Augmented Reality Laptop Ditches Screen For 100-Inch Virtual Display (axios.com) 37
Spacetop, a $2,000 laptop developed by two former Magic Leap employees, replaces the traditional screen with augmented reality glasses featuring a 100-inch virtual display. Axios reports: The company is selling 1,000 of the devices as part of an early access program, with hopes of using the feedback to inform a broader launch. The Spacetop runs a custom operating system, with its backers touting the ability to run Web-based applications such as Zoom, Google Workspace and Figma. And it's not promising this first version will be for power users or gamers, saying those folks should probably wait for a later version.
The Tel Aviv-based company behind the startup, Sightful, is led by CEO Tamir Berliner and COO Tomer Kahan, both formerly of AR headset maker Magic Leap. They have raised $61 million in venture funding. The devices are being manufactured by Wistron, a major contract manufacturer of laptops, while the required AR glasses come from Nreal. Those interested can sign up now, with the devices promised for shipping starting in July.
Sightful says the glasses offer 1080p resolution per eye, which they promise is enough to offer sub-pixel viewing resolution. In a pinch the Spacetop can also connect to a traditional monitor for some features, with more available later via software updates. Further reading:
I used the world's first augmented reality laptop (The Verge)
Meet Spacetop, a radical new laptop with no screen (PCWorld)
New Spacetop Laptop Puts Your Workspace in the Air (The New Stack)
The Tel Aviv-based company behind the startup, Sightful, is led by CEO Tamir Berliner and COO Tomer Kahan, both formerly of AR headset maker Magic Leap. They have raised $61 million in venture funding. The devices are being manufactured by Wistron, a major contract manufacturer of laptops, while the required AR glasses come from Nreal. Those interested can sign up now, with the devices promised for shipping starting in July.
Sightful says the glasses offer 1080p resolution per eye, which they promise is enough to offer sub-pixel viewing resolution. In a pinch the Spacetop can also connect to a traditional monitor for some features, with more available later via software updates. Further reading:
I used the world's first augmented reality laptop (The Verge)
Meet Spacetop, a radical new laptop with no screen (PCWorld)
New Spacetop Laptop Puts Your Workspace in the Air (The New Stack)
Undressing app (Score:2)
Does it come with the Undressing app?
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I was going to say this gizmo was a likely dud, but you made me realize that p0rn propelled a good many technologies along. Meta should merge with that Hamster site if they really want VR to take off (pun intended).
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https://www.technologyreview.c... [technologyreview.com]
Nonesense (Score:2)
Yea right. This is just investors looking for something other than real estate.
Great, more bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
But I guess some people can waste $2000 on something like this?
Want (Score:2)
100% private, effectively unlimited real estate. I actually want this for my desktop, never mind anything portable.
Though this is a nice starting point, it would be nice to see it with the ability to track hands so you can move and resize windows, or grab things, etc. Not that you'd want to give up your mouse any time soon - waving your arms around gets tiring pretty quickly - but having the option would be useful.
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Re: Want (Score:3)
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That appears to be VR rather than AR. It's an important distinction because VR leaves you blind to your physical surroundings while AR does not.
But maybe that's just a matter of choosing a different headset and setting your background to transparent. I don't know, I don't have any experience with the gear yet because nothing's been good enough to get me to dive in.
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Most VR things can do AR, including many of those $20 plastic jobs that let you strap a cellphone to your face. All you really need is a camera on the outside. You can download an AR app for your phone to play with if you're curious. It's not like the app needs the plastic it doesn't know about to work.
It's way too early to care about this. I'm sure some people are betting on this being the next hot form factor after the fondle slab, but we've got a long way to go before any normal person would want to
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Most VR things can do AR, including many of those $20 plastic jobs that let you strap a cellphone to your face
Yep, but two types are video see through AR and video feed through. VR ones do the latter. There are advantages and disadvantages. Feed through is generally speaking easier. The latency requirements aren't as strict (they are HORRIBLE for see through), you don't have the problem of sunlight being too bright and washing out the display, you can block out the background as well as overlay on it, you d
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Here are the glasses that it looks like the unit in the article uses, you can buy them now, and they already kind of do what you describe, but only support Mac for now.
https://www.amazon.com/Glasses... [amazon.com]
I imagine other AR glasses would work just as well for what you describe, and as someone else stated, Immersed is an AR/VR app that allows you to control windows on a computer.
Pixels per degree. (Score:5, Informative)
So it's 1080p .. smeared out over how many degrees? What's the ppd within the central vision? If it's crap (less than 70), forget it.
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The pixels are not tied to degrees, that would be more limited by the refresh rate.
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A key specification of this type of display is pixels per degree. The models designed for immersive experiences typically have wide fields of view but not many pixels per degree. In this case the field of view seems to be around 50 degrees, relatively narrow, so the pixels per degree spec is higher, but still worse than 20:20 vision resolution. It's only a 1920x1080 display. There's a separate display for each eye but the images will mostly overlap so it's not like the resolutions add.
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Oh, I see what you are saying. thanks for the explanation.
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This [nreal.ai] suggests it's 42 or 49. Yep, way less than 70 and so, as you said, forget it.
DeX can already do this (Score:3)
Connect a Samsung DeX supporting device to NReal glasses, bluetooth keyboard+touchpad (or my fav, a trackball) and you've got this experience today without a fancy new laptop.
I'm betting this does it a little easier, though.
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Its worst honestly. I have almost every pair "cheap" AR glasses from Epson older models to the Neal Air (This laptop is using a Neal version of the glasses) and I can tell you this is garbage. The glasses are BUILT into the thing. At least when you buy the normal Neal glasses you can just plug them into your phone using a USB C cable or use a HDMI converter. Neal also has some really needs some beefy phones to use them because their ENTIRE AR app is based on the generic AR package Unity provides. It le
100 inch display? (Score:5, Insightful)
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How dare you question their attempt to hide information about display resolution with this one neat trick!
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It's VR, might as well say it's a 100 mile wide screen several miles away! In other words, only the degrees of arc of your vision it takes up is relevant.
It's a laptop. Everyone in the world has it at roughly arm's length.
I agree with Ralphie... (Score:2)
By that I mean a lousy picture. You want to convince me of something? Show me the actual thing as I would see it not as you imagine I would want to see it.
I'm uninterested in anything less than opaque.
How long can people look through AR glasses (Score:2)
before they get headaches? Glasses are OK for gaming and short term use but people stare intently at their computer screens for long periods and, unlike screens, you can't just look up from VR goggles to rest your eyes.
Makes you wonder if this is part of Apple's plan.. (Score:1)
I wonder if APple's AR goggles will feature similar screen expanding tech. You could look down at your Apple Watch and see an iPad sized display...
I agree with another poster though, I don't know how practical this would be for a whole day of use.
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Practical? A pretend giant screen on your watch that you can't actually touch isn't practical. A pretend monitor with a pitiful resolution isn't practical. A display you can't easily share with someone next to you isn't practical.
Using it for a whole day? Why would anyone even try? Anything less than a 70ppd LF is a nonstarter. Even then, walking around looking like a cyber dork with one of those things strapped to your face isn't going to do anything positive for you personally or professionally.
Pra
Oh, it will be absolutely solid, no glitches.... (Score:1)
VR ... So unusable for many (Score:2)
20% of users will not be able to use it at all, or not for a long time ...
This is the killer app of VR (Score:2)
VR is not best for video gamers. The BEST use of VR is for office workers in "Open Office" style offices. You take your own goggles, plug them into a computer and visually project an office space around you. Who cares if the resolution isn't perfect? Who cares if it's a little slow?
I would pay $2000 for privacy.
In a word.. (Score:1)
I'm kind of impressed. Supposedly 60 people worked on this thing and it looks like trash.
Keep up the.. work
One thing particularly appeals to me with this (Score:2)
43" 4k is already tiring enough (Score:1)