Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

According to news in the morning of August 17, Beijing time, Meta, the owner of Apple and Facebook in the United States, plans to release hybrid reality headsets next year, and they will deliver on a promise made to consumers by the technology industry to make such headsets an important new generation of personal computing devices after smartphones.

However, this new trend faces an important obstacle-shockingly high pricing.

Last year's best-selling device in the virtual reality hardware market was Meta's Quest 2, priced at $400 (about 2716 yuan), accounting for 78% of the market, according to IDC, a US technology market research firm. For consumers who want to taste the next generation of new technology, they will have to pay several times the price.

Earlier this year, Meta announced that it was about to launch a high-end virtual reality headset, internally codenamed "Cambria", which is expected to cost more than $800. Other reports say Apple's unreleased headsets could be priced at thousands of dollars.

For a class of hardware devices that have not yet become mainstream in the market, the above pricing is really high. IDC reported that only 11.2 million sets of virtual reality hardware were sold worldwide last year, while Apple could sell the same number of smartphones in a few weeks.

To expand this emerging market, Apple and Meta need to convince consumers that advanced hybrid reality devices are good value for money and worth investing in. Both Apple and Meta are reported to be betting on a new technology called "penetrating mixed reality", which requires better displays and more powerful processors.

If penetrating mixed reality can achieve the effect of advertising, then the future virtual reality devices can also act as augmented reality glasses, which can greatly increase the variety of applications and practical functions in the real world.

At present, the user experience is generally in the existing virtual reality devices, and the content that users see is limited to the display screen. In penetrating augmented reality, a camera on the outside of a virtual reality device can capture pictures of the real world and send them to two screens in front of consumers' left and right eyes.

In this way, third-party developers can achieve mixed reality, overlay all kinds of software or picture information on the pictures from the real world, and enrich the experience.

Some proponents of mixed reality say that in the future, the new technology will also be condensed into a pair of glasses with transparent lenses and very light weight. But this can only wait to become a reality in the future.

At present, transparent display technology is not mature, so in the technology industry, penetration technology has become one of the best options in the near future. One problem, however, is that penetrating hybrid reality requires more expensive components and powerful headsets, a high cost that limits the size of the potential market.

In addition to advanced cameras, penetration devices also need to be equipped with depth-of-field sensors that can capture video around the user and measure space. The device also needs to detect the position of the user's eyeball, so there is no need to generate images that the user cannot see and save processor resources. In addition, the penetration device also requires powerful processors and software to minimize picture delay, so that the picture that users see on the screen is not blurred or later than in the real world.

One of the most important components is the high-resolution display screen, which needs to exceed the resolution of the smartphone screen because it is closer to the user's eye. Currently, smartphone screens typically have a resolution of 550PPI (pixels per inch), but hybrid reality screens need to be as high as 3500PPI, according to research firm CounterPoint.

Although Meta and Apple have not yet released hybrid reality hardware, a few devices on the market have been able to penetrate hybrid reality, but the user experience of these devices is mediocre, with some black and white displays and some poor video quality, mainly due to poor processor performance.

It is reported that Urho Konttori, a former executive of Microsoft's Nokia, later entered mixed reality and founded a company called Varjo in Finland. Last year, the company launched a hybrid reality device called XR-3, which provides full-color, low-latency penetration hybrid reality. However, this device is expensive and heavy, and is mainly for enterprise users. The product is priced at $6495 for sale and $1500 for an one-year lease.

Compared with other virtual reality headsets on the market, XR-3 doesn't make users feel completely unreal, according to one pilot.

By pressing a button, the user can enter virtual mode, see the virtual scene, start the game in full view, or monitor the computer screen (running various Windows software) in the virtual world.

By penetrating the visual mode, users can interact with the real world. In one demonstration, for example, Varjo parked a car in a room so that users with the device could walk around it and communicate with other people who were not wearing the device.

Most interestingly, when penetration mode is turned on, users can communicate with the real world, such as talking to people next to them and finding a chair to rest. This can not be done in traditional virtual reality devices, and the existing virtual reality forces users to be completely separated from the real world.

Cantori says this dual mode is the purpose of his design. They plan to achieve eye-level display quality, which is the ultimate challenge for the hybrid reality device industry.

A single smooth scene XR-3 is equipped with two screens (resolution 2880X2770), and the device is equipped with an eye tracking system that allows the processor to generate images at the location of the user's eyeballs.

Cantori said that the key to designing the device is to integrate the real world and virtual objects around the user into a single smooth scene, so that manufacturers no longer have to tell consumers which pictures are real and which are virtual.

The executive said that if the device is to provide a high-fidelity visual picture, what people see on the display screen will be as clear as what people see with the naked eye.

At present, when using XR-3, users also need to connect to a high-end game computer through a cable. However, Apple and Meta are developing devices that do not need to be connected to external computers.

Cantori says it will be difficult for mixed-reality startups to compete with rivals such as Apple, but Apple and Meta will also face big technical challenges.

It is a difficult task to develop a consumer-friendly headset with the right weight and powerful processing performance, especially to bring down costs and achieve millions of sales.

Cantoli said that hybrid reality device manufacturers are very concerned about the experience and feelings of users, and they need to take into account factors such as volume, weight, ergonomics and cost.

Apple's plan historically, Apple has been extremely secretive about the development of new products, especially when it comes to new categories. In the past, through its internal "technology development group", Apple has invested heavily in virtual reality research and development, as well as acquiring a number of start-ups related to hybrid reality technology.

According to several authoritative media reports, Apple is developing a hybrid reality headset similar to ski goggles, with a powerful self-developed processor (a chip similar to an Apple laptop) and a high-resolution display screen that is clearer than the products currently on the market.

The Apple device will support video penetration and provide games and other applications. It is reported that for a time, Apple even hoped to achieve a 4K resolution on the first headset, because if the resolution is lower, users will see "little by little" pixels.

So far, Apple has not officially confirmed that it is developing hybrid reality devices, and the company has not commented on the press. Earlier this year, Apple CEO Cook hinted that new products related to mixed reality were in the process of development.

Meta's exorbitant pricing Meta is developing Cambria headsets that support full-color penetrating video. Meta officially announced that the device will be released later this year. According to some renderings made public, the device looks like ski mirrors, equipped with Pancake optical technology, and easier lenses to adjust.

In May, Meta said Cambria could be priced at much more than $800.

Although penetration technology has not yet become a market product, and the price may be high, some meta-universe third-party developers are very supportive of this technology.

The weakness of transparent display screen at present, another alternative to penetrating mixed reality technology, uses transparent lenses, and superimposes a transparent display screen on the lens to display computer-generated images. For example, Microsoft's Hololens and Magic Leap have adopted a transparent display technology called "optical waveguide".

Transparent displays are expensive and face technical difficulties. The user experience of the transparent display screen is not good in daylight. In addition, the transparent display screen on the market is of poor picture quality and blurry text.

Varjo is ready to make big bets on penetration, which Cantori says is generally better because it is completely digital and developers can have more control.

Cantori said that penetrating hybrid reality devices can be calculated and can be used as artificial intelligence tools to participate in the mass world, enhance picture experience and enhance knowledge and skills, whether in the smallest or largest way. Consumers can "distort" the real world in a sense.

Cantor said that in the long run, penetration technology will be the ultimate winner in mixed reality.

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