No, the article is right, "set distance" means that the eye focuses on a distance that is fixed, namely the distance to screens. It can have full stereoscopic 3D and still force the human eye to focus at a given distance. This is a big change from real life, where the eye is continuously changing the focus based on the depth of objects of interest.
Other, non-screen based technologies, such as DLP [1] would allow the rendered field of depth to adjust based on the eye's focus, allowing the scene to be more realistic, and reducing mental fatigue. I think there was a different company using someting like this. [2]
Yeah, I work on VR and know of alternatives to stereoscopic displays. I still maintain that the writer is wrong and doesn't understand what they're describing:
"On Oculus Rift and pretty much every other virtual and augmented reality experience, what the viewer sees is flat and floating in space at a set distance. What Magic Leap purports to do is make you think you’re seeing a real 3-D object on top of the real world."
Good stereoscopic 3D does not give a sensation of seeing something flat and floating in space at a set distance.
The article isn't wrong, it's just ambiguously written. When you are viewing stereoscopic 3D, you are indeed looking at a surface that is flat and at a fixed distance from your eyes. This has consequences in terms of how your eyes are used to working versus how they have to work in a situation like this.
So you might have fun wondering how to build something that doesn't work like that.
You're not wrong, but I still think the article is wrong. They are probably paraphrasing a statement from Magic Leap and miscomprehending it in the process.
> So you might have fun wondering how to build something that doesn't work like that.
For head-mounted use, there are light-field glasses like those of Doug Lanman. Who knows if that is anything like what Magic Leap is actually working on. They are so absurdly secretive that all I've heard so far are contradictory rumors.
