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Virtual Reality is going to change the world

notch.net

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Re: Virtual Reality is going to change the world

#161

Post by Argorak »

yaeger wrote: post #139
smacktoward wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition He really puts his finger on one of the reasons why this deal feels so weird here, I think. Nobody who contributed to the Oculus Kickstarter did so because they were hoping Oculus would get flipped to a mega-corp. They didn't do so because they wanted the Oculus team to have a big, splashy VC-style exit. They…

No he doesn't. He oversimplifies things. You know what the money during the kickstarter campaign was for? The first DevKit! They raised money for the dev kit and guess what? The people you chipped in got their dev kits. As far as I can see, people got exactly out of the kickstarter campaign what they wanted. They helped to start the business of Oculus and in return even got the DevKit to experience the first results…

You are oversimplifying things as well. On the "cash on the table" side of things you are right: people put cash on the table and got the goods.

On the other hand, Kickstarter is a platform where people invest in future of some geeks. A successful funding drive plays on emotions, on promises and a glimpse of the future.

A lot of the people that got a dev kit were closely monitoring what Oculus was doing and were pleased. Those people feeling let down by Oculus not staying independent is perfectly reasonable and fine to state. It is also fully okay to withdraw your future support because they are now part of a company that shows not general interest in helping any companies but themselves.

Re: Virtual Reality is going to change the world

#162

Post by quasque »

It seems a bit unhygienic having to strap one of these things to your face. Just imagine how filthy it would get after prolonged use. I hope if this stuff takes off then it's designed to be easily washable. The lingering scent of ingrained facial grease would somewhat ruin the immersive experience.

Re: Virtual Reality is going to change the world

#163

Post by oulipian »

quasque wrote: post #162

It seems a bit unhygienic having to strap one of these things to your face. Just imagine how filthy it would get after prolonged use. I hope if this stuff takes off then it's designed to be easily washable. The lingering scent of ingrained facial grease would somewhat ruin the immersive experience.

Fortunately, 80% of the games people will play on this involve avatars wearing space helmets! Ingrained facial grease just makes it more immersive!

Re: Virtual Reality is going to change the world

#164

Post by prawn »

interpol_p wrote: post #102
prawn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see myself, a few years in the future, using a VR headset daily. Watching movies, reading articles in a different format (just lying there rather than having to hold a book, Kindle or phone/tablet), watching something like TV with augmented social info, playing games, etc. Years beyond that, if the resolution is there, I think virtual displays will replace the way many of us currently do work.

I don't share your opinion, but have some colleagues who do. I love VR and own the dev kit. I love playing with it. I like to watch movies and TV shows with friends and family, not alone. I cannot see VR as advantageous for the work I do: design, programming, painting, writing. I enjoy working outside or in cafes, where there are people and noises and things to eat and drink. Places to walk. Most of my programming ha…

But surely you can see that, if not a majority, a significant minority will use VR in the way I've described and push it along quite quickly?

A decent number of people are more comfortable texting or emailing than they are calling. They prefer quiet social settings over busy ones. Many favour time alone.

My wife and I sometimes watch TV/movies together, often separately - in the latter instances, I'd quite happily do this via VR goggles and headphones, either immersed or with a virtual display.

My brother lives in a different state to me. I'd really like to watch movies in a virtual cinema with a voice channel overlay so we could talk crap about what we were watching.

Reading in bed or on the couch, I'd be keen to try doing that via goggles rather than holding a device.

Re: Virtual Reality is going to change the world

#165

Post by rubinelli »

DanBC wrote: post #158
nl wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better analogy - fans pays artist up front to record album. Band records album and delivers it to fans. Then band signs deal with record company. Fans hate band for "selling out".

A better analogy: Band wants to release music. Have a sucessful kickstarter and release an exciting first album to backers. Everyone is excited. Band then signs to a label that won't let people listen to the music without signing in to a social network first, and who will post "Joe Bloggs likes Band!" on your wall, and who only let you listen to the music in their app.

The funny thing is, every major game company does exactly that. Want to play this offline, single-player game? Well, let's first create an account in our service, so we can enhance our experience! Wow, you collected your first item! Here's an achievement that will show up on all of your friends' feeds, along with how long you've been playing. Surely you want to announce to the world you spent your last twenty hours playing Lawnmower Simulator 2014? Hey, how about we add a button to your controller to make it even easier to share videos with all our friends?

Re: Virtual Reality is going to change the world

#166

Post by voyou »

rimantas wrote: post #148
weixiyen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to read this in 10 years and look like the guy who predicted the iPhone to be a flop. Usable VR is absolutely world-changing.

Actually I think the guys who predicted that iPhone will flop are the same guys who think VR is world-changing. The common theme is misunderstanding of the potential users and the problems the product solves. VR solves zero problems for me.

This might well be right. VR proponents like to present people who disagree with them as conservatives, but is it not in fact the case that the VR proponents are the real conservatives?

That is, the ubiquity of computing devices that you get with smartphones, which the iPhone kicked off, is something genuinely fairly new, which not a lot of people had previously imagined. VR, on the other hand, is something people have been imagining for decades, producing compelling fictional versions; but every attempt to implement it suggests that it's not actually a very good idea. VR proponents are stuck with a nostalgic vision of the future, rather than trying to imagine something genuinely novel.

(On the other hand, people were imagining video phones as the next big thing for years, and they seemed to never take off, until they did; Skype hasn't replaced non-video phones, but it is ubiquitous.)

Re: Virtual Reality is going to change the world

#167

Post by deong »

ohwp wrote: post #116
interpol_p wrote: post #35

From Notch: > Don’t get me wrong, VR is not bad for social. In fact, I think social could become one of the biggest applications of VR. Being able to sit in a virtual living room and see your friend’s avatar? Business meetings? Virtual cinemas where you feel like you’re actually watching the movie with your friend who is seven time zones away? Do people really see this as the mainstream use of VR? Do people really se…

Nobody can make predictions so it's also hard to see where the future is going. 'People watching a mobile device all the time!?' Look at we are now... I wouldn't be surprised when we will be programming with a VR set so you can put almost unlimited lines of code on your retina.

> Nobody can make predictions so it's also hard to see where the future is going.

People make predictions all the time, many of them pretty good. Did a significant number of people think Color was going to be a smashing success?

I'll happily predict that the Pono is going to fail pretty thoroughly, because I simply don't believe many people are going to spend tons of money on clunky hardware that plays very expensive music at dubiously appreciable improvements in quality when they already carry a phone that has unfettered access to way more music at lower prices at quality they already think is fine.

Likewise, if anyone wants to take my $100 on a bet that in 2019, we won't be strapping a scuba mask onto our face to use Facebook, it's available.

Re: Virtual Reality is going to change the world

#168

Post by gsg »

mcphage wrote: post #83
foobarian wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not forget that other application area that has historically proven very helpful at driving early adoption of new media. From the Gutenberg press, through celluloid, CDs, GIFs, to the Internet. Hint: starts with 'p', ends with 'orn.'

mcphages-mbp:~ mcphage$ cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep '^p.*orn$' palpicorn peppercorn pibcorn pilcorn plenicorn plumicorn popcorn preadorn preborn prestubborn pronghorn Hmm... I think you mean "peppercorn", yah? Those motivated a lot of international trade.

Wait. What the hell is a "plumicorn"?

"An ear tuft of feathers, as in the horned owls."

I... didn't realise there was a word for that.

Re: Virtual Reality is going to change the world

#169

Post by satori99 »

jeroen wrote: post #58
kamkazemoose wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be surprised if the Sony news had anything to do with this. These sorts of acquisitions don't happen overnight, they've likely been talking for months, doing due diligence and other research into the deal.

Techcrunch says the deal was made in 5 days. Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469885

Zuckerberg was spotted in the Occuls VR offices a month ago.

http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1wf6mg/so_no_way_to_...

Re: Virtual Reality is going to change the world

#170

Post by [deleted] »

bduerst wrote: post #20
skore wrote: post #4

For a guy who is otherwise rather easy going, Notch can be incredibly pragmatic and strident. Here, he has cut to heart of the issue. > And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition. > Don’t get me wrong, VR is not bad for social. He is right - "social", especially in the way Facebook is doing it at the moment, is terrible for VR. Terrible for any technolog…

My guess is that when Oculus Rift found out about Sony coming to market, they knew they needed someone with deep pockets to speed up their implementation. They were probably in talks with a number of other companies, but Facebook jumped the gun and made an offer they couldn't refuse, in order to prevent their "competitor" from getting it. I wonder if FB is going to use OR to rebirth Facebook games, or maybe make thei…

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