741–750 of 1001 posts
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It the late 90s a technology professional calmly explained to me that nobody would ever do their supermarket shopping online because they would not able to select fruit and vegetables by hand to look for the 'good' ones
And he was right. Still going to the market myself for the veggies.
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I'm sorry, but buying things on the internet wasn't laughed at, if anything people were worried about it cause of their credit card numbers. It was that basis of the dot com boom of the late 90s. Everyone saw the potential and lashed money into it. It didn't deliver at the time, but that dynamic is totally different to vr headsets. Think smart phones, they weren't pushed, people wanted them in a serious way
It the late 90s a technology professional calmly explained to me that nobody would ever do their supermarket shopping online because they would not able to select fruit and vegetables by hand to look for the 'good' ones
I use the Quest Pro right now, because my interest in spatial computing (I like Apple's new term so trying to use it, haha) is greater than my misgivings about Meta (even though those are significant). I will buy the Apple thing, too. There are a lot of interesting differences between them (obviously, the biggest one being the price, and deriving from that) but the one I find interesting is Apple's decision not to ha…
"spatial computing" is such a silly marketing phrase. All we saw was 2D windows placed in a fake 3D world. It's all just an aesthetic upgrade, a minor QOL improvement that has its own downsides, nothing more.
Spatial computing is actually a good Apple name for this interface as it differentiates from the lower effort products that cost $3,000 less. This draws a line between AR/VR and what Apple is doing which is Spatial Computing. Apple needed to co-ordinate the fundamentals of Human Interface design and production. When they finally had same they could actually produce that also function they shipped it.
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And he was right. Still going to the market myself for the veggies.
What are you talking about? I see a large number of grocery store employees gather up wares for curbside or delivery every time I go to the supermarket. All of my area supermarkets have dedicated sections for these ways of shopping!
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Gaming is legitimately awesome with these devices. It’s a high effort, high reward experience. Using the Quest on a few of the highly polished and addictive games surpassed even my childhood experience of getting a computer for the first time. As a general purpose computer, I see a hint of what it could be, and I am convinced it’s the future. It has to be. It’s too powerful not to be. Imagine there’s nothing to put o…
>Imagine there’s nothing to put on. The computer doctor sprinkles some magic computer dust over you 7 minutes after you are born and you get Apple Vision++++ levels of ability, all of the time. Everything in the world becomes a potential UI. Every action becomes an input. Every surface a display. I am begging you to consider how this is an awful future
Nearly every person on the planet has a phone in their pocket. People use these screens for hours a day. Companies and governments track everything you do. Whatever world you are afraid of is already here.
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> The promise of VR is to unlock a world free of the constraints of physics. Where physical distance prevents certain styles of communication and interaction - where physical real estate is finite and therefore rivalrous, etc. There are many things that VR, in principle, could solve... See. You just did the exact same thing that Op is talking about. You didn't describe a single actual use case. You just talked about…
If a set of vr hardware can make it so I can work as ergonomically from my patio as from my desk I will throw money at it.
There is something quite remarkable and puzzling about the VR/AR and now SC (spatial computing) space. All major (ad)tech companies are convinced that this is a major market that will materialize and be profitable if the right combination of hardware and software is developed. Their VR "visions" differ but only at the margin. No matter how you execute it, we are talking about people (homo sapiens) putting a major som…
Most of the FAMAG is concerned about advertising (Apple the least, but still), while life nowadays is all about signal to noise. The bandwidth is there, 24/7 connectivity is there, wrt smartphones. Its the noise which can be reduced further, which would increase productivity. What is noise? Stuff you don't want to see, suggestions, lower priority vs higher priority (ie. what is really important to you vs clickbait), and, yes: advertising.
If I could just block all advertising with a AR/VR glasses I'd easily shell out 1k EUR every 2 years for the hardware (not 3k, but YMMV as I don't earn a Netflix dev wage). In fact, perhaps a good UI on it could replace a smartphone. Except, the smartphone UI is going to be in (comparison) mature, its very unlikely a new hardware interface is going to be great right away. Smartwatch needed time (and cannot replace smartphone full-time at all), smartphone needed time (vs desktop/laptop, see mid '00s before capacitive touch), foldables are going to fill the niche which tablets/phablets provide, and now we got a hardware UI like this released by Apple (yes, I'm aware of predecessors including Meta/Facebook Quest, Magic Leap, and Google Glass). Also, it has the disadvantage of being visually omnipresent to others. A Google Glass is much less obvious. And yeah, walking around in Amsterdam with OSM AR (no, not Google) for all the buildings but without all the advertising would (after transition period) be a massive, massive plus to me. Add Wikipedia on top of it, with TTS and voice input pivoted towards my own voice as a bonus. Heck, I wouldn't even mind if I could just blacklist certain buildings like Nutella bars and red light distract. Yes, I can see it as a future, but not by FAMAG (Musk isn't sane enough; it'd be someone sane with deep pockets who's not into advertising).
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The first iPhone was released June 2007. The iPhone X was released by 2017. By then smart phones were ubiquitous. And it only took 4? Maybe 5 years? We’re still looking for a good use case for VR … and it’s not Second Life: Facebook Edition, or games (yet).
> The first iPhone was released June 2007 And the first mobile phone was sold to the public in 1949. It took time to catch on. People needed it to be convenient and accessible. VR/AR is neither convenient nor accessible today. You can use your iPhone camera for an AR experience, but your hands are occupied holding the phone so you can't do much at all when using it.
The whole meta verse thing seems like it was 100% hype building by people with money invested in it and none of the platforms had any users.
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I agree, the prospects for cloud gaming do seem promising. However, we can't forget that in VR, latency is a much more important factor. One solution could be for companies to establish datacenters near high-population areas to guarantee low latency. But, I believe a more effective approach might involve advanced foveated rendering coupled with technologies like DLSS. At present, it seems like a viable strategy for b…
> I agree, the prospects for cloud gaming do seem promising. Every attempt so far has failed, spectacularly. What is promising about that?
After thirty years of desktop gaming PCs, I sold mine and just use GFN now. It's completely silent (no fan), minor lag (only matters for competitive shooters), and much cheaper than maintaining a high end gaming rig.
Compared to consoles, it has much better graphics, can be played anywhere where you have good internet, supports mouse/keyboard, ultrawide, 120Hz, etc.
Compared to the Stream Deck, it has much better graphics, much longer battery life (it's just streaming video, not rendering on device), and no heat or fan noise. I also sold my Steam Deck because GFN plus a streaming portable (Logitech gCloud) was way more ergonomic.
Did cloud streaming really fail, or is it just a niche? It's come a long way since OnLive. Stadia was a royal fuckup but not because of its technology; Google just had no idea how PC gaming culture works. Their competitors are still around and doing fine, if not making billions.
It is still a very useful tech that I use daily.