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The main problem with web browsing in VR is it's way too low resolution to read text and you can't see your hands so you have to type everything in with that re

The main problem with web browsing in VR is it's way too low resolution to read text and you can't see your hands so you have to type everything in with that remote character by bloody freaking character. But I guess, if you want to browse the web in VR you might as well do it in Firefox.

azernik 8y ago
> you can't see your hands so you have to type everything in with that remote character by bloody freaking character. Learn to touch type! (Though even then, you're stuck with the problem of finding your keyboard.)
- RototRobot 8y ago
  Logitech was working on a keyboard with a steamvr tracking puck https://uploadvr.com/vr-keyboard-logitech-vive-tacker/ https://uploadvr.com/vr-keyboard-logitech-vive-tacker/
  - ss2003 8y ago
    That announcement was nearly a year ago and nothing but crickets since. It doesn't seem that technically challenging. I wonder what the hold up is?
sp332 8y ago
Here's a VR text-input concept by Elevr. Using three dimensions you only need one hop from the center of a 3x3x3 cube to hold 26 letters, plus a space in the middle. http://elevr.com/keycube-3-torus-based-typing-in-vr/#h.a9zrfx4sar55 http://elevr.com/keycube-3-torus-based-typing-in-vr/#h.a9zrf... (This shows the setup but it's not the final version, because eventually they realized that returning your cursor to the center after each character works better with muscle memory.) So use various controller axes to indicate positive-neutral-negative for three axes, and you have a letter. If you use chording you can type reasonably fast. There is quite a learning curve though.
- askmike 8y ago
  I'm open to new ideas but I can't imagine this being a very efficient way to input words and characters into a computer. I have worked with older game consoles and remote controls that tried to do this stuff and I'm not sure anyone likes it. Why not simply speech to text? I don't think a lot of people are doing VR in a room with other people.
  - topmonk 8y ago
    The article states the firefox reality actually supports tts. Just because people don't like it initially, doesn't mean it can't become a fairly fast input method given enough practice. Here is another example of a keyboard in much the same vein as using a controller, for people with carpal tunnel syndrome: https://orbitouch.com https://orbitouch.com
mrguyorama 8y ago
Steam's VR home or whatever they call it made great use of the touchpad by treating them as two fingers on a virtual keyboard. It was effortless to learn and rather quick.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  Too bad Steam VR's desktop is awful. I have 3 monitors side by side, and Steam shows your desktop at a constant width, which means my display is super super tiny. Can't even zoom in, and to left click, you have to keep the controller super constant or it registers as a drag.
wpietri 8y ago
Sorry to be dense, but why would one want do to web browsing in VR at all? It's all built on a metaphor of flat sheets of paper, so it's paradigmatically 2D.
- wvenable 8y ago
  Privacy.
  - amelius 8y ago
    Or simply use a Laptop Sock: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bekathwia/2462986853 https://www.flickr.com/photos/bekathwia/2462986853
    - brennebeck 8y ago
      This was a genuinely interesting rabbit hole. Never seen this before. Thanks.
- agildehaus 8y ago
  For the same reason I alt-tab out of a game to check something.
- odabaxok 8y ago
  Searching for VR porn?
- skrebbel 8y ago
  I want to be working in VR. Once the resolution gets decent enough I can just get 20 screens wherever I look. Plus I can sit, stand, whatever. Sounds fantastic. Coffee might get a bit cumbersome though. A straw, maybe?
  - shusson 8y ago
    Yeah me too, but I guess it will take a long time before we have headsets that can reproduce the same experience as high resolution screens.
JoshTriplett 8y ago
Driving something like Dasher (http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/ http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/) with the remote would be easy enough. (Typing on a keyboard would still work better, if you can do so without looking.)
de_watcher 8y ago
> way too low resolution to read text Latest Vive should be decent.
Shorel 8y ago
I guess with some kind of haptic or kinesthetic gloves you will not need to see your hands to type anyway.
larsberg 8y ago
The issues with text input are a large part of why we added voice input even in our very first release! w.r.t. text rendering, we're doing a lot of fundamental work in rendering higher-quality text (you can't fix resolution fundamentals, but you can take into account the optics of the hardware better than we all do today), but nothing to announce there yet.
- skykooler 8y ago
  What is doing the speech-to-text processing? Is this part of the Common Voice project? Is the code available to use outside of Firefox Reality?
  - tedmielczarek 8y ago
    I checked and it's using Mozilla's DeepSpeech library: https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality/blob/dee6f420265825b9e0849e8ab35ffbc52eac88e2/app/src/common/shared/org/mozilla/vrbrowser/ui/VoiceSearchWidget.java#L22 https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality/blob/dee6f4... which is here: https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech DeepSpeech is the actual voice recognition library, CommonVoice is a project to improve its accuracy by gathering more voice data.
    - skykooler 8y ago
      Interesting. The DeepSpeech github indicates that it's not capable of realtime transcription, even using a GPU. How is that fast enough for this use case?

azernik 8y ago

> you can't see your hands so you have to type everything in with that remote character by bloody freaking character. Learn to touch type! (Though even then, you're stuck with the problem of finding your keyboard.)

RototRobot 8y ago
Logitech was working on a keyboard with a steamvr tracking puck https://uploadvr.com/vr-keyboard-logitech-vive-tacker/ https://uploadvr.com/vr-keyboard-logitech-vive-tacker/
- ss2003 8y ago
  That announcement was nearly a year ago and nothing but crickets since. It doesn't seem that technically challenging. I wonder what the hold up is?

sp332 8y ago

Here's a VR text-input concept by Elevr. Using three dimensions you only need one hop from the center of a 3x3x3 cube to hold 26 letters, plus a space in the middle. http://elevr.com/keycube-3-torus-based-typing-in-vr/#h.a9zrfx4sar55 http://elevr.com/keycube-3-torus-based-typing-in-vr/#h.a9zrf... (This shows the setup but it's not the final version, because eventually they realized that returning your cursor to the center after each character works better with muscle memory.) So use various controller axes to indicate positive-neutral-negative for three axes, and you have a letter. If you use chording you can type reasonably fast. There is quite a learning curve though.

askmike 8y ago
I'm open to new ideas but I can't imagine this being a very efficient way to input words and characters into a computer. I have worked with older game consoles and remote controls that tried to do this stuff and I'm not sure anyone likes it. Why not simply speech to text? I don't think a lot of people are doing VR in a room with other people.
- topmonk 8y ago
  The article states the firefox reality actually supports tts. Just because people don't like it initially, doesn't mean it can't become a fairly fast input method given enough practice. Here is another example of a keyboard in much the same vein as using a controller, for people with carpal tunnel syndrome: https://orbitouch.com https://orbitouch.com

mrguyorama 8y ago

Steam's VR home or whatever they call it made great use of the touchpad by treating them as two fingers on a virtual keyboard. It was effortless to learn and rather quick.

ehsankia 8y ago
Too bad Steam VR's desktop is awful. I have 3 monitors side by side, and Steam shows your desktop at a constant width, which means my display is super super tiny. Can't even zoom in, and to left click, you have to keep the controller super constant or it registers as a drag.

wpietri 8y ago

Sorry to be dense, but why would one want do to web browsing in VR at all? It's all built on a metaphor of flat sheets of paper, so it's paradigmatically 2D.

wvenable 8y ago
Privacy.
- amelius 8y ago
  Or simply use a Laptop Sock: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bekathwia/2462986853 https://www.flickr.com/photos/bekathwia/2462986853
  - brennebeck 8y ago
    This was a genuinely interesting rabbit hole. Never seen this before. Thanks.
agildehaus 8y ago
For the same reason I alt-tab out of a game to check something.
odabaxok 8y ago
Searching for VR porn?
skrebbel 8y ago
I want to be working in VR. Once the resolution gets decent enough I can just get 20 screens wherever I look. Plus I can sit, stand, whatever. Sounds fantastic. Coffee might get a bit cumbersome though. A straw, maybe?
- shusson 8y ago
  Yeah me too, but I guess it will take a long time before we have headsets that can reproduce the same experience as high resolution screens.

JoshTriplett 8y ago

Driving something like Dasher (http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/ http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/) with the remote would be easy enough. (Typing on a keyboard would still work better, if you can do so without looking.)

de_watcher 8y ago

> way too low resolution to read text Latest Vive should be decent.

Shorel 8y ago

I guess with some kind of haptic or kinesthetic gloves you will not need to see your hands to type anyway.

larsberg 8y ago

The issues with text input are a large part of why we added voice input even in our very first release! w.r.t. text rendering, we're doing a lot of fundamental work in rendering higher-quality text (you can't fix resolution fundamentals, but you can take into account the optics of the hardware better than we all do today), but nothing to announce there yet.

skykooler 8y ago
What is doing the speech-to-text processing? Is this part of the Common Voice project? Is the code available to use outside of Firefox Reality?
- tedmielczarek 8y ago
  I checked and it's using Mozilla's DeepSpeech library: https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality/blob/dee6f420265825b9e0849e8ab35ffbc52eac88e2/app/src/common/shared/org/mozilla/vrbrowser/ui/VoiceSearchWidget.java#L22 https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality/blob/dee6f4... which is here: https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech DeepSpeech is the actual voice recognition library, CommonVoice is a project to improve its accuracy by gathering more voice data.
  - skykooler 8y ago
    Interesting. The DeepSpeech github indicates that it's not capable of realtime transcription, even using a GPU. How is that fast enough for this use case?