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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 si

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.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >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. Who said VR would need gloves and haptic feedback to succeed? We're talking about virtual reality here, not simulated reality. For the latter better wait for Elon's neural link or whatver we'll get that plugs our brains into the Matrix and simulates reality. People still use mice and keyboards to interact with UIs despite having the ability to use touchscreens. Just because one thing exists, doesn't automatically mean the other dies. >How do you prevent damage to the human eye over extended use like a 9-5 job? Who said you need to use a VR device from 9-5 for it to succeed? You don't stare at your phone screen or tablet for 8h/day, do you? And yet you most likely have one. > The human eye did not evolve to "look at" different things that are in actuality on a screen an inch from our eyes Have you seen what lenses can do with light? Like move the focal point of a picture much further away? They're pretty big tech in cameras, telescopes, binoculars, and .... oh, these optical things humans wear on their faces, a couple of cm from their eyes to fix their vision issues, their called glasses I think. How about we use those lens thingies to move the focal point of a screen that's 2cm from your eyes to 2m from your eyes? I'm telling you dude, whoever invents this tech is gonna be big.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
saltcured 3y ago
Replying here, but with conflicting thoughts reading this whole comment chain.. I really liked immersive VR I experienced in research lab settings like CAVE systems, over 20 years ago. I'm probably among the people most tolerant to artifacts like frame rate jitter and lag, and most easily able to still get an immersive pop out of it. But I'm not an early adopter. I don't see the value or place for this single-purpose equipment in my life, nor my budget. When mobile phones were just phones, I saw them getting smaller and lighter. I even fantasized about them shrinking until it was just the ear bud. I was willing to hand-wave some sci-fi UX without a display nor buttons. But, I didn't (and still don't, really) appreciate how people would care to get wireless ear buds that are still slaved to a larger device. I'd still be satisfied with wired ear phones if they were available. I also didn't imagine today's smartphone ecosystem, even though I saw all the PDAs and other pocket computing platforms and their general purpose potential. I didn't predict the social/marketing angle that was going to make any of this seem worthwhile to average consumers. Now, I benefit from these economies of scale making the tech affordable, but I barely need it. I still prefer going to a laptop or desktop for any "real" tasks. Ironically, a smartphone ir tablet makes me feel frustrated and "mute" without a keyboard. I understood the idea of convergence and the general purpose device. I understood the mobile/always on value and was on the early side of wire-cutting to have only a mobile phone. But, I was surprised at how rapidly the smartphone ate up digital camera and personal video camera markets. I am still surprised at how much smartphones are eating into spaces like regular laptops and PCs. And now the entire concept of a phone seems to be disappearing, with traditional voice calls being less relevant as time goes on. So I am a fence-sitter on some kind of N-dimensional fence. I admit that a lot of tech development might occur and I probably can't guess which ones get popular. Maybe there is some VR/AR angle that will finally catch on. But on the more general topic, I also think that all these developments above had many other passionate developers and ventures working on slightly different angles that failed in the market. As a third-party observer of decades of tech, I do also think it's a lot of luck. It is survivorship bias to fixate on how NVIDIA or Apple or anybody had some perfect strategy to ride these big waves.
badpun 3y ago
> 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 can have a fan that pull the air in or out of the inside of the glasses without any light ever coming in.
DougN7 3y ago
> Air is just much bigger than light, so you can't block light but allow air to pass through. That seems easy to fix - small tubes/vents that don’t go straight through but hit a corner or big enough curve. Air can go around obstacle but light won’t.

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.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >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. Who said VR would need gloves and haptic feedback to succeed? We're talking about virtual reality here, not simulated reality. For the latter better wait for Elon's neural link or whatver we'll get that plugs our brains into the Matrix and simulates reality. People still use mice and keyboards to interact with UIs despite having the ability to use touchscreens. Just because one thing exists, doesn't automatically mean the other dies. >How do you prevent damage to the human eye over extended use like a 9-5 job? Who said you need to use a VR device from 9-5 for it to succeed? You don't stare at your phone screen or tablet for 8h/day, do you? And yet you most likely have one. > The human eye did not evolve to "look at" different things that are in actuality on a screen an inch from our eyes Have you seen what lenses can do with light? Like move the focal point of a picture much further away? They're pretty big tech in cameras, telescopes, binoculars, and .... oh, these optical things humans wear on their faces, a couple of cm from their eyes to fix their vision issues, their called glasses I think. How about we use those lens thingies to move the focal point of a screen that's 2cm from your eyes to 2m from your eyes? I'm telling you dude, whoever invents this tech is gonna be big.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

saltcured 3y ago

Replying here, but with conflicting thoughts reading this whole comment chain.. I really liked immersive VR I experienced in research lab settings like CAVE systems, over 20 years ago. I'm probably among the people most tolerant to artifacts like frame rate jitter and lag, and most easily able to still get an immersive pop out of it. But I'm not an early adopter. I don't see the value or place for this single-purpose equipment in my life, nor my budget. When mobile phones were just phones, I saw them getting smaller and lighter. I even fantasized about them shrinking until it was just the ear bud. I was willing to hand-wave some sci-fi UX without a display nor buttons. But, I didn't (and still don't, really) appreciate how people would care to get wireless ear buds that are still slaved to a larger device. I'd still be satisfied with wired ear phones if they were available. I also didn't imagine today's smartphone ecosystem, even though I saw all the PDAs and other pocket computing platforms and their general purpose potential. I didn't predict the social/marketing angle that was going to make any of this seem worthwhile to average consumers. Now, I benefit from these economies of scale making the tech affordable, but I barely need it. I still prefer going to a laptop or desktop for any "real" tasks. Ironically, a smartphone ir tablet makes me feel frustrated and "mute" without a keyboard. I understood the idea of convergence and the general purpose device. I understood the mobile/always on value and was on the early side of wire-cutting to have only a mobile phone. But, I was surprised at how rapidly the smartphone ate up digital camera and personal video camera markets. I am still surprised at how much smartphones are eating into spaces like regular laptops and PCs. And now the entire concept of a phone seems to be disappearing, with traditional voice calls being less relevant as time goes on. So I am a fence-sitter on some kind of N-dimensional fence. I admit that a lot of tech development might occur and I probably can't guess which ones get popular. Maybe there is some VR/AR angle that will finally catch on. But on the more general topic, I also think that all these developments above had many other passionate developers and ventures working on slightly different angles that failed in the market. As a third-party observer of decades of tech, I do also think it's a lot of luck. It is survivorship bias to fixate on how NVIDIA or Apple or anybody had some perfect strategy to ride these big waves.

badpun 3y ago

> 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 can have a fan that pull the air in or out of the inside of the glasses without any light ever coming in.

DougN7 3y ago

> Air is just much bigger than light, so you can't block light but allow air to pass through. That seems easy to fix - small tubes/vents that don’t go straight through but hit a corner or big enough curve. Air can go around obstacle but light won’t.