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Comment by bake | Hacker News Reader

If it works, Magic Leap will mark an entirely new era in machine-human interface. It could eliminate the need for screens, keyboards, and even other input devices like light switches and thermostats by turning any surface into a tactile interface. Why actually attach a piece of hardware to the wall when I can just render it there whenever I look in that direction? Why carry along a physical keyboard when I can just 'project' one on any desktop at hand?.

There's also an interesting health & wellness aspect to this -- could this be a way to free people working digitally from sitting at desks in front of screens all day?

This is, in my opinion, the most exciting technology in the popular press right now.

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A lot of old technologies tend to hang on within a niche that they are optimal within. We still have radio, cinema, and telephones even when each of those technologies has a better more modern equivalent. I don't doubt that AR will find a niche but I doubt it will be replacing 10$ keyboards or 50c dials on thermostats. It is fantastic that Magic Leap has moved beyond the horribly mundane "helping people find a restraunt in San Fransisco" model that Glass seemed to adopt. Fantasy AR overlays sound ridiculosly addictive as it would allow contsant enveloping escapism.

I'm not sure if Fantasy AR overlays are really all that compelling. Unless they make significant progress in AI as well, most likely those will be entirely predictable and boring after a while. Although who knows maybe there are enough people around who want to have a virtual pet dragon. Most of the real world outside is entirely unsuitable as a canvas for any kind of interesting movie like experience. Traditional movie story telling artfully uses both cuts in time and transitions in space to tell a compelling story, neither of which is readily available.

> There's also an interesting health & wellness aspect to this -- could this be a way to free people working digitally from sitting at desks in front of screens all day?

Probably to the extent technology has freed people from commuting to the office every day. This is more a matter of culture than of technology alone. If we don't make a push to fix broken habits and change detrimental work culture these things will never really change.

> There's also an interesting health & wellness aspect to this -- could this be a way to free people working digitally from sitting at desks in front of screens all day?

I dreamed of a future where I could have magic leap contact lenses while hiking in the mountains. My brain being quite active when walking or running, that would be an awesome way to do productive and/or creative work.

Rendering a keyboard on a desktop would suck to write on though.

Any worse than on a touch screen?

Yes, because on a touch screen the keyboard is on the screen where you're looking anyway. I would never in my life use a projected keyboard on my desktop/laptop. Touch typing and tactile feedback.

I wonder if anyone has done work on some kind of chorded keyboard input just from touching fingers to your thumb - that could be done with some kind of sensor gloves and seems a pretty natural motion.

Might be quite tricky to learn though!

Edit: I see that Magic Leap are working on sensor gloves.

Why carry a keyboard? So you can touch type. You would have to be looking at the simulated keyboard to use it with this technology.

Good point, but some touch typing does happen with the keyboard in the field of vision, just not as the focal point -- when typing on a laptop and looking at the screen, for instance.

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