AR Glasses Breakthrough Claimed

AR Glasses Breakthrough Claimed
[May 15, 2024, 11:59 am ET] – 12 Comments

Nature has details on an AI-assisted breakthrough by Stanford University researchers that may eventually mean the end of bulky headsets for augmented reality. Headset mass is holding this segment back, as even Apple's used-car-priced Vision Pro is a chunky monkey, and Stanford claims AR support in a prototype unit the size of normal glasses. There's some proof-of-concept code on GitHub and a write up on ZDnet (thanks Max) calling this a "VR breakthrough," though the Nature article is about holographic AR and doesn't mention VR at all. But we'll still quote it to summarize the jargon-heavy article with the explanation of why this tech is revolutionary, along with the virtual reality check it may still be a decade out:

There is a limit to how small glasses can become when embedding traditional screens. But by changing the optical properties of the glass itself, scientists would be building on the most accepted augmented reality device in history: our glasses.

Unfortunately, what the Stanford team has now is a prototype. The technology needs to be developed much more to move from research, into fundamental science, into the engineering lab, and then on to productization. While the Stanford team didn't predict how long that would take, it would be a fair bet to assume this technology is at least five to ten years out.

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