When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet • Hacker News Board

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#121

Post by echelon » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 8:20 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #114

jnwatson wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook's Quest 2 is an impressive piece of tech. One of the biggest reasons to be skeptical of VR taking off is that Facebook is one of the major players. Between the login shenanigans and their anti-competitive dealings with developers, they have an opportunity to single-handedly tank the industry.

I think Facebook is in VR because they don't want the Metaverse to belong to anybody but them.

100%.

Zuckerberg sees that it has the potential, and he wants to have an early angle of attack in case someone else innovates first.

Zuckerberg views platforms as chess pieces. He doesn't care what they are - he just wants the most valuable and strategic ones. He's not like a Musk that just builds or a Cook that refines product into a cohesive vision. Zuckerberg is playing war and finding the reverse salients. He's destabilizing and weakening the platform and expanding his reach. He's more like Bezos or Ellison.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#122

Post by Impossible » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 8:20 PM UTC

an_opabinia wrote: post #94

dougmwne wrote: post #89

I very much think that folks on HN are jaded by the long wait and the unfulfilled promises of VR. I recently picked up a Quest 2 as my first VR headset and I am blown away and convinced it is the future. The thing is, I also recognize that while it is already an incredible achievement, it's still probably 5-20 years from hitting its iPhone moment. By then, my initial excitement will have gone away and I'll have tired…

> The thing is, I also recognize that while it is already an incredible achievement, it's still probably 5-20 years from hitting its iPhone moment. Ironically, by getting acquired by a giant company, Quest development was set back by that many years. The real problem isn't technology or even adoption, it's that people who work at giant companies suck at making games.

Microsoft has a good track record with making games, but yes all of FAANG is terrible at this. I have a little more hope for Facebook now that they've started acquiring studios and letting them run independently, instead of the previous combination of publishing\funding and having few internal game teams (which generally doesn't work in big tech anyway). This could lead to a model that looks more like Microsoft Game Studios.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#123

Post by outworlder » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 8:21 PM UTC

stevebmark wrote: post #67

I don't think the current incarnation of VR will ever take off. It's too inconvenient to need to block out everything around you with a headset. It's fundamentally incompatible with human behavior. Until VR is as convenient as picking up a phone or tablet, it's not going anywhere.

> It's too inconvenient to need to block out everything around you with a headset.

Is it? That's the main selling point to me. I don't want to stare at a screen, I want to look around a cockpit. Even outside light bleed is bothersome - I'm in freaking space, my brain is like where's this light coming from?

It still takes some time to put a headset on and remove it. That can be improved. The Quest also has cameras if you need to see the outside world right now for whatever reason, which is a compromise.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#124

Post by newsgourmet » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 8:21 PM UTC

binarymax wrote: post #7

Technology is not the problem. Flashback to 1995. I'm a 17 year old PFY invited to beta test a VR headset from a local company. My Uncle was an investor and I was technically savvy and the target market. I had a copy of Descent that supported VR, and while it was a bit of a hassle to get setup, I got it working. The experience was incredible. After the first use I said to myself "this is the future". I had permission…

The other day I was looking around in my living room and every family member was staring at a screen.

You just need a VR headset for everybody...

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#125

Post by outworlder » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

istorical wrote: post #50

medium_burrito wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Quest2 and motion tracking is great, but the resolution/blurriness bothers my eyes a lot, to the point where it gives me a headache. Now it could be with not wearing glasses, but I tried it with contacts and it still bothered me. My wife meanwhile has no issues. Is this a common issue?

It's likely that the resolution/blurriness are not responsible for your headache, but rather the lenses and lens spacing, and your particular IPD. Quest 2 has low-granularity control over IPD settings, so you may just be a bad fit for the device. Check your IPD online using a webcam and credit card and see if its close to one of the three available settings on Quest 2.

There are apps that can measure your IPD in seconds with a good degree of accuracy.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#126

Post by dougmwne » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

an_opabinia wrote: post #94

dougmwne wrote: post #89

I very much think that folks on HN are jaded by the long wait and the unfulfilled promises of VR. I recently picked up a Quest 2 as my first VR headset and I am blown away and convinced it is the future. The thing is, I also recognize that while it is already an incredible achievement, it's still probably 5-20 years from hitting its iPhone moment. By then, my initial excitement will have gone away and I'll have tired…

> The thing is, I also recognize that while it is already an incredible achievement, it's still probably 5-20 years from hitting its iPhone moment. Ironically, by getting acquired by a giant company, Quest development was set back by that many years. The real problem isn't technology or even adoption, it's that people who work at giant companies suck at making games.

I'm not even sure we are at the compelling apps stage yet. I think there are still very difficult hardware and software platform issues to solve first that are going to take tons of basic research. I expect the first 100 million unit headset to include extremely accurate eye-tracking that is used to drive foveated rendering, varifocal active lenses and neural network interpolated facial expressions for high fidelity social avatars. Facebook Research seems to be making good progress on all of that, but it will still take many years of additional research to perfect.

Facebook wants to be the company to invent the first mainstream VR Metaverse, but that doesn't mean they won't invent the hardware and get beaten to market on the software. They are about to release Horizons which is clearly in this vein, but I expect they are still too early.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#127

Post by _iyig » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 8:23 PM UTC

an_opabinia wrote: post #94

dougmwne wrote: post #89

I very much think that folks on HN are jaded by the long wait and the unfulfilled promises of VR. I recently picked up a Quest 2 as my first VR headset and I am blown away and convinced it is the future. The thing is, I also recognize that while it is already an incredible achievement, it's still probably 5-20 years from hitting its iPhone moment. By then, my initial excitement will have gone away and I'll have tired…

> The thing is, I also recognize that while it is already an incredible achievement, it's still probably 5-20 years from hitting its iPhone moment. Ironically, by getting acquired by a giant company, Quest development was set back by that many years. The real problem isn't technology or even adoption, it's that people who work at giant companies suck at making games.

> The real problem isn't technology or even adoption, it's that people who work at giant companies suck at making games.

Many companies besides Facebook have developed games for the Quest. I guess you could say Facebook sucks at working with game developers, but I’m not sure if that’s true either. Unreal and Unity have well-developed integrations with Oculus [0].

I think where Facebook really falls down is tying customers’ FB account to their Oculus Store purchases (and ability to use the Quest at all). They’re applying a social media platform’s aggressive algorithms to suspend or ban accounts which violate their expansive TOS, which is wrong in consumer product and digital marketplace space. For that reason, mixed with personal experience at the hands of Facebook's algorithms, I have no interest in developing for Oculus.

[0] https://developer.oculus.com/get-started/

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#128

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 8:24 PM UTC

an_opabinia wrote: post #94

dougmwne wrote: post #89

I very much think that folks on HN are jaded by the long wait and the unfulfilled promises of VR. I recently picked up a Quest 2 as my first VR headset and I am blown away and convinced it is the future. The thing is, I also recognize that while it is already an incredible achievement, it's still probably 5-20 years from hitting its iPhone moment. By then, my initial excitement will have gone away and I'll have tired…

> The thing is, I also recognize that while it is already an incredible achievement, it's still probably 5-20 years from hitting its iPhone moment. Ironically, by getting acquired by a giant company, Quest development was set back by that many years. The real problem isn't technology or even adoption, it's that people who work at giant companies suck at making games.

[deleted]

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#129

Post by dougmwne » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 8:24 PM UTC

Impossible wrote: post #122

an_opabinia wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is, I also recognize that while it is already an incredible achievement, it's still probably 5-20 years from hitting its iPhone moment. Ironically, by getting acquired by a giant company, Quest development was set back by that many years. The real problem isn't technology or even adoption, it's that people who work at giant companies suck at making games.

Microsoft has a good track record with making games, but yes all of FAANG is terrible at this. I have a little more hope for Facebook now that they've started acquiring studios and letting them run independently, instead of the previous combination of publishing\funding and having few internal game teams (which generally doesn't work in big tech anyway). This could lead to a model that looks more like Microsoft Game…

One of the best VR experiences out there was made by a single dev, Eleven Table Tennis. Most of what Facebook puts out there is mediocre tech demos and they don't seem to understand the strengths of their own platform enough to take advantage of them in their games.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#130

Post by Impossible » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 8:25 PM UTC

RoboTeddy wrote: post #96

I strongly suspect that VR will take off once it can pass through facial expressions, gaze, and other body language with high fidelity. At that point it will probably be substantially better than normal videoconference, and will take off extremely quickly (first for business meetings and perhaps social gatherings; then for virtual worlds)

This, greatly improved comfort, and quality 3D scanning\photogrammetry being mainstream (close with Apple LIDAR) at the same or similar cost (~$200-$500 for a standalone HMD) enables a host of interesting stuff. Right now Social VR and VR collaboration software has some potential, but is more awkward and challenging to use than video conferencing.