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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

That sounds utterly unappealing. If I'm in a coffeeshop I have zero reason to want to cut off from the outside world. Otherwise I wouldn't be in a coffeeshop. Most of the reason I'd work in a coffeeshop is for an ambient social vibe. And for many things I do a 13" laptop screen is fine. (And I probably wouldn't feel comfortable being utterly cut off from the environment in an urban space.)

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You should look into how the Hololens is able to display floating windows. You're not cut off any more than the physically equivalent monitor would obscure.

A full face headset would probably give off a socially isolating presence, at least today, though.

The obvious use case is on an airplane (or bus or train).

I definitely do not want a person flailing hands in their VR world, while sitting near me on an airplane/bus/whatever.

Hmmm... so even at 8K per lens, the floating display(s) is(are) how much of that 8K?

So we're back to VGA resolution on your "virtual display".

Yeah, no thanks.

The FOV of these devices is something like 100 degrees. There's not a lot of wasted space. Who knows what this theoretical Apple device is like though.

The FOV of AR headsets like Hololens is very far from 100°.

If the FoV is less then it drives home that the pixel per degree is even higher!

This is a closed face VR headset with presumably more traditional screens and lenses and unlike a Hololens or MagicLeap. The device sounds closer to VR headsets like the Vive and Quest, which are mostly around 90-110 degrees.

This is described as a joint AR/VR device. I don’t expect we’d be totally cut off, probably more like an overlay of computery stuff while still being able to see the real world behind it. Sort of like a virtual screen.

Correct, it sounds like they are getting the AR using a 'passthrough' mode stitched together from the multiple cameras and some sensor fusion to give you an eye-level perspective live video feed they can manipulate with all manner of neat effects.

Wearing an HMD is always going to disconnect your attention from where you are and teleport it to someplace not shared by those around you, there is no way around that and it's not a bug either. AR just makes that separation a little fuzzier.

The real challenge, is going to be some way to not look like a dork while using it in public. If I had to have faith in anyone to design something that could square that circle it would be Apple (and maybe Sony). But it's a tall order.

Of course, inputs are weird too. Would it need to come with a pocketable keyboard or something?

It might be better with AR, where you still get the ambiance but with virtual monitors.

I have no idea how that works with AR overlaying monitors on a physical worldview. So you're writing something overlaid on the view around the coffeeshop? The idea of AR is more to give a HUD that provides information about what you're looking at.

AR is commonly used to insert solid objects into the real world. See Pokemon Go and most HoloLens games. And the HoloLens app where a virtual dog lives in your house.

HoloLens is not able to render opaque objects. They always have some level of translucency, and the darker the colour of the object, the more translucent it is.

So moving your head a lot? You would look like a giant weirdo, right?

People 50 years ago would have said that about people who aimlessly slide their thumb up and down a glass screen on a device the size of a deck of cards.

50 years ago people were busy staring at slices of dead trees while experiencing detailed hallucinations.

(I still say that)

Pretty sure the giant headset is a dead giveaway. But just like airpod stems, it'll be a status symbol if Apple deems it so.

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