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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

Why? I mostly have zero interest in being immersed in meetings. Most people aren't IRL most of the time. There's potentially value where people need to be on-site in other contexts such as repairing equipment.

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Laptop + magical AR/VR headset means you can always have your 3 monitor workspace, even at the coffee shop. Plus, you get fully private screens.

That sounds utterly unappealing. If I'm in a coffeeshop I have zero reason to want to cut off from the outside world. Otherwise I wouldn't be in a coffeeshop. Most of the reason I'd work in a coffeeshop is for an ambient social vibe. And for many things I do a 13" laptop screen is fine. (And I probably wouldn't feel comfortable being utterly cut off from the environment in an urban space.)

It might be better with AR, where you still get the ambiance but with virtual monitors.

I have no idea how that works with AR overlaying monitors on a physical worldview. So you're writing something overlaid on the view around the coffeeshop? The idea of AR is more to give a HUD that provides information about what you're looking at.

AR is commonly used to insert solid objects into the real world. See Pokemon Go and most HoloLens games. And the HoloLens app where a virtual dog lives in your house.

HoloLens is not able to render opaque objects. They always have some level of translucency, and the darker the colour of the object, the more translucent it is.

So moving your head a lot? You would look like a giant weirdo, right?

People 50 years ago would have said that about people who aimlessly slide their thumb up and down a glass screen on a device the size of a deck of cards.

50 years ago people were busy staring at slices of dead trees while experiencing detailed hallucinations.

(I still say that)

Pretty sure the giant headset is a dead giveaway. But just like airpod stems, it'll be a status symbol if Apple deems it so.

You should look into how the Hololens is able to display floating windows. You're not cut off any more than the physically equivalent monitor would obscure.

A full face headset would probably give off a socially isolating presence, at least today, though.

The obvious use case is on an airplane (or bus or train).

I definitely do not want a person flailing hands in their VR world, while sitting near me on an airplane/bus/whatever.

Hmmm... so even at 8K per lens, the floating display(s) is(are) how much of that 8K?

So we're back to VGA resolution on your "virtual display".

Yeah, no thanks.

The FOV of these devices is something like 100 degrees. There's not a lot of wasted space. Who knows what this theoretical Apple device is like though.

The FOV of AR headsets like Hololens is very far from 100°.

If the FoV is less then it drives home that the pixel per degree is even higher!

This is a closed face VR headset with presumably more traditional screens and lenses and unlike a Hololens or MagicLeap. The device sounds closer to VR headsets like the Vive and Quest, which are mostly around 90-110 degrees.

This is described as a joint AR/VR device. I don’t expect we’d be totally cut off, probably more like an overlay of computery stuff while still being able to see the real world behind it. Sort of like a virtual screen.

Correct, it sounds like they are getting the AR using a 'passthrough' mode stitched together from the multiple cameras and some sensor fusion to give you an eye-level perspective live video feed they can manipulate with all manner of neat effects.

Wearing an HMD is always going to disconnect your attention from where you are and teleport it to someplace not shared by those around you, there is no way around that and it's not a bug either. AR just makes that separation a little fuzzier.

The real challenge, is going to be some way to not look like a dork while using it in public. If I had to have faith in anyone to design something that could square that circle it would be Apple (and maybe Sony). But it's a tall order.

Of course, inputs are weird too. Would it need to come with a pocketable keyboard or something?

To do AR, it'll need a camera. People hated google glass because of the camera.

AR doesn’t necessarily need a camera. Might be possible with IR structured light?

To augment something you need to have whatever is there to begin with - so they either need a camera or you need transparent screens. An IR structured light depth camera is still ... well ... a camera.

Do you mean to pass the real world through, or for scanning the world?

If the display is see-through - perhaps with a removable view shield for switching AR/VR - you can have pass-through without a camera. Like magic leap, but without the magic "black pixels" tech.

Alternately, if it has lidar you could display a wireframe / point cloud version of the environment. I don't think people will consider a lidar scan to be "a picture of me," even if it actually captures more detail.

Alternately again, it could have a camera but just never expose that feed to the real world or allow recording. It's their own closed hardware after all.

For scanning it. It's a good point that something like lidar might be more socially acceptable.

The article suggests it will have 12 cameras.

People will get over it. Especially if Apple does it.

I remember clearly in 1999 going to dinner with co-workers, all of us pulling out our cell phones for something and one of the co-workers wives call us all geeks for even having a cell phone. I'm sure that same person is now more addicted to her smartphone than her husband.

The same will happen with AR. It will seem "ewww gross" until it doesn't

>To do AR, it'll need a camera. People hated google glass because of the camera.

I remember the fuss, but it's so weird -- everyone carries a smartphone with camera with them all the time, even into public bathrooms. If someone wanted to record me I think I'd have a better chance of noticing someone looking at me with their face than I would someone doing it while pretending to be scrolling twitter.

Why even have "monitors", just drag your windows around on a hemisphere in front of you that takes up your whole FOV.

When you share your screen in Zoom/Hangouts/whatever, the monitor boundary is nice to isolate stuff. This is of course because Zoom doesn’t let me “add” n app to existing share after having selected a single app - nothing that can’t be fixed

Then the next step is apps that are 3D-aware, to let them draw beyond just a flat plane.

> even at the coffee shop

Lol. Just picturing the reactions of the hip baristas in SF who already disdain techbros for spending 5 hours at the coffee shop with their laptops/headphones and their one cup of coffee when said techbros upgrade to VR headsets.

It obviates the need for a ridiculous number of business trips.

I disagree. Business trips won't ever be a thing of the past. Most people enjoy traveling and see it as a perk rather than hassle.

Not those who travel 3x per week for one hour meetings

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