19 ms·

Simula One: an office-focused, standalone VR headset built on top of Linux

567 points by sandebert 5y ago

msk-lywenn 5y ago
Except for hololens, aren’t they all built on top of Linux?
- moron4hire 5y ago
  I mean, Android has the Linux Kernel in there somewhere, but can we really call it a Linux system?
TulliusCicero 5y ago
It's a page about a VR headset, but neither this page nor the 'shop' page that lets you waitlist it has any pictures of the thing even by itself, let alone someone wearing it. What an absolutely bizarre choice.
- the-dude 5y ago
  If you drop the assumption that it is bizarre, you can think about the actual reasons for the omission of said pictures.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    Was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, here.
- amelius 5y ago
  Yes, I want information about the hardware, not just the software (and I hope I can do more with it than just run a virtual window manager).
- martin_a 5y ago
  Not sure if I should feel more safe about this than the usual Kickstarter scam or not. Those have at least some product images.
  - spicybright 5y ago
    EDIT: nvm
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
      Think you meant *wary, though yeah sometimes weary fits.
- bewuethr 5y ago
  The video at the top eventually shows somebody in the bottom right corner wearing it.
  - themanmaran 5y ago
    That person is wearing the HTC Vive.
- aero-glide2 5y ago
  fwiw its supposed to be around 2k
alteracia 5y ago
Seems like tool for 3d designer
- prox 5y ago
  Check the previous discussion link, it also allows you to create work environments and such.
boomskats 5y ago
I've been following SimulaVR/Simula for a while now, but really did not want to buy a (legacy) HTC Vive headset. This idea of a standalone Linux machine in a headset is something I'd definitely put some money towards given a bit more detail and timelines. Also pretty excited by John Carmack's recent tweets on sideloading stuff to the Quest. It feels like that would provide a much bigger opportunity for this project (cameras and all), than building/shipping new hardware.
- aero-glide2 5y ago
  Sideloading to the Go, not Quest right?
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    You’re right, Caramack has been working on the Go. Sideloading does work on the Quest. The Go work has been a more open OS.
- MayeulC 5y ago
  They're pretty cheap second hand. I recently got one for €200, including base stations (forward-compatible to a point) and "pro" audio strap. It's my first VR headset though, I understand not wanting to spend too much on something you already have a better version of. Also, the Valve Index is pretty much last (tethered) gen.
boomskats 5y ago
Previous discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22823891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22823891
tifadg1 5y ago
I sincerely hope VR will change the way we compute one day, but the wait will be decade or more, as the progress is small and incremental. Unless everything turns out to be proprietary, in which case it'll be never.
mpweiher 5y ago
Simula One was the first version of the Simula programming language: https://portablesimula.github.io/github.io/doc/HiNC1-webversion-simula.pdf https://portablesimula.github.io/github.io/doc/HiNC1-webvers...
- dhosek 5y ago
  My thought exactly.
yewenjie 5y ago
Has anybody hacked regular consumer VR headsets for working with regular apps?
- arc-in-space 5y ago
  Well, the non-standalone ones can already do whatever you want them to since they're just a display
- newswasboring 5y ago
  For oculus quest 2 there is already a focus on office work. From the start we've had Virtual Desktop and from v28 software update Oculus itself has had several office focused moves.
- mekkkkkk 5y ago
  I have played around with it, and the resolution just isn't there. The desktop space in VR is ironically less than on a laptop, because every window has to be massive to be usable at all. In a future with 2x4K res or something in that ballpark, this might be interesting.
  - andybak 5y ago
    If you're anything like me, by your mid-forties you aren't going to need 4k per eye. The Quest 2 is already pretty much as sharp as my eyes can resolve - and that's with prescription glasses.
    - mekkkkkk 5y ago
      I suppose that's an alternative use case for the tech - to simulate and get an understanding of how to build UX that is friendly towards those with poor eyesight. Haha.
symmetricsaurus 5y ago
For a work VR headset to work I think you need a couple of things. One is that it needs to be comfortable enough to wear for long periods of time. I usually get quite warm when wearing one. You also often end up with impressions on your face. This is fine for gaming or shorter sessions but would be a distraction if trying to focus for longer periods of time. It would also need to have a higher resolution than most (all?) current VR headsets. Text needs to be huge so even though you can have lots of virtual screens you can't fit much on each. Finally, I imagine that there could be a more innovative interface than just screens in a virtual space. Something that embraces the close-to-physical-reality illusion of VR.
- XorNot 5y ago
  Resolution is the killer. The distance I'm currently typing this on my 32" monitor is much larger then the virtual draw distance I can "see" in VR at current resolutions. Regarding comfort: I have been curious whether you could take the weight off the head by suspending the headset off the back of a chair so it "floats" at face level via a tether or something.
- mkmk2 5y ago
  The issues you're presenting seem real for some, but enthusiasts seem to be making it work[1: post from yesterday]. I like the call in your last point, but personally I think an innovation like 360 degree resizable and movable windows is a reasonable step up from where we're currently at. It would be nice to integrate the work we do into physical space a bit more though. I've wondered about doing practical programming work in an infinifactory-type[2] interface. I don't think it's necessarily a good idea, but it'd be fun to see attempts at no-code tooling embedded in the space. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678041 [2] https://www.zachtronics.com/infinifactory/ https://www.zachtronics.com/infinifactory/
tuco86 5y ago
10x more productivity. oh boy, can i work just an hour a day with this thing?
- Joker_vD 5y ago
  No, you will still work 8 hours, maybe even 10; it's the great paradox of productivity increases: e.g., teachers had to write way fewer reports before the computers became ubiquitous but when they did, the amount of reports increased slightly out of proportion so that teachers now spend more time on reports than they used to. Progress!
  - simmo9000 5y ago
    Hopefully it can autofill all these TPS reports that I have to fill out to show my productivity!
- eafkuor 5y ago
  I'm glad someone pointed this out. What is it with this obsession to be 1000x productive all the time? I will not get paid more for it, will I? And how is this going to make me more productive anyway? By removing "distractions"? I doubt anything can make me solve problems twice as fast as I already do, let alone 10x. This is ridiculous.
deanclatworthy 5y ago
The number one thing stopping this is resolution. Monitors need to be sharp and crisp. It's none of those things in VR.
- thanatos519 5y ago
  Right, and it's most important that text be crisp. Maybe they could re-render all of the visible text every frame with the VR perspective matrix, so you could have helmet-pixel-sharp antialiasing and hinting. Maaayyyybe.
- Stevvo 5y ago
  Comfort is a bigger blocker. Headsets with a high enough resolution already exist, but they are too large and uncomfortable to wear for more than a short session.
- fomine3 5y ago
  Resolution is the resolution.
KaiserPro 5y ago
I'm very keen for this market to open up, but we need to talk about the quality of the desktop before moving on. On the website, the demo has the person drinking coffee, the youtube window is the wrong ratio, the text is too tall. For me, I really want picture perfect rendering before jumping. I don't want to look at badly rendered stuff, its part of the reason linux was so hard back in the day, getting your text to render and screen resolution to work right. Now, for me, it looks like I can fit about as many terminals on "screen" as I can on two 1280x1024 screens. In all the demos, there are at most 5 windows open. On my current screen I have one browser, and 8 terminals, and there is still loads more space. The thing that makes me a little sad is that we still all appear to be stuck at rendering everything on the inside of a sphere. If we are in VR, then we don't have to limit our selves to laying out windows on a single primitive. Where are the virtual shelves? where is the quick change, what about hotspots to bring groups of windows back into near field. We have unlimited z depth, surely this is time to start using it? unlike a normal screen, we have parallax and gaze sensors, we really need to start using them. (it looks like they don't have room tracking, so feels like they have limited 6dof source: coffee video, I'd expect much more sideways translation if they had proper headset tracking)
- dgellow 5y ago
  What do you do with 8 terminal open at the same time? I can never focus on more than one or two at a time.
  - piaste 5y ago
    "Microservices, son!"
  - gtirloni 5y ago
    Same. I also stopped using two monitors because it was distracting.
  - VortexDream 5y ago
    Maintain context. I might have several terminals up, each ssh'd to a different server. At least one terminal per software project. It helps that I use a tiling manager, so I can keep them all visible at the same time.
siva7 5y ago
So is this the future? Hundreds of office workers wearing for 8 hours a VR Headset in an open plan office?
- lolspace 5y ago
  We won't have offices in the future
- mekkkkkk 5y ago
  No, they'll all be working remotely in their own matrix-style cocoons. The nutritional paste will be delivered by Doordash.
- m4rtink 5y ago
  So Ready Player One basically? :)
planb 5y ago
I'm not sure the fullscreen video in the page background helps to promote working with a VR headset. It's lagging, tearing and blurry. If I get dizzy by just looking at the page, how on earth would I last more than 5 minutes in a VR office without throwing up?
swalsh 5y ago
The killer "corporate" app for VR in my opinion would be some kind of teleconference app. I absolutely HATE trying to have interactive brainstorming/collaborative design meeting remotely. There are various pancake tools, but none really compare to the experience of 2 people standing in front of a white board, and making wild motions with their arms that seemingly both people understand while drawing on a board. Some of the experiences I've had in VR are unrivaled by any pancake game i've ever played for that very reason. I'm not 100% sure I want to be in VR all day all the time. But VR should have a place in at the very least a remote workforce.
- rattray 5y ago
  What is "pancake" in this context?
  - lucky_cloud 5y ago
    Pancake is 'not VR' i.e. a traditional flat monitor.
- vyrotek 5y ago
  I absolutely agree. I'm very much a whiteboard hand-wavier guy. I explain with gestures as much as I do with the actual drawing (might be an Italian thing too). That said, this "pancake" problem reminded me of the old Wii head-tracking project.[1] There might be an interesting hybrid opportunity with that idea and 3d avatars. I feel like the head-tracking hack never really took off because it only worked as a solo experience. But since remote work is mostly us all individually sitting at a computer I could see it working better. Combine this idea with a large dedicated monitor/tv and now you have something that would literally just feel like a window/portal to the person you're talking to. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw
  - usrusr 5y ago
    I'd expect conventional live footage of whiteboard hand-waving to wildly outdo VR for the entire foreseeable future. If you need two guys hand-waving in different rooms, focus the extra tech on the whiteboards, to somehow merge their content.
onion2k 5y ago
It's important to remember that this is on the way to being an MVP. It's not a finished, polished product. This is HN. Don't we like people hacking on startups any more? I think it looks like a really positive first step. Yeah, the resolution is too low but that's solvable with a better headset. It's a bit laggy, but that's probably due to recording video of VR being hard. The windows are weird sizes, but that might be user choice. Heck, I personally don't want to code things floating in space, but that's just a matter of choosing a different background. All those problems are solvable. There are loads more problems that are also likely solvable too. And maybe some that aren't. We don't know yet. I'm glad someone is working on the problem to find out. That's far better than not having, maybe, one day in the distant future, a VR option to use for work.
- shaneprrlt 5y ago
  Makes sense to me. This is going to be sick once it's ready!
- amelius 5y ago
  > It's important to remember that this is on the way to being an MVP. It's not a finished, polished product. This is HN. Don't we like people hacking on startups any more? It doesn't need to be a finished product. Just give FOSS developers something to work with, and the finished product will automatically emerge ;)
  - amelius 5y ago
    And to add to this: hardware without software is a feature, not a flaw.
    - codezero 5y ago
      Sometimes true, but sometimes not, it depends on how the hardware is designed to integrate with software. The Leap Motion failed miserably (my opinion) at this by expecting software to figure out where it fit as a human interface device rather than having a strong opinion based on software/reference drivers.
suriyaG 5y ago
The video in the website is really bad quality. this one is better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWLuwG91HnI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWLuwG91HnI
chinaev 5y ago
I'm so joining the wait list
hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
Finally, RSI for your neck!
kleinsch 5y ago
From the wiki on their Github [1] and looking at Github contributors, this is a 3 person project (and no Github commits since June 2021). They're clearly not making their own VR headset, they're using something off the shelf (from other comments seems like an HTC Vive). Making the website ambiguous about this is just confusing. I saw a couple YC apps in there, so I'm sure they had to be ambitious, but thinking realistically there's a big difference between being: 1) A VR headset for work company 2) A VR operating system for work company 3) A window manager for VR for work company [1] https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula/wiki/Simula-Master-Plan https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula/wiki/Simula-Master-Plan
- isatty 5y ago
  I suppose it’s a difficult field to enter? Idk if it’s needed but my naive assumption is that I won’t be able to contribute without having a VR headset. Speaking of, what’s a good VR headset that I can purchase in ‘21 that does not have anything to do with FB? I enjoyed playing Alyx on the Index so that’s my prime candidate for now, for both gaming and productivity.
  - aero-glide2 5y ago
    Have you considered HP Reverb G2?
- kanetw 5y ago
  We're making our own headset. Nothing off-the-shelf was available or satisfactory. Most of the recent Github commits are in the dev branch, but right now it's 90% George working on the code. I'm busy on the hardware and wrangling vendors side, our third employee is the ME so no coding there.
evacchi 5y ago
Looks a lot like Project Looking Glass :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass
- herbst 5y ago
  Such a forgotten classic. I remember it took me hours to get the dependencies on my suse right and once it worked I was so overwhelmed by what's possible. It was so weird and beautiful at once. Compiz desktop cubes [1] and native zooming were all the rage back then as well. [1] https://heise.cloudimg.io/width/993/q75.png-lossy-75.webp-lossy-75.foil1/_www-heise-de_/download/media/compiz-fusion-49050/compiz-fusion-1_1-1-8.jpg https://heise.cloudimg.io/width/993/q75.png-lossy-75.webp-lo...
- xtracto 5y ago
  Also like SphereXP ( https://web.archive.org/web/20040130224608/http://www.hamar.sk/sphere/ https://web.archive.org/web/20040130224608/http://www.hamar.... ) . A pretty undervalued project from around the same time
chungus 5y ago
Fun note, almost all of it is written in Haskell. If I remember correctly they've also done a bunch of stuff that helps Godot, or at least something to do with the Haskell bindings. Very accessible guys, I once asked a question on the gitter, and got helpful replies almost immediately.
- fouric 5y ago
  If it's written in Haskell, it's highly likely that it'll be far harder to modify than something written in, well, not-Haskell. Haskell might be easy when you get the hang of it, but the vast majority of programmers haven't, and the language ideas are alien compared to the mainstream ones (Python, JS, C++, Lua). The design of Haskell also encourages users to be very clever, which only makes code harder to read.
  - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
    Haskell reduces the size of the developer pool, but increases their productivity (the Haskell ecosystem is enormous and astoundingly solid given the number of devs in that space), and also makes the docs a joy to read.
    - go_elmo 5y ago
      This. Im wondering how this is possible, high haskell reusability / easy to get familiar with codebases & extend them when familiar with hs or being a genius? I guess its the first
      - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
        Strict static types reduce a giant class of errors (including most of the footguns I'm always triggering in my dayjob with Python). Purity reduces another giant class: It makes it easy (indeed kind of forces you) to restrict your IO to a thin, top-level error, hence keeping the vast majority of the code purely functional and thus easy to test. Exactly how Haddock produces such wonderful automatic documentation, I don't know, but good God it does. The strict static types clearly help -- you can see exactly what every function inputs and outputs, what every data type needs, etc. And then you can jump to the definitions of any of those things, and if need be (almost never), the source code that defines them.
erikbye 5y ago
What's the resolution per eye?
- lallysingh 5y ago
  Depends on the device you use. They seem to support a few different ones. From here: https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula it seems like anything that will run steamvr should do it.
  - erikbye 5y ago
    I was obviously referring to their HMD.
- kanetw 5y ago
  We're evaluating 2880x2880 displays right now. With our upcoming optics, we can get up to 45PPD in the foveal area if everything works out as planned (they're basically a variable magnification optic). Depending on vendor support we might have to go to 2.5k displays from another vendor, but hopefully we can get the support we need for the 3k displays.
  - erikbye 5y ago
    Ok nice, that's better than G2. What about IPD? All HMDs have too narrow IPD for me, what is the challenge with offering wide IPD? The Human IPD range is 51 to 77. Quest 2 offers only up to 66 mm, the Index up to 70mm. How's the lens glare? Can you use Simula currently with Quest 2 air link or do you need to be tethered? EDIT: So yeah, this is Linux only? There will not be a Windows version?
    - kanetw 5y ago
      We're trying to hit as wide of an IPD as feasible. Right now with the BOE displays we can hit an IPD of 55-77mm, but the design isn't finalized yet. Lens glare, too early in the design to tell yet. I'll have more info in late Oct. It's Linux only as Windows doesn't have the APIs for what we're doing (being a window manager, basically). No idea if WSL will work nowadays; definitely not without a lot of finagling.
butterisgood 5y ago
I would definitely try AR glasses as a monitor replacement but I find most VR headsets to make me feel pretty ill after less than one hour.
- maaaaattttt 5y ago
  I feel the same. I'd be ready to pay good money for an AR headset focused on replacing external monitors (no gaming but very good text readability). AR and not VR because I don't want to be completely isolated from my surroundings. And, if luminosity would allow, working outside with it would be a dream come true to me!
  - xtracto 5y ago
    So much this!. I'm writing this while sitting in my desk, in front of it is my 27in monitor and to the left is my Mac's monitor in on a stand. Behind all of this is my room's white wall with an area of around 4x2 meters. Imagine if I could change my monitor with an AR version of it that mapped/projected the "desktop" to my wall. And then, let's say I want to get into a meeting with a colleague to do some diagrams, so we "map" some Whiteboard software into another wall in my room and a wall in my colleague's room. We will be looking at the same and could even "draw" with hand gestures or something. I have more hope for AR than for VR as well.
Vinnl 5y ago
See also a project member (allegedly) talking about it yesterday here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678541
giantg2 5y ago
Pretty cool. Personally, I would love AR for office work. I actually investigated this for my company and got to meet with Microsoft to try the Hololens. Cool stuff. It was too expensive for us though. Here's a video from a different company. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0NogltmewmQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0NogltmewmQ
plaidfuji 5y ago
I’ll echo both the praise and the concerns here - awesome that somebody has made this, definitely has a long way to go before I would consider using it, but honestly my main question is... is all-day VR not terrible for your eyes?
alex_smart 5y ago
Reminds me on ~2008 era Linux. Compiz, on steroids.
- georgewsinger 5y ago
  +1 Compiz is one of the things which originally inspired me to try Linux back in the mid 2000s.
n_time 5y ago
They should probably talk to someone who knows something about ergonomics–the way his neck was craning to look at those vertical "screens" looked painful
- dpflan 5y ago
  This is what I started thinking about: what are the proper ergonomics for a VR-office, constantly rotated one's neck may not actually be good. It's like this would become like immersion in a curved display with a huge horizon for every subscreen you want, then a "window" into the real world when you completely turn around (180).
GrigoriyMikh 5y ago
I have a question. Why? How it will improve my multi-monitor setup? I see only potential cons here. Wearing headset all day. It doesn't sound good for your neck and eyes, at all.
- Stevvo 5y ago
  If you don't have the space for a multi monitor setup then virtual monitors could be an alternative.
- mentos 5y ago
  Yea I don't think its going to improve a multi-monitor setup. Having a real office illuminated by the trillions of ray traces from the free sun in the sky is always going to be better than VR. That's why I really think the future is going to be an AR display that lets you leverage 90% of the real world with 10% of a simulated overlay. But! the road to the AR future is paved with VR work like this so I dare not write it off as useless.
  - jermaustin1 5y ago
    My office is an interior room, no windows. VR is definitely better than my office.
- fudged71 5y ago
  You might have it backwards about neck movement. Sitting at a desk looking at a monitor in one position sounds terrible for your neck. With VR you don't have physical (and cost) limitations of having screens above and below you, they could be all around you. You could even program the screen(s) to slowly rotate around you to induce motion so your neck/body isn't in the same place all day.
- xtracto 5y ago
  This reminds me a lot of SphereXP [1] A WindowsXP application that converted your desktop into a "spherical" desktop. I agree on the cons: Wearing a headset all day? Also I wonder how looking at a light-bulb at 5cm of your eyes all day long will feel like. OTOH for me one _advantage_ that these type of VR/AR technologies can bring is are "endless desktop space". Right now we have something like that with "multiple desktops" in Linux and OSX. But it will be cool to have just an endless space of screen real-estate to tile all open windows. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeHe-li-cZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeHe-li-cZE
forgingahead 5y ago
Excited for this! I know it's early, but everything was early once - VR will definitely be one of the next big computing interfaces, and we need alternatives from the current options being put out by Big Tech.
macawfish 5y ago
My neck hurts already just watching that teaser video... Looks cool though!
ansible 5y ago
This is nice and all, but since the dropping in price of larger monitors / TVs, it doesn't seem that practical. Right now I'm using a 42in LG 4K TV as my monitor, and I've mostly gotten used to it. One thing is that since I'm older, it is nice to push the monitor further away from me than I had in the past, so the monitor itself is on a file cabinet (with an adjustable stand) not sitting on my desk itself. TVs are not monitors, and it took a bit of fiddling with the TV settings (game console mode, turn off overscan) and drivers on the desktop side, but I'm fairly pleased with the setup these days. I really like having additional vertical space for editing windows.
- yiyus 5y ago
  But you cannot take your 42in TV with you in a backpack. Mobile setups are more practical than fixed ones for most people.
  - ansible 5y ago
    That's true. Though with the power consumption required for a VR GPU display, you'll likely need a decent-sized battery pack (maybe on your belt), for this not to be tethered to a power outlet. For this product space, I think I personally would be happier with a AR style solution, though that comes with its own challenges. I've got to wonder if a CastAR / Tilt5 AR projection system would work better for working. You could certainly roll up the retro-reflective "screen" into your backpack.
CRConrad 5y ago
There's a bunch of old guys from Norway here for you, complaining that your name was already taken.
- spindle 5y ago
  inorite?! This is sacrilege! Use any other name!
  - kanetw 5y ago
    I actually tried to get us to rename but we never managed before we had to incorporate and, yeah, we're a bit stuck now. When I was interviewing for a programming language theory PhD program in... Bristol I think, back when this was purely software, I had probably a 20 min discussion on this because the prof thought it was related to the language.
    - moron4hire 5y ago
      The name you put on the front door doesn't have to have anything to do with the name you incorporated as. There are lots of companies "doing business as" some completely different name.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
For me personally, my main concern would be text readability. It was probably an older model, but on a Vive I played games on for a good while I was struggling to read text on the game's HUD (Elite Dangerous). Pixelation in the center was also an issue, but manageable. I get by my workday nowadays with minimal head movement, enough to avoid it getting stuck but I don't have to crane around too much. That's probably not an issue in a VR environment either though, since your primary thing will be in front of you as well. Comfort is another one, I think I'd like to be more reclined if I didn't have to look at a screen. But then I'm worried about muscle atrophy, I don't do enough sports and exercise as it is.
- tantony 5y ago
  The Valve Index significantly improved on text readability. For example, I was able to easily read the blurb on the back of a random paperback in Half Life: Alyx.
kesor 5y ago
Isn't this just a Desktop implementation for the SteamVR? It is even open source right here -- https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula No headset in sight, other than just "any headset".
- tommica 5y ago
  "Simula One Headset: We are also in the process of developing a (limited number of) portable VR headsets for sale which come with SimulaVR mounted on them by default. If you are interested in purchasing one, visit our website and join our waitlist to receive a place in line and/or periodic updates on its development."
ilaksh 5y ago
Really interesting. And when I have a headset that is comfortable and has high enough resolution I may switch to working in VR. Right now the Quest 2 that I have is too low resolution and too uncomfortable. There are a few reallly high resolution VR headsets that I can't afford. But I just heard about a 200 gram (supposedly) on coming out of China. If it has good resolution thag might be a viable choice for this (as an alternative to whatever the hardware is which they didn't say). But what makes this stuff REALLY interesting to me are the possibilities for 3D widgets and interface elements and metaphors. That has been explored a little and generally discarded in flatland but I think in an environment that is always 3d with good hand tracking, it's a different ballgame. One thing to imagine would be, what could 3d "web browsing" be like if you knew that everyone looking at your site was in VR? Maybe something along the lines of JanusXR. Although I think they barely began to scratch the surface. To me the idea of working in VR could be a gateway to the 'metaverse'. It could start with people trying to make more interesting environments for their floating 2d windows. Then they add some physics and locomotion. Now they want to collaborate over the network. In three years, the most popular Linux distribution could be the one you run on your headset, and could come with multiplayer VR baked in. But anyway I would want to escape from the 2d windows. There might even be some interesting ways to represent code or codebases in 3d. Or even new ways to manipulate text with your hands.
Jeff_Brown 5y ago
Do you have to air-guitar the keyboard?
nicholassmith 5y ago
It's the year of linux on your face. This looks like a really neat project, I think not having pictures of the headset front & centre makes it feel very vapourware though, even if it's a hacked together development unit we still want to see it. Arguably, we might even want to see that more. I struggle to envision this in my workflow though, my experience with VR headsets suggest that for a lot of text they might not be the best choice just yet. Excited to see where this goes though!
- aero-glide2 5y ago
  With steamdeck, I really think 2022 will be the year of linux.
  - 999900000999 5y ago
    I'm happy the hardware isn't locked down. I love my iPad, but it's ultimately an expensive content consumption device. The Steamdeck can run whatever you want on it, this opens it up to being useful even a decade from now.
  - vyrotek 5y ago
    I'm excited for the device and was able to reserve one. But honestly, I'll likely end up putting Windows 11 on mine.
agentultra 5y ago
Compiling Haskell in the background? Sold. Jokes aside I've tried a few virtual desktops in VR and it _seems_ promising. The text clarity is a hard one, the weight of the headset for prolonged sessions would also be difficult. A whiteboard app that works with non-VR users w/o 3D would be nice. Something like Miro but with nice feel in VR.
- whateveracct 5y ago
  The Simula VR window manager is actually written in Haskell ;)
abrookewood 5y ago
One thing that worries me about wearing VR headsets for extended periods of time (whether for game or for work) is that your eyes are focusing at a single distance for so long. Not sure if there is any research to suggest extended usage is a problem, but it 'feels' like it could be. At least with a desktop or laptop, when you look around the room, you are actually changing your focal length.
- jermaustin1 5y ago
  From experience, I can tell you that you aren't focused on a single point, and in fact your eyes will change focus to look at objects in the distance just like in real life. In my virtual office set up, when I want to relax my eyes, I can look over my right shoulder and look at the office wall, or out the window, and my focus shifts. You can also make your screens as big as you want and as far away as you want, there are a lot of options to keep your eyes from looking at a single focal length for extended periods of time. My YouTube screen is also pushed back a bit from my normal monitor so I can shift focus for a few minutes every hour or so.
  - MayeulC 5y ago
    Your eyes do move, and they point at other stuff, but the focal length afforded by the lenses is fixed (it makes as if everything was at a few meters IIRC). I also wonder what could happen if the ciliary muscle isn't used enough. Does it get weak and you rapidly get short-sightedness, or is occasional exercise enough? Edit: maybe an answer could come from looking at people who recovered from extended comas. Does their visual acuity degrade? If not, that's promising. If yes, it could also come from other causes like the light of light (lack of UV light, especially during teenage years, has also been linked to short-sightedness).
    - jermaustin1 5y ago
      > but the focal length afforded by the lenses is fixed That seems weird to me because when I look at a screen at a different distance to the one I'm using I can see the other screens getting blurry just like in real life.
zokier 5y ago
I see many comments about resolution, which I guess is fair. But there are high-resolution headsets available on the market right now: Varjo VR-3 afaik is the top dog currently https://varjo.com/products/vr-3/ https://varjo.com/products/vr-3/ and Pimax also has some high res models. So don't dismiss the idea too hastily based on experiences of old and/or cheap HW.
- moron4hire 5y ago
  I've never seen a Varjo headset in person, so I can't say anything about it other than it's extremely expensive, both to buy and to operate (you have to agree to a yearly service contract). But everyone should avoid PiMax like the plague. Their hardware is super buggy with lots of weird lens distortions and colored static in the displays. Their drivers are weirdly front and present like a HP does with their printer drivers, making me wonder just what they hell they think they are doing (and also, very buggy as well). Whatever resolution advantage they claim is wasted on bad image compression and extremely bad optics. But the worst part of all is that the business side is really scammy. They'll gladly taking your money and sending you a shipping notification long before they ever have an actual headset they can send you. I get that manufacturing delays are a thing, but for PiMax they've always been a thing, long before the global pandemic and chip shortage. Don't tell me I'm going to get a headset "any day now, it's in the mail" for 3 months straight, only to finally get your act in gear when I threaten to reverse the credit card charge. Of all the people I've talked to who have eventually gotten their PiMax headset, only one says he likes it, but he's also super DPRC-nationalistic and has accused people of racism anytime they talk bad about PiMax.
  - spyder 5y ago
    The Varjo headset must be awesome in person, so far every reviewer is blown away by the resolution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOk_M1Ib5F0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOk_M1Ib5F0 https://youtu.be/iDb0OjNG2is?t=736 https://youtu.be/iDb0OjNG2is?t=736 https://youtu.be/e6djDSf0kxg?t=699 https://youtu.be/e6djDSf0kxg?t=699 trough the lens recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOEcv0mFdXg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOEcv0mFdXg
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mettamage 5y ago
I'm super excited with posts like these and the recent [1]. I've never been a digital nomad, but with this stuff, there's now one hurdle less :) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678041
FrameworkFred 5y ago
I've tried VR with my phone and it looked promising to me WRT resolution and clarity. I like the idea of a camera to let me see my workspace and I suspect with a few iterations it'll be amazing. Given what I do to my posture as a desk worker, I'm thinking a little extra weight on my head might do good things for my back tbh. If the price is right, I'm down to try it anyway.
jagger27 5y ago
What’s the FOV?
- kanetw 5y ago
  We plan for at least 100deg DFOV.
georgewsinger 5y ago
One of the founders of Simula here. We're flattered that someone posted us to HN, but we were honestly not ready for this much publicity at this precise stage of our project. It would have been better had this happened a few weeks from now, when we have more accurate footage of our actual prototype to show. Let me explain: 1. *Video footage.* The video footage on the front page of www.simulavr.com is taken against an HTC Vive and an older prototype of our window manager. It doesn't showcase the higher resolution of the Simula One (more than 4x that of the Valve Index), or any of the new features we are intending on releasing with it (hand tracking, AR mode, environments, etc). 2. *Prototype pictures.* The website doesn't have any actual photos of our headset yet! That's because we are in the process of finalizing the design. We have printed parts and plenty of renderings, but they are still changing every week. 3. *Specs.* The specs are close to the final specs, but still placeholders. Between supply chain issues, stuff still under development, and issues getting support from manufacturers at our volumes, we might have to change things for the final prototype. One of the reasons we threw up this website in its current form was to get the ball rolling for manufacturers. They won't supply us with parts unless we have some sort of product interest, but we can't generate any sort of product interest unless we have some sort of website. It's very much a chicken and egg sort of problem. We appreciate everyone's kind words, yet also understand the skepticism. For people on the waitlist: expect updates to start to come from us in a few weeks, when we will show some previews of some of the actual goodies which makes our headset special.
- pmdulaney 5y ago
  Your humility is endearing. Seriously.
- kanetw 5y ago
  Another founder here, with some more comments on the tech side of things: 1. The software is relatively usable, and you can try it out right now on https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula 2. The hardware is still being worked on, and the website is kind of a list of expected specs/placeholder in that regard: 2.a. The compute unit is tested and works, but requires a custom carrier board to fit the form factor. This is a blocker for the final product, but relatively low priority for the prototype. 2.b. Lens system design is scheduled to be complete in early November, with first prototypes available in early December. We're planning to use Valve Index lenses as a stopgap right now for prototyping etc. 2.c. We're currently solving a few challenges in driving the displays, as we're pushing the boundaries of the available technology, and at our volumes support from manufacturers is like pulling teeth. BOE supplies the 2880x2880 panels and there aren't even enough docs to figure out how to drive the (non-trivial, local dimming based) backlight. 2.d. We're also experimenting with different approaches to tracking as our original plan (RealSense) became end-of-life recently. I'm interested in an mmwave based solution, but we might just use RGB cameras instead. 2.e. The mechanical design for the front part is reasonably advanced, but we're still working on the back part. There's a lot more going on right now that's probably not coming to mind immediately, but that should provide a good overview.
moron4hire 5y ago
Their approach of having a desktop metaphor within the VR environment is one that I have argued for a long time is the "right" approach to eventually grow VR as a general purpose compute platform. The only two other examples of this going right now are Microsoft's Windows Mixed Reality platform with Windows Holographic and the Magic Leap One's interface. Windows MR works really well, Magic Leap is extremely half-baked and has had very little effort put into it (well, at least that was the case a year ago. I ended up selling my headset for lack of use). Being that I've been a Windows developer for 20 years, it's extremely frustrating to me that Microsoft won't make a standalone VR headset. They have all the technical capability to do it. The HoloLens 2 is a sufficiently powerful compute platform and runs the full Windows MR experience. The PC-tethered Windows MR headsets are very high resolution and some of them are even quite comfortable (I regularly use a Samsung Oddyssey+ for work). But they seem hell-bent on pushing difractive waveguide displays for any mobile devices, which I think by now have pretty handily proven to be straight up garbage. How a Linux headset could succeed here where others are really stagnating is to develop: A) Hotswappable batteries. You're not going to get all-day usage out of a single battery pack anytime soon (my Quest 2 with the Elite Strap doubles the battery life to a whole TWO HOURS OMG!), and having to connect a wire to a device that is supposed to be standalone just for power is kind of like playing with one of those line-tethered model airplanes: what you really want is an RC model airplane, so you're just stuck being disappointed all the time. B) A really good spatialized audio system. Spatialized audio is an often overlooked component of making a believable VR scene. All of the ambisonic audio drivers are platform-specific right now, and they each have their pros and cons. I really like Microsoft's HFRT as it seems more realistic than Oculus'. It'd be especially nice to have work put into Chromium and Firefox to upgrade the WebAudio system to use the system's spatializer rather than implement their own (Google's Resonance is particularly bad). C) Really big emphasis on accelerated 2D rendering. 3D rendering is great for games, but work is all text and text is all 2D rendering. Some of the most costly components of my VR projects are the text rendering. You can go a long way with low-fi 3D as an aesthetic, but 2D absolutely needs to be crisp and tight. And it's not just about the resolution of the display. Your 2D buffers aren't going to ever map one-to-one to the display's pixels, because your head is moving around, you'll be looking at things at slight angles and in motion, etc., and most mipmapping algorithms are designed for gradients, not sharp edges. So making clear text is really hard. Oculus has a hack where 2D quads can be rendered in a separate pass from the rest of the 3D environment, but there are issues with it regarding scene compositing and hit testing. D) A native scene graph, something akin to extending the desktop metaphor into 3-dimensions, not just for compositing 2D windows but for allowing 3D applications to mix and match objects. Windows MR and SteamVR are the only systems that really even attempt to do this, with neither really seeing enough emphasis. Every VR app right now runs in a completely exclusive, retained mode. That's fine for games, but it's completely unnecessary for things like teleconferencing apps. Why shouldn't you be able to "spaceshare" like we do screen-sharing? Then you'd be able to have your teleconferencing app separate from your whiteboard app.
jrm4 5y ago
Yo. I want! How about Oculus Go compatibility, especially since Facebook decided to be a step closer to "reasonable" when it comes to sideloading et al?
journey_16162 5y ago
I don't like to see where it's going. I mean, there are good chances this is the future of desktop computing. And it's no good in my opinion. Computers already cut us out from our bodies and trap in head as is. Replacing the screen with VR will push this effect even further. Expect more anxiety, depression, social awkwardness. I feel lucky to be born in times where we have technology and abundance but it didn't yet turn to a sci-fi dystopia created by tech nerds. And even from a productivity perspective, a regular screen is enough if it's powered by a good window manager (i.e. i3wm). There's no reason to block the reality with a VR, unless you are living and working in a room with no windows, then maybe you can get yourself a nicer view and that's it.
- BlueDingo 5y ago
  The ease and portability are what make me moderately interested. I had kids over the last few years and no longer have a home office. I might get a desk area at some point but the only option is right next to my wife and my time to code would be when she's asleep. So I plop on the couch with my laptop but the constraints of that setup quickly drain my energy. If I had a quality "multi monitor" setup that is ready any time, anywhere, my productivity would increase, even if the device/process itself isn't better than monitors + i3. And if that happens, I'll have a happier time coding, probably produce more code, and live a happier life (because currently I am unhappy with my lack of output and that feeds back into my family life). That isn't some magical hope either, the same would happen if I had a multi monitor office again, but buying a single device is easier. So don't despair, there will be plenty of good outcomes from stuff like this project.
kuroguro 5y ago
Are there any estimates on what would a unit cost?
- moron4hire 5y ago
  Well, I can tell you from a lot of research in purchasing headsets to use in an adult education environment: it'll have to be round about $1000 all-in to be competitive. That's what Oculus Quest 2s with Elite Straps through Oculus for Business or Windows MR or HTC Vive headsets with min-spec VR laptops will cost you. Pico Neo 3 is a little cheaper, but it would have also come at signficant extra development cost for us. Basically, any way I tried to slice the problem of "full VR system I can box up and send to people without having Facebook spy on them" came out to $1000/ea. We ultimately went with Oculus for Business to keep everything small and easy to setup.
- kanetw 5y ago
  We're planning for 2k. Due to our low volumes etc going hard on optimizing the unit cost is difficult.
escot 5y ago
The main benefit of vr seems to have many "screens" for free, but the more years I've worked the more I've reduced the number/size of screens I use. I find it more ergonomic to not be looking around so much.
ldbooth 5y ago
The website states "10x more screens ... 10x more focus ... 10x more productivity" That's a stretch! Or where to improve your pitch. Personally the only 10x productivity I get is by disconnecting from wifi. I'd love to see the windows non-square, more like a POV or fisheye if that's possible. Cool product, I hope to use it soon.
- stemlord 5y ago
  After about 2 or 3 visible windows at a given moment, I start becoming more distracted than productive, but this development still seems like an inevitability that I'm excited to try out.
awinter-py 5y ago
love that the email waitlist signup goes to wolframcloud
- kanetw 5y ago
  I've been meaning to use a proper service but it works right now and once we're actually sending I'll import the emails and do an opt-in and such.
  - awinter-py 5y ago
    no I like it -- it feels like I'm interacting with a person who's using powerful tools
    - kanetw 5y ago
      both me and george are avid wolfram users. incredibly good stuff
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
OOPMan 5y ago
I guess I must be the odd one out, I don't find adding more screens does a ton to help my productivity, it just means more context switching. Maybe if I needed to more stuff where I compared things side-by-side...
cjsawyer 5y ago
I would LOVE an ultra high res VR standalone headset for reading

567 points by sandebert 5y ago

msk-lywenn 5y ago

Except for hololens, aren’t they all built on top of Linux?

moron4hire 5y ago
I mean, Android has the Linux Kernel in there somewhere, but can we really call it a Linux system?

TulliusCicero 5y ago

It's a page about a VR headset, but neither this page nor the 'shop' page that lets you waitlist it has any pictures of the thing even by itself, let alone someone wearing it. What an absolutely bizarre choice.

the-dude 5y ago
If you drop the assumption that it is bizarre, you can think about the actual reasons for the omission of said pictures.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  Was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, here.
amelius 5y ago
Yes, I want information about the hardware, not just the software (and I hope I can do more with it than just run a virtual window manager).
martin_a 5y ago
Not sure if I should feel more safe about this than the usual Kickstarter scam or not. Those have at least some product images.
- spicybright 5y ago
  EDIT: nvm
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    Think you meant *wary, though yeah sometimes weary fits.
bewuethr 5y ago
The video at the top eventually shows somebody in the bottom right corner wearing it.
- themanmaran 5y ago
  That person is wearing the HTC Vive.
aero-glide2 5y ago
fwiw its supposed to be around 2k

alteracia 5y ago

Seems like tool for 3d designer

prox 5y ago
Check the previous discussion link, it also allows you to create work environments and such.

boomskats 5y ago

I've been following SimulaVR/Simula for a while now, but really did not want to buy a (legacy) HTC Vive headset. This idea of a standalone Linux machine in a headset is something I'd definitely put some money towards given a bit more detail and timelines. Also pretty excited by John Carmack's recent tweets on sideloading stuff to the Quest. It feels like that would provide a much bigger opportunity for this project (cameras and all), than building/shipping new hardware.

aero-glide2 5y ago
Sideloading to the Go, not Quest right?
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  You’re right, Caramack has been working on the Go. Sideloading does work on the Quest. The Go work has been a more open OS.
MayeulC 5y ago
They're pretty cheap second hand. I recently got one for €200, including base stations (forward-compatible to a point) and "pro" audio strap. It's my first VR headset though, I understand not wanting to spend too much on something you already have a better version of. Also, the Valve Index is pretty much last (tethered) gen.

boomskats 5y ago

Previous discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22823891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22823891

tifadg1 5y ago

I sincerely hope VR will change the way we compute one day, but the wait will be decade or more, as the progress is small and incremental. Unless everything turns out to be proprietary, in which case it'll be never.

mpweiher 5y ago

Simula One was the first version of the Simula programming language: https://portablesimula.github.io/github.io/doc/HiNC1-webversion-simula.pdf https://portablesimula.github.io/github.io/doc/HiNC1-webvers...

dhosek 5y ago
My thought exactly.

yewenjie 5y ago

Has anybody hacked regular consumer VR headsets for working with regular apps?

arc-in-space 5y ago
Well, the non-standalone ones can already do whatever you want them to since they're just a display
newswasboring 5y ago
For oculus quest 2 there is already a focus on office work. From the start we've had Virtual Desktop and from v28 software update Oculus itself has had several office focused moves.
mekkkkkk 5y ago
I have played around with it, and the resolution just isn't there. The desktop space in VR is ironically less than on a laptop, because every window has to be massive to be usable at all. In a future with 2x4K res or something in that ballpark, this might be interesting.
- andybak 5y ago
  If you're anything like me, by your mid-forties you aren't going to need 4k per eye. The Quest 2 is already pretty much as sharp as my eyes can resolve - and that's with prescription glasses.
  - mekkkkkk 5y ago
    I suppose that's an alternative use case for the tech - to simulate and get an understanding of how to build UX that is friendly towards those with poor eyesight. Haha.

symmetricsaurus 5y ago

For a work VR headset to work I think you need a couple of things. One is that it needs to be comfortable enough to wear for long periods of time. I usually get quite warm when wearing one. You also often end up with impressions on your face. This is fine for gaming or shorter sessions but would be a distraction if trying to focus for longer periods of time. It would also need to have a higher resolution than most (all?) current VR headsets. Text needs to be huge so even though you can have lots of virtual screens you can't fit much on each. Finally, I imagine that there could be a more innovative interface than just screens in a virtual space. Something that embraces the close-to-physical-reality illusion of VR.

XorNot 5y ago
Resolution is the killer. The distance I'm currently typing this on my 32" monitor is much larger then the virtual draw distance I can "see" in VR at current resolutions. Regarding comfort: I have been curious whether you could take the weight off the head by suspending the headset off the back of a chair so it "floats" at face level via a tether or something.
mkmk2 5y ago
The issues you're presenting seem real for some, but enthusiasts seem to be making it work[1: post from yesterday]. I like the call in your last point, but personally I think an innovation like 360 degree resizable and movable windows is a reasonable step up from where we're currently at. It would be nice to integrate the work we do into physical space a bit more though. I've wondered about doing practical programming work in an infinifactory-type[2] interface. I don't think it's necessarily a good idea, but it'd be fun to see attempts at no-code tooling embedded in the space. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678041 [2] https://www.zachtronics.com/infinifactory/ https://www.zachtronics.com/infinifactory/

tuco86 5y ago

10x more productivity. oh boy, can i work just an hour a day with this thing?

Joker_vD 5y ago
No, you will still work 8 hours, maybe even 10; it's the great paradox of productivity increases: e.g., teachers had to write way fewer reports before the computers became ubiquitous but when they did, the amount of reports increased slightly out of proportion so that teachers now spend more time on reports than they used to. Progress!
- simmo9000 5y ago
  Hopefully it can autofill all these TPS reports that I have to fill out to show my productivity!
eafkuor 5y ago
I'm glad someone pointed this out. What is it with this obsession to be 1000x productive all the time? I will not get paid more for it, will I? And how is this going to make me more productive anyway? By removing "distractions"? I doubt anything can make me solve problems twice as fast as I already do, let alone 10x. This is ridiculous.

deanclatworthy 5y ago

The number one thing stopping this is resolution. Monitors need to be sharp and crisp. It's none of those things in VR.

thanatos519 5y ago
Right, and it's most important that text be crisp. Maybe they could re-render all of the visible text every frame with the VR perspective matrix, so you could have helmet-pixel-sharp antialiasing and hinting. Maaayyyybe.
Stevvo 5y ago
Comfort is a bigger blocker. Headsets with a high enough resolution already exist, but they are too large and uncomfortable to wear for more than a short session.
fomine3 5y ago
Resolution is the resolution.

KaiserPro 5y ago

I'm very keen for this market to open up, but we need to talk about the quality of the desktop before moving on. On the website, the demo has the person drinking coffee, the youtube window is the wrong ratio, the text is too tall. For me, I really want picture perfect rendering before jumping. I don't want to look at badly rendered stuff, its part of the reason linux was so hard back in the day, getting your text to render and screen resolution to work right. Now, for me, it looks like I can fit about as many terminals on "screen" as I can on two 1280x1024 screens. In all the demos, there are at most 5 windows open. On my current screen I have one browser, and 8 terminals, and there is still loads more space. The thing that makes me a little sad is that we still all appear to be stuck at rendering everything on the inside of a sphere. If we are in VR, then we don't have to limit our selves to laying out windows on a single primitive. Where are the virtual shelves? where is the quick change, what about hotspots to bring groups of windows back into near field. We have unlimited z depth, surely this is time to start using it? unlike a normal screen, we have parallax and gaze sensors, we really need to start using them. (it looks like they don't have room tracking, so feels like they have limited 6dof source: coffee video, I'd expect much more sideways translation if they had proper headset tracking)

dgellow 5y ago
What do you do with 8 terminal open at the same time? I can never focus on more than one or two at a time.
- piaste 5y ago
  "Microservices, son!"
- gtirloni 5y ago
  Same. I also stopped using two monitors because it was distracting.
- VortexDream 5y ago
  Maintain context. I might have several terminals up, each ssh'd to a different server. At least one terminal per software project. It helps that I use a tiling manager, so I can keep them all visible at the same time.

siva7 5y ago

So is this the future? Hundreds of office workers wearing for 8 hours a VR Headset in an open plan office?

lolspace 5y ago
We won't have offices in the future
mekkkkkk 5y ago
No, they'll all be working remotely in their own matrix-style cocoons. The nutritional paste will be delivered by Doordash.
m4rtink 5y ago
So Ready Player One basically? :)

planb 5y ago

I'm not sure the fullscreen video in the page background helps to promote working with a VR headset. It's lagging, tearing and blurry. If I get dizzy by just looking at the page, how on earth would I last more than 5 minutes in a VR office without throwing up?

swalsh 5y ago

The killer "corporate" app for VR in my opinion would be some kind of teleconference app. I absolutely HATE trying to have interactive brainstorming/collaborative design meeting remotely. There are various pancake tools, but none really compare to the experience of 2 people standing in front of a white board, and making wild motions with their arms that seemingly both people understand while drawing on a board. Some of the experiences I've had in VR are unrivaled by any pancake game i've ever played for that very reason. I'm not 100% sure I want to be in VR all day all the time. But VR should have a place in at the very least a remote workforce.

rattray 5y ago
What is "pancake" in this context?
- lucky_cloud 5y ago
  Pancake is 'not VR' i.e. a traditional flat monitor.
vyrotek 5y ago
I absolutely agree. I'm very much a whiteboard hand-wavier guy. I explain with gestures as much as I do with the actual drawing (might be an Italian thing too). That said, this "pancake" problem reminded me of the old Wii head-tracking project.[1] There might be an interesting hybrid opportunity with that idea and 3d avatars. I feel like the head-tracking hack never really took off because it only worked as a solo experience. But since remote work is mostly us all individually sitting at a computer I could see it working better. Combine this idea with a large dedicated monitor/tv and now you have something that would literally just feel like a window/portal to the person you're talking to. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw
- usrusr 5y ago
  I'd expect conventional live footage of whiteboard hand-waving to wildly outdo VR for the entire foreseeable future. If you need two guys hand-waving in different rooms, focus the extra tech on the whiteboards, to somehow merge their content.

onion2k 5y ago

It's important to remember that this is on the way to being an MVP. It's not a finished, polished product. This is HN. Don't we like people hacking on startups any more? I think it looks like a really positive first step. Yeah, the resolution is too low but that's solvable with a better headset. It's a bit laggy, but that's probably due to recording video of VR being hard. The windows are weird sizes, but that might be user choice. Heck, I personally don't want to code things floating in space, but that's just a matter of choosing a different background. All those problems are solvable. There are loads more problems that are also likely solvable too. And maybe some that aren't. We don't know yet. I'm glad someone is working on the problem to find out. That's far better than not having, maybe, one day in the distant future, a VR option to use for work.

shaneprrlt 5y ago
Makes sense to me. This is going to be sick once it's ready!
amelius 5y ago
> It's important to remember that this is on the way to being an MVP. It's not a finished, polished product. This is HN. Don't we like people hacking on startups any more? It doesn't need to be a finished product. Just give FOSS developers something to work with, and the finished product will automatically emerge ;)
- amelius 5y ago
  And to add to this: hardware without software is a feature, not a flaw.
  - codezero 5y ago
    Sometimes true, but sometimes not, it depends on how the hardware is designed to integrate with software. The Leap Motion failed miserably (my opinion) at this by expecting software to figure out where it fit as a human interface device rather than having a strong opinion based on software/reference drivers.

suriyaG 5y ago

The video in the website is really bad quality. this one is better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWLuwG91HnI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWLuwG91HnI

chinaev 5y ago

I'm so joining the wait list

hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago

Finally, RSI for your neck!

kleinsch 5y ago

From the wiki on their Github [1] and looking at Github contributors, this is a 3 person project (and no Github commits since June 2021). They're clearly not making their own VR headset, they're using something off the shelf (from other comments seems like an HTC Vive). Making the website ambiguous about this is just confusing. I saw a couple YC apps in there, so I'm sure they had to be ambitious, but thinking realistically there's a big difference between being: 1) A VR headset for work company 2) A VR operating system for work company 3) A window manager for VR for work company [1] https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula/wiki/Simula-Master-Plan https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula/wiki/Simula-Master-Plan

isatty 5y ago
I suppose it’s a difficult field to enter? Idk if it’s needed but my naive assumption is that I won’t be able to contribute without having a VR headset. Speaking of, what’s a good VR headset that I can purchase in ‘21 that does not have anything to do with FB? I enjoyed playing Alyx on the Index so that’s my prime candidate for now, for both gaming and productivity.
- aero-glide2 5y ago
  Have you considered HP Reverb G2?
kanetw 5y ago
We're making our own headset. Nothing off-the-shelf was available or satisfactory. Most of the recent Github commits are in the dev branch, but right now it's 90% George working on the code. I'm busy on the hardware and wrangling vendors side, our third employee is the ME so no coding there.

evacchi 5y ago

Looks a lot like Project Looking Glass :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass

herbst 5y ago
Such a forgotten classic. I remember it took me hours to get the dependencies on my suse right and once it worked I was so overwhelmed by what's possible. It was so weird and beautiful at once. Compiz desktop cubes [1] and native zooming were all the rage back then as well. [1] https://heise.cloudimg.io/width/993/q75.png-lossy-75.webp-lossy-75.foil1/_www-heise-de_/download/media/compiz-fusion-49050/compiz-fusion-1_1-1-8.jpg https://heise.cloudimg.io/width/993/q75.png-lossy-75.webp-lo...
xtracto 5y ago
Also like SphereXP ( https://web.archive.org/web/20040130224608/http://www.hamar.sk/sphere/ https://web.archive.org/web/20040130224608/http://www.hamar.... ) . A pretty undervalued project from around the same time

chungus 5y ago

Fun note, almost all of it is written in Haskell. If I remember correctly they've also done a bunch of stuff that helps Godot, or at least something to do with the Haskell bindings. Very accessible guys, I once asked a question on the gitter, and got helpful replies almost immediately.

fouric 5y ago
If it's written in Haskell, it's highly likely that it'll be far harder to modify than something written in, well, not-Haskell. Haskell might be easy when you get the hang of it, but the vast majority of programmers haven't, and the language ideas are alien compared to the mainstream ones (Python, JS, C++, Lua). The design of Haskell also encourages users to be very clever, which only makes code harder to read.
- Jeff_Brown 5y ago
  Haskell reduces the size of the developer pool, but increases their productivity (the Haskell ecosystem is enormous and astoundingly solid given the number of devs in that space), and also makes the docs a joy to read.
  - go_elmo 5y ago
    This. Im wondering how this is possible, high haskell reusability / easy to get familiar with codebases & extend them when familiar with hs or being a genius? I guess its the first
    - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
      Strict static types reduce a giant class of errors (including most of the footguns I'm always triggering in my dayjob with Python). Purity reduces another giant class: It makes it easy (indeed kind of forces you) to restrict your IO to a thin, top-level error, hence keeping the vast majority of the code purely functional and thus easy to test. Exactly how Haddock produces such wonderful automatic documentation, I don't know, but good God it does. The strict static types clearly help -- you can see exactly what every function inputs and outputs, what every data type needs, etc. And then you can jump to the definitions of any of those things, and if need be (almost never), the source code that defines them.

erikbye 5y ago

What's the resolution per eye?

lallysingh 5y ago
Depends on the device you use. They seem to support a few different ones. From here: https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula it seems like anything that will run steamvr should do it.
- erikbye 5y ago
  I was obviously referring to their HMD.
kanetw 5y ago
We're evaluating 2880x2880 displays right now. With our upcoming optics, we can get up to 45PPD in the foveal area if everything works out as planned (they're basically a variable magnification optic). Depending on vendor support we might have to go to 2.5k displays from another vendor, but hopefully we can get the support we need for the 3k displays.
- erikbye 5y ago
  Ok nice, that's better than G2. What about IPD? All HMDs have too narrow IPD for me, what is the challenge with offering wide IPD? The Human IPD range is 51 to 77. Quest 2 offers only up to 66 mm, the Index up to 70mm. How's the lens glare? Can you use Simula currently with Quest 2 air link or do you need to be tethered? EDIT: So yeah, this is Linux only? There will not be a Windows version?
  - kanetw 5y ago
    We're trying to hit as wide of an IPD as feasible. Right now with the BOE displays we can hit an IPD of 55-77mm, but the design isn't finalized yet. Lens glare, too early in the design to tell yet. I'll have more info in late Oct. It's Linux only as Windows doesn't have the APIs for what we're doing (being a window manager, basically). No idea if WSL will work nowadays; definitely not without a lot of finagling.

butterisgood 5y ago

I would definitely try AR glasses as a monitor replacement but I find most VR headsets to make me feel pretty ill after less than one hour.

maaaaattttt 5y ago
I feel the same. I'd be ready to pay good money for an AR headset focused on replacing external monitors (no gaming but very good text readability). AR and not VR because I don't want to be completely isolated from my surroundings. And, if luminosity would allow, working outside with it would be a dream come true to me!
- xtracto 5y ago
  So much this!. I'm writing this while sitting in my desk, in front of it is my 27in monitor and to the left is my Mac's monitor in on a stand. Behind all of this is my room's white wall with an area of around 4x2 meters. Imagine if I could change my monitor with an AR version of it that mapped/projected the "desktop" to my wall. And then, let's say I want to get into a meeting with a colleague to do some diagrams, so we "map" some Whiteboard software into another wall in my room and a wall in my colleague's room. We will be looking at the same and could even "draw" with hand gestures or something. I have more hope for AR than for VR as well.

Vinnl 5y ago

See also a project member (allegedly) talking about it yesterday here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678541

giantg2 5y ago

Pretty cool. Personally, I would love AR for office work. I actually investigated this for my company and got to meet with Microsoft to try the Hololens. Cool stuff. It was too expensive for us though. Here's a video from a different company. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0NogltmewmQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0NogltmewmQ

plaidfuji 5y ago

I’ll echo both the praise and the concerns here - awesome that somebody has made this, definitely has a long way to go before I would consider using it, but honestly my main question is... is all-day VR not terrible for your eyes?

alex_smart 5y ago

Reminds me on ~2008 era Linux. Compiz, on steroids.

georgewsinger 5y ago
+1 Compiz is one of the things which originally inspired me to try Linux back in the mid 2000s.

n_time 5y ago

They should probably talk to someone who knows something about ergonomics–the way his neck was craning to look at those vertical "screens" looked painful

dpflan 5y ago
This is what I started thinking about: what are the proper ergonomics for a VR-office, constantly rotated one's neck may not actually be good. It's like this would become like immersion in a curved display with a huge horizon for every subscreen you want, then a "window" into the real world when you completely turn around (180).

GrigoriyMikh 5y ago

I have a question. Why? How it will improve my multi-monitor setup? I see only potential cons here. Wearing headset all day. It doesn't sound good for your neck and eyes, at all.

Stevvo 5y ago
If you don't have the space for a multi monitor setup then virtual monitors could be an alternative.
mentos 5y ago
Yea I don't think its going to improve a multi-monitor setup. Having a real office illuminated by the trillions of ray traces from the free sun in the sky is always going to be better than VR. That's why I really think the future is going to be an AR display that lets you leverage 90% of the real world with 10% of a simulated overlay. But! the road to the AR future is paved with VR work like this so I dare not write it off as useless.
- jermaustin1 5y ago
  My office is an interior room, no windows. VR is definitely better than my office.
fudged71 5y ago
You might have it backwards about neck movement. Sitting at a desk looking at a monitor in one position sounds terrible for your neck. With VR you don't have physical (and cost) limitations of having screens above and below you, they could be all around you. You could even program the screen(s) to slowly rotate around you to induce motion so your neck/body isn't in the same place all day.
xtracto 5y ago
This reminds me a lot of SphereXP [1] A WindowsXP application that converted your desktop into a "spherical" desktop. I agree on the cons: Wearing a headset all day? Also I wonder how looking at a light-bulb at 5cm of your eyes all day long will feel like. OTOH for me one _advantage_ that these type of VR/AR technologies can bring is are "endless desktop space". Right now we have something like that with "multiple desktops" in Linux and OSX. But it will be cool to have just an endless space of screen real-estate to tile all open windows. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeHe-li-cZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeHe-li-cZE

forgingahead 5y ago

Excited for this! I know it's early, but everything was early once - VR will definitely be one of the next big computing interfaces, and we need alternatives from the current options being put out by Big Tech.

macawfish 5y ago

My neck hurts already just watching that teaser video... Looks cool though!

ansible 5y ago

This is nice and all, but since the dropping in price of larger monitors / TVs, it doesn't seem that practical. Right now I'm using a 42in LG 4K TV as my monitor, and I've mostly gotten used to it. One thing is that since I'm older, it is nice to push the monitor further away from me than I had in the past, so the monitor itself is on a file cabinet (with an adjustable stand) not sitting on my desk itself. TVs are not monitors, and it took a bit of fiddling with the TV settings (game console mode, turn off overscan) and drivers on the desktop side, but I'm fairly pleased with the setup these days. I really like having additional vertical space for editing windows.

yiyus 5y ago
But you cannot take your 42in TV with you in a backpack. Mobile setups are more practical than fixed ones for most people.
- ansible 5y ago
  That's true. Though with the power consumption required for a VR GPU display, you'll likely need a decent-sized battery pack (maybe on your belt), for this not to be tethered to a power outlet. For this product space, I think I personally would be happier with a AR style solution, though that comes with its own challenges. I've got to wonder if a CastAR / Tilt5 AR projection system would work better for working. You could certainly roll up the retro-reflective "screen" into your backpack.

CRConrad 5y ago

There's a bunch of old guys from Norway here for you, complaining that your name was already taken.

spindle 5y ago
inorite?! This is sacrilege! Use any other name!
- kanetw 5y ago
  I actually tried to get us to rename but we never managed before we had to incorporate and, yeah, we're a bit stuck now. When I was interviewing for a programming language theory PhD program in... Bristol I think, back when this was purely software, I had probably a 20 min discussion on this because the prof thought it was related to the language.
  - moron4hire 5y ago
    The name you put on the front door doesn't have to have anything to do with the name you incorporated as. There are lots of companies "doing business as" some completely different name.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

For me personally, my main concern would be text readability. It was probably an older model, but on a Vive I played games on for a good while I was struggling to read text on the game's HUD (Elite Dangerous). Pixelation in the center was also an issue, but manageable. I get by my workday nowadays with minimal head movement, enough to avoid it getting stuck but I don't have to crane around too much. That's probably not an issue in a VR environment either though, since your primary thing will be in front of you as well. Comfort is another one, I think I'd like to be more reclined if I didn't have to look at a screen. But then I'm worried about muscle atrophy, I don't do enough sports and exercise as it is.

tantony 5y ago
The Valve Index significantly improved on text readability. For example, I was able to easily read the blurb on the back of a random paperback in Half Life: Alyx.

kesor 5y ago

Isn't this just a Desktop implementation for the SteamVR? It is even open source right here -- https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula No headset in sight, other than just "any headset".

tommica 5y ago
"Simula One Headset: We are also in the process of developing a (limited number of) portable VR headsets for sale which come with SimulaVR mounted on them by default. If you are interested in purchasing one, visit our website and join our waitlist to receive a place in line and/or periodic updates on its development."

ilaksh 5y ago

Really interesting. And when I have a headset that is comfortable and has high enough resolution I may switch to working in VR. Right now the Quest 2 that I have is too low resolution and too uncomfortable. There are a few reallly high resolution VR headsets that I can't afford. But I just heard about a 200 gram (supposedly) on coming out of China. If it has good resolution thag might be a viable choice for this (as an alternative to whatever the hardware is which they didn't say). But what makes this stuff REALLY interesting to me are the possibilities for 3D widgets and interface elements and metaphors. That has been explored a little and generally discarded in flatland but I think in an environment that is always 3d with good hand tracking, it's a different ballgame. One thing to imagine would be, what could 3d "web browsing" be like if you knew that everyone looking at your site was in VR? Maybe something along the lines of JanusXR. Although I think they barely began to scratch the surface. To me the idea of working in VR could be a gateway to the 'metaverse'. It could start with people trying to make more interesting environments for their floating 2d windows. Then they add some physics and locomotion. Now they want to collaborate over the network. In three years, the most popular Linux distribution could be the one you run on your headset, and could come with multiplayer VR baked in. But anyway I would want to escape from the 2d windows. There might even be some interesting ways to represent code or codebases in 3d. Or even new ways to manipulate text with your hands.

Jeff_Brown 5y ago

Do you have to air-guitar the keyboard?

nicholassmith 5y ago

It's the year of linux on your face. This looks like a really neat project, I think not having pictures of the headset front & centre makes it feel very vapourware though, even if it's a hacked together development unit we still want to see it. Arguably, we might even want to see that more. I struggle to envision this in my workflow though, my experience with VR headsets suggest that for a lot of text they might not be the best choice just yet. Excited to see where this goes though!

aero-glide2 5y ago
With steamdeck, I really think 2022 will be the year of linux.
- 999900000999 5y ago
  I'm happy the hardware isn't locked down. I love my iPad, but it's ultimately an expensive content consumption device. The Steamdeck can run whatever you want on it, this opens it up to being useful even a decade from now.
- vyrotek 5y ago
  I'm excited for the device and was able to reserve one. But honestly, I'll likely end up putting Windows 11 on mine.

agentultra 5y ago

Compiling Haskell in the background? Sold. Jokes aside I've tried a few virtual desktops in VR and it _seems_ promising. The text clarity is a hard one, the weight of the headset for prolonged sessions would also be difficult. A whiteboard app that works with non-VR users w/o 3D would be nice. Something like Miro but with nice feel in VR.

whateveracct 5y ago
The Simula VR window manager is actually written in Haskell ;)

abrookewood 5y ago

One thing that worries me about wearing VR headsets for extended periods of time (whether for game or for work) is that your eyes are focusing at a single distance for so long. Not sure if there is any research to suggest extended usage is a problem, but it 'feels' like it could be. At least with a desktop or laptop, when you look around the room, you are actually changing your focal length.

jermaustin1 5y ago
From experience, I can tell you that you aren't focused on a single point, and in fact your eyes will change focus to look at objects in the distance just like in real life. In my virtual office set up, when I want to relax my eyes, I can look over my right shoulder and look at the office wall, or out the window, and my focus shifts. You can also make your screens as big as you want and as far away as you want, there are a lot of options to keep your eyes from looking at a single focal length for extended periods of time. My YouTube screen is also pushed back a bit from my normal monitor so I can shift focus for a few minutes every hour or so.
- MayeulC 5y ago
  Your eyes do move, and they point at other stuff, but the focal length afforded by the lenses is fixed (it makes as if everything was at a few meters IIRC). I also wonder what could happen if the ciliary muscle isn't used enough. Does it get weak and you rapidly get short-sightedness, or is occasional exercise enough? Edit: maybe an answer could come from looking at people who recovered from extended comas. Does their visual acuity degrade? If not, that's promising. If yes, it could also come from other causes like the light of light (lack of UV light, especially during teenage years, has also been linked to short-sightedness).
  - jermaustin1 5y ago
    > but the focal length afforded by the lenses is fixed That seems weird to me because when I look at a screen at a different distance to the one I'm using I can see the other screens getting blurry just like in real life.

zokier 5y ago

I see many comments about resolution, which I guess is fair. But there are high-resolution headsets available on the market right now: Varjo VR-3 afaik is the top dog currently https://varjo.com/products/vr-3/ https://varjo.com/products/vr-3/ and Pimax also has some high res models. So don't dismiss the idea too hastily based on experiences of old and/or cheap HW.

moron4hire 5y ago
I've never seen a Varjo headset in person, so I can't say anything about it other than it's extremely expensive, both to buy and to operate (you have to agree to a yearly service contract). But everyone should avoid PiMax like the plague. Their hardware is super buggy with lots of weird lens distortions and colored static in the displays. Their drivers are weirdly front and present like a HP does with their printer drivers, making me wonder just what they hell they think they are doing (and also, very buggy as well). Whatever resolution advantage they claim is wasted on bad image compression and extremely bad optics. But the worst part of all is that the business side is really scammy. They'll gladly taking your money and sending you a shipping notification long before they ever have an actual headset they can send you. I get that manufacturing delays are a thing, but for PiMax they've always been a thing, long before the global pandemic and chip shortage. Don't tell me I'm going to get a headset "any day now, it's in the mail" for 3 months straight, only to finally get your act in gear when I threaten to reverse the credit card charge. Of all the people I've talked to who have eventually gotten their PiMax headset, only one says he likes it, but he's also super DPRC-nationalistic and has accused people of racism anytime they talk bad about PiMax.
- spyder 5y ago
  The Varjo headset must be awesome in person, so far every reviewer is blown away by the resolution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOk_M1Ib5F0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOk_M1Ib5F0 https://youtu.be/iDb0OjNG2is?t=736 https://youtu.be/iDb0OjNG2is?t=736 https://youtu.be/e6djDSf0kxg?t=699 https://youtu.be/e6djDSf0kxg?t=699 trough the lens recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOEcv0mFdXg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOEcv0mFdXg

deleted 5y ago

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mettamage 5y ago

I'm super excited with posts like these and the recent [1]. I've never been a digital nomad, but with this stuff, there's now one hurdle less :) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678041

FrameworkFred 5y ago

I've tried VR with my phone and it looked promising to me WRT resolution and clarity. I like the idea of a camera to let me see my workspace and I suspect with a few iterations it'll be amazing. Given what I do to my posture as a desk worker, I'm thinking a little extra weight on my head might do good things for my back tbh. If the price is right, I'm down to try it anyway.

jagger27 5y ago

What’s the FOV?

kanetw 5y ago
We plan for at least 100deg DFOV.

georgewsinger 5y ago

One of the founders of Simula here. We're flattered that someone posted us to HN, but we were honestly not ready for this much publicity at this precise stage of our project. It would have been better had this happened a few weeks from now, when we have more accurate footage of our actual prototype to show. Let me explain: 1. *Video footage.* The video footage on the front page of www.simulavr.com is taken against an HTC Vive and an older prototype of our window manager. It doesn't showcase the higher resolution of the Simula One (more than 4x that of the Valve Index), or any of the new features we are intending on releasing with it (hand tracking, AR mode, environments, etc). 2. *Prototype pictures.* The website doesn't have any actual photos of our headset yet! That's because we are in the process of finalizing the design. We have printed parts and plenty of renderings, but they are still changing every week. 3. *Specs.* The specs are close to the final specs, but still placeholders. Between supply chain issues, stuff still under development, and issues getting support from manufacturers at our volumes, we might have to change things for the final prototype. One of the reasons we threw up this website in its current form was to get the ball rolling for manufacturers. They won't supply us with parts unless we have some sort of product interest, but we can't generate any sort of product interest unless we have some sort of website. It's very much a chicken and egg sort of problem. We appreciate everyone's kind words, yet also understand the skepticism. For people on the waitlist: expect updates to start to come from us in a few weeks, when we will show some previews of some of the actual goodies which makes our headset special.

pmdulaney 5y ago
Your humility is endearing. Seriously.
kanetw 5y ago
Another founder here, with some more comments on the tech side of things: 1. The software is relatively usable, and you can try it out right now on https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula 2. The hardware is still being worked on, and the website is kind of a list of expected specs/placeholder in that regard: 2.a. The compute unit is tested and works, but requires a custom carrier board to fit the form factor. This is a blocker for the final product, but relatively low priority for the prototype. 2.b. Lens system design is scheduled to be complete in early November, with first prototypes available in early December. We're planning to use Valve Index lenses as a stopgap right now for prototyping etc. 2.c. We're currently solving a few challenges in driving the displays, as we're pushing the boundaries of the available technology, and at our volumes support from manufacturers is like pulling teeth. BOE supplies the 2880x2880 panels and there aren't even enough docs to figure out how to drive the (non-trivial, local dimming based) backlight. 2.d. We're also experimenting with different approaches to tracking as our original plan (RealSense) became end-of-life recently. I'm interested in an mmwave based solution, but we might just use RGB cameras instead. 2.e. The mechanical design for the front part is reasonably advanced, but we're still working on the back part. There's a lot more going on right now that's probably not coming to mind immediately, but that should provide a good overview.

moron4hire 5y ago

Their approach of having a desktop metaphor within the VR environment is one that I have argued for a long time is the "right" approach to eventually grow VR as a general purpose compute platform. The only two other examples of this going right now are Microsoft's Windows Mixed Reality platform with Windows Holographic and the Magic Leap One's interface. Windows MR works really well, Magic Leap is extremely half-baked and has had very little effort put into it (well, at least that was the case a year ago. I ended up selling my headset for lack of use). Being that I've been a Windows developer for 20 years, it's extremely frustrating to me that Microsoft won't make a standalone VR headset. They have all the technical capability to do it. The HoloLens 2 is a sufficiently powerful compute platform and runs the full Windows MR experience. The PC-tethered Windows MR headsets are very high resolution and some of them are even quite comfortable (I regularly use a Samsung Oddyssey+ for work). But they seem hell-bent on pushing difractive waveguide displays for any mobile devices, which I think by now have pretty handily proven to be straight up garbage. How a Linux headset could succeed here where others are really stagnating is to develop: A) Hotswappable batteries. You're not going to get all-day usage out of a single battery pack anytime soon (my Quest 2 with the Elite Strap doubles the battery life to a whole TWO HOURS OMG!), and having to connect a wire to a device that is supposed to be standalone just for power is kind of like playing with one of those line-tethered model airplanes: what you really want is an RC model airplane, so you're just stuck being disappointed all the time. B) A really good spatialized audio system. Spatialized audio is an often overlooked component of making a believable VR scene. All of the ambisonic audio drivers are platform-specific right now, and they each have their pros and cons. I really like Microsoft's HFRT as it seems more realistic than Oculus'. It'd be especially nice to have work put into Chromium and Firefox to upgrade the WebAudio system to use the system's spatializer rather than implement their own (Google's Resonance is particularly bad). C) Really big emphasis on accelerated 2D rendering. 3D rendering is great for games, but work is all text and text is all 2D rendering. Some of the most costly components of my VR projects are the text rendering. You can go a long way with low-fi 3D as an aesthetic, but 2D absolutely needs to be crisp and tight. And it's not just about the resolution of the display. Your 2D buffers aren't going to ever map one-to-one to the display's pixels, because your head is moving around, you'll be looking at things at slight angles and in motion, etc., and most mipmapping algorithms are designed for gradients, not sharp edges. So making clear text is really hard. Oculus has a hack where 2D quads can be rendered in a separate pass from the rest of the 3D environment, but there are issues with it regarding scene compositing and hit testing. D) A native scene graph, something akin to extending the desktop metaphor into 3-dimensions, not just for compositing 2D windows but for allowing 3D applications to mix and match objects. Windows MR and SteamVR are the only systems that really even attempt to do this, with neither really seeing enough emphasis. Every VR app right now runs in a completely exclusive, retained mode. That's fine for games, but it's completely unnecessary for things like teleconferencing apps. Why shouldn't you be able to "spaceshare" like we do screen-sharing? Then you'd be able to have your teleconferencing app separate from your whiteboard app.

jrm4 5y ago

Yo. I want! How about Oculus Go compatibility, especially since Facebook decided to be a step closer to "reasonable" when it comes to sideloading et al?

journey_16162 5y ago

I don't like to see where it's going. I mean, there are good chances this is the future of desktop computing. And it's no good in my opinion. Computers already cut us out from our bodies and trap in head as is. Replacing the screen with VR will push this effect even further. Expect more anxiety, depression, social awkwardness. I feel lucky to be born in times where we have technology and abundance but it didn't yet turn to a sci-fi dystopia created by tech nerds. And even from a productivity perspective, a regular screen is enough if it's powered by a good window manager (i.e. i3wm). There's no reason to block the reality with a VR, unless you are living and working in a room with no windows, then maybe you can get yourself a nicer view and that's it.

BlueDingo 5y ago
The ease and portability are what make me moderately interested. I had kids over the last few years and no longer have a home office. I might get a desk area at some point but the only option is right next to my wife and my time to code would be when she's asleep. So I plop on the couch with my laptop but the constraints of that setup quickly drain my energy. If I had a quality "multi monitor" setup that is ready any time, anywhere, my productivity would increase, even if the device/process itself isn't better than monitors + i3. And if that happens, I'll have a happier time coding, probably produce more code, and live a happier life (because currently I am unhappy with my lack of output and that feeds back into my family life). That isn't some magical hope either, the same would happen if I had a multi monitor office again, but buying a single device is easier. So don't despair, there will be plenty of good outcomes from stuff like this project.

kuroguro 5y ago

Are there any estimates on what would a unit cost?

moron4hire 5y ago
Well, I can tell you from a lot of research in purchasing headsets to use in an adult education environment: it'll have to be round about $1000 all-in to be competitive. That's what Oculus Quest 2s with Elite Straps through Oculus for Business or Windows MR or HTC Vive headsets with min-spec VR laptops will cost you. Pico Neo 3 is a little cheaper, but it would have also come at signficant extra development cost for us. Basically, any way I tried to slice the problem of "full VR system I can box up and send to people without having Facebook spy on them" came out to $1000/ea. We ultimately went with Oculus for Business to keep everything small and easy to setup.
kanetw 5y ago
We're planning for 2k. Due to our low volumes etc going hard on optimizing the unit cost is difficult.

escot 5y ago

The main benefit of vr seems to have many "screens" for free, but the more years I've worked the more I've reduced the number/size of screens I use. I find it more ergonomic to not be looking around so much.

ldbooth 5y ago

The website states "10x more screens ... 10x more focus ... 10x more productivity" That's a stretch! Or where to improve your pitch. Personally the only 10x productivity I get is by disconnecting from wifi. I'd love to see the windows non-square, more like a POV or fisheye if that's possible. Cool product, I hope to use it soon.

stemlord 5y ago
After about 2 or 3 visible windows at a given moment, I start becoming more distracted than productive, but this development still seems like an inevitability that I'm excited to try out.

awinter-py 5y ago

love that the email waitlist signup goes to wolframcloud

kanetw 5y ago
I've been meaning to use a proper service but it works right now and once we're actually sending I'll import the emails and do an opt-in and such.
- awinter-py 5y ago
  no I like it -- it feels like I'm interacting with a person who's using powerful tools
  - kanetw 5y ago
    both me and george are avid wolfram users. incredibly good stuff

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OOPMan 5y ago

I guess I must be the odd one out, I don't find adding more screens does a ton to help my productivity, it just means more context switching. Maybe if I needed to more stuff where I compared things side-by-side...

cjsawyer 5y ago

I would LOVE an ultra high res VR standalone headset for reading