8 ms·

Does anyone doubt this will technology will be the biggest advance in human-computer interactions in decades?

by marze 12y ago

JetSpiegel 12y ago
Sane people?
aluhut 12y ago
At least for those who can afford it. We'll see how this works out over time. But I really look forward to it. Especially together with some "real" SciFi-Style Cyberspace. I however don't see me running around with that in my room. Maybe I'm too old for that but it's not what I have in my mind when I think about VR devices. What I think of is Cyberpunk. Gibson. Guys starving in their chair having such a device on my head. I still have a Wii flying around somewhere in the dust...
- WalterSear 12y ago
  IMHO, it will be stupid cheap in no time at all.
  - zemvpferreira 12y ago
    Agreed - Even now we're talking a about spending a ballpark $200-$500 for a VR headset, plus $1500 on a computer to run the software (that a lot of us already have). That's not a trivial amount of money, but it's hardly outside the reach of anyone in the developed world. Consider that computers, microwaves and maybe even TV's started at tens of thousands of dollars - and that's before adjusting for inflation - and it's hard not to say it's already stupidly good value for money for an entirely new medium.
    - endergen 12y ago
      I have the Gear VR and the DK2. I think mobile VR is going to take off just as fast as a category than desktop VR. I personally find it being wireless/portable to be worth the loss of positional tracking. I'm sure they'll get mobile positional tracking working in no time and then it will just blow hardline VR out of the water (caveat, minus having less fancy graphics), and it will definitely get cheap fast. It's already only $250 for the VR holder plus a Galaxy Note 4. Once they fuse these things together into one project and also streamline the hardware even more it will only get cheaper and lighter.
      - runewell 12y ago
        I agree, I love my Gear VR but I think the mobile solution needs to be an all-in-one device. I could see mobile and desktop VR using the same headset. With USB-C they could charge the headset battery while allowing you to power the display via your desktop computer, then when you disconnect it will switch to the on-board mobile hardware capabilities.
Signez 12y ago
Me. It will, for sure, improve some human-computer interactions in a few domains where it is easily deployable (mainly entertainment and industrial manipulations). Other than that, I don't see it used that much. It is still cumbersome to wear, doesn't seem to be usable in mobility, and won't solve common problems in a business environment. (But I'm still waiting for it, heh.)
- reilly3000 12y ago
  I think that real time data visualization is the killer app for VR in business. That and building business processes in Minecraft with redstone. srsly. There is a generation of kids that it will be like a second tongue to.
  - XorNot 12y ago
    I'd pay several thousands of dollars for a headset which was high enough resolution to code on (in normal font sizes). Just drop the monitors altogether and have a virtual environment for it. Lighthouse is really exciting in that way because being able to get peripherals into virtual space accurately would be a boon.
- isaiahg 12y ago
  I had my questions too. That was until I tried VirtualDesktop. It literally makes your desktop into a big screen display floating right in front of you. For a background you can have a space scene with a planet similar to Saturn and asteroids floating around you. Immediately I fired up and watched 2001 A Space Odyssey on my new virtual big screen display. I could also work on code in any editor. It's just your desktop in virtual space. But this gives me some neat ideas, especially business applications. Startups that exist only online are not that uncommon. Imagine a virtual office application where employees across the world can work together in a virtual space. It could be a office setting or on the bridge of the Enterprise. Each employee has a workstation with displays that you could check out in real time. For example, say you're having an issue with a database, you could get up and move over to the work station of your admin and help resolve it and see what he does on his screen. You could have meetings on the moon. And all while working from home, thousands of miles apart. Combined with voice group chat, it could be a killer app. As someone working on an indie studio in Texas, with my partner based in New Jersey, the idea of doing that makes me very excited.
endergen 12y ago
I feel that zeal occasionally, but smart phones and having a portable computer on you at all times probably deserves that award. But why do we have to play favorites?! I love all tech children equally. Especially when they combine into Mobile VR!! :)
Throwaway90283 12y ago
I'm hoping it brings some fun, education uses. For example, VR cooking with Gordon Ramsey, where you're in a virtual kitchen, cooking along with a professional chef. Or VR public speaking. Most people are scared of speaking in public, so you can practice in front of a VR crowd. You could have DLC for classroom speaking, weddings, boardrooms, etc. I figure you could setup a 3D 360 camera in front of a group of volunteers, and then just use that video for the VR experience. It would also be great for training. Ever run a backhoe? A typical setup is two sticks for moving the bucket, so you could make an easy simulator with the Valve VR controllers to give people practice in a variety of situations. Or driving simulators for new drivers, where they can practice their parking. You need real world training for all of the above, but I'd be curious to see how the VR training could help people get started. I wouldn't buy a VR headset for any of these things alone, but combine it with games, entertainment, virtual workspaces (you could be sitting in a 10x10 basement, but feel like you're sitting at a desk in a penthouse overlooking New York), and I think they could be quite versatile, and a worthwhile purchase. I can imagine big business in creating alternate reality assets, such as virtual homes. I wonder if you could combine the real world and the virtual world as well. For example, I'm building a new home, so I make a 20x20 room, dividing a 5x20 and 15x20 section with a sliding door. I put a bed in the 15x20 area, and a railing in the 5x20 section. There's nothing passed the railing, it's just a railing 2ft from a blank wall. However, I create a virtual world that matches the geometry. I put on the headset, and I can sit down on my virtual bed, or walk across the room and slide the door to the balcony. With the headset, the balcony looks like it's on the 20th floor, overlooking the ocean. I can lean on the railing and look down at the world below, while in the real world, I'm just wearing a headset staring at the wall in front of me. I could put a fan in the 5x20 room, so in VR, it feels like there's a breeze on the balcony. It sounds a little crazy, but is it? You can turn an unfinished space, such as a basement, into a billion dollar VR dream home. There could be a VR home generator, where you enter the floor plan of your basement, and it generates a VR home with rooms and doors that match that space. I'm curious to see where things go, it'll be an interesting decade.
- runewell 12y ago
  Great ideas, I can see public speaking becoming a large attraction. VR-based conferences may gain popularity where you can watch presentations and do a live Q&A at the end. Imagine a programming conference where you get a digital goody-bag of software and/or source code.
pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
It's not virtual reality. It's just headphones for your eyes.
runewell 12y ago
Yeah, it does surprise me when technical people still show skepticism towards VR. I could see how a person could assume it's going to take another 5 years of iteration to be worthy of mass adoption but after the recent MWC and GDC conferences it seems clear to me that VR is here to stay and will only improve over time. The enthusiasm alone is driving innovation in this market at an insane pace and the consumer devices haven't even launched yet.
DonGateley 12y ago
It has that potential but corporate greed will turn it into a tower of incompatible babble.

Does anyone doubt this will technology will be the biggest advance in human-computer interactions in decades?

by marze 12y ago

Does anyone doubt this will technology will be the biggest advance in human-computer interactions in decades?

JetSpiegel 12y ago

Sane people?

aluhut 12y ago

At least for those who can afford it. We'll see how this works out over time. But I really look forward to it. Especially together with some "real" SciFi-Style Cyberspace. I however don't see me running around with that in my room. Maybe I'm too old for that but it's not what I have in my mind when I think about VR devices. What I think of is Cyberpunk. Gibson. Guys starving in their chair having such a device on my head. I still have a Wii flying around somewhere in the dust...

WalterSear 12y ago
IMHO, it will be stupid cheap in no time at all.
- zemvpferreira 12y ago
  Agreed - Even now we're talking a about spending a ballpark $200-$500 for a VR headset, plus $1500 on a computer to run the software (that a lot of us already have). That's not a trivial amount of money, but it's hardly outside the reach of anyone in the developed world. Consider that computers, microwaves and maybe even TV's started at tens of thousands of dollars - and that's before adjusting for inflation - and it's hard not to say it's already stupidly good value for money for an entirely new medium.
  - endergen 12y ago
    I have the Gear VR and the DK2. I think mobile VR is going to take off just as fast as a category than desktop VR. I personally find it being wireless/portable to be worth the loss of positional tracking. I'm sure they'll get mobile positional tracking working in no time and then it will just blow hardline VR out of the water (caveat, minus having less fancy graphics), and it will definitely get cheap fast. It's already only $250 for the VR holder plus a Galaxy Note 4. Once they fuse these things together into one project and also streamline the hardware even more it will only get cheaper and lighter.
    - runewell 12y ago
      I agree, I love my Gear VR but I think the mobile solution needs to be an all-in-one device. I could see mobile and desktop VR using the same headset. With USB-C they could charge the headset battery while allowing you to power the display via your desktop computer, then when you disconnect it will switch to the on-board mobile hardware capabilities.

Signez 12y ago

Me. It will, for sure, improve some human-computer interactions in a few domains where it is easily deployable (mainly entertainment and industrial manipulations). Other than that, I don't see it used that much. It is still cumbersome to wear, doesn't seem to be usable in mobility, and won't solve common problems in a business environment. (But I'm still waiting for it, heh.)

reilly3000 12y ago
I think that real time data visualization is the killer app for VR in business. That and building business processes in Minecraft with redstone. srsly. There is a generation of kids that it will be like a second tongue to.
- XorNot 12y ago
  I'd pay several thousands of dollars for a headset which was high enough resolution to code on (in normal font sizes). Just drop the monitors altogether and have a virtual environment for it. Lighthouse is really exciting in that way because being able to get peripherals into virtual space accurately would be a boon.
isaiahg 12y ago
I had my questions too. That was until I tried VirtualDesktop. It literally makes your desktop into a big screen display floating right in front of you. For a background you can have a space scene with a planet similar to Saturn and asteroids floating around you. Immediately I fired up and watched 2001 A Space Odyssey on my new virtual big screen display. I could also work on code in any editor. It's just your desktop in virtual space. But this gives me some neat ideas, especially business applications. Startups that exist only online are not that uncommon. Imagine a virtual office application where employees across the world can work together in a virtual space. It could be a office setting or on the bridge of the Enterprise. Each employee has a workstation with displays that you could check out in real time. For example, say you're having an issue with a database, you could get up and move over to the work station of your admin and help resolve it and see what he does on his screen. You could have meetings on the moon. And all while working from home, thousands of miles apart. Combined with voice group chat, it could be a killer app. As someone working on an indie studio in Texas, with my partner based in New Jersey, the idea of doing that makes me very excited.

endergen 12y ago

I feel that zeal occasionally, but smart phones and having a portable computer on you at all times probably deserves that award. But why do we have to play favorites?! I love all tech children equally. Especially when they combine into Mobile VR!! :)

Throwaway90283 12y ago

I'm hoping it brings some fun, education uses. For example, VR cooking with Gordon Ramsey, where you're in a virtual kitchen, cooking along with a professional chef. Or VR public speaking. Most people are scared of speaking in public, so you can practice in front of a VR crowd. You could have DLC for classroom speaking, weddings, boardrooms, etc. I figure you could setup a 3D 360 camera in front of a group of volunteers, and then just use that video for the VR experience. It would also be great for training. Ever run a backhoe? A typical setup is two sticks for moving the bucket, so you could make an easy simulator with the Valve VR controllers to give people practice in a variety of situations. Or driving simulators for new drivers, where they can practice their parking. You need real world training for all of the above, but I'd be curious to see how the VR training could help people get started. I wouldn't buy a VR headset for any of these things alone, but combine it with games, entertainment, virtual workspaces (you could be sitting in a 10x10 basement, but feel like you're sitting at a desk in a penthouse overlooking New York), and I think they could be quite versatile, and a worthwhile purchase. I can imagine big business in creating alternate reality assets, such as virtual homes. I wonder if you could combine the real world and the virtual world as well. For example, I'm building a new home, so I make a 20x20 room, dividing a 5x20 and 15x20 section with a sliding door. I put a bed in the 15x20 area, and a railing in the 5x20 section. There's nothing passed the railing, it's just a railing 2ft from a blank wall. However, I create a virtual world that matches the geometry. I put on the headset, and I can sit down on my virtual bed, or walk across the room and slide the door to the balcony. With the headset, the balcony looks like it's on the 20th floor, overlooking the ocean. I can lean on the railing and look down at the world below, while in the real world, I'm just wearing a headset staring at the wall in front of me. I could put a fan in the 5x20 room, so in VR, it feels like there's a breeze on the balcony. It sounds a little crazy, but is it? You can turn an unfinished space, such as a basement, into a billion dollar VR dream home. There could be a VR home generator, where you enter the floor plan of your basement, and it generates a VR home with rooms and doors that match that space. I'm curious to see where things go, it'll be an interesting decade.

runewell 12y ago
Great ideas, I can see public speaking becoming a large attraction. VR-based conferences may gain popularity where you can watch presentations and do a live Q&A at the end. Imagine a programming conference where you get a digital goody-bag of software and/or source code.

pikachu_is_cool 12y ago

It's not virtual reality. It's just headphones for your eyes.

runewell 12y ago

Yeah, it does surprise me when technical people still show skepticism towards VR. I could see how a person could assume it's going to take another 5 years of iteration to be worthy of mass adoption but after the recent MWC and GDC conferences it seems clear to me that VR is here to stay and will only improve over time. The enthusiasm alone is driving innovation in this market at an insane pace and the consumer devices haven't even launched yet.

DonGateley 12y ago

It has that potential but corporate greed will turn it into a tower of incompatible babble.