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.
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.
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.
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.
I bought a copy of immerssed and an occulus quest beause I loved the idea. sadly, we are still a ways off. the text was too blurry and I got a headache in minutes.
beat saber was a good pivot. its my gym when I travel now
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.
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.
Those improvements are important for enthusiasts as well since they all take their toll during long sessions.
I look forward to having more amazing experiences at my finger tips during the long, dark winter months. There’s not much else to do here except drink and go snowmobiling.
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.
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.
>... 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."
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.
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.
>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.
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?
Sure, but you also can't squeeze blood from a stone.
That said, I was mostly talking credit cards, since that's what most tech services would fall under in a zero-money consumer situation.
>And if not, why don't poor indebted people simply default all the time to remove debt?
Some do, but having your credit ruined for seven years sucks for most people. Likewise the courts don't exactly smile upon those who run up huge debts with the intention of defaulting.
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.
There’s a Philip K Dick line that goes - “reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”.
Reality shaping is like that - but coercive and in reverse. How much do I need to nudge your perceptual world with ubiquitous, desirable lizard-brain augmentations before you stop believing in reality?
I mean, we already have religion, advertising, and "influencers" so I guess this is a current problem. With VR, at least it will be obvious when headset is on.
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.
I have never seen a gold iPhone in real life, even though more than half of my friends/family have iPhones. IIRC they did better overseas(?). Not sure.
I don't think iPhones signal much (in the US at least) -- they have like 50% market share here.
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.
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?
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.
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.
I think it's a rather common dysphemism used in context of targeted advertising. Monetizing user data—while not actually selling the data (in the literal sense of the term)—is considered by many to constitute having their data sold, albeit with a layer of indirection.
My understanding is that while this is certainly superior to your data being actually sold, privacy is nonetheless adversely affected in fairly significant ways.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"In total, it said the social network had special arrangements with more than 150 companies to share its members' personal data. Most of these, it said, were other tech firms, but the list also included online retailers, car-makers and media organisations, including the NYT itself, among others."
Suffice it to say Facebook's track record with PII is pretty terrible. At some point the word sell really becomes a matter of semantics.
Again you are bumping the waters. Users were asked permission for Facebook to share their user data. Saying Facebook has a poor track record because they had a more open platform in the past isn't true. Now Facebook is more closed and locked down because giving people the option to share their information is apparently a bad thing according to the public.
I don't buy that narrative. As if things were somehow fine until the stupid public ruined it all.
Facebook is and always has been deep in adtech, which is fundamentally slimy. It's no surprise that led to a history littered with data privacy blunders.
>Again you are bumping the waters.
On the contrary, my chemistry knowledge is too poor to do such a thing.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I suppose we should just be thankful he didn't pick up Vinge's "Deepness in the Sky" instead; it would be quite disconcerting if Facebook was trying to develop talking spiders.
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.
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.
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?
Except with a 5in phone screen, you still have some sort of situational awareness of people walking up on you whether you choose to ignore that or not is totally different than being in a headset where you have none.
I keep seeing ads/promos for VR with people on a train/subway in a VR headset. I hope you don't mind having the rest of your stuff taken from you while you crush it in what ever game you're playing on the subway
Yeah, the Terminator AR view was always the best use to me. Instantly image rec to find the names of people in your viewport type of stuff. Adding turn by turn arrows while walking a city/mall/etc.
Then, Black Mirror comes along and ruins it for everyone, because of course people will use it exactly as they proposed it could go. After seeing that, I don't want any part of it.
Is there a rule of the internet/tech/life that says for any good use, people will first take it to the dark places thereby ruining any potential good usage first?
3 words, full color passthrough. Meta includes sample footage of this in their demos so it's definitely coming with Cambria. While it would be possible to use a standalone headset out in public, I don't think that's the main goal. The hardware belongs in a home or an office where you have a dedicated play space tailored to whatever your use case is. Asking for something that people can use on the train on their way to work is trying to run before we can walk. VR headsets will replace desktop displays first because why wouldn't you want a device that can emulate any size, shape, or number of displays instantly with no cable management or mounting hardware and allow those displays to be visible whether you're at your desk, on the couch, grabbing a fresh cup of coffee or doing some stretches on your yoga mat.
The Quest 2 already has passthrough. When you exit your guardian, which is an area you defined as "safe", it will use the external cameras to essentially act as thick glasses.
Not to say that it is some kind of blissful experience, but it works reasonably well to go get a glass of water.
> 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.
Not something I care about in both counts. And I don't think people care. In fact I was at a trade show this weekend where someone was playing a Q2 game and everyone looked really interested.
because it looks idiotic
Same as when people started talking to their bluetooth headset while walking on the street. It used to be disturbing and idiotic but no one bats an eye now.
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.
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.
The biggest challenge I've found is that most items in the Quest marketplace look gimmicky. As soon as you use AirLink and connect it to a PC, it is honestly pretty good. I admit it has a few meh moments, like the gap by the nose and doesn't seem wide enough to cover full peripheral vision, but for wireless VR it is great for the price.
In the niche area of VR fitness, I think the Quest 2, or the Quest 1 for that matter, was already there. It is the killer app...but maybe the only one for those who use the Quest that way: this morning I did 45 minutes in FitXR and another 25 minutes in BeatSaber, I have a few other fitness apps I use sometimes but I've never even explored the gaming aspect of the system. I don't want to go back to the way it was before the Quest 1 came out, gyms aren't that convenient for me anymore and everything else I could think of to do at home wasn't cutting it.
DDR was as really great fitness app back in the late 90s, early 00s, similar experience, but it required insanely expensive hardware if you wanted to do it at home at any decent quality (rather than just a novelty for a few parties). The Quest has none of that problem (though most of your work is in your arms rather than your legs). It is also too bad Microsoft didn't go the fitness route for Kinect, that worked fairly well also in getting sore at least.
You can buy a top quality DDR pad for €200, and could back then too. A Quest 2 costs £299. Since £299 > €200, the Quest 2 is also "insanely expensive", and so most definitely has all of that problem.
Those still aren't that great. What I really want is a hard pad that detects via air pressure (like the arcade ones), resistive pads feel flimsy and stop working fairly quickly after heavy use.
An air pressure hard pad...well...you have to buy a DDR arcade unit. Those are going for $10k+ last time I looked. Then you have to find a place to put it....
The great thing about resistive pads is their mechanical simplicity. You can make any part in them yourself with supplies available at a hardware store, and conduct most repairs with basic hand tools. What sort of "heavy use" breaks these pads quickly? Are you playing with a sledgehammer? There's videos of people passing ITG14s on Cobalt Fluxes posted to YouTube this year. Cobalt Flux went out of business in 2011, so those pads are over a decade old, and you don't get good enough to pass 14s playing casually.
And if your definition of 'flimsy' is 'requires some maintenance every decade', note that the product we're comparing it to, the Oculus, has a lithium ion battery in it that's e-waste after less than half that time, and good luck getting spares in a market that discontinues its products every couple of years.
I'd like to see these, because when I went looking, they were a hell lot more expensive than that.
DDR is in this awkward space where it's either cheap and garbage, or expensive as all hell. The DDRGAME stuff, from what I've heard is somewhat pricy AND garbage.
The resolution of the Quest 2 is quite good given the context: it's a really cheap headset, and the resolution is generally much better than really cheap (or even not-so-cheap) headsets of previous years.
VR as a whole still has a long way to go though, for sure. You need like 8k per eye or something crazy before you're "maxed out" on what humans can perceive IIRC.
what I've found from playing a lot of VR over time (was an oculus dk early adoptere waaay before they were acquired by facebook, then got a vive, then got an index) is that my brain is rather easily fooled even with cartoon graphics. the world reacting like I expect the world to react seems to be the major factor in whether the vr 'sells' itself, and is only tangentially related to graphics.
I do agree with you that the resolution is still to low to replace screens.
The Quest 2 is a terrible replacement for screens, (also because it has a fixed focal distance of 2 meters) but the resolution and clarity has improved so much since the launch of the Vive that I’d bet new headsets will be there within the decade.
While I agree the resolution is not good, mind that the "pixel" effect is reduced when you are perfectly aligned with the lenses (and see more clearly the pixel, weirdly).
I can't imagine doing real work with text too, but it's enough to be immersed in realistic worlds like hl alyx.
It’s hard to believe that advertisers would be paying Facebook $100 billion a year if their product didn’t modify behavior. Maybe they’re just misinformed about the efficacy of Facebook ads, but I doubt it.
I can only provide anecdotal data but every single person in the dev world that I've talked to would disagree. Having unlimited virtual screens is useless if you're limited to how much of the screen you can see it at single time given the extremely limited ~90° FOV.
Furthermore, the resolution on a Quest for viewing actual text for long periods of time is entirely too low, and that's not even considering the fact that it can be very difficult to get the entire virtual screen to be in focus given the fresnel lenses. What do you do your programming on, a TI 83 screen?
Can confirm, I tried the virtual desktop thing and was somewhat underwhelmed. The pitch sounds amazing, but it practice it just hard to read code in VR.
And yet, whenever there is a regulatory initiative to reign in those companies some people, especially on places HN, will claim that it is a futile attempt despite past evidence to the contrary.
My prediction if this takes off: Just as in Phones right now we will see a period of mono/duopolism after which lawmakers around the world will start to decide that the public space expanded into a new field and that companies such as Meta are unfit stewards.
Then laws will be written to align platforms more with whatever the local society expects. (And some people will, again, complain about that "overreach")
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 naïve enough to think that history won't repeat itself.
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.
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?
But wouldn't they only be the max resolution of your VR set? Do inches matter then? And your POV isn't the 180 of the human but something much smaller right?
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.)
> VR is good for the elderly because you can enjoy it without learning anything new
I hope this will eventually be the case, but with current iterations, navigating and interacting with VR UIs and experiences is quite difficult for people who aren’t already familiar with game controllers and console-like menu systems - especially the elderly.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I actually think the thing that is going to make VR mainstream is more comfort from going to goggles or glasses rather than headsets. Or even better, something you can attach to glasses.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’m actually very hopeful for it. I really believe that social experiences and games are the killer app for VR. I think a lot of people who would otherwise be very isolated by staying inside and playing video games will now be active members of growing online communities. That and they won’t be sedentary any more as most worthwhile experiences involve standing and moving around.
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.
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.
Also not OP, but I use my quest 2 just about every day, so I could share a bit.
I've gone through phases since purchasing it where there is one game or another that I get into, but the general theme has been something with a 'physical' aspect to it + skill development (Beat Saber is a characteristic example here). The exception from that theme was when Half-life Alyx came out—I enjoyed it and put a good amount of time into it. Similarly, when I've felt more social I've deviated from my usual pattern and used Big Screen VR (social movie/tv watching app with virtual theaters/lobby) to hang out and talk with others.
Currently—and this has been going on for months—I play Zombieland VR: Headshot Fever daily. My sessions are typically between 20min and 1hr. For me it's a great way to get into "flow" because it forces you to keep your attention on your external environment, precisely control your actions (i.e. aim accurately), waste absolutely as little time as possible (the goal is to beat levels in smallest amount of time, compete with others on high score list)—and the biggest selling point: I can do this while standing up and moving around a bit, it's not going to keep me at my desk where I've already been all day.
I've been using the headset regularly since I bought it (a couple months after it was first released). I've gone through "dry spells" with it where I kind of forgot about it or didn't have anything I felt like playing—but mostly I've found consistent use for it.
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.
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.
Wireless is a game changer. Being able to just put it on and play is a blessing compared to the last generation and the ability to turn around 360 without worrying about getting entangled makes the experience so much better.
Sounds like VR is not for you, and that's fine, but mocking people who think wireless is a big deal is just nonsense.
Wireless is a game changer when I’m playing Pavlov and constantly sweeping back and forth looking for other players or quickly reloading or ducking behind cover or pretty much anything because the worst thing to have happen in a fire fight is to get your arms tangled in your cable.
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.
My favorite has been the mini golf game. Just flat out fun and since I have a decent sized space for it I can walk over a few steps and tap a put in just like I am there. I will have to try Alyx--just figured out how to get SteamVR working with the Quest.
Beat Saber is basically the casual killer game for the Quest, much like Angry Birds was for the iPhone. I just wish more artists would release music packs for it.
My secret wish is that Zuck has a come to Jesus moment and ditches the creepy adtech business in favour of building real hardware and software that delivers real value to people allowing them to socialize with people around the world. I feel like they’ve taken the first few steps in that direction but I’m very worried that they will just keep selling attention and data out of greed and inertia.
> We're really getting to the point where it's mainstreaming.
I thought this for a while when my Dad (68), wife (45) and kid (5) all got into it really hardcore. They each got their own and were playing everyday, so much they had to recharge multiple times a day. I was actually a bit concerned. Then they all just completely forgot about them and now only my kid plays it, maybe once a month, for 10 minutes.
I love my Quest 2 and really count on it for my daily Eleven VR Table Tennis sessions.
For me, the real mainstreaming point though will be when we have actual lightweight glasses or goggles rather than headsets. With AR and VR built in. And/or attachments for glasses would be even better for me since glasses are tough to wear with headsets.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think integrating existing devices and new ones is the way to go. With high resolution, color passthrough you can easily use a keyboard and mouse. Even better will be adding tracking to devices that you can use in VR. This already exists for a small selection of keyboards when using the Quest but could be expanded as needed either with purely visual tracking or base stations ala Vive or even using inertial tracking (like the IMU in your phone). For some applications using the VR controller as a laser pointer is more natural and faster than using a mouse, I'm sure the hardware and UI design will evolve to maximize this utility.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Don’t remember the model, but I used a very early Oculus VR headset and came away thinking it was like looking at a blurry image through a screen door.
> 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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not sure it is more convenient. Google Glass did heads up directions years ago and nobody cared. I don't get lost so quickly that I can't just peak at my phone every minute or two. I'm not buying a piece of hardware to strap to my face for just that one thing. The current pinnacle of AR adoption is still Pokemon Go and that was 5 years ago. And it was really just a gimmick.
> I'm not buying a piece of hardware to strap to my face for just that one thing.
Obviously this was just one example to demonstrate the convenience of VR/AR over smart phones. You would not be using VR/AR for "just that one thing". The applications are numerous:
* Ability to have virtual workspaces with multiple high-resolution simulated monitors (and that's just the low-hanging fruit of simulating existing workspaces at a lower cost and more portability, it is entirely possible that VR will lead to completely new workspaces. But let's be a pessimist and assume simulating existing workspaces is the best we can do.). I mean if VR can deliver this one thing and nothing else, I would say it will be a huge success.
* Ability to read/work on commute without getting a headache from vibrations (since the image will be stable)
* Lifelike interaction with friends and family in a moment's notice and no air pollution
* Videogames
And these are some of the easier and less speculative uses of VR.
How are you actually defining "new" here? Have you considered that you are defining "new" in an amorphous way that allows you to reject everything new that VR/AR offer?
AR allows one to create virtual objects with actual position and shape in the real world. We can see these objects in their location in the world, and interact with them. That is the abstracted case of what is truly new -- the thing that simply does not exist without AR.
From this abstract case, we can give concrete examples. When buying products online, one can discover what furniture will look like in their house, or what clothing will look like on their body -- they can better see it from every angle and the form it will take. In terms of "adult entertainment", one can literally experience a virtual person up in your face and on your body, something that is just not offered by any existing form. Shit, we can attach a virtual note to a physical object (that only select people get to see!), we can use a ping pong table without needing to own a ball, we can see "subtitles" next to a person who is talking, we can see a label next to our friend in a crowded place without having to constantly cross-reference a map on a phone screen... honestly. Have some imagination.
If you can see this list of things and say "none of that is new", then I seriously challenge you to define "new" for me, because I'm willing to bet you are not applying the same rigorous definition to smartphones.
Sure, but that's still all just UI. You can build all of those things on a 2D screen. If you build a Unity 3D app, you get to choose to build for whatever platform if it's Windows or Android or VR rig. In fact, I have done the 3d furniture simulator thing for a furniture retailer but it was all just done on screens. I've also done a load of work in AR with both handheld and headset devices. We had clients who desperately wanted a cool AR experience and we spent many weeks and months brainstorming things we could do and really just came up with fluff. We looked at everything in the market, talked to manufacturers, did some experiments with users. Nobody came up with anything compelling. We built some cool novelty experiences, but nothing anyone would pay money for. I can believe that a massive (and it has to be like 10X current gen) improvement in resolution and refresh rate will make the experience smooth enough to be a complimentary technology for some niches.
A smartphone is merely a dumbphone with better UI. Look how transformative that was.
None of these things are achievable in the same way with a 2D screen because by definition a 2D screen lacks the ability to literally display along the Z axis. Our minds perceive in 3D, not 2D. A 2D screen literally provides less information about distance and location to the senses. Moreover, a 2D screen has a complete inability to create the feeling of presence, something that is new to AR/VR.
Actually, to act as if the feeling of presence is not new, despite you apparently having used a headset, seems bizarre to the point of incomprehensibility. Use VR porn and tell me that’s not a completely new, compelling experience. I’m addicted to it — it’s like I’m literally having sex. Honestly, your rejection of presence as revolutionary means I don’t actually think it’s possible to get anywhere with this discussion.
Lastly, your difficulties developing something compelling with AR is not a sufficient argument that nothing compelling can ever be achieved with it.
I'll add to this that having subtitles next to the person one is speaking to is completely transformative for hearing-impaired people. The only way you could replicate this with a 2D screen is by having them either (a) avert eye contact to look down at a phone, which prevents them from being engaged with the person, or (b) hold up a phone camera to someone's face, which is obviously significantly more cumbersome and socially awkward than wearing some glasses (and please try to imagine the future of AR headsets that are becoming increasingly compact like sunglasses, not a bulky existing Hololens headset).
So, take that idea. It's not a novelty experience. It's not fluff. It significantly improves the lives of hearing-impaired people.
Did you even come up with this idea? If so, why were you not able to create it? Have you considered that perhaps it was due to the fact that something like this is extremely difficult to develop and can't be done by a regular team over a period of 'months'? Have you considered that AR/VR isn't just going to be made transformative within a <1 year time period of you getting your hands on it?
On the other hand, if you didn't even come up with such a practically beneficial idea as this (or were unable to see how life-changingly useful it'd be for the hearing-impaired), then the issue with all of your ideas being "fluff" was not due to the technology at hand.
This even sparks my imagination further. Right now, if someone yells at a hearing-impaired person from behind, they have no immediate way of knowing (any phone-based solution is not going to give quick information about the direction of the yell when it's in-pocket). On the other hand, an AR headset will be able to immediately inform that person that a loud voice has come from exactly the direction it is pointing to, because it can literally show an arrow in their visual sight. That is so goddamn exciting and useful. And I simply can't comprehend how you cannot see it.
Believe it or not, overlayed closed captions was one the first things I came up with. It's also not that hard to do with commodity voice and face recognition. We did a POC just on a 2d phone screen in like a week. Trying to capture multiple people speaking at once is way beyond the capability of any retail headset and would require an elaborate 3d microphone array and noise filtering to pinpoint where a voice is coming from. Ours worked pretty well sitting across a table, but would struggle mightily trying to hear something across any distance in a noisy room.
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?
What I care about is that people largely don't talk about them, even though they're at least as plausible as fully immerse VR, which looms large in the collective third eye.
The public imagination is bent toward the cyber-dystopian, whereas these two technologies represent other possible futures.
great point, I consider the zuckerverse a kind of target fixation, where we are doomed to hit the dystopia because we can't look away / imagine an alternative
volumetric displays have a lot of room for improvement but "looking glass" has been shipping a pretty slick product for a couple years now, I hope they can keep innovating
Tough to believe in a company that can’t even get their animated headers to size correctly on mobile. I’d love to see what the product looks like.. but on an iPhone 13/chrome I have no idea what the thing does.
fair critique, I just linked to that to show its a real thing you can buy
here's a quick sizzle reel that shows the product - it's a stack of transparent displays that produces a very convincing depth hologram, I've seen them in person, they're really cool
I suspect Steve Ballmer's motives to trash the iPhone in 2010 were rather unlike those leading some of us to doubt the desirability of Meta's VR ambitions in 2022
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.
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
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.
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?
there is clearly a cultural schism developing, i've heard the phrase "terminally online" to describe people whose social circle exists entirely on twitter
so we will have a majority of people being totally dismissive of interacting with avatars through goggles (I hate the experience personally, feels like putting on a blindfold), and a growing minority that wouldn't have it any other way, divorced from anything going on IRL
I was privy to something while I still had a twitter account: a certain group of people, mostly anon or semi-anon accounts, having been brought into contact by some combination of algorithm, self-selection and serendipity, many of whom seemed to identify more with their emerging twitter ingroup than local circles, more than a few of whom self-described as very (if not terminally) online, self-organized a gathering IRL, which, while some seem to have had a good experience, quickly strained apparent bonds and revealed a number of fault lines
if this sort of thing is not unique to this particular group I could see it reinforcing the schism you describe, with online "communities" hesitant to talk to each other with goggles off lest it be discovered that a virtually established milieu may depend more on the avatars than the people behind them
I think VR and Twitter are far too different for this to fully apply. VR interaction involves real time voice communication along with a good deal of body language. Twitter has a forced limit on the number of characters you can use and is text and static image only. A fairer comparison might be video calls but I don't know of any online communities that use these exclusively so the closest would be Discord servers where a lot of people use voice chat.
There are quite a few people that have met up irl after building a relationship in apps like VR Chat, I think they've probably had the same success rate that people who met through chatrooms or dating sites have.
Good point. I imagine people will self-modify substantially in VR though. If we have high resolution VR it seems likely we'll be able to alter our voices and change our virtual bodies at will. And if video games and Twitter and even IRL cultural practices show anything it's that the typical human is a role-playing animal. When roles which previously floated free of any material basis come into contact IRL I wonder if this has the potential to create tension regardless of the immersiveness of the original virtual environment.
I suppose it might in some cases, especially if the relationship is a romantic one. If it were two friends meeting up for the first time I'd bet they'd be able to maintain the friendship even if there was a bit of a surprise about each other's appearance or actual voice. People do already use voice changers and a huge variety of avatars in VR Chat and other social VR apps so I'm sure this has happened quite a few times.
I just know that nobody wants to actually do the Carlson dance in VR when they can instead push one button in Fortnight to do that emoji.
VR has some interesting games and interesting effects. Emulating reality is not it at all. We as a tech society are still trying to figure out what VR is good for.
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My best experiences in VR is and remains Beat Saber.
A few other games (Keep Talking and nobody Explodes, Super hot, the spaceship shooter game from the lab) are good and fun.
There is nothing like reality in these games. In fact, the closer things get to reality (ex: throwing objects in Superhot) the worse the experience gets.
In contrast, when you become a fantasy avatar who moves a spaceship around with your hand (space shooter from the Lab) and I can play that for hours.
The best experiences are honest about what VR does well and what doesn't work well. Real life experiences are best one in real life, not with expensive $1000+ goggles on a computer.
A synthetic reality would be amazing. People would figure out all kinds of killer apps in the first year. Wearing a monitor on your face though is not capable of creating a synthetic reality.
I always see people mention VR fitness. I would love a synthetic gym with every piece of gym gear ever made and then build our own new gear from there. The problem is there is no way to lift synthetic weights by just strapping a monitor to your face, obviously.
I'm with Carmack on this one, reality may be better than VR for you but there are a lot of people in the world where that may not be the case either all the time or for some of the time. A VR headset is cheaper and more attainable than moving to a new city/state/country. Meeting people in VR is easier than trying to make new friends offline. VR allows people to choose everything about their physical appearance, not just clothing but physical proportions and attributes, gender, etc. Is it escapism? To some degree yes but it does allow for real social interaction on a level not previously possible with a computer. That means a lot to people who aren't able to socialize with others offline for a whole host of reasons.
Look, if you can solve the latency on voice chat or video chat, you are a hell of a lot further on making virtual experiences feel more intimate than any VR headset.
We've been meeting up online since 2020 due to the pandemic. We all know the problems with online meetups, and it has nothing to do with the nonexistence of VRChat (which obviously exists)
Awkward pauses and slower conversations and a far less intimate feel occurs due to this latency. It's enough to hold a work meeting since most people talk one by one, but not good for say... an online prayer service where coordinating everyone's timing to the Our Father or Hail Mary prayers is completely impossible.
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You literally can't sing or pray together online. It's a very dull experience.
I've experienced a lot of what you're talking about in video calls but a fairly minimal amount of it when talking in VR. I've never tried singing together in VR and I'm sure it wouldn't be good but conversation flows much more naturally than it does in a video call. I haven't checked but I think video calls have much higher latency because you are also encoding/decoding video streams. VR only transmits headset and controller/tracker positions so it doesn't have to deal with that overhead. Honestly though it doesn't detract from it much, I can't sing and I don't participate in prayer groups so those two things don't affect me. Personally, I'd much rather (and do) spend hours talking to people in VR rather than talking to people in video calls which I also have to do on a regular basis. An hour long video call makes me feel like I want to throw my computer out a window and go live in the woods, an hour long chat in VR doesn't seem quite long enough.
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.
That's a little like tracing computers back to ENIAC, sure it's the same concept and can do some of the same things but there are worlds of difference between it and a personal computer.
Even if you limit scope to only consumer grade VR there's still examples from the mid-nineties of strap-on headsets. The jump to wireless has also been a generational leap, despite its tradeoffs. So by my count this is the 3rd generation.
I'd be cautious of reading too much into that, because furries are also, these days, the main users of SecondLife. When everyone else bailed out of Metaverse 1.0 15 years ago, the furries stayed. It's arguably a community with very different requirements to the mainstream.
> And why would Facebook be the one who actually figure out how to build some super appealing virtual world
They don't need to build a super appealing virtual world, they just need to figure out how to get you coming back to something every day, even if you don't like it and/or think it adds negative value to your life.
With VR it’s not about the world you play in, it’s all about the people who are there. Most of what I do in VR is just hang out and talk to people but when I do game it’s anything with multiplayer. As long as the game includes grabbable objects and physics people will make their own fun. It’s a much lower bar than traditional games, just make sure your networking is on point and you almost can’t lose.
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...
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.
It my mind is was flyer for an event but I can also be on a phone!
As someone who gets lost often to ability to have directions to everywhere is a killer feature to me. I can also see LIDAR based glasses being a huge accessibility device for the blind.
I have headsets also gathering dust, but the scenarios are there. The odd night spent doing Pavlov gun games with rando 13 year olds, having a deep fireside chat in Horizons with a guy who built the virtual cabin, and watching old Bond movies with an Israeli guy are core VR memories for me.
It's a pain to set up and get on, it has issues, but those experiences will continue to be attractive as the technology eventually fades into the background.
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.
while i appreciate what you want for your sun, jumping to "I won't let VR goggles into my home" doesn't seem like a reasonable response either.
Will you also ban game consoles and televisions? Will you limit his internet usage to wikipedia, and only non sexual articles?
There is a lot of room between 'I don't support meta's endeavours' and 'BAN VR', and you've jumped directly on the extreme end of a scale for seemingly no reason.
The funny thing is that this tech is far more social than phones and computers ever were. When you hang out with a friend in VR, you actually can end up feeling like you hung out and had a silly fun time, like you had really gone out for a round of mini golf.
Thanks won’t claim that VR is better than being outside, but to me it seems a hell of a lot better than sitting on the couch with a phone.
I spent a lot of my teens on MUDs & MOOs (really, textual VR), so I understand the substance of what you're saying, but
Honestly, the full sensual immersion of VR is the last thing we need in our house at this point after 2 years of COVID. I need my kids to get more physical exercise and time outside this house, not less.
And I am not trying to convince you to buy in, just trying to correct some misconceptions about the tech. VR, depending on the app can be awesome exercise. The best games are very physical and while it may not be a gym workout, it is miles better than watching tv or playing console games.
Just a few examples, rhythm games like Beat Saber, Pistol Whip and Synth Riders are at least on the level of Zumba or other aerobic dance exercises. Thrill of the Fight is a boxing game that is seriously intense and one of the best stress busters I have ever seen. Even something like eleven table tennis is essentially identical to playing real table tennis so is also much better than being a couch potato. VR is part of my and many other people’s overall fitness regimen.
Of course you need to set some limits, but I actually look forward to going on adventures together with my son in VR. Why not embrace it? When I was young, my parents showed zero interest in my gaming interests. At one point I even bought a game specifically because I hoped it would be something my dad and I could enjoy together (based on his interests, not mine), and all I got was a shrug. They're great parents and I love them, but I wish they'd engaged a bit more. To them video games and PCs didn't really exist. I want to experience cool new worlds with my kids, if they'll let me.
We play games together and his interests are often sparked by mine. But the dark side to gaming in the 21st century is they can easily become all-encompassing at the expense of a lot of things that I mentioned above (outside interests, etc.) Much of the modern gaming stack is engineered for total immersion and focus stealing, and leaves little room for outside interests.
I played games as a boy and young man as well. But I also wrote BASIC and 6502 assembly, or built forts in the woods, looked at neat plants, soldered projects for my VIC-20 or Atari ST, read ElfQuest graphic novels and acted them out with my friends, explored the local RadioShack, rode my bike, etc. The nature of my son's gaming obsessions has actually made it hard to get him to diversify.
Parenting is not easy. Defining limits is hard, but if you don't things can go
sideways really badly and we have learned this the hard way.
That is something I'm definitely worried about. I don't let my 4-year old play on tablets and phones, but I do let him use the PC as I feel mastering it could lead to more creative uses of technology. But the fact is that games have come a long way since the 90s when I played (not even online at that point), so if it was consuming then it must be much more so today. I'm not sure how to deal with that. On the one hand I'm glad my parents didn't really limit my use of the PC as it let me explore freely, but doing so today may not be an option.
Regarding VR specifically, I feel like limiting it comes more naturally _because_ it is so all-encompassing. It should be regarded as a special activity that you do for short bursts of time, en preferably as a social activity. It also helps that it's quite physical compared to other types of games. But in the end I guess we'll have to introduce these things slowly and watch how our kids handle it. If they show addictive tendencies it might be time to limit it.
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.
> takes charge of our two most important senses (sight and hearing)
A quibble with this - the next gen is all about full color high res passthrough and many headsets like the Quest have open ear headphones so you still hear your surroundings. I think it's going to be much less isolating than the "VR is an isolating dystopia" people think.
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.
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.
Do you have any stats or other evidence that it’s taking off among kids? I know teachers in our affluent town and have not heard anything about it (though I haven’t asked).
no - for me it's anecdotal and I accept that is weak evidence by any reasonable measure. I guess you can cite things like the Oculus app being the most popular download on iOS last Christmas, etc.
But the way I see it rippling through that demographic is pretty crazy ... the kicker is that to join in with multiplayer you need a headset to play. So once a couple of them are doing it there is a pretty strong pull for the whole group to get on board. My theory is that this demographic is a bit "under the radar" and hence we are seeing less reporting on this than you would otherwise.
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.
It's more like Meta trying to lead the revolution seems dystopic at best. Purchasing virtual property to live in? I already deal with that in real life, why would I want to deal with that in a virtual world where the possibilities should be limitless and not tied to real life?
Why do you expect to have to purchase property in VR? I think this was just a headline that uninformed people ran with because it was so provocative. There may be a VR equivalent to domain squatting, but probably nothing that would require you to get a mortgage.
>Why do you expect to have to purchase property in VR?
because its already a thing in virtual spaces.
> probably nothing that would require you to get a mortgage.
oh so now you expect it, but you think its not a lot of money. Seems like you're in agreement with him about purchasing virtual spaces, you just think its worth the money.
I think that is exactly the point of the comment you are replying to here. HN is a place where you would think people can see the use case opportunities and extrapolate them into the future based on the featured article's assertions (like getting access to a PPD of 55) and what that all means in the long term.
Spatial computing will bring about a fundamental UI/UX design refactoring of established 2D applications we just take for granted as fully baked. It won't replace them, like screens didn't replace books, but it will allow for enhanced functions we didn't know we were missing until they were in front of us and it will be offered in a more delightful human centric experience at the same time. HN dogs can bark but the caravan is rolling.
I doubt it. Navigation in 3D space is far more awkward than 2D. Depth is hard to get accurate, and you now have to deal with things closer to you obscuring things behind them. It's slow and awkward.
Improving this space isn't dependent on new technology either. We don't need more fps for them to solve the UX problems, they could've been solved for 3D navigation on a 2D screen - but they haven't, it has always been easier, faster and more accurate to navigate a 2D space.
Maybe eventually. I agree that it's very fun as a toy. Some of the games are an absolute blast. Most are trash tbh, but that'll change / improve.
However, the weird mEtAVeRsE wet dream zuck is pushing is total BS. NOBODY wants to live/work in VR. It's a fun thing to do for short periods of time for entertainment, and AR/VR is a cool tool for certain tasks (e.g. interior design).
The idea that we're gonna be flying through cyber space like some kinda Hackers (the movie) scene is just nonsense. It's honestly bad UX that people have been trying to push forever. Windows 95 had this goofy virtual world thing where you were in a room and all your software was on bookshelves and other silly shit that was a fun gimmick, but infinitely less efficient than buttons, menus, and sorted lists.
Also, unless headsets get MUCH lighter (and less sweaty) while simultaneously getting much better battery life they aren't going to be a thing people wear for long periods of time any time soon.
I fully agree that nobody wants to strap a big set of googles, but I'm also willing to bet that more and more of our lives will take place in "cyberspace".
I'm willing to bet in the distant future almost all our lives will be virtual because it is simply so much cheaper than physical things.
Our video games will become more immersive, I would not be surprised if a generation or two a family holiday could be a week inside a video game.
Our work conference calls are becoming more and more immersive. I would not be surprised if work from home and work in the office eventually meet in the middle where you are physically at home but with a virtual representation sitting in a vertical office, where communication and collaboration are easy.
A more comfortable strap helps a lot. The quest 2 with a standard strap is just horrible. The quest 1's strap was really great. The 'elite' one for the Q2 is somewhere in the middle..
How will the headsets not get lighter and better battery life? That'd be the easy part to bet on, don't you think? Computing devices have shrunk dramatically over the years. I'm surprised people are so impatient about how this is developing.
And while I don't use Facebook and feel uncomfortable about Meta owning the dominant virtual space, I absolutely think it will happen and prove very popular. Have you seen how much time people currently spend scrolling their phones with the little interfaces and small viewports? Lying on the couch with goggles between dinner and bedtime will be the norm soon enough, IMO - watching TV/movies, experiencing spaces, browsing content, socialising, learning, etc.
Yeah, the folks who sank piles of money into it last time all thought that too. Turns out that "inevitable" might mean "tomorrow" or it might mean "thirty years from now". Pointing that out _is_ an attempt to "influence this technology" by reminding people that thinking gigantic problems will just magically be solved Because This Is The Future is a recipe for disappointment.
What is inevitable VR? Is it ready player one? Because that's what companies keep explaining it as. But that's never going to happen. Is it treadmills? Is it just what we have now but with better glasses? The discussion is swamped with people who saw a dumb movie once and don't understand how anything works.
Virtual world is easy. Virtual world where you are immersed beyond having the camera on your head is pretty much impossible. We don't have an idea for what tech would be required for that. There's a large gap between moving your character with a control stick and "being" in the game like in the movie implied.
We don't have the tech to do massive enormous orders of magnitude larger than typical MMO servers.
And of course the movie was some sort of dystopian web3 nightmare without considering the evil tech CEO. It showed the characters having fun going to doom world for PVP with real money and permadeath at stake. The main characters father loses everything because he dies in the game. But it was fine because the main characters were talented so it looked fun. This isn't a requirement for a virtual world of course, but the concept of the VR economy implies the game needs to be a lot less game and a lot more business. Not a spunky playground where you, a non pro gamer, will be able to do anything noteworthy.
I wonder if the reason this community embraced innovation in the early days is because only those who embrace new things are going to be attracted to a site in its early days. In other words, even the act of using Hacker News was an embracement of the new, which filtered out anyone who didn't embrace the new -- so you were only going to find people embracing the new in the comments.
Now that the site is established, it moreso attracts people who are interested in the established, and less-so attracts people who are interested in new things. This problem tends to amplify itself, as a community that rejects new things is also going to drive away people who are interested in new things.
Now that Hacker News is established, it's just not "it" anymore. "It" is somewhere else.
But this is all just a theory. The counter to this argument is that many people on Hacker News in 2007 expressed serious reservations to Dropbox/cloud storage when it was first revealed -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863. So perhaps what we're seeing is that problem-solvers (developers) also tend to be problem-finders.
Yes, I also find it quite astonishing. I bought a Quest 2 so that I could explore if this was a gimmick or the real deal. It’s absolutely the real deal and in my mind, the unquestionable future of computing. And if Facebook ends up owning the whole thing, it’ll be specifically because others in the tech industry had lost the plot and were too busy dismissing it to chase for a piece of the prize.
An example of this is in game development. The app library is currently so that that it has opened up a huge opportunity for solo indie developers to build simple games and end up at the top of the sales charts. And we’re talking about something that has outsold the new Xbox.
Tech people like to wax on about how concerned they are about Facebook, but these comments usually are just a chance for them to take a few swings at a favorite corporate punching bag, not because they have any particular interest in VR.
I think in many ways the HN community is going through a deep skepticism cycle where everything new is dismissed. After Zuckerberg’s huge gamble pays off and creates a bigger gold rush than mobile, this same community is going to be posting guides on how to custom program hand tracking gestures and detailed breakdowns on how the distortion correction works.
"[Thing A] was bad once, and now everyone uses it, thus everyone will use [Thing B], because Thing B is currently bad", is not, generally, a great argument. For instance, take 3D TVs; those were _not_ good (though they were far more mature than current VR stuff) or, as it turned out, of particular interest to the general public, and now they're gone.
While I can't predict the future, I tend to think that VR is more of a 3D TV situation than a smartphone situation; an industry which is hitting market scaling issues ("Argh! Everyone in the world has a HD TV/Facebook account!") is pushing a new thing, to expand its market, and it's not particularly clear that consumers want it. This all feels very top-down; giant companies deciding what consumers will want next, and telling consumers they want it. This works less often than you'd think.
Now, this eventually worked for the TV industry with 4K and particularly HDR, but those were both less jarringly different from what people were used to, and had more creative support (your average film director was much more excited about HDR than 3D...)
It is inevitable that the technology will mature. It is not inevitable that it will play the role people think it will play.
I think I'd be more enthusiastic if:
- VR headsets weren't still so bad. Merely good VR devices is still a long way off.
- the existing VR experiences weren't still so bad
- the market wasn't completely fragmented and any purchase you make now is very short term
- any meaningful degree interoperability is still way off in the future
- the dominant player wants a walled garden where you are a powerless guest - at best
Headsets will get better, but it'll be a slow, expensive and frustrating journey I'd be happy to let someone else get frustrated with. I've followed VR for about 30 years and if you look at it in that perspective, astonishingly little has been accomplished in terms of building something that even rises to where it isn't a frustrating, nauseating, sad experience.
And if Zuck's walled garden is where the action is going to be at, I might sit it out entirely. Why would I invest my time being part of a community where I have absolutely no rights? That would be a really poor choice.
There are legitimate reasons why people aren't as enthusiastic as you. And it doesn't make them naysayers.
Probably because I am old and it has been inevitable at this point for nearly my entire life.
The fundamental flaw IMO is that VR always over promises and under delivers.
Meta will make VR indistinguishable from reality but of course we don't mean smell as part of reality.
Indistinguishable from reality but of course we are not talking about going under water, feeling water as being wet and feeling like you are floating in water.
Indistinguishable from reality but of course we don't mean a virtual massage parlor that someone could touch your back and it feels like your back is being touch.
We mean we are going to make the tech equivalent jump from a 15 inch CRT monitor to a 27 inch nice LCD monitor and pretend VR is now indistinguishable from reality because that is what the Emperor wants and the Emperor signs my checks.
To me, you either need a full body suit, disregard smell and then stand on an underwater treadmill with a motorcycle helmet on or it is all a waste of time until we have a good brain computer interface.
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.
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.
> 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...
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.
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".
You can get very good body language through, but... it will cost you quite a bit in additional hardware (trackers and add-ons). The demand is clearly there and the supply is catching up (various competitors). I think competition will drive down the cost.
Audio is likewise a matter of cost. And manufacturers not cheaping out on components, I'm looking at you HTC (and the notoriously horrible Rift S too).
I'm looking forward to programmable smells based on a combination of basic smell cartridges. That's totally a thing people are working on.
Touch is a hell of a lot harder to solve. More could be done to provide good haptic feedback. Haptic vests and facial interfaces already exist (at additional cost, of course), but the problem is the more crap you have to add to your body the more inconvenient (and sweaty) VR gets. I believe providing better VR touch interfaces is key to the development of the technology.
And I really, really don't want to taste anything in VR!
If we get good body and face and eye tracking all built into a headset I think social VR will have everything it needs. I’m pretty sure all tracking can be done purely with cameras, maybe even only with cameras on the headset and controllers though I think having a single wireless base station studded with cameras would make it easier. Touch is great but not really necessary in most cases.
Your point is very culture-dependent though. Due to sound orientation and voice chat, playing Pavlov VR does feel like a very social activity, probably more so than just going to a bar with the same friends.
I don't usually touch, taste or smell my friends either.
> In particular, body language from those around you is either missing entirely or is very rudimentary.
> I don't usually touch, taste or smell my friends either.
It would be very out of the ordinary to not touch or smell your friends quite frequently.
While some people prefer not to, hugging, patting on the back, nudging, passing objects back and forth, and even less common things like holding hands or touching each others' hair are very common social interactions.
Smelling just happens passively when you're spending time with biological creatures who have perfumed clothing, armpits, and hair, and sweat to boot (among other less desirable odors). This isn't necessarily a great thing but experiencing the biology of other human beings is personally important to me.
To not taste things with / alongside your friends would also be out of the ordinary.
They do, but most people also live with other people. If you're immersed in VR, you're isolated from those you're with in real life. It's harder to keep immersed, if your g/f, wife, or kids hit you up every couple of mins.
So unless they also have headsets that are interacting with you, it's likely, that both you and they want to spend time with each other in real life, and when you go into VR, you're isolated from them.
Same goes for playing games or browsing on a computer. Most people aren’t capable of keeping up active conversation while immersed in a game or even just reading an article. VR can include other people that are present physically but it really should be treated as a separate activity. You should make time in your day for your loved ones outside of VR.
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.
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..
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.
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".
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.
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.
Not by motion in-game when you're body's not moving? I've tried the spider-man like swinging games, and I never got my "VR-legs" that other people got with it. I got seriously motion sick and had to sleep it off.
I only do VR games now where people don't have to developer "VR-legs" for it.
Anecdotal but I knew many people who got motion sickness from last generation. None of the same people who has tried Quest has gotten it so it's definitely improving.
I do get motion sick in VR when I use games or apps that move you around like you are flying/walking. For Eleven Table Tennis and Demeo, there is no virtual movement, just physical. For Demeo there is very little virtual movement either.
Same with Golf+. Avoid the virtual walking/flying stuff and just occasionally teleport. No motion sickness.
I got really sick playing wolfenstein in the early 1990's. After about three hours of play I threw up and had to lay down for the rest of the day. I was skeptical of doom when it came out, but the combination of a new computer and whatever work they did to speed up the rendering loop made it one of those games that I played for 15+ hour binges for a year or two at doom parties.
In the late 1990's I was part of an early VR motion sickness study at my uni, and I lasted about 20 mins before I refused to go any further, because I just wanted to get out before I threw up again.
So a couple years ago I was trying out all the new VR setups with the shorter head tracking->frame improvements, and I'm here to tell you I still get radically sick in any first person VR setup. 3rd person (moss, witchblood) i'm fine and can play for hours. But there is something about 1st person perspectives and i'm feeling it within a couple mins and I simply won't push myself to the point of throwing up again, its really miserable, its like being sea sick without the ability to stare at the horizon and feel better, or get quick relief upon return to dry land. It takes at least as long as I was immersed in it before I start feeling normal again.
PS: I also hate 24FPS movies, I find them really jerky even in a dark theater, with an actual projector. Especially pans just drive me bonkers, so maybe it was all the doom training/etc but I have a very low tolerance to low FPS video/games/etc.
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.
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.
Its strange to me that people aren't talking about glasses or goggles rather than bulky uncomfortable headsets. There is a big difference between a bulky headset where you can't see or do anything else and a normal pair of hands-free glasses.
When it gets to the point of comfortable, unobtrusive and affordable AR/VR/MR glasses with good hand and head tracking built in, that will be a really different experience than the current standard. Maybe throw in a couple of small convient cameras that can just plug in and adhesive to the wall for external tracking.
And with the high speed Wifi available now, or the possibility of connecting to a smart phone (maybe in a pocket or some type of necklace-like carrier), I don't think you need a lot of compute in those devices.
So imagine you just put these glasses on and get 6 virtual wide screen monitors, turn to the right and its your favorite virtual coffee shop, with people inside with fairly realistic recreations from the capture and expression and eye tracking being done by the external cameras. There is 3d positional audio as well.
Imagine with a small camera on the desk, or built into the glasses, doing finger tracking on virtual keyboards. Suppose someone makes a little 'clicky' membrane that provides a bit of tactile feedback regardless of where you press on it.
Now I only need my smart phone and a pair of glasses. I don't need a monitor or a keyboard. Once people realize that every virtual keyboard can easily be 100% customized for any application, physical keyboards may become passé.
When you have good eye and expression tracking, realistic avatars enabled by high-performance AI models, 3d positional audio, realistic environments.. then there really isn't that much difference from being there in person. And there are a huge number of advantages such as convenience and time saving, being able to instantly "travel" to a popular hangout spot even if you are 400 miles away from your friends, etc.
Pretty much everything you can do now in VR, but make it more comfortable and remove some of the friction points, better integration between applications and with the real world, somewhat more realistic, etc.
Suppose automation and robotics continue to improve. Maybe artificial muscles like https://www.artimusrobotics.com/ are widely deployed, enabling high strength-to-weight ratio mobility and much more dexterous, faster, and more general-purpose robots.
In 20 years people may look back and be amazed at how much time and energy we wasted driving around to do everything in person, and how everyone restricted the majority of their "in-person" interactions to small localities.
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.
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.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 356 ms ] threadSolve 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.
I also don't use my quest 2 because the fidelity just isn't good enough.
I think whoever solves the casualness of VR will become the next big tech giant. It is looking like Facebook will come back HARD.
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.
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.
beat saber was a good pivot. its my gym when I travel now
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.
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.
Sort of. Discomfort/nausea issues hold back VR and will be addressed by this work.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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?
That said, I was mostly talking credit cards, since that's what most tech services would fall under in a zero-money consumer situation.
>And if not, why don't poor indebted people simply default all the time to remove debt?
Some do, but having your credit ruined for seven years sucks for most people. Likewise the courts don't exactly smile upon those who run up huge debts with the intention of defaulting.
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.
Reality shaping is like that - but coercive and in reverse. How much do I need to nudge your perceptual world with ubiquitous, desirable lizard-brain augmentations before you stop believing in reality?
Ideally, one would attempt to tie the user’s livelihood to the platform to keep them engaged.
Thinking about it, those diamond-lacking iPhones look quite shabby, already!
I also agree it is far from perfect but pretty good. Used to be on android but it was easier to use the same devices as my wife.
I don't think iPhones signal much (in the US at least) -- they have like 50% market share here.
"You're forgetting the poor people"
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.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/05/apple-icloud-photos-scanni...
No they should not.
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.
My understanding is that while this is certainly superior to your data being actually sold, privacy is nonetheless adversely affected in fairly significant ways.
> Apple delays plans to roll out CSAM detection in iOS 15 after privacy backlash
https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/03/apple-csam-detection-delay...
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
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.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46618582
"In total, it said the social network had special arrangements with more than 150 companies to share its members' personal data. Most of these, it said, were other tech firms, but the list also included online retailers, car-makers and media organisations, including the NYT itself, among others."
Suffice it to say Facebook's track record with PII is pretty terrible. At some point the word sell really becomes a matter of semantics.
Facebook is and always has been deep in adtech, which is fundamentally slimy. It's no surprise that led to a history littered with data privacy blunders.
>Again you are bumping the waters.
On the contrary, my chemistry knowledge is too poor to do such a thing.
[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zOHSysMmH0
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.
As said, imagine we would spend our energy in our society to actually bring poeple back together.
Social hubs just in a way that people want to go there. Imagine what you could build up with that money
[] https://www.google.com/search?q=zuckerberg+sauron
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs
https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/1454230235847688200...
I'm personally imagining Zuckerberg as a .hack fanatic like myself and my brother were back in '03.
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
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.
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?
This is exactly what people thought of 5+ inch phone screens, and now nobody cares.
I keep seeing ads/promos for VR with people on a train/subway in a VR headset. I hope you don't mind having the rest of your stuff taken from you while you crush it in what ever game you're playing on the subway
Real world with the AR "Killer App" - whatever that is. Google Glass will (sadly) be accepted by everyone in society eventually.
<s> Alexa/Siri: The optimal carriage for the train you are taking will stop 12 paces to your left. whoosh... screeech!
Alexa/Siri: Enter the door to board the train.
Alexa/Siri: The person seated 3 metres in front was recently given a 1 star Co-Rider review with the notes:"Loud shitty music."
Alexa/Siri: This person approaching you has been flagged for viol.... </s>
But it doesn't really matter. Ads will ruin everything. They always do.
Then, Black Mirror comes along and ruins it for everyone, because of course people will use it exactly as they proposed it could go. After seeing that, I don't want any part of it.
Is there a rule of the internet/tech/life that says for any good use, people will first take it to the dark places thereby ruining any potential good usage first?
To be clear, I'm not asking for anything. This is from their own PR that I've seen this advertised as a use case.
i.e. something like the hololens or spectacles
It's getting there though. Vuzix have made really nice flat AR displays for their Blade. They just don't have a clue how to sell them afaik.
Not to say that it is some kind of blissful experience, but it works reasonably well to go get a glass of water.
you gain IRL latency for reduced pixels
Not something I care about in both counts. And I don't think people care. In fact I was at a trade show this weekend where someone was playing a Q2 game and everyone looked really interested.
And messing up my hair, well I hardly have any :)
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.
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.
DDR was as really great fitness app back in the late 90s, early 00s, similar experience, but it required insanely expensive hardware if you wanted to do it at home at any decent quality (rather than just a novelty for a few parties). The Quest has none of that problem (though most of your work is in your arms rather than your legs). It is also too bad Microsoft didn't go the fitness route for Kinect, that worked fairly well also in getting sore at least.
An air pressure hard pad...well...you have to buy a DDR arcade unit. Those are going for $10k+ last time I looked. Then you have to find a place to put it....
And if your definition of 'flimsy' is 'requires some maintenance every decade', note that the product we're comparing it to, the Oculus, has a lithium ion battery in it that's e-waste after less than half that time, and good luck getting spares in a market that discontinues its products every couple of years.
DDR is in this awkward space where it's either cheap and garbage, or expensive as all hell. The DDRGAME stuff, from what I've heard is somewhat pricy AND garbage.
VR as a whole still has a long way to go though, for sure. You need like 8k per eye or something crazy before you're "maxed out" on what humans can perceive IIRC.
tl;dr human vision is higher than 8k, but megapixels is not the right concept to measure it
I do agree with you that the resolution is still to low to replace screens.
looks like that's getting slightly better, as long as you tether to a massive desktop to fit its massive enthusiast GPU
I can't imagine doing real work with text too, but it's enough to be immersed in realistic worlds like hl alyx.
I am always astounded by such claims, like have you guys ever travelled outside the Western hemisphere at all?
Furthermore, the resolution on a Quest for viewing actual text for long periods of time is entirely too low, and that's not even considering the fact that it can be very difficult to get the entire virtual screen to be in focus given the fresnel lenses. What do you do your programming on, a TI 83 screen?
My prediction if this takes off: Just as in Phones right now we will see a period of mono/duopolism after which lawmakers around the world will start to decide that the public space expanded into a new field and that companies such as Meta are unfit stewards. Then laws will be written to align platforms more with whatever the local society expects. (And some people will, again, complain about that "overreach")
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.
https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula
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.
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 naïve enough to think that history won't repeat itself.
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.
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
Still too many walled gardens.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
I hope this will eventually be the case, but with current iterations, navigating and interacting with VR UIs and experiences is quite difficult for people who aren’t already familiar with game controllers and console-like menu systems - especially the elderly.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We're really getting to the point where it's mainstreaming.
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.
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.
How often?
How is your long term motivation?
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.
I've gone through phases since purchasing it where there is one game or another that I get into, but the general theme has been something with a 'physical' aspect to it + skill development (Beat Saber is a characteristic example here). The exception from that theme was when Half-life Alyx came out—I enjoyed it and put a good amount of time into it. Similarly, when I've felt more social I've deviated from my usual pattern and used Big Screen VR (social movie/tv watching app with virtual theaters/lobby) to hang out and talk with others.
Currently—and this has been going on for months—I play Zombieland VR: Headshot Fever daily. My sessions are typically between 20min and 1hr. For me it's a great way to get into "flow" because it forces you to keep your attention on your external environment, precisely control your actions (i.e. aim accurately), waste absolutely as little time as possible (the goal is to beat levels in smallest amount of time, compete with others on high score list)—and the biggest selling point: I can do this while standing up and moving around a bit, it's not going to keep me at my desk where I've already been all day.
I've been using the headset regularly since I bought it (a couple months after it was first released). I've gone through "dry spells" with it where I kind of forgot about it or didn't have anything I felt like playing—but mostly I've found consistent use for it.
So is this part of your moning routine? Waking up, doing vr sport, showering?
Sounds like VR is not for you, and that's fine, but mocking people who think wireless is a big deal is just nonsense.
"Basically a few gimmicks" yet refuses to do any basic research and buy a few games to actually try it out. Huh.
https://shadow.tech/
The other one I really enjoyed was replaying the Resident Evil 4.
After that you just need to launch the SteamVR app in the oculus dashboard.
I thought this for a while when my Dad (68), wife (45) and kid (5) all got into it really hardcore. They each got their own and were playing everyday, so much they had to recharge multiple times a day. I was actually a bit concerned. Then they all just completely forgot about them and now only my kid plays it, maybe once a month, for 10 minutes.
For me, the real mainstreaming point though will be when we have actual lightweight glasses or goggles rather than headsets. With AR and VR built in. And/or attachments for glasses would be even better for me since glasses are tough to wear with headsets.
I expect more comments on how to influence this technology versus dismissing it as not applicable for the human race.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Obviously this was just one example to demonstrate the convenience of VR/AR over smart phones. You would not be using VR/AR for "just that one thing". The applications are numerous:
* Ability to have virtual workspaces with multiple high-resolution simulated monitors (and that's just the low-hanging fruit of simulating existing workspaces at a lower cost and more portability, it is entirely possible that VR will lead to completely new workspaces. But let's be a pessimist and assume simulating existing workspaces is the best we can do.). I mean if VR can deliver this one thing and nothing else, I would say it will be a huge success.
* Ability to read/work on commute without getting a headache from vibrations (since the image will be stable)
* Lifelike interaction with friends and family in a moment's notice and no air pollution
* Videogames
And these are some of the easier and less speculative uses of VR.
How are you actually defining "new" here? Have you considered that you are defining "new" in an amorphous way that allows you to reject everything new that VR/AR offer?
AR allows one to create virtual objects with actual position and shape in the real world. We can see these objects in their location in the world, and interact with them. That is the abstracted case of what is truly new -- the thing that simply does not exist without AR.
From this abstract case, we can give concrete examples. When buying products online, one can discover what furniture will look like in their house, or what clothing will look like on their body -- they can better see it from every angle and the form it will take. In terms of "adult entertainment", one can literally experience a virtual person up in your face and on your body, something that is just not offered by any existing form. Shit, we can attach a virtual note to a physical object (that only select people get to see!), we can use a ping pong table without needing to own a ball, we can see "subtitles" next to a person who is talking, we can see a label next to our friend in a crowded place without having to constantly cross-reference a map on a phone screen... honestly. Have some imagination.
If you can see this list of things and say "none of that is new", then I seriously challenge you to define "new" for me, because I'm willing to bet you are not applying the same rigorous definition to smartphones.
None of these things are achievable in the same way with a 2D screen because by definition a 2D screen lacks the ability to literally display along the Z axis. Our minds perceive in 3D, not 2D. A 2D screen literally provides less information about distance and location to the senses. Moreover, a 2D screen has a complete inability to create the feeling of presence, something that is new to AR/VR.
Actually, to act as if the feeling of presence is not new, despite you apparently having used a headset, seems bizarre to the point of incomprehensibility. Use VR porn and tell me that’s not a completely new, compelling experience. I’m addicted to it — it’s like I’m literally having sex. Honestly, your rejection of presence as revolutionary means I don’t actually think it’s possible to get anywhere with this discussion.
Lastly, your difficulties developing something compelling with AR is not a sufficient argument that nothing compelling can ever be achieved with it.
So, take that idea. It's not a novelty experience. It's not fluff. It significantly improves the lives of hearing-impaired people.
Did you even come up with this idea? If so, why were you not able to create it? Have you considered that perhaps it was due to the fact that something like this is extremely difficult to develop and can't be done by a regular team over a period of 'months'? Have you considered that AR/VR isn't just going to be made transformative within a <1 year time period of you getting your hands on it?
On the other hand, if you didn't even come up with such a practically beneficial idea as this (or were unable to see how life-changingly useful it'd be for the hearing-impaired), then the issue with all of your ideas being "fluff" was not due to the technology at hand.
This even sparks my imagination further. Right now, if someone yells at a hearing-impaired person from behind, they have no immediate way of knowing (any phone-based solution is not going to give quick information about the direction of the yell when it's in-pocket). On the other hand, an AR headset will be able to immediately inform that person that a loud voice has come from exactly the direction it is pointing to, because it can literally show an arrow in their visual sight. That is so goddamn exciting and useful. And I simply can't comprehend how you cannot see it.
is it particularly surprising that people who know what goes into the sausages might be skeptical about feeding them to everyone for every meal?
The public imagination is bent toward the cyber-dystopian, whereas these two technologies represent other possible futures.
https://lookingglassfactory.com/product/overview
I don't really know what programmable matter means, sounds like biology to me :)
here's a quick sizzle reel that shows the product - it's a stack of transparent displays that produces a very convincing depth hologram, I've seen them in person, they're really cool
https://youtu.be/4pJxdNRA1CM
More like "people who know to a degree what goes into salads act like they know what goes into sausages."
More often than not, it is about as interesting and insightful as watching Steve Ballmer staging a mock funeral for iPhone in 2010[0].
0. https://macdailynews.com/2010/09/10/microsoft_windows_phone_...
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.
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
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.
so we will have a majority of people being totally dismissive of interacting with avatars through goggles (I hate the experience personally, feels like putting on a blindfold), and a growing minority that wouldn't have it any other way, divorced from anything going on IRL
if this sort of thing is not unique to this particular group I could see it reinforcing the schism you describe, with online "communities" hesitant to talk to each other with goggles off lest it be discovered that a virtually established milieu may depend more on the avatars than the people behind them
There are quite a few people that have met up irl after building a relationship in apps like VR Chat, I think they've probably had the same success rate that people who met through chatrooms or dating sites have.
Fortnite 'concerts' are choreographed just webcasts. fashion areas are just microtransactions. there's nothing new there.
I just know that nobody wants to actually do the Carlson dance in VR when they can instead push one button in Fortnight to do that emoji.
VR has some interesting games and interesting effects. Emulating reality is not it at all. We as a tech society are still trying to figure out what VR is good for.
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My best experiences in VR is and remains Beat Saber.
A few other games (Keep Talking and nobody Explodes, Super hot, the spaceship shooter game from the lab) are good and fun.
There is nothing like reality in these games. In fact, the closer things get to reality (ex: throwing objects in Superhot) the worse the experience gets.
In contrast, when you become a fantasy avatar who moves a spaceship around with your hand (space shooter from the Lab) and I can play that for hours.
The best experiences are honest about what VR does well and what doesn't work well. Real life experiences are best one in real life, not with expensive $1000+ goggles on a computer.
I always see people mention VR fitness. I would love a synthetic gym with every piece of gym gear ever made and then build our own new gear from there. The problem is there is no way to lift synthetic weights by just strapping a monitor to your face, obviously.
I'm with Carmack on this one, reality may be better than VR for you but there are a lot of people in the world where that may not be the case either all the time or for some of the time. A VR headset is cheaper and more attainable than moving to a new city/state/country. Meeting people in VR is easier than trying to make new friends offline. VR allows people to choose everything about their physical appearance, not just clothing but physical proportions and attributes, gender, etc. Is it escapism? To some degree yes but it does allow for real social interaction on a level not previously possible with a computer. That means a lot to people who aren't able to socialize with others offline for a whole host of reasons.
We've been meeting up online since 2020 due to the pandemic. We all know the problems with online meetups, and it has nothing to do with the nonexistence of VRChat (which obviously exists)
Awkward pauses and slower conversations and a far less intimate feel occurs due to this latency. It's enough to hold a work meeting since most people talk one by one, but not good for say... an online prayer service where coordinating everyone's timing to the Our Father or Hail Mary prayers is completely impossible.
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You literally can't sing or pray together online. It's a very dull experience.
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.
They don't need to build a super appealing virtual world, they just need to figure out how to get you coming back to something every day, even if you don't like it and/or think it adds negative value to your life.
Assuming the sun doesn't engulf us first.
Reality is VR will always be distinguishable from reality.
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...
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.
Kidding aside, the scenarios you describe sound closer to a tech demo than a killer feature to me.
As someone who gets lost often to ability to have directions to everywhere is a killer feature to me. I can also see LIDAR based glasses being a huge accessibility device for the blind.
It's a pain to set up and get on, it has issues, but those experiences will continue to be attractive as the technology eventually fades into the background.
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.
Will you also ban game consoles and televisions? Will you limit his internet usage to wikipedia, and only non sexual articles?
There is a lot of room between 'I don't support meta's endeavours' and 'BAN VR', and you've jumped directly on the extreme end of a scale for seemingly no reason.
Thanks won’t claim that VR is better than being outside, but to me it seems a hell of a lot better than sitting on the couch with a phone.
Honestly, the full sensual immersion of VR is the last thing we need in our house at this point after 2 years of COVID. I need my kids to get more physical exercise and time outside this house, not less.
Just a few examples, rhythm games like Beat Saber, Pistol Whip and Synth Riders are at least on the level of Zumba or other aerobic dance exercises. Thrill of the Fight is a boxing game that is seriously intense and one of the best stress busters I have ever seen. Even something like eleven table tennis is essentially identical to playing real table tennis so is also much better than being a couch potato. VR is part of my and many other people’s overall fitness regimen.
I played games as a boy and young man as well. But I also wrote BASIC and 6502 assembly, or built forts in the woods, looked at neat plants, soldered projects for my VIC-20 or Atari ST, read ElfQuest graphic novels and acted them out with my friends, explored the local RadioShack, rode my bike, etc. The nature of my son's gaming obsessions has actually made it hard to get him to diversify.
Parenting is not easy. Defining limits is hard, but if you don't things can go sideways really badly and we have learned this the hard way.
Regarding VR specifically, I feel like limiting it comes more naturally _because_ it is so all-encompassing. It should be regarded as a special activity that you do for short bursts of time, en preferably as a social activity. It also helps that it's quite physical compared to other types of games. But in the end I guess we'll have to introduce these things slowly and watch how our kids handle it. If they show addictive tendencies it might be time to limit it.
> 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.
A quibble with this - the next gen is all about full color high res passthrough and many headsets like the Quest have open ear headphones so you still hear your surroundings. I think it's going to be much less isolating than the "VR is an isolating dystopia" people think.
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.
"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.
But the way I see it rippling through that demographic is pretty crazy ... the kicker is that to join in with multiplayer you need a headset to play. So once a couple of them are doing it there is a pretty strong pull for the whole group to get on board. My theory is that this demographic is a bit "under the radar" and hence we are seeing less reporting on this than you would otherwise.
because its already a thing in virtual spaces.
> probably nothing that would require you to get a mortgage.
oh so now you expect it, but you think its not a lot of money. Seems like you're in agreement with him about purchasing virtual spaces, you just think its worth the money.
How many UIs are 3D? How many people are using motion controls?
Spatial computing will bring about a fundamental UI/UX design refactoring of established 2D applications we just take for granted as fully baked. It won't replace them, like screens didn't replace books, but it will allow for enhanced functions we didn't know we were missing until they were in front of us and it will be offered in a more delightful human centric experience at the same time. HN dogs can bark but the caravan is rolling.
Improving this space isn't dependent on new technology either. We don't need more fps for them to solve the UX problems, they could've been solved for 3D navigation on a 2D screen - but they haven't, it has always been easier, faster and more accurate to navigate a 2D space.
However, the weird mEtAVeRsE wet dream zuck is pushing is total BS. NOBODY wants to live/work in VR. It's a fun thing to do for short periods of time for entertainment, and AR/VR is a cool tool for certain tasks (e.g. interior design).
The idea that we're gonna be flying through cyber space like some kinda Hackers (the movie) scene is just nonsense. It's honestly bad UX that people have been trying to push forever. Windows 95 had this goofy virtual world thing where you were in a room and all your software was on bookshelves and other silly shit that was a fun gimmick, but infinitely less efficient than buttons, menus, and sorted lists.
Also, unless headsets get MUCH lighter (and less sweaty) while simultaneously getting much better battery life they aren't going to be a thing people wear for long periods of time any time soon.
I'm willing to bet in the distant future almost all our lives will be virtual because it is simply so much cheaper than physical things.
Our video games will become more immersive, I would not be surprised if a generation or two a family holiday could be a week inside a video game.
Our work conference calls are becoming more and more immersive. I would not be surprised if work from home and work in the office eventually meet in the middle where you are physically at home but with a virtual representation sitting in a vertical office, where communication and collaboration are easy.
And while I don't use Facebook and feel uncomfortable about Meta owning the dominant virtual space, I absolutely think it will happen and prove very popular. Have you seen how much time people currently spend scrolling their phones with the little interfaces and small viewports? Lying on the couch with goggles between dinner and bedtime will be the norm soon enough, IMO - watching TV/movies, experiencing spaces, browsing content, socialising, learning, etc.
Maybe not tomorrow, but by 2040?
We don't have the tech to do massive enormous orders of magnitude larger than typical MMO servers.
And of course the movie was some sort of dystopian web3 nightmare without considering the evil tech CEO. It showed the characters having fun going to doom world for PVP with real money and permadeath at stake. The main characters father loses everything because he dies in the game. But it was fine because the main characters were talented so it looked fun. This isn't a requirement for a virtual world of course, but the concept of the VR economy implies the game needs to be a lot less game and a lot more business. Not a spunky playground where you, a non pro gamer, will be able to do anything noteworthy.
Now that the site is established, it moreso attracts people who are interested in the established, and less-so attracts people who are interested in new things. This problem tends to amplify itself, as a community that rejects new things is also going to drive away people who are interested in new things.
Now that Hacker News is established, it's just not "it" anymore. "It" is somewhere else.
But this is all just a theory. The counter to this argument is that many people on Hacker News in 2007 expressed serious reservations to Dropbox/cloud storage when it was first revealed -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863. So perhaps what we're seeing is that problem-solvers (developers) also tend to be problem-finders.
Everyone's VR I know is in a drawer.
They aren't remotely the same.
An example of this is in game development. The app library is currently so that that it has opened up a huge opportunity for solo indie developers to build simple games and end up at the top of the sales charts. And we’re talking about something that has outsold the new Xbox.
Tech people like to wax on about how concerned they are about Facebook, but these comments usually are just a chance for them to take a few swings at a favorite corporate punching bag, not because they have any particular interest in VR.
I think in many ways the HN community is going through a deep skepticism cycle where everything new is dismissed. After Zuckerberg’s huge gamble pays off and creates a bigger gold rush than mobile, this same community is going to be posting guides on how to custom program hand tracking gestures and detailed breakdowns on how the distortion correction works.
While I can't predict the future, I tend to think that VR is more of a 3D TV situation than a smartphone situation; an industry which is hitting market scaling issues ("Argh! Everyone in the world has a HD TV/Facebook account!") is pushing a new thing, to expand its market, and it's not particularly clear that consumers want it. This all feels very top-down; giant companies deciding what consumers will want next, and telling consumers they want it. This works less often than you'd think.
Now, this eventually worked for the TV industry with 4K and particularly HDR, but those were both less jarringly different from what people were used to, and had more creative support (your average film director was much more excited about HDR than 3D...)
I think I'd be more enthusiastic if:
Headsets will get better, but it'll be a slow, expensive and frustrating journey I'd be happy to let someone else get frustrated with. I've followed VR for about 30 years and if you look at it in that perspective, astonishingly little has been accomplished in terms of building something that even rises to where it isn't a frustrating, nauseating, sad experience.And if Zuck's walled garden is where the action is going to be at, I might sit it out entirely. Why would I invest my time being part of a community where I have absolutely no rights? That would be a really poor choice.
There are legitimate reasons why people aren't as enthusiastic as you. And it doesn't make them naysayers.
The fundamental flaw IMO is that VR always over promises and under delivers.
Meta will make VR indistinguishable from reality but of course we don't mean smell as part of reality.
Indistinguishable from reality but of course we are not talking about going under water, feeling water as being wet and feeling like you are floating in water.
Indistinguishable from reality but of course we don't mean a virtual massage parlor that someone could touch your back and it feels like your back is being touch.
We mean we are going to make the tech equivalent jump from a 15 inch CRT monitor to a 27 inch nice LCD monitor and pretend VR is now indistinguishable from reality because that is what the Emperor wants and the Emperor signs my checks.
To me, you either need a full body suit, disregard smell and then stand on an underwater treadmill with a motorcycle helmet on or it is all a waste of time until we have a good brain computer interface.
The after-market Quest head kits for ~$20 make it much more comfortable.
Slightly confused as to why they stuck the zuck into what looks like a plywood shed though?
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.
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...
Though I'd say interaction in games can easily beat "talking on the phone".
Audio is likewise a matter of cost. And manufacturers not cheaping out on components, I'm looking at you HTC (and the notoriously horrible Rift S too).
I'm looking forward to programmable smells based on a combination of basic smell cartridges. That's totally a thing people are working on.
Touch is a hell of a lot harder to solve. More could be done to provide good haptic feedback. Haptic vests and facial interfaces already exist (at additional cost, of course), but the problem is the more crap you have to add to your body the more inconvenient (and sweaty) VR gets. I believe providing better VR touch interfaces is key to the development of the technology.
And I really, really don't want to taste anything in VR!
I don't usually touch, taste or smell my friends either.
> In particular, body language from those around you is either missing entirely or is very rudimentary.
That one is fair game.
It would be very out of the ordinary to not touch or smell your friends quite frequently.
While some people prefer not to, hugging, patting on the back, nudging, passing objects back and forth, and even less common things like holding hands or touching each others' hair are very common social interactions.
Smelling just happens passively when you're spending time with biological creatures who have perfumed clothing, armpits, and hair, and sweat to boot (among other less desirable odors). This isn't necessarily a great thing but experiencing the biology of other human beings is personally important to me.
To not taste things with / alongside your friends would also be out of the ordinary.
So unless they also have headsets that are interacting with you, it's likely, that both you and they want to spend time with each other in real life, and when you go into VR, you're isolated from them.
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..
So, VR is the training.
I only do VR games now where people don't have to developer "VR-legs" for it.
Same with Golf+. Avoid the virtual walking/flying stuff and just occasionally teleport. No motion sickness.
In the late 1990's I was part of an early VR motion sickness study at my uni, and I lasted about 20 mins before I refused to go any further, because I just wanted to get out before I threw up again.
So a couple years ago I was trying out all the new VR setups with the shorter head tracking->frame improvements, and I'm here to tell you I still get radically sick in any first person VR setup. 3rd person (moss, witchblood) i'm fine and can play for hours. But there is something about 1st person perspectives and i'm feeling it within a couple mins and I simply won't push myself to the point of throwing up again, its really miserable, its like being sea sick without the ability to stare at the horizon and feel better, or get quick relief upon return to dry land. It takes at least as long as I was immersed in it before I start feeling normal again.
PS: I also hate 24FPS movies, I find them really jerky even in a dark theater, with an actual projector. Especially pans just drive me bonkers, so maybe it was all the doom training/etc but I have a very low tolerance to low FPS video/games/etc.
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.
When it gets to the point of comfortable, unobtrusive and affordable AR/VR/MR glasses with good hand and head tracking built in, that will be a really different experience than the current standard. Maybe throw in a couple of small convient cameras that can just plug in and adhesive to the wall for external tracking.
And with the high speed Wifi available now, or the possibility of connecting to a smart phone (maybe in a pocket or some type of necklace-like carrier), I don't think you need a lot of compute in those devices.
So imagine you just put these glasses on and get 6 virtual wide screen monitors, turn to the right and its your favorite virtual coffee shop, with people inside with fairly realistic recreations from the capture and expression and eye tracking being done by the external cameras. There is 3d positional audio as well.
Imagine with a small camera on the desk, or built into the glasses, doing finger tracking on virtual keyboards. Suppose someone makes a little 'clicky' membrane that provides a bit of tactile feedback regardless of where you press on it.
Now I only need my smart phone and a pair of glasses. I don't need a monitor or a keyboard. Once people realize that every virtual keyboard can easily be 100% customized for any application, physical keyboards may become passé.
When you have good eye and expression tracking, realistic avatars enabled by high-performance AI models, 3d positional audio, realistic environments.. then there really isn't that much difference from being there in person. And there are a huge number of advantages such as convenience and time saving, being able to instantly "travel" to a popular hangout spot even if you are 400 miles away from your friends, etc.
Pretty much everything you can do now in VR, but make it more comfortable and remove some of the friction points, better integration between applications and with the real world, somewhat more realistic, etc.
Suppose automation and robotics continue to improve. Maybe artificial muscles like https://www.artimusrobotics.com/ are widely deployed, enabling high strength-to-weight ratio mobility and much more dexterous, faster, and more general-purpose robots.
In 20 years people may look back and be amazed at how much time and energy we wasted driving around to do everything in person, and how everyone restricted the majority of their "in-person" interactions to small localities.
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.