Unlike virtual reality, Augmented Reality is not so much about losing yourself in a fantasy environment as doing things in the real world. While a number of games have been released that encourage imagination on devices such as the Magic Leap One and the HoloLens, practical applications are more likely to be practical.
That's right, we have two apps on the above devices that directly target the idea of using AR rather than playing. In this case, this work involves communication.
The Magic Leap avatar chat published by L.E.A.P. Published in partnership with Twilio a few weeks ago, it enables two Magic Leap One users to communicate in real-time from remote locations using simplified avatars. On the other hand, New York-based startup Spatial has just launched its own remote communication solution for HoloLens from Microsoft, which differs "a lot" but still serves the same general purpose.
Since so many of the non-gaming AR apps Because it's so enterprise-oriented, the release of these two AR communications applications provides a unique opportunity to compare the effectiveness of the two competing high-end AR devices in a similar task ,
What follows is by no means a detailed discussion of these apps, but once I've tested both apps and put them to the acid test, I can give you a glimpse of which one is right for you if you're into the world of AR-based Want to explore remote meetings. This is the first part focused on Magic Leap, the second part focuses on HoloLens.
Avatar Chat
Avatar Chat is the one you probably heard about most of. The free app quickly downloads to your Magic Leap One and is quite easy to set up. As with many traditional social media accounts, you can choose a username (if not already assigned) and write a description that may include your email address and the name of your website.
Of course, the best thing to do is to choose an avatar (head, shoulders and hands only) that moves with your true head movements. This aspect includes the ability to be persecuted during the conversation as you circle or head out to quiz. There was no apparent delay in this feature, so the prospect of using the app as a real long-distance aide, where responses and real-time conversational body language are crucial, is entirely possible.
Similarly, when you speak audio triggers your avatar's mouth movement to simulate speaking, and the eye-tracking component of the Magic Leap One delivers avatar-winking in (largely accurate) agreement with your true eye movements Avatar Chat are the privacy controls. As with regular social media, you can choose to make your avatar account public or private, view yourself as busy, offline or online, and control personal information (phone number, location, real name, or pseudonym, etc.) Avatar-Chat users can see ,
However, having had a lot of experience working with VR social avatars, I know that sometimes some users can bring the trolling and harassment of the traditional web into immersive computing. That's why I asked Savannah Niles, product designer and project manager for the Avatar chat team, about this area. She confirmed that the app team spent a lot of time thinking about this particular issue, which is why privacy and blocking controls are so robust.
In fact, this approach even bleeds into the use of avatars. During a long chat session with Niles, she showed me how the app has set limits on how close another avatar can get to another, preventing anyone from possibly violating a user's personal area in AR. It may sound silly if you've never participated in an avatar VR or AR session, but I can confirm from direct experience that some people actually violate the personal space of your avatar.
And although it's not real, there's no physical damage, once you get used to the virtual environment, is a feeling of inadequacy, if even a virtual avatar a little bit comes too close, as he roars you through his virtual screaming face. This attention to the social media aspect of Avatar Chat is something Magic Leap deserves praise for.
Virtual Touch
On the positive side of virtual contact, Niles also helped me test the High-5 Fist features so you can virtually touch another user (each action leads to a virtual fireworks or flamingos). We also tried emoji sharing, which was cute, but nothing that I think I would use a lot (and I'm a bit of an emoji fanatic, but I was not thrilled with that feature).
In this session, we did everything we could to jointly watch a YouTube video about the Helio app and share photos with the Gallery app. (To share content with another user, you must first accept another user's cast or initiate it yourself and wait for the cast to be accepted.)
I've also tested the capabilities of the handheld system. I use my real hands to make certain gestures, and have my chat partner mirror these gestures in their avatar form to confirm that my gestures have been correctly interpreted through my avatar form on their page. It is a powerful demonstration of what is possible with this system.
Overall, the app for one-to-one communication is impressive. However, here are some shortcomings of the app.
The fact that the app currently allows only one conversation between two persons limits its effectiveness as a true collaboration tool if your team consists of more than two people (the first demo video showed us three people chatting.
I also tested the capabilities of the hand-recording system, used my real hands to make certain gestures, and had my chat partner reflect those gestures in their avatar form as confirmation that my gestures were over My avatar form has been interpreted correctly on their page.
I have been assured that the next update will feature a three-person feature on the app, and a four-person update that will be released soon after Users may also be able to customize their avatars to resemble their real self.
Apart from visual interactions, I was really surprised at the app how crystal clear the audio was. Niles' voice (who came from Florida to New York City) sounded much better than any cell phone call I've made in recent years, and even a bit better than most Skype calls.
A peculiarity of the app was the avatar tracking. Although my avatar looked like it would normally have stayed in place, I found that I often had to ask my chat partner to position themselves in a certain way to have a true "Face to Virtual Face" experience This could partly be due to the fact that I only used a very small amount of memory to initiate the AR chat. Still, I did not have this issue with most other Magic Leap apps (except, of course, for space-demanding apps like Dr. Grordbort's Invaders).
Conclusion
Finally, one of the best features of The Magic Leap One, the ability to record videos and immediately share them on YouTube or Twitter, had a problem in this case.
Before, all my videos were recorded and sent on YouTube no problem, but since this video was about 30 minutes long and I wanted to share it, the system said the file was too big. Most meetings take at least 30 minutes, so this limit could be a problem for anyone who wants to save and review an important meeting.
Fortunately, I have the Magic Leap One Hub connector (not included in the standard Magic Leap) A package that is available for everyone and is available for $ 60. This package allows me to connect the headset to my computer, open the Lumin SDK, and then download the terminal with a set of terminal commands. However, I suspect that this is not a process that most non-developer users want to go through. It is therefore something that should be addressed in future updates of Avatar Chat.
To put it in a nutshell, if you are looking for a way to start remote-controlled AR meetings with another person "today" is Avatar Chat, a free app, an easy choice. However, there are limitations to the options that Avatar Chat offers. Most of them are made clear in the second part of this feature, which covers the Spatial app on Microsoft's HoloLens.
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