8 ms·

Inventing the Future

62 points by astigsen 9y ago

anjc 9y ago
I've read this twice and can't quite understand....why is this Oculus blog post primarily about how great AR is and the challenges of it? I can see the paragraphs about their research but is AR on Oculus' product roadmap?
- bildung 9y ago
  > why is this Oculus blog post primarily about how great AR is and the challenges of it? It's an ad: "I wrote this because it was the most effective way I could think of to reach out to those exceptional people and get them to consider whether Oculus Research might be the most exciting, fulfilling, interesting place for them to spend the next however many years."
  - anjc 9y ago
    Ah good spot, thanks. Might be good for them to spell out their product plans in that case. From an outsider's perspective, places like Microsoft would seem far better suited for AR researchers, given that they've been researching it for at least 15 years and have a product ready to go.
  - cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
    It being an ad has nothing to do with whether they're working on AR or not. They have tons of money, they know that AR will be an important battleground, and AR is related to VR. They would be incredibly foolish NOT to at least try to get into AR.
    - aaronaarzelbart 9y ago
      I dispute that AR either is, or will be important. Beyond Pokémon Go of course, which was something of a rarity. I just can't think of compelling use cases, and no one has ever showed one to me that has impressed. Mine craft on your coffee table? I think it's a silly curiosity. I want to get OUT of my lounge room when gaming, not be stuck in it ... MOVE YOUR DIRTY COFFEE CUPS OFF THE TABLE I WANT TO PLAY MINECRAFT ON IT... no one will ever say.
      - hobofan 9y ago
        You mean having all the information you want proactively projected in you field of view, instead of having to take out your phone and search for it doesn't sound appealing to you? I'm probably on the opposite side then. I worry that AR will be so appealing that people will willingly give away their last shred of privacy.
        aaronaarzelbart 9y ago
        This use case is saying "it's a monitor, up close". Yet another screen doesn't excite me.
        TeMPOraL 9y ago
        It's a monitor, up close, that reacts in real-time to what's in front of you and augments it (hence the name) with additional information. Preferably in a wearable format, so that you can have both your hands free to do the work.
      - aaronaarzelbart 9y ago
        You can vote me down but a better way to disagree would be to explain some of the compelling use cases for AR. And sorry but I don't think workplace safety training makes and entire industry and justification for the technology. One use case? Two? Any? Nothing.
        oskenso 9y ago
        Some of us that deal with vision problems on a daily basis can find AR to be a useful accessibility feature. I wish more effort would be invested in accesibility like zoom and captioning.
      - pls2halp 9y ago
        I feel like everything that can be done in VR(office environments, motion controlled games, art(tiltbrush is cool), communications) can be done just as well in AR, but with more realism(interacting with known environments) and less motion sickness. In terms of AR only things, I feel like Ingress is the direction AR games will go, with phones as a window into another world, and I've had lots of fun with the measuring apps which came out with arkit(my favourite is called Cubit, if you have an iOS 11 device).
    - anjc 9y ago
      I don't see an overlap between VR and AR, in terms of use-case or technology. I don't get why they'd start competing against Microsoft when they're already being dominated in their own VR niche. It almost looks concerning.
      - sgift 9y ago
        > I don't get why they'd start competing against Microsoft when they're already being dominated in their own VR niche. That's an interesting interpretation which doesn't seem to be backed by reality. That aside: It's a research team. They think AR will overtake VR some time in the future, so they research on it.
        anjc 9y ago
        > That's an interesting interpretation which doesn't seem to be backed by reality. Vive is massively outselling the Rift. Considering Oculus were first to market (in the sense that the dev kits were openly sold), and considering that they ostensibly have the backing of Facebook, that seems like a bad sign. And given this, it's concerning (to me) that they're now seemingly shifting resources to AR. And as I said before, AR and VR's uses don't overlap. So it isn't like they need to get a foothold in AR to stay relevant.
        haydenlee 9y ago
        Source that Vive is "massively outselling"?
        retromario 9y ago
        It's not. Or at least not anymore. Market shares seem to be equalizing at least according to the latest Steam Hardware Survey: https://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-rift-closes-in-on-steam-majority-market-share/ https://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-rift-closes-in-on-steam-majo...
        cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
        What does AR and VR usage not overlapping have to do with them not doing research? The technologies DO overlap, so they might as well try to catch two birds with one stone. Oculus doesn't have to make money immediately since they're backed by Facebook, which is a huge leverage. Also even if Vive IS outselling Rift right now, doesn't mean Rift is doomed at all. For now it's enough for them to be in the market and look for opportunities since NONE of the VR companies are turning out to be the next big thing, yet. I'm sure there will come a point when VR will grow extremely fast, but VR itself as an industry is not growing too fast anyway. In this climate it's best to hunker down and do research instead of trying to sell as many devices as possible, so I think they're doing the right thing.
aaronaarzelbart 9y ago
So much corporate communication is, in the end, just recruiting advertisements. These big companies Like Facebook and Amazon need to create gigantic free universities that are incredibly appealing to attend, giving the corporation the chance to cream off the most promising new employees.
- danieldk 9y ago
  I am over thirty, so I am permitted to be cynical ;). While I completely agree that AR and VR are the future and have many recreational and non-recreational applications, Facebook's goal for VR is to further read user preferences (I guess that they've wished to have eye tracking on Facebook for ages) and to inject advertising in more subtle manners. So, the question is: do you really want to work for Facebook (et al.) and get the technology patent-locked to be used for reading of, influencing of, and advertising to people? Or do you want to change the world for the common good? It is worrying that so much talent gets 'lost' [1] to spying/advertising companies because universities and non-profits cannot match or come close to the (personal) benefits of working at such companies. [1] I am not denying that the big tech companies have provided a lot of progress.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    > Or do you want to change the world for the common good? Suggestions? It seems to me that "lost" effort is a very normal state of things. Even if we picked a worthy cause and worked cleverly and tirelessly for it, the our successors could easily come in and trash our work. It also seems to me that the real "change the world" technologies don't solve problems but change our day-to-day lives: the printing press, cars, PCs, radio, television, consumer-focused logistics (Wal-Mart, Amazon delivery), vaccines, sanitation, running water, electricity, etc. Not all of these things are good. Not all are bad. But when Silicon Valley people say "change the world", they don't usually mean "work for (the next) Ford" or "work for (the next) AT&T".
    - AstralStorm 9y ago
      These technologies do solve problems in a big way: - printing press solved the problem of mass distribution of written knowledge and propaganda (By the way, invented by Chinese not Gutenberg but got lost in political turmoil), also paper money - cars solved a problem of slow transport and having to care for fussy animals - radio solved the problem of long range communication - vaccines solved the problem of certain recurring plagues - likewise sanitation - running water solved a problem of having to walk long distances especially to irrigate crops (aqueducts, Babylonian invention) - electricity solved a problem of cheap transport of energy (as opposed to coal for steam boilers) Consumer focused logistics is much older than both Wal-Mart and Amazon. And does not really solve a problem in as much as is an optimization over older delivery methods.
201709User 9y ago
That future will not have pre-acquisition stock options though.
musage 9y ago
Abrash's Zen of Graphics Programming was my first programming book I really loved.. still thanks, but no thanks. > Well, Google has some new, ridiculous thing, they're marketing glasses which have a small computer on them. So you can be on the internet 24 hours a day, just what you want. It's a way of destroying people, http://grittv.org/?video=noam-chomsky-on-secret-trade-deals-killing-polio-workers-fighting-for-the-commons-in-turkey-the-heroism-of-bradley-manning http://grittv.org/?video=noam-chomsky-on-secret-trade-deals-... Call him an old fool for not liking your toy, but I think he has his priorities straight, which not a lot of people can say for themselves. > smart, motivated people who want to change the world People who do things like invent penicillin don't talk about "changing the world" or "inventing the future" all the time. Orwell enhanced our perspective on a lot of things but I think he simply wanted to get it out of his system. Kafka? Wanted his stuff burned. Konrad Zuse? Was painfully aware of the pacts with the devil, something the "greats" of today just take as axiomatic. I could go on. Yes, there were also a lot of great people totally full of themselves, and they still were great. But generally, changing the world for the better happens in hindsight. Rosa Parks didn't want to end segregation -- not that she didn't want it to end, my point is she was just sick of being pushed around. That's where most meaningful change happens, humble and concerned with the thing and not with the change, and then some needy assholes swoop in and take credit. These engineers may be exceptional in their fields, but this and all it rubs shoulders with, in the bigger scheme and considering really great people, both big and small, is highly driven mediocrity, constantly touting its own horn. Entertainment and ads, ads and entertainment. Everything's so awesome and paradigm shifting, as new avenues to fill more landfills with old product are created. People have specific questions, concerns, needs, desires. Those keep getting ignored or twisted for profit, while more gimmicks and tools of surveillance and control are pushed and rationalized. These days, everybody is aligned with marketing. I'm slightly sorry for being negative but only for those normal people who are excited about this stuff. I don't want to pee on your parade. Everybody has their hobbies, but when people talk about the future and the world and the human condition and whatnot they're in the territory of greats, and in this case it's like bringing a footgun to a nuclear war. At any rate, this isn't some guy starting out in his garage, he'll live and prosper either way. To be honest, what triggered me mostly is how I cherished that book, just because it was the first cool one I had. Now it doesn't feel cool anymore. Otherwise I still have the above thoughts with plenty of stories or comments, but I just roll my eyes. But this is a master of his field laying it on so very thickly.
crb 9y ago
Did he hire the candidate?
- avenius 9y ago
  Plot twist: There never was a candidate.
- CoolGuySteve 9y ago
  No, one of the 8 interviewers thought one of her whiteboard questions was “correct but not clean enough” and another thought her design interview was “too disorganized”.
Geee 9y ago
Would it be easier to just completely replace our eyes and directly modulate the optic nerve? From engineering point of view - that actually seems more reasonable.
- Certhas 9y ago
  No, almost certainly not. We can't even interface with nerve cells directly, effectively to operate limbs. That's many orders of magnitude less information than the optical nerve. Peripheral nerve interfaces that can actually get good performance are quite a way off. Plus, from what I remember there is a significant amount of preprocessing done before the optic nerve. But we don't really know what exactly it is. Edit: There actually are several projects that look at artificial retinas, making use of most of the eyes nervous system and only replacing the outermost layer: http://www.artificialretina.energy.gov/ http://www.artificialretina.energy.gov/ http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v16/n6/full/nmat4874.html http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v16/n6/full/nmat4874.html
  - Geee 9y ago
    Well, we can't focus light at will either. But yes, probably an artificial retina of some sort will be a working solution.
jamesmattis 9y ago
This is a huge bet by Mark Zuckerberg to reach 1 Billion people. It can only happen if; 1. VR goes mobile. 2. The headset cost comes down to $100 to $150.
spacetexas 9y ago
How has he never heard "I want to invent the future", I thought that was pretty much a staple. I've heard that in business consulting interviews for years.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
panic 9y ago
Imagine that your glasses replace all your electronic devices – phones, TVs, computers, e-book readers, game consoles, the whole lot – with virtual versions, in the process making them inexpensive and instantly upgradeable. AR can replace these objects visually. But phones have touchscreens, game consoles have controllers, even TVs have remotes -- how do you interact with anything in this AR future?
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  Sign language and gestures perhaps? We're still quite some ways from making this reliable. Here is a pithy clickbait title: "How the AR will turn us all into Italians"

62 points by astigsen 9y ago

anjc 9y ago

I've read this twice and can't quite understand....why is this Oculus blog post primarily about how great AR is and the challenges of it? I can see the paragraphs about their research but is AR on Oculus' product roadmap?

bildung 9y ago
> why is this Oculus blog post primarily about how great AR is and the challenges of it? It's an ad: "I wrote this because it was the most effective way I could think of to reach out to those exceptional people and get them to consider whether Oculus Research might be the most exciting, fulfilling, interesting place for them to spend the next however many years."
- anjc 9y ago
  Ah good spot, thanks. Might be good for them to spell out their product plans in that case. From an outsider's perspective, places like Microsoft would seem far better suited for AR researchers, given that they've been researching it for at least 15 years and have a product ready to go.
- cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
  It being an ad has nothing to do with whether they're working on AR or not. They have tons of money, they know that AR will be an important battleground, and AR is related to VR. They would be incredibly foolish NOT to at least try to get into AR.
  - aaronaarzelbart 9y ago
    I dispute that AR either is, or will be important. Beyond Pokémon Go of course, which was something of a rarity. I just can't think of compelling use cases, and no one has ever showed one to me that has impressed. Mine craft on your coffee table? I think it's a silly curiosity. I want to get OUT of my lounge room when gaming, not be stuck in it ... MOVE YOUR DIRTY COFFEE CUPS OFF THE TABLE I WANT TO PLAY MINECRAFT ON IT... no one will ever say.
    - hobofan 9y ago
      You mean having all the information you want proactively projected in you field of view, instead of having to take out your phone and search for it doesn't sound appealing to you? I'm probably on the opposite side then. I worry that AR will be so appealing that people will willingly give away their last shred of privacy.
      - aaronaarzelbart 9y ago
        This use case is saying "it's a monitor, up close". Yet another screen doesn't excite me.
        TeMPOraL 9y ago
        It's a monitor, up close, that reacts in real-time to what's in front of you and augments it (hence the name) with additional information. Preferably in a wearable format, so that you can have both your hands free to do the work.
    - aaronaarzelbart 9y ago
      You can vote me down but a better way to disagree would be to explain some of the compelling use cases for AR. And sorry but I don't think workplace safety training makes and entire industry and justification for the technology. One use case? Two? Any? Nothing.
      - oskenso 9y ago
        Some of us that deal with vision problems on a daily basis can find AR to be a useful accessibility feature. I wish more effort would be invested in accesibility like zoom and captioning.
    - pls2halp 9y ago
      I feel like everything that can be done in VR(office environments, motion controlled games, art(tiltbrush is cool), communications) can be done just as well in AR, but with more realism(interacting with known environments) and less motion sickness. In terms of AR only things, I feel like Ingress is the direction AR games will go, with phones as a window into another world, and I've had lots of fun with the measuring apps which came out with arkit(my favourite is called Cubit, if you have an iOS 11 device).
  - anjc 9y ago
    I don't see an overlap between VR and AR, in terms of use-case or technology. I don't get why they'd start competing against Microsoft when they're already being dominated in their own VR niche. It almost looks concerning.
    - sgift 9y ago
      > I don't get why they'd start competing against Microsoft when they're already being dominated in their own VR niche. That's an interesting interpretation which doesn't seem to be backed by reality. That aside: It's a research team. They think AR will overtake VR some time in the future, so they research on it.
      - anjc 9y ago
        > That's an interesting interpretation which doesn't seem to be backed by reality. Vive is massively outselling the Rift. Considering Oculus were first to market (in the sense that the dev kits were openly sold), and considering that they ostensibly have the backing of Facebook, that seems like a bad sign. And given this, it's concerning (to me) that they're now seemingly shifting resources to AR. And as I said before, AR and VR's uses don't overlap. So it isn't like they need to get a foothold in AR to stay relevant.
        haydenlee 9y ago
        Source that Vive is "massively outselling"?
        retromario 9y ago
        It's not. Or at least not anymore. Market shares seem to be equalizing at least according to the latest Steam Hardware Survey: https://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-rift-closes-in-on-steam-majority-market-share/ https://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-rift-closes-in-on-steam-majo...
        cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
        What does AR and VR usage not overlapping have to do with them not doing research? The technologies DO overlap, so they might as well try to catch two birds with one stone. Oculus doesn't have to make money immediately since they're backed by Facebook, which is a huge leverage. Also even if Vive IS outselling Rift right now, doesn't mean Rift is doomed at all. For now it's enough for them to be in the market and look for opportunities since NONE of the VR companies are turning out to be the next big thing, yet. I'm sure there will come a point when VR will grow extremely fast, but VR itself as an industry is not growing too fast anyway. In this climate it's best to hunker down and do research instead of trying to sell as many devices as possible, so I think they're doing the right thing.

aaronaarzelbart 9y ago

So much corporate communication is, in the end, just recruiting advertisements. These big companies Like Facebook and Amazon need to create gigantic free universities that are incredibly appealing to attend, giving the corporation the chance to cream off the most promising new employees.

danieldk 9y ago
I am over thirty, so I am permitted to be cynical ;). While I completely agree that AR and VR are the future and have many recreational and non-recreational applications, Facebook's goal for VR is to further read user preferences (I guess that they've wished to have eye tracking on Facebook for ages) and to inject advertising in more subtle manners. So, the question is: do you really want to work for Facebook (et al.) and get the technology patent-locked to be used for reading of, influencing of, and advertising to people? Or do you want to change the world for the common good? It is worrying that so much talent gets 'lost' [1] to spying/advertising companies because universities and non-profits cannot match or come close to the (personal) benefits of working at such companies. [1] I am not denying that the big tech companies have provided a lot of progress.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > Or do you want to change the world for the common good? Suggestions? It seems to me that "lost" effort is a very normal state of things. Even if we picked a worthy cause and worked cleverly and tirelessly for it, the our successors could easily come in and trash our work. It also seems to me that the real "change the world" technologies don't solve problems but change our day-to-day lives: the printing press, cars, PCs, radio, television, consumer-focused logistics (Wal-Mart, Amazon delivery), vaccines, sanitation, running water, electricity, etc. Not all of these things are good. Not all are bad. But when Silicon Valley people say "change the world", they don't usually mean "work for (the next) Ford" or "work for (the next) AT&T".
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    These technologies do solve problems in a big way: - printing press solved the problem of mass distribution of written knowledge and propaganda (By the way, invented by Chinese not Gutenberg but got lost in political turmoil), also paper money - cars solved a problem of slow transport and having to care for fussy animals - radio solved the problem of long range communication - vaccines solved the problem of certain recurring plagues - likewise sanitation - running water solved a problem of having to walk long distances especially to irrigate crops (aqueducts, Babylonian invention) - electricity solved a problem of cheap transport of energy (as opposed to coal for steam boilers) Consumer focused logistics is much older than both Wal-Mart and Amazon. And does not really solve a problem in as much as is an optimization over older delivery methods.

201709User 9y ago

That future will not have pre-acquisition stock options though.

musage 9y ago

Abrash's Zen of Graphics Programming was my first programming book I really loved.. still thanks, but no thanks. > Well, Google has some new, ridiculous thing, they're marketing glasses which have a small computer on them. So you can be on the internet 24 hours a day, just what you want. It's a way of destroying people, http://grittv.org/?video=noam-chomsky-on-secret-trade-deals-killing-polio-workers-fighting-for-the-commons-in-turkey-the-heroism-of-bradley-manning http://grittv.org/?video=noam-chomsky-on-secret-trade-deals-... Call him an old fool for not liking your toy, but I think he has his priorities straight, which not a lot of people can say for themselves. > smart, motivated people who want to change the world People who do things like invent penicillin don't talk about "changing the world" or "inventing the future" all the time. Orwell enhanced our perspective on a lot of things but I think he simply wanted to get it out of his system. Kafka? Wanted his stuff burned. Konrad Zuse? Was painfully aware of the pacts with the devil, something the "greats" of today just take as axiomatic. I could go on. Yes, there were also a lot of great people totally full of themselves, and they still were great. But generally, changing the world for the better happens in hindsight. Rosa Parks didn't want to end segregation -- not that she didn't want it to end, my point is she was just sick of being pushed around. That's where most meaningful change happens, humble and concerned with the thing and not with the change, and then some needy assholes swoop in and take credit. These engineers may be exceptional in their fields, but this and all it rubs shoulders with, in the bigger scheme and considering really great people, both big and small, is highly driven mediocrity, constantly touting its own horn. Entertainment and ads, ads and entertainment. Everything's so awesome and paradigm shifting, as new avenues to fill more landfills with old product are created. People have specific questions, concerns, needs, desires. Those keep getting ignored or twisted for profit, while more gimmicks and tools of surveillance and control are pushed and rationalized. These days, everybody is aligned with marketing. I'm slightly sorry for being negative but only for those normal people who are excited about this stuff. I don't want to pee on your parade. Everybody has their hobbies, but when people talk about the future and the world and the human condition and whatnot they're in the territory of greats, and in this case it's like bringing a footgun to a nuclear war. At any rate, this isn't some guy starting out in his garage, he'll live and prosper either way. To be honest, what triggered me mostly is how I cherished that book, just because it was the first cool one I had. Now it doesn't feel cool anymore. Otherwise I still have the above thoughts with plenty of stories or comments, but I just roll my eyes. But this is a master of his field laying it on so very thickly.

crb 9y ago

Did he hire the candidate?

avenius 9y ago
Plot twist: There never was a candidate.
CoolGuySteve 9y ago
No, one of the 8 interviewers thought one of her whiteboard questions was “correct but not clean enough” and another thought her design interview was “too disorganized”.

Geee 9y ago

Would it be easier to just completely replace our eyes and directly modulate the optic nerve? From engineering point of view - that actually seems more reasonable.

Certhas 9y ago
No, almost certainly not. We can't even interface with nerve cells directly, effectively to operate limbs. That's many orders of magnitude less information than the optical nerve. Peripheral nerve interfaces that can actually get good performance are quite a way off. Plus, from what I remember there is a significant amount of preprocessing done before the optic nerve. But we don't really know what exactly it is. Edit: There actually are several projects that look at artificial retinas, making use of most of the eyes nervous system and only replacing the outermost layer: http://www.artificialretina.energy.gov/ http://www.artificialretina.energy.gov/ http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v16/n6/full/nmat4874.html http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v16/n6/full/nmat4874.html
- Geee 9y ago
  Well, we can't focus light at will either. But yes, probably an artificial retina of some sort will be a working solution.

jamesmattis 9y ago

This is a huge bet by Mark Zuckerberg to reach 1 Billion people. It can only happen if; 1. VR goes mobile. 2. The headset cost comes down to $100 to $150.

spacetexas 9y ago

How has he never heard "I want to invent the future", I thought that was pretty much a staple. I've heard that in business consulting interviews for years.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

panic 9y ago

Imagine that your glasses replace all your electronic devices – phones, TVs, computers, e-book readers, game consoles, the whole lot – with virtual versions, in the process making them inexpensive and instantly upgradeable. AR can replace these objects visually. But phones have touchscreens, game consoles have controllers, even TVs have remotes -- how do you interact with anything in this AR future?

AstralStorm 9y ago
Sign language and gestures perhaps? We're still quite some ways from making this reliable. Here is a pithy clickbait title: "How the AR will turn us all into Italians"