Spacetop, a radical laptop with no screen
pcworld.com
pcworld.com
Also, I noted this passage:
even with a very odd prescription (one eye is near-sighted, and one far-sighted) the default corrective lenses Sightful had available worked well.
I've never encountered another person with this same eye disorder... It can be a real nuisance in certain cases. Nice to see this specifically addressed :)
I wonder if a normal camera can be used to track head movements with a better AR set.
It'd be fun to add multiple extra screens around the main one on my laptop just by plugging in my glasses into the USB-C port.
> I've never encountered another person with this same eye disorder...
Before both my eyes went shortsighted I had it - it always felt like having one eye optimized for short distances and one for long ones, with the brain making the switch automatically like a smartphone stitches together an image using various lenses of various focal lengths.
Still having different degrees of shortsightedness (a bit on the left and almost none on the right) is mildly annoying.
I like to think that's the reason, anyway.
I'm definitely going to follow the development of this as attention to edge cases and details like this are a good indicator of quality. It definitely has beta version battery life which I'd hope they'd address in a v2 as well.
I had this as a child, meant that it wasn't clear I had vision issues for a bit. I could see things clearly.
While my far-sighted became near-sighted eventually, it remains a dominant eye for me.
[1] Phone photo through NReal Light https://twitter.com/mncharity/status/1397553615372529668/pho... [2] DIY rough analogy https://twitter.com/mncharity/status/1225091755667853318
The less-than-transparent approach to specs has bothered me as well. But, at least as of a few years ago, their primary market was China, followed by SK and Japan. And was largely media consumption on phones. With competitors that would spin a wider fov, or more distant depth of focus, even with lower resolution, as "we're an N inch TV, not a mere M inch!". So, I've tagged it as culture mismatch, and consumer vs tiny tech. Several things they could have done differently, but unicorn dreams.
Compared with my 15 inch laptop, the glasses too are 1080p, visually about ~50% wider/higher, and ~2 meters out instead of ~half. I might be using it now, if only for posture, but for having diy kludged the eyeglass lens snapons. Face comfort/fit... can be an issue. Folks who live in a one-screen tiling window manager, or in terminals, might use it as a simple monitor. Using a magnetic USB adapter, it's trivially snap-on/off.
I will also say, for the nreal airs, they're not quite there yet. It's blurry throughout and completely unreadable off center, I find myself moving the glasses around so different parts of the screen will be in the center. Regardless of center or edge they they're always a bit blurry and hurt my eyes, and after taking them off I can't focus my eyes on things far away. I still like them as a low resolution screen for watching youtube while washing the dishes for example, but their use is quite limited.
I like the idea of wearing glasses like that and moving a Youtube video into the corner of my vision, like a recipe video while I'm cooking. Or something more stimulating than just a podcast when I'm running that I can tune in and out of.
Also; it's much more private; no-one can see your screen (unless you share) and when you put the sun light protector on, no-one starts talking with you. It's a very clear sign of ; I am busy.
The resolution of the monitor (I run DEX as the AR on this thing is not good enough (yet)) could be higher, but that's just a matter of time, and, as it seems to progress now, not a lot of time at that.
I signed up and really hope that I'm selected..
The software isn't quite there yet, but it's still early days for it so it'll hopefully get better.
It dismisses Meta's workspaces on VR platforms without mentioning dedicated providers like Immersed as potentially better options.
There is possibly a niche market for separates (glasses, keyboards, base units etc) that excel at their individual function within this emerging AR/VR space; it will be interesting to see if closely coupled products like this can match the excellence of specialists or if the focus on the convenience of all-in-one will lead to generalist jack-of-all-trades mediocrity.
Interesting product anyway but would have liked more thought in the comparison products, and more consideration of the base unit as a potential driver for competitor headsets like the aforementioned.
It sports a Snapdragon 865. I don't see anything here that could possibly justify that price. You're basically just paying for exclusivity as a beta tester.
Now that I think about it, the existing Mission Control/Full screen App interface could make total sense for this UI. You could quite easily translate theses concepts to an AR deck bridging the gap between all existing Apps and this new interface.
Reality OS Headset built on top of iOS (and MacOS) could easily allow bluetooth peripherals (keyboard/mouse) to pair with to their headset, and you've got multi-monitor workspace ready to go in a physical space that normally wouldn't accomodate it.
Need more CPU/GPU than the Headset provides? Just use Sidecar to push your Mac desktop into AR and work on it as a 2D pane from there.
I've used Virtual Desktop on the HP G2 Reverb, and while the quality was excellent, it's a bit clunky having to connect HDMI/Displayport loopback connectors to bring up multiple displays, and I'd much prefer to do my work in MacOS.
A lot of the speculation around the new product seems to be around AR augmenting people moving around in public space, but the thing that gets me excited is what this might mean for the traditional desktop environment.
The headset could include discreet lidar/else captor to track eyes movements. Meanwhile the base could track head movements and mouth expression from the outside. Bam you have every data points to animate a memoji. I guess through an API more advanced avatars could be designed by a game developer. But memoji would be a nice proof of concept.
If all this materialize The sweet spot would be a Thunderbolt plug and a M1/M2 requirements. The 3000$ rumored price tag would refer to a complete setup including a mac mini but the headset alone could sell at a more affordable price range.
(Disclaimer: this is a personal guess I have no access to insiders)
This could make total sense, I always thought they spend to much energy on what was a gimmick at this point. But maybe they were just preparing a live memoji feature until it was flawless.
You might notice that unlike Meta, Apple current approach focus solely on head avatar. But they make a point for them to be very expressive.
This also perfectly fit the privacy narrative. Expressing yourself thought an expressive live animated avatar help preserve privacy as a remote worker. My life companion colleagues never agreed to turn on their webcam, maybe they would feel more at ease with an avatar.
PS: Maybe a better video (example) of the footage used in last year daily WWDC recap. The setup for the daily recap was a memoji of Serenity Caldwell reporting thought online meeting with other developers using memoji.
WWDC22 Day 5 Final statement : https://youtu.be/PMCDIIxBiZA?t=46
WWDC21 Day 5 Final statement : https://youtu.be/fwQF-HQG-pU?t=64
WWDC20 Day 5 Final statement : https://youtu.be/GHHw_hOnML0?t=1
Fun to see the evolution also...
It should rather be compared to other VR avatar concepts. Meta full body avatar for instance. The tech is clearly not ready and feel clumsy and add absolutely nothing. Meanwhile a floating head of some sort that can surimpose over the media you are collaborating on could be a better experience.
Then again, they're doing obvious PWM to achieve the lower-than-max brightness levels which creates flicker reminiscent of looking at an old CRT monitor running at 60Hz, which for me is a disincentive to run at anything less than max brightness.
Uhh... this is about as innovative as a much cheaper DIY project from many years ago? I think everyone with a vufine and a pi zero has done this before. As a bonus you get to use linux instead of android.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/7/27/16035508/d...
Maybe the only thing I sort of had to hack together was the stupid mount for the vufine which is a bit cheap and flimsy. This is a necessary mod anyway if you buy one of these and want to use it for anything serious. I dremeled out a channel on the magnetic mount and ran a velcro zip tie through that. Holds onto a pair of glasses very firmly now. I added a second velcro strap around the body of it for stability. I can even go out for a jog no problems. All the cables I use are thin and lightweight (meant for connecting HDMI on a drone).
It's such a cheap and obvious idea that you can unregretfully drunk buy all the parts on amazon right now for probably less than I paid back then and you'd still just have a pile of otherwise useful stuff. The hunt for durable low-profile and L-angled cables needed to cram it all into a pocket is the expensive part, but you might even already have a pile of those.
Where did I say it doesn't? You seemed to be complaining about the fact that it was not innovative. I just said that innovation often doesn't matter. A good product works well, doesn't have to be innovative. Innovation is mostly great for marketing and VCs.
Unfortunately you'd need a compact input device with good haptic feedback. Obviously it has a keyboard [1], but when the screen fits so nicely over it dropping the screen doesn't seem like such a huge bonus.
As it stands I'd probably prefer a screen for the 2% of my computing time where I actually want my world to be "public".
Still, very cool to see things moving this way!
[1]: Physical buttons are a million times better than a touch screen because you don't have to look at them to know what you are doing.
Yes. Why drop the screen at all? No reason you couldn't have glasses like this on a regular laptop, adding a second screen "behind" your main display. Or just close it to about 45 degrees.
I love the idea of a private display, or a floating multiscreen layout, but I dont want to sacrifice the regular screen for that.
Ok but then you basically have a phone with some glasses and a tracker.
> Sightful built the Spacetop around a Snapdragon 865 from 2019, rather than the more advanced Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, for example. Specs include 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage
Wait, it actually already is a smartphone, at least in specs anyway. Who'd go for a laptop without at least half a TB of storage these days? And 8GB of RAM, that's like a decent laptop from almost a decade ago.
I also don't know the long term impact of these devices to my eye sight.
†unless, in your case, the arrow of causality between vision and computer screen distance is in the opposite direction.
Also, with a good lens setup or with direct projection, VR/AR headsets could theoretically set the focus distance at any distance or even dynamically change it. This would also solve the vergence-accommodation conflict with current headsets.
SpaceTop has a relatively low FOV but much higher pixel density of about 46 pixels per degree. It's about twice as good as what Meta Quest Pro and Quest 2 can do. It also seems to have individual floating apps rather than entire screens, but if we would assume that one would like to have a typical experience roughly equivalent to a 27" 16:9 screen at an arm's length, that virtual screen would be at about 1840x1035. I think this is right at the edge of what I would consider comfortable. Most graphics, including text, would probably be slightly blurry, and anti-aliasing blur or aliasing artefacts would be clearly seen. But I would not get too frustrated by it.
That's a trend with AR glasses when compared to VR headsets - they have narrower FOV and higher pixel densities. So they are overall better for non-immersive office-like applications. Still, the holy grail of productivity AR headsets is something like 60 PPD and at least 90 degrees horizontal FOV x 60 degrees vertical FOV. At that point, I would say the differences between our actual vision and what can be shown on the glasses in terms of resolution would be not significant, assuming the eye balls always point within 30 degrees of the center of the AR display. But this means a resolution of around 5400x3600 per eye. Or approaching 12K in total for both eyes combined.
SpaceTop is probably much more usable for office work than many of the VR headsets on the market. And it seems like they're aiming for a similar experience to having one or two 1080p 27" screens about a meter away from one's face. I think it's right on the border between fun tech and practical tech. Slightly higher PPD and FOV would push it more into the territory of practical tech for me, someone who writes and codes while travelling. Now it sounds good but not revolutionary.
I might not be early adopter as 2K laptop one, but the very next one, totally count on me.
The only issue... Zoom meetings... It is weird if you have headset on.
But why stop there? If you further separate the keyboard/mouse from the computer, then you not only allow people to choose their own HCI (trackball? tapwithus keyboard?) but they can bring their own input, too.
Imagine all the benefits of the modularity of a desktop, with equal (if not better) portability of a laptop.
I don't know what the solution is, but I remember most decrying that a keyboard on a mobile device would not work and that they wanted their Blackberry keyboards, but Apple nailed it. Here's to seeing that the next input/interface will be.
On-screen keyboards are only a slight improvement. What they solved is everything else except typing speed and accuracy.
TVs made us watch things close, PCs made us watch things closer, then we had smartphones. Wearing glasses is the last step before we go full Borg.
$300 13.3-inch keyboard monitor turns a smartphone into a laptop
The fact you can use the stylus that comes with the tablet on your PC through the second screen feature is kind of nice, but the wireless issues make using it kind of a bother.
It can’t?
I mean, I’ve got better desktops (all of which are actually laptops) so I rarely use the phone this way, but my phone can with just an adaptor to plug in HDMI and a keyboard & mouse, and the Apple fans are always telling me how much better iPhones are at everything…
No thanks! My phone has 12GB; I'm going to be using that for general computing and RDP into my Macbook when I need to.
Apple doesn't want to build a version of dex. I don't know why, it seems like an excellent fit, but they don't care. It probably has to do with the fact Microsoft's attempt has failed miserably.
If you care about this concept, I'd recommend considering buying a Samsung phone instead of an iPhone. Web browsing, office work, remote desktop, terminal stuff, it all Just Works hooked up to a compatible dock. The desktop feels a bit like a polished Linux environment, with deviations from Windows and macOS in the way things like the launcher works, but it also feels very finished.
The only real limit I've run into is the amount of RAM packed with these devices. The 4GiB of RAM my tablet packs clearly isn't enough to run multiple browser tabs, hires video playback and a fully featured MS Office at the same time, but I also imagine most computers would struggle with 4GiB these days. The S23 contains up to 12GiB of RAM, I imagine that'd be a breeze to work with.
I think people who care can use DeX for real office work today. I imagine the people who care are a minority, though.
I'm sure once the headsets hit a certain resolution, this will become much more common.
Focusing on a short distance for a long period of time has been associated with myopia (though I'm not sure if they've established a causal link).
I didn't really answer your question. Sorry. No I'm not aware.
It's a Kinect. It's a head tracker.
I still think conventional large monitors will survive both these new "screen forms" for real work, because the accuracy and amount of information is unbeatable versus an AR/VR set and its not practical to be interacting with a large touch screen.
The only thing that's withholding me is that I prefer to _try_ devices in real life before ordering stuff like this. I've been disappointed far too many times when ordering stuff from the interwebs :)
The only thing that might be missing is a universal means to hang the screen without disturbing the folks sitting in front of you. Sounds like a kickstarter type project :-)
Interesting choice for what seems more like a laptop then a tablet — would have expected that to run ChromeOS or a standard linux distro.
I mean, technically, it's probably possible to connect multiple glasses, but this model seems like it's only one pair per laptop.
the latest inside news on the apple "XR" headset is that the fight was for portability vs beaming the info from a mac mini. that latter of course having much more power and being able to do much more, at the expense of being tethered.
it will be most interesting to see how this plays out. clearly the spacetop is more of a POC build level, but for anyone not Apple it's smart to test the waters this way.
Sounds like the idea of a Kickstarter project, sounds good but doesn't really work
What's odd with this device is that it runs Android. I used Android with a keyboard and a mouse in the past but it was a sub par desktop environment and for $2000 one should make sure to be able to have all files, mail, etc to work on available from Android.
Tbis replaces one problem for another. I'd definitely have to try it out before I'd consider buying something with a pov this small.
Could look like a Sinclair QL, at least.
Stopped reading right there.