Apple Vision Pro: Mixed-reality 'ski goggles' headset unveiled - but it will set you back £2,800
The launch of Apple Vision Pro comes amid a crowded virtual reality market that is yet to gain traction with consumers.
Resembling a pair of ski goggles, it features a glass 23-million-pixel screen which covers the upper face and is controlled using the wearer's eyes, hands and voice.
Vision Pro is labelled as "mixed reality" as it combines "virtual reality", in which the wearer is fully immersed in the digital world, with "augmented reality" where digital images are overlaid on to the real world.
I'm no technophobe, but the appeal of this gadget eludes me at the moment. We already have "mixed reality" politics, an "augmented reality" energy policy and numerous other fantastic creations overlaid onto the real world. It would be a pleasing change to see the real world unadorned.
Maybe there is a market for a "rational reality" headset, a gadget which digitally removes aspects of the political world such as wind turbines, the BBC and Joe Biden. Something else for Apple boffins to work on perhaps.
9 comments:
Here's a thought experiment that I had expected to implement with a camera, but which would be much easier with an AI connected headset...
Walk around town with the headset showing you reality in tones of grey, but with all the advertising signs in their full colours. I rather expect that the number of signs! in! primary! colours! would astound you. We have become deadened by their ubiquity.
One of my old colleagues told me that the most surprising thing about his holiday in Gambia (several decades ago) was the absence of advertising. Perhaps we could use the headsets to remove adverts and generatively fill the spaces as if it were Gambia? Although I can't see that usage getting past the various business interests.
Off topic but I found this a beguiling research technique.
https://cwherald.com/news/roman-artefacts-found-at-alston-moor-to-be-analysed/
Magic mushrooms would be cheaper.
"Vision Pro is labelled as "mixed reality" as it combines "virtual reality", in which the wearer is fully immersed in the digital world, with "augmented reality" where digital images are overlaid on to the real world."
Once they've got us thoroughly confused, they'll market the "real reality" version, which is a pair of plain-glass specs which costs a couple of grand more.
I think the addition of a Helen Mirren app would be a best-seller Chez Scrobs...
If you're ever in the area, drive through Woburn (nice) and Woburn Sands (not nearly as nice) and you can see the contrast that modern advertising makes.
DJ - that's a good idea, ad-blocker headsets - patent it quickly. Ubiquitous advertising is one of the contrasts between cities and quiet villages, so your headset could make cities far more congenial.
dearieme - that's imaginative. A road near here follows the route of an old Roman road so molehills in adjacent fields could be worth a quick look.
Doonhamer - as Harry knows.
Sam - I don't think people are very keen on "real reality". It would have to be marketed in some way - "Hyper-Real Reality" for example.
Scrobs - there will be lots of other versions of that one.
Tammly - I don't know the area, but I'll make a mental note to avoid Woburn Sands. It sounds pleasant enough, but many places do until you go there.
Presumably, these goggles are designed to give the wearers an altetnate, plessureable, experience. I can recall a sci-fi story of many years ago, in which the wearers of similar goggles became so addicted to the pleasure aspect, they starved to death. In the real world, I understand that experiments with rats showed they would rather eat than forgo pleasurable experiences, with similar results. We may die of starvation, and covered in shit, but at least we'll be smiling.
Penseivat
Penseivat - I have a vague memory of reading that sci-fi story, or maybe a similar one. Mobile phones seem to be going that way as addictive devices. Parents playing with their phones while their toddlers dance around the pavement by a busy road - it's not uncommon.
Post a Comment