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It's interesting, I love it, really want to do it, and am waiting impatiently for it. I have a desk with 3 big monitors on it and the idea of being able to tak

by veidr 4y ago

It's interesting, I love it, really want to do it, and am waiting impatiently for it. I have a desk with 3 big monitors on it and the idea of being able to take that workspace with me in my backpack is incredibly appealing. Working on my laptop alone (a 16" MBP) is awful in comparison. We are far away from actually being able to effectively simulate my full-desk workspace in VR. But even the Quest 2 was enough to make it easy to imagine how it will be when we get there, and obvious that this is how I want to work in the future. And for me, the future can't come soon enough; I'm ready! That's why I skipped upgrading my phone this year and ordered the Meta Quest Pro instead. I know it also won't be able to replicate my desk setup (and I really hate giving money to facebook too) but I want to experience for myself how much closer we are. To me, a VR work environment (with mixed-reality option) is the holy grail, and while its clear we aren't technologically there yet, it is equally clear that we will be within a decade or so (maybe less).

ulfw 4y ago
in your backpack to where? Sit in a coffee shop with that humongous thing on your face? to the backyard veranda enjoying the sun? Well you ain't seeing the sun, nor the backyard So where to?
- veidr 4y ago
  Yes, literally to the coffee shop, as one example. And that's why the (optional) mixed-reality feature is mandatory. I wouldn't be self-conscious about wearing a headset at a starbucks (just like I wasn't about using an in-ear bluetooth headset for my phone ~20 years ago when people thought that looked weird) — but I don't want to not be able to see the people around me in a public space even if I look at them. I think within 10-15 years you will see about as many solo customers at a typical starbucks using a mixed-reality headset as you see using wireless earbuds today. (However, I wouldn't invest the time and money to build out a cloud-powered VR engineering workspace just to be able to take it to the coffee shop. I mainly mean taking it on trips abroad, taking it home when I visit my family, etc.)
  - zmmmmm 4y ago
    I'm with you .... it's fascinating how hard it seems to be for people who aren't bought into this vision to accept there is even a low probability of it happening. But it seems almost completely obvious to me that this is where things will end up. Once an AR headset can render a high fidelity / resolution monitor virtually in front of you it will seem insane to go and buy a giant physical rectangle that is geolocked to your office or where ever you put it. The timeline is unpredictable but that's the excitement of getting in early to these types of things, because we can start to experience and anticipate what the future will look like before others even have the chance.
  - exodust 4y ago
    Why are you in a coffee shop using VR? Go somewhere else if you want to be somewhere else! If I owned a coffee shop I'd ban VR headsets. You are in my coffee shop to be in my coffee shop. Go home to use VR or sit in the park or something!
    - veidr 4y ago
      I have heard a dozen variants of this question. But I don't quite get what is hard to understand about it. In this scenario, I am using a headset (VR, with mixed reality so I can see the real world around me also as needed) for the exact same reason people use a laptop computer in a coffee shop. The difference would be that I have many big screens instead of one small screen. Like most people who go to a coffee shop alone in the city, I am not going there to... be in the coffee shop. I am going there to get a seat and get some work done (with the added bonus of a coffee, and possibly a sandwich or pastry).
      - saiya-jin 4y ago
        You don't seem to grok why Google's glasses failed so miserably - they were creepy as f*k to so many people, running around with camera only owner knows if its on or not. Absolutely nothing changed for the better, in fact this would be so much worse - now nobody else would be able to see where you are looking at, an if you are filming them while they want to have some quiet alone time. Personally I would never ever want to spend money in any food-providing business that would allow such people around us. There is a world of difference between laptops and this. Don't expect mass adoption in cafes soon, I can imagine some SF tech-friendly cafes allowing it as an experiment but overall it would be taking too much risk as an owner at least in this decade. It also begs the question why you would actually sit in café if you completely shield yourself from whole environment. At home you can usually create much more comfortable place.
veidr 4y ago
Also, as an aside, I would really like to have six monitors, or 12 even. But as a practical matter, adding more than 3-4 monitor arms to a physical desk becomes difficult. So if your startup happens to sell a-grav monitors that can just float in space above my desk, and be re-arranged by waving my hands at them, hit me up in my DMs!
- nomel 4y ago
  Working in VR often, I’ve realize dI don’t want virtual monitors at all. I want virtual app windows.
  - veidr 4y ago
    Yeah. I think the shape of what that looks like is still TBD, but I think you are right. I don't yet know personally what I want it to look like (and reserve the right to change my mind many times over the next few years) but there is no reason to stick to the conventional paradigm of "monitors" when in theory you could just let every window or widget float in space, independently or in sets. Lots of stuff yet to be innovated!
  - RajT88 4y ago
    I literally wrote a post above saying this. Allegedly some of the VR desktop environments support app windows although the one which looked most promising is Quest-only. I find it baffling that MSFT cannot figure out how to give arbitrary apps their own window in WMR and have to be written specifically to do that. Also: How is their virtual desktop app so bad compared to even the free Desktop+ on Steam?

by veidr 4y ago

ulfw 4y ago

in your backpack to where? Sit in a coffee shop with that humongous thing on your face? to the backyard veranda enjoying the sun? Well you ain't seeing the sun, nor the backyard So where to?

veidr 4y ago
Yes, literally to the coffee shop, as one example. And that's why the (optional) mixed-reality feature is mandatory. I wouldn't be self-conscious about wearing a headset at a starbucks (just like I wasn't about using an in-ear bluetooth headset for my phone ~20 years ago when people thought that looked weird) — but I don't want to not be able to see the people around me in a public space even if I look at them. I think within 10-15 years you will see about as many solo customers at a typical starbucks using a mixed-reality headset as you see using wireless earbuds today. (However, I wouldn't invest the time and money to build out a cloud-powered VR engineering workspace just to be able to take it to the coffee shop. I mainly mean taking it on trips abroad, taking it home when I visit my family, etc.)
- zmmmmm 4y ago
  I'm with you .... it's fascinating how hard it seems to be for people who aren't bought into this vision to accept there is even a low probability of it happening. But it seems almost completely obvious to me that this is where things will end up. Once an AR headset can render a high fidelity / resolution monitor virtually in front of you it will seem insane to go and buy a giant physical rectangle that is geolocked to your office or where ever you put it. The timeline is unpredictable but that's the excitement of getting in early to these types of things, because we can start to experience and anticipate what the future will look like before others even have the chance.
- exodust 4y ago
  Why are you in a coffee shop using VR? Go somewhere else if you want to be somewhere else! If I owned a coffee shop I'd ban VR headsets. You are in my coffee shop to be in my coffee shop. Go home to use VR or sit in the park or something!
  - veidr 4y ago
    I have heard a dozen variants of this question. But I don't quite get what is hard to understand about it. In this scenario, I am using a headset (VR, with mixed reality so I can see the real world around me also as needed) for the exact same reason people use a laptop computer in a coffee shop. The difference would be that I have many big screens instead of one small screen. Like most people who go to a coffee shop alone in the city, I am not going there to... be in the coffee shop. I am going there to get a seat and get some work done (with the added bonus of a coffee, and possibly a sandwich or pastry).
    - saiya-jin 4y ago
      You don't seem to grok why Google's glasses failed so miserably - they were creepy as f*k to so many people, running around with camera only owner knows if its on or not. Absolutely nothing changed for the better, in fact this would be so much worse - now nobody else would be able to see where you are looking at, an if you are filming them while they want to have some quiet alone time. Personally I would never ever want to spend money in any food-providing business that would allow such people around us. There is a world of difference between laptops and this. Don't expect mass adoption in cafes soon, I can imagine some SF tech-friendly cafes allowing it as an experiment but overall it would be taking too much risk as an owner at least in this decade. It also begs the question why you would actually sit in café if you completely shield yourself from whole environment. At home you can usually create much more comfortable place.

veidr 4y ago

Also, as an aside, I would really like to have six monitors, or 12 even. But as a practical matter, adding more than 3-4 monitor arms to a physical desk becomes difficult. So if your startup happens to sell a-grav monitors that can just float in space above my desk, and be re-arranged by waving my hands at them, hit me up in my DMs!

nomel 4y ago
Working in VR often, I’ve realize dI don’t want virtual monitors at all. I want virtual app windows.
- veidr 4y ago
  Yeah. I think the shape of what that looks like is still TBD, but I think you are right. I don't yet know personally what I want it to look like (and reserve the right to change my mind many times over the next few years) but there is no reason to stick to the conventional paradigm of "monitors" when in theory you could just let every window or widget float in space, independently or in sets. Lots of stuff yet to be innovated!
- RajT88 4y ago
  I literally wrote a post above saying this. Allegedly some of the VR desktop environments support app windows although the one which looked most promising is Quest-only. I find it baffling that MSFT cannot figure out how to give arbitrary apps their own window in WMR and have to be written specifically to do that. Also: How is their virtual desktop app so bad compared to even the free Desktop+ on Steam?