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VR/AR
AR Glasses Could Replace Smartphones but When?
January 10, 2020
As we have been reporting, a number leading technologists across multiple industries predict that within a decade people will access the functionality of their smartphones through lightweight AR glasses rather than screens. Having spent 10 years investing in extended reality (XR) technologies — VR and AR — Qualcomm currently provides chips for virtually every VR and AR device on the market. Right now, the key impetus for consumer AR hardware is Qualcomm’s XR Viewer program, which posits that the first round of viable consumer AR glasses won’t be standalone, but will instead get most of their horsepower from USB-C-tethered Android smartphones with Snapdragon 855 or newer chips inside.
The de facto flagship for this program is Nreal Light, a pair of lightweight AR glasses that use multiple cameras, spatial tracking, and 1080p screens to augment your view of the real world with bright digital content. Nreal has already made deals with China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, and Japan’s KDDI/Au to distribute the $500 glasses next year, in some cases with carrier-specific Android apps that will make use of both high-speed networks and the new AR technology. One demo showed the glasses enabling a wearer to get computer repair instructions — including live, persistent annotations from a remote person — while looking at the hardware in person. Another let wearers fight off realistic zombie attacks while using a phone as a position- and gesture-sensing controller. Nreal’s glasses aren’t perfect, but they have a better chance of giving mainstream users a taste of future wearable AR technology soon than anything else I’m currently aware of. In some markets, I wouldn’t be surprised to see people wearing the sunglasses-styled Light in public, something that would have been harder to say about earlier alternatives.
Qualcomm’s XR Viewer program is open to multiple companies, and there have been vague hints that Nreal won’t be the only vendor of Android-compatible glasses next year, but the identities and specs of rivals probably won’t be known until CES in January, if not later. As just one example, Pokémon Go creator Niantic has announced that it’s working on AR hardware in partnership with Qualcomm, but the details and release timeline aren’t clear. Pokémon Go remains the AR industry’s biggest success story — a roughly $3 billion juggernaut — though there’s still a question of whether it truly qualifies as AR. Ditto on all the other tablet and smartphone apps that are augmenting … well, reality as it’s seen through a device’s camera and screen. Millions of people use Snapchat’s AR filters to change their faces or transform the looks of buildings, and who’s to say those are less worthwhile uses of AR technology than navigation or living in a “magicverse.” These apps are baby steps towards true AR, and they’re necessary prerequisites to establishing what people will and won’t actually be doing with dedicated AR hardware. Throughout 2020, handfuls of apps for early consumer AR wearables like Nreal’s, and plenty more apps that are used through smartphones and tablets will be introduced. Developers will begin experimenting with adding wearable support to existing AR apps where appropriate, and cellular companies pushing more AR collaborations that will show off their 5G networks — a trend exemplified by Snapchat and Verizon in the United States, while European, Japanese, and South Korean carriers pursue similar deals overseas. Qualcomm, Apple, and other companies involved in smartphone-based AR solutions will be wrestling with which wireless technologies to use instead of cables — probably in 2021 and 2022. The leading contenders are 802.11ay Wi-Fi and 5G. Current chip and display technologies aren’t capable of squeezing an entire smartphone’s worth of processing and screen power into the frames of a lightweight pair of glasses. For that reason, Magic Leap offloaded most of its computing into a large wearable puck, Microsoft placed its computer inside a gigantic visor, and other companies are using smartphones physically connected with USB-C cables to lighter glasses. The problem is that the cables will be conspicuous and may in some cases limit the range of movement. Prior-generation Wi-Fi and cellular standards don’t have enough bandwidth to feed low-latency, high frame rate XR displays — at least, not good ones. So the latest standards, including Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), 60GHz Wi-Fi (802.11ay), and mid- or high-band 5G (3.5GHz or millimeter wave) will in the future connect AR glasses wirelessly to nearby smartphones, computers, or direct networks armed with edge cloud computers.
It’s unlikely actual consumer wireless AR hardware will appear in 2020, but it’s possible that early demos will pop up.
In the nearly four years since the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive hit retail shelves, VR has gone from being the most exciting new computing medium around -- something that could be as transformational as the internet itself -- to a niche accessory for gamers with too much money. New headsets have come and gone, cheap mobile VR was briefly popular (before going extinct) and standalone virtual reality devices have finally arrived. It'd be wrong to say there's been no progress in the world of VR, but it still feels as if we're waiting for it to truly take off as a medium. Looking ahead to 2020, though, there are signs that things could shape up. Valve's upcoming Half-Life: Alyx is exactly the sort of VR exclusive that could push gamers to pick up a headset. There's already an uproar among Half-Life fans about the game being available only in VR, with no way to play it on a traditional monitor. Clearly, Valve is leaving money on the table by doing that, but it's also a sign that it's dedicated to the new medium. And if it's a success, Half-Life: Alyx will also prove to other developers that it's worth taking a risk on V. It's hard not to feel as if the virtual-reality market is losing steam. When the Rift and Vive arrived in 2016, they ended up being overshadowed by AR, namely Microsoft's HoloLens and Pokémon Go. Fast-forward to 2017, and Oculus was already talking about a world beyond VR headsets, where AR goggles could also block out the real world to deliver similarly focused immersive experiences. VR headsets are, for the most part, still very expensive and require additional expensive hardware, like a gaming PC or a PlayStation 4. The Oculus Quest, though, is a glimmer of hope. As a standalone VR headset, it doesn't need any extra hardware. And since all of its sensors are built in, no additional equipment or a dedicated VR room is needed. While the Quest was clearly the most exciting VR device of 2019 (the $1,000 Valve Index is only meant for hardcore enthusiasts), it's already looking like a killer product for 2020. Oculus Link, which is currently available as a beta feature, where the Quest is used as a standard PC VR headset. Oculus is also testing out hand tracking, which adds an entirely new level of immersion to the Quest. Up until now, that was a feature that required an additional accessory strapped to a VR headset. The Rift S doesn't cut it – doesn’t push boundaries with features like eye tracking and improved haptics. The Quest's 72Hz refresh rate is also lower than PC headsets, so there's clearly a need for a smoother and more powerful alternative from demanding gamers. Next year comes the next generation of game consoles, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, which is another major opportunity for virtual reality. They both feature significantly faster hardware than the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One -- so much so that they're on-par with powerful gaming PCs today -- with support for new capabilities like ray tracing. Although the PlayStation VR was running on aging PS4 hardware, Sony confirmed that its headset will work with the PS5, and after selling over 3.2 million PS VR units, Microsoft, meanwhile, has gone on the record saying VR isn't a focus for the Xbox Series X. Speaking to Stevivor, Microsoft's Xbox head, Phil Spencer, noted that virtual reality isn't the sort of experience its users expect.
Fortune Business Insights predicts VR will grow steadily to $120.5 billion by 2026, up from $7.5 billion in 2018 -- much of that revenue from commercial uses of VR. HoloLens is proving to be very successful for enterprise customers, and that's also Magic Leap's next target. There's still a chance consumers could simply get tired of waiting for developers and manufacturers to get VR right. Virtual reality, as a concept, has been in the works since the 1970s. The '90s saw a wave of companies like Virtuality giving consumers a glimpse at the technology. Sega even developed a VR headset of its own, though it gave up on plans for home sales, instead leaving it to languish in arcades. After decades of false starts, it makes sense that VR might be a hard sell for typical consumers today. Here's the hard truth: Ultimately, VR headsets are just a stepping stone until AR glasses offer the ideal mixed reality experience. From: engadget
AR Glasses Could Replace Smartphones but When?
January 10, 2020
As we have been reporting, a number leading technologists across multiple industries predict that within a decade people will access the functionality of their smartphones through lightweight AR glasses rather than screens. Having spent 10 years investing in extended reality (XR) technologies — VR and AR — Qualcomm currently provides chips for virtually every VR and AR device on the market. Right now, the key impetus for consumer AR hardware is Qualcomm’s XR Viewer program, which posits that the first round of viable consumer AR glasses won’t be standalone, but will instead get most of their horsepower from USB-C-tethered Android smartphones with Snapdragon 855 or newer chips inside.
The de facto flagship for this program is Nreal Light, a pair of lightweight AR glasses that use multiple cameras, spatial tracking, and 1080p screens to augment your view of the real world with bright digital content. Nreal has already made deals with China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, and Japan’s KDDI/Au to distribute the $500 glasses next year, in some cases with carrier-specific Android apps that will make use of both high-speed networks and the new AR technology. One demo showed the glasses enabling a wearer to get computer repair instructions — including live, persistent annotations from a remote person — while looking at the hardware in person. Another let wearers fight off realistic zombie attacks while using a phone as a position- and gesture-sensing controller. Nreal’s glasses aren’t perfect, but they have a better chance of giving mainstream users a taste of future wearable AR technology soon than anything else I’m currently aware of. In some markets, I wouldn’t be surprised to see people wearing the sunglasses-styled Light in public, something that would have been harder to say about earlier alternatives.
Qualcomm’s XR Viewer program is open to multiple companies, and there have been vague hints that Nreal won’t be the only vendor of Android-compatible glasses next year, but the identities and specs of rivals probably won’t be known until CES in January, if not later. As just one example, Pokémon Go creator Niantic has announced that it’s working on AR hardware in partnership with Qualcomm, but the details and release timeline aren’t clear. Pokémon Go remains the AR industry’s biggest success story — a roughly $3 billion juggernaut — though there’s still a question of whether it truly qualifies as AR. Ditto on all the other tablet and smartphone apps that are augmenting … well, reality as it’s seen through a device’s camera and screen. Millions of people use Snapchat’s AR filters to change their faces or transform the looks of buildings, and who’s to say those are less worthwhile uses of AR technology than navigation or living in a “magicverse.” These apps are baby steps towards true AR, and they’re necessary prerequisites to establishing what people will and won’t actually be doing with dedicated AR hardware. Throughout 2020, handfuls of apps for early consumer AR wearables like Nreal’s, and plenty more apps that are used through smartphones and tablets will be introduced. Developers will begin experimenting with adding wearable support to existing AR apps where appropriate, and cellular companies pushing more AR collaborations that will show off their 5G networks — a trend exemplified by Snapchat and Verizon in the United States, while European, Japanese, and South Korean carriers pursue similar deals overseas. Qualcomm, Apple, and other companies involved in smartphone-based AR solutions will be wrestling with which wireless technologies to use instead of cables — probably in 2021 and 2022. The leading contenders are 802.11ay Wi-Fi and 5G. Current chip and display technologies aren’t capable of squeezing an entire smartphone’s worth of processing and screen power into the frames of a lightweight pair of glasses. For that reason, Magic Leap offloaded most of its computing into a large wearable puck, Microsoft placed its computer inside a gigantic visor, and other companies are using smartphones physically connected with USB-C cables to lighter glasses. The problem is that the cables will be conspicuous and may in some cases limit the range of movement. Prior-generation Wi-Fi and cellular standards don’t have enough bandwidth to feed low-latency, high frame rate XR displays — at least, not good ones. So the latest standards, including Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), 60GHz Wi-Fi (802.11ay), and mid- or high-band 5G (3.5GHz or millimeter wave) will in the future connect AR glasses wirelessly to nearby smartphones, computers, or direct networks armed with edge cloud computers.
It’s unlikely actual consumer wireless AR hardware will appear in 2020, but it’s possible that early demos will pop up.
In the nearly four years since the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive hit retail shelves, VR has gone from being the most exciting new computing medium around -- something that could be as transformational as the internet itself -- to a niche accessory for gamers with too much money. New headsets have come and gone, cheap mobile VR was briefly popular (before going extinct) and standalone virtual reality devices have finally arrived. It'd be wrong to say there's been no progress in the world of VR, but it still feels as if we're waiting for it to truly take off as a medium. Looking ahead to 2020, though, there are signs that things could shape up. Valve's upcoming Half-Life: Alyx is exactly the sort of VR exclusive that could push gamers to pick up a headset. There's already an uproar among Half-Life fans about the game being available only in VR, with no way to play it on a traditional monitor. Clearly, Valve is leaving money on the table by doing that, but it's also a sign that it's dedicated to the new medium. And if it's a success, Half-Life: Alyx will also prove to other developers that it's worth taking a risk on V. It's hard not to feel as if the virtual-reality market is losing steam. When the Rift and Vive arrived in 2016, they ended up being overshadowed by AR, namely Microsoft's HoloLens and Pokémon Go. Fast-forward to 2017, and Oculus was already talking about a world beyond VR headsets, where AR goggles could also block out the real world to deliver similarly focused immersive experiences. VR headsets are, for the most part, still very expensive and require additional expensive hardware, like a gaming PC or a PlayStation 4. The Oculus Quest, though, is a glimmer of hope. As a standalone VR headset, it doesn't need any extra hardware. And since all of its sensors are built in, no additional equipment or a dedicated VR room is needed. While the Quest was clearly the most exciting VR device of 2019 (the $1,000 Valve Index is only meant for hardcore enthusiasts), it's already looking like a killer product for 2020. Oculus Link, which is currently available as a beta feature, where the Quest is used as a standard PC VR headset. Oculus is also testing out hand tracking, which adds an entirely new level of immersion to the Quest. Up until now, that was a feature that required an additional accessory strapped to a VR headset. The Rift S doesn't cut it – doesn’t push boundaries with features like eye tracking and improved haptics. The Quest's 72Hz refresh rate is also lower than PC headsets, so there's clearly a need for a smoother and more powerful alternative from demanding gamers. Next year comes the next generation of game consoles, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, which is another major opportunity for virtual reality. They both feature significantly faster hardware than the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One -- so much so that they're on-par with powerful gaming PCs today -- with support for new capabilities like ray tracing. Although the PlayStation VR was running on aging PS4 hardware, Sony confirmed that its headset will work with the PS5, and after selling over 3.2 million PS VR units, Microsoft, meanwhile, has gone on the record saying VR isn't a focus for the Xbox Series X. Speaking to Stevivor, Microsoft's Xbox head, Phil Spencer, noted that virtual reality isn't the sort of experience its users expect.
Fortune Business Insights predicts VR will grow steadily to $120.5 billion by 2026, up from $7.5 billion in 2018 -- much of that revenue from commercial uses of VR. HoloLens is proving to be very successful for enterprise customers, and that's also Magic Leap's next target. There's still a chance consumers could simply get tired of waiting for developers and manufacturers to get VR right. Virtual reality, as a concept, has been in the works since the 1970s. The '90s saw a wave of companies like Virtuality giving consumers a glimpse at the technology. Sega even developed a VR headset of its own, though it gave up on plans for home sales, instead leaving it to languish in arcades. After decades of false starts, it makes sense that VR might be a hard sell for typical consumers today. Here's the hard truth: Ultimately, VR headsets are just a stepping stone until AR glasses offer the ideal mixed reality experience. From: engadget
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