I think it's safe to say we won't be seeing truly immersive VR any time soon either. At least any that doesn't make you want to blow chunks, or has a compelling and broad raisondetre.
It's interesting to me since I've followed VR/AR for 40 years myself, and what I can say is if you look at the money and hype that have surrounded HMD's (especially in the last couple of years), the technology is still just not there, and neither are the applications.
That said, a lot of very bright people are doing very cool things with technology in the name of VR/AR. That can only be a good thing.
> won't be seeing truly immersive VR any time soon either.
Have you demoed VR on a PC, or at least PSVR? I've heard this far too often from people who have only seen a phone HMD, which are complete and utter crap (apart from the mobility aspects - which has recently been solved for Vive).
"If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong." - Arthur C. Clarke
The Magic Leap is rumoured to be able to create pure black:
"Such may be used to cancel light from the planar waveguides with respect to light from the background or real world, in some respects similar to noise canceling headphones." http://gpuofthebrain.com/blog/2016/7/22/how-magic-leap-will-...
Realize, that site is pure speculation and nothing has been shown or demonstrated by ML or otherwise that can "display black."
In theory it's possible to build a standing wave on the retina, but to do it with pixel precision with a vrd/fsd is beyond difficult compounded worse by form factor.
I disagree with the article that rendering black is necessary for wide consumer adoption of AR.
Since SciFi in relation to AR is mentioned I though a recent episode of Black Mirror I watched was pretty interesting ("Men Against Fire", S3E5). I won't spoil it but the general idea was pretty interesting/food for though with regards to uses of AR.
This episode was really depressing. I am glad that this show highlights potential abuses of technology to the extent highlighted in this episode as this was not something I even considered.
Reading this article, it seems like we should be on the cusp of realizing this technology. Does anyone know if this will be hitting the mainstream in the next couple of years?
But we've seen "soft" AR and it appears to be fairly popular - Pokemon Go and Ingress. If you ask players of either of those games, if they would like a "harder" - i guess this means more immersive - experience while playing these games, they'll bite your hand off.
There's also father.io, which looks pretty fun, but I haven't tested that out yet.
For me, in my uneducated almost ignorant understanding of the situation, AR has a massive advantage over VR in that it tends to not make you quite as motion sick.
But every player of Pokémon Go that really tries to play the game not just for 30 minutes disables the AR camera first to save battery and because it doesn't add value. People using Pokémon Go with the AR cam enabled are young kids (it's funny) and Asian tourists snapping photos with Pokémon in front of landmarks and tourist spots.
I second your remark on motion sickness. And VR cuts the user/player from the real world, which is a social annoyance outside your own living room.
VR also doesn't tend to make the vast majority of people "quite motion sick". Instances of simsickness are widely over blown and overeported.
We've run thousands of VR demos, both in the road and at our dedicated "arcade" space in DC. Not one person has reported anything more than mild discomfort, and that had been a rare minority.
Simsickness is anti-VR FUD. I don't know why, but there is a small cohort of AR advocates and VR detractors who would be gleeful to see the demise of VR.
The requirements for "Hard AR" are the same as those for "good VR" becasue it needs to use video so we need e.g. exact eye-driven focusing and super low latency.
I'm still having a hard time understanding why adding a black pixel doesn't work. I understand 0x008000 + 0x000000 = 0x008000. But if I were to add a drop of black paint to a drop of green paint it would surely change the color. So not sure where that analogy breaks down.
make it small enough, process fast enough, and know every light source in the frame are engineering problems... ok so why is drawing black not? seems like a total engineering problem to me, one very easily solved by having lcd embedded in the display, or e-ink, or well the host of things we've already done to solve this problem. https://www.amazon.com/Hanslin-LCD-Transparent-Alarm-Clock/d...
Not really. At least not in the simple way of having an LCD screen somewhere near the eye blocking out light from an object in a certain direction by interposing a black pixel. It seems like it should work, but it would be exactly like putting some paint on a camera lens and expecting it to block out that exact part of the picture; it won't - the lens will simply get dimmer, or if the area of paint is large, there would be darkening - vignetting - of a part of the image, with a diffuse boundary; but nothing like a sharp mask.
You can easily convince yourself that this won't work for an eye. Of course, you can use your finger to block out any object - as long as you hold your finger well away from your eye. Now take a match, and try to block out objects by holding it a centimeter in front of your eye; it doesn't work - you will see a diffuse slightly darkened area, but all objects will be visible.
There's a section about that further down, it argues the issue then is focusing on a screen 1" from your eye and the real world at the same time isn't possible.
[+] [-] socmag|9 years ago|reply
It's interesting to me since I've followed VR/AR for 40 years myself, and what I can say is if you look at the money and hype that have surrounded HMD's (especially in the last couple of years), the technology is still just not there, and neither are the applications.
That said, a lot of very bright people are doing very cool things with technology in the name of VR/AR. That can only be a good thing.
So keep at it...
Nice article, thanks for resurfacing it.
[+] [-] zamalek|9 years ago|reply
Have you demoed VR on a PC, or at least PSVR? I've heard this far too often from people who have only seen a phone HMD, which are complete and utter crap (apart from the mobility aspects - which has recently been solved for Vive).
[+] [-] illumin8|9 years ago|reply
Please, keep this in mind... ;-)
[+] [-] staticelf|9 years ago|reply
A statement like that is so subjective. What is "truly immersive"?
I believe it is soon here, at least from my definition of truly immersive.
[+] [-] Findeton|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simon-am|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kimburgess|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AndrewKemendo|9 years ago|reply
In theory it's possible to build a standing wave on the retina, but to do it with pixel precision with a vrd/fsd is beyond difficult compounded worse by form factor.
I disagree with the article that rendering black is necessary for wide consumer adoption of AR.
[+] [-] kriro|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iLoch|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rajangdavis|9 years ago|reply
Reading this article, it seems like we should be on the cusp of realizing this technology. Does anyone know if this will be hitting the mainstream in the next couple of years?
[+] [-] AndrewKemendo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rb1|9 years ago|reply
There's also father.io, which looks pretty fun, but I haven't tested that out yet.
For me, in my uneducated almost ignorant understanding of the situation, AR has a massive advantage over VR in that it tends to not make you quite as motion sick.
[+] [-] mstolpm|9 years ago|reply
I second your remark on motion sickness. And VR cuts the user/player from the real world, which is a social annoyance outside your own living room.
[+] [-] moron4hire|9 years ago|reply
We've run thousands of VR demos, both in the road and at our dedicated "arcade" space in DC. Not one person has reported anything more than mild discomfort, and that had been a rare minority.
Simsickness is anti-VR FUD. I don't know why, but there is a small cohort of AR advocates and VR detractors who would be gleeful to see the demise of VR.
[+] [-] alkonaut|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nartam11|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] juliangoldsmith|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zznneezznnee|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abritinthebay|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leecarraher|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcoffland|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yaakov34|9 years ago|reply
You can easily convince yourself that this won't work for an eye. Of course, you can use your finger to block out any object - as long as you hold your finger well away from your eye. Now take a match, and try to block out objects by holding it a centimeter in front of your eye; it doesn't work - you will see a diffuse slightly darkened area, but all objects will be visible.
[+] [-] lucaspiller|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] provemewrong|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chridal|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gman83|9 years ago|reply