

What HoloLens Has That Google Glass Didn’t - rbanffy
https://hbr.org/2015/01/what-hololens-has-that-google-glass-didnt

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enkiv2
Microsoft made an unfortunate decision in taking a really promising technology
and giving it a deliberately misleading name that's bound to enrage the early
adopter market. HoloLens isn't in any sense holography -- it's an augmented
reality device that integrates light-angle depth cues.

Augmented reality is important. Glass failed miserably at it, because despite
all the sensors, Glass locked down the ability to use them -- and on top of
that, Glass locked down most of the FOV, preventing meaningful spacial
integration between real and virtual objects. The Oculus Rift will, largely,
not be used for augmented reality -- you'd need to add a camera, and there are
definite safety concerns if the camera is damaged or disconnected.

Depth cues are also important. VR sickness is not merely related to lag, but
also to lack of coordination between depth cues -- something that is hormone-
bound (which is why women have a comparatively harder time with head mounted
displays -- estrogen levels are linked with the degree to which stereoscopy
dominates over color and light angle depth cues). What microsoft has
introduced is the first head mounted display that won't make women puke --
which could conceivably double its market over the Rift (since a little over
half of all serious video game players are female).

However, when you introduce an exciting piece of consumer electronics --
especially something so novel that a brand new API has to be made for it --
you need to be targeting the technical people who will be using the
development kits. Those people are exactly the same people who are likely to
refuse to develop on HoloLens because some marketroid who didn't know what a
hologram was decided it sounded cool.

Glass also alienated developers, but arguably in a more extreme way -- by
limiting them to static web pages, basically. But, Google has good mindshare
among techies compared to Microsoft. It may end up being a wash. After all,
Glass essentially failed because it was borderline-useless, and it was
borderline-useless because the designers pulled a Steve Jobs and heavily
handicapped third party developers; Microsoft, on the other hand, may end up
pulling an Atari Jaguar on itself -- having too few developers and too few
properties because nobody ended up putting down the effort to learn how to
integrate with the thing.

The most likely result, however, will be that Microsoft will do what it did
with the Surface -- before HoloLens comes to market it will have transformed
from a proper AR device to something more like Glass, the same way Surface
started out as a computing coffee table with all sorts of interesting features
and ended up becoming an uninteresting tablet by the time it was released.
Then, some other company will take their idea of using micro-mirror arrays to
handle angular depth cues in an AR display, and produce something
indistinguishable from the original demo much cheaper.

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Someone1234
Wow, HBR normally has such good articles. This article's entire argument is
based on "some random analyst said that HoloLens will be good, so it must be."

Then starts listing off a bunch of stats which don't really make any sense,
like "7.2 million adults in the US have an ideal combination of attributes for
HoloLens. If half of them buy it..." Even after they explain these attributes
that is still a silly stat that means nothing. There's also no reason to
believe that 50% of the potential market will buy the product (and they claim
Kindle had twice as large of a market, sold twice as many as they're
projecting for the Hololens but was still a huge failure).

> The endgame for enhancing our lives with digital visual tools is not virtual
> reality, it’s this mixed reality. If the glasses can help you accomplish
> tasks that matter to you, ones you already do, then it’s not just fun, it’s
> useful.

Microsoft hasn't, even ballpark, shown that Hololens can be productive. I
watched their entire three hour press event, the demos they showed were very
unpolished and didn't show anything more productive than can be accomplished
on a PC.

It just looks districting. Google Glass's biggest issue was its price, but at
least it seemed to be useful for niche things (e.g. turn by turn walking
navigation). It is unclear what Hololens' use cases are, gaming maybe comes to
mind, but this article is trying to sell it to business people/executives
(where the case doesn't exist).

> Because Glass couldn’t actually “see” what you are doing, it can’t really be
> helpful except as a tool for grabbing information when you’re out and about.

That sentence contradicts itself. Google Glass contained AR functionality and
could overlay information on what was in front of you (producing a very
"holo"-like experience). Plus that same sentence that claims glass lacked that
functionality also claims it had that functionality, which is it?!

> When Allrecipes.com can point to specific cupboards in your kitchen and tell
> you to retrieve the cocoa, and count out as you measure out tablespoons, you
> have another game changer.

That's impossible. I'd be seriously creeped out if some random website knew
where the spices are, I don't even know where the spices are!

> Consumers are ready for new technology — Apple sold 80 million iPads in its
> first two years, compared to 1 million iPods in its first two years.

That made no sense. Nowhere do they explain how they know "consumers are ready
for new technology" and the iPad example is bad since the iPad didn't compete
with the iPod and the iPad had more mass market appeal than the HoloLens.

Honestly this entire article reads like a paid PR piece for HoloLens. I'd be
surprised if it wasn't. Most of the stuff said in it is baseless,
contradictory, or non-sensicle.

I have nothing against HoloLens in particular (although I do have some
concerns about its software catalogue, or lack of, and we still don't know the
retail price). However this article in its own right is extremely low quality
and will only mislead the reader if you let it.

I just suggest you really consider the arguments it is making. They lack
substance and don't stand up to scrutiny at all.

