Apple Reportedly Looked at Acquiring Augmented Reality Display Maker Plessey

[Abazigal]

Facebook is just looking to be first

"by it all up, then it'll make life for Apple that much harder"

For all the good it does them. Facebook doesn’t have the design-led engineering chops needed to make wearables work, and I doubt many people are going to trust hardware from them for a good long time.

 

[SRChadfield]

WOW - I worked for Plessey Semiconductors for 26 years. I was one of only 27 employees remaining after the collapse. To think they built themselves up to being a consideration for purchase by Apple is amazing.

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[monsharen1]

One of the AR applications I am waiting for is navigation assistance at sea. An overlay showing what's beneath the surface at certain locations would be tremendously useful in treacherous waters. I live in a location where tourists loose their propellers all summer.

Looking at a chart, understanding the chart, and then mapping that to your surroundings is just too time consuming for most (it seems).

 

[whitedragon101]

Moore's law isn't going to make AR viable for dozens of years. What exactly is increased processing power/watt going to help you with that's going to make things useful?

Is a 2x speed increase going to magically make AR viable? That's about 4 years at current rates. Is a 10x speed increase going to make AR viable? That's about 10 years.

AR competes with smartphones in terms of mobility, and smartphones won.

I experienced the hype of VR back in the 90's. It's the same horrible hype.

He said there is no future in AR. He didn't say, AR is not here yet or AR might take a while.

AR will take a while perhaps longer than we think. Maybe even 20years to get to a headset like I was describing, heck lets say 30 years. But when a headset like that does exist it will be massively popular and short of a neurological link will likely become the de facto method by which we use technology. The next step is AR, its just a matter of how long it takes to get there.

 

[ipedro]

Having a secret scanner actually sounds worse than having a visible camera.

I guess you don't go anywhere near automatic doors that have a "secret scanner" to "see you" so that the door opens when you get close. I hope you stay away from any iPhone or iPad with Face ID which have "secret scanners" that scan your face to identify you and work like the LiDAR in the new iPad Pro that would be used in glasses for AR.