New Snap Spectacles Feature Augmented Reality Display
spectacles.com
spectacles.com
Side note, props to Snap for being honest about this in their marketing material. For example, the FOV is noticeably limited in this video[1]. Lots of companies tend to dishonestly crop the image or blow up the augmentation so the FOV looks larger.
[1] - https://twitter.com/Spectacles/status/1395439601590833156
That struck me too – I don't think I've ever seen marketing for an AR headset where I came away thinking "that's probably what it really looks like" until this. Not only have they not exaggerated the FOV, they also haven't fudged their compositing to give the impression that the optics are somehow able to add shadows or otherwise obscure the background.
The HoloLens and Magic Leap promo material was absurdly misleading in this respect - IRL the viewports feel tiny and the image is dim and low resolution. I'd be hesitant to call them outright lies... if they were anything but obvious, outright lies.
Or just potentially not look ridiculous - or if ridiculous, at least an admirable ridiculousness.
The most brilliant 'AR' concepts I've seen are the mesh of highest form of a mature technology with a dash of new software and most directed intent -- aka Voice Home Assistants, DynamicLand, iBeacons/AirTags, Whole Foods eink displays, Projection Mapping, Google's recent 'be there project' for example.
Those concepts are going to gel together inside someone's mobile platform API (iOS or Android) and become AR without glasses - and be more compelling than wearing a display.
I'm firmly in the camp that displays will be nice, but not must haves for AR.
In terms of process, Snap has during the past 12 months made a sustained and well-funded push for racial and gender equality, and that should help a lot to make nepotism impossible in the new process. Here's an important example of Snap's racial equality initiatives: https://www.axios.com/snapchat-cameras-overhaul-racism-6a01b...
Another example, which is not featured in the press but I am very proud of, is that the computer-generated voice we used in the Spectacles V4 out-of-box experience tutorial is a gender-neutral voice. We did this as the start of a journey of attempting to convince the software industry to stop making A.I. assistants be female so often. Having female A.I. assistants perpetuates the gender wage gap by creating the idea that assistant jobs are a women's role. This is a big issue that needs to be tackled and I'm proud to have helped with it in a small way. If anyone reading this works on Siri, Alexa, Cortana, or Google Assistant, please consider asking your management to adopt gender-neutral voice technology.
Here is UNESCO imploring companies to do this: https://en.unesco.org/EQUALS/voice-assistants
"[UNESCO] advises companies and governments to, among other actions: end the practice of making digital assistants female by default; explore the feasibility of developing a neutral machine gender for voice assistants that is neither male nor female"
I'm not overly sensitive either, I've been grilled and had tough interviews before at FAANG companies with no problem. They were something else. They also totally ghosted (hah) me when I requested feedback on the interview. Truly horrible experience.
The candidate called me several months later asking if we had any openings. He and several of his coworkers were spontaneously laid off, presumably before his stock vesting cliff as well. I remember thinking he seemed awfully dejected on the phone call, a stark contrast to how upbeat he had been earlier.
As with any company, YMMV. That experience stuck with me, though.
Hope the eventual goal is to make these more appealing. I'd rather not everyone around me know these are what they really are.
Deep links:
Fitness: https://youtu.be/trd2LT8-G3Y
Travel: https://youtu.be/bzTfMoyBdlM
Learning dance moves: https://storage.googleapis.com/spectacles-v3/NzVlNzU3OWQtY2U...
3D paint: https://storage.googleapis.com/spectacles-v3/NzVlNzU3OWQtY2U...
I don't want to learn to dance while standing distracted next to the edge of a cliff.
It can alert you whether the person is not comfortable or very attracted to you. Some people like to miss these subtle cues.
You can combine this AR technology with Deep Learning technology such as Pose Tracker.
https://blog.tensorflow.org/2021/05/next-generation-pose-det...
Would that appease you?
Construction - Show size/length of objects, show if object is level, highlight location of needed tool.
Navigation - Show arrow on top of uber/lyft, show directions. Show restaurant cleanliness score and rating.
Food safety - Show how long food has been out of fridge
Social - remind you of a persons name
There was an MIT startup years ago, based on the observation that for some (impaired?) population, when glasses flashed a name, if it was correct, name recall improved, but if it was wrong, there was no negative impact. So low-accuracy recognition was ok.
https://docs.projectnorthstar.org/getting-started/faq
100 deg FOV, as many functions / connectivity features as a HoloLens 2, now that’s awesome. You can bypass the virtue signaling, limited app ecosystem, and high price tag and build whatever you’d like.
I truly believe such glasses can serve good cause in an elderly care / support space. For example, being able to show directions in realtime for public transport options, directions (bit like a windscreen hud in modern vehicles) would be a game changer for many people. I can think of many, many applications for it. I'm hoping the apple glasses are coming and building such solutions will be possible.
I'd pay for something like this without hesitation.
Not only the FoV, it was a total disappointment.
These Spectacles, however, aren’t ready for the mass market. Unlike past models, Snap isn’t selling them. Instead, it’s giving them directly to an undisclosed number of AR effects creators through an application program online. (Another indication they aren’t ready for everyday use: the battery only lasts 30 minutes.)
https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/20/22445481/snap-spectacles-...
Edit: Just realized I’m 40 so probably qualify as old to most people, so that doesn’t necessarily prove you wrong.
For a clearer example, look at someone tech savvy and someone of the same age that makes excuses about being technophobic related to their age. They both have solidarity amongst other people that enable their choices.
1. Competitor A: "The new Spectacles are not for sale. They’re built for creators looking to push the limits of immersive AR experiences."
2. Competitor B: * actually sells the product *
* time goes by *
3. Competitor B acquires 80%+ market share while other's "never saw it coming".
https://docs.projectnorthstar.org/getting-started/faq
100 deg FOV, as many functions / connectivity features as a HoloLens 2, now that’s awesome. You can bypass the virtue signaling, limited app ecosystem, and high price tag and build whatever you’d like.
One is a donkey, one is a Lambo in terms of technology.
Which ones have you actually tried out of these said products; project northstar, hololens, above example?
Some stories can be stably linked to location. "The geology of this roadside exposure is ...". Others need some dynamic recognition. "That's a finch". Others need a blend. Or tracking and/or modeling environment state. Mapped buildings vs "that's a car" vs "today's chalkboard menu with updates".
Then guide story selection by user long-term and attentional interests, understanding, and educational learning objectives. Tree and pebble identification become stories of deep-time geological and evolutionary history and processes. Ambient dinosaurs.
Some of what a good guide, or teacher, or tutor might do... if they spent their days perched on your ear.
The future could be a blast. Sad we're moving so very sloowwwwwwwwly.
And then, 3-5 years from now Apple will come in with their iGlasses and everyone will absolutely love them. Because they will integrate them deeply in their ecosystem and have some real use-cases.
These look more like a Proof of Concept.
[1] https://twitter.com/Spectacles/status/1395442287367266304?s=...
The computer-generated voice we used in the Spectacles V4 out-of-box experience tutorial is a gender-neutral voice. We did this as the start of a journey of attempting to convince the software industry to stop making A.I. assistants be female so often. Having female A.I. assistants perpetuates the gender wage gap by creating the idea that assistant jobs are a women's role. This is a big issue that needs to be tackled and I'm proud to have helped with it in a small way. If anyone reading this works on Siri, Alexa, Cortana, or Google Assistant, please consider asking your management to adopt gender-neutral voice technology.
Here is UNESCO imploring companies to do this: https://en.unesco.org/EQUALS/voice-assistants
"[UNESCO] advises companies and governments to, among other actions: end the practice of making digital assistants female by default; explore the feasibility of developing a neutral machine gender for voice assistants that is neither male nor female"
Based on my recent experience trying to support my elderly mother's desire to "talk to her phone to do things", that day is not imminent.
But yeah, I'd love gender neutral voice assistants as well.
https://www.theverge.com/22364180/how-to-change-siri-voice-i...
is there any proof of this or does it just sound true therefore its true? Specifically theres two claims here that i don't see any data backing up:
1. Female voices of AI creates the idea that assistants jobs are a women's role.
2. Assistants jobs being perceived as a woman's role somehow makes the (nonexistent) wage gap worse. Despite the fact that assistants tend to make more money than garbagemen. (a field dominated by men)
Wikipedia is missing refs, but here's the entry on choosing the gender of this voice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_warning_system
[edit] originally quoted the first part of the section that cited early work finding women's voices to be more effective, but later work challenges this finding. I removed the quote to avoid implying I believe either way.
also your example is one where they shaped the assistant based on the humans perception. whereas the poster is claiming the assistant shapes the humans perception.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6334/183/
which doesnt really have anything to do with the point. Just vaguely related to biases inferred from NLP. It also just quotes a few sociology professors who themselves dont provide proof behind their assertions. And then also points to:
https://wappp.hks.harvard.edu/publications/psychology-implic...
which itself just talks about biases in general and doesnt have anything to do with the voices of AI assistants.
By the way, what makes you say the gender wage gap isn't real? To many people that comes across as if you were denying climate change, and decreases your credibility overall. Just trying to engage as best I can.
obviously a part time elementary school teacher with two years experience will make less than a full time investmenet banker that works 80 hours a week and has 10 years experience.
Once you adjust for all the relevant factors the effect completely disappears and there isnt a gap. (with some studies find maybe 1-2% within the margin of error).
so at the very least its very misleading to say they get paid less for the same role and same expereince.
if you want to go into why they may go into different fields or work less hours and how that reflects on society thats fine.
But its grossly misleading to take those nunmbers and blindly compare them and say its "sexism". Actually indian and asian woman make more than white men. So white men must systemically be oppressed. Or maybe they choose different jobs. (i still remember when google had to adjust their L4 software engineer pay to raise mens pay, because women actually made more!)
if you dont adjust for something then its just an idiotic comparison. like i said, non-adjusted asian women make more than white men. (so do nigerians) But you arent crying about asian women supremacy. or the the system is racist/sexist against white men.
now of course you can argue "sexism of the gaps". that the reason women choose jobs that make less is sexism itself. but youd have to prove that assertion, and not simply that hey prefer jobs that tend to make less like social work and teaching.
and youd have to explain why the so called wage gap is bigger in the most gender-equal countries like norway and denmark whereas its the smallest in the least equal countries like in the middle east.
No. You cannot patent something that has been publicly disclosed.
In the US you have 1 year.
https://www.patenttrademarkblog.com/inventor-grace-period-la....
We're still a long way from consumer AR headsets, but I am excited for the future of them, and I think these experimental devices are still great.
I can’t understand why a pond and butterfly make sense overlaid on a forest.
Most trendy product websites do this now (including Apple), but I can't figure out why? As a user, it feels extremely laggy since I don't scroll perfectly smoothly. I feel like they would have a better grip on the smoothness of the rendering if it was a simple video? I also don't like it because it feels like I have to scroll "hard" for the page to scroll down.
What's the benefit of this? I genuinely would like to know.
> imo there is no good direct translation for creator in this context
With this specifically I disagree. There are some perfectly good words, but since we get buried in anglicisms every day they tend to be way at the back of people's minds.
I also don't think this is auto-translation, because it's a very human mistake. A machine would have translated the word as "Schöpfer" or if it was context aware as "Urheber".
A human may have also chosen "Kreative" or even "Macher" (a favorite of the ad instustry!) instead.
But that’s wild to think about.
In terms of what I personally look forward to the most, I can't wait to see what the next generation of kids do with it, like the Wozniak era that grew up simultaneously with the first personal computers.