It's there, but not there.

To the largest part of the market(where the most money is moved,) the idea that Microsoft will make any headway with Hololens is speculative.

I expect we'd hear this if we asked them about it: "We've heard something about it, and saw something once, and... show me. Until then I have paying customers who want to get into UBER."

Microsoft hasn't really made any efforts to move it into the mass market yet.

If you go to their store and look up devices, it's not even listed. (VR and virtual reality are listed) but then you end up on the splash screen below... where Hololens will appear...second -- after Facebook's Oculus Rift. 

Hololens is there, but not really there. If you're going out of your way to find it, you can find it. If you just wait for it to jump in front of you... it's not going to happen. 

In spite of all of the glowing reviews - amazing results and demonstrations - and the huge Military contract for the device, the most popular video about it on YouTube is about.... Minecraft. (Has less than 5 million views... ) The amazing demonstrations of it in use improving productivity are way down the list. (They don't need YouTube to get the word out to people who will employ it that way.)

The idea that Microvision is in the Hololens is secondary speculation. Which in my view both painful and awesome.

We do not have definitive proof that MicroVision's tech is in the Hololens, but there's enough evidence that it could win the court case, and the appeals.

Meanwhile, there are 1.7 billion shares of UBER, trading at $33. It has a market cap of 57 Billion, and loses $3 per share. --- but it's popular, and people like to throw their money into it.

Given the behavior of Microsoft around Hololens.... when they do their media blitz they will get it a lot of attention... and the part of the market where the most money is moved will notice.

Microsoft Virtual Reality

3D Computing will be a GIGANTIC leap forward

Since human beings first started recording data to share they could work only in two dimensions... that's true until now, but that's changing.

We added audio and video, which helped of course, but even video is two dimensional. We can fake it, but it's not that useful, and you still need to be anchored to a chair to use it -- sort of. (With smartphones and tablet computers,  you can abandon the chair, and get your video or other data wherever you happen to be. PicoP display only can feature here.)

The Clay Tablet with Cuniform and the iPad, are the same in that they are two-dimensional.

The clay tablet was a huge leap forward from having to speak or demonstrate information in person at all times. That concept became much more user friendly as materials improved: first to papyrus, then paper. Then duplication improved -- scribes, the printing press, huge improvements on the printing press over centuries, then we started using electronics and duplication could happen millions of times instantly.

So, what happens now?

Doing is going to get easier. Learning is going to get a lot easier. A new teaching tool will make it possible to make people much more effective -- smarter and more capable. Which will improve life significantly for most people.

Information and entertainment could be layered everywhere.

The difference between 2D doing stuff and 3D doing stuff? I've been trying to figure out how to relay that effectively for a while now. Mostly because there aren't many good examples depicting what 3D computing will actually look like.

Auto fuel and hydraulic systems... 

If you work on cars now, you have to have developed some skills at reading schematics.. and you must have the experience of finding what is referenced on the schematic and finding it in reality... it's a significant skill set.  You get pictures like the above... that's it.

What it's depicting looks like this in reality. (Now take the picture below and put it in motion -- zooming in and out -- superimposed on the actual vehicle AS you work on it.) What was very difficult before becomes an order of magnitude easier.



That's going to be the difference.

I can't wait to learn languages with Hololens. Imagine being able to walk around and have an immensely patient teacher telling you what everything is in a foreign language all day long. What used to take years will take a month or two.

Tech companies know that this is going to be huge, and all the big tech companies are getting involved..... selling shovels to gold miners.

Teaching and learning

Magic Leap, Facebook, Google, Microsoft...

The whole article is interesting. It tells me that Microsoft is really ahead of the curve with display, and some of their competitors really don't know that they are yet.

Reminding me of how Apple had developers working on content that will work with glasses (while working for iPhones and iPads.)

The article teases "When" but doesn't do a good job of answering it... although there are two very important take-aways:

THE FUTURE OF COMPUTERS IS SPATIAL

The people and companies above, and others like them, will have to listen closely to successfully navigate the technological shift over the next decade.

Everything that is on a flat screen is second to something that is in 3D --- Give it 20 years and kids will look at flat screens like a lot of us look at black and white televisions or rotary phones.

And, this is a process that is going to involve numerous upgrade cycles over a decade or more, this is all just beginning. Like tube televisions or LCD screens, I think the laser near eye display is going to be the best solution for a decade or more... 


Fast Company

What we really want to know is what we always want to know: How soon? When will the “Magicverse,” as Magic Leap calls it, be as accessible as picking up a svelte pair of XR glasses from my night table and putting them on?

A better question is how quickly the technology is moving toward a more refined experience, and what challenges remain. To find out, I asked experts from various companies that will play big roles in the developing XR ecosystem. (Some responses have been lightly edited for clarity.)

****

It’s about all those digital layers working together and providing you information. And that information could be a bus route. Or if you’re an engineer it could be about understanding what the sewage system looks like underneath the city. These functional layers are almost like radio stations in a way. You can tune into the transportation layer, which might say here’s where all the buses are, here’s where all the Ubers are, here’s where all the trains are, here’s where all the flying Ubers are!

“But then you might tune into the entertainment one. There will be dozens, hundreds, thousands of the entertainment ones alone. (LAYERS) You know we love to be entertained as humans. So you could tune into the Game of Thrones channel and you’re walking down the Embarcadero and there’s a dragon flying and you’re seeing it and I’m seeing it and we’re interacting with it and we’re having this shared experience. You think of Pokémon Go, but much more realistic and much more engaging because now you’re able to see in three dimensions that character happening. That’s what we mean when we talk about ‘the Magicverse.’ It’s all about serving that digital content.”

“[Customers] did tell us a number of things we could improve on with the HoloLens 2, and the ones we chose to concentrate on were immersion, comfort, and usefulness out of the box.

“Looking forward we will continue to invest in those same three categories. What you’ll see in the next version is even more immersiveness, more comfort, and more applications that have more value. It’s relatively easy to do any one of those things but it’s hard to do all three.

“You can make it more immersive by including more powerful displays, but that’s going to make the device bigger, heavier, hotter, and have a shorter battery life. You can make it more comfortable by making it weigh less, but then you give up computing power. So it’s relatively easy to do any one of those things–the challenge is achieving advancements in all three areas. 

FOR FACEBOOK, AR/VR’S KILLER APP IS TOGETHERNESS

Facebook is thought to have some of the best computer vision and spatial computing talent in the industry working on social experiences in VR (like Spaces), and on AR experiences for smartphone apps like Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook. Facebook’s first consumer product, the Portal home speaker/camera, offers some AR experiences–expect the company to add more in the future. The company owns Oculus, which develops VR headsets, but it’s likely exploring options for releasing more of its own AR hardware products in the future.

*****

It’ll be consumers that decide these things over time. The people and companies above, and others like them, will have to listen closely to successfully navigate the technological shift over the next decade.

Facebook -- Enterprise AR

I'm pretty sure all of the AR systems (careful word choice --'system') created will be display agnostic. Different companies will build various systems of software, sensors, content, and input. They will then use the best of whatever accessories will be available in the market.

The leaders now are each going to try to become the standard, to become at the start the most accepted version will be huge. Some other player may well appear and work to compete with Microsoft on price -- or on content. As we have seen many times in the past, those players who have chosen the right content concentration may beat a superior technology.

There will be room for multiple players in the field -- some may produce entertainment over education, or consumer over enterprise.... eventually I suspect it will be like Apple vs Android or Mac vs PC. A couple of strong contenders -- but there are a lot of them now.


The payoff for whichever company dominates in this field is going to be HUGE. It will be bigger than dominating the personal computing surge in the 1980's.

Selling the best near eye display (and having the best sensors) will be like selling shovels to gold miners.


Facebook is in the race for "enterprise AR" and they have a significant presence in Redmond. Their existence in Redmond Washington is an "open secret."

They don't advertise their presence at all. A couple of years ago I was given a heads-up about their facility there and I stopped at it. Not only were the buildings unmarked -- just normal looking office buildings.... but there was no indication on any person or any vehicle what was there. (No Facebook Stickers, Logos, Shirts, no labeled visitor spot.. nothing of the kind.)

I took a couple of pictures.

A couple of hours later, my phone asked me if I wanted to label the pictures I took at Oculus.

Facebook is growing at a rapidly in Redmond.


Mashable

Facebook wants to sell more virtual reality headsets to businesses.

The company is working on an "enterprise edition" of its Oculus Go and Oculus Quest headsets, according to a new job posting that was first discovered by Variety.

The job listing is for a software engineer position on Oculus' AR/VR Enterprise team. Though light on specifics, it says enterprise editions of its headsets will launch in 2019.

"Starting with VR, we are building an Oculus Go and Oculus Quest Enterprise edition expected to launch in 2019," the description says.

Facebook has previously dabbled in this space. The company has offered Oculus Business, Rift bundles meant to appeal to businesses, since 2017. But a dedicated enterprise version of its hardware would be a significant expansion for Oculus. The job description suggests Facebook is working on partnerships with "enterprise-developer ecosystems" and other software platforms in order to create business-specific features.

Zuckerberg's AR vision

Oculus is right down the Street from MicroVision.

It's in an unmarked building. (I found the building, took a picture of it, and ironically, my phone asked if I wanted to publish the photo taken at Oculus.)

They are planning to put more facilities there.

Not sure if everything is connected, but it is a very interesting coincidence.
This was before Oculus Moved to Redmond  (or as they started)

Kid needs a ride, haven't been able to look at all of this yet.

Seeing as this is from 2015, I expect that some of this vision has changed.

2015 06 22 MARK'S VISION by on Scribd

Augmented Reality Improves your world

Virtual reality is cool, but it isolates you. Augmented reality improves your world.




NYMag.com   (Thanks Joe D!)


Put another way, VR increasingly seems like the original Nintendo — an amazing combination of hardware and software that fundamentally changed how many people spent their freetime. But AR, with its ability to be both ubiquitous and useful, seems more and more like the smartphone, a combination of hardware and software that changed how we lived.

VR used for training is saving lives and money.

It's been a ridiculously busy couple of weeks....

It looks like Hololens will get an announcement at MWC. 

...and Hololens... Augmented reality is going to be much more useful than VR, will make training better, and improve human performance in obvious and measurable ways. 

I think it will take people out of their phones and put them back with each other -- and make them better at doing actual things.

It will also have unintended negative consequences -- and positive outcome.

thx Joe.

(Things should be fairly calm around here for a couple of weeks.)

Fast forward to about 4:00 for good stuff about Hololens, but the whole video is worth your time.



Virtual reality training by companies like Microsoft is saving lives, millions of dollars, and ensuring the future of mixed reality from CNBC.


CNBC -- Use of AR & VR for industry and business

Now, VR is widely used to train employees at major companies like Walmart and Chevron. At Tyson Foods, VR safety training reduced injuries and illnesses by 20 percent.


It's also saving these companies millions of dollars, and bringing profits back to creators of VR headsets and software.

Ready Player One....UPDATED

“What’s really astounding to me is a lot of the guys at Oculus VR and other companies who were creating VR tell me that Ready Player One is one of their primary inspirations in getting into virtual reality,” Cline says. “I’ve been to Oculus a few times to do book signings and things there and they tell me Ready Player One is like required reading for new employees.

Opens Wednesday March 28....

Fortune

From Ready Player One:

"The wireless one-size-fits-all OASIS visor was slightly larger than a pair of sunglasses. It used harmless low-powered lasers to draw the stunningly real environment of the OASIS right onto the wearer's retinas, completely immersing their entire field of vision in the online world. The visor was light-years ahead of the clunky virtual-reality reality goggles available prior to that time...."

Facebook AR Hub
Oculus Careers




Microvision Retinal Scanning Display

Patents

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2018/03/apples-in-depth-work-on-a-next-gen-mixed-reality-headset-is-simply-mind-boggling-in-scope.html#more

Excerpts: Apple's invention relates to a mixed reality system that may include a mixed reality device such as a headset, helmet, goggles, or glasses (referred to herein as a head-mounted display (HMD)) that includes a projector mechanism for projecting or displaying frames including left and right images to a user's eyes to thus provide 3D virtual views to the user.

The 3D virtual views may include views of the user's environment augmented with virtual content (e.g., virtual objects, virtual tags, etc.).

The mixed reality system may include world-facing sensors that collect information about the user's environment (e.g., video, depth information, lighting information, etc.), and user-facing sensors that collect information about the user (e.g., the user's expressions, eye movement, hand gestures, etc.).

In some embodiments, the world sensors may include one or more "video see through" cameras (e.g., RGB (visible light) cameras) that capture high-quality views of the user's environment that may be used to provide the user with a virtual view of their real environment.

In some embodiments, the world sensors may include one or more world mapping sensors (e.g., infrared (IR) cameras with an IR illumination source, or Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) emitters and receivers/detectors) that, for example, capture depth or range information for the user's environment. In some embodiments, the world sensors may include one or more "head pose" sensors (e.g., IR or RGB cameras) that may capture information about the user's position, orientation, and motion in the environment; this information may, for example, be used to augment information collected by an inertial-measurement unit (IMU) of the HMD.

The HMD may implement any of various types of virtual reality projection technologies such as a near-eye VR system that projects left and right images on screens in front of the user's eyes that are viewed by a subject, such as DLP (digital light processing), LCD (liquid crystal display) and LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) technology VR systems.

As another example, the HMD may be a direct retinal projector system that scans left and right images, pixel by pixel, to the subject's eyes. To scan the images, left and right projectors generate beams that are directed to left and right reflective components (e.g., ellipsoid mirrors) located in front of the user's eyes; the reflective components reflect the beams to the user's eyes.

Thanks R!

Interesting Language....

Interesting language used here... 


Oculus.com Careers

The Laser Safety Lead partners with Oculus Research, Oculus and User Study teams to establish safe operating procedures for hardware, manufactured systems, and research study protocols for various test conditions and prototype devices across multiple locations. This position will serve as safety representative for protocol design changes involving radiation in research studies including providing expert review of changes relating to hardware devices, software functions, and testing environment. Use of lasers and LEDs are vital in the development of Augmented and Virtual Reality and this role will play a key part in ensuring the safety of research teams. This role serves as laser and radiation safety officer. The ideal candidate collaborates with many research teams, lab managers, legal and site operations in a fast-paced environment to provide sound input to improve the safety of our researchers and study participants.

Magic Leap Releasing AR goggles "Early next year"

There are a lot of players in this space. -- multiple technologies WILL be used.

This is a "development edition." 

• may or may not have whatever the final technology is included
• probably not the final "look"
• the concept and the tech are in early stages, so expect changes

There are going to be a lot of both triumphs and setbacks in AR.

AR has shown that it can make really fun games, and huge increases in productivity, so it WILL end up both on the market and successful (In my humble opinion.)

Africom

One Creator EditionMagic Leap's aiming the One Creator Edition of its goggles at early adopters and creators. Unlike its competitors like Facebook's Oculus Rift or Samsung's Gear VR, Magic Leap will use a proprietary wearable technology that enables users to interact with digital devices in a completely visually cinematic way.

The headset tracks eye movements, voice and hand gestures to help a user place virtual objects in real-life settings.

Alert reader on Yahoo Message board found this article. Interesting and looks like Microvision's fingerprints to me.

From EEtimes

Today Valve Corp. (Bellevue, Wash.) has a VR headset that is "10 generations ahead anything available today", according to McCauley, by using more accurate head tracking by replacing the camera Oculus uses with a rotating motor driven line-laser. The line laser is essentially a gigantic laser housing a motor spinning a curved mirror mounted on the wall across from the user, that scans across head mounted IR detectors to determine how far away the head is by measuring the time between IR sensor intercepts.

At McCauley Labs they will replace the bulky moving laser mechanism, with a MEMS mirror and a line-laser (or alternatively a 2-axis MEMS mirror and a point laser to raster scan in the manner of a one-mirror pico projector) to perform the same kind of head location geometry and calculation as the Valve System, but micro-miniaturized.

The system will also turn off the backlight for imperceptible periods between frames, to prevent the blurring that otherwise contributes to simulator sickness, making the result VR experience as real as reality itself, or so McCauley claims.