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>I don't see that there is enough value there to motivate the investment. People were saying the same about home computers in the '70s and it was relatively tr

>I don't see that there is enough value there to motivate the investment. People were saying the same about home computers in the '70s and it was relatively true for that period if you didn't look into the future and only considered what home computers looked like back then: janky machines built from radio shack parts by nerdy enthusiast tinkerers with electronics knowledge. Only when they were presented with prebuilt and polished products with usable apps that didn't require technical knowledge, did people see the light that home computers are the future and will become mainstream for all consumers not just enthusiasts. Nobody can know yet how mainstream VR will look like exactly and who will get to dominate the field and dictate the product direction (Apple, Valve, Meta, etc), but for sure it will happen in the future, even if for now it's just a tinkering toy for gamers and enthusiasts with money.

simiones 3y ago
There is a major difference: VR can't work the way sci-fi enthusiasts envision it for fundamental physical reasons. You can't have a pair of glasses that is simultaneously opaque enough to give you the illusion you are in another place AND breezy enough so that your eyes won't sweat. Air is just much bigger than light, so you can't block light but allow air to pass through. So a VR headset will always be sweaty on the face. AR will never be able to create realistic opaque backgrounds. You also can't have a holo-deck-like experience with glasses. The only reason the holo deck captures our imaginations is because it had space, smells, sounds, touch. All of those things are impossible to achieve with physical devices of any kind, or at least very close to it. The only thing that may create a holo-deck like experience would be based on brain-computer interfaces, if those are even truly possible. Finally, to get many of the claimed benefits, even if the headsets were good enough to deliver them, you also need complex recording software that actually handles all of this. You can't have a nice realistic image of all of your colleagues in a VR meeting unless they each have a 3D camera setup, and everyone has enough bandwidth to actually receive and send all of the 3D videos, and do so with latency similar to audio traffic. These are at least three fundamental problems that make the whole VR/AR craze just certain to fail. Again.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >The only reason the holo deck captures our imaginations is because it had space, smells, sounds, touch. You don't need the exact fictional holo deck device to have a VR product that sells. 150 years ago Sci-Fi writers imagined we'd have robots in our homes doing our chores, and we do have them today, except not humanoid robots doing the washing and vacuuming by hand for us like we originally imagined, but we have fixed function dedicated robots for each task: dish washing machine, clothes washing machine, Roomba robo-vac, etc. They're a rudimentary and limited far cry from the fantasy and capable humanoid robots in sci-fi novels, yet they're ubiquitous today and sold by the millions. Same will be with VR, it will be more limited than the holo deck but it will sell at the right price/feature combo. >You can't have a nice realistic image of all of your colleagues in a VR meeting unless they each have a 3D camera setup, and everyone has enough bandwidth to actually receive and send all of the 3D videos, and do so with latency similar to audio traffic People also fantasized about video telephony like in star trek and yet those challenge got overcome with the introduction of 3G and camera phones and has improved ever since. Tech will also improve for VR. The iPhone already has had a 3D camera since a while now. >These are at least three fundamental problems that make the whole VR/AR craze just certain to fail. Again. It will fail today, but it will succeed in the future, even if you're too dead set to not see it.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    >but we have fixed function dedicated robots for each task: dish washing machine, clothes washing machine, Roomba robo-vac, etc But we don't have a clothes folding machine, precisely because the task is infinitely harder, from a first principles view, than anything a futurist imagined. VR/AR is the same. It's not just scaling up computer power because it's a matter of not having the physical ability to manipulate reality, energy, and matter the way we need. Science isn't magic. How do you do haptic feedback to hands? That's an essential part of any AR system that isn't just a gimmick, and yet it's basically impossible without clunky gloves. How do you prevent damage to the human eye over extended use like a 9-5 job? The human eye did not evolve to "look at" different things that are in actuality on a screen an inch from our eyes, it really upsets the brain and the muscles that control vision, which is why VR/AR can be so tiring on your eyes. That cannot be innovated away.

simiones 3y ago

There is a major difference: VR can't work the way sci-fi enthusiasts envision it for fundamental physical reasons. You can't have a pair of glasses that is simultaneously opaque enough to give you the illusion you are in another place AND breezy enough so that your eyes won't sweat. Air is just much bigger than light, so you can't block light but allow air to pass through. So a VR headset will always be sweaty on the face. AR will never be able to create realistic opaque backgrounds. You also can't have a holo-deck-like experience with glasses. The only reason the holo deck captures our imaginations is because it had space, smells, sounds, touch. All of those things are impossible to achieve with physical devices of any kind, or at least very close to it. The only thing that may create a holo-deck like experience would be based on brain-computer interfaces, if those are even truly possible. Finally, to get many of the claimed benefits, even if the headsets were good enough to deliver them, you also need complex recording software that actually handles all of this. You can't have a nice realistic image of all of your colleagues in a VR meeting unless they each have a 3D camera setup, and everyone has enough bandwidth to actually receive and send all of the 3D videos, and do so with latency similar to audio traffic. These are at least three fundamental problems that make the whole VR/AR craze just certain to fail. Again.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>The only reason the holo deck captures our imaginations is because it had space, smells, sounds, touch. You don't need the exact fictional holo deck device to have a VR product that sells. 150 years ago Sci-Fi writers imagined we'd have robots in our homes doing our chores, and we do have them today, except not humanoid robots doing the washing and vacuuming by hand for us like we originally imagined, but we have fixed function dedicated robots for each task: dish washing machine, clothes washing machine, Roomba robo-vac, etc. They're a rudimentary and limited far cry from the fantasy and capable humanoid robots in sci-fi novels, yet they're ubiquitous today and sold by the millions. Same will be with VR, it will be more limited than the holo deck but it will sell at the right price/feature combo. >You can't have a nice realistic image of all of your colleagues in a VR meeting unless they each have a 3D camera setup, and everyone has enough bandwidth to actually receive and send all of the 3D videos, and do so with latency similar to audio traffic People also fantasized about video telephony like in star trek and yet those challenge got overcome with the introduction of 3G and camera phones and has improved ever since. Tech will also improve for VR. The iPhone already has had a 3D camera since a while now. >These are at least three fundamental problems that make the whole VR/AR craze just certain to fail. Again. It will fail today, but it will succeed in the future, even if you're too dead set to not see it.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >but we have fixed function dedicated robots for each task: dish washing machine, clothes washing machine, Roomba robo-vac, etc But we don't have a clothes folding machine, precisely because the task is infinitely harder, from a first principles view, than anything a futurist imagined. VR/AR is the same. It's not just scaling up computer power because it's a matter of not having the physical ability to manipulate reality, energy, and matter the way we need. Science isn't magic. How do you do haptic feedback to hands? That's an essential part of any AR system that isn't just a gimmick, and yet it's basically impossible without clunky gloves. How do you prevent damage to the human eye over extended use like a 9-5 job? The human eye did not evolve to "look at" different things that are in actuality on a screen an inch from our eyes, it really upsets the brain and the muscles that control vision, which is why VR/AR can be so tiring on your eyes. That cannot be innovated away.