
Meta2 AR Goggles, preorder at 949$ - pierre
https://www.metavision.com/
======
tdubhro1
I went straight to the video and about 1 minute in I was sure it was some kind
of college humor parody. I guess startups are under a lot of pressure to
conform to type expectations and PR companies will make them look a certain
way in these promo videos, but seriously, it's so extreme now that it's just
laughable. The head of engineering was the only normal person in the video. To
make something like this there must be a core group of hardcore engineers, and
I can't help but imagine them collectively eye-rolling in the face of all the
vice presidents with their perfectly tousled hairstyles and oh-so emphatic
TED-talk styled speech.

~~~
SNvD7vEJ
Exactly.

Also found on their site:

"direct hand interaction with holograms"

"grab and move holograms just like physical objects"

"Holograms"? Really?!

Marketing BS

------
fiveSpeedManual
I used to work at Meta while they were located in Portola Valley.

Meta "applications" are highly customized Unity 3D scenes with a generous
amount of custom GUI elements.

I would take everything in this video with a grain of salt.

Also, Meta has a terrible habit of copying logos. Their old logo was a blatant
copy of MIT's "M" and their latest is eerily similar to Mazda's "M" series
logo

[http://www.miata.net/faq/mfield_files/image004.jpg](http://www.miata.net/faq/mfield_files/image004.jpg)

~~~
Negative1
Indeed about the logo. Is this by direction or just uncreative logo artist?

Saw the 'cribs' thing about them a while ago and I thought the setup it was
interesting but my Wife commented on the 'cult' vibe. What was it like living
and working there?

~~~
trsohmers
Here's the video that he is referring to:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PNgRzHzKUA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PNgRzHzKUA)

I visited Meta (they were trying to recruit me) about 2 weeks after they moved
in there... I won't comment on what I saw there, or my thoughts on Meta, but I
will say I take _all_ augmented reality claims with a huge grain of salt. I
would say that Meron purposefully is trying to form a cult of personality, and
while it may be respected as a Steve Jobs-esque thing in the Valley, it is
personally a turn off for me.

Funny thing is that the Portola Valley property is now rented out to a friend
of mine, which is subleasing it out to tenants... The TechCrunch video really
doesn't do it justice in terms of size, and sadly all but one of the tanks are
gone.
[http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/roo/5464646558.html](http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/roo/5464646558.html)

------
trunnell
Doing the math to compare resolution to the Hololens...

Hololens has "2.5K radiants," where a radiant is a "light point per radian."
[1] A radian is ~57.3 degrees, so 2500/57.3 = _44 pixels per degree._

Meta has a "2560x1440 display with a 90 degree field of view." Horizontally,
that's 2560/90 = _28.4 pixels per degree._

Having used the Hololens for 30 minutes at Build last year, the field of view
was definitely less than 90 degrees. However, the tracking was _perfect,_
there was no lag, and generally speaking the illusion was complete.

Watching the video at the top of metavision.com, it's hard to get a good
impression-- some shots look like they pointed a video camera through the Meta
glasses!? The frame rate is noticeably low and the gestures look like they...
sort of work.

Both headsets' problems seem fixable-- Meta will presumably fix the lag and
gesture accuracy (assuming those weaknesses in the video are real). And
Hololens will presumably get a larger field of view with later hardware revs.
To me it'd be a mistake to dismiss these systems as not being ready. It
probably won't be a long wait.

[1] [https://dev.windows.com/en-
us/holographic/hardware_details](https://dev.windows.com/en-
us/holographic/hardware_details)

------
mattnewport
They make it sound like there's no native SDK, only a Unity SDK. That seems
like a mistake if it's true. Unity it's great for prototyping and for certain
kinds of applications but as a current VR and possibly future AR developer I
want the option of a native SDK, not least for access to other engines like
Unreal.

~~~
hauget
There is an SDK. Unity is just the best way to get started with it right now.
More info will be released later.

------
moron4hire

      90-degree field of view and 2560 x 1440
    

In other words, not a breakthrough in regards to the readability of text. I'm
not saying text will be unreadable. I mean, I do run a project that has a
significant text-editor component in VR, and I do this on the DK2, which is
significantly lower resolution. But I think that also means I'm one of the
most qualified people to say that it's not going to be "like unlimited monitor
space". For the application support they are touting, this is going to be a
bit like the old 800x600 days. Now, we certainly got work done in that time.
And for a variety of reasons, the perceived resolution of text is higher than
the actual resolution in an HMD, but it's maybe only a factor of 2. You're not
going to be replacing your office with this device. We just aren't there yet.
I'm working towards that day, and I think the work needs to be done now to be
prepared for that day. But we aren't there yet.

Given that VR is already pretty taxing on modern, top-of-the-line hardware,
I'm personally waiting until at least the next generation for an AR device.

~~~
softawre
You're both "working towards that day" and "waiting until at least the next
generation"? What does that even mean?

~~~
moron4hire
I think VR devices will be sufficient to build the tools for the "office of
the future". I'm saying skip AR devices and stick to VR devices this gen, as
the added complexity of real-world object recognition is likely too much for
current-gen hardware, when the 3D graphics for VR is already taxing and you
need that for AR, too.

------
spyder
Looks better than HoloLens and props for showing the actual footage trough the
headset and not just some misleading illustration like Microsoft did, but the
tracking needs some improvement because it looks annoyingly laggy and I cannot
imagine using it for anything serious for a longer time.

~~~
adam12
I don't like how everything looks transparent.

~~~
terryf
This, of course, is the biggest problem with AR tech - you can only "add"
light, not "subtract" it - meaning you can only make pixels brighter than they
are, not darker. Essentially this will be unusable in bright daylight. Notice
how all the promo videos are filmed in fairly dark rooms.

------
hauget
does anyone know the HW specs needed to develop and use apps for Meta2?

UPDATE: HW requirements have been posted!

Intel Iris Pro / NVIDIA GT 650M / AMD Radeon HD7970 (recommend NVIDIA GTX 960
/ AMD 280 equivalent or greater) Intel i7-3610MQ equivalent or greater 8 GB
RAM HDMI 1.4 video output 1x USB 3.0 ports Windows 8.1 or newer 64 bit Unity
5+ on Windows (for development, not end users) Intel HD compatible sound card
USB 3.0.

SOURCE: [https://www.metavision.com/faq](https://www.metavision.com/faq)

~~~
strictnein
Good question, I was looking for the same information. Unfortunately their
entire Dev area is behind a login screen and I see no way to register:

[https://www.metavision.com/devcenter](https://www.metavision.com/devcenter)

------
dammitcoetzee
Looks like half their staff is made of vice presidents.
[https://www.metavision.com/join-meta](https://www.metavision.com/join-meta)

Maybe they're running the leanest of lean operations, but given the challenge
of actually making hardware, I'm not certain anyone will see a working version
of this until the second Hololens is out.

~~~
grok2
They have Steve Mann
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann))
-- the original "Google-kinda-glasses" guy -- as a "Chief Scientist"...

~~~
gene-h
So will we finally get the eyetap?

------
amelius
What I'm really looking forward to is a virtual desktop, where I can work on a
tropical beach with a very large high-res monitor in front of me (virtually).

But it seems that the resolution of the current VR goggles is not sufficient
:/ This seems a bit weird given that "retina" displays are already quite
mainstream.

~~~
drcode
The kind of display you're looking for is going to need a pixel count far, far
beyond "retina" displays, given the large field of vision.

~~~
amelius
The high resolution needs to be only at the center of the field of vision.
Outside the center, low res will do fine.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The high resolution needs to be only at the center of the field of vision.
> Outside the center, low res will do fine.

The problem with that idea for goggles is that the "field of vision" doesn't
have a fixed center relative to the display, because eyes can move
independently of the head (and do in normal human interaction with the
environment.)

~~~
drdaeman
Obviously, the device needs to track pupils (well, lens, to be exact), not
head. Sort of what ophthalmic auto-refractometers do, although not exactly
(well, if it'd measure focal length it can solve the issue of lacking true DoF
that modern 3D suffers from, yay!)

(On a slightly unrelated note: Is there any headsets with VRDs with deformable
mirrors that do this? The idea's decades old, but I haven't ever heard about
any devices like that on the market.)

~~~
robotresearcher
And then you'd mechanically move the high-res screens to stay in the fovea?
Eyeballs move _very_ fast. Sounds expensive at best.

~~~
drdaeman
Nah, that's not usable with screens. You surely can't swing a display matrix,
trying to keep up withe eye. :)

But with projector (so-called VRDs, virtual retinal displays) and a deformable
mirrors it's possible. At least this was discussed in theoretical literature,
articles and various patents - I've read about this stuff a bit, some years
ago.

------
monk_e_boy
I thought I was all over VR and AR, how did this one sneak past the press?

------
trsohmers
One interesting thing, Meta is being accused of stealing the designs from
other startup: [http://augmentl.io/ar-manufacturer-meta-being-accused-of-
ste...](http://augmentl.io/ar-manufacturer-meta-being-accused-of-stealing-
designs/)

------
kohanz
I just got approved for a HoloLens dev kit (like everyone else and their dog
who applied) at $3000. This looks like a very similar product for 1/3rd of the
price. I wonder what the differences are.

~~~
subspaceman
The first I can see is that the hololens is self contained (no wires to
computer), where this looks like its tethered to a computer

edit: and the FOV looks way bigger on the meta than the hololens

------
kayoone
I watched a Video interview by Robert Scoble with the Meta CEO and they talked
to a developer who actually used this as a monitor replacement to write code.
Pretty interesting, but i still doubt the resolution is enough to really
replace monitors yet, but the premise is very interesting. From what i
understand their implementation looks similar to an effect called "Pepper's
Ghost" just in a mobile form. I have seen this done using smartphones and some
plexiglass but in a static form.

~~~
ryandamm
Plus object tracking in the real world, and head tracking, so the ghost looks
like it's embedded in space and you can move around it.

Huge difference in how it feels to the user, but yes, pepper's ghost.

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andy_ppp
I loved everything about it until I saw this image and then I literally
laughed out loud. I think the "you look ridiculous" factor is even higher than
VR... Imagine going to a meeting with this on!

[https://d3mzncm6cj8c3y.cloudfront.net/assets/pages/home/side...](https://d3mzncm6cj8c3y.cloudfront.net/assets/pages/home/side6-6fec4768d05497994e522a055db9ac34d8ab1470c3704f8401030a7fca40e705.jpg)

~~~
hauget
It's a prototype for crying out loud. It's not meant to be a consumer device
and it's not being advertised as one. Get off your high horse mate.

~~~
andy_ppp
I'm not on a horse. Their website is extremely glossy and it's version 2
apparently; fair enough if you say it's not a consumer device.

I feel like the looking ridiculous factor is a perfectly reasonable fear to
have and a big reason why I wouldn't buy it. Downvote away but it's a
reasonable stance to take IMO and this clearly suffers from it more than VR.

~~~
roblabla
Development Kit, not "release". This is the second prototype aimed at
developers. And a glossy site doesn't mean the product is released :|.

Besides, while it is a fair point to make, people using cell phones looked
ridiculous back in the days. And yet everyone has a cell phone now. I don't
think the ridiculous-factor will be a major blocker if the benefits of the
device outbalance it.

------
kriro
The interaction with the objects looks interesting and is something I haven't
seen in similar product videos. Good content is obviously key but there should
be some immediate use cases for business settings where you can sell
development of the needed content (consumer, not so sure the content "needs to
be there").

Ships Q3, I'll see if I can convince someone to get at least one for our HCI
labs.

~~~
hauget
There's a TED video being released later today in parallel to the pre-order
launch. That should provide some use cases ;)

~~~
hauget
EDIT: looks like it didn't go up today on TED, but I think it will possibly be
up later during the week.

------
benlower
Cool to see another company in the AR space! However, their videos that say
"actual footage" make the holograms look jumpy and the worry is that could
lead to fatigue or nausea. Has anyone tried one of these?

------
monk_e_boy
Wow, it sure looks nerdy. I hope version 2 (or 3? Is meta 2 version 2?) is a
bit more discrete. It must be bigger than a crash helmet!

~~~
BinaryIdiot
They're calling it a development version...what else would you expect but
something you can prototype on?

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snomad
Does anyone have a good comparison chart of Oculus, Vive, Hololens, and Meta?
Looking for SDK and hardware comparisons.

------
kronholm
Is this the same company that was at [http://meta.io](http://meta.io) ?

~~~
michaelbuckbee
No, Meta Vision is a YC startup doing the headsets you see on their site.
Metaio was doing AR for phones and things (and I think were bought by Apple).

------
geniium
Who's behind these?

~~~
pierre
Meta (YC S13)

------
tdhz77
I read AR googles... I was so excited. But once again, Meta is awesome too.

------
orliesaurus
Came in thinking I read Google, left disappointed.

------
dovdov
As I see these headsets, I have a feeling that these should have been the tech
of the '90s.

As they were, actually.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuality_(gaming)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuality_\(gaming\))

~~~
moron4hire

      each contain two LCD screens at resolutions of 276x372 each
    

Yup, that's exactly the same thing.

