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I think this is a great analogy in that there are fundamental physiological limits on how much 3D TV the human body wants to watch, and the answer is “not much”

I think this is a great analogy in that there are fundamental physiological limits on how much 3D TV the human body wants to watch, and the answer is “not much”. All the VR/AR products I have seen fall into the same boat—a bit of a lark to use for an hour or so, beyond that, no thanks. It is a fundamentally different experience than reading a screen or listening to earbuds, and I don’t mean that in a good way.

zmmmmm 5y ago
> It is a fundamentally different experience than reading a screen It's an interesting thing to say because, one of the pending killer apps for VR is liberating us from our clunky rectangular meatworld screens that can't travel with us. It's still too low resolution now in affordable hardware, but it's at a tipping point and it is going to be quite exciting to see it cross that. I wouldn't rule out that in 5 years from now, a sizeable percentage of the professional computing workforce is using VR just for this reason alone.
- sekh60 5y ago
  Then we can cram people into even smaller cubicles.
  - xmcqdpt2 5y ago
    Bold of you to assume you'll get the minimal privacy of a cubicle's partitions. The VR office is probably going to be open concept, like a bunch or chairs in a room.
    - lambic 5y ago
      Comfy chairs at least?
      - traviscj 5y ago
        BYOC :-(
- lariati 5y ago
  My monitors are awesome though and I don't have to wear a ridiculous headset. I am never wearing a VR headset all day to save space. The day this rolls out I am asking for an exception for real monitors. I honestly don't think this is ever going to happen though. Everyone is just caught up in this hype cycle.
erikbye 5y ago
Not much, huh? I think you're wrong in saying there's a limit when it comes to AR. Our smartphones are AR devices, a poorly interfaced cybernetic extension. It's a cumbersome device yet unimaginably successful. This poor AR device has constraints that will always hamper it. It must be of a certain size to display anything useful/readable and to be a useful touch-operated device. If people put up with this poor device and it's slow information delivery, due to the poor human-computer interface, then they sure as hell will put up with AR devices of the future. This new wave of AR need not have near as hampering constraints. AR has the potential to be more successful than the modern smartphone when products are as uncumbersome, lightweight and comfortable to wear as regular glasses/sunglasses, while having the technical specs to augment reality with razor sharp and useful 2D and 3D overlays, and sound. I see no reason people will be more reluctant to put on a pair of sunglasses than carry an iPhone in their pocket or purse. Then there are other AR product forms, like contact lenses. AR has a wide host of useful applications, both civilian, social (recreational), military, engineering, medicine, etc. That's not the future, for most of these branches it is already in great use. There's a ton of R&D going on in this space.
- 3825 5y ago
  > I see no reason people will be more reluctant to put on a pair of sunglasses than carry an iPhone in their pocket or purse. I agree. I disagree however that VR is already here. It isn’t, not even close. And it will keep getting further away as we push for higher resolution and higher frame rate displays. I think there needs to be some way to power this thing all day long. Maybe Apple was onto something with its Apple Watch strategy. Create a minimally viable product and only introduce new features very slowly so you can still claim all day battery life in a happy path. Tl;dr I don’t think the limiting factor is VR itself but rather how do we power it. I don’t want something on my head that I have to charge every fifteen minutes.
- md_ 5y ago
  > Then there are other AR product forms, like contact lenses. This seems far-fetched to me. Mojo (https://spectrum.ieee.org/ar-in-a-contact-lens-its-the-real-deal https://spectrum.ieee.org/ar-in-a-contact-lens-its-the-real-...) claims to be on track for this, but: - their "working demo" is apparently not actually wearable - it has no built-in battery -- if I have to wear an inductive charger around my eye, I may as well wear smart glasses, right? - the whole thing has a bit of a Theranos feel about it I'm skeptical.
sdmac99 5y ago
My experience with VR is that there is a period of acclimatization. At first it is tough to go 30min. I got up to being able to use it for an enjoyable 3 hours or at least the full duration of the battery for watching and gaming. I find when I come back from a long vacation with no screens, looking at a monitor for 7 hours is tough.
Kiro 5y ago
I used to think the same thing, and had personal experience backing it up when buying my Quest a few years ago. I simply stopped using it after a while when the novelty wore off. What has actually happened though is that I started returning to it and can now spend many hours a day in VR (both for workout and for entertainment).
faichai 5y ago
I think it’s worth properly segregating VR from AR. VR shuts you off from the world, and only permits you to interact with people digitally. My view is this is only ever going to be a niche play for gaming and some commerce (e.g architecture, game design). AR on the other hand at its most minimal is a set of specs, and you only seeing reality. Nothing has to be always on, as someone who wears glasses this is my current world. Now introduce the ability to insert virtual objects (e.g a virtual computer screen) and my world is a little bit better. Wire it together so people can share the augment, and possibilities become limitless. Alastair Reynolds wrote a good series of books (Blue Remembered Earth) where AR was envisioned rather extensively and it was compelling. As such I view AR as the future of all computing and the market correspondingly huge.
mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
There is a much much lower limit of people willing to wear something on their head for entertainment purposes. Couple that with a cost to buying good hardware and I think VR experiences will be limited to gaming industry. Second Life never really took off as a social space. A 3D social media app would be clunky for end users compared to a phone. I believe the interactions people value the most on social media are seeing others pics/posts and marketplaces for buying/selling things. Neither of those would transfer well to 3D. If they are betting the company on VR and a "metaverse" then maybe they have reached a cap on unique users already and the growth of FB is done.
- ehnto 5y ago
  There is also a reluctance to abandon the real world, even for short periods, that I think people underestimate. Even if it were perfect, there are plenty of people who just don't want to do things in VR. They want to be in the real world, doing real world things with their real world friends. I think that's where AR has the true advantage, not in the experience of the medium but rather that you aren't fully committing to the virtual world.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  "Second Life never really took off as a social space." Not everything has to be a household name to be considered a success. Second life is very niche and very successful.
  - mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
    I agree that it doesn't have to be a household name but the level of investment and market expectations on Meta/FB is growth. If they have a niche (aka small) and successful metaverse, the larger market won't expect growth and that would reflect in the stock price.

zmmmmm 5y ago

> It is a fundamentally different experience than reading a screen It's an interesting thing to say because, one of the pending killer apps for VR is liberating us from our clunky rectangular meatworld screens that can't travel with us. It's still too low resolution now in affordable hardware, but it's at a tipping point and it is going to be quite exciting to see it cross that. I wouldn't rule out that in 5 years from now, a sizeable percentage of the professional computing workforce is using VR just for this reason alone.

sekh60 5y ago
Then we can cram people into even smaller cubicles.
- xmcqdpt2 5y ago
  Bold of you to assume you'll get the minimal privacy of a cubicle's partitions. The VR office is probably going to be open concept, like a bunch or chairs in a room.
  - lambic 5y ago
    Comfy chairs at least?
    - traviscj 5y ago
      BYOC :-(
lariati 5y ago
My monitors are awesome though and I don't have to wear a ridiculous headset. I am never wearing a VR headset all day to save space. The day this rolls out I am asking for an exception for real monitors. I honestly don't think this is ever going to happen though. Everyone is just caught up in this hype cycle.

erikbye 5y ago

Not much, huh? I think you're wrong in saying there's a limit when it comes to AR. Our smartphones are AR devices, a poorly interfaced cybernetic extension. It's a cumbersome device yet unimaginably successful. This poor AR device has constraints that will always hamper it. It must be of a certain size to display anything useful/readable and to be a useful touch-operated device. If people put up with this poor device and it's slow information delivery, due to the poor human-computer interface, then they sure as hell will put up with AR devices of the future. This new wave of AR need not have near as hampering constraints. AR has the potential to be more successful than the modern smartphone when products are as uncumbersome, lightweight and comfortable to wear as regular glasses/sunglasses, while having the technical specs to augment reality with razor sharp and useful 2D and 3D overlays, and sound. I see no reason people will be more reluctant to put on a pair of sunglasses than carry an iPhone in their pocket or purse. Then there are other AR product forms, like contact lenses. AR has a wide host of useful applications, both civilian, social (recreational), military, engineering, medicine, etc. That's not the future, for most of these branches it is already in great use. There's a ton of R&D going on in this space.

3825 5y ago
> I see no reason people will be more reluctant to put on a pair of sunglasses than carry an iPhone in their pocket or purse. I agree. I disagree however that VR is already here. It isn’t, not even close. And it will keep getting further away as we push for higher resolution and higher frame rate displays. I think there needs to be some way to power this thing all day long. Maybe Apple was onto something with its Apple Watch strategy. Create a minimally viable product and only introduce new features very slowly so you can still claim all day battery life in a happy path. Tl;dr I don’t think the limiting factor is VR itself but rather how do we power it. I don’t want something on my head that I have to charge every fifteen minutes.
md_ 5y ago
> Then there are other AR product forms, like contact lenses. This seems far-fetched to me. Mojo (https://spectrum.ieee.org/ar-in-a-contact-lens-its-the-real-deal https://spectrum.ieee.org/ar-in-a-contact-lens-its-the-real-...) claims to be on track for this, but: - their "working demo" is apparently not actually wearable - it has no built-in battery -- if I have to wear an inductive charger around my eye, I may as well wear smart glasses, right? - the whole thing has a bit of a Theranos feel about it I'm skeptical.

sdmac99 5y ago

My experience with VR is that there is a period of acclimatization. At first it is tough to go 30min. I got up to being able to use it for an enjoyable 3 hours or at least the full duration of the battery for watching and gaming. I find when I come back from a long vacation with no screens, looking at a monitor for 7 hours is tough.

Kiro 5y ago

I used to think the same thing, and had personal experience backing it up when buying my Quest a few years ago. I simply stopped using it after a while when the novelty wore off. What has actually happened though is that I started returning to it and can now spend many hours a day in VR (both for workout and for entertainment).

faichai 5y ago

I think it’s worth properly segregating VR from AR. VR shuts you off from the world, and only permits you to interact with people digitally. My view is this is only ever going to be a niche play for gaming and some commerce (e.g architecture, game design). AR on the other hand at its most minimal is a set of specs, and you only seeing reality. Nothing has to be always on, as someone who wears glasses this is my current world. Now introduce the ability to insert virtual objects (e.g a virtual computer screen) and my world is a little bit better. Wire it together so people can share the augment, and possibilities become limitless. Alastair Reynolds wrote a good series of books (Blue Remembered Earth) where AR was envisioned rather extensively and it was compelling. As such I view AR as the future of all computing and the market correspondingly huge.

mattbrewsbytes 5y ago

There is a much much lower limit of people willing to wear something on their head for entertainment purposes. Couple that with a cost to buying good hardware and I think VR experiences will be limited to gaming industry. Second Life never really took off as a social space. A 3D social media app would be clunky for end users compared to a phone. I believe the interactions people value the most on social media are seeing others pics/posts and marketplaces for buying/selling things. Neither of those would transfer well to 3D. If they are betting the company on VR and a "metaverse" then maybe they have reached a cap on unique users already and the growth of FB is done.

ehnto 5y ago
There is also a reluctance to abandon the real world, even for short periods, that I think people underestimate. Even if it were perfect, there are plenty of people who just don't want to do things in VR. They want to be in the real world, doing real world things with their real world friends. I think that's where AR has the true advantage, not in the experience of the medium but rather that you aren't fully committing to the virtual world.
datavirtue 5y ago
"Second Life never really took off as a social space." Not everything has to be a household name to be considered a success. Second life is very niche and very successful.
- mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
  I agree that it doesn't have to be a household name but the level of investment and market expectations on Meta/FB is growth. If they have a niche (aka small) and successful metaverse, the larger market won't expect growth and that would reflect in the stock price.