OK with that?

What if last week that person you were introduced to, and gave your name to(or didn't) happened to look you up and do some research. It wasn't handed to them through glasses immediately, but essentially it's the same thing. I would bet it probably has already happened to many of us and we didn't even realize.

ever have someone come up to you and say "Oh your the person who x"

just a thought on your last sentence

A little tangential, but I hope the answer to this is a resounding "no", and that adoption is sufficient to make a lot of people really uncomfortable. Perhaps this is naive of me, but I still believe that a great contributor to tolerance of our society for massive dragnet surveillance is that it isn't very visible.

Not tangential at all. On the one hand, I can see AR that's extremely powerful and useful given wearable hardware, sophisticated software, image recognition, connectivity, etc.

On the other hand, that would clearly be a step beyond today's smartphones to, as you suggest, potentially always on video and audio that's constantly communicating with and being analyzed by databases.

By contrast, VR seems to me to be a niche.

I think AR almost has to be Apple, not from a tech perspective, but from "this tech is very creepy, invasive, and visibly so" angle. Apple may be the only company that is simultaneously big enough to make the tech happen and charismatic enough to get us to let down our guard to it. Although that latter one is rapidly diminishing.

That's an interesting angle. Though I'm not sure to what degree the average consumer draws this distinction between Apple and Google.

Apple also probably just has about as much brand permission as anyone to create a new category of consumer device and shepherd it through the first couple of versions that will doubtless have shortcomings.

When I say charisma I mean literally being charming, like Google didn't have the tact to role out glass, because glass _looked_ creepy. Apple would have had the tact to know not to. Furthermore I think we're looking at the first couple of pseudo-generations of of Apple AR glasses in the form of the latest iPhones and Apple Watches. Watches are testing the hardware that will be colocated with the UI and the A13 the overpowered chip responsible for doing the more powerful CV functions in like the users pocket.

Yes, I suspect we'll see AR on phones/watches well before we'll see it in glasses and associated wearables. There are some AR-ish apps today but they're very limited.

There are a lot of challenges to get glasses right--both from a hardware and a usability/acceptability perspective. But people are already used to using their phones for things so it seems a very natural transition.

Well it would be socially acceptable to be wearing one while working on-the-job for example, a construction worker, doctor, or even a motorcyclist.

These "privacy vs features" questions of new technologies keep coming up. Over and over, people seem to shrug their shoulders over the privacy violations while they eat up the new features.

My guess on this is that people will pretty readily accept it if it provides something valuable to them, something they can't really get without it. The amount of privacy that people have given up using internet tech is what leads me to believe that this will be no different. I remember when people were afraid to use their own names nearly anywhere. Then they began to post their real identities in facebook (and elsewhere) feeling that they could choose who viewed the information. Now people post their real identities, pictures of themselves and even their children on publicly viewable instagram accounts. This sticks out to me because I remember thinking in the past that there was some barrier between what people posted publicly vs privately in particular with regards to their children. Not everyone is so open but it is not something I hear discussed amongst my non-programmer friends and a large number of them share in this behavior.

I run a VR startup so I'm biased, but: AR and VR. Different side of the same coin. But first (next 5-10 years) VR will be more mainstream, because it's easier to solve from a technological point of view.

In what sense are they different sides of the same coin? I see AR as very practical and VR not so much. I look at everyone walking down the street trying to simultaneous look down at their phone and do other things (walk, drive, etc) and see a huge TAM for AR. Meanwhile, in 1993 I went to the local fairground in my small town and experienced VR-enabled multiplayer game of Doom. It had much lower fidelity than VR today, but if the market really wanted it, there would have been a constant pull for their technology to improve. Instead it's just been fits and starts for the past 26 years since I experienced that demo. Big tech has pumped huge money into VR the last 5 years and the uptake is just not happening.

> In what sense are they different sides of the same coin?

One should look at AR and VR as a spectrum. Eventually, you'll be able to mix and match with the same headset.

> Instead it's just been fits and starts for the past 26 years since I experienced that demo. Big tech has pumped huge money into VR the last 5 years and the uptake is just not happening.

This is incorrect. The Oculus Quest is super successful measured on any conceivable metric, outperforming (sales and retention-wise) any other headset that came before it.

One key barrier to adoption of VR (or any consumer tech) is convenience. The Quest is the first headset that makes it convenient to use VR, as you don't need a PC, no external trackers, but you still get the same level of immersiveness.

There are other areas that need improvement until it speak to a bigger TAM (such as improved resolution, more software, better performance, better ergonomics) - but those are all problems that have a more or less clear path of solution.

In 10 years, everyone will be working in VR headsets, not laptops.

Agreed. With 7nm fresh off the presses and 5nm on the way we're should start seeing some efficient SoC's to do the 3D mapping AR needs. Even if glasses aren't ready to be the primary interface - phones with the hardware to accurately map and overlay the world still has a lot of promise.

I agree -- on top of this, I think machine learning will play an important role. The power of machine learning + AR creates some interesting possibilities. You can check out our website for some examples https://www.2020cv.com

Big agree. Smartphones have more or less flatlined in the last couple years and the only viable next step seems to be AR. Snap Inc and a lot of smaller players in the market know this, and their pivot to AR is arguably what has caused their resurgence in the past few months.

What value does augmented reality add to anything?

I'm thinking of assisting drivers. Projecting stuff into the road to guide the driver, or warn him when there are dangerous objects.

I'm not sure the thing people have been doing perfectly well for 100 years without AR glasses that billions of dollars are being invested in making people not need to do at all is the place to launch your AR dream company

For values of "Doing perfectly well" that encompass "Killing 30,000 people a year."

I like the idea of using it for safety. Is that something currently being done, or still in the experimental stages?

If you don't need a monitor, you don't need the computer as we know it today. Combine it with a brain computer interface and you throw away the keyboard and mouse as well. Subsequently you also throw away all the OS'es as we know them. AR/VR is a toy today. In the future our computers and mobile phones might look as arcane as an eniac.

I recommend Hegel with Neuralink: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ppGlEiQXrRI

Unless the computer is itself capable of anticipating and satisfying your desires — which, I grant, is possible, but, I would argue, incredibly, incredibly dystopian — you will need to consciously articulate your thoughts in such a way that the computer serves your will. That conscious articulation is the bottleneck. Not the keyboard, not the mouse, and certainly not the typing speed.

This is, of course, assuming that the computer remains the servant rather than becoming the master.

If it needs to be a learnable skill like typing, that is just as revolutionary. The interface does not have to be that deep. Just enough to input words and movements. Hell it could be voice commands.

Not if the BCI is trained on data produced by users in a natural thinking state.

I am thinking of the keyboardless typing with wrist bands as an intermediary step. I agree controlling conscious thought is difficult, but you could just key in commands with small impulses of the wrists and it would still be quite a bit more convenient than pulling out the phone

Adtech. Hence Facebook/Oculus.

Think about car mechanics seeing what do next if you want to open this specific motor or electrician seeing where cables are in the wall. Or physicians seeing specific information about patients eg how fast is he is breathing, what patient temperature is etc.

Ask the porn industry in 1-2 years.

Visualizing any change to the exterior of a building or new construction project in the actual location that it will be.

And how many people would need that on a daily basis? This sounds to be a useful but somewhat niche area

There are 1.2 millions houses built in the US every year. I could see the applications pretty vast actually. Another possible idea is for landscaping. Often times a tree will be planted that ends up too big or too small for the space. With an app that can show a tree in the space at various stages in it's life, it could really help in landscape design.

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