When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet • Hacker News Board

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#181

Post by imglorp » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

jaegerpicker wrote: post #110

echelon wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're still several VR hardware iterations away. Oculus, Vive, Index - these are like the pre-iPhone smart phones. They're bulky, slow, they kind of do their job, but they're not something everybody wants. VR has to get better. The resolution and FOV are terrible. The gameplay paradigms kind of suck because movement is such a pain. AR honestly seems even further away. Pokemon Go and all the other AR trinkets are clun…

I think you are wrong about AR, once a decent set of AR capable glasses hit the market I think we will see a very large market adoption. Very much like the smart phone and smart watch and tablet it will be a toy for techies until a company with real design chops and solid software/hardware gets behind it. I also believe that Apple is the most likely to be that company, solid design and a well liked ecosystem, plus a…

This might not be a tech or business problem. Remember Google tried AR with Glass -- decent hardware and UI -- and ran into an uncomfortable social valley, eg "glassholes". Turns out people don't want pervasive video recording in every social situation.

That said I think there are still unexplored workplace markets like medical, mechanical etc.

There seem to be a very, very small number of consumer applications: heads up nav display for bicycle/motorcycle operators comes to mind.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#182

Post by zmmmmm » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

jnwatson wrote: post #95

dougmwne wrote: post #89

I very much think that folks on HN are jaded by the long wait and the unfulfilled promises of VR. I recently picked up a Quest 2 as my first VR headset and I am blown away and convinced it is the future. The thing is, I also recognize that while it is already an incredible achievement, it's still probably 5-20 years from hitting its iPhone moment. By then, my initial excitement will have gone away and I'll have tired…

Facebook's Quest 2 is an impressive piece of tech. One of the biggest reasons to be skeptical of VR taking off is that Facebook is one of the major players. Between the login shenanigans and their anti-competitive dealings with developers, they have an opportunity to single-handedly tank the industry.

I agree. For tech to take off you really need a significant "platform" player to emerge - someone that is able to position themselves as a middleman where the value made by 3rd parties significantly outweighs the value made by the middleman. That is what causes a technology to really bloom and get broadscale uptake. Facebook just isn't interested in that. They'd rather have a smaller pie where they own it all than capture a larger piece of a giant pie but be just one part of it.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#183

Post by saberdancer » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #149

I should have made a bet like that with the "thought leader" who threatened to ban me from his blog after I said VR looked to be the next 3D TV. The problem isn't the cost. It's that moving around while wearing VR headgear is only safe in either customized environments, like the Star Wars location based entertainment system, or when movement is in a small area, like Beat Saber. Which is why Beat Saber is the #1 VR ga…

Even current Oculus Quest can detect and show objects in your environment. It doesn't seem that hard for VR in the future to utilize that and adapt the environment around you to mimic your obstacles. Another possibility is games that create infinite impossible maze (Tea For God). You can walk around in that game for hours without hitting anything.

You don't need customized environments, you need some free space around yourself. I live in a small apartment and I do just fine.

One of basic aspects of VR is setting up a virtual "play area" that the headset warns when you are close to leaving so I don't see how most of the complaints are valid.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#184

Post by zmmmmm » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

monkeydust wrote: post #173

Really got into VR earlier this year with Quest 1. Managed to put together a small skunkworks team to develop an application to view data - goal was to gain insights through manipulation and viewing data in an immersive space. We had a novel approach to do this. Problem is COVID-19 hit so getting other people to try it became impossible and most target users do not have their own headset. We used video's to showcase…

Yeah - COVID has really destroyed my VR evangilism. We aren't even supposed to be within 1.5m of each other, let alone sharing phyiscal headsets. Showing a room full of people VR is dead now. I'm not sure how to recover that ... it's going to be a while at very least.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#185

Post by spideymans » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #164

stevebmark wrote: post #67

I don't think the current incarnation of VR will ever take off. It's too inconvenient to need to block out everything around you with a headset. It's fundamentally incompatible with human behavior. Until VR is as convenient as picking up a phone or tablet, it's not going anywhere.

I don't understand this argument at all. As someone using VR on a daily basis ever since Quest 1 the whole point is to block out the outside world and immerse yourself in the VR world. Even days I don't feel like playing (I have a schedule for VR fitness) I instantly feel at home and get excited the moment I step inside. What behavior is it not compatible with?

>What behavior is it not compatible with?

Perhaps there isn't a desire from mainstream consumers to entirely block out the outside world in the first place.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#186

Post by grawprog » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

I have to admit, about the only thing that's really looked appealing to me as far as VR goes is Tabletop Simulator. The concept seems really cool. I haven't tried it, but looking at it, my guess in reality it's a bit awkward to use and probably ends up being more frustrating than fun.

Current VR just seems not quite immersive enough to feel real or worth using for most things but slightly too immersive so that it ends up being unnerving after a while.

The lack of tactile stimulation doesn't help either. I think if they could come up with some kind of gloves that could simulate pressure and touch, that worked reliably as controllers, VR would become more popular.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#187

Post by zmmmmm » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

Geee wrote: post #8

I think VR will become mainstream when it's good enough to replace large screens in productive work. It should leave large screens in dust, if done right. Productivity is quite strongly correlated with screen size, so I'm expecting quite a leap in this regard when the right software is matched with the right hardware.

Yep, this is one of those threshold type things that makes future predictions wrong all the time. Currently the resolution is just too low - I really gave it a good try with a lot of motivation but it just doesn't cut it. You can make text readable but only if you size the virtual monitor to be huge and the effective resolution is way less in the end than a pretty cheap external monitor.

But once it hits the point of being usable I don't see why we won't see a complete domino effect where people start setting up complete virtual offices in VR. And that will ripple through whole teams flipping to VR a sa way of working. Putting aside sheer "size", you can make VR monitors any shape and in any position you want. So I can actually have a gigantic monitor with a complex technical diagram on it, then a vertical one next to it with a code listing - and these can be floating in space in a totally unrealistic way. Then I can have email floating in the air behind me ...

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#188

Post by egypturnash » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

Chris Pruett, who runs part of Oculus, speculated about that, saying: "My guess would be something that is highly immersive, that involves active motion of your body, and ... it's probably going to be something that you either play with other people or is shareable with other people."

VRChat.

More and more of my furry online circles are constantly posting VRChat videos and photos. Give it a year or two of the gear needed dropping in price and I think it may finally explode in usage.

The ‘rona helps here; all the furry cons have been cancelled but furries still want to be cartoon animals at each other. There have been virtual cons via VRCHat already. I don’t have the spare cash to get a vr setup myself so I can’t talk about how well they went off, but I bet the virtual-first cons founded this year are not gonna go away just because physical gatherings are safe again...

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#189

Post by vekker » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #141

gonehome wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The headsets are pretty cool - I’ve played with all of them except for the Valve Index. Though there’s something unpleasant about them that keeps me from going back when the novelty wears off. I think it might be because I don’t want to be standing and moving around when playing a game and if you’re not doing that, the motion is kind of unpleasant. I’m not sure this is something it can really overcome. I think an AR…

> I think there are probably some narrow applications where it’s clearly better than not having it, but I’m skeptical of VR as a platform. Fitness. It is much easier to grind in a VR game for an hour than it is to grind on a treadmill for the same amount of time. I have a Quest, the games suck, but the fitness experience is paradigm changing. Beat Saber was and still is the Quest's killer app, but there are lot of si…

Fitness? The idea of puffing and sweating inside a heavy VR headset doesn't seem very alluring to me for some reason... Besides, I personally think fitness should be about reconnecting with the body and the real world, not "grinding" and distracting yourself while getting this physical thing done.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#190

Post by StavrosK » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #138

gonehome wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The headsets are pretty cool - I’ve played with all of them except for the Valve Index. Though there’s something unpleasant about them that keeps me from going back when the novelty wears off. I think it might be because I don’t want to be standing and moving around when playing a game and if you’re not doing that, the motion is kind of unpleasant. I’m not sure this is something it can really overcome. I think an AR…

> I think it might be because I don’t want to be standing and moving around when playing a game and if you’re not doing that, the motion is kind of unpleasant. Project Cars 2 and DCS make it worth the headset alone - throw in Elite Dangerous and No Man Sky and I have enough VR entertainment to keep me busy for the foreseeable.

For some reason, Elite Dangerous throws the graphics into low for me, no matter what settings I have. On the computer it looks great, whenever I put it on the Quest 2 it looks horribly pixelly.

Even so, it's incredibly immersive, and if that problem gets fixed it's going to be amazing.