[gernb]

I'm somewhat skeptical though I'm sure I'll be proven wrong.

In my mind, AR glasses will make the world as shitty as most clickbait webpages. Ads EEEEEEVVVVEEERRRYYYWWWWHHHEEERRRREEE. Notifications all the time. Virtual billboards trying to grab your attention.

I can't think of the obvious use cases, except for virtual monitors, that are all that compelling.

Map navigation? Ok, well, it's not that bad now in non-VR

Info on people in your view? Maybe, but if think protecting your privacy is bad now you'll need much less of it for that to actually work.

Virtual pets running around your room? Seems 15 minutes of wow and then done. Plus the hard part of designing them to interact with your environment vs a pre-designed environment.

Games? Same problem as above, they have to adapt to the actual world vs current games where designers can design and build levels and worlds. So 1 or 2 Pokemon Go type of games and then you'll go back to playing PS6 or VR.

Porn? Same problem. The 3D video won't match your sofa, chair, living room, bed.

Virtual UI? People are already complaining that screens in cars are not as good as knobs. do I really want to have to put on my glasses to adjust my knobless stove?

All that said, I'd probably have made similar arguments against smartphones and been just as wrong :P

[germinalphrase]

“The 3D video won't match your sofa, chair, living room, bed.”

If AR can’t solve this, then you won’t have to worry. It’s a fundamental function.

[gernb]

how would it?

example: in the video an actor is sitting in a chair, youre in a room with no chairs. What does it show?

example: theyre in an open 20x20 foot room, no furniture, your in a 10x10 foot room on your bed. When they walk across their room you'd seen them first walk througb your bed and then walk through your wall

etc...

[germinalphrase]

AR is all about location based augmentations.

If I’m in a room with no chairs, there would be no chairs unless one is added visually.

They wouldn’t walk through my bed because they aren’t in my room.

[gernb]

You have that backward

> If I’m in a room with no chairs, there would be no chairs unless one is added visually. > They wouldn’t walk through my bed because they aren’t in my room.

If you're sitting on your bed with your AR googles there is a bed in your room. If they are standing in their room they'll be standing or sitting through your bed. They have no concept of where your bed is because your bed doesn't exist in their room.

Tons of AR demos try to show this feature. Tons of companies are working on it. Most believe it's a mass market feature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d59O6cfaM0

https://youtu.be/uVEALvpoiMQ?t=55

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG3tQYlZ6JQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd2GK0qDtRg

But it's unlikely to work because each person's surroundings don't match every other persons. One's at a desk, One's at a cafe, One's in their bed, One's on their soft. They aren't each positioned in a way they can all appear in each others AR.

Maybe this will make it clearer. Imagine you're on your bed laying down. You want to AR video conference with your friend. They're in the bathroom. Where does their AR project your body? Your body is laying down. There's no place to project your body in the bathroom that fits you lying down.

[germinalphrase]

Right. I kind of think we are talking past each other.

The scenario you’re imagining won’t be an issue because I don’t think AR will allow my “AR presence” to go anywhere that my body is not. AR is about augmented my experience of the reality my body is experiencing, not experiencing ‘realities’ in other locations.

To whatever extent that intentional restriction breaks down, we will have to accept that non-bodily presences cannot fully understand and interact with the environment (and will likely engage with animations to do so).

For your specific bedroom/bathroom scenario, I would choose simple talking heads (floating in space) akin to current expectations for a video chat. There wouldn’t be an attempt to match the speakers to each others environment by default, but if you wanted to do so, yes - one of the speakers would probably need to match their body position such that it can match the environment on the receivers end (so the person laying down would need to stand).

Generically, I think AR will be restricted to the local environment of my body, and anything related to my digital presence traveling to a location different than where my body is found will operate under VR rules (which will be understood as a distinct set of rules/affordances/expectation than AR). We will avoid many problems by not mixing the paradigms.