Yeah, it’s the use case. Qualcomm had smartphones in the 80s, General Magic had the smartphone in the 90s, but it took more than another decade to actually combine phone and browser into the right form factor and fast enough mobile connection and a world wide web to make it work.

For AR there were moments too. Niantic with global positioning, 5G with fast mobile internet, but that was not enough.

Input method isn’t clear yet (Apple may have solved it with gaze-pinch), form factor not consumer market ready. Actual use case that is worth the price point? Nah

The largest differentiator to other devices by Apple really is the always-on cameras and the idea that you can/should use the device with always-on cameras in public. Otherwise Meta/Oculus have already done just as much as Apple has done here. Apple’s entry into the market just heats up the discussion around the “Metaverse” again.

I work in the space myself and wearing a VIO system on your head can really give you a lot of health and personality information. The device sees your iris and can identify you. It can analyze your gait and with some “AI magic” even notice and detect movements of your extremities outside the visual field of its cameras.

Devices like these can also be helpful in the medical space though: Not just for diagnosing diseases in the brain or of the eyes, but also help with therapy of patients by augmenting reality with virtual content that can help. One classic one is Parkinson’s patients who can walk again normally with some virtual visual guides on the floor.

Clearly that’s not the main goal of Apple, and obviously not of Meta, but it’s not all bad if used correctly. A privacy first approach is definitely necessary. And it’s not completely true that M$ doesn’t give a damn. With their Hololens they did for instance introduce a privacy preserving mapping and localization system. Nevertheless Apple has a good privacy track record compared to other tech companies.

With the amount of verbiage and ex-employees they’ve taken over from Magic Leap it’s not far fetched they were looking into a see-through device as you describe.

For sure. I wonder if it’s even worth it or just look creepy to look at a pair of two eyes deep in the uncanny valley.

It’s half a kilo strapped to the front of your head. There’s lighter products out there right now that can do similar things. I don’t see this first iteration as anything revolutionary.

Definitely not a fad. It’s used all over the industry. It gives you a lot more control over the environment where your hosted apps run. There may be some overhead, but it’s worth it.

Am I the only one old enough to remember that no 3D GTA ever released on PC first? This should have been expected.

This games gives weird feelings. I remember being completely stuck with an early “puzzle” and kind of frustrated with the game as a whole… and then it hit me like an asteroid. It’s been a while since my heart raced that fast when playing a video game.

The coming replaceable battery will be another big step towards repairability.

It’s gotta be this one. Marketing works partially with the subconscious and association. They want you to get a fuzzy feeling when you see their logo or a product of theirs in a (web) store. If you don’t get a fuzzy feeling, but you are reminded of the vile fascist shit you read while you saw their ad, you will avoid buying their product, even if you can’t quite put the finger on it.

Practically you would have to separate model architecture from weights. Weights are licensed as research use only, while the architecture is the actual scientific contribution. Maybe some instructions on best train the model.

Only problem is that you can’t really prove if someone just retrained research weights or trained from scratch using randomized weights. Also certain alterations to the architecture are possible, so only the “headless” models are used.

I think there’s some research into detecting retraining, but I can imagine it’s not fool proof.