This Monday, June 5, will go down in the annals of technology. Or because Apple will have managed to create the first product capable of popularizing augmented reality, or because Apple will have faced its first major failure in 25 years.
If it will take many months, even years, to know the outcome of this bet, it will have started well, as the rumors announced, with the announcement of an augmented reality helmet on June 5, on the occasion of its WWDC conference. It is called Apple Vision Pro, and it was preceded by the famous “One more thing”, pronounced in the past by Steve Jobs for historical announcements, this time taken up by Tim Cook.
Apple’s augmented reality headsets are controlled with your eyes, hands, and voice. It is not intended to offer a 3D “metaverse” in the style of Facebook, but rather an augmented reality experience. Which consists of superimposing virtual elements on the real world, with different degrees of immersion, according to the user’s will.
controlled isolation
The “Home View” screen lets you find all your apps, like the iPhone Home screen, in a frame that appears to levitate above the ground. Apple promises the ability to use all the space around you, for example, to expand the size of an application on the fly, without any restrictions. Naturally, the helmet allows you to multiply virtual screens and use several applications side by side.
Apple adds a feature called ‘Surround’, to display an immersive frame around the app. The user can thus choose the size of the projection that covers the room, thanks to a simple control, identical to the one found on the Apple Watch.
The application icons also react according to your gaze. To open them, just pinch two fingers together. The helmet works thanks to external cameras located at the bottom of the screen, which constantly film the user’s hands.
But Apple says that it does not want to make its helmet a device that has the effect of isolating the user from the outside. An option called EyeSight will broadcast the image of the user’s eyes to those around them, to indicate that they are available for a “real” exchange.
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Source: BFM TV
