Hacker News Reader

Comment by sz4kerto | Hacker News Reader

Key feature: see-through glasses. The eye strain was a major problem with Google Glass, that's not present here.

Yes, and Oculus Rift is now less relevant as well (good timing for selling it to Facebook). Why buy a dedicated heavy wired non-see-throw helmet? To shit yourself when someone is tapping your shoulder?

To get fully immersed in another world. For example, playing games or watching a movie. I go to an IMAX theatre because it engulfs my senses, audio all around me, most of my field of view watching the screen. If the screen were translucent it simply wouldn't be the same.

This will no doubt have some incredible applications, most of which augment reality. Not quite the same goal as Occulus.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't Microsoft just release (or ship this product with) a sort of blinder to put around these glasses to make the dedicated sight come from the glasses themselves while darkening everything else?

Certainly possible. It'll be interesting to see how feasible it is for these goggles to render entire 3d worlds in this scenario, since normally they'd be rendering a small fraction of the space you're in.

If the speculation about creating opaque holograms is correct, you can just use a virtual blinder as well - a black hologram that obscures or creates a virtual stage.

That is an awesome hack that basically allows really low cost immediate context switching.

Or just turn out the lights.

Exactly. MSFT and Oculus are not at all targeting the same thing. The comparison is natural, but ill-fitting.

I bought an oculus and am excited by VR because teleportation IS FREAKING AWESOME. AR is cool, but a far cry from the sense of presence that we talk all day about in VR land.

I don't think Oculus wants to the the IMAX of virtual experiences.

There will still be room for full VR and its applications with a mature AR device like HoloLens.

This thing is AR, Oculus Rift is VR. Oculus' vision is Star Trek's holodeck.

Seems to me this is about adding onto reality rather than replacing it entirely.

Although they can easily replace it entirely. See the Mars Rover demo in the article, I believe it said that the entire image was replaced with Mars, and it was realistic enough that his legs weren't believing what they were stepping on.

well you could add motion sensing and a camera on the device to help with that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com