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Comment by bigmealbigmeal | Hacker News Reader

> Whatever will redefine the industry will probably be laughed at and only adopted by nerds for a while.

I suspect that virtual reality and augmented reality are in this classic position. Laughed at, but totally adored by a group of nerds. As someone in that group of nerds, the feeling is so much like the early days of the web -- it really is incredibly exciting. It amazes me that anyone can be pessimistic about it, especially given the astounding progress and investment being made. In my view, it's deeply obvious that augmented reality is the next paradigm shift we're all waiting for.

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Even if the GP claim was true, it does not follow that every thing that is being "laughed at and only adopted by nerds" is the next big thing to redefine the industry.

Augmented reality has some nice properties in a number of contexts. In others, it's totally irrelevant. Whether someone will come out with a product that will make it irreplaceable is a different matter.

It's like touch keyboards. Sure, they are better than phone keypad-style keyboards for entering text, but actual physical input still performs better. They are a different paradigm that allows device manufacturers to provide a more often desired feature (larger screens), but while they are winning over in places where they do not fit (like in-car infotainment systems), almost everybody prefers physical knobs for a number of features (like climate control). This will likely lead to a reversal of the trend.

I didn't say that every thing being laughed at is the next big thing to redefine the industry. I only predicted that augmented reality really is one of those things. Further, the person I was replying to claimed that the next big thing to redefine the industry is something that will be laughed at. Neither party claimed that everything being laughed at will redefine the industry.

The statement that augmented reality is "like touch keyboards" is a statement that you haven't given justification for. Augmented reality is not a technology centered around replacing physical input with non-physical input, and so the analogy is not self-evident. You might potentially have a good point, but you'd have to explain how this analogy is relevant to the technology of placing graphics and information at any position in a person's 3D visual space. Remember, most augmented reality objects don't need to be controlled at all to be useful, and you can still control an augmented reality screen with a mouse and keyboard.

I'm interested to hear more detail to your thoughts on why you think augmented reality won't be a paradigm shift. I'm also happy to elaborate on why I think it will, if you like.

The biggest issue with AR imo (or rather, why it doesn't appeal to me as a universal paradigm) is that it requires a device in your field of view to "augment" the reality.

Sure, a HUD in a car with AR is nice. A pair of binoculars or a telescope with AR is nice. Even a camera works. As long as the device is already "there", AR is a nice improvement (look through a telescope and it identifies stars or constellations for you) — provided it can be turned off for when you want to enjoy simple reality.

But otherwise, it's an unnecessary gimmick that you won't bother to use, simply because it's not universal (you won't get a pair of AR sunglasses for the day, and see-through glasses for the night, esp if you are not wearing glasses otherwise).

With a lack of universality, I don't see it as a "paradigm shift".

And there are orthogonal concerns like privacy. As the processing speed improves, privacy concerns will diminish (as you can have in-device processing), but just like with high resolution screens, this requires a lot of processing (visual data takes a lot of bandwidth, and while it's quadratic growth for 2D data, it's even more for stereoscopic or 3D data), that we are progressing towards very slowly.

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