Certainly there is the question of whether the tech is there yet. There have been some very significant advances in things like processor miniaturization, optics, and batteries that have been developed for our more and more capable phones and all of this will apply to AR glasses too. It might not be enough quite yet. It might take something like the Solid State Battery to hit the mass market, which could take another decade, before these goggles are viable – I’m not disputing that.
I think a bigger issue is the optics. It’s really hard to project good resolution images in a pair of glasses. If you want things to appear at different distances you also run into some of the same issues as with VR and have to worry about VR-sickness even if you do it well. And AR has a challenge VR does not in creating enough contrast.
I don’t think the kind of “does everything” AR glasses of SF will ever rely on built in batteries. If you want them on you and on all the time they’re going to be tethered to a brain on your belt. Now that also means you don’t have to worry about the size of the processor and other electronics, but the optics will still be a challenge.
For the foreseeable future AR “glasses” are going to be fairly large things used in quite specialized settings.
The other thing to think about is that Apple is (rumored to be) putting one out. It’s been quite a while since Apple put out a new product that flopped. Generally, when something isn’t good enough, they don’t release it. So if they really do ship some AR glasses, that makes me a lot more confident that they’re actually good.
We are certainly already seeing more and more applications for this tech in military, industry, etc. Soldiers and pilots who wear helmets with visors are having more and more info displayed on an internal HUD display.
Part of the consideration is also whether the computer that’s running the AR can actually process and deliver usable information to you. Machine learning is huge here. Things like object recognition (which is necessary if you want your HUD to highlight enemy targets or important spots to check on a manufactured part for quality control) are far more advanced now than they were in the past.
Object recognition is already being built into some manufacturing tools.
So now, when a robot arm goes to grab an object, instead of going to a predetermined destination where the robot arm thinks the object is going to be, the robot arm actually looks to “see” where the object actually is.
Which is great when it comes to humans working side by side with AI, which is likely where we are headed. The idea that you can do your job while standing within reach of the giant robot arm assembling a car, with the confidence that even if you screw up and stand in the wrong place, the arm isn’t gonna grab you or whack you on the head – that’s crucial as we move forwards into a world where man and machine work side by side.
My glasses are bluetoothed to my phone and it does all of the thinking. I think the AR glasses would do the same. I know there are lots of HUDs that are built into visors so I assume something similar could work for glasses. I guess the real issue would be trying to make it look like the projection is in the real world for a true AR experience.
Your glasses only transmit signals and audio. If you were transmitting video, both ways, that would be much more data, requiring more energy. Displaying the video signal also requires a lot of energy, so you’re going to be tethered to a battery pack, and then you might was well transmit the signal along the same tether.
I’ve used bluetooth to broadcast from my phone to my tv too and that works fine so I don’t think that visuals are the problem. It will impact battery life on your phone but it works just fine.
I agree that batteries are the issue but they are getting lighter and more powerful every day. I would bet that it’s probably reasonable to get an hour of battery life today using the same technology in my glasses but for practical application I would think that 4 hours would be the minimum. It would be possible to roll something out today but there is going to need to be new technology to make this work without your tether.
Usually in this scenario aren’t you essentially sending the signal to the TV to pull the same streaming source using its own internal computer and internet access, rather than truly coming from your phone? Or do you mean screen mirroring?
I don’t think a processor on the glasses is the limiting factor. Power is a more serious concern – if solid state batteries take off that could be a solution, but even with more gradual improvement we will probably get there eventually.
Not that a tether would be the end of the world. If the glasses are sufficiently functional I don’t think people would be opposed to carrying a phone sized battery brick in their pocket, either charging the glasses when needed or keeping them plugged in.
I’m not certain of the details. I meant screen mirroring primarily for playing youtube videos on my phone and showing them to a group. From what I can tell it just takes the screen from the phone and reproduces it on the television. That seems pretty analogous to what we’re talking about with AR.
Personally, wouldn’t want a teather. When I had to wear a microphone all day I always hated the cord from the mic to the battery/broadcast pack it always seems to get bound up or constrain my movement. Charging more often is certainly an option and my glasses can fully charge in less than an hour to give me that 3 hour charge. Of course the problem with mid day charging is then you have to maintain a backup pair of glasses for when the AR are down.
I’m also generally not certain how many non-glasses people would add glasses just for this functionality so until it becomes more popular with the glasses set I’m not sure it will go mainstream.
This might work as an AR solution, but I expect the limitations are going to be too severe. Bluetooth has limited bandwidth, and images images right in front of your eyes have to be very high resolution to look good. We’re a lot more forgiving of compression artifacts watching a youtube video at TV-distance than we are with something 1cm away that’s supposed to magically interpose itself into the real world.
And Bluetooth has to compete for bandwidth with all the other Bluetooth connections out there. It’s probably bad news if your glasses start to go all blocky when you stand next to someone else wearing glasses.
Huh?
Exact opposite for me. I can turn up my speakers as loud as I want, or wear headphones. In person meetings with more than a few people used to suck because you always get someone that mumbles.
One of my coworkers that I work closest with was horrible and would mumble something over the cube wall. Now we IM. Not only am I better able to understand, I have a record of it.
Certainly, where you’re able to do more communication over text, that’s helpful. At my company at least, we have weekly meetings with our whole team and/or department during which between a dozen and a hundred people all get on one call; some of our employees have had issues hearing properly when this occurred.
You don’t hang around many teenagers, do you? Because we’re already at the point where you can do all of those things without ever taking your phone out of your pocket. Teens nowadays deal with that by never putting their phones in their pocket. It’s always in their hand, no matter what they’re doing. The “killer tech” is a knob that glues to the back of your phone to make it easier to hold.
Yeah, 100 people seems ridiculous to me. My team of 5 meets bi-monthly, and we have the entire team of 16 also meet bi-monthly. The larger meeting is the boss boss reporting what he has been told, and then “Any questions, concerns?” after each segment.
I just phone in on all of these meetings since my satellite latency makes live video troublesome. I did the last meeting from my car since I would have otherwise have missed the meeting.
? What’s this knob thing.
I the guy that still uses a belt holster. Can’t imagine stuffing the phone in the pocket of my jeans.
Amazon results for “cell phone knobs”. Some have a ring that can be angled, some are collapsible. The possibilities are endless. Personally I still prioritize easily fitting the phone in my pocket, but I have to admit I’m quite a ways away from being a teenager.
I used to get the smallest/lightest phones available (< 50 grams); haven’t gone shopping recently, but a 4G Nokia 3310 is still under 90 grams. The thing about a (relatively) huge screen is that you can just dump it in your purse, but I always figured there were still some design constraints respected so people could still stuff the phone into their extra-tight jeans if they wanted. Apparently not any more?
The whole driver for the new folding phone-as-mini-tablet is to get the screen size up while still having some hope of stuffing the darn thing in the pockets of pants.