
Tesla hires HoloLens designer from Microsoft augmented reality program - oska
https://electrek.co/2016/11/24/tesla-augmented-reality-hololens-designer-microsoft/
======
elihu
> But nonetheless, Tesla has been rumored to be working on an augmented
> reality system in the form of a heads-up display for the Model 3. Tesla CEO
> Elon Musk has been referring to the interior controls of the vehicle as
> “spaceship-like” and the prototypes unveiled earlier this year didn’t
> feature any instrument cluster.

That's reassuring. One of the things about the model 3 that bothered me was
that there was only one display between the driver and passenger. It seemed
very weird to have to look way off to the side to read the instruments. If
they can add a heads-up display, that's a great improvement. If they can make
the focal distance appear to be past the windshield, that's even better. (I've
heard that it takes our eyes longer to refocus from far to near and back than
it takes to physically move our eyes down and up when we glance at the
dashboard.)

I expect another eventual step in the evolution of the automobile to come with
the introduction of head-mounted displays so that the driver can "see through"
the car without obstruction. Windows could be made smaller or go away entirely
to make the car stronger and more survivable in an impact, and perhaps cheaper
as well.

~~~
lloeki
> so that the driver can "see through" the car without obstruction.

I'd rather have the driver "see through" the environment than the car,
resembling something I long wished cars would have something to the effect of
this HUD[0] from GR:AW, where the road boundaries would be delimited and
highlighted, the car projected trajectory and braking/safety distance markers,
as well as other vehicles and pedestrians being pinpointed, or even outlined
through fog/night/objects. Obviously, nav waypoints and path-to-take trail
too, and why not an indicator not too dissimilar to Forza's braking lines
helper[0] that goes red when you're going too fast.

[0]:
[http://www.gamesxtreme.com/content/media/screenshots/13/01/1...](http://www.gamesxtreme.com/content/media/screenshots/13/01/1301/6.jpg)

[1]:
[https://shinynewcartridge.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/forza_...](https://shinynewcartridge.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/forza_horizon_2_xbox_one_07.jpg)

~~~
monk_e_boy
I think by the time that technology is available to the driver, you may as
well add the final 10% (the AI) which just drives the car for you.

~~~
lloeki
I'm wary of the last 10% that end up taking 90% of the time ;-)

------
ArmandGrillet
I hope this means that we will have new posts on Andrew's blog (Minimally
Minimal). Microsoft asked him to remove nearly all of his new posts related to
design thus some of his last articles (e.g. about the Xbox One S) have been
online only for a week or so.

~~~
bardworx
It's been wild following Andrew for so long. What's really interesting about
him is that his blog gained recognition quite early and he was already
featured on HN[0] before graduating college. Watching his growth has been
fascinating as readers of his blog "grew up" with him.

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5085915](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5085915)

------
xarball
I need to play devil's advocate here -- and hoping everyone will stop and
think about this in a more practical way for a minute. This has less to do
with VR/AR, and more to do with pre-existing overlap:

o What if Tesla is interested in improving sensory accuracy for its self-
driving vehicle program?

o What if Tesla is interested in Hololens' pixel greying on transparent
surfaces?

This seems like the most viable use of this kind of tech in a car. In an
extreme case I could see something like head/eye tracking on the windshield,
though that isn't in any way guaranteed or even necessarily practically
useful.

Improving external sensor accuracy, or even pixel shading on transparent
surfaces, however, is probably a FAR bigger overlap between Hololens and
Telsa, than anything for augmented reality. Hololens has immense requirements
for sensory precision and pixel blacking, and I could see why Tesla would look
to an industry expert to carry over any useful architectural guidance for
that.

~~~
monk_e_boy
My guess is two things:

1\. Factory. Highly customised cars will require a very flexible workforce.
Much easier to do by equipping each worker with a hololens

2\. Inside the car - turn all the flat surfaces into displays. No headmounting
glasses needed. In a driverless car those big windows are ideal for projecting
things onto.

------
AndrewKemendo
Certainly interesting, especially as ODG partnered with BMW to bring AR to the
Mini about a year ago [1] which appears to have not really gotten much
commercial success. I could go into why but that's a broader conversation
about AR interfaces today.

We also demoed a "see in your driveway" low poly Tesla long ago [2] which is
better used for consumers to evaluate before purchase.

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfvLpyHDAx4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfvLpyHDAx4)

2\. [https://youtu.be/9kavmNwOeF0](https://youtu.be/9kavmNwOeF0)

------
Animats
Musk's businesses may be spread too thin. The Solar City merger was iffy;
that's a bet Solar City can beat China on solar panel price.

Tesla needs to get their production line for the Model 3 going. They need to
develop self-driving that works in the real world. The Gigafactory battery
factory, which right now just has the battery assembly line moved from
Fremont, needs to be finished.

Space-X needs to get their launch rate up so they can stop losing business to
other launch providers. They need to finish the man-rated Falcon 9 and Dragon
capsule. They also need to get the Falcon Heavy, which has slipped from 2014
to 2017, to first launch. There's also the Texas launch facility, which has
slipped.

Musk has a lot of expansion underway, and most of it is behind schedule. Not a
good time to go off in search of the next cool thing.

~~~
mrep
You forgot to mention the 4400 satellite internet constellation he is
planning.

Now i do get the sense that his businesses are spread a little too thin, but
most of his businesses are pack leaders in what they are doing. He definitely
sets overly optimistic goals but that happens when you are developing new
technologies that no-one has done before.

~~~
Animats
He's definitely pushing the technology on a lot of fronts. It would help if at
least one of the businesses was a cash cow. But none of them are, yet. Space-X
ought to be - they're the lowest cost launch provider. But they're having
trouble building and launching enough Falcon 9 rockets to bring in the money.

------
kriro
As someone who doesn't own a car anymore I was fairly shocked recently at some
of the stuff that you find in current BMWs. They do have a HUD-like navigation
that's a windshield layover for example. I know they do quite a bit of HCI
research. I'll be curious to see how many Tesla employees will pop up at CHI
next time around. I think there's some interesting research to be done
automotive AR...especially if there's an automated driving component.

------
micaksica
Everyone here is focused on what this means for Tesla, but this may be
intelligence on what is going on with the Microsoft HoloLens program if senior
staff is beginning to jump ship.

What's going to happen with HoloLens? The team doesn't appear to be very
large, and it's been stuck in research-land for a while now.

~~~
dpark
> _this may be intelligence on what is going on with the Microsoft HoloLens
> program if senior staff is beginning to jump ship._

Kim seems by all evidence to be a good designer, but I'm not sure I'd call him
"senior staff". He's been at Microsoft for 3ish years, which is also how long
he's been not-a-student. "Senior staff" implies an importance that a "senior"
title does not. I am a senior engineer at Microsoft and I assure you if I left
it would mean nothing about the future of the company or the product I work
on.

Kim also doesn't seem to have been working on HoloLens very long.

~~~
smnscu
Wait, that's Andrew Kim?! I love that guy, this is fantastic news.

[http://minimallyminimal.com/](http://minimallyminimal.com/)

------
paulsutter
With full self driving, telepresence-from-the-back-seat will be an interesting
application. Especially with SpaceX low latency high speed internet, whose
phased array antennae should work well on the roof of a car.

------
Ezhik
The employee in question is also the person that made that [Microsoft rebrand
concept]([http://www.minimallyminimal.com/blog/2012/7/3/the-next-
micro...](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/blog/2012/7/3/the-next-
microsoft.html)) from a while back.

~~~
_pmf_
That's how you make friends once you actually work at the place.

------
fillskills
That would go very well with the feed from the surrounding cameras of the new
Teslas. Wonder if the new chips can support the AI and Hololens like

------
thewhitetulip
Tesla is leading the market like Apple did with it introduced iPhone. They
define the standards which others follow.

~~~
kriro
I think they are very good at taking things others more or less meddled in
with little efford/interest in improvements and perfecting it (by applying a
more software oriented approach). It's a doubly nice strategy as there's some
talent basically waiting to be hired away to work on stuff they have
championed (often falling on deaf ears). AR is a bit different since that's
interesting to work on and other companies are more invested.

E-vehicles were a thing but mostly a bothersome side project for most car
makers. Space was cost+ and noone really cared to upset that cozy environment
etc.

------
robertmarley
Display on a car's flat windshield as opposed to the Hololens pair of glasses
that is essentially around your eyes looks interesting (challenging).

~~~
majewsky
What's challenging about it from a design perspective? You just need a
transparent display, which is a hard engineering problem (though being worked
on as far as I know).

------
miloshadzic
He also worked on the Xbox One S and is pretty much the most interesting
product designer around now. Microsoft should have kept him.

~~~
pawadu
I don't know about that. Was he part of the Surface team?

If not, I think Microsoft can afford to loose him.

~~~
otalp
He used to have a pretty popular blog, and he got hired at Microsoft after
this: [http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2012/7/3/the-next-
microsoft....](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2012/7/3/the-next-
microsoft.html)

If you want to see his design process applied to a car, there's this:
[http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2012/7/22/toyota-
doko.html](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2012/7/22/toyota-doko.html)

Both were personal projects done in his spare time as far as I know.

