Google is putting "screen that overlays with your vision constantly", as a real thing that you can actually have, further into the public consciousness than it has ever been before. They even have a real shot at making it popular.
Without that initial step, it's hard to see any practical path to AR actually becoming a reality.
Nothing new by default, but its opening up a lot of hardware potential. Its not just a screen and camera that's at eye level, its also setting new social norms that make that acceptable. Even now, Glass isn't far from Bluetooth levels of socially okay, which is say annoying to most but acceptable. Once it reaches that point, I expect AR to be a focal point of development. It only makes sense.
A simple street view overlay + wikipedia filter would be basic AR, and that doesn't seem difficult at all. Google could monetize with virtual window ads that businesses would buy for glass+streetview users.
For me it was worth reading the whole post to understand that your idea of "forseeable future", and Abrash's idea of "a while" are really different from mine:
> Eventually we’ll get to SF-quality hard AR, but it’ll take a while. I’d be surprised if it was sooner than five years, and it could easily be more than ten before it makes it into consumer products.
A simple street view overlay + wikipedia filter would be basic AR, and that doesn't seem difficult at all.
It would be extremely difficult. It would use a lot of processing power to examine the camera input and attempt to extrapolate positioning for overlayed elements. I'm not sure Glass has that power.
>It would use a lot of processing power to examine the camera input and attempt to extrapolate positioning for overlayed elements.
What camera input? Why go all in such a roundabout way, processing the image to determine the location?
What he proposes just needs the GPS/compass (if Google Glass has one, else it's trivial to add one). You get relevant wikipedia articles for your location (including the direction you're looking) using Glass's GPS, and the screen displays them.
Nope. GPS isn't anywhere near accurate enough for that- believe me, I've tried. It's usually accurate to a few meters, which is fine for an overhead map, but would be horribly jarring when used for AR.
For what? I remind you that we're talking about a Wikipedia filter. Wikipedia entries are so coarse grained with respect to position that you don't even need GPS-level accuracy. (Not to mention it can correct itself with the help of the built-in maps, e.g assume you walk in the sidewalk and not 4 meters across inside the buildings etc).
"That place is the Brooklyn Bridge, that thing down the road is the Katz delicatessen, further down is CBGB, stuff like that".
Where's the need for "more than a few meters accuracy"? If it can show me info of the nearby stuff (5-10-20 meters away) on my Glasses, it's perfectly good.
It doesn't have to super-impose it when I look at the specific building (that would be stupid anyway, cause it would necessitate me to keep looking straight at the building to see the info).
I would argue that it is. I have AR apps on my phone which I never use because the startup requirements (pull phone out, turn on, unlock, start app, wait for GPS and fiddle about a bit with inaccurate accelerometer) are too high.
Reducing that requirement by having it on your face is a fantastic first step. We have no idea whether the next Glass iteration will be stereoscopic, or cover your field of vision or what. It's that market preparation I am excited to see.
>The Oculus Rift certainly won't be worn all the time.
Of course not, but "always on" is not a very useful feature for VR. It's an incredibly useful feature for AR. Oculus Rift is not a good candidate in any way for an AR platform, since camera pass through to VR is not an acceptable replacement for seeing the world with your actual eyes.
Without that initial step, it's hard to see any practical path to AR actually becoming a reality.