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A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)

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Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)

#21

Post by geoelectric »

charcircuit wrote: post #6
ClassyJacket wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the Quest could be very light if they took the Apple approach and moved the battery and computer to a pocket box. Even before any of these headsets existed I imagined most of them being that way.

That would need quite the cable to support 6 camera video feeds, 2 display video feeds, 2 audio feeds, and some other control data in addition to power.

Would it? How much total throughput and power would that be, vs a skinny USB-C PD 3.2 Gen 2x2 cable that can carry a 100W or more along with 20 Gbps of data? How about 2 or 3 of them in a wrapper?

The Quest can be a PCVR headset with a 3.2 Gen 1 cable, ie 5 Gbps. How different is this?

I’m pretty sure outboarding most of the hardware that’s not speaker, camera, or screen is plenty doable. It just blows Meta’s selling point of making it a self-contained device. I’d probably prefer it though, especially if I could attach the outboard module to the back of the head strap as a counterweight.

Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)

#22

Post by dataviz1000 »

Terr_ wrote: post #5

I wish more people knew/appreciated the incrementalism of progress. A huge amount of constant "boring" percent-point improvement work or price-shifts are required to unlock the interesting changes, and often the people and companies associated with those new discoveries and ways of doing things are not really the first at all, but rather the lucky or the ruthless.

There is a saying. How to make a lot of money? Be first, best, or cheat.

Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)

#23

Post by noud »

dataviz1000 wrote: post #22
Terr_ wrote: post #5

I wish more people knew/appreciated the incrementalism of progress. A huge amount of constant "boring" percent-point improvement work or price-shifts are required to unlock the interesting changes, and often the people and companies associated with those new discoveries and ways of doing things are not really the first at all, but rather the lucky or the ruthless.

There is a saying. How to make a lot of money? Be first, best, or cheat.

I think it's "only" a quote from a movie called Margin Call [1]. But my grandma could have said it. ;)

[1] - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1615147/quotes/?item=qt1531207&...

Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)

#26

Post by rob74 »

Terr_ wrote: post #5

I wish more people knew/appreciated the incrementalism of progress. A huge amount of constant "boring" percent-point improvement work or price-shifts are required to unlock the interesting changes, and often the people and companies associated with those new discoveries and ways of doing things are not really the first at all, but rather the lucky or the ruthless.

Well, in this case, stereoscopic photography had been a thing for a long time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscopy), and TVs were becoming widespread, so having the idea of combining the two is not some kind of stroke of genius. So I would give more credit to those who work on the incremental improvements that make the thing actually possible. Same as I would give more credit to the Wright brothers (and the other aviation pioneers) than to e.g. Leonardo da Vinci...

Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)

#27

Post by Jensson »

aksss wrote: post #20
ghaff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Size/weight wasn't an issue as long as you were basically talking about a car-phone which was a valid but specific use-case. (Back in the day, my senior manager would occasionally give me rides from my car dealer and he'd put me on the phone with various senior sales people if there was something he wanted me to have a conversation with.) But you're right that the phone plans were also out of reach for all but execs…

Even in mid-late nineties I would have never paid for a cell phone personally (too expensive), but they were becoming cheap enough that it was common for employers to see the value in making sure you had one.

Most kids had cell phones in mid late nineties where I lived, the phones themselves were cheap but using them were not very cheap, but giving a kid a phone so you could call them if the parent needed seemed popular.

Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)

#28

Post by maxbond »

noud wrote: post #23
dataviz1000 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a saying. How to make a lot of money? Be first, best, or cheat.

I think it's "only" a quote from a movie called Margin Call [1]. But my grandma could have said it. ;) [1] - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1615147/quotes/?item=qt1531207&...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag14Ao_xO4c

It's the first 30s of this clip, for the curious. (Movie is a bit dry but pretty good.)

Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)

#30

Post by flohofwoe »

d--b wrote: post #24

CRT on your eye balls, ouch. That said, they look small and light. So maybe CRT is the way to go!

I thought lasers right into the eye were the best option? At least that was presented as the 'holy grail' in a VR book I read in the early 90's (must have been this one, although my German edition looks very different: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Howard-Rheingold/dp/0671778978).
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