[HN Gopher] Meta VR prototypes aim to make VR 'indistinguishable...
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Meta VR prototypes aim to make VR 'indistinguishable from reality'
Author : cr4zy
Score : 143 points
Date : 2022-06-20 18:00 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.roadtovr.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.roadtovr.com)
| system16 wrote:
| Mildly interesting but confusing. Who is the audience for this
| little clip? Meta shareholders who need reassurance that the
| metaverse is on track?
| ntoskrnl wrote:
| Probably enthusiasts. Same people that might watch a video
| about Intel's newest CPU.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Recruiting video, maybe?
| Havoc wrote:
| Wish they'd go into a bit more detail given that they have actual
| prototypes...
|
| Slightly confused as to why they stuck the zuck into what looks
| like a plywood shed though?
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Wow, this is scary. These VR goggles remind me of the visitor's
| sunglasses in V. You don't think...?
|
| https://www.scifipulse.net/richard-herd-passes-to-the-final-...
| [deleted]
| PheonixPharts wrote:
| 10 years ago I thought we would all be driving in autonomous cars
| by now, I was seriously concerned about the impact this would
| have on the trucking industry. For context I have a background in
| ML/Stats so I was reasonably familiar with the research going on
| in this area and had many friends working on it.
|
| In that time I have relearned an old adage that people before my
| generation would know well "the last mile is the longest mile".
| In R&D this feels far more extreme than in running.
|
| VR seems very similar to autonomous driving. Quest 1/2 are light
| years ahead of what we had a decade or so ago. At the same time
| it's nowhere near to the point where it's going to be a major
| part of my day. The Quest was mind blowing when I first used it,
| but I got bored remarkably fast. Most importantly, none of my
| problems with quest are the problems that are being solved here.
|
| The biggest one, in my opinion, is still space. I want a 10'x10'
| area to run around in to even start having fun, and even in a
| house I still don't have an open space that supports that without
| moving furniture around.
|
| The mobile phone took over our lives because it's so small and
| convenient. Large TVs work because we've been building homes
| around them for decades, and TV spaces are also communal,
| family/friend spaces. This brings up another issue, VR is
| fundamentally isolating. I get annoyed enough when friends don't
| look up from their phones.
|
| The remaining obstacles for VR to conquer seem to be arguably
| bigger problems than the ones that self driving cars need to
| tackle to take over the roads.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > This brings up another issue, VR is fundamentally isolation.
|
| Wait. Why? Online games exist. They're social.
|
| I'm not really a gamer. But it's interesting why social
| interaction in online video games is some secondary tier to
| social interaction playing basketball, for example, or just
| talking in coffee shop - or on the phone...
| WJW wrote:
| It's not that you can't have social interactions in a (VR)
| game, but someone with VR goggles on is extremely
| unapproachable for other people in the same room.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Social interaction in video games is second tier because it's
| vastly lower bandwidth than real life social interaction. 3
| senses - taste, touch, smell - are completely missing. Audio
| is present, but often sounds distorted, disconnected, or
| ethereal - i.e. "off". Meanwhile, visually you only gets to
| experience the virtual space you're interacting in which is
| rife with limitations. In particular, body language from
| those around you is either missing entirely or is very
| rudimentary.
|
| Though I'd say interaction in games can easily beat "talking
| on the phone".
| ar_te wrote:
| My profesor at Uni predicted, that the next computer revolution
| will be "invisible computing". That firstly basically all
| everyday items will get chips inside (ie "Smart Things", it was
| way before Iphone &co) and then computing will bee something in
| the background. IDK, but it seems plausible to me and looks
| like we are moving into such future. VR is not compatible with
| that vision. Most ppl prefer real life to escapism. And event
| if you want to escape drugs are more fun and more addictive.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| _Most ppl prefer real life to escapism._
|
| I dunno, escapist industries are pretty big, and occupy quite
| a big of most people's non-work waking life. Film, tv, video
| games, books, comics, social media, etc..
| nathias wrote:
| I'm waiting for contact lenses with a good enough resolution to
| serve as a screen replacement and cyberdecks replace laptops ...
| [deleted]
| ahelwer wrote:
| Meta's VR tech is undeniably amazing. I picked up a quest 2 off
| craigslist and was blown away - wirelessly streaming VR games to
| the headset over wifi is the first time I felt the technology had
| actually arrived. The resolution is also good enough to use it
| for actual work with text on virtual screens. It's conceivable
| that the standard workstation + monitors setup will be a thing of
| the past by the end of the decade.
|
| It is sad that we are unavoidably headed to a world where a
| company like Meta monopolizes control of two of our five
| traditional senses (sight and sound). Their business model is
| based on behavior modification and I fully expect their highly-
| compensated employees to be endlessly creative in the application
| of headsets to that end. The sheer scale of R&D expenditure
| required to get realistic/usable VR is daunting and seems beyond
| FOSS capabilities. Not just hardware, but software like SLAM/VIO
| or image processing. I backed the Simula One headset but the
| disparity in development resources between them and meta is
| pretty astounding.
| curiousgal wrote:
| > _headed to a world [...]_
|
| I am always astounded by such claims, like have you guys ever
| travelled outside the Western hemisphere at all?
| Helitico wrote:
| I'm really really curiuos who will win this bet.
|
| I also have a htc vive pro + wireless transmitter + highend pc
| and i don't think at all that this will replace a normal
| monitor setup on a table.
|
| Why?
|
| Because wearing a headset on your head is just cumbersome.
|
| I don't think anyone would ever sit in any outdoor setup with a
| VR headset on their heads because it looks idiotic, it ruins
| your hair and its too expensive to let it lay around.
|
| And at home? At home people stoped wearing pants why would they
| give up a good display for a headset?
| lostmsu wrote:
| > because it looks idiotic
|
| This is exactly what people thought of 5+ inch phone screens,
| and now nobody cares.
| snarfy wrote:
| "We can sell 80 percent of the screen WITHOUT inducing
| seizures!"
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I find myself constantly surprised in threads like this. The
| few times I've tried VR sets (including a Quest 2), I found the
| resolution to be shockingly low. It's easy to overlook when the
| image is moving, which is most of the time in games for
| example. Just like Jurassic Park still looks great despite
| having HD res computer graphics.
|
| But sitting stock still, I was so distracted by big obvious
| pixels. I can't imagine trying to do real work with text at
| that resolution.
| mdorazio wrote:
| Don't worry, you're not alone. During the pandemic, one of my
| clients got about 20 Quest 2s for employees to have at home
| in an effort to make people feel more in touch and experiment
| with VR meetings & workspaces. After the novelty wore off,
| usage dropped to basically zero and I don't know anyone who
| uses theirs now for anything besides games.
|
| For me, Quest 2 is very obviously a "not there yet" product
| that seems to mostly appeal to kids and people who don't
| actually care about graphics or comfort. It's hot, battery
| life is bad, strapping over a pound on your face for hours at
| a time is not fun, and the graphics are visibly bad - even
| just sitting still the edges are horribly aliased and the
| screen door effect is massively apparent. Plus the nausea for
| many people, and the complete lack of spatial awareness. I
| will say that untethered is massively better than tethered,
| though, even with the graphics penalty. Quest 4 (I don't
| think v3 will be a big enough improvement) or whatever Apple
| eventually releases might actually be appealing, though.
| rob74 wrote:
| So, "Project Cambria" is really a "Cambrian Explosion" of
| prototypes?
| colordrops wrote:
| They are missing some items from their "VR Turing Test:
|
| * Full field of view.
|
| * Not having the feel of a clunky headset on your face.
|
| * Not having to regularly align and adjust the headset so that
| the visual looks right.
| llllllllllll9 wrote:
| phkahler wrote:
| That's nice, but one thing that will be needed more is a wider
| field of view and the ability to look around by moving your eyes
| instead of your head.
|
| All of these goals can be achieved with real holographic
| displays. We need the equivalent of a GPU optimised for
| computational holography, and a display with high enough
| resolution to render phase coherent interference patterns (rgb
| omg). No lenses will be required. This is the endgame for
| wearable displays.
| schaefer wrote:
| Can I please just have a 3d window manager? No, not mapping my 2d
| desktop onto a single surface in 3d.
|
| A true 3d native window manager. where I can arrange each
| individual window anywhere in the 360 degree space?
|
| Until that is solid, VR is not the productivity tool I was hoping
| it can be.
|
| Just like Mobile(ios, android), Microsoft could not possibly drop
| the ball any harder here.
| lancesells wrote:
| I find the concepts of working with 2D windows or planes in a
| VR setting to be so odd. Isn't using a monitor in physical
| space better in every way? What am I missing?
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| You can have multiple 100 inch monitors for which you can
| change the position in seconds.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| As someone who still uses pen and paper for sketching out ideas
| and books for reference, I do not understand the appeal of VR
| for productivity. Going from 2 to 3 monitors was only a slight
| productivity improvement for me - one monitor is now dedicated
| to Slack. Being able to have a huge viewable space to work in
| seems like it's not going to be that much better. Meanwhile
| there is fatigue from the headset, having to charge (or tether)
| a thing you're always wearing, and a disconnect from the
| physical world which makes some things less convenient (e.g.
| writing things down).
|
| Finally, there's an issue of who owns and controls the space
| you work in. With WFH, it's nice to be in a space that I fully
| control and can customize to my needs. If history is any guide,
| a VR space will become heavily monetized, if not by Meta then
| by someone else. And the possibilities for surveillance -
| either by your employer or the "owner" of the space - are now
| limitless. I'm not naive enough to think that history won't
| repeat itself.
| eikenberry wrote:
| Why measure it by productivity? I mean it is one measure, but
| far from the most important and probably has very little to
| do with anyone's attraction to VR as a medium. And just stick
| with FLOSS software and you neither have to worry about
| lockin/monitization nor do you have to worry about
| surveillance.
| Closi wrote:
| Eh, depends on your industry and the application.
|
| Would you agree that it might be useful for architects or
| product designers to see the things they are designing
| instantly at the right scale?
|
| New technologies don't have to be a full replacement of your
| whole workflow, they can just augment it.
| JeffeFawkes wrote:
| Windows Mixed Reality does this, and remarkably well. Launch an
| app from the VR "start menu" and it'll open as a floating
| window positionable in 3D space. Bonus is that you can use your
| mouse and keyboard still in VR, with mouse / keyboard focus on
| the window you're gazing at.
|
| Downside: as far as I know, you need a WMR headset to use it.
| There might be mods to use the Mixed Reality Portal (the VR
| window manager) with other headsets, though.
|
| Here's a random YouTube video demonstrating it:
| https://youtu.be/gPkcDg8IECU
| schaefer wrote:
| Thanks, I haven't tried Windows Mixed reality yet. I don't
| know if it's compatible with the Varjo Aero headset, but I'll
| try later tonight.
| andybak wrote:
| Sorry to tell you but it isn't.
|
| Still too many walled gardens.
| jackbrookes wrote:
| You can do this on the Oculus PC app with Oculus Dash
| usrn wrote:
| I've been saying this for half a decade now. It's really the
| only thing that would ever make me consider buying a VR
| headset.
|
| I've thought about building something myself but honestly all
| the crap in X11 is too distracting anyway and half the time I
| just switch to VTs to focus.
| whateveracct wrote:
| SimulaVR is working on it!
| lewispollard wrote:
| Yes.
|
| https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula
| schaefer wrote:
| I'm aware of the Simula project.
|
| But it isn't compatible with my varjo aero headset - which is
| limited to Windows only.
|
| If I had truly understood that windows doesn't have a native
| 3d window manager for VR, there's no way I would have bought
| the Aero.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| VR as a future is tied into "identity" and certain group
| identities, some of which we see clearly now in social media.
|
| Identities which someone can invent for themselves which can be
| independent generally from geography, genetics, looks,
| temperament, age etc. Freedom to be whoever and whatever you want
| to be. Today's social VR users are often playing with their own
| identity right now.
|
| It's all about image, a spectacle, a way to make personalities
| and reality flexible and it's a way for identity to be expressed
| as a kind of collection of things that can be commodified and
| packaged up for sale. That's the future which is looked at.
|
| However I think we might see a genuine sub culture emerging, as a
| reaction against this. We can possibly see some of this in some
| of the language used in a few strange semi-underground youth
| music events today. It's not anti tech, and not anti identity at
| all! More like a demand to be in control of their own methods and
| ways of consumption. A certain ironic detachment from
| corporations.
| pyb wrote:
| I don't know if this stuff is genuinely indispensable and novel,
| or if they're preparing to create a patent thicket around VR ?
| What would industry insiders think ?
| SilverBirch wrote:
| This is quite interesting actually, because this sort of directly
| lays out "Here are 3 difficult technical problems we need to
| solve for a VR headset" - Resoution, Focal depth, high dynamic
| range.
|
| I'm not an expert in the area, but resolution and HDR seem like
| basically solved problems - in that they're just logical
| progressions of where we are today. The focal depth one I didn't
| understand. He says normal monitors are a fixed distance, whereas
| in VR and AR you need to focus on different distances. But these
| VR headsets _are_ just a fixed distance away, so how is that
| really a problem?
|
| Fundamentally these problems are clearly necessary buticie not
| sufficient for VR.
| svet_0 wrote:
| > this sort of directly lays out "Here are 3 difficult
| technical problems we need to solve for a VR headset"
|
| It lays out the problems Meta had most progress in. Another
| very significant VR metric is FOV which was not discussed.
|
| > He says normal monitors are a fixed distance, whereas in VR
| and AR you need to focus on different distances. But these VR
| headsets are just a fixed distance away, so how is that really
| a problem?
|
| You want dynamic focus to convey the feeling of real world eye
| focus, and make the projected scene more natural/believable.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| The focal depth thing is related to a human vision system
| bug/feature - Your eyes want to change their 'vergence' at the
| same time they change focal distance. This is sort of a hard-
| coded geometry solution. When you want something close your
| brain crosses your eyes a bit, adjusts the image to your brain,
| and changes focus. When you look far away your eyes uncross a
| bit, apply another transform to the result, and change focus
| again. Getting the eye-crossing and simultaneously trying not
| to change focus is one of the things that gives people eye
| strain and headaches when using VR.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Your brain puts together multiple 3-d cues. If you are looking
| directly at something the angle of your two eyeballs is a
| little different dependening on the distance and this is
| vergence.
|
| Your eyes also focus like the autofocus of a camera and the cue
| from that is called accommodation.
|
| The two should match to provide perfect perception on reality.
| Certainly a VR headset works with a fixed focus for everything,
| but to get the ultimate perception of reality without eye
| strain a VR headset should be able to simulate focusing
| distance.
|
| (Who knows, however? Meta's Super Bowl ad might be revealing
| their real intentions. In that ad a discarded animatronic
| Android gets to relive its past with VR. VR is good for the
| elderly because you can enjoy it without learning anything new.
| I think one of the worst things about getting old that I
| experience is presbyopia where you can't focus over the whole
| range so you have to wear two pairs of glasses. Maybe I'd find
| it easier just to have it all in focus all the time.)
| ar_te wrote:
| Solved but still not enough to make it seem reel. He said that
| natural light has 10x more dynamic range than best monitors
| available. As to focal depth - in real world there is no
| "screen", your eyes (or perhaps brain:) can decide which what
| you want focus on and what can stay blurred. On screen
| everything is in focus, so you need to make fake blur. But you
| need to know what user is focusing on. So you need to read
| retina movements to guess. Sounds like complicated and hard
| problem to me.
| [deleted]
| InitialLastName wrote:
| > But these VR headsets are just a fixed distance away, so how
| is that really a problem?
|
| Focal depth is one of the cues your brain uses to perceive
| distance, in addition to (potentially more than, depending on
| which cognitive scientist you listen to) binocular vision. You
| don't mind that monitors are a fixed distance from your eyes
| because you don't expect them to give you real depth (your eyes
| can just focus on that distance). If, however, you want
| something to be "indistinguishable from reality" you need to
| emulate changing focal depth, which means (I guess) changing
| the angles that rays hit your eyeballs at.
|
| IMO that's one of the reasons that 3D movies always looked so
| fakey; they could emulate the binocular vision, but they
| couldn't emulate the focal depth, causing a perceptual
| dissonance.
| kurthr wrote:
| There are multiple ways that your eye/brain senses depth:
| binocular vision/vergence, lens focus, and relative
| correlated motion to name three. When these depth cues don't
| match each other well, it is distracting and can cause
| fatigue or headaches after extended use.
| DogOnTheWeb wrote:
| On focal depth: In the real world you can look at an object
| close up and your eyes will adjust so that it is clear and
| objects at other ranges are blurry. Then, when you look at an
| object far away your eyes re-adjust focus.
|
| You can test this by looking at your hand 6" from your face so
| it partially blocks your keyboard a couple feet away. You'll
| notice that either the keys are blurry or your hand is as you
| shift focus between the two.
|
| Future gen headsets will use eye tracking to understand which
| object in a scene you are looking at, and make that object
| sharp while making other objects blurry. This helps produce
| more realistic depth, while also dramatically improving
| performance as most of the scene can be rendered in lower
| resolution.
| benoliver999 wrote:
| This is key to me. I have a quest 2 and I don't like having
| to move my head instead of my eyes.
| kurthr wrote:
| I'd throw in 2 more, power/heat and weight.
|
| However, the resolution/refresh-rate needed for immersive VR/MR
| is not quite a solved problem. If you assume something like
| 100deg horizontal and vertical for each eye and something like
| retina (not screen door or blurry) 40-60pix/deg resolution,
| you're looking at 5k x 5k per eye at 120-180Hz for 2 eyes. You
| can't do that over a single DP 2.0 link, and it would be too
| power hungry anyway. That leads to a requirement for fast eye-
| tracking and foveal rendering (only rapidly refresh where
| you're looking in high resolution)... and gains you ~10x
| reduction in bandwidth/power.
|
| Then you get to directly monitor the user's attention, build a
| DL model of their attention, optimize it for maximum
| interaction, and sell the model to the highest bidder.
| jayd16 wrote:
| When you look at a monitor, you're looking at a quad at a set
| distance. Your eyes are focused on that quad in the exact same
| way they would focus on anything at that distance.
|
| In VR, dynamic depth is simulated using stereo-screens where
| each pupil is pointed at a dynamic focal point BUT stero-focus
| is not the same as lens focus. Because of this, VR produces a
| disjoint sensation where stereo focus changes to the simulated
| position but lens focus remains fixed.
|
| You can experience the difference by holding up a finger and
| looking at it, then look at a distant object. Notice that
| you'll see two images of your finger as you focus away. That is
| stereo focus. Now do the same while covering one eye. Notice
| that the finger is now blurry but not doubled. That would be
| the lens focal difference.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| Ah yeah, I had forgotten about the issue of presenting
| separate views to each eye, good point.
| evan_ wrote:
| The screen being a fixed distance _is_ the issue. The holy
| grail would be a system that fools your eyes and makes you
| think that it isn 't at a fixed distance- something like
| eyeball tracking that detects, instantly, what you're focusing
| on, and adjusts the perceived focal distance based on how far
| away the cluster of pixels you're looking at is meant to be.
| This would improve immersion.
|
| HDR is trickier than you think because devices like cell phones
| can improve their dynamic range by just making the screens
| brighter- increasing the range by raising the top end- but
| there's a certain cutoff on how bright a VR screen can be and
| still be comfortable.
| ntoskrnl wrote:
| > The focal depth one I didn't understand.
|
| I think the idea is simulating depth of field by blurring
| different parts of the image based on where the user's eye is
| looking.
| Geee wrote:
| Cool, but I'm never buying anything from Zuckerberg.
| sfblah wrote:
| They must be losing money on the Quest 2, so there's that...
| mihaifm wrote:
| I think one of the greatest barriers to VR adoption is not
| resolution etc. but motion sickness. It is caused by the
| conflicting signals the brain receives from the body and from the
| eyes. Currently the only way to get rid of it is through
| training, but I'm not sure how many people are willing to go
| through the process. It took me about a month to fully get rid of
| it, but I assume it vastly differs from person to person.
| dataangel wrote:
| A lot of people have found motion sickness in VR is actually
| usually driven by refresh rate. They get sick because the
| screen doesn't update as fast as reality. If you have the
| chance to try a Valve Index, they have the ability (not default
| setting though) to go to 144hz, and you may experience way less
| sickness. The Quest and Quest2 can't go that high.
| krasin wrote:
| Anecdotal evidence: I used to get motion sick in cars, but
| after playing hundreds of hours in Beat Saber on my Quest, no
| more. I can bear road trips just fine.
|
| So, VR is the training.
| Karupan wrote:
| As someone who has sever motion sickness in general, I'm
| curious to understand how you got rid of it. Is there some
| specific training routine?
| mihaifm wrote:
| There's no easy way around it. I enabled continuous motion in
| a few games and practiced for a few minutes until I could no
| longer tolerate it. Try feeling the ground with your feet,
| that helps a lot. The interesting part is that when you lose
| motion sickness you also lose some of the VR immersion, it's
| like telling the brain "this is not real, it's the body you
| need to trust not the eyes".
| notyourwork wrote:
| It's been this way from the very start of virtual reality. It is
| called reality after all. What's so special about Meta?
| kache_ wrote:
| Reality approximating VR will a huge boon for our fight against
| global warming & our capacity to use gas/fuel on things more
| important than transportation to conferences & offices.
| poisonarena wrote:
| as long as someone is doing it
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Kind of cool. But none of these seem to address the real problems
| VR has. There's no VR content that is held back by the graphical
| fidelity atm. Aside from maybe porn.
| sio8ohPi wrote:
| Agreed. I play combat flight sims in VR almost daily, and even
| with that genre's high FOV and resolution demands, I think most
| of us are bottlenecked more by GPU performance and software
| tools than HMD resolution or dynamic range. (Reduced edge
| distortion would be fantastic, though.)
|
| It's weird to me that these multi-billion dollar companies are
| investing so much R&D money into supporting my niche hobby, but
| I suppose I shouldn't complain.
| s0rce wrote:
| if you build it they will come
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| They haven't come for the past several years of VR tech
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Years is a generous way of putting it. This tech has been
| doing the rounds for quite a while:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuality_(product)
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Dunno, I think VR content will always just be shallow novelty
| experiences until it gets smoother to use, and being able to
| for example read text goes along way toward fixing that. Better
| hand controls would also help, I don't think VR without haptic
| feedback is really viable.
|
| Solve that set of problems, and you might get to a point where
| you could build actually useful things in VR. Like a work
| environment for CAD or 3D modelling or whatever that has actual
| benefits over traditional interfaces.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| I absolutely don't use my valve index as much because of the
| mess of cables and now my desk is in a weird spot colliding
| with my tracking stations.
|
| I also don't use my quest 2 because the fidelity just isn't
| good enough.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| So what would you do if you had an index quality quest 2?
| sergiotapia wrote:
| I had a blast playing pokerstars vr, it's just fun to
| hangout in that VR space. I would probably play a lot more
| rec room. again fun to just hang out in that space.
|
| I think whoever solves the casualness of VR will become the
| next big tech giant. It is looking like Facebook will come
| back HARD.
| krasin wrote:
| >There's no VR content that is held back by the graphical
| fidelity atm.
|
| As mentioned by the other comment, the ability to read text
| clearly is important and missing. That holds back a lot of
| productivity use cases.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Maybe. I don't see many people working in VR though.
| dmix wrote:
| You'd think so but I keep hearing more and more people
| trying to do this. Never made sense to me but it apparently
| works for some people.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| What kind of work?
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| I develop financial software and sysadmin in VR (/AR pass
| through for keyboard) on a Meta Quest 2, streaming a
| cloud "gaming" PC wirelessly.
|
| Unlimited weightless 60 inch monitors which fit in a
| single laptop bag is real nice. 10 hour battery life with
| a pocket sized battery pack. Unlimited with a 12ft USB-C
| cable.
|
| The only thing I can see making it better for what I do
| is higher text fidelity. Anything else would be a luxury,
| and unnecessary for repeated full days in VR.
| bitcurious wrote:
| > There's no VR content that is held back by the graphical
| fidelity atm.
|
| Sort of. Discomfort/nausea issues hold back VR and will be
| addressed by this work.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >graphical fidelity
|
| it also seems like a wrong goal in general because to me the
| entire point of VR is that it's _not_ bound to physical
| reality, investing billions of dollars so you can sit on a
| photorealistic sofa I think defeats the purpose. I think the
| popularity of Minecraft, Fortnite or VRChat shows that people
| aren 't looking for realism but interesting experiences you
| _can 't_ have offline, with community being the most important
| thing.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Photorealism isn't a good descriptor for just being able to
| look at things and have your eyes work properly.
| epgui wrote:
| I would argue that VR aims to be more than just photorealism,
| but that photorealism is still very important for a range of
| use cases within VR.
| bravogamma wrote:
| Why do you expect the content to precede the platform?
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Well I don't consider better graphics to be a new platform.
| lattalayta wrote:
| A lot of those prototypes seem to cater to common complaints
| from first-time or casual VR users - eye strain, focus,
| fatigue, and weight. I think iterating on these aspects of
| comfort is important for VR adoption.
|
| Personally, I don't really want or look forward to a future
| where people spend a lot of time in a headset, but if there
| were a lightweight, comfortable option it would be fun to
| explore experiences every once in awhile.
| 0xakhil wrote:
| It might be difficult for us to imagine a shift to VR version of
| social media. But think about the next generation of kids growing
| up with these kind of techs. They will mass adopt them and we
| will follow. For Facebook, it was millennials who adopted first
| and for Snapchat/tiktok, GenZ.
|
| And Facebook will get the opportunity to own the platform
| completely for the first time. So the soon they reach their goal,
| the better. Actually, it is a smart move.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| If you look at a lot of Facebook's VR advertising campaigns,
| they're spending a lot of money on advertising to kids, making
| VR seem like a place they and their friends can get together
| and experience cool things.
| planetsprite wrote:
| I find it charming Zuckerberg actually seems to care about this
| stuff. He of course wants every human interaction to be
| monetizable by Facebook, total control of our dopamine channels,
| etc. but I think beyond that, deep down, he's just a nerd who
| wants to live in a VR dreamland to shut out the millions of
| people who call him a weird lizard.
| Helitico wrote:
| Good if someone like him cares about something.
|
| It would be much greater if he actually cared for society and
| would fix what he did with facebook, addicted mobile/facebook
| games and fake news.
|
| But hey now the poor can have a 1-2k high quality VR Headset
| with full immersion to see others in a VR Chat while living in
| a dumpster.
|
| ---
|
| On a more non emotional side: Of course i like the idea of a
| high quality VR Headset but i'm not sure what FB thinks what
| this will do for FB. Those millions/billions they invested in
| their Metaverse will not become something great.
|
| I'm still very confinced that VR is a novelity and nothing
| people will just be in all day long. Why would they?
|
| Lets compare it to others:
|
| Apple key notes are about new hardware, new usability.
|
| Google IO has a ton of diversity, doing things for society.
| They talk about taking good pictures of people with all type of
| skin tones. They talk about 24/7 sustainability, better and
| easier security, protecting their users, skin mold detection
| and they have android.
|
| What is Meta talking about? How to put all of us into a VR
| world with probably a ton of monetarization. Awesome \o/ the
| poor who can't afford their own house/home are then sitting in
| a cheap/bad flat, sitting in a chair with a VR Headset on?
|
| And of course there will be a handful people playing around
| with this, but you know Second Live is also probably still
| running...
|
| Google is one of the few companies were their Keynotes are so
| boring because they actually fix real life boring shit which
| affects us all.
| CompuHacker wrote:
| There exist people now who spend all of their sleeping time,
| and the majority of their waking time in primitive virtual
| environments while wearing incommensurately cheap hardware,
| speaking with almost nobody, over Internet connections barely
| fit for the task of voice, let alone streaming video. There
| exists appeal, for a few. You can do a lot with an avatar
| making one of two faces.
| kache_ wrote:
| rl3 wrote:
| > _... but I think beyond that, deep down, he 's just a nerd
| who wants to live in a VR dreamland to shut out the millions of
| people who call him a weird lizard._
|
| I mean, in his defense he might be pretty normal by lizard
| standards, I don't know. Calling him weird just seems
| unnecessary in that context.
|
| > _He of course wants every human interaction to be monetizable
| by Facebook, total control of our dopamine channels, ..._
|
| I agree. It'd be a much better future for everyone if he'd just
| throw his advertising biz in the garbage. Apple is going to
| kick Meta's ass in the long run just by virtue of their privacy
| stance--which isn't all that great to begin with, but it sure
| does beat "our intent is to sell every iota of information we
| collect on you."
| lettergram wrote:
| Apple scans your iCloud for illicit photos and sends them to
| police. I don't think Apple has any privacy stance worth
| recognizing.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/05/apple-icloud-photos-
| scanni...
| snowwrestler wrote:
| One month later...
|
| > Apple delays plans to roll out CSAM detection in iOS 15
| after privacy backlash
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/03/apple-csam-detection-
| delay...
| zdragnar wrote:
| They poisoned the well by showing they were willing to do
| it in the first place.
|
| Instead of the baseline being they probably are privacy
| first, now it is "carefully inspect every announcement to
| see if they are backtracking yet again"
|
| I don't really envy their position; if I built a business
| that sold hardware and software and found out that
| customers were using my product to distribute child porn,
| I would probably be willing to abandon lesser principals
| too.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| That article is talking about the on-device scanning
| which IIRC never actually rolled out. That's separate
| from the iCloud scanning which they still do.
| [deleted]
| planetsprite wrote:
| There's a reconciliation, necessarily in a civil society,
| between promoting privacy and doing what's possible to stop
| child abuse. Should Apple allow child porn to be hosted on
| its cloud servers since that's the pro-privacy stance?
| [deleted]
| ahtihn wrote:
| I don't think they should knowingly allow it. On the
| other hand I don't think they should do anything about it
| proactively.
| bckr wrote:
| > Should Apple allow [child abuse material] to be hosted
| on its cloud servers since that's the pro-privacy stance?
|
| No they should not.
| rl3 wrote:
| Right, but the comparison here is that Meta also does this,
| _in addition_ to selling every iota of information they
| have you.
|
| Content scanning is just an assumed part of every major
| tech platform these days. That of course doesn't
| necessarily make it right, but it still places Apple's
| privacy stance significantly ahead of Meta.
| murderfs wrote:
| People keep repeating the refrain of Google/Facebook
| selling your data, but is there any evidence of a single
| case where this actually happened? They _use_ your data,
| to let advertisers target specific subgroups of the
| population. The companies that you should be concerned
| about selling your data aren 't the advertising
| companies, they're the financial companies that _are_
| literally selling your transaction data to those and
| other companies.
| swatcoder wrote:
| It may not be _good enough_ , but I think we can
| acknowledge that caving to political pressure is a very
| different posture than building your entire business model
| around monetizing antiprivacy.
| oneplane wrote:
| Yep, just like Google, Dropbox, Box, Microsoft and pretty
| much anyone else who wants to store photos in the US.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Facebook does not sell users' information. It uses their
| information to target ads, which it sells.
|
| You might also be against the latter, fine! That's a
| perfectly reasonable position to hold. But don't muddy the
| waters by calling it something fundamentally different.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _Apple is going to kick Meta 's ass in the long run just by
| virtue of their privacy stance_
|
| I think you're discounting (ha) the allure of free/cheap to
| people who don't have disposable income. Which is to say,
| most people.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| You refer to poor people.
|
| "You're forgetting the poor people"
| FredPret wrote:
| But there is zero money to be made out of people who have
| zero money.
| rl3 wrote:
| > _But there is zero money to be made out of people who
| have zero money._
|
| That's not true. That's why credit exists. Selling poor
| people shit they can't afford with terrible terms is a
| long-standing American tradition.
|
| When a debtor is unable to pay (often times through no
| fault of their own), the creditor eats the cost because
| their margins are good enough to allow for it. That
| effectively represents a wealth transfer between
| corporations providing the services and the corporations
| providing the credit.
| echelon wrote:
| The creditor doesn't put a lien on the debtor's house,
| repossess their goods, or take them to court?
|
| Obviously this happens with mortgages, cars, and other
| extremely high value things. IRS debts, student loan
| debts...
|
| But what about credit cards? Don't they have mechanisms
| other than tanking your credit report? And if not, why
| don't poor indebted people simply default all the time to
| remove debt?
| kwizzt wrote:
| I would argue there is money to be made out of people
| with zero money. Student loans are an example. Instead of
| zero money, they now have negative money. This is
| terrible ofc.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Zero money _now_ - but one must be ready to skim the
| cream off their _raw human potential_.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It'll be interesting to see where this goes. If VR becomes
| a big thing and we get to the point where an appreciable
| chunk of social interactions start to take place over it
| (huge if), the device would at least be as significant as
| your phone.
|
| People in the US are willing to spend extra on the Apple
| phone. There's already drama over the stupid blue
| text/green text thing, imagine a world where you know that
| your social interactions with a Facebook user are snooped
| on. I think it could lead to some significant
| ostracization. Private party -- no Facebookers.
| kmonsen wrote:
| Isn't part of the reason people are spending on iPhone
| that they can signal wealth to friends? From what I
| remember Apple always sells more when then introduce new
| golden colors so people can show they have the new
| device.
| amelius wrote:
| Inside VR you can have a phone with diamonds for no extra
| $.
|
| Thinking about it, those diamond-lacking iPhones look
| quite shabby, already!
| tjr225 wrote:
| Have you ever been in the Apple ecosystem? Its not
| perfect but it beats anything else as far as UX is
| concerned.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Reality shaping, not snooping, will be the primary
| concern.
| rl3 wrote:
| You're probably right, though I don't think it all comes
| down to disposable income.
|
| Laziness, apathy and network effects are perhaps equally
| powerful forces. After all, I continue to use Google and
| Instagram despite my knowing how the sausage is made there.
| krapp wrote:
| > I mean, in his defense he might be pretty normal by lizard
| standards, I don't know. Calling him weird just seems
| unnecessary in that context.
|
| All the other lizards manage to blend in just fine, except
| for the occasional slip-up that gets caught on Youtube. Mark
| Zuckerberg acts like he slept through every day of the how to
| human seminar on the lizard mothership.
| lvass wrote:
| >their privacy stance
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
| ntoskrnl wrote:
| I've never heard of any other lizard that eats Sweet Baby
| Rays. By lizard standards that's pretty weird.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| There's an alternate universe where Zuckerberg takes Yahoo's
| $1B offer for Facebook in 2006 (which Yahoo sells a decade
| later to Pinboard for $100k) and becomes more of an Elon Musk
| figure, investing in and running a handful of forward-
| thinking businesses.
|
| Imagine Oculus becoming Meta without the Facebook baggage - a
| hardware-focused company with a major services play, but no
| adtech business.
| rl3 wrote:
| > _Imagine Oculus becoming Meta without the Facebook
| baggage - a hardware-focused company with a major services
| play, but no adtech business._
|
| I think this was called Magic Leap. I don't know, I think I
| still prefer Rony Abovitz awkwardly dancing around in a
| space suit rather than Zuck.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| A cautionary tale - for a certain kind of person.
| [deleted]
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Poor billionaire Zuck, all he has to comfort him is swimming in
| his giant pool full of scrooge mcduck gold.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Worth watching his interview with Lex Fridman. He seems like a
| decent guy, genuinely nerdy and smart.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| It's a really good example of how media shapes our
| perceptions of villains in a way that makes us unable to see
| how villainous behavior works in the real world. In short,
| the tendency to reinforce attributive simplicity especially
| in moral terms, means that a decency and relateableness
| become ineffective socio-moral proxies.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| I think it's so strange that people are calling him a "Weird
| Lizard". "Weird Lizard" is a mouthful - plenty of other names
| worth calling him and his monopoly. I highly doubt his VR dream
| is anything more than an anti-antitrust maneuver.
| bckr wrote:
| How about "Sauron".
|
| [] https://www.google.com/search?q=zuckerberg+sauron
| ben_w wrote:
| I'm kinda surprised, I'd have guessed Smaug if people were
| going to associate him with a Tolkien villain.
| dwighttk wrote:
| I dunno... big eye that can see all over the world
| through palantirs
| SalmoShalazar wrote:
| This was legitimately the most humanizing piece of media I've
| seen from Zuckerberg. It helps that I find VR fascinating, and
| seeing him engage with it beyond a superficial corporate level
| like I'd expect was refreshing.
| yreg wrote:
| I found his recent conversation with Lex[0] interesting
| (though I haven't listened to all of it). It is obvious that
| he is personally interested in the future of VR. When he
| talks about it, he seems more relatable than usual.
|
| [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zOHSysMmH0
| dmix wrote:
| For the price point Quest 2 really is an amazing product.
|
| We're really getting to the point where it's mainstreaming.
| oofbey wrote:
| They're taking a loss on every unit sold. They can afford to
| this because they have a firehose of cash from FB, and they
| believe this is the "next big thing" so they want to
| establish dominance. Sadly, it's almost certainly gonna work.
| The content ecosystem will follow the user base, and a $300
| headset will outsell a >$1k setup by a huge factor.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| The money is in the app store. Video game console sell at
| cost as far as I know, but they make a killing over their
| lifetime because they make $15 on every game sold.
| shafyy wrote:
| Exactly. It's like saying Gilette or Nespresso lose money
| per unit sold. Sure, but they make it up with replacement
| razors and espresso capsules.
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| Nah, there's enough big players out there, and the tech
| will continue to get better and cheaper. I think Meta might
| be surprised by how many potential customers will run to
| their competitors if it means they don't need to have a
| Facebook account to use VR.
| welcitop wrote:
| I'm already worried for boys.
|
| When I think about who would have the time and motivation
| to sit in a VR world all day long I can not imagine girls
| or a lot of adults of some type.
|
| I really struggle seeing anyone outside of a private space
| wearing it in public, in an office or public transport. It
| looks weird. It removes you from reality and your
| surroundings.
|
| So who is left? Boys? Already single man motivation for
| playing the same games all day long like egoshooters etc.
|
| Porn will be a motivation for sure.
| mrfusion wrote:
| Do you still need a Facebook account?
| epgui wrote:
| I was extremely skeptical of VR until I got a Quest 2 and
| spent a bit of time with it. I used to think it was just a
| tech gimmick that added no value, but I think I was wrong and
| I've completely reversed my stance on the idea. This device
| is still rather primitive and far from great, but IMO it's
| just good enough to show you what's possible in the very near
| future.
|
| I still really hate facebook/meta and don't have a lot of
| faith that they can make the world a better place, but I now
| feel like VR can add a lot of real value and is fundamentally
| a good goal.
| Helitico wrote:
| But what do you do with it?
|
| How often?
|
| How is your long term motivation?
| shafyy wrote:
| No OP, but I mostly use it to play "hangout" games with
| friends who live in different countries, such as ping
| pong or minigolf. Much more fun to hang out and play a
| casual game and talk than sitting in a Zoom call with
| them. Sometimes I also play a quick round of Beat Saber
| or some other game.
|
| How often? Couple of hours a month
|
| Long term motivation? Do more social stuff with remote
| friends and, once it's more comfortable to wear for more
| than two hours straight, also work in VR.
| mathstuf wrote:
| I find it very underwhelming (and I was already suspicious
| to begin with). My wife got one for a conference and after
| doing the First Steps and being used for her conference,
| it's basically just gathered dust other than showing
| friends First Steps (after recharging it because it's just
| been sitting in its box for weeks or months). The Jurassic
| Park/World/whatever game was OK, but I was basically bored
| after an hour or two (I did not find it very immersive at
| least). Certainly not groundbreaking. My mom has it now and
| enjoys the roller coaster sim (which is quite vertigo-
| inducing and limits the playtime substantially), but
| without shelling out cash for unknown-quality software
| (something I find too risky at their price points) it's
| basically just a few gimmicks so far in my experience.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Same. I'm always surprised by all these people on HN who
| claim to have had epiphanies trying the product.
| Especially the ones who seem to think wireless is the
| game changer when you're still walking around a 5x5m
| space and relying on other inputs for actual movement.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Sounds like you've played next to nothing on it. Try "I
| Expect You to Die" or "Beat Saber" or even "Halflife
| Alyx" if you have the PC for it.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I mean, you've basically done nothing with the device.
| How can you claim it's not any good when you haven't even
| seen the fair-to-middling parts (Say nothing of the
| actually good parts)?
|
| "Basically a few gimmicks" yet refuses to do any basic
| research and buy a few games to actually try it out. Huh.
| ggambetta wrote:
| Try Pavlov Shack :)
| [deleted]
| oofbey wrote:
| No I'm pretty sure his only interest in VR is to control our
| dopamine channels as completely as possible. He may be a nerd,
| but he's Machiavellian to the core and will do anything he can
| to amass power to control other humans. Things like legality
| and morality merely provide guidance to him on how other people
| will react to his efforts. His biggest challenge has always
| been convincing his employees that what they're doing has merit
| and is not pure evil. Generally that has worked by paying them
| tons of money and telling them they're special snowflakes.
| Slix wrote:
| I'm excited by improvements in VR technology. Varifocal lenses
| would solve one of the weirder problems in VR: that you can't
| change your focal point.
| gabea wrote:
| AR/VR is inevitable. I find it astonishing that there are so many
| naysayers on HN, a community that in its early days embraced
| technology innovation. Today's VR (and even AR via Mobile Phones)
| is primitive, sure, but the same could be said about desktop
| computers before the transition to mobile ever was an idea?
|
| I expect more comments on how to influence this technology versus
| dismissing it as not applicable for the human race.
| kashkhan wrote:
| Inevitable like robots driving cars, colonizing mars, flying
| cars, clones, AGI...
|
| Assuming the sun doesn't engulf us first.
|
| Reality is VR will always be distinguishable from reality.
| muglug wrote:
| I was wowed the first time I put on a VR headset, and I
| continue to be wowed every time I try it. But lots of regular
| people aren't sufficiently wowed to pay console-level prices
| for the experience, which to me indicates that the culprit
| isn't just immature technology.
|
| > AR/VR is inevitable.
|
| Calling a given technology "inevitable" shuts down criticism.
|
| There's nothing inevitable about a technology that takes charge
| of our two most important senses (sight and hearing) at once. I
| think that counts as sensory deprivation to a lot of people.
| walleeee wrote:
| AR/VR skepticism _is_ an attempt to influence the tech
| landscape and imo the most compelling dismissals are not made
| on grounds of irrelevance or lack of application but principled
| judgements about how we want to interact with the world
|
| is it particularly surprising that people who know what goes
| into the sausages might be skeptical about feeding them to
| everyone for every meal?
| bckr wrote:
| This, extremely this. I wish we were more excited about
| volumetric displays or programmable matter, instead.
| gigel82 wrote:
| It's not though; it's a gimmick. The scenarios aren't there. In
| fact, I think the scenarios won't be there for a general
| purpose AR/VR device even if they make them as thin as glasses.
| Sure, navigation on a bike is nice, and maybe hololens-like
| scenarios for manufacturing or high-end industrial support, but
| that's it.
|
| I have an Oculus 2, and before that I've had a couple of
| Windows VR headsets when Microsoft was doing their push;
| they're all gathering dust in a box now...
| Jcowell wrote:
| > Sure, navigation on a bike is nice,
|
| It doesn't just have to be on bike. I would say walking
| directions are far more valuable.
|
| Let's take what I say is the Peak AR Device:
|
| Glasses with Shuttered Camera + LIDAR, Bone Conducting Audio,
| Haptic Feedback, High Quality Microphones, & Smart Assistant.
|
| Often when I'm out in the city and finding a new place I
| would rely on my phone. Often the GPS on my phone would be
| screwed since I was underground and I would have to look at
| the streets on the map to see where I am relative to where I
| need to face and go. On the newer models of the iPhone I can
| use it's LIDAR feature to tell it exactly where I am , but
| it's cumbersome to wave your phone back and forth. An AR
| glasses would already be scanning around, know exactly what
| direction your facing , and give you visual indicators of
| where to go the whole trip.
|
| Let's say someone who speaks a different language ask's you a
| question like say directions , an often enough encounter
| where I'm from. With the strides Apple are making in their
| Translate technology (with much more to go), the translated
| speech can appear as text right in front on your screen.
| Let's say the show you a piece of paper enter in a different
| language. That same translate technology can show you a
| translated page. AR , if we get there, will be amazing and
| all of the technology I said above already exist in mobile
| form.
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| Sure it's inevitable.
|
| That doesn't change the fact that the input problem for AR/VR
| is not solved. Some VR is trying to solve this by integrating
| back in the mouse/keyboard. Others, like Elon, are trying to
| leapfrog to human-brain interface.
|
| Neither of those efforts change the fact that for current AR/VR
| your input is lower bandwidth than a smartphone which is
| already lower bandwidth than mouse/keyboard.
|
| This input bandwidth limit means that the applications for the
| tech are currently very minimal and means that any product
| being sold today is unlikely to do well.
| WJW wrote:
| I honestly don't see VR ever really taking off before we
| manage to solve the "output" problems either. Every sense
| except vision and hearing gets ignored. Walking is a complete
| mess, because real life furniture tends to get in the way.
| Smell and taste are usually completely ignored. Touch tends
| to fail completely as soon as you "push through" the haptic
| feedback.
|
| VR is just not very "real", and I don't think we can ever
| make it real enough with the tech path it is on. Human brain
| interfaces seem like the best bet, but they are so far away
| that I don't think they'll be commercially available in my
| lifetime.
| alexalx666 wrote:
| Killer app for VR is new interface to computer imho
| Groxx wrote:
| Yeah. AR/VR being future heavyweights seems obvious.
|
| Currently though? They're all kinda shit. And there doesn't
| seem to be a clear incremental step from "current" to "good
| enough" for a GIGANTIC range of scenarios, so it seems
| reasonable to claim "it's not coming any time soon".
|
| And I say all this as an enthusiast. When resolution and
| compute power increases a bit, I'll probably make a real
| effort to use VR (AR seems further away) to replace my
| desk/monitor(s)/etc for work. But without a ton of effort and
| severe tradeoffs, it's not really currently feasible.
| root_axis wrote:
| This argument is a classic template for enthusiasts when faced
| with skeptical push back. Comparing your pet-technology with
| the nascent version of something that went on to be incredibly
| successful is a very common fallacy that doesn't help your
| argument.
| ilamont wrote:
| For some the "VR is inevitable" predictions clash with past
| experience about the coming VR wave, virtual words, and failed
| 3D hardware (Google Glass, 3D TV, etc.). For those who invested
| time and money into these earlier attempts, it's difficult to
| believe that this will be any different despite some undeniably
| cool demos and compelling niche use cases.
| berberous wrote:
| I think you are right based on the media coverage, but I'm
| bewildered that anyone who has tried these can equate them.
| My personal experience trying all of these when they came out
|
| 1. Google Glass: This is the most underwhelming and lamest
| thing ever. Tried for 20 seconds and never thought about it
| again.
|
| 2. 3DTV: meh, I'dr rather watch 2D.
|
| 3. Magic Leap / HoloLens: this is way less cool than the
| commercials, tiny field of view, incredibly far way from
| something actually usable.
|
| 4. Oculus DK2: jaw dropped, holy shit moments. WOW!
|
| That's not to say VR is perfect. In fact, it's far enough
| away from perfect I currently never use it. But it is so much
| more impressive and close to being amazing than these other
| categories.
| andybak wrote:
| This is close to my position. I was completely unimpressed
| by 3D TV but VR made me stop what I was doing and learn
| Unity. It seems strange to lump them in the same category.
| There was no grass roots passion for 3D TV. There's still
| tons for VR/AR.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| For some use cases, AR/VR is already here! There's nothing to
| be skeptical about. But I think it's healthy to be skeptical of
| the idea that AR/VR can be shoved into every aspect of our
| lives and it will make sense. Phones/tablets didn't replace
| regular computers for productivity. Will VR do it? Who knows,
| but I kind of doubt it. Will every genre of game make sense in
| VR? Probably not.
|
| Then there's also the history of each recent step forward in
| technology coming along with increased top-down control and
| surveillance. Here, it's especially important to be skeptical
| of Meta's influence on VR specifically. I think Meta's goal is
| to create a fully walled garden where they can surveil their
| users freely to sell ads. An App Store for VR, but with even
| more monitoring and advertising. This is not a future I want,
| regardless of the benefits of the technology itself.
| andybak wrote:
| I'm simultaneously a huge advocate of VR/AR as an amazing new
| medium and at the same time sceptical about it's chance of
| short or medium term mass adoption.
|
| Can't it just be a niche/enthusiast product for another
| decade or so? There's enough people that care and it to keep
| our afloat. It doesn't have to shift a billion units
| typon wrote:
| > I find it astonishing that there are so many naysayers on HN,
| a community that in its early days embraced technology
| innovation.
|
| You're creating a false dichotomy - probably unintentionally,
| but I find it's important to point it out. As one of these
| naysayers, I'm not against VR because I'm somehow skeptical of
| futuristic/modern technology (nuclear fusion when?), it's
| because I am specifically against VR/AR in the hands of a
| megacorp like Facebook. If all this development was happening
| in the open, like for example the web developed, I would be
| jumping on this yesterday. As someone who's dreamed of the Star
| Trek holodeck since I was a child, the thought of becoming an
| Oculus dev to pursue this dream does not excite me one bit.
| pmontra wrote:
| It's not inevitable for the masses until the only way to do it
| is a headset. It will be only a tech for specialized markets
| and in controlled environments. Gamers, engineers, doctors.
| You're not going to do AR/VR while walking or when killing some
| time waiting at the restaurant. One reason is that not many
| people will carry a cumbersome headset with them. A phone is a
| better device for those scenarios.
|
| Glasses or contact lenses could change that. I can't wear
| contact lenses anymore but I wear glasses all the time. Light
| glasses, not heavy ones.
| sarsway wrote:
| I used to think so, it just sounds like it would be "the
| future", right?
|
| But realistically, what exactly is the appeal of it? The
| Metaverse? I mean, if no one can figure out how to make a fun
| MMORPG these days, what makes you think the "Metaverse" will
| actually be something people will want to spend time in? And
| why would Facebook be the one who actually figure out how to
| build some super appealing virtual world, they have 0%
| experience in doing this. It's gonna be boring, in immersive
| VR, still boring. And who really wants to wear these headsets?
| They always gonna be somewhat bulky.
|
| But even if you could make it super immersive, and super fun,
| and totally appealing, you always gonna be one thing that's
| holding you back: Your real body, yes unfortunately we are all
| tied to these meat bags, so our dream of moving into our self
| created Matrix is always gonna be somewhat limited.
|
| I mean you gotta be realistic here, no matter what we do, life
| will always be best experienced without a VR headset on. It
| might have some cool fun uses, but that's about it.
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| So while I'm general I do think some of the fascination with
| VR ubiquity is overhyped: this last weekend the Furality VR
| furry con was held in VRChat. It had over 5000 registered
| attendees and peak simultaneous players was over 4200, with
| most of the popular events/times still numbering in the 1000s
| of players.
|
| And that's with VR still very much in the gen 1 (maybe gen 2
| if you want to be generous) phase of development. Within five
| or ten years tech like eye and mouth tracking and
| partial/full body haptics (which are all already a thing,
| just niche) will be typical offerings.
|
| I don't know to what extent it'll displace existing tech. But
| the popularity of it today (especially in spaces where
| artists and developers can do whatever they want) is real and
| growing crazy fast.
| berberous wrote:
| I think you are just out of touch. Don't kids already spend
| tons of time in Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite? Fortnite has
| concerts by artists like Travis Scott that are massively
| attended, fashion areas where you can shop virtual clothing,
| etc. You really think this trend will dissipate as the tech
| gets better?
| shahbaby wrote:
| I'm sure VR will grow and have its place, it just won't be
| a game changing revolution like smartphones were.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Well, no thank you. I have enough problems getting my teens - -
| especially my son -- to live the real world, to make friends,
| socialize, get outside, breath fresh air, and get off touch
| screens and games.
|
| I won't let VR goggles enter my home. I'm not the only one.
| Maybe it's the future, but I'll hold it off as long as I can --
| especially if it's Facebook, with all their ethical blindness
| and attention monopolizing -- that's pushing it.
| ar_te wrote:
| Is it though? Technology is progressing, sure. And it will find
| its use, but what are the datapoints or other clues that
| predicts that AR/VR will become mainstream? Not saying it will
| not, but what makes it, in your opinion, "inevitable"
| tootie wrote:
| My contention isn't that it won't happen only that it's
| irrelevant. AR/VR is just UI. It doesn't really make anything
| new possible. An absolutely perfect headset will be marginally
| more convenient for some modalities than a phone and much less
| convenient for a lot of others.
| hexomancer wrote:
| My contention isn't that it won't happen only that it's
| irrelevant. Smartphones are just UI. They don't really make
| anything new possible. An absolutely perfect smartphone will
| be marginally more convenient for some modalities than a
| laptop and much less convenient for a lot of others.
| tootie wrote:
| Smartphones make loads of things possible that weren't
| possible before. They are extremely portable, have
| excellent displays for text, can connect to mobile data
| networks and contain an array of sensors that benefit from
| mobility.
| hexomancer wrote:
| You can connect usb GSM adapters to have the mobile
| network on a laptop (same for all the other sensors). It
| is just a lot more "convenient" to have a smartphone in
| your pocket rather than carry a giant laptop with you
| everywhere. Which is the point I was trying to make. Yes,
| technically all thinks VR does is possible with a
| smartphone but it is a lot more "convenient" to have
| google maps directions overlayed on top of real world
| rather than looking at it through a smartphone.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| It's a fascinating phenomenon ... I call it "passionate
| dismissal". You can tell many of these people aren't 100%
| sincere from the mere fact they showed up to make a comment.
|
| "This technology is boring and going nowhere ... so I read an
| article all about it and then took the time to make a comment
| about it ..."
|
| I'm ready to predict that these people are radically wrong. The
| VR adoption curve is so sharp now in the 10-15 yr age bracket
| that people haven't caught up to the fact it is happening yet.
| I say that as someone with children in that age range and > 50%
| of their friends suddenly have and use VR routinely. These kids
| are all super acclimated to spending large amounts of time in
| VR. These kids are "primed" to become the next wave of tech
| users.
|
| HN folks, get ready to feel really, really old in 5 years from
| now - probably how all our parents / grandparents felt when we
| showed up with smart phones.
| Animats wrote:
| That's nice, but it's just the display part. Now you need
| something to generate a high-quality display. Right now, the
| minimum hardware for that is probably a Playstation 5, which can
| run the Unreal Engine 5 Matrix demo. So you could do this now,
| tethered, with somewhat bulky headgear. Like the Star Wars
| Experience location-based entertainment system, which cost US$10K
| and required a backpack.
|
| Carmack says all that has to be squeezed down to swim goggle size
| to go mainstream. Eyeglass size to become ubiquitous, like
| smartphones. Eventually, but it's some years out.
|
| Meanwhile, we should see low-end standalone systems (Google Glass
| 3.0?) and high-end tethered systems with a base station doing the
| graphics.
| nrclark wrote:
| Every time I see something like this, I'm struck with the idea
| that Zuckerberg read Ready Player One and said "yes, that's make
| THAT future."
| ydnaclementine wrote:
| I think you mean the book Snow Crash, which John Carmack is a
| fan of
|
| https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/1454230235847688200...
| camdat wrote:
| Now we just need a comment on how this is "just another version
| of Second Life" and we should have a TL;DR of every Meta + VR
| thread on HN.
| rightbyte wrote:
| This short film comes to mind: (Uncanny Valley)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AvyUWUKCw8
| nocarrier wrote:
| It was actually Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge that really got
| Zuck excited about the possibilities of VR--he read it a few
| years before he bought Oculus and talked about it a lot at the
| time.
| thealfreds wrote:
| There was a handful of novels and light novels that explored
| this concept easily a decade or more before RPO. It especially
| became popular sometime in the mid 2000s I remember a bunch of
| popular light novels coming out around that time.
|
| I'm personally imagining Zuckerberg as a .hack fanatic like
| myself and my brother were back in '03.
| voz_ wrote:
| That book was garbage, so probably not.
| tootie wrote:
| https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/making-sen...
|
| These critics give that same example and a few others trying to
| prise open what Zuck and others are thinking and what it
| actually means for consumers
| theschwa wrote:
| The interview with Norm from Adam Savage's Tested gives a lot of
| good extra details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6AOwDttBsc
| dmix wrote:
| The new design of the last one has a headset that you turn to
| mount on your head looks nice. That's so much better than the
| straps that comes with Quest 2, I hope they make that the
| standard.
|
| The after-market Quest head kits for ~$20 make it much more
| comfortable.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| VR elections next. Can't wait to chose between Jack Johnson and
| John Jackson.
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