An anonymous reader shares a report: In the world of mixed reality hardware and software, few people have the expert-level credibility of Oculus CTO John Carmack, whose pioneering 3D work at id Software broke new ground on personal computers years before he turned his attention to bringing VR hardware to life. While Oculus’ owner, Facebook, recently suggested that the future of its Insight and Guardian motion-tracking technologies is in all-day wearable augmented reality glasses, Carmack is underscoring that this future isn’t immediately on the horizon, and that other companies in the space — particularly Magic Leap — have been underdelivering on their early hype.

The core issue, Carmack said on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, is that technology still hasn’t advanced to the point where AR glasses can be made small enough for people to wear around all day. Right now, he says, Oculus could make a “sort of a shoebox-sized thing” that people could wear into the world, but it wouldn’t be socially acceptable in most places. Even if Oculus could cut the size down by three quarters into a swim goggle-sized wearable, he doesn’t believe that people would want to wear it for long periods, and “we haven’t built it,” he notes. Carmack also struggled to define realistic consumer applications for the technology, noting that he was “skeptical of the broad utility” of a lot of the “little demos” that initially seem interesting.

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Source: Slashdot – Oculus CTO Carmack Downplays Consumer AR, Calls Magic Leap Overhyped