Comment by paxys
7 months ago
I saw the keynote, and while everything about the glasses was more or less as expected, seeing Zuck easily navigate the interface and type 30 words per minute while barely moving his fingers was a true WTF moment. If they can actually make the neural interface work that well then Meta has won this round.
Exactly, felt like the wristband was the big thing. I don't want the glasses, but I'm somewhat curious if it'd be useful as an extra input device when using a computer.
they've been bragging about how good that neural wristband is for years. It's strange they haven't ventured to make a smartwatch with it. Maybe because Zuck has been so focused on AR/VR
The vision here is much more ambitious than a smart watch, and it probably helps them to introduce it as something that doesn't compete with the Apple Watch / Google Pixel Watch / Samsung Galaxy Watch. The neural wristband is meant to go on the right wrist, so potentially it could complement a more traditional smart watch, or pair with some future Meta smart watch.
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I worked at Google on watches some distant time ago, these floated around.
IMHO the tell on why there's a delay is the original comment expressing wonderment at Zuckerberg demonstrating 30 WPM.
i.e. it sucks.
It's nice technology, engineering, glad they had the courage, sure its useful for its purpose.
However, in practice, humans being humans, the odds I regularly put on a glove, to get 30 WPM, on my glasses computer...very low.
(also, looking back at the original comment...neural interface? wtf? It's not neural...)
One device at a time!
yes and even more useful with a phone. or a TV so I don't have to find the remote. lots of possibilities beyond glasses.
While I agree this is extremely impressive, when I'm out walking, I'm not going to be looking for a convenient flat surface I can rest my hand on so I can type a message. It seems useless in practice.
That's not a limitation - it works in the air, on your leg, other hand, etc.
Does it? Zuckerberg looks like he had to rest his hand on that desk to write, wouldn't he have written in the air if this weren't a limitation?
Doesn’t that make the wrist accessory the important part? The chunky glasses look like they’re still too early, not enough tech.
That's why they are sold as a pair. The glasses are simply a screen strapped to your face. How to control it was always the real problem to be solved (and no, voice was never the answer).
I was one of the earliest developers to test Vision Pro after it was announced at Apple Park. My thoughts after using it for a whole day was that the hand gestures really did feel like magic, at the tradeoff of having a huge headset on your head. Costs aside, the Vision Pro is too bulky for use outside of your home.
I had the idea of wearables to solve this, as many years ago I had the Myo gesture control armband. They were very early with this product too, and from what I had read, most of that team got acquired/absorbed into Magic Leap
> still too early, not enough tech.
At one point I was tracking a company researching beaming images straight on your eye. I think they were MS related, but not sure. After a while they stopped updating, so I guess that went nowhere? It seemed really promising.
It's still certainly early adopter tech. We have the technology for stereo vision and augmented reality. It's just a matter of getting the display and battery and compute bill of materials in order now that they have the screen and a feasible input path.
Meta sells your eyes and ears, not your fingers.
i was disappointed they didn't say you could connect it to other devices too. I would buy it just as a bluetooth keyboard!
Would you have to give Meta a non-exclusive license to every work generated using it as well? HARD PASS.
there are only a few companies where very strong vision, long time horizon and pouring money into said projects come together.
NVIDIA, obviously and Meta are definitely on this list.
Yep "vision" because they are trying to sell you glasses. /s
But Meta's business is clearly getting more and more sweet data from its users. How anyone can not see past this being a surveillance tool for a vast amount of data is unbelievable to me.
the vision is not the glasses. the vision is a connected world.
maybe this is not something that you understand, especially if you're in the US, as there it's common to move farther than the distance between Madrid to Budapest, as an example, but for a lot of people I know, like me, who live more than a 1000km from their childhood friends and 3/4 of the family, any innovation that helps us meet more often and do more things together is welcome.
forget the glasses. it's a step in a direction. there will be many more steps. if you have not already, I urge you to watch Mark's interview at the Acquired event, he talks about his vision there.
do they need money to make all of this happen? of course. you can be part of this as well just by buying META stock.
in the EU I do not need to log in with my facebook account anyway.
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If it was going to blow up then why hasn't those laser beam projected keyboards blown up, or why have mechanical keyboards become so damn popular and not "keyboards on screens?"
This isn't going anywhere.
>why have mechanical keyboards become so damn popular and not "keyboards on screens?"
Both are popular. Literally 100s of millions of people use keyboards on screens, so I'm not even really sure what you think you are trying to say. The desktop computer market isn't likely to move away from mechanical keyboards, but the phone/tablet market did a long time ago. Something with more accuracy, or that can be used for touch typing, without taking up device real estate, could definitely blow up in that market.
I disagree; this wristband might be a game changer because your hand does not need to be free to use it (at least in theory, we'll see how it actually plays out). Also, I'm willing to bet that for some people, this wristband might be more accessible than a regular keyboard (i.e. people with limited mobility or missing hands). Compare it to the laser beam keyboard, which is just a flat version of a regular keyboard.
> why have mechanical keyboards become so damn popular and not "keyboards on screens?"
Keyboards in general have become more popular, as more and more people get computing devices. I'm willing to bet the increase of keyboards on screens is much greater than the increase of mechanical keyboards; there are far more smartphones than mechanical keyboards.
Having a keyboard with tactile feedback is much easier to use than a touch screen keyboard, an you're way less likely to make mistakes. The main reason you don't see them on phone anymore is because having a keyboard on a phone takes up space, makes the phone cost more, and in the case of sliding keyboards adds more points of failure as well. For phone, a touch keyboard is good enough.
> why have mechanical keyboards become so damn popular
It's a very similar hobby to collecting post-marks.
> those laser beam projected keyboards blown up
Because no serious company never made one and what was nowhere near usable beyond "Checks what another useless thing I got!"
> why have mechanical keyboards become so damn popular and not "keyboards on screens?"
I mean... have you ever used a phone?
My phone has so far replaced zero of my keyboards.
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Turn that neural band into a WHOOP band and then we'll talk. Such an opportunity for those who already use fitness trackers.
yep. whatever else you say, Meta's willingness to throw some tech out there is thrilling from a geek / tech perspective.
I can’t find this demo. Am I blind??
https://www.facebook.com/Meta/videos/1927325824791552/
Skip to around 53:00
YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80s0chTOsK0
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How does the finger thing work? What's he doing? I saw him tippy-tappy but it didn't seem like he's moving through some invisible keyboard.
It’s tracking the EMG signals that trigger your finger tendons. Doing that it knows how your fingers are moving.
It can therefore translate it to a handwritten stroke and then do classical handwriting to text conversion.
But I only type with my index fingers!
You've got to type with your shoulders if you want to avoid RSI!
He's scribbling with his finger.
Typing can also work, but handwriting is simply faster and easier to decode.
sEMG signals correlate with *muscle* activation. When your fingers move, the actuators are the muscles in your forearm, and the tendons relay the force on the joint. Placing the band higher up on the forearm would actually give you better signals, but a wrist placement is much more socially acceptable.
It was hard to see, but it looked like handwriting to me.
For marketing reasons, it needs to be something that people can pick up with absolutely minimal practice.
I doubt it has enough accuracy for a virtual keyboards (since keyboards require precise absolute input and it measures relative), besides, most people aren't experienced with single-hand typing.
A bespoke gesture based shorthand would be optimal, but then users would need to spend months learning this new shorthand.
But (almost) everyone already has experience with handwriting, which is a single hand relative input method. It's the easiest option for people to quickly pick up and enjoy.
Though, it's far from perfect, you can see he is struggling to trick his muscle memory into writing without a pen, and he needs to do it on a solid surface (I'm not sure if that's a technology limitation, or a muscle memory limitation).
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Nah, it'll only be cool once Apple does it, I mean once they invent it.
One, Zuck probably practiced for days for this moment and just managed 30 words per minute (which is slow, 1 word per two seconds is really bad).
Two, just try doing this now, moving your hand around like its writing with a pen and see how it feels (without holding a pen). It's super uncomfortable and feels really weird and also looks really weird.
People are really sensitive to looking weird and feeling weird and especially being singled out for being weird or looking weird. Also, there is a huge subset of society now who will not buy anything made by Meta. I think this product is doomed to failure honestly. Happy to eat my words when I see the subway filled with people wearing this dystopian specs.