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I fundamentally disagree. Tech appears to still be in the middle of a decades long information technology revolution. Mobile may be complete, but it was just th

I fundamentally disagree. Tech appears to still be in the middle of a decades long information technology revolution. Mobile may be complete, but it was just the latest in a series of computing revolutions. Several more waves appear to be brewing. AI/ML certainly is a candidate for another powerful wave, but so is AR/VR, wearables/ambient. All of this looks to be converging on Human-AI augmentation that appears to be both part of your mind and part of the environment in a way that will radically increase human capability. I wouldn’t be the only person who thinks this, see the Meta Smart Glasses. The first wave of this human-machine hybridization already occurred with smartphones and we are all much changed as a result.

packetlost 3y ago
I'll second this. We've hit peak smartphone and desktop. Next are wearables and AR. After that, maybe directly neural communication. IMO VR is still decade(s) away from being more than a novelty. AR has real practical applications that aren't hamstrung by haptic technology development.
- somewhereoutth 3y ago
  Except I'm struggling to see what those real practical applications might be outside of a few niche fields. Even the idea of 'seeing all the pipes in the ground/wall' neglects the hard part - which is getting quality data in the first place. As for direct neural communication, see how text replaced voice as soon as mobile devices could do it properly - nobody phones anybody nowadays. People have a tendency to take what they want from tech, and discard the rest.
  - packetlost 3y ago
    > Except I'm struggling to see what those real practical applications might be outside of a few niche fields I, for one, would be all over a permanent HUD, even just for messages and biometric data (as long as I have reasonable control over what pops up). I suspect the broader market would too if the tech gets there and the glasses don't look dorky. My point isn't that we're there yet, it's that AR is more useful and has less fundamental hurdles to wide-spread adoption than AR. I can think of many practical applications that could be made possible or enhanced with AR capabilities, but I struggle to think of any for VR that aren't just games and entertainment until we figure out strong haptic feedback systems.
- layer8 3y ago
  What? AR is even further away than VR, because we aren’t anywhere near AR glasses tech that the average person would want to wear on a regular basis. We don’t even know how that could possibly work physically, i.e. projected opaque images on otherwise transparent glasses that could compete with the brightness of the outside environment. Not to speak of solving the vergence-accommodation conflict in such a setup.
somewhereoutth 3y ago
I suspect that the law of diminishing returns comes in here - it is insanely valuable to have a map of everywhere in you pocket that you can pull out as soon as you need it. It is perhaps only slightly more valuable to have said map beamed directly into your eyes. Regarding AI/ML - the insanely valuable step was the spreadsheet.

packetlost 3y ago

I'll second this. We've hit peak smartphone and desktop. Next are wearables and AR. After that, maybe directly neural communication. IMO VR is still decade(s) away from being more than a novelty. AR has real practical applications that aren't hamstrung by haptic technology development.

somewhereoutth 3y ago
Except I'm struggling to see what those real practical applications might be outside of a few niche fields. Even the idea of 'seeing all the pipes in the ground/wall' neglects the hard part - which is getting quality data in the first place. As for direct neural communication, see how text replaced voice as soon as mobile devices could do it properly - nobody phones anybody nowadays. People have a tendency to take what they want from tech, and discard the rest.
- packetlost 3y ago
  > Except I'm struggling to see what those real practical applications might be outside of a few niche fields I, for one, would be all over a permanent HUD, even just for messages and biometric data (as long as I have reasonable control over what pops up). I suspect the broader market would too if the tech gets there and the glasses don't look dorky. My point isn't that we're there yet, it's that AR is more useful and has less fundamental hurdles to wide-spread adoption than AR. I can think of many practical applications that could be made possible or enhanced with AR capabilities, but I struggle to think of any for VR that aren't just games and entertainment until we figure out strong haptic feedback systems.
layer8 3y ago
What? AR is even further away than VR, because we aren’t anywhere near AR glasses tech that the average person would want to wear on a regular basis. We don’t even know how that could possibly work physically, i.e. projected opaque images on otherwise transparent glasses that could compete with the brightness of the outside environment. Not to speak of solving the vergence-accommodation conflict in such a setup.

somewhereoutth 3y ago

I suspect that the law of diminishing returns comes in here - it is insanely valuable to have a map of everywhere in you pocket that you can pull out as soon as you need it. It is perhaps only slightly more valuable to have said map beamed directly into your eyes. Regarding AI/ML - the insanely valuable step was the spreadsheet.