6 ms·

Until we can see each other's faces in VR, this won't work for social presence. Shrinking everything down to contact lenses (even sunglasses get in the way of s

Until we can see each other's faces in VR, this won't work for social presence. Shrinking everything down to contact lenses (even sunglasses get in the way of social contact) is likely to be beyond us for quite some while if ever. I'd rather not put something in my eye anyway. Further, VR does not work well for switching - you can't be in VR and scribble notes at the same time. AR might be an improvement, but not by much. Video conferencing does not suffer from any of these problems, and works pretty well for collaboration. 'Zoom fatigue' is definitely a thing though - it's unclear whether VR fatigue would be better or worse. VR/AR will see limited adoption for certain specialised use cases only.

mettamage 5y ago
You don't need to shrink down, you might be able to scan faces in vr glasses and put them in the vr world
- runnerup 5y ago
  The HP Omnicept, based on the Reverb G2, adds a camera that points at the lower half of the face and a Tobii eye tracker looking at the eyes. You could do a LOT of avatar face reconstruction with that.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- TigeriusKirk 5y ago
  Meta is of course working on exactly this.
footlose_3815 5y ago
We all just need our own Council of Thirteen (From the Venture Bros) https://i.cdn.turner.com/adultswim/big/image-upload/thumbnails/thumb-2_image-15368496160109.jpg https://i.cdn.turner.com/adultswim/big/image-upload/thumbnai...
charlesju 5y ago
https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/1442201621266534402 https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/1442201621266534402 Please read this, and then read up on why everyone is talking about web 3.0. This isn't a phase of the metaverse that is going to be different because of screen and control technology, it's an ownership and control shift.
- gfodor 5y ago
  These trends are converging but the most valuable contribution of HMDs imo is remote social presence. It’s not their only contribution, and the economic revolution of web3 would have happened without HMDs imo.
gfodor 5y ago
What you’re posting here is “common knowledge”, but it is actually in conflict with social presence research. VR beats video conferencing even without any facial tracking, and the abject failure of video conferencing in the pandemic to replace most of the feeling of face to face communication should be enough to convince people there is merit to the studies that have been done showing it scores poorly. In VR you multitask by bringing the computing environment into the virtual environment. So there is no deficit there. I think you haven’t tried these things before so you are just speculating.
- teucris 5y ago
  Interesting. Links to research?
  - gfodor 5y ago
    Here is a talk I gave a few years ago - I haven’t kept up tho so there may be better sources now. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_5w8xbeCc2Q https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_5w8xbeCc2Q
  - sweetdreamerit 5y ago
    The literature I know defines social presence as something that has only partially to do with technology (and Virtual Reality) [0]. The advantage of VR is that it can enhance the sense of immersivity in some circumstances [1]. [0] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01587919.2017.1324727 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01587919.2017.13... [1] https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/50061 https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/50061
- jonnycomputer 5y ago
  And the actual benefit of the feeling of face to face communication is?
  - gfodor 5y ago
    We spend a sizable % of US energy moving physical bodies around, so apparently people do in fact like face to face communication.
AlwaysRock 5y ago
All of these points could start with the word, "Currently, ". Don't you think having one of the world largest companies throwing massive amounts of time and money into these issues could solve a few of these?
- mulderc 5y ago
  Given that several of the largest and wealthiest companies (google and Microsoft) in the world can’t make decent chat apps and meta seems unable to make a product that doesn’t incite ethnic tensions around the world. I’m skeptical of such organizations to solve many of these issues.
  - gfodor 5y ago
    The progression from DK1 to Quest 2 proves that effective technological miracles are in the reach of Facebook’s VR group. It’s pretty insane what has been done so far.
    - dathinab 5y ago
      You need to separate technical progression of VR headsets from the whole meta-verse idea. It's out of question that Facebook (and other companies) did a good job in progressing VR headsets technology (through I wouldn't call it a miracle). But the meta-verse idea as presented by Facebook doesn't look too promising IMHO. It looks out of touch with reality and it's from Facebook. A company well known to try to force their world view onto all other people around the world, ignoring any ethical questions arising. Sure by renaming themself they will manage to somewhat run away from their responsibilities, but as they don't really change their ways it's just a mater of time until we will have the next batch of scandals, now attached to the "meta"-name instead of Facebook.
    - mulderc 5y ago
      We have very different definitions of insane apparently. I enjoy my quest 2 but it still very much feels like a smartphone strapped to my face. Basic aspects of the software like the guardian have issues all the time. Each software update seems to fix some bugs and introduce new ones. I am deeply skeptical meta is going to make the kinds of fundamental breakthroughs that will make VR mainstream and useful to people. Right now they are basically brute forcing the issue with tons of money and even then I am a bit underwhelmed and I use my quest almost daily.
roveo 5y ago
There are algos that reconstruct photorealistic 3D facial expressions from headset cameras in realtime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3XcQtoja_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3XcQtoja_Y
LdSGSgvupDV 5y ago
> Further, VR does not work well for switching - you can't be in VR and scribble notes at the same time. In VRChat, you could write something in the air by hands, or even play the piano. The problem might be the user experience is not as good as real world hand writing/typing, and there is no physical feedback when writing/typing. That might make people feel weird.

mettamage 5y ago

You don't need to shrink down, you might be able to scan faces in vr glasses and put them in the vr world

runnerup 5y ago
The HP Omnicept, based on the Reverb G2, adds a camera that points at the lower half of the face and a Tobii eye tracker looking at the eyes. You could do a LOT of avatar face reconstruction with that.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
TigeriusKirk 5y ago
Meta is of course working on exactly this.

footlose_3815 5y ago

We all just need our own Council of Thirteen (From the Venture Bros) https://i.cdn.turner.com/adultswim/big/image-upload/thumbnails/thumb-2_image-15368496160109.jpg https://i.cdn.turner.com/adultswim/big/image-upload/thumbnai...

charlesju 5y ago

https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/1442201621266534402 https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/1442201621266534402 Please read this, and then read up on why everyone is talking about web 3.0. This isn't a phase of the metaverse that is going to be different because of screen and control technology, it's an ownership and control shift.

gfodor 5y ago
These trends are converging but the most valuable contribution of HMDs imo is remote social presence. It’s not their only contribution, and the economic revolution of web3 would have happened without HMDs imo.

gfodor 5y ago

What you’re posting here is “common knowledge”, but it is actually in conflict with social presence research. VR beats video conferencing even without any facial tracking, and the abject failure of video conferencing in the pandemic to replace most of the feeling of face to face communication should be enough to convince people there is merit to the studies that have been done showing it scores poorly. In VR you multitask by bringing the computing environment into the virtual environment. So there is no deficit there. I think you haven’t tried these things before so you are just speculating.

teucris 5y ago
Interesting. Links to research?
- gfodor 5y ago
  Here is a talk I gave a few years ago - I haven’t kept up tho so there may be better sources now. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_5w8xbeCc2Q https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_5w8xbeCc2Q
- sweetdreamerit 5y ago
  The literature I know defines social presence as something that has only partially to do with technology (and Virtual Reality) [0]. The advantage of VR is that it can enhance the sense of immersivity in some circumstances [1]. [0] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01587919.2017.1324727 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01587919.2017.13... [1] https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/50061 https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/50061
jonnycomputer 5y ago
And the actual benefit of the feeling of face to face communication is?
- gfodor 5y ago
  We spend a sizable % of US energy moving physical bodies around, so apparently people do in fact like face to face communication.

AlwaysRock 5y ago

All of these points could start with the word, "Currently, ". Don't you think having one of the world largest companies throwing massive amounts of time and money into these issues could solve a few of these?

mulderc 5y ago
Given that several of the largest and wealthiest companies (google and Microsoft) in the world can’t make decent chat apps and meta seems unable to make a product that doesn’t incite ethnic tensions around the world. I’m skeptical of such organizations to solve many of these issues.
- gfodor 5y ago
  The progression from DK1 to Quest 2 proves that effective technological miracles are in the reach of Facebook’s VR group. It’s pretty insane what has been done so far.
  - dathinab 5y ago
    You need to separate technical progression of VR headsets from the whole meta-verse idea. It's out of question that Facebook (and other companies) did a good job in progressing VR headsets technology (through I wouldn't call it a miracle). But the meta-verse idea as presented by Facebook doesn't look too promising IMHO. It looks out of touch with reality and it's from Facebook. A company well known to try to force their world view onto all other people around the world, ignoring any ethical questions arising. Sure by renaming themself they will manage to somewhat run away from their responsibilities, but as they don't really change their ways it's just a mater of time until we will have the next batch of scandals, now attached to the "meta"-name instead of Facebook.
  - mulderc 5y ago
    We have very different definitions of insane apparently. I enjoy my quest 2 but it still very much feels like a smartphone strapped to my face. Basic aspects of the software like the guardian have issues all the time. Each software update seems to fix some bugs and introduce new ones. I am deeply skeptical meta is going to make the kinds of fundamental breakthroughs that will make VR mainstream and useful to people. Right now they are basically brute forcing the issue with tons of money and even then I am a bit underwhelmed and I use my quest almost daily.

roveo 5y ago

There are algos that reconstruct photorealistic 3D facial expressions from headset cameras in realtime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3XcQtoja_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3XcQtoja_Y

LdSGSgvupDV 5y ago

> Further, VR does not work well for switching - you can't be in VR and scribble notes at the same time. In VRChat, you could write something in the air by hands, or even play the piano. The problem might be the user experience is not as good as real world hand writing/typing, and there is no physical feedback when writing/typing. That might make people feel weird.