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Ok, so a PC version of The Office might be “compelling”, but does anybody really think that companies are going to supply their employees with $1k PC just so th

Ok, so a PC version of The Office might be “compelling”, but does anybody really think that companies are going to supply their employees with $1k PC just so that they can do a digital meetup instead of just a normal phone call and a letter? I think PCs has merit and could be very useful in some spaces like development, exploring new productivity (with good keyboards) or maybe even prototyping architectural designs etc, but these are too niche for whatever Gates is trying here… for his billion dollar bet to succeed nearly everyone would have to be using his PC product.

tacker2000 4y ago
Yes, of course your argument is valid. But i still think the functionality gained by VR is more of a smaller incremental one, rather than the revolutionary one that the PC was back then.
- tmikaeld 4y ago
  I think it depend on two things: - It needs to be light enough to wear 8 hours a day and not disconnect too much from reality, like with XR/AR. - Input devices matter a great deal and writing on a keyboard - while in the field - will pose a problem, same goes with mouse input devices. The current controllers are too large and slow for productive input.
  - intrasight 4y ago
    Mostly agree. But on "input devices" I don't think the keyboard will as we know it will make the transition. Anyway, it's a very unnatural input device which only a small percentage of humanity has mastered. Steve Jobs famously told his designers in the 80s that he didn't want the Mac to have a physical keyboard. They said, rightly at the time, that a computer needs one. But in the end Jobs was correct - 99% of computers now have no keyboard. I have not followed research in this area, but I'm sure that some very smart people are trying to figure out the ideal virtual keyboard for VR.
    - tmikaeld 4y ago
      Voice interpretation using AI is very nearly there, it's the only input that isn't finicky.
      - w0m 4y ago
        'forward two space, no back 1. down 3 and replace inner words with... no; undo. cancel. cancel. UNDO'.
        tmikaeld 4y ago
        "Nearly" there, the problem with people mumbling or having a bad voice for recognition of microphones will always be an issue though, no matter how good the AI is..
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      > 99% of computers now have no keyboard. And I miss them, every time I use those computers. The Keyboard (and mouse, even if the Vi people will probably want to lynch me for that) is still the most efficient input device. That might eventually change through some UI revolution, but all we have so far are UIs with fewer features in exchange for making touch usage slightly easier.
      - intrasight 4y ago
        >is still the most efficient input device And has only existed for last 70 years of human history. I doubt it'll stick with us.
        wtetzner 4y ago
        The first commercial typewriters became available in the late 1800s.
    - fomine3 4y ago
      Nit: Even if assume that all global population (7B) have smartphone and tablet (so 14B), 1% is 14M. It's too low count for how much PC used. Also popular better input system for long text hasn't used now. I don't think keyboard is the endgame device, but keyboard era is very long than we expected.
- TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
  It's not, though. The company laptop does a lot more than do Zoom calls.
delecti 4y ago
Yeah, today's "unrealistically expensive" is tomorrow's basic toolkit. I don't know if a Meta headset will be tomorrow's basic toolkit, but I also don't know that I would have predicted smartphones being ubiquitous in 2000 or the PC in 1970.
- Maakuth 4y ago
  Moreover, surely many companies dropped $1k per employee for better equipping their workforce to work remotely during the pandemic. Yearly IT costs per seat surely exceed $1k in many if not most companies, so this is not really expensive.
rrss 4y ago
Can you articulate the benefits of VR meetings that are comparable to those of personal computers and that motivate equating the two?
- tmikaeld 4y ago
  Sure: - You're able to visibly instruct and teach physical objects without being physically on-site. Now apply that to professions like cooking, teaching, repairs, art, entertainment, music, industrial etc.
  - throwaway346434 4y ago
    So: you need to learn how to be a chef. Off you go to VR chef school for... a few weeks. Congrats, you qre a chef now. Was it worth the hardware yout wont use qgain?
  - rrss 4y ago
    I don’t get the sense that horizon workrooms targets any of that. It appears to have a goal of recreating normal conference rooms with virtual tables, whiteboards, TVs. I can imagine that VR in general has some applications that are valuable, but this particular article is about the potential of replacing normal voice and video calls with avatars in a virtual conference room.
  - fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
    I’ve observed simulations in VR that were compelling–I still remember parts of them well even now. However, these simulations were pre-recorded or preset and my range of inputs were limited to a set of menus from which I could select different options to simulate. When I played various games with a wider range of input options, there was a noticeable latency, and the virtual environment did not fully capture my real or intended motions very well. I think there are possibilities for VR in certain fields, but when it comes to arts and sciences like cooking and music, there are some aspects of the physical world that, to be captured in a compelling and useful way, will require significant progress or significant modification to extant VR hardware and software. In cooking, there is a tangible, tactile difference in using a cleaver versus a pairing knife, and there is a tangible, tactile difference between cutting a head of kale, versus a large tuna. Likewise, there is a tangible, tactile component to interacting with instruments, and a large part of learning an instrument is developing not just the muscle memory of interacting with it, but developing the fine muscles involved as well. In both cases, the learning requires the use of the specific instrument, and there is a genuine limitation in practical learning when the medium of instruction and the instrument of instruction is generalized to a set of what are essentially game controllers. It seems to me the virtualization of physical interactions, without proper and necessary modifications to hardware and software, will leave VR bereft of the instructive capability it is relying on in order to be useful in this business/enterprise context in which it would like to be considered.
KidComputer 4y ago
Is that a serious argument? PCs offered tremendous utility over phones and letters. What utility does VR provide over a regular PC? Oh that’s right, virtually none.
- pavlov 4y ago
  The PC of 1981 offered so little immediate utility that the microcomputer press was desperately pushing "maybe housewives can archive their recipes" as a use case for personal computers. Remember, it wasn't networked, and the I/O was limited to a crappy matrix printer at best. There was practically no software, and most professionals and managers didn't know how to type since that was a secretary's task.
  - KidComputer 4y ago
    Yet VR has none of those limitations and it still hasn't taken off like personal computers. Weird, it's almost like VR is just an interface and anything you can view in it you can just view on a regular screen, which most people prefer. Also the comparison to early computers a little weird. VR isn't a platform that can scale out to to handle billions of e-commerce transactions or solve computational biology problems. Apples to oranges.
rrss 4y ago
Also > these are too niche for whatever Gates is trying here… for his billion dollar bet to succeed nearly everyone would have to be using his PC product. I don’t think Microsoft / Gates had a “billion dollar bet” that’s comparable to what Zuckerberg is doing with VR and the metaverse. Meta sells ads on a social network and is using money from that business to subsidize the development of VR applications on the theory that someday meta might make lots of money from VR. Microsoft sold software for personal computers, made a lot of money doing it, and used that money to fund the development of more software for personal computers. At no point in this early history was there a billion dollar bet.
- nmfisher 4y ago
  > Microsoft sold software for personal computers, made a lot of money doing it, and used that money to fund the development of more software for personal computers. At no point in this early history was there a billion dollar bet. Xbox?

tacker2000 4y ago

Yes, of course your argument is valid. But i still think the functionality gained by VR is more of a smaller incremental one, rather than the revolutionary one that the PC was back then.

tmikaeld 4y ago
I think it depend on two things: - It needs to be light enough to wear 8 hours a day and not disconnect too much from reality, like with XR/AR. - Input devices matter a great deal and writing on a keyboard - while in the field - will pose a problem, same goes with mouse input devices. The current controllers are too large and slow for productive input.
- intrasight 4y ago
  Mostly agree. But on "input devices" I don't think the keyboard will as we know it will make the transition. Anyway, it's a very unnatural input device which only a small percentage of humanity has mastered. Steve Jobs famously told his designers in the 80s that he didn't want the Mac to have a physical keyboard. They said, rightly at the time, that a computer needs one. But in the end Jobs was correct - 99% of computers now have no keyboard. I have not followed research in this area, but I'm sure that some very smart people are trying to figure out the ideal virtual keyboard for VR.
  - tmikaeld 4y ago
    Voice interpretation using AI is very nearly there, it's the only input that isn't finicky.
    - w0m 4y ago
      'forward two space, no back 1. down 3 and replace inner words with... no; undo. cancel. cancel. UNDO'.
      - tmikaeld 4y ago
        "Nearly" there, the problem with people mumbling or having a bad voice for recognition of microphones will always be an issue though, no matter how good the AI is..
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    > 99% of computers now have no keyboard. And I miss them, every time I use those computers. The Keyboard (and mouse, even if the Vi people will probably want to lynch me for that) is still the most efficient input device. That might eventually change through some UI revolution, but all we have so far are UIs with fewer features in exchange for making touch usage slightly easier.
    - intrasight 4y ago
      >is still the most efficient input device And has only existed for last 70 years of human history. I doubt it'll stick with us.
      - wtetzner 4y ago
        The first commercial typewriters became available in the late 1800s.
  - fomine3 4y ago
    Nit: Even if assume that all global population (7B) have smartphone and tablet (so 14B), 1% is 14M. It's too low count for how much PC used. Also popular better input system for long text hasn't used now. I don't think keyboard is the endgame device, but keyboard era is very long than we expected.
TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
It's not, though. The company laptop does a lot more than do Zoom calls.

delecti 4y ago

Yeah, today's "unrealistically expensive" is tomorrow's basic toolkit. I don't know if a Meta headset will be tomorrow's basic toolkit, but I also don't know that I would have predicted smartphones being ubiquitous in 2000 or the PC in 1970.

Maakuth 4y ago
Moreover, surely many companies dropped $1k per employee for better equipping their workforce to work remotely during the pandemic. Yearly IT costs per seat surely exceed $1k in many if not most companies, so this is not really expensive.

rrss 4y ago

Can you articulate the benefits of VR meetings that are comparable to those of personal computers and that motivate equating the two?

tmikaeld 4y ago
Sure: - You're able to visibly instruct and teach physical objects without being physically on-site. Now apply that to professions like cooking, teaching, repairs, art, entertainment, music, industrial etc.
- throwaway346434 4y ago
  So: you need to learn how to be a chef. Off you go to VR chef school for... a few weeks. Congrats, you qre a chef now. Was it worth the hardware yout wont use qgain?
- rrss 4y ago
  I don’t get the sense that horizon workrooms targets any of that. It appears to have a goal of recreating normal conference rooms with virtual tables, whiteboards, TVs. I can imagine that VR in general has some applications that are valuable, but this particular article is about the potential of replacing normal voice and video calls with avatars in a virtual conference room.
- fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
  I’ve observed simulations in VR that were compelling–I still remember parts of them well even now. However, these simulations were pre-recorded or preset and my range of inputs were limited to a set of menus from which I could select different options to simulate. When I played various games with a wider range of input options, there was a noticeable latency, and the virtual environment did not fully capture my real or intended motions very well. I think there are possibilities for VR in certain fields, but when it comes to arts and sciences like cooking and music, there are some aspects of the physical world that, to be captured in a compelling and useful way, will require significant progress or significant modification to extant VR hardware and software. In cooking, there is a tangible, tactile difference in using a cleaver versus a pairing knife, and there is a tangible, tactile difference between cutting a head of kale, versus a large tuna. Likewise, there is a tangible, tactile component to interacting with instruments, and a large part of learning an instrument is developing not just the muscle memory of interacting with it, but developing the fine muscles involved as well. In both cases, the learning requires the use of the specific instrument, and there is a genuine limitation in practical learning when the medium of instruction and the instrument of instruction is generalized to a set of what are essentially game controllers. It seems to me the virtualization of physical interactions, without proper and necessary modifications to hardware and software, will leave VR bereft of the instructive capability it is relying on in order to be useful in this business/enterprise context in which it would like to be considered.

KidComputer 4y ago

Is that a serious argument? PCs offered tremendous utility over phones and letters. What utility does VR provide over a regular PC? Oh that’s right, virtually none.

pavlov 4y ago
The PC of 1981 offered so little immediate utility that the microcomputer press was desperately pushing "maybe housewives can archive their recipes" as a use case for personal computers. Remember, it wasn't networked, and the I/O was limited to a crappy matrix printer at best. There was practically no software, and most professionals and managers didn't know how to type since that was a secretary's task.
- KidComputer 4y ago
  Yet VR has none of those limitations and it still hasn't taken off like personal computers. Weird, it's almost like VR is just an interface and anything you can view in it you can just view on a regular screen, which most people prefer. Also the comparison to early computers a little weird. VR isn't a platform that can scale out to to handle billions of e-commerce transactions or solve computational biology problems. Apples to oranges.

rrss 4y ago

Also > these are too niche for whatever Gates is trying here… for his billion dollar bet to succeed nearly everyone would have to be using his PC product. I don’t think Microsoft / Gates had a “billion dollar bet” that’s comparable to what Zuckerberg is doing with VR and the metaverse. Meta sells ads on a social network and is using money from that business to subsidize the development of VR applications on the theory that someday meta might make lots of money from VR. Microsoft sold software for personal computers, made a lot of money doing it, and used that money to fund the development of more software for personal computers. At no point in this early history was there a billion dollar bet.

nmfisher 4y ago
> Microsoft sold software for personal computers, made a lot of money doing it, and used that money to fund the development of more software for personal computers. At no point in this early history was there a billion dollar bet. Xbox?