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About Facebooks F8 2017 Keynotes (AR and AI)

RorschachPhoeni
Trustee
If some of you have seen the Facebook F8 2017 keynotes, you will have recognised that most of the talks were about AI and AR technology. One thing were AR camera effects for everyones smartphones.

Here is a little video showing some of those effects:
https://www.facebook.com/BuzzFeedTech/videos/1298622390258734/

And while most of those effects seems kinda silly or gimmicky and are of course only visible on the display of your smartphone, Facebook is of course planning to create AR glasses in the future (it is a long term goal).

Michael Abrash had a talk at F8 2017 (his talk is also included in the full day 2 keynote at the end of the post).
But he did not talked about VR like he did in the past. He talked about AR.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y-f45DsKmA

A lot of people are getting hired by Oculus to work on AR:
This team will be based in Redmond, Washington and will work to,
“prototype complete systems that will bring together work in machine
perception, optics, displays, human perception, haptics, audio, input,
graphics, UI/UX, mobile computing, silicon, sensing, batteries, and
whatever else is needed to create a truly compelling AR experience.”
Source: https://uploadvr.com/oculus-building-ar-incubator/

So, it is obvious that Facebook is focussing more and more on AR technology (which makes sense for Facebook).


Talking about something different: The last prototype that was shown to the public was called 'santa cruz': An HMD with Inside-out tracking. There is a new name spooking around lately. The name is 'Monterey' which is rumoured to be the successor of 'santa cruz'.
'Santa Cruz' is using SLAM (Simultaneous localization and mapping) and works with 4 cameras that are tracking the surrounding.

Mike Schroepfer mentioned this as he talked a bit about improvements in camera tracking, image and object recognission and AI technology in his talk at F8 2017 (his talk is also included in the full day 1 keynote at the end of the post. I recommend to watch this video or the full keynote):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_bTzosFGUs

And here comes the hardcore speculation: The CV2 from Oculus Facebook that we are going to see
in the not so distant future will possibly not look like something we
would expect. And the features that are eventually coming with that HMD
will possibly also differ in some very unexpected ways from what a CV1
owner imagines right now.

I don't think it will be just a better version of a CV1. But what will it be? A stand alone, wireless HMD with
internet connection? Will it have AR integration
to some degree? Will it have eyetracking? Will it be smaller? We will see.


Full Facebooks F8 Keynotes
Here is the "Facebook F8 2017 Day 1 Keynote" (the second day is more in depth, but this one is good, too - the last two speakers are talking about 'analytics' and 'apps' - nothing AR/VR relevant there):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOG7BdjxiXw
Here is the "Facebook F8 2017 Day 2 Keynote" (I highly recommend to watch all of it):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbKZSETv_kg
Excuse my bad english. I speak to you through the google translator. 😛
5 REPLIES 5

RorschachPhoeni
Trustee

Excuse my bad english. I speak to you through the google translator. 😛

Anonymous
Not applicable
I've said it in another thread but I'll put my CV2 predictions here too. We'll see it in Q4 2019 or Q1 2020, it'll have 2K per eye, foveated rendering and a larger FOV. And most importantly of all it'll be MUCH more affordable than the CV1. Whether it's wireless or not is up in the air, personally I don't want ti to be. I'm not too keen on having a bloody great big battery by my brain box and it's going to be a pain in the arse keeping the bloody thing charged and won't be suitable for long gaming sessions in Elite Dangerous.

Personally I'm not interested in AR at all, I go into VR to get away from my shite flat lol

And AR games will be mostly limited to shooting things in my flat, which is going to get old very fast. AR will be VERY useful for people training to be surgeons and stuff but for gaming it's going to be about as useful as a chocolate teapot, which is why HoloLens, if Microsoft ever release the thing, is going to be a failure for gaming purposes. Kinect was the same, there was only a few things you could do with it and once those were exhausted by developers most of the games were the same games in a different skin.


snowdog said:

I've said it in another thread but I'll put my CV2 predictions here too. We'll see it in Q4 2019 or Q1 2020, it'll have 2K per eye, foveated rendering and a larger FOV. And most importantly of all it'll be MUCH more affordable than the CV1. Whether it's wireless or not is up in the air, personally I don't want ti to be. I'm not too keen on having a bloody great big battery by my brain box and it's going to be a pain in the arse keeping the bloody thing charged and won't be suitable for long gaming sessions in Elite Dangerous.

Personally I'm not interested in AR at all, I go into VR to get away from my shite flat lol

And AR games will be mostly limited to shooting things in my flat, which is going to get old very fast. AR will be VERY useful for people training to be surgeons and stuff but for gaming it's going to be about as useful as a chocolate teapot, which is why HoloLens, if Microsoft ever release the thing, is going to be a failure for gaming purposes. Kinect was the same, there was only a few things you could do with it and once those were exhausted by developers most of the games were the same games in a different skin.


I agree about AR / VR - VR is the way to go for me too.  The one thing that will blow people away the most is a much larger FOV - ask anybody who had the DK1 and then DK2 - that drop in FOV was devastating.

I'm not so sure about affordability though.  Every year we get new graphics card and CPUs - there are technical advancements but the price stays the same as the previous generation.  If it was a case of slapping in new screens i could understand prices coming down but every single stage of development will be carried out for CV2, all the same research and every part of the HMD will be different.
Big PC, all the headsets, now using Quest 3

Anonymous
Not applicable
That's why I'm suggesting that there's only going to be a small raise in resolution. It's not only going to keep the price of the next headset down but foveated rendering on 2 x 2K screens will also significantly lower the cost of having a PC powerful enough to run the CV2. You might even find laptop GPUs capable of powering a CV2.  😮

And Oculus have said a few times that they're sticking with their Constellation system of tracking for their next generation of HMDs so that's also going to keep the cost down compared to any headset using Valve's more expensive Lighthouse technology. By the time 2019 comes along those sensors and IR LEDs will significantly come down in manufacturing cost.

We'll also see the cost of buying a CV1 coming down considerably too before then.

Oculus know that the cost of HMDs and PCs for VR is the main barrier of entry and they're going to do everything they possibly can to lower that cost during these next few years.


snowdog said:

That's why I'm suggesting that there's only going to be a small raise in resolution. It's not only going to keep the price of the next headset down but foveated rendering on 2 x 2K screens will also significantly lower the cost of having a PC powerful enough to run the CV2. You might even find laptop GPUs capable of powering a CV2.  😮

And Oculus have said a few times that they're sticking with their Constellation system of tracking for their next generation of HMDs so that's also going to keep the cost down compared to any headset using Valve's more expensive Lighthouse technology. By the time 2019 comes along those sensors and IR LEDs will significantly come down in manufacturing cost.

We'll also see the cost of buying a CV1 coming down considerably too before then.

Oculus know that the cost of HMDs and PCs for VR is the main barrier of entry and they're going to do everything they possibly can to lower that cost during these next few years.


Totally agree about the resolution and costs of the HMD and PC.  I didn't know they had said that about Constellation - there will be changes to it though, i'm sure.
Big PC, all the headsets, now using Quest 3