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Comment by hesdeadjim | Hacker News Reader

I have never understood the obsession with AR glasses being a replacement for a phone or them becoming some critical lifestyle product.

I wear regular glasses and I can’t fucking stand it. They can be broken, scratched, lost, their prescription outdated, and expensive. Oh and if you want to see outside in the sun you need prescription sunglasses too, and maybe some prescription goggles if you ski... The only thing I dislike more than glasses is contacts.

So I’m to expect that somehow I’ll want to dump my phone for an even more inconvenient device?

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An always on eyeglass computer means advertisements can be shown to the user even if they haven't reached into their pocket and are actively staring at their phone. Think about how much more attention per day that is now available to monetized.

This is short sighted. There are companies (Apple) working on headsets that don’t make their revenue from ads but from hardware and software.

The value add of a headset is it replaces every other screen in your life and will hopefully, one day, be much more convenient than any other the other screens were.

That is short sighted, the short term will be about providing consumer surplus to build a customer base but the eventual reality will be what current always connected computing is.

A HUD with natural hand-gesture interface would be very nice and the revoluation of next level of digitilization and UI. Being able to analysis thing infront me brings so much values.

Also, replaces monitors, no more expensive setups just to get half-decent workstation.

Gosh, I sound like salesmen but I really wish this to be true.

Some major use cases would be real time (and discreet) language translation, maps displayed directly on the world, and holographic video calling.

Real time and discreet language translation is a killer feature IMO. It could overlay native text on foreign text (think signs, menus, etc.) and also display native language text in real time as someone speaks in a foreign language. In a perfect world it would be like cyberpunk 2077 where it also locates the speaker in space and places the text next to their head / audio source.

And without a major revolution in battery technology, it'll never be possible without it also being clunky.

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