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I think your last sentence is perhaps the most important - timing the "Toys to Big Thing" transition is really hard and leaves a lot of dead companies in its wa

I think your last sentence is perhaps the most important - timing the "Toys to Big Thing" transition is really hard and leaves a lot of dead companies in its wake. For example, at some point in the future, VR and AR will probably be in this category, but who knows how long it will actually take (basically-modern VR has been around since the 80s!) or what will cause the shift. Meanwhile, VR has left a decades-long trail of dead plans/businesses and AR seems to be doing the same.

NeoBasilisk 7y ago
ehhhhh I would disagree with your statement that "basically-modern VR has been around since the 80s." It really seems like this phase of VR really began with the release of the Oculus Rift DK1. Sure there had been earlier prototypes floating around, but they weren't taken seriously.
- cbhl 7y ago
  The game changer between the 80's VR and 10's VR is basically the smartphone. In the old days, folks were hooking up big bulky CRTs to their face. Now we have cheap flat panel displays as a commodity. But there are still more technical problems to solve before the killer application and corresponding headset will be cheap, useful, and lightweight enough for mass adoption.
throwaway_bad 7y ago
Augmented reality is a great example. Everyone knows that it will become a "Big Thing" in the future. Like why would smartphones be the final form factor of personal computing? Of course there will be something that will dethrone it. But despite every big company throwing a couple billions at the problem for the last few years (Facebook's $2 billion acquisition of oculus, Google's $500 million investment into Magic Leap, Apple's acquisition of Metaio/ARkit, Microsoft Hololens), all we have are literal toys! So now you can't talk about AR as a serious subject anymore. People all dismiss it, saying we are still too early. I imagine it's like that for every "toy to big thing" transition.
- nine_k 7y ago
  Remember the PC revolution. Altair was a toy. Atari 2600 was a toy. TRS-80, Sinclair Spectrum, Apple II — all toys. Amiga was almost not a toy, and Aople Macintosh and IBM PC were mostly not toys anymore. From there on, businesses started to use massive amounts of PCs, thanks to killer apps like word processors and spreadsheets. Prices fell, home users took note, and a real explosion began. It took mere 20 years, say, from 1980 to 2000.
  - ianai 7y ago
    In that 20 years the hardware and software exponentially grew in capacity and decreased greatly in cost. Computers turned into something you’d want in your pocket once they could be unobtrusive enough to be tolerable with you all day. On that note, who knows what would AR require in order to take off. It probably needs to be something you can get 80% of the killer features without wearing glasses. It also needs to support whatever frames glass wearers want to wear. It might require actual visual implants as I don’t think there’s a way to turn a contact lens into a display.
    - nine_k 7y ago
      I've read about contact lenses that used super—tiny LEDs to produce a focused overlay image in the eye. It of course had a large external induction coil to power it, and very low resolution.
- simonh 7y ago
  I think there’s a very good chance the smartphone will be the dominant form factor essentially forever. Anything smaller won’t be good for presenting visual information, and when you don’t need it, it isn’t stuck to your face. Alternatively taking a long view, how many times do you think the dominant form factor of personal computers (in the general sense, including smart phones) will change? Another 3 times, another 5? Every 20 years forever? The only exception I can think of is a direct neural link, but that’s generations away and even then I’m not entirely convinced. Maybe in the very long term.

NeoBasilisk 7y ago

ehhhhh I would disagree with your statement that "basically-modern VR has been around since the 80s." It really seems like this phase of VR really began with the release of the Oculus Rift DK1. Sure there had been earlier prototypes floating around, but they weren't taken seriously.

cbhl 7y ago
The game changer between the 80's VR and 10's VR is basically the smartphone. In the old days, folks were hooking up big bulky CRTs to their face. Now we have cheap flat panel displays as a commodity. But there are still more technical problems to solve before the killer application and corresponding headset will be cheap, useful, and lightweight enough for mass adoption.

throwaway_bad 7y ago

Augmented reality is a great example. Everyone knows that it will become a "Big Thing" in the future. Like why would smartphones be the final form factor of personal computing? Of course there will be something that will dethrone it. But despite every big company throwing a couple billions at the problem for the last few years (Facebook's $2 billion acquisition of oculus, Google's $500 million investment into Magic Leap, Apple's acquisition of Metaio/ARkit, Microsoft Hololens), all we have are literal toys! So now you can't talk about AR as a serious subject anymore. People all dismiss it, saying we are still too early. I imagine it's like that for every "toy to big thing" transition.

nine_k 7y ago
Remember the PC revolution. Altair was a toy. Atari 2600 was a toy. TRS-80, Sinclair Spectrum, Apple II — all toys. Amiga was almost not a toy, and Aople Macintosh and IBM PC were mostly not toys anymore. From there on, businesses started to use massive amounts of PCs, thanks to killer apps like word processors and spreadsheets. Prices fell, home users took note, and a real explosion began. It took mere 20 years, say, from 1980 to 2000.
- ianai 7y ago
  In that 20 years the hardware and software exponentially grew in capacity and decreased greatly in cost. Computers turned into something you’d want in your pocket once they could be unobtrusive enough to be tolerable with you all day. On that note, who knows what would AR require in order to take off. It probably needs to be something you can get 80% of the killer features without wearing glasses. It also needs to support whatever frames glass wearers want to wear. It might require actual visual implants as I don’t think there’s a way to turn a contact lens into a display.
  - nine_k 7y ago
    I've read about contact lenses that used super—tiny LEDs to produce a focused overlay image in the eye. It of course had a large external induction coil to power it, and very low resolution.
simonh 7y ago
I think there’s a very good chance the smartphone will be the dominant form factor essentially forever. Anything smaller won’t be good for presenting visual information, and when you don’t need it, it isn’t stuck to your face. Alternatively taking a long view, how many times do you think the dominant form factor of personal computers (in the general sense, including smart phones) will change? Another 3 times, another 5? Every 20 years forever? The only exception I can think of is a direct neural link, but that’s generations away and even then I’m not entirely convinced. Maybe in the very long term.