* Posts by Dave 126

10622 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2010

iFixit tears Apple's Vision Pro to pieces

Dave 126

Re: Glassholiolio

The Google Glass was specifically designed to be worn out and about. This Apple headset less so... it's always had a Home, Office and Aeroplane vibe to it.

What has changed since Glass is that people are aware that facial recognition software can be and is run on photos posted on social media, or constantly on CCTV camera streams.

The person with a glowing white shoebox stuck to their face is easier to spot than the person pretending to text on their phone, or the determined pervert with a spycam in his lapel.

That said, there is some concern here. Apple have recently acquired a company whose software detects and blurs faces and licence plates on the fly.

Apple do too well from their carefully tended reputation than to suck up footage to their servers for no good reason.

Dave 126

Re: Worth mentioning

Mate, I agree 100 percent that you have to know what you are doing, and that actually draughting or modelling isn't the bulk of design and engineering work.

However, your comment reads as if it was written in 1994, and if you think that an AR headset can only help with the 3D modelling stages then you've overlooked it use for:

Organising ideas and constraints, akin to multiple whiteboards and pin boards

Capturing real world 3D data, a room or a physical prototype.

Capturing concepts that have been sketched on paper. Virtually 'projecting' images onto paper to be manually sketched over.

Capturing data about clients, presenting concepts to clients.

Team collaboration

Marking out material for building physical prototypes.

And on top of all that, sitting at desks isn't good for cognition.

You might notice a theme here, and that is reducing the friction of taking data back and forth between the real and virtual worlds. A good design methodology is iterative - plan it, build it, break it and then plan it again - so reducing friction here is invaluable. As is working with other people, usually across different sites.

It's a bit odd that you don't think computers help with the engineering and mechanics side of things too. You can simulate motion of components, you can simulate loads and stresses. For sure, an engineer might have an intuitive sense of what a bracket should look like, but he's gonna model it, run FEA on it, revise it, test a prototype, revise it, repeat, at each step putting the new data back into the model. He's not going to say 'Well, it looked alright on the back of fag packet' when there's a product recall.

Yeah CAD is niche, whilst millions might use it, billions more use their computers to watch videos or do their accounts.

Dave 126
Coat

Re: Cnnot use with glasses so need prescription lens inserts

Maybe a wave-guide dog will do the trick.

I'll retriever my coat.

Dave 126

Re: No mention of......

Sony are releasing a similar specced headset in conjunction with Siemens NX CAD software. The cost of NX is 280 USD per month per user for the basic package. I note this to give an idea of what the market is.

However, most CAD suites have free 'viewer' software for other members of the team and clients etc. and usually on iPad.

We have yet to see developers will create for software for the AVP, one would assume the cost they charge will be a function of what they think they can get away with, the development costs, and the number of customers to share that cost. Some software will fairly simple to create since it will be built atop Apple APIs, akin to ARKit on iOS.

Dave 126

This Mark I model? It's part developer device, part media consumption device. Of course the uses it can be put to will evolve with what developers do with it.

It's a general purpose computer with cameras, laser scanners, gyrometers and microphones. It's has a high definition HDR stereo display. It can be used hands free and whilst walking.

So, with a little imagination, you should be able to surmise that it is suitable for tasks that take advantage of these attributes:

CAD, architectural, interior, landscape, product design. Team collaboration in the above.

Drone operation.

New PC interface paradigms - you're not stuck in a chair.

Media consumption - it's been compared favourable to more expensive television sets.

Planning a really cool model railway set that goes around your whole house.

Consider looking at the iPad as precedent for people here asking "but what's it for?" and looking at the many tasks it is put to today.

Dave 126

Re: Lost Sight In One Eye

Neil Innes tells the anecdote of Viv Stanshall and Oliver Reed going out on the piss. They stumble into a clothes shop and start arguing over a pair of trousers "I saw them then first!" "No I want them!". Each pulling at leg, they managed to pull the trousers in two, horrifying the sales assistant.

At that point, a one legged man hops into the shop and says "Perfect! That's just what I want. I'll buy them!"

Vic and Olly had of course prearranged for the monopedal gent to arrive when he did.

Dave 126

Re: Worth mentioning

> ...but the Apple II, iPod and iPhone are all quite useful devices.

They are, for some people for some tasks.

As is this headset, potentially. But then as I said, I've been a 3D CAD user for twenty years (enough time to grow frustrated with some UI paradigms)- which I appreciate is niche. However, CAD might not be niche if a casual user now has a 3D scanner on their head, ML to help clean up the point clouds, and an intuitive interface.

The iPod started niche (only worked with Macs, 5x the cost of a Minidisc recorder), the iPhone is now so many more things (wallet, train tickets, method of hailing a cab, many people's only camera, TV remote) than the first gen model. However, the first gen model did a lot to indicate the direction Apple would take it in.

The criticism of "but what's the killer app"? Was levelled at the iPad. It's gone on to be the user interface for a lot of third party equipment such as surveying scanners, sound desks, point of sale terminals - it has hundreds of niche applications instead of a single killer application (a la the iPod's "a thousand albums in your pocket")

Dave 126

Re: Cnnot use with glasses so need prescription lens inserts

@DS99

Yeah sorry mate, I left out a bit of my own thinking... I started with my assumption that the Rolls Royce of displays would mimic the real world where we can selectivily focus on objects near and far. That would require light fields, so I went off and found a better explanation than I could give.

However, that is of course overkill for a universal VR headset where we just need a focal plane that can be adjusted to accommodate the users short or long sightedness.

Dave 126

Re: Solution:

> You must live in some kind of neoliberal hellscape

You do know we can't pick up on the irony in your voice when type, don't you?

I live in the UK that has a 'free at the point of service' National Health Service. LASIK eye surgery is only given for free if it is to treat an eye condition that could lead to blindness if left untreated.

At my age, the cost of LASIK would be roughly on a par with what I might spend on spectacles and contact lenses for the rest of might life, depending upon how often I lose or break the things. That said, all spectacles and contact lenses provide a degree of protection against Ultra Violet light.

Some sports and activities make spectacles impractical, scuba diving for example.

Dave 126

Re: Worth mentioning

I agree. The first iPod was around £600, the first iPhone similar... and whilst they were both clear statements of intent they weren't bought in huge numbers until several years and models later... By which time the price had dropped to about a third. And I'd bought an iRiver or a Samsung.

And by that the time, the ecosystems and third party devs were up to speed.

As a CAD user, I've resigned myself to waiting some months or years - to see how it might be supported in various workflows by yet to written software - before I can read a review that will be useful to me.

Dave 126

Re: Cnnot use with glasses so need prescription lens inserts

> It is too bad that we can't make displays out of millions of tiny steerable lasers so a computational transformation could correct for visual shortcomings, but that's not possible today.

A helpful soul on Reddit has done a fair job of explaining why it isn't possible:

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/a9hisl/any_lightfield_display_experts_here_quick_question/

Dave 126

Re: Cnnot use with glasses so need prescription lens inserts

> Sounds like you don't need glasses, you need a guide dog

That would only be useful if the dog has a degree in optical engineering.

Dave 126

Solution:

The cost of LASIK eye surgery for two eyes is roughly on par with the cost of the Apple Vision.

(I've never thought of getting it done, I've grown used to having some protective plastic in front of my eyes at all times)

Soft contact lenses are also an option - hard ones don't work with the AVP apparently.

Best bet is to wait for MK II or III anyway, by which time you can learn from the experiences of other users who require corrective glasses.

Wait for a later version anyway, the software ecosystem isn't there yet. Consider this MK I a developer model that is also sold to members of the public who watch movies by themselves (in which case it has been compared favourably to similar-costing big televisions)

Dave 126

Ifixit consulted with, amongst others, Karl Guttag for their AVP teardown. He's an expert on wearable displays, and in his blog he analyses all manner of AR and heads-up display.

https://kguttag.com/

He's said he might review his AVP unit alongside a new Sony MR headset (hich is only available to business and is being released in partnership with Siemens NX CAD software).

Apple use 'passthrough' AR where cameras capture an image of the real world, combine it with virtual content, and display it to the wearer.

Another approach is Optical AR, where light from the real world enters the wearer's eyes, with virtual content also directed to the users by means of lenses and mirrors.

There are pros and cons to both approaches, neither is yet perfect. Any definition of 'good enough' depends upon the user and the application.

AI models just love escalating conflict to all-out nuclear war

Dave 126

Re: uis

> More importantly, why are we calling language models 'AI' now?

Grab a dictionary and look up the word 'intelligence'. You'll find a few definitions. You should then be able to infer what is meant by placing the word 'artificial' in front of it.

Dave 126

Re: Gandhi

Haha, I came here to say "What?! Ghandi is peaceful?!" My understanding was - until two minutes ago - that is was a programming bug (low default agression of 1, minus 2 equals err 255) that him nuke happy.

However, Wikipedia has just told me that Sid Meier say this overflow wasn't possible since integers are signed in C and C++. Another theory is that peaceful India advances scientifically quickly, thus gets nukes earlier than some other civs, thus has more opportunity to use them.

In Civ V, Ghandi was deliberately made nuke happy as a joke.

Apple has botched 3D for decades. So good luck with the Vision Pro, Tim

Dave 126

Re: Autocad, Catia, Blender, Unreal Engine, Nvidia...

I know video and motion graphics shops that just use Macs. The Macs work incredibly well for video editing, colour grading and compositing of elements. This is a large part of their workflow. Since their product is a finished video for client.

They don't have as wide a choice of Mechanical 3D modeller ( AutoCAD Fusion) as Windows users do, but they've plenty of choice of freeform modellers.

Even within a PC, it is not streamlined to move an asset from Catia to Blender... the files work in very different ways. You have to know what you want and what you are doing, and why.

Blender is available for MacOS, I'm not sure what your point is.

Dave 126

As well as supporting Unity, the AVP supports Universal Scene Descriptor, a now open source format created by Pixar.

Rocket Lab is a David among Goliaths in the space race

Dave 126

Re: Which rocket?

And similarly, his digs at SpaceX for not being beholden to any shareholders to make money was a bit odd... I know of some very successful and profitable engineering companies that have never been publicly traded, and run by their engineer founder over decades. Their success has been in part because they have been able to make technically informed strategic decisions and investments in R&D.

I'm not saying that being focused on a valid business model isn't a good thing, but it's just odd for him to suggest that satisfying shareholders' desire for a (potentially short term) return on their investments is the only viable model when clear counterexamples exist.

Building a 16-bit CPU in a spreadsheet is Excel-lent engineering

Dave 126

I can't recommend the FAQs in the MOnSter6052.com link highly enough.

Musk floats idea of boat mod for Cybertruck

Dave 126

Re: 7,000 lbs?

When looking at measures of mass and thus weight, the numbers aren't useful as to the user. What the user needs to know is on which *category* of weight the object falls into:

1 - I could carry it all day

2 - I can lug it for a bit

3 - I can just about yoick it into the car

5 - I can just about get the bugger to shift across the floor when I shove it

6 - It's not going anywhere (without a long lever and a sufficiently immovable object to use as a fulcrum, such as a forklift truck)

7,000 lbs is so far into category 6 that it doesn't matter fo me

HP TV ads claim its printers are 'made to be less hated'

Dave 126

Re: Missed the target

That's the leading reason, well ahead of the pack where network connection issues, jammed paper, an intolerance to cat hair, unnecessary Windows software and dried print heads are competing for second place.

Bezos might beat Musk to Mars as NASA recruits Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket

Dave 126

Re: The cow [used to] jump over the moon

> super-unreliable SLS

I thought the SLS had a success rate of 1 out of 1. For sure, I'd rather ride a rocket that had, say, a successful launch rate of 100 out of 100, but still.

Dave 126

Re: Back to square 1. Do not pass Go. Do not collect ...

Trigger's Broom is likely more often understood than Ship of Theuses is by the average bloke on the street - if that street is in Britain. I wonder, is there an equivalent idiom from USA popular culture?

Metaverse? Apple thinks $3,500 AR ski goggles are the betterverse

Dave 126

Re: They did it with smart phones

Steve Jobs, famous for walking around all the time instead of being sat at a workstation.

Dave 126

Re: Driving at night

Not with the cameras built in to the headset. However, bigger sensor cameras, night vision, radar and other sensors mounted outside the vehicle could be streamed to the headset and could assist situational awareness, just as Radar assists pilots in the fog. However, I can't begin to imagine the regulatory issues involved, and perhaps people shouldn't drive at night or in fog if they are uncomfortable doing so. KISS.

Of course emergency services and military will encounter times when they do need to drive in those conditions...

Dave 126

Re: Mr Cook needs to go

Eh? Solidworks has only ever run on MacOS via Parallels, i.e not natively. Dassult do have an iPadOS product that uses the Solidworks engine IIRC. Porting your engine to iOS is very sensible if you have been expecting, for the last decade, Apple to release an AR headset when the tech is ready.

Autodesk have an Intel MacOS version of AutoCAD Inventor, and last I read from Autodesk's reps it ran better on Mx Macs through Rosetta than it did on Intel.

Dave 126

> Many studies have shown that meetings [as commonly practised] are a big time waster and less the better.

[The studies could only study extant forms of meetings, so please forgive my clarification]

That doesn't mean that what meetings there are shouldn't be better.

Amazon's cofounder attributed their early competive advantage to one thing: reading a paper by Edward Tuft which outlined how poor a tool PowerPoint is for disseminating useful ideas. Instead, the presenter should write up their idea over a few pages, and each meeting would start with silent reading and thinking time. Amazon quietly adopted Tuft's recommendations, leaving Tuft feeling his paper had been largely ignored for over a decade.

Dave 126

I know where you're coming from, I have decided to never spend more than twenty quid on ear buds or earphones again because I'll likely lose them regularly. I find phones to be different though, perhaps to my clumsiness and proximity to puddles and kitchens. Spending more on a more durable phone saves me money.

I've never had an iPhone, but for last few phones I've gone for higher-end Samsung Galaxy S phones (either at discount year after released, or reconditioned) because of their durability over cheaper phones. Waterproofing, wireless charging and good Corning glass all have the potential to extend the lifespan of the phone, and are features shared with iPhones. I might one day consider buying an iPhone, but I'm definitely not buy a cheap Android again. It's too expensive. (A glass screen protector is a must, it's a consumable item though, like brake pads or screwdriver bits. )

The killer app of an Apple Watch is that it lets find leave your phone (its bulk, its weight, its antisocial media and nagging lists) at home yet still map your jogging route whilst listening to music, pay for a coffee and doughnut, and then summon help in case you break your ankle or have a heart attack. My bicycle is great because it not my car, my car is great because it is not my bicycle.

Dave 126

> So far, most work meetings, even remote, require a keyboard to be useful.

This allows someone to use a keyboard. And a whiteboard of any size. A whiteboard where images can be annotated. There's no reason why you couldn't use a stick on a table as a virtual pen on a notebook. That a hand-tracking 3D scanner UI will make 3D CAD more intuitive and thus widen its applications should be obvious to anyone who's ever used CAD.

Let's just look at the workstation status quo: People sat down in one position. Very bad for our bodies, including spine and bowels. Not ideal for cognitive tasks, since different cognitive tasks benefit from different environments, eg, use a low ceilinged room for concentration, use larger environment and keep eyes above horizon for divergent problem solving. The human input devices, a keyboard and a 2D mouse aren't an obvious fit for 3D work but can actually work well... but RSI doesn't sound fun. Then your workstation isn't always in your workshop, your worksite, your client's office. A laptop can stand in but its ergonomics are even poorer, and without a desk it'll occupy both hands. So: room for improvement.

(The author who coined the term Metaverse uses a treadmill below a standing (er, now walking) desk. His latest book features devices that are effectively slimmer cheaper versions of these Apple goggles, and are used by characters for the same use cases slas Apple suggest. )

Dave 126

Re: Laugh all you want

> They're not built for the buyer.

And how do you design a sustainable business model that 'builds for the buyer'? Or rather, how do you design a business model that produces products in alignment with what is good for the buyer? What if the buyer doesn't know what is good for them? Or what they want?

Dave 126

Re: Longevity

With Pass-through VR you don't need to remove the headset to 'see' your surroundings; video of what is in front of you is displayed in the headset. The Apple video showed someone fetching a drink from a fridge whilst resting the headset, so successfully navigating to, and cleanly using, a bathroom may be plausible.

Dave 126

Projected keyboards have been around for a while, but chorded typing seems to be underrated.

Dave 126

> There simply is no "killer app"

There wasn't a single killer for the iPhone, either. Nor for the iPad, or Apple Watch. Instead, most users have several tasks they use their general purpose device for.

There may be several applications that, whilst each below the 'killer' threshold, all add up for an individual user. An iPad might within a house as a cookbook, a weather station and as a TV remote and not much more. Some iPads are only ever used as Point of Sale terminals in cafes, or as interfaces for Leica surveying equipment.

Dave 126

> What kind of task outside of gaming can only be done adequately with a V/AR device?

If you mean, what kind of task can be done *better* with a V/AR device, then

CAD in many sectors, design review, surveying, drone piloting, photography.

If we may take these alone, and pause to consider what eyeball-tracking and hand-tracking might do for the user interface of a device that can sense the wider environment. I wouldn't consider all the implications of this combination of capabilities to come to me immediately.

And also, sitting down is bad for you. The medical literature on this is robust. If using computers is a necessary evil, then we can least use them whilst on our feet or moving about.

Dave 126

Re: What makes Apple think they can crack this market?

The amount of money Apple spends on feeding competent analysts with high quality data has been self evident... What, in the five minutes you have spent thinking about this, makes you think you know better?

At least try to spin a plausible narrative such as... I don't know, Apple thought true AR optical technology would be easier to achieve than it has proven to be and instead have had to release a jazzed-up VR headset. After all, such misreading of the future hurt Apple with the Trashcan Mac Pro.

Dave 126

Re: I was grabbed by the possibility...

Haha, it's actually in the *design* of railway stations that AR, VR and digital twinning* are clearly useful.

This is a 1st gen product largely intended, I suspect, to be sold to third party developers - whilst at the same time serving to mark Apple's intent in that area - just as the 1st gen Apple watch did.

Like the 1st gen iPad and Apple Watch, it is a more polished 1st gen product than the first iPod and iPhone were.

Dave 126

It's not Apple's role to tell you what to do with a general-purpose device, and what people actually do with new gadgets changes over time.

The first iPhone is announced and we can all imagine navigating by Maps. Fewer people envisaged a service like Uber, built upon the same phone features (data, screen, GPS,).

First gen iPod was an easy sell, though many forget just how expensive it was. iPhone sold itself since the problems with existing phones were evident to everyone, but it is used differently today.

No need to rush to judgment yet, let some developers get their hands on some first.

Dave 126

Re: Apple CAN'T Do VR

> Apple CAN'T Do VR They don't have the horsepower

They do. Read up on Foveated Rendering.

Your eyes can only perceive fine detail in a small area of your view at once. This is the only area that breeds to be rendered at high detail.

Apple's Metal graphics API, used for years in iOS, lends itself well to Foveated Rendering, as it uses a technique called Tile Based Deferred Rendering - basically an efficient way of knowing what doesn't need rendering.

M2 Ultra chip lands in 'cheese grater' Mac Pro to displace Apple's last Intel holdout

Dave 126

Re: Falling

>It was Apple's dual-boot capability that propelled Mac sales into the mainstream

Citation needed. I'm curious as to how you distangle the ability to boot into Windows from other factors that affected people's buying choices in 2006. It likely didn't hurt that Intels chips of that era ran faster and cooler than the Power chips Apple had been struggling with.

I'm sure you can sketch other differences between then and now yourself, if you try.

Dave 126

In my day, 'Workstation' merely meant "Certified Workstation", a specific model of PC that had been tested by the vendor of the CAD software you were using. That is, a Dell 123 Quadro 456 or Lenovo XYZ Fire Pro PQR. And rightly so.

Testing and guaranteeing software is easier for a limited range of hardware combinations. Mac almost qualify for that by default.

Defense boffins take notes from sci-fi writers on the future of warfare

Dave 126

Re: Used to be all about SF movies

For all HUD display and AR-adjacent optical technology testing and comment, I go to Kguttag.com.

3D display stuff has been in development for decades, financed by military and automotive industries. It is far from being mature.

Also from 'Aliens' is a most excellent 2D UI - a tabletop display that Ripley and Bishop use to pan and zoom around a plan of the power station.

If we plan to live on the Moon, it's going to need a time zone

Dave 126

Re: Just set the entire moon to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC +0) ...

The lunar day is 24 hours and 50 minutes long. Lunar residents may find a clock tied to a lunar day convenient if their activities are affected by day / night cycles.

ISS usually uses UTC (GMT), but the ISS crew would often switch to the Mission Elapsed Time of a visiting space shuttle to make coordinanation easier.

Time dilation on the ISS relative to Greenwich is such that astronauts won't notice, but it has to be accounted for on GPS satellites else their accuracy is affected.

Microsoft strokes UK's ego by pooh-poohing EU approach to AI regulation

Dave 126

Scientists have been researching the Cabinet to determine if its actions are due to AI (Actual Intelligence) or merely the results of applying ML (Meatbag Learning, 'Aping') techniques trained on poor quality datasets such as the Daily Mail.

Commenting on the research, our correspondent XTron3000 is dubious: "There's no evidence at this time that the UK Cabinet is displaying Actual Intelligence. And even if it were in some small, limited areas of activity, that's not the same as thing as Self Awareness, which in any case even our most optimistic projections suggest is at least a decade away."

The clock is ticking on a possible US import ban for Apple Watch

Dave 126

Re: Prediction

Not just the lawyers. This dysfunctional system also benefits the bigger tech companies.

Small outfits and startups don't have the money to defend their IP in court. Not only that, but the big tech firms have the money to lobby for changes to the patent system that favour them. And in Google's case, have their former head of patent strategy be made head of the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Puri.sm puts out LapDock for its Librem 5 smartphone

Dave 126

Re: Travelling

I'm going away soon, and I'm thinking of buying a USB C hub to take with me... Mainly to use as an SD card reader (my phone has an SD card slot, but it's not suitable for swapping with my camera for data transfer since it's in use*) but I might look at buying a Bluetooth keyboard too.

I've got an old Samsung tablet kicking around, its software hopelessly out of date... I wish tablets had been made with a Video In function so that they could act as dumb monitors.

That said, I'm tempted to leave unnecessary gadgets and their cables and cards at home, just take a phone and a Kindle.

* All the Reg commentards who always clamour for SD card slots in phones: why stop at one? Don't be shy, demand at least *two* SD cards slots! One encrypted for app data and music, and one to swap data with cameras and other devices.

/Not sure if serious

Dave 126

You omitted the battery and gubbins in your bill of materials! :)

It is compatible with DEX, it was developed for DEX and similar. (DEX will work with a generic USB C hub - ones sold for the Nintendo Switch will do the trick.) Purism have bundled it with a cable and a phone mount and offered it for sale on their website - though Purism have done some work on the phone software side too to make the experience nicer.

Dave 126

Dex?

I wonder if this lapdock would work with Samsung Galaxy phones in DEX mode?

I'm assuming it would, if it just presented itself as a monitor, mouse, keyboard and audio over USB C. And I can't immediately think of a reason why it wouldn't.

EDIT:

Yes, the original product, the Nexdock360 was created with Samsung phones in mind. Purism are just bundling it with a USB cable and plastic mount.

NASA: Yup, thousand-pound meteorite exploded over Texas

Dave 126

Re: Meteor Defence - Texas Style

> Our asteroid defense plan relies mainly on the hope it won't strike us,

At this moment in time, yes. However, given the timescales involved in a, hoped-for existence of human life on Earth, and b, mean time between continent-destroying meteorites hitting our planet, this 'moment in time' could reasonably be taken as meaning the next hundred or thousand years.

That's not to say that it's impossible we all get wiped out by a rock next Thursday. So, um, err... best get down the pub then. If you want to put a paper bag over your head too then nobody will judge you, though it may interfere with your drinking.

Dave 126

Re: Meteor Defence - Texas Style

The potential to possibly save humankind from an extinction-level event is a fringe benefit of developing cheap access to space, financed in part by selling satellite internet access. (Well okay, launch vehicles built upon technologies originally built by enslaved people to bomb other people, but that isn't an uncommon story in the invention of stuff we all use today)

Whilst we don't yet know the best way to deflect a giant space rock from hitting the earth, we can fairly assume that it will involve deploying some sort of hardware into space. We also know that the earlier we can spot and influence such a rock, the less force will be needed to divert it - so better radar is a good step forward.