The cliche in the tech world: you want to be ahead of your time, but you don't want to be too far ahead of your time.
A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)
61–70 of 121 posts
Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)
#62The problem is that the guy didn't "invent" anything, more like had a farfetched idea and left all "the practical details" to others to work out. That's like saying that Meliès invented space travel - he too had the idea of flying to the Moon in a gun projectile ...
It was only non-functioning mockup, at best, because the vacuum tube electronics of the era was simply incapable of producing a wireless device with those capabilities and weighing 140 (!!!) grams.
Compare that with the first actual working HMD which was the Sutherland's "Sword of Damocles" boom-mounted display from 1968.
EDIT: It was George Meliès not Lumiere brothers who made the famous film. Thanks for correcting me.
Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
OpenAI made the first AI chat bot product that didn't suck. There is a critical mass of innovation and Open AI got their 9kg of Uranium-235 together first as reflected in the market. The real question isn't why did OpenAI get there first but why Google didn't, they had every advantage.
My armchair answer to that question is that Google isn’t a product company. They might have had similar or better technical AI capabilities, but they aren’t great at productizing it.
The one thing that most defines Google products is that each one must collect data from the user in a way that is unique to their other products. If it doesn’t do that it doesn’t get to exist.
Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
OpenAI made the first AI chat bot product that didn't suck. There is a critical mass of innovation and Open AI got their 9kg of Uranium-235 together first as reflected in the market. The real question isn't why did OpenAI get there first but why Google didn't, they had every advantage.
My armchair answer to that question is that Google isn’t a product company. They might have had similar or better technical AI capabilities, but they aren’t great at productizing it.
>Google isn’t a product company.
I disagree. Google does have great products, Google Maps, Search, GMail etc.
Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)
#65The problem is that the guy didn't "invent" anything, more like had a farfetched idea and left all "the practical details" to others to work out. That's like saying that Meliès invented space travel - he too had the idea of flying to the Moon in a gun projectile ... It was only non-functioning mockup, at best, because the vacuum tube electronics of the era was simply incapable of producing a wireless device with thos…
That seems a little unfair to me. In many cases an original idea, regardless of ability to execute, is priceless.
I agree that execution is everything in terms of winning, though.
Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)
#66It makes me sad he can’t be here to try out something like Vision Pro and see the evolution of this concept 50 years on. I imagine you’d struggle to wipe the smile off his face.
Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being usable was largely about timing, though. None of the choices that compromised our device - or those of most of our competitors - were choices we made because we thought they were right, or best, but because we were forced to by timing and what was available at what cost, and failed to realize that the result was too compromised to stand a chance. Put another way: Had Apple launched an iPad in 2000, it would've…
> Being usable was largely about timing, though. Most breakthrough inventions, in areas where people fumbled for years or decades, could have been released long before with earlier insight. Maybe not as advanced, but if the right things were done right they still would have been a win. Many of those "right things" were more practicality, psychological, or fit for market, not just waiting around to jump the moment the…
You really underestimate timing here, and I feel overestimate how great the first iPhone and iPad was.
They didn't take technical genius. All the elements preceded them. Most of the design preceded thrm. They didn't engineer anything particularly new. The only previously unavailable component they got made was better glass, which was great, but not where the deal breaker was for previous iterations.
I find it funny when people want to declare Apple as visionary geniuses over the tech, when the path from earlier devices to the iPhone and iPad was so clear, and given what I know about design discussions etc. in that space.
There would have been multiple devices very similar to the iPad had the components existed. The vision was there, the supportive management was there, the talent was there because frankly none of it is complicated, and people iterated for years. None of that means anything when the components just do not exist yet.
Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)
#68Neural networks were 'invented' in the 1960s-70s too. We only have the hardware to get something semi useful* out of them ... now.
* actually they have been used before, but they didn't manage to generate religious like fanaticism until the past few years.
Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)
#69The problem is that the guy didn't "invent" anything, more like had a farfetched idea and left all "the practical details" to others to work out. That's like saying that Meliès invented space travel - he too had the idea of flying to the Moon in a gun projectile ... It was only non-functioning mockup, at best, because the vacuum tube electronics of the era was simply incapable of producing a wireless device with thos…
> That's like saying that Lumiere brothers invented space travel - they too had the idea of flying to the Moon in a gun projectile ...
Just to nitpick, it was Jules Verne's idea. The Lumieres just put it on screen.
Re: A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)
#70Neural networks were 'invented' in the 1960s-70s too. We only have the hardware to get something semi useful* out of them ... now. * actually they have been used before, but they didn't manage to generate religious like fanaticism until the past few years.
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