13 ms·

You can really understand here that Zuckerberg really understands his business. He knew in 2015, that if Facebook didn't have a platform it controlled, it would

• TigeriusKirk 4y ago
  >A VR headset would have to be sunglasses size From what I've gathered, this is the Meta AR target for the early 2030s. What we see now are intended to be the steps along that road.
• triknomeister 4y ago
  The sheer cost of VR platforms would make it non-ubiquitous. People in developing countries use mobile because it is that versatile, and that is why mobile is the king currently. I don't see how AR/VR platforms will ever replace that in next 10-15 years.
• rish1_2 4y ago
  you basically hit the spot. He never realized the phone with it's size and fit factor in everyday life cannot be replaced by a headset that is so intrusive. It's good for games but anything else likely a hassle to the norm.
  • rish1_2 4y ago
    If I had to take a guess what will replace the iPhone it will likely be new sci-fi tech that makes the cell into a piece of see through slab of glass that is touch based. If this is possible to do in the future, I think people will start buying that. Until then iPhone will reign supreme!
    • aklein 4y ago
      Makes me think of The Expanse (tv version)
    • ianbutler 4y ago
      What does that solve for?
    • physicles 4y ago
      Here's a depiction of just that in a concept video[1] from Microsoft in 2017. [1] https://youtu.be/wraF2DjALls?t=152 https://youtu.be/wraF2DjALls?t=152
    • tqkxzugoaupvwqr 4y ago
      It will still be called iPhone.
      • queuebert 4y ago
        Eventually the complexity of the iPhone will force them to multiply by -i.
    • ambrose2 4y ago
      What would that enable though? Aside from just a new “look” that’s more modern and makes your old phone look outdated? I think if you had something like google glass, but made my Apple, and looked like normal glasses, that could be big, but still not as useful as a smartphone because of the input limitation. It would be as useful as an Apple Watch at first, but with a bigger screen.
      • rish1_2 4y ago
  • VectorLock 4y ago
    A lot of people said exactly this when cell phones were Zach Morris sized, but 3 decades later here we are. We can probably expect VR/AR to take about that long if not longer. So Mark might not be wrong, he just might be way early.
    • rish1_2 4y ago
      you can't shrink your head. The smallest version is a pair of glasses. There was a privacy concern when people started wearing Google glasses in public if I remember correctly. The norm has to be respected until the norm changes.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • wilsonnb3 4y ago
        Why not a contact lens? Or a brain implant.
        • kodah 4y ago
          Facebook in my brain sounds like a nightmare.
        • scrame 4y ago
          worked great for Johnny mnemonic.
      • int_19h 4y ago
        The problem with Google Glasses was that they looked basically like glasses (being AR), in many ways other than size - starting with the fact that they were transparent. A VR headset, even if it's equally compact, won't look like glasses - certainly not if the designers don't want it to.
        • zelos 4y ago
          But Zuck is surely talking about AR glasses here, right? Full VR isn’t going to be a ubiquitous platform like phones/laptops etc.
  • insane_dreamer 4y ago
    it's intrusive today; ultimately they'll look like a pair of regular glasses. Just like cell phones went from clunky beasts you couldn't even fit in your purse much less pocket, to a watch.
  • piyush_soni 4y ago
    I think he's limited by the technology of our times, but I'd still agree with him that this is _the future_ (not sure how soon), and they probably want to be at the forefront when that happens.
  • LarsDu88 4y ago
    Cellphones used to be massive. VR headsets will eventually be tiny. Now is Motorola - the original cellphone pioneer the top producer of cellphones today? Fuck no. Sometime by 2035 a company will build light field display glasses than can translate language, operate industrial drones, and operate remote chat. It probably won't be meta
    • qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
      There might be meta-dna and libraries though in that compAny.
    • jemmyw 4y ago
      The shrinkage of one technology platform in the past isn't enough to predict the shrinkage of another in the future. We're just so used to the idea of tech getting smaller and smaller, but I think we're reaching some limits that might make progress on VR or other immersive tech like that slower or even impossible. Well, fingers crossed that isn't the case. I for one am never strapping something anywhere near as large as current devices to my face as a replacement for sitting in front of a couple of monitors.
• greenthrow 4y ago
  You are absolutely dead wrong about VR gaming and sales show this.
  • datalopers 4y ago
    VR gaming is so bad. My bet is it instead takes off in business, social media/doomscrolling, and AR assisted technologies and productivity.
    • goatlover 4y ago
      Some VR gaming experiences are very compelling like Saints and Sinners or Cosmodread.
      • djcannabiz 4y ago
        i tried cosmodread on a friends quest 2 and it made me shit my pants oh my gosh
    • fortuna86 4y ago
      I dont think VR ever takes off. AR will once you can wear a headset that looks like sunglasses.
  • bobsmooth 4y ago
    If I had a grand to blow I would absolutely get an Index.
  • johnwheeler 4y ago
    What position did you infer about gaming from the post? That the poster says VR games are successful or unsuccessful?
    • fshr 4y ago
      > What position did you infer about gaming from the post? > I think VR gaming makes regular gaming obsolete in many ways.
• jmspring 4y ago
  No one wants to wear a clunky device on their face for hours for entertainment.
  • zmmmmm 4y ago
    Literally millions of people do that.
  • goatlover 4y ago
    I wear a headset for hours of gaming if the game is compelling enough. The experience for well done VR games is worth it.
  • MikusR 4y ago
    Except for about 15 million people who bought Quest 2, and at least 5 million who got PSVR
• zitterbewegung 4y ago
  VR is too early to be the meta of the future because of the fact we would need something that is completely standalone , have the performances of the valve index including the computer that goes with it and the price of the Oculus Quest 2. If they instead attempted to only focus on software similar to how Google made Android it could have gone better but his strategy was too early to execute . Also, I think that it’s just that they don’t have a platform it’s also that they have basically everyone that could see an advertisement that has signed up with Facebook / WhatsApp and Instagram so they don’t have the ability to grow their advertisements. This is something he had to do which was to give internet to places that didn’t have it but you would have the ability to access Facebook for tree.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• jimmydorry 4y ago
  100% agree on Zuckerberg really understanding Facebook and where it needed to go. The most interesting part of the email to me was seeing his support for aquiring Unity. Not being able to land that acquisition almost feels like the critical reason Meta doesn't have much to show today, after all this effort. And it doesn't look like the aquisition failed due to lack of trying! ironSource ended up doing a merger acqusition that finally closed just a few days ago.
  • tuyguntn 4y ago
    What is stopping him to acquire Unity now? everything is on sale at the moment: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/U https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/U
    • Jabrov 4y ago
      The government, most likely. They’ve blocked other Meta acquisitions.
      • duud 4y ago
        This may be the silver lining of the market cap evaporation for Meta. It is harder to argue that it is an all powerful monopoly now vs in 2021. What sweet irony it would be if the biased coverage by NYT, WaPo, etc allowed Meta to resume making large acquisitions and maintain their dominance for years to come.
    • jimmydorry 4y ago
      It merged with ironsource this year (and closed a few days ago). Considering the Unity board rejected other offers (even one from an ironsource competitor that was offering a significant premium), I think this ship has sailed.
  • insane_dreamer 4y ago
    why couldn't they buy Unity?
    • 4y ago
• ianbutler 4y ago
  Could replace the laptop. If we can get unlimited virtual screens and accurate enough hand tracking to replace the keyboard, I could see people carrying the headset around instead.
  • VectorLock 4y ago
    I think thats what Mark is saying in this. VR/AR could eventually replace: Desktops, laptops, TV, AND cell phones. Thats a lot of stuff. Literally owning eyeballs.
    • ianbutler 4y ago
      Right but I'm saying that regardless of what he wants, the viable medium I see it replacing is the laptop. Not all of them, just one, the laptop.
    • bushbaba 4y ago
      Could totally see it replace tv. It’s just too compelling of a new format. Especially if it the hardware fits in your normal glasses.
      • texasbigdata 4y ago
        Not replace but greatly boost. With AR, I used to love passing through the external environment and putting two tv screens up in the ceiling area with CNBC and a podcast, all while doing laundry and tidying up around the house; my net consumption bumped up quite significantly due to the ease and ubiquity of opportunities to consume content.
        • techstrategist 4y ago
          What device gave you watchable TV screens and still let you see your environment?
          • texasbigdata 4y ago
• jmount 4y ago
  A lot of the big CEOs repeat a mantra that they are really on the edge of destruction. I've heard that from 2010s Google. It is just a motivating chant.
  • AVTizzle 4y ago
    Given the high turnover of companies in the Fortune 500 - these big CEOs aren't wrong. The changing of order is inevitable.
• jimmySixDOF 4y ago
  I think you are looking around you not in front of you. The path now is to a thinner ski goggles looking form factor that supports AR through a passthrough video of where you are but with the ability to turn anything into an iphone or iwatch or 60" TV screen (try carrying that arround in your pocket). Wearing goggles will not be any more inconvenient or disconnecting than pulling out your phone at the table. One Apple leak hinted at an LED outward facing screen so people around you don't feel as strange including you in the conversation. The form factors will iterate towards human centered simplicity just like the possibility space of spatial computing enabled by these devices will iterate towards a more natural interface where information systems will conform to our world as it is in 3D rather than us being forced to deal with them through keyboards and mice and touch screens in our pocket.
  • codemonkey-zeta 4y ago
    But you have to also keep in mind that no one (except maybe Zuckerberg) wants to look stupid. Walking around with ski goggles would look so incredibly stupid to any normal human being, so you'd have to carry the goggles around in a case or a backpack. Even with a device the size of ski goggles (which none of the current tech can even come close to given battery sizes) AR/VR still won't displace cell phones or apple watches. I don't think the form-factor is something they can iteratively approach for too long, given the absurd amount of investment Meta is already throwing in to building the next generation of still insufficient AR/VR. Investor appetite will not last long enough to realize the pipe-dream.
    • Animats 4y ago
      But you have to also keep in mind that no one (except maybe Zuckerberg) wants to look stupid. We're already there. We have people walking around with iDweebs in their ears, talking to themselves, while looking down at a phone screen.
      • germinalphrase 4y ago
        Until recently, I worked with high schoolers. Many of them felt absolutely no social discomfort at wearing earbuds while having a face to face conversations. It wasn’t uncommon for a kid to very quietly listen to music during a conversation. This is AR in a different sense, and I expect the social discomfort of AR glasses/goggles will similarly be generational/cultural and fleeting.
• pishpash 4y ago
  So what did he do in 7 years? Ideas are cheap. Maybe the company didn't execute so well due to the bloat and inertia, or maybe the brand itself had other vulnerabilities which are missing from this vision.
  • gloryjulio 4y ago
    It's due to to technology like Newton from apple. There is nothing u can do about it
    • pishpash 4y ago
      Recognizing the technology wasn't going to be available in 10 years in a 10-year plan seems important. But you can't expect that from somebody who might legitimately think building hardware was as easy as hacking software.
      • gloryjulio 4y ago
        I agree that he is way too optimistic. And from what I heard from Meta's employee, their hardware org is just not that good and the high level direction is very lacking.
    • texasbigdata 4y ago
      Someone on HN once said (perhaps fact check this), it took Steve Jobs 7 years from the iPod touch to the iphone. Time perception can be skewed.
      • chillfox 4y ago
        The iPod Touch and iPhone were both introduced early in 2007. Perhaps you are thinking about the iPod which was released late in 2001.
        • texasbigdata 4y ago
          Ah yes sorry.
• PaulHoule 4y ago
  I sometimes wonder if Zuck has ever read a novel or watched a movie because one way he is tone deaf is not understanding the possibilities of fiction. This VR enthusiast made a great video about the problems of VR games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rZRvw7WTq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rZRvw7WTq8 My mother in law probably still thinks people play first person shooters but really the sense of characterization in modern games depends on the third person perspective. Bayonetta has legs and knows how to use them. The whole point of a Mario game is seeing Mario on the screen. The third person view lets you experience a spectrum of identification with a character (I moe for Tamamo, I like Mario, I control Mario, I travel with Mario on his journey, I am Mario, ...) that you can't really experience from a first person view. Maybe you can put on the appearance of a character for other people's benefit in VR but you're going to have use your imagination (for better and worse) to put yourself into a character. For now the VR game industry is driven by independents. Big game studios could make an AAA game but they won't because there aren't enough players with headsets to justify the investment. I am betting on the first AAA VR game coming from a Chinese studio as they are taking big chances on new IP such as Genshin Impact from MiHoYo.
  • int_19h 4y ago
    People still do play first person shooters (and other first person games) plenty. And in modern ones, you can generally look down and see your character's body etc.
    • maximus-decimus 4y ago
      The new Call of Duty game literally made 800M in one weekend
    • shusaku 4y ago
      I think his point still stands though. I enjoy FPS games because the gameplay is fun, but not with any sense of being immersed by the first person view. VR may very well replace the FPS, but that’s just one type of game.
      • 4y ago
• pfraze 4y ago
  The problem isn't the amount of money either. It's that their product is bad. I havent tried the recent Quest Pro but based on reviews I assume it's pretty good. Not great, not sexy, but pretty good. Their flagship application however, Horizons, embarrasses meta every time a screenshot gets shared. It is so dorky and uninspired that nobody wants to admit they even tried it. Who exactly are they targeting with that thing? Adults? Children? Their messaging and pricepoint around the Pro seems to suggest they're expecting office workers to use it for virtual conferencing. Who are they kidding with that? The cost is part of the forward-looking vision. That part makes sense to me. It's the product that baffles me. It just stinks.
  • chii 4y ago
    you're looking at the wrong thing - it's the platform that meta wants, not the "product" they demonstrated (that looks childish from your POV). It's like saying, back in the early days of the internet, that showing an ugly, unstyled text with pictures on a webpage is worthless. The platform has grown to become a cornerstone of human civilization! Facebook wants to own something akin to that. _If_ their bet works out, they will be so very powerful. I think as a netizen, it's my duty to make sure their bet doesn't go the way they want. Platforms should not be owned, but be federated and compatible, and open.
    • germinalphrase 4y ago
      “ federated and compatible, and open.” So - who’s doing it?
      • chii 4y ago
        why is the internet federated, compatible (with all sorts of clients) and open? Who did it?
        • germinalphrase 4y ago
          I didn’t ask rhetorically. I was hopeful. A open internet was the better option. With VR/AR, we might need a strong shove toward robust interconnectivity.
• zelon88 4y ago
  > If Oculus had stayed independent, I can guarantee we'd have better (probably more gaming) oriented content. I agree with this. We would also have more competition because other players in the space wouldn't be as intimidated to go up against a business like Meta/Facebook. I think a crucial miscalculation was trying to EEE the space. Zuck clearly states that he wanted Meta to "own the space" on every platform. Basically, he wanted to carve out a niche like Adobe managed to do with PDF, but on a scale that rivals full blown platforms like the Android ecosystem. Such an ambitious plan sounds great on paper, until you realize that you're trying to EEE the exact people who wrote the textbooks on EEE. When you sound a horn that loud, on a megaphone as big as the one Meta was using, you're only painting a target on your own back. Another drawback to the path that Meta selected is they basically internalized the entire hardware industry that was just starting up. If Oculus had stayed independent I believe they would have had to partner with other hardware vendors to establish some sort of regulatory body for writing industry standard specifications. With one serious player in the field developing and harboring all the tech for themselves, this space could be barren for a long time if Meta folds. All the work by third parties that went into this proprietary technology and platform will basically be for nothing.
  • Qub3d 4y ago
    What does “EEE” mean in this context? End to end?
    • zdragnar 4y ago
      Embrace, Extend, Extinguish - the Microsoft strategy (per their internal documents) towards anything it didn't control: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend%2C_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend%2C_and_extin... Adopt an open standard, add proprietary bits so that content worked best (or exclusively) on their own version, and force other players and competitors out.
      • hoseja 4y ago
• MuffinFlavored 4y ago
  > But instead of making Oculus the "XBox" of the future I don't get dizzy or have to stand up and move around to "sit down and veg out" on Xbox/PS/etc.
  • MikusR 4y ago
    God for you. I can't play majority of first person games on PC without getting dizzy.
• vilhelm_s 4y ago
  Facebook Research has indeed made a prototype for a sunglasses-sized VR headset! https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Holographic-Optics-for-Thin-and-Lightweight-Virtual-Reality.pdf https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Holograph...
• paul7986 4y ago
  Once smart glasses are the same weight and experience as wearing regular glasses I believe like many they are the next iPhone. The amount of innovation that can happen with smart glasses will be so cool and useful. I was just at a zoo looking for the small animal blending into it's environment in their glass cage ... I wished I had smart glasses that pointed out where in the cage the animal was. While I was playing ping pong I wished I had smart glasses that kept score of the game. Tons of ideas that many to millions will find very cool and useful! I can see why Zuckerberg is betting the farm on smart glasses! I don't think Meta will create the next iPhone/smart glasses, but good for him on trying.
• allanrbo 4y ago
  > A VR headset would have to be sunglasses size We're getting very close with products like Nreal Air.
• chx 4y ago
  The fundamental problem with VR is the "VR illusion" which makes the eyes focus on objects apparently in the distance that are actually on a screen very close to the eyes. This gives users headaches thus making mass appeal impossible. Solving this, if it is solvable at all, is challenge #1.
  • mtsr 4y ago
    As I understand it, due to lens setup this shouldn’t actually be the case. Iirc the view for say a Valve Index ends up at something like 60cm. Here’s some actual problems that are harder: * while your eyes remain accommodated to focus on that distance, it no longer corresponds with the way they track objects close or far away, by pointing closer together etc * lack of correspondence between movement on screen and in the real world (usually translation, rather than rotation which tracks head position) for non-roomscale content (i.e. games where you move around larger scenes) causes motion sickness.
    • chx 4y ago
      Nonetheless, the #1 problem is still not giving users headaches for whatever reason :)
    • nicd 4y ago
      I believe vergence accomodation can still be a problem, even if the focus is fixed at 60cm (close to infinity). If an object is up close in the virtual world (say 20cm), it's still stuck at a focus of 60cm. I believe Nvidia demoed a solution for this at SIGGRAPH ~4 years back. Liquid lenses were employed to change the lenses focal length based on the content and user gaze.
  • tylersmith 4y ago
    I got a Quest to try out VR, connected it to the internet and took it off to let updates install, and instantly felt sick as soon as it was off. It lasted all day and I've never put it back on. It was super cool for the 3 minutes I spent connecting to wifi.
    • 4y ago
• exodust 4y ago
  > "VR gaming makes regular gaming obsolete in many ways." Far from it. VR is just a new type of game. Regular display technology is too good now. From ultrawide to laser projection, to high density mobile screens, to folding screens... ALL getting better and cheaper. Above all, the friction and ergonomic shift of VR is too great to expect obsolescence to come knocking on regular gaming's door. His idea for the mobile phone to be replaced with VR/AR is crazy. Phones are little hubs in our hands, with amazing cameras and nice screens for flicking through information with your finger. Agreeable ergonomics for our brains to absorb "chunks" of content or information, about the size of a phone up to tablet/A4 paper size. Something in our brains likes the compartmental properties of a page. Like since humans started reading and writing. The "size" of a virtual bubble or layered world floating in front of our faces, isn't tangible or agreeable enough for daily driving brain activity IMHO. Great for after hours fun though!
• RC_ITR 4y ago
  > He knew in 2015, that if Facebook didn't have a platform it controlled, it would suffer down the line. People say this but Amazon is doing just fine in the retail space. In fact for Facebook and Amazon, their biggest follies are trying to own the platform (Metaverse and Fire Phone). We have seen that owning a platform doesn’t mean owning everything and yet, perfectly good businesses waste a ton of time and money assuming that is the case.
  • LarsDu88 4y ago
    I'm going to disagree here on Amazon. They did succeed in building/acquiring two hardware and OS level platforms. They were so successful you didn't even notice One is called Alexa and the other is called Ring. At the same time Amazon is a website that doesn't rely as heavily on your phones privacy setting (which Apple is currently using to mine your data btw!) Within the next 5 years I expect folks to be able to order things from their doorbells and Ring home security drones
    • RC_ITR 4y ago
      > One is called Alexa and the other is called Ring. What share of Amazon GMV do you think is purchased on either? We’ve had Alexa for a decade now, and forcing a user to walk to their porch isn’t going to be the thing that makes voice ordering work.
    • nivenkos 4y ago
      The Kindle too.
  • baby 4y ago
    People can’t buy books on the kindle app. Fun.
    • RC_ITR 4y ago
      Because Amazon chooses that to make a point. Notice how it's totally fine to buy goods in the Amazon app? You think that Amazon couldn't have used their leverage to make the same case for Kindle if they thought it was worth it? I'm not saying there is no value to owning a platform, it's just not as extreme as people make it out to be.
• dirtyid 4y ago
  For how much FB subsidized VR headsets, they should have double down on Android phones with their own appstore. At least they seem better positioned than Microsoft who had to get OS to comport with Windows and Amazon.
• flohofwoe 4y ago
  > I think VR gaming makes regular gaming obsolete in many ways. If this was ever going to happen it would have already happened in the last (or is it still 'current'?) VR hype cycle. Maybe in the next cycle 15..20 years down the road or after some massive gaming crash it's worth another shot.
  • 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
    doesn't obsolete them, but they won't be made worse by putting them in VR and adding some depth and ability to look around.
    • mike_hearn 4y ago
      Unless the problems with nausea are fixed, VR definitely makes most 1st person games worse.
      • 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
        I guess it varies from person to person, but normally what causes nausea is the motion. If you fix the camera and let the character roam around there should be minimal nausea. But then you're a little more limited in your gameplay.
  • dncornholio 4y ago
    It will never make gaming in current form obsolete. Not in 50 years. Just for the fact that you need to put something on your face.. Maybe some people will use a VR set instead of a Wii U for activity / family games but thats it. What VR is doing is it makes some genre of games a lot more attractive: Sim-racing and flight-sims. The cockpit games in VR are really immersive. Combine it with some good hardware (rig, stick, wheel, etc) and you feel like you're really in the car or plane.
    • williamvds 4y ago
      Wholly agree on the immersion: a decent VR game, even if janky, has a great advantage in immersion by actually feeling _present_ in whatever virtual world you're in. Two examples I'd add: VTOL VR, somewhere closer to the Sim genre but simplified for VR controllers. I've played a few flight (combat) games before, but the combat is heart-pumping unlike anything else. Another more popular one is VRChat and similar, where there are desktop versions but you definitely feel like you're missing something without the VR aspect. Emoting, gesturing, and actually "touching" others in VR is easy. If you're in desktop mode, you're mostly limited to standing nearby and talking.
• 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
  if Oculus stayed independent we'd all be dead because palmer luckey is crazy apparently
• Gareth321 4y ago
  In Zuckerberg's defence, if they somehow create a wearable headset with the proportions of a pair of glasses, they'll absolutely dominate. A sizeable chunk of their spending spree is R&D. If their work results in VR/AR glasses which are cheap, ubiquitous, stylish, and functional, I will be first in line to say "good job."
  • TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    I actually think that no matter how good their hardware is, their effort to completely control the software platform will sink them. My best hope is that Facebook develops a lot of neat tech and then fumbles and fails, and finally exits the space, and in the vacuum companies like Samsung and others drop more general purpose platforms that allow freedom on the software side.
  • ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >In Zuckerberg's defence, if they somehow create a wearable headset with the proportions of a pair of glasses, they'll absolutely dominate. How would they do that though? The technology to pack the VR processing power of ~4k display per eye @ 90-120 Hz, cooling, power efficiency and big enough battery plus lens technology into a regular frame of glasses that doesn't look weird, is some Sci-Fi, Iron Man level technology, that just isn't here yet and it won't be for many years to come, if not decades, considering the slow down of Moore's law, and when it will be here, it will be prohibitively expensive. Imagine the challenges of having to cram an RTX 4090 into a pair of Raybans and being able to run for hours on the battery of a smartwatch. We're very, very far away from that, probably decades of optics, semiconductor fabrication and battery chemistry advancements are needed before this reaches consumer tech and pricing. Once Meta goes down and takes Oculus with it, we'll probably see another VR winter, until the tech improvements reach a level that makes it desirable again.
    • Gareth321 4y ago
      There is a big mountain to climb, but I don't think we need to wait until the technology delivers everything we want all at once. Google Glasses were released in 2013 and while they don't possess that long list of features, they are functional in similar dimensions to regular glasses: https://www.google.com/glass/start/ https://www.google.com/glass/start/. I would wear these. The road to better AR/VR products will be in iterating on these; making the display better and better, and the hardware lighter and lighter.
• dusted 4y ago
  I don't believe for a second that smartphones in their current black-mirror form is going to stay, maybe for the forseeable future, but I'll be surprised if we're still rubbing our greasy meat-sausages on glowing plates of glass 10 years from now.
• pjmlp 4y ago
  The first time I saw VR in was in Lisbon at FIL 1994, people were trying to play Doom with the current technology of the day. Every couple of the years we get lighter headesets, the marketing cycle that now the adopting is finally going to take off, and then crickets. Until we get something like Star Treck's Holodeck, the cycle will continue.
• hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  It's pretty obvious to everyone so I wonder what really happened. Once people received this mail did they tell him to his face that he was partly wrong? Or decided to just support his vision? Because among tech people I talk to, there is no single person who believes VR is the future, unless a major breakthrough happens that would eliminate all heavy inconveniences that make it almost unusable for the majority of population for more than half an hour. AR is a vastly different beast as you need to move in the real world and receive sensory input from your device. People have been using Google Glass for over a decade and already have a feeling of what this entangles if you take just vision into account. To eliminate all awkwardness you'd basically need an advanced implant that wouldn't stand out - but I'm not sure anyone would want such a thing.
• Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  > I think VR gaming makes regular gaming obsolete in many ways. No, I don't think it does; if you look at history, VR has been around for a long time in different forms, think also Sony and Microsoft's console AR solutions. If you look at today, VR is available everywhere at console prices, but it's only a niche to the gaming market, an extra. The BIG change in gaming in the past 10, 15 years, which Facebook has been partially responsible for, was actually scaling DOWN - think mobile games, simpler games like farmville on FB, etc. Nowadays, the hierarchy is mobile gaming > cynical live service games (lootboxes) > regular video games & consoles > indie games > VR (my opinion / take, I don't have sources because I'm too lazy to look them up). But you're right about the other things, he definitely overestimated VR's impact on the world. 2015 was a year or two after Google Glass, which was the first major party to try AR as envisioned by Zucc - and it didn't work out for various reasons. A big one was social, but I can imagine the big tech companies figured that society needs a bit more time, like they did with mobile and later smartphones. I can't see always-on HUD work just yet, society doesn't want that. Nobody wants to have a conversation with someone only for their eyes to go elsewhere because a notification is coming in. Although on the other hand, people will probably talk to someone and see them looking at their phone / watch while talking to them.