Hacker News Reader

Comment by zer00eyz | Hacker News Reader

> I don't understand why this entire field seems so focused on gaming, and not productivity.

Lets look at a similar product that lives on as "productivity", one that did NOT launch with gaming features: google glass.

For most of us, and most companies they aren't going to invest 100's or 1000's of dollars on something unproven. We might do that for "entertainment" purposes but not productivity ones until the tech is proven.

How do you prove out tech? How do you get those consumer grade productivity tools into the hands of end users quickly and efficiently -- lower cost or raise value. There are plenty of folks who gladly spend $1000 on gaming, look at the mobile space and the insane decisions consumers make there.

View on HN

That was google glasses problem though, they didn't focus enough on productivity. It was a gimmick. Instead of handing it out to techies to play with, they should have made one single useful application, like for doctors or architects, and then only rolled it out to them. Instead of "glassholes" you'd have respected professionals who would come to rely on it for work. More and more applications would be added, and eventually people would use it for gaming and entertainment and daily life. Like, for example, cell phones. And the internet. They both started for productivity purposes and became much more.

And anything that increases productivity will always have plenty of money thrown at it. Think about standing desks, for example. My employer is happy to drop $3,000 on a high end laptop so I can be that much more productive.

Wow, you must work in a magical office. I work in Tech Support for a large company that is in the Fortune 1000, and they don't spend that much for tech. The engineers don't get that much either. They give us hand-me-down laptops in tech support, and buy mid level machines for the software engineers. The will spend more if there is need, but that would be the server, not the user laptop.

Gamers will shellout $1000's though for tech that is limited run, so you can then get items to scale for the majority of businesses/end users to purchase.

Also, Google Glass is being used in productivity, the current gen program is being used only in productivity applications. Google Glass was just too new to the market, and with the camera people were worried about being recorded, it needed a LED or a physical closure for the lens to make people comfortable.

Google glass is absolutely pointless and cannot be used for mixed reality. It has a fixed small display that forces you to look at there. Magic leap will allow you to move freely your eyes inside the active field of view.

Apparently Google Glass is seeing growing use in factories.

https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/03/18/51...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com