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I think Facebook is ultimately right, just too early, betting on VR being the next thing. Spatial presence is incredibly important: you can face towards the pe
by pornel 6y ago
I think Facebook is ultimately right, just too early, betting on VR being the next thing.
Spatial presence is incredibly important: you can face towards the person you're speaking to. You can whisper to the person next to you. Crowded rooms naturally organize in cliques/groups. In a video chat all of this is broken or awkward.
VR today is way too bulky and annoying. It's in the "luggable microcomputers" stage before laptops and phones, but it shows a glimpse of the future.
For example, standalone Oculus is less of a hassle than thethered headsets. Camera-based hand tracking demos show how people can freely gesticulate in the VR space. Imagine that extended to full-body tracking and in-headset sensors that capture facial expressions and "deepfake" you in VR.
- codethief 6y agoI agree 100%. Speaking of spatial presence, I recently came across tonari[0] through a post[1] here on HN and thought it looked really cool. In case any of the tonari developers happen to hang out around here: I would love to try this out sometime! :) (Side note: The blog post linked in the HN discussion below does a much better job at explaining what it is that they're doing – at least to me as a techie.) [0] https://tonari.no https://tonari.no [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23540586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23540586
- ponker 6y agoIt’s not too early for Facebook, it’s too early for startups. Facebook can burn half a billion a year for 10 years and then when the market is ready, be in the leading position and be able to buy up all the promising startups in the space.