[moron4hire]

What's really crazy about that video--while it's technically possible to make something mostly like that with current hardware[0]-- is that, if you have any experience with AR at all, you know that most of those UIs would be terrible to use.

[0] The FOV is accurate, given we're looking through a narrow camera lens, but gives the wrong impression that it fills what the user could see because it fills the video frame. The graphics wouldn't be "solid", they'd be transparent, but a pre-setup room can definitely do occlusion effects with foreground furniture. The physical gun controllers could be done, though nobody would fork out the money for it. And all the hand gestures and UI pinning stuff could be done, though the software support on Magic Leap does not help you in the least.

[gonehome]

Yeah - even the fake demo use case isn't that compelling to me.

This is the kind of thing that I think the real AR value will be from: https://twitter.com/st8rmi/status/1249950879807045633?s=21

Basically a meta-layer for the real world that you can interact with outside of a screen. This would let you do things like interact with a lightswitch from across the room by looking at it, get metadata about most object states by looking at it, anchor big displays to white walls, etc.

I think there's huge potential for this kind of interface, but I suspect the hardware isn't possible yet.

[moron4hire]

The hardware can do this, it's just that you can't get any funding for anything interesting. You're basically stuck with hobby apps and marketing demos developed via consultoware. The hobbiests can't afford the tech or the lack of reach and the consultoware shops have exactly zero imagination (I know, I worked at one).

I personally define VR vs AR as "who provides the context in which we are working? The app (VR), or the user (AR)". A lot of extant "AR" apps don't do anything particularly interesting with your surrounding environment.

If your AR app needs me to clear out a space in my livingroom to give you room to drop some 3D models that maybe bounce off my walls, you've not actually made an AR app, you've just made a crappy VR app instead. Facebook could release an update to the Quest any day now that auto-scans your room to set the boundary and then you'd have exactly the same experience in an occluded headset, but with twice the FOV and better input.

[istorical]

FB actually already working on this for their VR/AR:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNppUJzsvXQ&ab_channel=Oculu...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbRvARuCoRU&ab_channel=Oculu...

[bsanr2]

This is the thing that gets me. There are plenty of people who would be willing to design around existing constraints, just because they think the tech is cool and they want to see what they can do with it.

But the cost of entry is mid-4-figures, between the hardware itself and the required development equipment. It's obvious that the people making the hardware and platform aren't a wide-enough cross-section of the public to create what business interests or consumers don't know that they want yet. They're shooting themselves in the foot, trying to maintain control over the platform.

[samatman]

My guess at the killer app for AR is airplane maintenance.

Imagine a physical checklist where areas get highlighted, arrows to direct you to the next step, and a little red icon that goes green when you're done.

I think this could shave real time (maybe a third?) off airframe downtime while keeping the very high accuracy requirement. That would save actual money.

[moron4hire]

This already exists

[samatman]

Cool!

Is there anything I could read about that? I'm taking your word for it, I would just find that interesting.

Or do you mean "this already exists but isn't in AR goggles"? Because I can see where my phrasing was unclear, I mean this mounted in an AR HUD.

[moron4hire]

https://upskill.io/resources/blog/aircraft-maintenance-breez...

https://defensesystems.com/articles/2018/06/21/af-augmented-...

https://atheerair.com/ar-mro/

I personally also worked on similar systems for industrial factory equipment repair.