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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

#241

Post by TulliusCicero »

techwizard81 wrote: post #224
TulliusCicero wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were we talking specifically about corporate work? There's more to meetings or meetups than just your job. That said, I think VR/AR may eventually be a way to enhance online work meetings. It doesn't seem like it's there yet overall, but eventually I could definitely see it working.

Can you elaborate on how VR would enhance meetings? I really don’t see the point myself. I don’t want to meet some avatar in a virtual room and I don’t know anybody who would.

Compared to standard video calls, there'd be a much greater sense of presence. Head movement, hand movement, and eye contact (once that's standard) would increase how close it feels to IRL meetings.

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

#242

Post by andybak »

charcircuit wrote: post #221
andybak wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

https://metrics.vrchat.community Look at the last graph which compares the total vrchat player count to the steam player count. All non Steam users are Quest users. There are more Steam users than Quest users even that the Quest is a much bigger VR platform than PCVR. The Steam player count is so high because it is counting desktop users who do not use VR. This data does not support my argumunt that most vrchat playe…

OK. So there's a lot of assumptions there. I won't get into whether I agree or disagree with your conclusion but I would say your original statement made it sound much more factual than it turned out to be.

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

#243

Post by jimmySixDOF »

pharke wrote: post #240
jimmySixDOF wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am afraid you are not paying much attention to the xr dev community which is overwhelmingly Unity vs UE. Both have their shortcomings but the new UE features like Nanite don't work out of the box double rendered and thats just one reason.

https://twitter.com/iBrews/status/1570844710155190275

Yes, Alex and his team(s) are out there in the front pushing what's possible but its not off the shelf he has a lot of talent. Big fan of his Heavenue work on live rendered VR/XR/3D shows & the one they did for A Christmas Carroll is still state of the art theater.

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

#244

Post by cubefox »

There are two approaches to AR currently:

- The Magic Leap/Microsoft approach: Use semitransparent displays to create a virtual overlay.

- The Meta approach: Use cheap standalone VR with lots of external cameras, then mix camera/virtual environment.

It seems pretty clear by now that, if anything, only the second works, given the success (in terms of sales numbers) of the Oculus Quest. Moreover, the latter combines AR and VR, it's not a one trick pony.

The upcoming Apple headset is reported to basically copy Meta's approach, except it is expected to get very expensive and high-end. But I would side with Meta here: I don't see a big market in expensive VR/AR.

A headset is like a Gameboy, if anything people care that it's portable and cheap, not that it has the most impressive graphics.

In any case, Microsoft's HoloLens adventure was likely a dead end.

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

#245

Post by baby »

charcircuit wrote: post #194
uptown wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how Zuckerberg sees the metaverse: “We hope to basically get to around a billion people in the metaverse doing hundreds of dollars of commerce, each buying digital goods, digital content, different things to express themselves, so whether that’s clothing for their avatar or different digital goods for their virtual home or things to decorate their virtual conference room, utilities to be able to be more produ…

Keep in mind this is from a phone call with investors. Investors do care about how much money you think an investment will make.

^ this

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

#246

Post by baby »

FridgeSeal wrote: post #134
baby wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean Meta right? Otherwise it just sounds like you haven’t been following the field.

Surely nobody really takes…whatever Meta has been doing in VR seriously? Their VR demos look awful, last report I heard was employees didn’t even want to use it or touch it, oculus has done basically nothing except burn customer goodwill.

Really? I had a Quest, lots of my friends as well, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been mind blown by VR after experiencing it

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

#247

Post by koof »

rcme wrote: post #142
koof wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it the same for the people “risking” their money? The only “risk” is that they lose their bet, meaning they have to go find a job like the rest of us.

No, it's not the same. An uncapped downside would be something like shorting stock. The price of the stock can be unbounded, and you owe the difference between the current stock and the price you opened your short position. So you can literally lose an unlimited amount of money.

Which means going back to work to pay the debt off, just like the rest of us. Got it.

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

#248

Post by epicureanideal »

majormajor wrote: post #129
koof wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it the same for the people “risking” their money? The only “risk” is that they lose their bet, meaning they have to go find a job like the rest of us.

Let's say you have $50k in savings and an offer in hand for Microsoft or a startup idea of your own. If want to work on your idea, but you don't already have connections to tap for immediate VC funding, any work you do on it is earning $0 income while you're still having to pay the bills. Your downside risk is that after X number of months or years, you've lost $Y dollars of your starting savings. If you take the Mic…

Is $50k enough to attempt anything? Serious question.

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

#249

Post by pharke »

jimmySixDOF wrote: post #243
pharke wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://twitter.com/iBrews/status/1570844710155190275

Yes, Alex and his team(s) are out there in the front pushing what's possible but its not off the shelf he has a lot of talent. Big fan of his Heavenue work on live rendered VR/XR/3D shows & the one they did for A Christmas Carroll is still state of the art theater.

I've also played a few indie VR games that are using it. It's not like you have to be some technical wizard to enable it, you just need to make sure you aren't stomping on your FPS with a bunch of other stuff at the same time.

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

#250

Post by FridgeSeal »

baby wrote: post #246
FridgeSeal wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely nobody really takes…whatever Meta has been doing in VR seriously? Their VR demos look awful, last report I heard was employees didn’t even want to use it or touch it, oculus has done basically nothing except burn customer goodwill.

Really? I had a Quest, lots of my friends as well, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been mind blown by VR after experiencing it

I have one friend who has a VR headset, and basically everyone who’s used it has gone “oh that’s neat” and enjoyed it for 30 mins, and then never had any further interest in it.

It’s fun enough, sure, but it’s heavy, sweaty, weirdly isolating and far too expensive for what it is. There aren’t enough games or utilities, and none of them are amazingly compelling. The controls are still janky. The idea of multiplayer is basically a no-go, as it requires everyone to have them (see price) and then have a computer powerful enough to drive it (see cost of GPU’s). A good chunk of my friends don’t have amazing GPU’s, let alone VR-compatible GPU’a plus a headset.

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