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The only place I see such devices are highly polished demos to show the 'capabilities of AR/VR'. I've never seen such headsets used for anything even remotely u

The only place I see such devices are highly polished demos to show the 'capabilities of AR/VR'. I've never seen such headsets used for anything even remotely useful (not considering gaming as extremely useful). I think the AR/VR craze is just here because we have nothing really new at the moment and investors want to pour money into something.

jackbrookes 7y ago
I run psychology experiments (motor control/spatial decision making) in VR and and its been a gamechanger in the last few years. Create your experiments completely in software to allow them to copied, modified, and distributed much more easily.
- matthewwiese 7y ago
  That is an absolutely fascinating application that I've never considered before. One could design all sorts of experiments, not just exclusively spatial reasoning. Imagine allowing a class of undergraduate students to participate in a version of Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment and draw their own conclusions as to potential flaws in its methodology. Or, as a philosophy student: allow students to engage in a real life rendition of Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment, where a student "competes" against his or her classmates and various versions of text generation algorithms from simple Markov chain generators, to OpenAI's GPT-2 and beyond.
- netcan 7y ago
  Interesting. Anywhere I can see more on this?
  - jackbrookes 7y ago
    Here's my work so far. https://github.com/immersivecognition/unity-experiment-framework https://github.com/immersivecognition/unity-experiment-frame... https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2Fs13428-019-01242-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2Fs13428-019-01242... There are also some older papers by Loomis et al. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03200735 https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03200735
andybak 7y ago
You've missed out something in between "games" and "useful". The arts. There's still a lot of interest (at least from where I'm standing) in VR etc as a creative medium. There's some really remarkable work being created.
- germinalphrase 7y ago
  Is there a good resource for finding such work? I recently experienced some VR art at the Walker Art Center (museum of modern art) in Minneapolis and was decidedly underwhelmed.
  - andybak 7y ago
    > Is there a good resource for finding such work? Not really. Most stuff is released to Steam or the Oculus Store and it's reported and occasionally reviewed on VR blogs and subreddits. > I recently experienced some VR art at the Walker Art Center (museum of modern art) in Minneapolis and was decidedly underwhelmed. What was it? Actual VR or just 360 video?
  - brandonjm 7y ago
    There are plenty of others but these are some that have stood out to me. SIGGRAPH has a VR Theatre where they show short VR films [1]. EyeJack is a platform for AR art, though you may need to visit an exhibit to see the actual art. [2] [1] https://s2018.siggraph.org/conference/conference-overview/computer-animation-festival/vr-theater/ https://s2018.siggraph.org/conference/conference-overview/co... [2] https://eyejackapp.com https://eyejackapp.com
- thrower123 7y ago
  Is there a market in there somewhere, or is it a whizz-bang gimmick like 3D TVs? I've seen a lot of VR gaming, or at least, I did, approximately 18-12 months ago, but it really seems to have petered out.
  - andybak 7y ago
    > Is there a market in there somewhere, or is it a whizz-bang gimmick like 3D TVs? There's very little similarity between VR and 3D TV. The latter was mostly driven by marketing teams whilst the former was and is mostly driven by enthusiasts. > I've seen a lot of VR gaming, or at least, I did, approximately 18-12 months ago, but it really seems to have petered out. The Quest is about to be released. That's where most of the excitement is at the moment as it's a new form factor and potentially a new market.
andrey_utkin 7y ago
These devices are powerful enough to perform regular desktop workstation tasks. But selling general purpose wearable computers is not cool, as is not cool selling hackable mobile phones. So apparently makers will keep making sexy locked-down devices in hope it surely sells out this time. Open it up - no-no, they won't be fools to do such mistake. Disclaimer: I have a wearable computer with head mounted display (Vufine+, ~$200) and one-handed wireless keyboard (Twiddler 3, ~$200). The rest is Raspberry Pi Zero W and a powerbank. All devices are off-the-shelf, no soldering whatsoever.
- 0_gravitas 7y ago
  I'm curious, what kind of work do you do with this setup and how much mileage do you get in a day out of it (work wise, not charge wise)? If you had any issue with it that you could rectify immediately what would it be?

jackbrookes 7y ago

I run psychology experiments (motor control/spatial decision making) in VR and and its been a gamechanger in the last few years. Create your experiments completely in software to allow them to copied, modified, and distributed much more easily.

matthewwiese 7y ago
That is an absolutely fascinating application that I've never considered before. One could design all sorts of experiments, not just exclusively spatial reasoning. Imagine allowing a class of undergraduate students to participate in a version of Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment and draw their own conclusions as to potential flaws in its methodology. Or, as a philosophy student: allow students to engage in a real life rendition of Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment, where a student "competes" against his or her classmates and various versions of text generation algorithms from simple Markov chain generators, to OpenAI's GPT-2 and beyond.
netcan 7y ago
Interesting. Anywhere I can see more on this?
- jackbrookes 7y ago
  Here's my work so far. https://github.com/immersivecognition/unity-experiment-framework https://github.com/immersivecognition/unity-experiment-frame... https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2Fs13428-019-01242-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2Fs13428-019-01242... There are also some older papers by Loomis et al. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03200735 https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03200735

andybak 7y ago

You've missed out something in between "games" and "useful". The arts. There's still a lot of interest (at least from where I'm standing) in VR etc as a creative medium. There's some really remarkable work being created.

germinalphrase 7y ago
Is there a good resource for finding such work? I recently experienced some VR art at the Walker Art Center (museum of modern art) in Minneapolis and was decidedly underwhelmed.
- andybak 7y ago
  > Is there a good resource for finding such work? Not really. Most stuff is released to Steam or the Oculus Store and it's reported and occasionally reviewed on VR blogs and subreddits. > I recently experienced some VR art at the Walker Art Center (museum of modern art) in Minneapolis and was decidedly underwhelmed. What was it? Actual VR or just 360 video?
- brandonjm 7y ago
  There are plenty of others but these are some that have stood out to me. SIGGRAPH has a VR Theatre where they show short VR films [1]. EyeJack is a platform for AR art, though you may need to visit an exhibit to see the actual art. [2] [1] https://s2018.siggraph.org/conference/conference-overview/computer-animation-festival/vr-theater/ https://s2018.siggraph.org/conference/conference-overview/co... [2] https://eyejackapp.com https://eyejackapp.com
thrower123 7y ago
Is there a market in there somewhere, or is it a whizz-bang gimmick like 3D TVs? I've seen a lot of VR gaming, or at least, I did, approximately 18-12 months ago, but it really seems to have petered out.
- andybak 7y ago
  > Is there a market in there somewhere, or is it a whizz-bang gimmick like 3D TVs? There's very little similarity between VR and 3D TV. The latter was mostly driven by marketing teams whilst the former was and is mostly driven by enthusiasts. > I've seen a lot of VR gaming, or at least, I did, approximately 18-12 months ago, but it really seems to have petered out. The Quest is about to be released. That's where most of the excitement is at the moment as it's a new form factor and potentially a new market.

andrey_utkin 7y ago

These devices are powerful enough to perform regular desktop workstation tasks. But selling general purpose wearable computers is not cool, as is not cool selling hackable mobile phones. So apparently makers will keep making sexy locked-down devices in hope it surely sells out this time. Open it up - no-no, they won't be fools to do such mistake. Disclaimer: I have a wearable computer with head mounted display (Vufine+, ~$200) and one-handed wireless keyboard (Twiddler 3, ~$200). The rest is Raspberry Pi Zero W and a powerbank. All devices are off-the-shelf, no soldering whatsoever.

0_gravitas 7y ago
I'm curious, what kind of work do you do with this setup and how much mileage do you get in a day out of it (work wise, not charge wise)? If you had any issue with it that you could rectify immediately what would it be?