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Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

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Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#91

Post by boppo1 »

andirk wrote: post #80
h0l0cube wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more that the industry is bearish on long bets in a tight financial climate. The tech for VR/AR is too clunky to seamlessly integrate into peoples' daily lives like mobile phones and smart phones did. There will need to be an iPhone-like leap in affordable and portable vision tech before VR/AR becomes a feasible marketplace.

There was Google Glass but it got laughed out of town for being made for dorks. Seemed like perfectly good tech.

Iirc there was some face-punching resistance to people recording discreetly. I suspect that may have subsided some in many areas due to the longer them of high-res-video-recorder ubiquity.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#92

Post by boppo1 »

charles_f wrote: post #30

I mean, these were cute and demos were a bit "wow" but the practicality seemed reduced, especially when most of the use cases they demonstrated would be covered by a phone call. The big industrial use case I saw was to receive teleguidance to repair equipment, the ground reality is that most of the time if you don't know how to fix it... You're not allowed to try to fix it.

The coolest use-case I saw was controlling a humanoid robot to repair a pipeline in a hostile environment. Now we just have to wait till humanoid robot tech catches up.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#93

Post by loeg »

javajosh wrote: post #74
loeg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is responsive to my comment.

Your comment implicitly asserts the faulty premise that downside is purely loss of income, which I implicitly contradicted.

I don't think you even implicitly touched upon what downside might mean in this context, aside from loss of income. Re-reading your comments, I still have no idea what downside you're describing. And certainly nothing explicitly addresses my comment.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#94

Post by cududa »

orik wrote: post #82
cududa wrote: post #8

That is an extremely misleading headline. AltSpace and the geospatial anchor teams have been axed. Lots of folks were reduced across MR and HoloLens, but the teams weren’t completely fired

Which anchors team?

MRTK - the Azure one is still alive

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#95

Post by cududa »

dougmwne wrote: post #28

Shutting down AltSpace should be a loud warning bell for Meta’s Horizon Worlds. Horizon is basically a badly executed AltSpace. AltSpace was super niche, but some artists and marginalized people seemed to find a home there. It was like an odd cross between a digital Burning Man and a BIPOC LGTBQ+ neurodivergent support group. I had a memorable conversation during the height of the pandemic with an older gay man whose…

I suspect Microsoft knows full well that 343 wouldn't be capable of producing a "metaverse". Activision though? With a sort of contiguous open world standardize "game engine" used by all the properties? Now we're talking real metaverse tech.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#96

Post by vkou »

javajosh wrote: post #31

It's funny I keep thinking about how the same people might work on the same thing but with different terms. As a W2 employee you make great money, but your upside is capped. Your downside is never capped, of course. As a founder you make okay money, you have better upside. But the same corp that fired you will invest that money with the VC that funded you. So, either way, the capital flows through the corp to you, an…

> Your downside is never capped, of course.

What?

Unless your work literally drives you to suicide, the cap on the downside is 'You go out and interview until you find another job.'

You aren't risking your own money - you're an employee. You get paid for your work.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#97

Post by jonas21 »

loeg wrote: post #40
javajosh wrote: post #31

It's funny I keep thinking about how the same people might work on the same thing but with different terms. As a W2 employee you make great money, but your upside is capped. Your downside is never capped, of course. As a founder you make okay money, you have better upside. But the same corp that fired you will invest that money with the VC that funded you. So, either way, the capital flows through the corp to you, an…

> Your downside is never capped, of course. Surely your downside is capped at zero?

Perhaps they believe working for big tech will lead to the eternal damnation of your soul.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#98

Post by tootie »

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #58

How does that effect the crazy fat DND contract MS has for HoloLens?

Congress chopped 90% of the Hololens budget for this fiscal year due in large part to poor results of the field testing. $400M turned into $40M. It's not dead but MS can't sustain the size of the program.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/congress_hololens_mic...

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#99

Post by gofreddygo »

mjr00 wrote: post #35
javajosh wrote: post #31

It's funny I keep thinking about how the same people might work on the same thing but with different terms. As a W2 employee you make great money, but your upside is capped. Your downside is never capped, of course. As a founder you make okay money, you have better upside. But the same corp that fired you will invest that money with the VC that funded you. So, either way, the capital flows through the corp to you, an…

I agree. I think the next 5-10 years will see a massive wave of new companies come out of this. There's been so much talent locked up in bigtech for so long. The amount of talent in these companies that have had golden handcuffs forever due to the continual rise of their stock grants is staggering. Now suddenly bigtech stock is down 50%+, and they can't issue enough RSUs to cover the compensation gap. Moreover, there…

> the next 5-10 years will see a massive wave of new companies come out of this

I want this to be true, but I don't see how.

Good talent is still locked up in BigTech.

Talent that got freed up was working on things BigTech had no way of make money off of, even long term.

On the other hand, SmallTech offers now have a better chance, and seem attractive, to said talent. That must count for something.

This round of layoffs is proof that BigTech safety net is a lie. But not enough to push people with dependents to take on the pain and uncertainty that starting up ensues.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#100

Post by pronlover723 »

dougmwne wrote: post #28

Shutting down AltSpace should be a loud warning bell for Meta’s Horizon Worlds. Horizon is basically a badly executed AltSpace. AltSpace was super niche, but some artists and marginalized people seemed to find a home there. It was like an odd cross between a digital Burning Man and a BIPOC LGTBQ+ neurodivergent support group. I had a memorable conversation during the height of the pandemic with an older gay man whose…

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