GrayLinnorm
Explorer
I just saw Stephen Colbert's show, and he talked about Apple's new goggles which supposedly enhance reality. Has anyone else heard about this, and did anyone else think about the Eyes of the Overworld?
Jack Vance was a prophet!
MarkB
Legend
AR (Augmented Reality) goggles / glasses have been around for a long while as a concept, they just haven't managed to become a viable consumer product yet.
They'd be fun for tabletop gaming - imagine having a fully interactive animated battlemap on your table that isn't physically there, just projected through your glasses.
They'd be fun for tabletop gaming - imagine having a fully interactive animated battlemap on your table that isn't physically there, just projected through your glasses.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
The trouble is you'd need a technology decades of maturity beyond what we're looking at currently.
Apples' offering is $3500 and not really suitable for everyone to use. It also means you can't really RP because you have a weird-ass thing on your face. Very few gaming groups are so wealthy that every member can casually afford a $3500 device.
It'll be 10+ years (maybe 20+) before we're looking at actual glasses-style devices with similar capabilities. Then you'll need mature software as well, to reliably project the battlemap so all users can see it. And for the map to be "interactive" and "animated", someone would have had to work hard to script those elements (at a minimum), adding further load to the DM, unless you're just buying in an adventure which someone else has done that for - which is probably not going to be cheap!
I don't think many kids will be able to afford this. Also it makes you look like a total dork, which I don't think is going to really fly with the under-30s. This is more of a middle-aged bore's toy something than the "kids today" are going to be running around with, at least for probably the next decade.
I don't think being able to see people wearing them is going to stop you getting rear-ended or, as a pedestrian or cyclist, run down by people using these things in cars - something people are already doing, though it's obviously against the law. Hopefully severe enough penalties can deter such usage.
Sacrosanct
Legend
Coincidentally, I just read that book two weeks ago. Every once in a while I read Vance to improve my vocabulary .
I’ve had a few AR/VR headsets over the years. Oculus/Meya Quest, the PlayStation ones, a couple of others. They haven’t gotten out of gimmick stage for me yet, and they’re still a little to much a a PITA to use. Ive also got some of those RayBan Meta glasses. I find I use these things for a few days then suddenly I realise I haven’t touched it in months.
I’ve been following Apple’s entry into the market but at that price I’m not tempted. These things will be great in 5 years I reckon but they’re all still too gimmicky and cumbersome. And no killer app yet.
I’ve been following Apple’s entry into the market but at that price I’m not tempted. These things will be great in 5 years I reckon but they’re all still too gimmicky and cumbersome. And no killer app yet.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Yeah I think that's quite representative. I know an awful lot of people (probably disproportionately high because I'm London working in the tech-centric side of law) who own VR or AR headsets, and the pattern seems to be they use them a lot for between a few days and a few weeks and then it's been six months since they used them. My brother has been through both PSVRs that way. Even the kids do the same - they're excited for a while then the novelty wears off. The longest user I know was a co-worker who used a VR headset (I think an Index) to play Elite: Dangerous, but even he only lasted like a few months before he was saying "Yeah I'm back to multi-monitor now". I'm kind of interested because when they do get "worth it", I want to be in on it, but... it's definitely not yet!
I expect we'll get a flurry of articles soon about how amazing the Apple set is, and how X journalist has only had it for a week but it's changed his life. Then in six months we'll have another bunch of articles about how cool as it was, they're no longer using it.
Augmented Reality glasses have been around for well over a decade. Even tech powerhouses like Google have made them. They haven't been successful because they're too intrusive, expensive, and - frankly - look silly.
I don't expect the track record to change in this case either.
I don't expect the track record to change in this case either.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Many things predicted by science fiction writers are coming to pass.
The trouble is, a lot of that science fiction was intended as warning, not a blueprint.
The trouble is, a lot of that science fiction was intended as warning, not a blueprint.
Wofano Wotanto
Hero
Vance is very good for that, even his wholly imaginary words seem very real and his dialog is top notch. I'd also recommend Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories and basically everything every written by Clark Ashton Smith for adding words to your personal lexicon.
The fact that they're all great reads doesn't hurt any, of course.
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