8 ms·

Your Next Mac

33 points by mlajtos 5y ago

Nullinker 5y ago
The hardware required for an acceptable VR experience seems to be finally within our grasp. I have been dreaming closing the human computer interface for decades. The possibilities for productivity and creativity are endless. Imagine sculpting a 3D model with you hands. Or being able to make music, not with virtual instruments but by manipulating waveforms of various audio streams with your with fingertips and feeling the sound while you sculpt it. Yet I have not seen even a tech demo for such things in VR, all innovation seems aimed consuming content, because that is where the easy money is. But I am still typing on a digital keyboard that cannot even sense how hard I am pressing the keys. What Apple did with the iPad pro and pencil for digital illustration is one example of what can be done. I hope Apple will once again innovate for creative professionals. The article contains a video of Steve Jobs talking about VR. I feel like Steve could push for something revolutionary for creative professionals, while Time Cook might give us something slightly better than that we had before.
- wheybags 5y ago
  There is vr support in the unreal editor:https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/BuildingWorlds/VRMode/ https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/BuildingWorlds/VRMo...
- scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
  And now think of young people entirely raised with access to this kind of virtual work space when it matures a few decades into the future. We will all look just as dumb and unproductive to them, as 1950’s mad men guys in offices with armies of copywriters do to us today.
  - mlajtos 5y ago
    I hope so.
- mlajtos 5y ago
  Pencil is from Cook-era Apple. Watch has a right direction now (health & fitness which goes hand-in-hand with VR), but ultimately it is just an accessory. As Pencil is. However, they have guts to call iPad Pro a computer (as in Mac sense), so I hope this framing will translate to HMD as well, but from the beginning. Blender 3.1 (2022-03-09) will have Metal support for rendering. Unity has already a native Apple Silicon build and Unity Hub is starting to feel like a Mac app. I think both will be demoed at the announcement. I think the support for the creative apps will be good at the launch and will get better over time. Creating new interaction paradigms is a hard problem and it takes time. When a lot of people will have access to the hardware and developer tools, these experiments will be abundant and something will emerge. I highly recommend Daniel Beauchamp as a great example for out-of-the-box interactions in VR: https://twitter.com/pushmatrix https://twitter.com/pushmatrix
KptMarchewa 5y ago
I certainly hope this dystopia will never happen, and VR will still be a fringe niche.
- dylan604 5y ago
  As long as it requires strapping a headset to your face which blocks all vision of the real world, I agree with this sentiment. I want a full on holodeck level set up for VR. However, I'm much more willing to accept a set of "glasses" that provides for a useable AR experience. The catch here would be that we can have the lenses still be prescribed corrective lenses. Build a frame that modern lens makers can make lenses for, yet still keep all the electronic wizardry.
  - simonh 5y ago
    The system described in the article uses cameras to provide an in-headset view of the real world. I’ve no idea if that’s good enough relative to transparent goggles though.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      I understand, just stating what/where/why my limitations exist. It still a thing strapped to my face. That's the main non-starter for anything more than novel use (sub-15 minutes). Also, knowing lensing, I'd be very suspect if these provide the peripheral vision correctly. Or could display the peripheral correctly.
- eropple 5y ago
  I hope not, too, and I really don't understand the desire to wear a HMD all day. Are these folks' lives so empty that this is better than just, like...being present? I can lean a little to the right and see my dog from where I sit to work and there are windows with good natural light all over the place. Why would I want to shut everything out? Work isn't life.
  - palijer 5y ago
zamalek 5y ago
> Better Way to See Pixels I'm not sure if the poster has actually used VR. Pixel density is still substandard, for two reasons: * It's easy to forget that you have to drive two displays. Double the resolution, half the framerate, double the nausea. If you choose lower pixel density, then your users will enjoy pixel grid. Keep in mind that the pixel grid was a big issue for the Vive (the last HMD that I owned), at 2K per-eye. * Manufacturing processes: we have to be able to make smaller pixels in the first place. We need way more graphical power in more efficient cores. Apple will need to seriously push the GPU envelope on their next chip if this is to become a reality.
- whazor 5y ago
  With eye tracking you could potentially only perform a high definition render to where you are looking. This is perfect for small text and necessary if you want to reach very high frame rates.
  - mlajtos 5y ago
    Yes, this technique is called foveated rendering. You can further speed up ray tracing by reducing noise in renders that are produced by tracing a low number of rays per pixel. Another technique is realtime super sampling via machine learning.
- caslon 5y ago
  To be fair, the Vive was six years ago. Wow, that feels sad to say. Vive: 1080×1200 per eye Index: 1440×1600 per eye Quest 2: 1832 x 1920 per eye (pushing 120hz at native resolution on a phone without it hitting thermal limits) Focus 3: 2448 × 2448 per eye Pimax 8k X: 3840 x 2160 per eye, but with a wider FOV
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mlajtos 5y ago
    Pixel resolution of HMD without stating FOV is useless. Much better unit of comparison is pixels per 1 degree (PPD). Original HTC Vive (2016), which was basically the first gen VR product, was 9.81 PPD, current Vive 2 Pro (2021) is 20.4 PPD. Oculus Quest 2 (2020) is 20.58 and currently the best is Varjo VR-3 (2021) with 70 PPD for central display and 30 PPD for peripheral display. Pimax 8K is 22.58 PPD.
dangus 5y ago
We still haven't even solved the problem of VR making a large subset of the population dizzy. I tell you this as a VR owner: even if you don't get dizzy, it's something that contributes to enough fatigue and eyestrain where there is no way to use it beyond relatively short periods. Maybe AR is better in that regard. Sure, VR is already solving very specific and niche business problems. Using AR on a factory floor (e.g., Google Glass) seems like a great application. Maybe very soon VR conferencing will be a smooth experience. The biggest problem with these technologies is that they take up so much of your viewing area. With traditional VR you can't see the outside world at all. Whatever AR solution comes out will have to find a way to be both useful but unintrusive to your peripheral awareness. The second biggest problem with VR/AR hype is that it's a solution looking for a problem. There isn't really anything we can't do on a laptop that VR/AR tech enables for non-gaming software. Everyone's been predicting the demise of the PC for decades now and it never quite happens, because that method of computing is so versatile. What does VR provide for a business that it can't get in a Zoom call with a webcam? What will I be able to do in VR that I can't do via a simple screen share? I just can't really imagine it supplanting even 5% of what we do on our phones and laptops. VR/AR will hit a plateau for the similar reasons that smartwatches haven't replaced our smartphones. I love my VR system for what it is – a fun way to play video games. This article even seems to focus on the video game aspect, but it's predicting total takeover of the computing space by virtual reality. Put me in the camp of "skeptical."
- throwaway55421 5y ago
  > What does VR provide for a business that it can't get in a Zoom call with a webcam? Well, if they did it properly, it'd be like real life except without the commute. They won't, though, because nerds will say "oh, I'd rather be completely isolated and only interact with others on my specific and limited terms". So we'll just end up with janky 3D zoom calls in isolated rooms or something, as you say. Technology is never the issue, it's politics.
- caslon 5y ago
  You can absolutely use VR for more than short periods quite comfortably without getting fatigue and eyestrain, assuming you're not running at a low FPS and your tracking is accurate. I often use it for programming, and I'm able to stay quite comfortable for around twelve hours at a stretch multiple times a week. I also play some reasonably competitive, fast-paced games, and there's no discomfort from playing those at long intervals, either.
throwaway55421 5y ago
No, I don't. I want to run in the forest, stand outside in the rain, enjoy a pint with a friend after handing over a crisp fiver. I want to chop firewood and build a cabinet. I want to feel the cold Siberian breeze, and thank the postman with a bottle of wine. Drive my old, rusty, loud car through busy city traffic, and fuck my partner over the kitchen worktop. The only real use I can see for VR that would actually appeal is in disability adjustment. Everything mentioned in the article sounds like a junkie's version of the real thing.
- mlajtos 5y ago
  I don't know why but I was picturing you in all those scenarios with a pair of sun glasses because you sounds like badass.
  - throwaway55421 5y ago
    Life is badass if you make it! :-)
Hamuko 5y ago
>It will weight 300g, and it will work for 5 hours on single charge. Do normal people use computers for less than 5 hours per day?
- judge2020 5y ago
  Obviously you'll buy two and switch between them whenever they die.
- fouc 5y ago
  seems like author is imagining the use case is more for gaming than for work. But I suppose if it had a fast charge during lunch break, that'd solve the problem.
  - mlajtos 5y ago
    5 hours was meant as a casual usage. Running a graphic-intensive game will be probably less. Fast charging with a dedicated stand would be a super nice thing.
wdb 5y ago
I personally I hope my net Mac won't be VR related. I have tried it recently but I think the quality is not there and I felt sick after using it. Does anyone else get headaches from using VR glasses?
- mlajtos 5y ago
  What devices have you tried? Apple has a good track record for making their devices accessible for a lot of people.
- ohCh6zos 5y ago
  I get a bad headache from VR, but no motion sickness. So it isn’t just you.
gmuslera 5y ago
Technology is not there yet, far from it, and not just from the hardware side. And it may have some appeal for some tasks for i.e. artists and designers, but they are not the only ones that use computers, nor those are the only uses for computers. Making sense of data and being able to turn into something meaningful for a VR display would need an army of people using normal computers, or AGIs, in the cases where that could be done, that may not be the most common case.
- fouc 5y ago
  > far from it I strongly suspect that the majority of the kinks will be ironed out before the end of this decade. Within the next 5 years the screen quality will be dramatically improved and will become a viable alternative to our monitors and laptop screens.
  - squiffsquiff 5y ago
    It's always 'about 5-10 years away' isn't it?... http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/09/in_technology_everything_is_always_five_to_10_years_away.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/0...
coldtea 5y ago
>Yes, this post will be about Virtual Reality, which will change the whole computing world. Wanna know how? Not really. It's just another hype, out of dozens peddled over the years... It's not gonna "change the whole computing world" anytime soon, any more than "voice interfaces" did (a previous hype).
- onion2k 5y ago
  I have no idea if VR is really going to change the computing world, but it definitely is an area of technology that, once the challenges are solved has a lot of potential to change how we interact with machines. A lot of those challenges are now on the brink of being consumer tech (high res 6 dof sensors, high framerate densely pixeled displays, spacial tracking of objects, etc). It's possible that the time for VR is now.
- mlajtos 5y ago
  We are primarily visual creatures – awful lot of our brain processing power is to do inverse graphics, i.e. looking and understanding what you see. Head mounted display is just another way to display stuff. We will still have recognizable GUI elements because we understand this metaphor. What UI is the best for VR is still an open design problem. Voice and body gestures are going to be important, but all those interactions has to be discovered.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    >Head mounted display is just another way to display stuff My sentiments exactly. And not the more convenient or information dense.
    - mlajtos 5y ago
      > > Head mounted display is just another way to display stuff > And not the more convenient or information dense. Compared to what?
      - coldtea 5y ago
togaen 5y ago
The tech for perfect VR already exists: it’s called “the real world.” Seriously, go outside once in a while. Stop trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
- mlajtos 5y ago
  I love real world, but my employer expects me to deliver stuff in a tiny rectangle sitting on my desk.
  - throwaway55421 5y ago
    I can guarantee that if you let VR set expectations for you, you'll be in a much worse position than that.
    - mlajtos 5y ago
      What does this sentence mean?
      - throwaway55421 5y ago
        mlajtos 5y ago
        What? I don't see anything similar being said about phones. "What do you mean you don't use a phone? That must be hard."
        throwaway55421 5y ago
flohofwoe 5y ago
This reads like it needs a (2015) in the title ;) In the meantime, VR has gone from massive overhype to at least having a small place in niche gaming (mainly combat flight simulators) where it will probably survive until the next hype cycle is due in ca 15..20 years.
- mlajtos 5y ago
  The first usable VR headset was HTC Vive in 2016. Over the last 5 years the tech got way better – larger FOV, higher pixel density, lighter optics, smaller form factor, and a good number of game titles. Gaming started it (remember Pong?), but there are awful lot of other use cases waiting to be reinvented. The neat thing is that it can simulate the old media with a high fidelity, which is a hallmark of every major class of new medium.
yumraj 5y ago
To all the folks peddling VR, just take a look at the 3D TVs. At one point they were the future, now they are nowhere. Same will happen with the VR headsets. Note: just like the peddlers are predicting that VR is the future, I’m predicting it’s not. Neither of us know the future. I’m as confident in my prediction as they are in theirs, or probably more since my prediction is not driven by self interest.
- mlajtos 5y ago
  3D TVs were trash. Starring at a tiny rectangle with your head perfectly fixed to have a fake sense of depth was never going to fly. VR is immersive – you are in the environment and not starring at it through tiny rectangle. 3D TV is a subset of VR – watching a stereoscopic movie in HMD is a bit better since you can have IMAX-like image size in your tiny living room. You having a tiny living room was just my assumption/prediction. It might be wrong as everything I am saying.
  - philjohn 5y ago
    This - I played Vader Unleashed and at one point I was on a platform that was hovering hundreds of feet up and damn, I felt wary of looking over the edge. It's also led to much faster laptimes in my sim racing, you can judge breaking points much better and the proper depth just makes driving more realistic. Finally, I've done meetings in VR and found it to be less fatiguing, even with an HMD strapped to my face, than zoom.
    - mlajtos 5y ago
      The best Tetris player has beaten his record in VR too. What conferencing software did you use? Horizon Workrooms?
      - philjohn 5y ago
        Yes - it looks cartoonish at first, but you get over that quickly. The positional audio is on point as well.
zekrioca 5y ago
Maybe related [1]: [1] Elon Musk Says the Metaverse Sucks and Neuralink Will Be Better "Sure you can put a TV on your nose. I’m not sure that makes you 'in the metaverse.'": https://futurism.com/elon-musk-metaverse-sucks-neuralink-better https://futurism.com/elon-musk-metaverse-sucks-neuralink-bet...
- onion2k 5y ago
  Musk saying a company he owns will deliver a better product is marketing. It could turn out that it's true, but whether it is or not he's going to say Neuralink is better. Musk saying VR is good would be like him talking about how great the newest BMW is.
  - zekrioca 5y ago
    I agree. Just thought it is funny, because VR is really like putting a TV on one’s nose :)
    - mlajtos 5y ago
      Yes, VR is TV on a nose, but it's here and can be bought. Neuralink is way more important tech, but it is years/decades away.
      - zekrioca 5y ago
        It is funny anyway, and I see it mostly as a preparation for Neuralink in terms of its moral aspects, which is kinda interesting philosophically speaking.
        mlajtos 5y ago
        Yes, HMD is direct visual input feed to your brain as you can get without being invasive. Neuralink implanted to visual cortex might get you similar feature, but neural "writing" (as opposed to reading, i.e. generating impulses in the brain) is a hard problem – we don't know how to encode the information. One route might be to just dump the signal in the cortex and hoping the brain will learn to interpret it as it does with other senses.
andrethegiant 5y ago
Enough with the VR. Can't wait for this trend to pass.
comeonseriously 5y ago
No. I'm not going to put one of those on my fucking head just to use a computer. I'm NOT. I already dislike wearing glasses (and contacts, etc). To think people are going to do this in mass, it's just stupid thinking. Edit: Okay drive-by downvoter(s), I get it, The above didn't "add" anything to the discussion. But you know what, this has been discussed and THE MASSES AREN'T GOING TO WEAR THAT SHIT.
- mlajtos 5y ago
  So, you dislike wearing glasses, but use them anyway because they provide a value to you. Did I get that correctly? What if a head-mounted display would provide some value to you that you would not get in any other way?
  - comeonseriously 5y ago
    Value? No, they're a medical device that I have to wear.
    - mlajtos 5y ago
      Isn't "seeing clearly" a value? Point being – even if you don't like the form factor it might give you an ability that you can't have any other way.
      - comeonseriously 5y ago
        Or it might just be some nerdy tech that a very small percent of people in the tech community feel the need to try and convince others that it is the future. It is not. And no, seeing clearly is not a value. It is a necessity.
        mlajtos 5y ago
        Absolutely agree that VR is not mainstream and it is currently positioned as mostly nerdy thing. However, I am not in the business of convincing anybody. If something happens and you will be forced to use it, I am sorry in advance.
trembonator 5y ago
squiffsquiff 5y ago
My Mac is provided by my work. I work in finance doing infrastructure for retail banking. Tell me again how VR is going to help me for deploying networks and clusters and turning off my camera in video calls whilst I go on Reddit
- scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
  Well, we don’t know, yet. You could easily turn the clock 30 years back and ask the same question with smartphones/computers. When a truly profound device hits the market we’ll see a very creative race to come up with all the different uses for it imho.
  - squiffsquiff 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure that computers were around 30 years ago, including in banking. While smartphones are a newer development and I do use mine all the time, I can't say that it has any serious impact on my work that would not be achieved with my laptop and a dumb phone. I think you need to look at the phrase 'truly profound' that you're using and consider what that actually means in context: the world wide Web has had a truly profound impact on human development contrasted to promote media. Colour TV, for example, hasn't (given radio, cinema, black and white TV already existing)
    - mlajtos 5y ago
      'Truly profound' comes from 'seeing software on tiny rectangle' vs. 'being in the software'. The full immersion is the true innovation here.
    - scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
      Well, my point more so revolves around the currently uninvented and the unimaginable uses that developers have yet to deliver on that “profound” device after it arrives, becomes prevalent, the details are figured out etc. That’s what made smartphones exciting for a couple years, right? Not only were we buying devices that were doing the things that we expected them to, but new uses and applications for them were being delivered regularly. When we imagine the new paradigm we’re usually constrained by the current one.
Koshkin 5y ago
Problem is (for me at least), after wearing a VR headset for 30 minutes my face starts looking like a raccoon's. Weight is an issue, especially for battery powered headsets.
- mlajtos 5y ago
  Yes, better comfort is necessary for using it whole day. I am guessing Apple's tight vertical integration will drive the weight down to 300g (and maybe a bit less), while distributing it evenly so the face doesn't get smashed.

33 points by mlajtos 5y ago

The hardware required for an acceptable VR experience seems to be finally within our grasp. I have been dreaming closing the human computer interface for decades. The possibilities for productivity and creativity are endless. Imagine sculpting a 3D model with you hands. Or being able to make music, not with virtual instruments but by manipulating waveforms of various audio streams with your with fingertips and feeling the sound while you sculpt it. Yet I have not seen even a tech demo for such things in VR, all innovation seems aimed consuming content, because that is where the easy money is. But I am still typing on a digital keyboard that cannot even sense how hard I am pressing the keys. What Apple did with the iPad pro and pencil for digital illustration is one example of what can be done. I hope Apple will once again innovate for creative professionals. The article contains a video of Steve Jobs talking about VR. I feel like Steve could push for something revolutionary for creative professionals, while Time Cook might give us something slightly better than that we had before.

wheybags 5y ago
There is vr support in the unreal editor:https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/BuildingWorlds/VRMode/ https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/BuildingWorlds/VRMo...
scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
And now think of young people entirely raised with access to this kind of virtual work space when it matures a few decades into the future. We will all look just as dumb and unproductive to them, as 1950’s mad men guys in offices with armies of copywriters do to us today.
- mlajtos 5y ago
  I hope so.
mlajtos 5y ago
Pencil is from Cook-era Apple. Watch has a right direction now (health & fitness which goes hand-in-hand with VR), but ultimately it is just an accessory. As Pencil is. However, they have guts to call iPad Pro a computer (as in Mac sense), so I hope this framing will translate to HMD as well, but from the beginning. Blender 3.1 (2022-03-09) will have Metal support for rendering. Unity has already a native Apple Silicon build and Unity Hub is starting to feel like a Mac app. I think both will be demoed at the announcement. I think the support for the creative apps will be good at the launch and will get better over time. Creating new interaction paradigms is a hard problem and it takes time. When a lot of people will have access to the hardware and developer tools, these experiments will be abundant and something will emerge. I highly recommend Daniel Beauchamp as a great example for out-of-the-box interactions in VR: https://twitter.com/pushmatrix https://twitter.com/pushmatrix

KptMarchewa 5y ago

I certainly hope this dystopia will never happen, and VR will still be a fringe niche.

dylan604 5y ago
As long as it requires strapping a headset to your face which blocks all vision of the real world, I agree with this sentiment. I want a full on holodeck level set up for VR. However, I'm much more willing to accept a set of "glasses" that provides for a useable AR experience. The catch here would be that we can have the lenses still be prescribed corrective lenses. Build a frame that modern lens makers can make lenses for, yet still keep all the electronic wizardry.
- simonh 5y ago
  The system described in the article uses cameras to provide an in-headset view of the real world. I’ve no idea if that’s good enough relative to transparent goggles though.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    I understand, just stating what/where/why my limitations exist. It still a thing strapped to my face. That's the main non-starter for anything more than novel use (sub-15 minutes). Also, knowing lensing, I'd be very suspect if these provide the peripheral vision correctly. Or could display the peripheral correctly.
eropple 5y ago
I hope not, too, and I really don't understand the desire to wear a HMD all day. Are these folks' lives so empty that this is better than just, like...being present? I can lean a little to the right and see my dog from where I sit to work and there are windows with good natural light all over the place. Why would I want to shut everything out? Work isn't life.
- palijer 5y ago

zamalek 5y ago

> Better Way to See Pixels I'm not sure if the poster has actually used VR. Pixel density is still substandard, for two reasons: * It's easy to forget that you have to drive two displays. Double the resolution, half the framerate, double the nausea. If you choose lower pixel density, then your users will enjoy pixel grid. Keep in mind that the pixel grid was a big issue for the Vive (the last HMD that I owned), at 2K per-eye. * Manufacturing processes: we have to be able to make smaller pixels in the first place. We need way more graphical power in more efficient cores. Apple will need to seriously push the GPU envelope on their next chip if this is to become a reality.

whazor 5y ago
With eye tracking you could potentially only perform a high definition render to where you are looking. This is perfect for small text and necessary if you want to reach very high frame rates.
- mlajtos 5y ago
  Yes, this technique is called foveated rendering. You can further speed up ray tracing by reducing noise in renders that are produced by tracing a low number of rays per pixel. Another technique is realtime super sampling via machine learning.
caslon 5y ago
To be fair, the Vive was six years ago. Wow, that feels sad to say. Vive: 1080×1200 per eye Index: 1440×1600 per eye Quest 2: 1832 x 1920 per eye (pushing 120hz at native resolution on a phone without it hitting thermal limits) Focus 3: 2448 × 2448 per eye Pimax 8k X: 3840 x 2160 per eye, but with a wider FOV
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mlajtos 5y ago
  Pixel resolution of HMD without stating FOV is useless. Much better unit of comparison is pixels per 1 degree (PPD). Original HTC Vive (2016), which was basically the first gen VR product, was 9.81 PPD, current Vive 2 Pro (2021) is 20.4 PPD. Oculus Quest 2 (2020) is 20.58 and currently the best is Varjo VR-3 (2021) with 70 PPD for central display and 30 PPD for peripheral display. Pimax 8K is 22.58 PPD.

dangus 5y ago

We still haven't even solved the problem of VR making a large subset of the population dizzy. I tell you this as a VR owner: even if you don't get dizzy, it's something that contributes to enough fatigue and eyestrain where there is no way to use it beyond relatively short periods. Maybe AR is better in that regard. Sure, VR is already solving very specific and niche business problems. Using AR on a factory floor (e.g., Google Glass) seems like a great application. Maybe very soon VR conferencing will be a smooth experience. The biggest problem with these technologies is that they take up so much of your viewing area. With traditional VR you can't see the outside world at all. Whatever AR solution comes out will have to find a way to be both useful but unintrusive to your peripheral awareness. The second biggest problem with VR/AR hype is that it's a solution looking for a problem. There isn't really anything we can't do on a laptop that VR/AR tech enables for non-gaming software. Everyone's been predicting the demise of the PC for decades now and it never quite happens, because that method of computing is so versatile. What does VR provide for a business that it can't get in a Zoom call with a webcam? What will I be able to do in VR that I can't do via a simple screen share? I just can't really imagine it supplanting even 5% of what we do on our phones and laptops. VR/AR will hit a plateau for the similar reasons that smartwatches haven't replaced our smartphones. I love my VR system for what it is – a fun way to play video games. This article even seems to focus on the video game aspect, but it's predicting total takeover of the computing space by virtual reality. Put me in the camp of "skeptical."

throwaway55421 5y ago
> What does VR provide for a business that it can't get in a Zoom call with a webcam? Well, if they did it properly, it'd be like real life except without the commute. They won't, though, because nerds will say "oh, I'd rather be completely isolated and only interact with others on my specific and limited terms". So we'll just end up with janky 3D zoom calls in isolated rooms or something, as you say. Technology is never the issue, it's politics.
caslon 5y ago
You can absolutely use VR for more than short periods quite comfortably without getting fatigue and eyestrain, assuming you're not running at a low FPS and your tracking is accurate. I often use it for programming, and I'm able to stay quite comfortable for around twelve hours at a stretch multiple times a week. I also play some reasonably competitive, fast-paced games, and there's no discomfort from playing those at long intervals, either.

throwaway55421 5y ago

No, I don't. I want to run in the forest, stand outside in the rain, enjoy a pint with a friend after handing over a crisp fiver. I want to chop firewood and build a cabinet. I want to feel the cold Siberian breeze, and thank the postman with a bottle of wine. Drive my old, rusty, loud car through busy city traffic, and fuck my partner over the kitchen worktop. The only real use I can see for VR that would actually appeal is in disability adjustment. Everything mentioned in the article sounds like a junkie's version of the real thing.

mlajtos 5y ago
I don't know why but I was picturing you in all those scenarios with a pair of sun glasses because you sounds like badass.
- throwaway55421 5y ago
  Life is badass if you make it! :-)

Hamuko 5y ago

>It will weight 300g, and it will work for 5 hours on single charge. Do normal people use computers for less than 5 hours per day?

judge2020 5y ago
Obviously you'll buy two and switch between them whenever they die.
fouc 5y ago
seems like author is imagining the use case is more for gaming than for work. But I suppose if it had a fast charge during lunch break, that'd solve the problem.
- mlajtos 5y ago
  5 hours was meant as a casual usage. Running a graphic-intensive game will be probably less. Fast charging with a dedicated stand would be a super nice thing.

wdb 5y ago

I personally I hope my net Mac won't be VR related. I have tried it recently but I think the quality is not there and I felt sick after using it. Does anyone else get headaches from using VR glasses?

mlajtos 5y ago
What devices have you tried? Apple has a good track record for making their devices accessible for a lot of people.
ohCh6zos 5y ago
I get a bad headache from VR, but no motion sickness. So it isn’t just you.

gmuslera 5y ago

Technology is not there yet, far from it, and not just from the hardware side. And it may have some appeal for some tasks for i.e. artists and designers, but they are not the only ones that use computers, nor those are the only uses for computers. Making sense of data and being able to turn into something meaningful for a VR display would need an army of people using normal computers, or AGIs, in the cases where that could be done, that may not be the most common case.

fouc 5y ago
> far from it I strongly suspect that the majority of the kinks will be ironed out before the end of this decade. Within the next 5 years the screen quality will be dramatically improved and will become a viable alternative to our monitors and laptop screens.
- squiffsquiff 5y ago
  It's always 'about 5-10 years away' isn't it?... http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/09/in_technology_everything_is_always_five_to_10_years_away.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/0...

coldtea 5y ago

>Yes, this post will be about Virtual Reality, which will change the whole computing world. Wanna know how? Not really. It's just another hype, out of dozens peddled over the years... It's not gonna "change the whole computing world" anytime soon, any more than "voice interfaces" did (a previous hype).

onion2k 5y ago
I have no idea if VR is really going to change the computing world, but it definitely is an area of technology that, once the challenges are solved has a lot of potential to change how we interact with machines. A lot of those challenges are now on the brink of being consumer tech (high res 6 dof sensors, high framerate densely pixeled displays, spacial tracking of objects, etc). It's possible that the time for VR is now.
mlajtos 5y ago
We are primarily visual creatures – awful lot of our brain processing power is to do inverse graphics, i.e. looking and understanding what you see. Head mounted display is just another way to display stuff. We will still have recognizable GUI elements because we understand this metaphor. What UI is the best for VR is still an open design problem. Voice and body gestures are going to be important, but all those interactions has to be discovered.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >Head mounted display is just another way to display stuff My sentiments exactly. And not the more convenient or information dense.
  - mlajtos 5y ago
    > > Head mounted display is just another way to display stuff > And not the more convenient or information dense. Compared to what?
    - coldtea 5y ago

togaen 5y ago

The tech for perfect VR already exists: it’s called “the real world.” Seriously, go outside once in a while. Stop trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

mlajtos 5y ago
I love real world, but my employer expects me to deliver stuff in a tiny rectangle sitting on my desk.
- throwaway55421 5y ago
  I can guarantee that if you let VR set expectations for you, you'll be in a much worse position than that.
  - mlajtos 5y ago
    What does this sentence mean?
    - throwaway55421 5y ago
      - mlajtos 5y ago
        What? I don't see anything similar being said about phones. "What do you mean you don't use a phone? That must be hard."
        throwaway55421 5y ago

flohofwoe 5y ago

This reads like it needs a (2015) in the title ;) In the meantime, VR has gone from massive overhype to at least having a small place in niche gaming (mainly combat flight simulators) where it will probably survive until the next hype cycle is due in ca 15..20 years.

mlajtos 5y ago
The first usable VR headset was HTC Vive in 2016. Over the last 5 years the tech got way better – larger FOV, higher pixel density, lighter optics, smaller form factor, and a good number of game titles. Gaming started it (remember Pong?), but there are awful lot of other use cases waiting to be reinvented. The neat thing is that it can simulate the old media with a high fidelity, which is a hallmark of every major class of new medium.

yumraj 5y ago

To all the folks peddling VR, just take a look at the 3D TVs. At one point they were the future, now they are nowhere. Same will happen with the VR headsets. Note: just like the peddlers are predicting that VR is the future, I’m predicting it’s not. Neither of us know the future. I’m as confident in my prediction as they are in theirs, or probably more since my prediction is not driven by self interest.

mlajtos 5y ago
3D TVs were trash. Starring at a tiny rectangle with your head perfectly fixed to have a fake sense of depth was never going to fly. VR is immersive – you are in the environment and not starring at it through tiny rectangle. 3D TV is a subset of VR – watching a stereoscopic movie in HMD is a bit better since you can have IMAX-like image size in your tiny living room. You having a tiny living room was just my assumption/prediction. It might be wrong as everything I am saying.
- philjohn 5y ago
  This - I played Vader Unleashed and at one point I was on a platform that was hovering hundreds of feet up and damn, I felt wary of looking over the edge. It's also led to much faster laptimes in my sim racing, you can judge breaking points much better and the proper depth just makes driving more realistic. Finally, I've done meetings in VR and found it to be less fatiguing, even with an HMD strapped to my face, than zoom.
  - mlajtos 5y ago
    The best Tetris player has beaten his record in VR too. What conferencing software did you use? Horizon Workrooms?
    - philjohn 5y ago
      Yes - it looks cartoonish at first, but you get over that quickly. The positional audio is on point as well.

zekrioca 5y ago

Maybe related [1]: [1] Elon Musk Says the Metaverse Sucks and Neuralink Will Be Better "Sure you can put a TV on your nose. I’m not sure that makes you 'in the metaverse.'": https://futurism.com/elon-musk-metaverse-sucks-neuralink-better https://futurism.com/elon-musk-metaverse-sucks-neuralink-bet...

onion2k 5y ago
Musk saying a company he owns will deliver a better product is marketing. It could turn out that it's true, but whether it is or not he's going to say Neuralink is better. Musk saying VR is good would be like him talking about how great the newest BMW is.
- zekrioca 5y ago
  I agree. Just thought it is funny, because VR is really like putting a TV on one’s nose :)
  - mlajtos 5y ago
    Yes, VR is TV on a nose, but it's here and can be bought. Neuralink is way more important tech, but it is years/decades away.
    - zekrioca 5y ago
      It is funny anyway, and I see it mostly as a preparation for Neuralink in terms of its moral aspects, which is kinda interesting philosophically speaking.
      - mlajtos 5y ago
        Yes, HMD is direct visual input feed to your brain as you can get without being invasive. Neuralink implanted to visual cortex might get you similar feature, but neural "writing" (as opposed to reading, i.e. generating impulses in the brain) is a hard problem – we don't know how to encode the information. One route might be to just dump the signal in the cortex and hoping the brain will learn to interpret it as it does with other senses.

andrethegiant 5y ago

Enough with the VR. Can't wait for this trend to pass.

comeonseriously 5y ago

No. I'm not going to put one of those on my fucking head just to use a computer. I'm NOT. I already dislike wearing glasses (and contacts, etc). To think people are going to do this in mass, it's just stupid thinking. Edit: Okay drive-by downvoter(s), I get it, The above didn't "add" anything to the discussion. But you know what, this has been discussed and THE MASSES AREN'T GOING TO WEAR THAT SHIT.

mlajtos 5y ago
So, you dislike wearing glasses, but use them anyway because they provide a value to you. Did I get that correctly? What if a head-mounted display would provide some value to you that you would not get in any other way?
- comeonseriously 5y ago
  Value? No, they're a medical device that I have to wear.
  - mlajtos 5y ago
    Isn't "seeing clearly" a value? Point being – even if you don't like the form factor it might give you an ability that you can't have any other way.
    - comeonseriously 5y ago
      Or it might just be some nerdy tech that a very small percent of people in the tech community feel the need to try and convince others that it is the future. It is not. And no, seeing clearly is not a value. It is a necessity.
      - mlajtos 5y ago
        Absolutely agree that VR is not mainstream and it is currently positioned as mostly nerdy thing. However, I am not in the business of convincing anybody. If something happens and you will be forced to use it, I am sorry in advance.

trembonator 5y ago

squiffsquiff 5y ago

My Mac is provided by my work. I work in finance doing infrastructure for retail banking. Tell me again how VR is going to help me for deploying networks and clusters and turning off my camera in video calls whilst I go on Reddit

scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
Well, we don’t know, yet. You could easily turn the clock 30 years back and ask the same question with smartphones/computers. When a truly profound device hits the market we’ll see a very creative race to come up with all the different uses for it imho.
- squiffsquiff 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure that computers were around 30 years ago, including in banking. While smartphones are a newer development and I do use mine all the time, I can't say that it has any serious impact on my work that would not be achieved with my laptop and a dumb phone. I think you need to look at the phrase 'truly profound' that you're using and consider what that actually means in context: the world wide Web has had a truly profound impact on human development contrasted to promote media. Colour TV, for example, hasn't (given radio, cinema, black and white TV already existing)
  - mlajtos 5y ago
    'Truly profound' comes from 'seeing software on tiny rectangle' vs. 'being in the software'. The full immersion is the true innovation here.
  - scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
    Well, my point more so revolves around the currently uninvented and the unimaginable uses that developers have yet to deliver on that “profound” device after it arrives, becomes prevalent, the details are figured out etc. That’s what made smartphones exciting for a couple years, right? Not only were we buying devices that were doing the things that we expected them to, but new uses and applications for them were being delivered regularly. When we imagine the new paradigm we’re usually constrained by the current one.

Koshkin 5y ago

Problem is (for me at least), after wearing a VR headset for 30 minutes my face starts looking like a raccoon's. Weight is an issue, especially for battery powered headsets.

mlajtos 5y ago
Yes, better comfort is necessary for using it whole day. I am guessing Apple's tight vertical integration will drive the weight down to 300g (and maybe a bit less), while distributing it evenly so the face doesn't get smashed.