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The Meta verse is an impossible dream. Thinking a single company will own it is like thinking a single company could own multiplayer gaming, cloud documents, an

The Meta verse is an impossible dream. Thinking a single company will own it is like thinking a single company could own multiplayer gaming, cloud documents, and remote work. It’s an impossible, absurdist maximalist goal that I don’t see how any company could fully deliver on. Hardware is just hardware. Apple builds hardware that then becomes an ecosystem. Reality Labs was trying to build the hardware AND the ecosystem AND the apps. This on top of an unworkable concept for Human Computer Interaction - Virtual Reality - which consumers have already rejected over and over again. There will be no consumer market VR headset because the concept is fundamentally alienating. I suspect there are a lot of people on the spectrum in IT who seem convinced that somehow this is a tech problem. IT IS NOT, nor will it ever be. Getting in a VR headset and being in a reality where no one else is ever there, nor will they ever be (in the next 10-20 years, there is no tech that reliably emulates full body capture, not to mention touch and smell, two key parts of the human experience) is fundamentally unpleasant for the general public, because the general public, quite correctly, places a very high level of reward to being around other people, co regulating emotions, reading body language, and kissing and having sex. Since none of that is mapped into VR, the concept of a general use VR OS with a consumer market is fundamentally dystopian and perhaps even physiologically and psychologically unsafe. Having said that - I have worked in VR since 2014 and anyone in their right mind will tell you that Reality Labs was a dumb idea. There is not, and there won’t be for a very long time, any mass consumer market for VR (billions of units) because VR is anti human, anti connective and is most likely bad for people if they use it for long hours.

minton 3y ago
I think VR can enable human connection where it otherwise isn’t possible due to distance. Of course, it isn’t a full substitute for in-person interaction, but it doesn’t have to be either or. We can have a great remote connection via VR and still exist in the real world. Check out this podcast[0] between Lex Fridman and Mark Zuckerberg where they meet remotely via the metaverse. [0] https://youtu.be/MVYrJJNdrEg https://youtu.be/MVYrJJNdrEg
- kranke155 3y ago
  I don’t know that many people who would prefer this to a Zoom call. Plus this is not full body scanning, it requires you (again) to lose all perception of the real world (zoom doesn’t) and even the scanning that was used for this call requires a full body scanning room which you know, no one is going to have. Both Lex and Zuck went through a significant scanning process to get this level of fidelity. Plus again there is no reason whatsoever to do this in a VR environment vs an AR environment using the Apple Vision Pro (which is a real product that has potential, since it’s not VR).
  - rabf 3y ago
    The reason to prefer a conference type app in VR over AR is likely due to bandwidth, it takes a huge amount of data to cover an entire space from every possible angle at a retina like resolution, perhaps AI can be of use here in the future. The avatar generation/scanning is being worked on and Meta are not releasing this until it has been streamlined.
    - kranke155 3y ago
      Not sure I understand why doing this in AR would consume more data. What I’m proposing is you’d just have a “floating head” type call with someone else. The environment around you would be the real one that’s already there.
  - Philpax 3y ago
    > I don’t know that many people who would prefer this to a Zoom call. puts hand up VRChat, even in its nascent, unrefined, laggy phase, is still much more engaging than any video call I've been on. Sharing the same space with someone improves the experience of communication immeasurably. It's hard to explain, but they no longer feel like a face on a screen, and that enables a much stronger bond. > Plus this is not full body scanning, it requires you (again) to lose all perception of the real world (zoom doesn’t) and even the scanning that was used for this call requires a full body scanning room which you know, no one is going to have. Both Lex and Zuck went through a significant scanning process to get this level of fidelity. Yes, this is true at present. However, they're actively working on reducing the requirements for the scan; this is them demonstrating what's possible at the high-end. This is a similar strategy to what Apple's doing with the Vision Pro: they're setting the benchmark before trying to shrink the cost. Speaking of, you can already see a potential future towards low-cost scanning in Apple's Personas. They're obviously much lower in quality, but they're quick and easy to scan. The future is trending towards that kind of experience, not getting imaged by a dedicated rig. > Plus again there is no reason whatsoever to do this in a VR environment vs an AR environment using the Apple Vision Pro (which is a real product that has potential, since it’s not VR). Both are good! You're not wrong about the potential of AR teleconferencing. VR teleconferencing lets you set the scene and share an environment with the users, though, which has its own benefits. (Especially when it comes to spatial arrangement; it's much easier / less mind-bendy to have a single shared environment than to have everyone have their own view of the proceedings. Curious to see how Apple will deal with this, though.)

minton 3y ago

I think VR can enable human connection where it otherwise isn’t possible due to distance. Of course, it isn’t a full substitute for in-person interaction, but it doesn’t have to be either or. We can have a great remote connection via VR and still exist in the real world. Check out this podcast[0] between Lex Fridman and Mark Zuckerberg where they meet remotely via the metaverse. [0] https://youtu.be/MVYrJJNdrEg https://youtu.be/MVYrJJNdrEg

kranke155 3y ago
I don’t know that many people who would prefer this to a Zoom call. Plus this is not full body scanning, it requires you (again) to lose all perception of the real world (zoom doesn’t) and even the scanning that was used for this call requires a full body scanning room which you know, no one is going to have. Both Lex and Zuck went through a significant scanning process to get this level of fidelity. Plus again there is no reason whatsoever to do this in a VR environment vs an AR environment using the Apple Vision Pro (which is a real product that has potential, since it’s not VR).
- rabf 3y ago
  The reason to prefer a conference type app in VR over AR is likely due to bandwidth, it takes a huge amount of data to cover an entire space from every possible angle at a retina like resolution, perhaps AI can be of use here in the future. The avatar generation/scanning is being worked on and Meta are not releasing this until it has been streamlined.
  - kranke155 3y ago
    Not sure I understand why doing this in AR would consume more data. What I’m proposing is you’d just have a “floating head” type call with someone else. The environment around you would be the real one that’s already there.
- Philpax 3y ago
  > I don’t know that many people who would prefer this to a Zoom call. puts hand up VRChat, even in its nascent, unrefined, laggy phase, is still much more engaging than any video call I've been on. Sharing the same space with someone improves the experience of communication immeasurably. It's hard to explain, but they no longer feel like a face on a screen, and that enables a much stronger bond. > Plus this is not full body scanning, it requires you (again) to lose all perception of the real world (zoom doesn’t) and even the scanning that was used for this call requires a full body scanning room which you know, no one is going to have. Both Lex and Zuck went through a significant scanning process to get this level of fidelity. Yes, this is true at present. However, they're actively working on reducing the requirements for the scan; this is them demonstrating what's possible at the high-end. This is a similar strategy to what Apple's doing with the Vision Pro: they're setting the benchmark before trying to shrink the cost. Speaking of, you can already see a potential future towards low-cost scanning in Apple's Personas. They're obviously much lower in quality, but they're quick and easy to scan. The future is trending towards that kind of experience, not getting imaged by a dedicated rig. > Plus again there is no reason whatsoever to do this in a VR environment vs an AR environment using the Apple Vision Pro (which is a real product that has potential, since it’s not VR). Both are good! You're not wrong about the potential of AR teleconferencing. VR teleconferencing lets you set the scene and share an environment with the users, though, which has its own benefits. (Especially when it comes to spatial arrangement; it's much easier / less mind-bendy to have a single shared environment than to have everyone have their own view of the proceedings. Curious to see how Apple will deal with this, though.)