CastAR shutdown...

CastAR were an AR kickstart spinnoff from Valve, that received some initial venture capital funding and were working on a board gaming style of AR.

Breaking news they are shutting down and laying off staff.

News Article: https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/27/15879700/castar-augmented-reality-glasses-shutdown-layoffs-report

Tested look at CastAR technology

 

Based on a comment on Ars Technica the company simply ran out of funding. Which is completely understandable when you consider how many years they've been at this (four years) and how many employees they had by the end (at least 70).

With absolutely nothing to show for it.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017...y-system-is-no-more/?comments=1&post=33560239

 

Startups fail all the time. That's just part and parcel of the business. You get some funding, then you've got a couple of years try to make a product. If it doesn't work, you close down and everyone moves on to other projects.

 

Yet Sixense goes on and on and on.

 

I have to say that CastAR was never a viable AR system if you simply look at how it works i.e. projectors in the glasses that then need to be reflected from a mat. This effectively provides a system that not only requires specialist surfaces to work (who was going to wreck their house or find the required space to use this product?) but, also means that your AR ends at the edge of the surface and so does not actually project into the world at all. It basically worked only as a discreet projector and not much more. Heck taking the back off the Samsung VR headset and simply using an AR app via the phones camera offered a better AR to real world system!

So while it's sad that castAR has finally bitten the dust I have to ask how it survived this long in the first place. Was it simply that people were swept along on the hype and didn't think about the practicality and reality of the way it worked until they tried to work out how to sell it into actual real customer homes?

 

This makes me sad

 

Unlike CastAR which was basically in development hell Sixense has had actual products come to market. The Razor Hydra (a control system), MakeVR (a VR-focused CAD), and vRetail (a VR e-commerce system). You need to be successful to continue existing. Investor funding only lasts so long.

 

Wow how do people fit Flat screens into their homes or tables.

The 'surface' is the reflective material used in high visibility jackets, so can be rolled out when needed or up when not.

Also it doesn't need to be flat they often showcased the sheet with one edge vertical or a separate sheet mounted vertical.

Polygon updated their story... (https://www.polygon.com/2017/6/26/15877804/castar-shut-down)

Fingers crossed a big tabletop games company will embrace the future or Atari?!

Wait a moment, what if Unity bought them out with some of their 400m they got from investors they could probably purchase it and build their own platform?

UnityAR anyone?

 

Powered by Apple.

 

I think the concept was to run the game as an app on a mobile device then plug the glasses into them as smart display/input systems.

 

have you looked at lamp, you wouldnt even need any glasses or an app. Just the lamp

 

Was vRetail ever released? I only see a couple of press clippings from a couple of years ago. It looks like it is dead in the water. The Hydra was a Razor product with licensed Sixense tech but it hasn't been in production for years. MakeVR isn't close to what they were promising and doesn't look like it can compete with Tiltbrush or Medium.

Their flagship technology is their STEM system which still has not shipped almost four years after their successful Kickstarter campaign. Oculus and HTC have both released competing products which kills a lot of the potential market for the STEM.

Nothing Sixense has done so far really qualifies as a success.

 

I did not know about Hololamp

 

This is what we need for AR, it needs to be that lightweight and work from that far distance. None of this bulky heavy, only 40 degrees of vision BS, I dont want to have to look through my phone. Figure out how to make very lightweight and powerful and make it stylish so you wont look like a nerd wearing it

 

That was one of the advantages of Cast AR they had the projectors and sensors inside a pair of slightly bulky glasses.

You would need a piece of the reflective material which limited the technology to screen, board, wall or cave style interactions.

 

I feel like if we want ar to really take off and replace cellphones they will need the technology to be actually good. I dont know why microsoft would release such a half baked release with holo lens , 3000 dollars, only 40 degrees, big bulky and slow. If they keep F***ing around with it, doing incrementalism so they can maximise profits so each new version is bigger and slightly it might fail with the public.

 

Because they're Microsoft.

 

damnit too fast

 

Um. Have you ever tried the HoloLens?