Fittingbox’s Frame Removal uses diminished reality to help people pick out new eyeglasses — but the tech’s potential extends far beyond the bridge of your nose.
French company Fittingbox has just unveiled an app that uses a technology called “diminished reality” — the opposite of augmented reality (AR).
The app is designed to help shoppers pick out new eyeglasses, but the tech’s potential extends far beyond the bridge of your nose.
The challenge: Many eyeglass sellers now let you try on specs virtually — just pick a pair off a website, look into the camera on your phone or computer, and thanks to the magic of augmented reality (AR), you can see what the frames look like on your face.
Nreal is a China-based startup behind the Nreal Light AR glasses, which aim for a sunglasses-like design. By hooking it up to your (Android) phone, it’s able to project virtual objects in your real environment and even allow you to walk around with position tracking. While we’re not quite there yet, I think the Nreal Light is definitely getting us closer to fully fledged AR glasses.
Cas and Chary VR is a YouTube channel hosted by Netherland-based duo Casandra Vuong and Chary Keijzer who have been documenting their VR journeys since 2016. They share a curated selection of their content with extra insights for the Road to VR audience.
Of course, a minimum level of fidelity is required, but what’s far more important is perceptual consistency. By this, I mean that all sensory signals (i.e. sight, sound, touch, and motion) feed a single mental model of the world within your brain. With augmented reality, this can be achieved with relatively low visual fidelity, as long as virtual elements are spatially and temporally registered to your surroundings in a convincing way. And because our sense of distance (i.e. depth perception) is relatively coarse, it’s not hard for this to be convincing.
But for virtual reality, providing a unified sensory model of the world is much harder. This might sound surprising because it’s far easier for VR hardware to provide high-fidelity visuals without lag or distortion. But unless you’re using elaborate and impractical hardware, your body will be sitting or standing still while most virtual experiences involve motion. This inconsistency forces your brain to build and maintain two separate models of your world — one for your real surroundings and one for the virtual world that is presented in your headset.
When I tell people this, they often push back, forgetting that regardless of what’s happening in their headset, their brain still maintains a model of their body sitting on their chair, facing a particular direction in a particular room, with their feet touching the floor (etc.). Because of this perceptual inconsistency, your brain is forced to maintain two mental models. There are ways to reduce the effect, but it’s only when you merge real and virtual worlds into a single consistent experience (i.e. foster a unified mental model) that this truly gets solved.
It’s also building chips for Microsoft’s AR glasses.
At the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) currently taking place in Las Vegas, chip maker Qualcomm’s CEO Cristiano Amon announced several key new initiatives.
Amon described Qualcomm’s technology roadmap as including connectivity, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon premium-tier Android smartphones. Snapdragon is a suite of system-on-a-chip (SoC) semiconductor products whose central processing units (CPUs) utilize the ARM architecture.
Qualcomm’s new initiatives will be in the spaces of: next-generation ARM PCs, the metaverse, wireless fiber, Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS), and virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR).
You are on the PRO Robots channel and in this video we present to you the news digest for December 2021. New robots, the most realistic humanoid robot in the world, luxury flying cars of the future, xenobots — nanorobots that have learned to reproduce, nanochip for reprogramming living matter, drones with legs, universal robots, robotic cleaners, flying humanoids, Neuralink chip testing on people, new smart augmented reality glasses, the launch of the telescope, which will tell about the evolution of the universe, and much more in one release! All the most interesting high-tech news for December in one release. Watch the video till the end and write in comments, which news interested you most of all? And what areas of science and technology we should cover in the next issues?
PRO Robots is not just a channel about robots and future technologies, we are interested in science, technology, new technologies and robotics in all its manifestations, science news, technology news today, science and technology news 2021, so that in the future it will be possible to expand future release topics. Today, our vlog just talks about complex things, follows the tech news, makes reviews of exhibitions, conferences and events, where the main characters are best robots in the world! Subscribe to the channel, like the video and join us!
It’s been a few years since we’ve heard from AR company Vuzix. In early 2019, it came out with its first pair of. After staying relatively quiet over the past two years, it’s now partnering with Verizon. The two didn’t share many details about their collaboration. What they did say is that they plan to find ways to commercialize AR technology for use in sports and gaming scenarios, especially those involving the need for training. The partnership will combine Vuzix’s new Shield smart glasses and the capabilities of Verizon’s 5G network.
It’s hard to say if we’ll see anything impactful come out of this agreement, but it’s not a surprise to see Verizon. Augmented, virtual and mixed reality wearables have been consistently positioned as one of the primary beneficiaries of the speed and latency enhancements promised by 5G networks. Likewise, the focus on gaming and sports isn’t surprising either. Some of the earliest locations where Verizon had 5G service was in. They’re one of few places where the carrier’s mmWave deployments shine since there’s enough density there to justify building out all the small cells required to blanket even a small area with ultrafast 5G coverage.
Emerging technologies including AI, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), 5G, and blockchain (and related digital currencies) have all progressed on their own merits and timeline. Each has found a degree of application, though clearly AI has progressed the furthest. Each technology is maturing while overcoming challenges ranging from blockchain’s energy consumption to VR’s propensity for inducing nausea. They will likely converge in readiness over the next several years, underpinned by the now ubiquitous cloud computing for elasticity and scale. And in that convergence, the sum will be far greater than the parts. The catalyst for this convergence will be the metaverse — a connected network of always-on 3D virtual worlds.
The metaverse concept has wide-sweeping potential. On one level, it could be a 3D social media channel with messaging targeted perfectly to every user by AI. That’s the Meta (previously Facebook) vision. It also has the potential to be an all-encompassing platform for information, entertainment, and work.
There will be multiple metaverses, at least initially, with some tailored to specific interests such as gaming or sports. The key distinction between current technology and the metaverse is the immersive possibilities the metaverse offers, which is why Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and others are investing so heavily in it. It may also become the next version of the Internet.
You are on the PRO Robots channel and in this form we present you the high-tech news. Flying humanoids, aerotaxi from the mayonnaise manufacturer Sloboda, Neuralink chip testing on people, new smart augmented reality glasses, nimble robots, new robots and other most interesting news from the world of technology in one release!
0:00 In this video. 0:25 A prototype of an unmanned air cab from the Sloboda brand. 1:29 Neuralink hopes to get approval for its brain chips soon. 1:55 Paris cab operator G7 has suspended Tesla Model 3 rides. 2:20 Hyundai has announced a robot with a great vestibular system. 3:16 Sony also unveiled a variant of the robot car. 3:51 American startup Stoke Space. 4:31 FarmHand robot arm. 5:25 An electroplane with bird legs and a tilting cockpit. 6:17 A competition, to teach any robot the stupidest, most inefficient, or weirdest gait. 6:47 The iRonCub research platform. 7:39 Air Glass augmented reality glasses. 8:45 Huawei to introduce its smart glasses with interchangeable lenses and Smart Glass speakers built into the temples. 9:06 Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses. 9:35 Swiss startup Ascento Robotics. 10:20 U.S. military has developed special software to predict China’s response. 10:48 Car thieves started using Apple’s AirTag. 11:11 Cray X carbon fiber exoskeleton. 11:54 Returning samples from Mars. 12:28 China’s first manned mission to the moon. 13:08 The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has filed a case against Mark Zuckerberg’s company Meta. 14:02 Happy New Year.
