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Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

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Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#221
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry I didn't realize I was talking to somebody with a completely made up and fantastical worldview, where hard problems are instantly solvable with fairy dust and dream juice. No wonder you feel like you can invent any future you wish whole cloth and in just a couple years, reality will bend to your will and products will appear on the market that bring your future to life at a price so cheap as to basically be com…

Once again, your cynical rant focuses entirely on the present state of COTS technology with no allowance for advancement. Your assumption about me, by the way, is entirely wrong. If you've brought a product to market, I'm sorry the experience turned you into a cynical curmudgeon. It only turned me into someone who had accomplished something hard. Things being hard is not a reason not to do them, a reason to act as if…

My impression of you is that the letters "VR" have short circuited your brian and caused you to forget that things have to still fit within the constraints of physics. Today, or with any possible future advancement. Hand waiving and "advancement" won't ever surmount these constraints. Building towards a future that can't ever happen is not a useful thing to do.

Things being hard are not a reason not to do things, things being stupid or impossible are.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#222
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speak for yourself. Many many people were using touch screens on Palm devices throughout the late 90s and early 2000s.

Yes, lots of people were. But it wasn't mainstream.

I'm pretty sure you weren't working in business in the United States in the late 90s. The Palm devices were the fancy gadgets to have.

The were vastly more mainstream than the Newton ever was. They lost traction when the Blackberry phone emerged in the early 2000s, but if they had been able to get in the phone game faster, Palm could have beaten Apple to the smartphone.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#223
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again, your cynical rant focuses entirely on the present state of COTS technology with no allowance for advancement. Your assumption about me, by the way, is entirely wrong. If you've brought a product to market, I'm sorry the experience turned you into a cynical curmudgeon. It only turned me into someone who had accomplished something hard. Things being hard is not a reason not to do them, a reason to act as if…

My impression of you is that the letters "VR" have short circuited your brian and caused you to forget that things have to still fit within the constraints of physics. Today, or with any possible future advancement. Hand waiving and "advancement" won't ever surmount these constraints. Building towards a future that can't ever happen is not a useful thing to do. Things being hard are not a reason not to do things, thi…

The letters "VR" aren't even relevant to a belief that two-way 3D video chat is practical today, and will become more practical in the future.

You've bound yourself by artificial limitations on your thought process. Please do not act as if people who do not share those boundaries must be idiots.

Edit: By the way, since you brought it up, I've never read Snow Crash. I really don't know anything about it other than a brief synopsis I read at some point years ago. It's unwise to assume anything about my opinions comes from pop culture, as I'm largely disconnected from it.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#224
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression of you is that the letters "VR" have short circuited your brian and caused you to forget that things have to still fit within the constraints of physics. Today, or with any possible future advancement. Hand waiving and "advancement" won't ever surmount these constraints. Building towards a future that can't ever happen is not a useful thing to do. Things being hard are not a reason not to do things, thi…

The letters "VR" aren't even relevant to a belief that two-way 3D video chat is practical today, and will become more practical in the future. You've bound yourself by artificial limitations on your thought process. Please do not act as if people who do not share those boundaries must be idiots. Edit: By the way, since you brought it up, I've never read Snow Crash. I really don't know anything about it other than a b…

Draw a diagram of how you think it will work.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#225
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The letters "VR" aren't even relevant to a belief that two-way 3D video chat is practical today, and will become more practical in the future. You've bound yourself by artificial limitations on your thought process. Please do not act as if people who do not share those boundaries must be idiots. Edit: By the way, since you brought it up, I've never read Snow Crash. I really don't know anything about it other than a b…

Draw a diagram of how you think it will work.

How I think what will work? 3D video chat? You need a diagram for two cameras, a 3D monitor, and ordinary 3D glasses?

Or did you mean something else? Perhaps something you've been assuming I'm talking about because your response to abstract notions is hostility and arrogance, rather than a search for common ground and understanding? Perhaps you've assumed all this time that I've been saying a specific product, the Rift, could be used for face-to-face interaction, because you didn't ask, but instead called me a six-year-old idiot?

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#226
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sums up my sentiments exactly. But just to add, I've already owned a VR headset 20 years ago. Ok the screens were 320x240 but the resolution wasn't the downside, it was the neckache from wearing the damn things. I've also got some NVidia 3d shutter glasses. You can play any OpenGL or DirectX game with them. They are great fun and really enhance a game. I've already played Everquest in 3D. (Although Dungeon Keepe…

I'm not sure what it is about VR that short circuits people's brains and they lose all concept about how things still have to work in the physical world. I mean, can you really see a fashion conscious teenager coming home to chat with their friends looking like this? http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/manampli... There's lots of issues with VR, it's definitely got some cool potential, and I've seen s…

The goggles I had were head tracking which I found worse than the shutter glasses for the reasons you allude to. In RL when I look to the left I don't just move my head, I move my body, chang emy feet, move the weight of myself around ready to act. I've now to move my control equipment to orientate myself ready for action. It just doesn't work.

It's why Wii games are not FPS shooters, they are stand and slash and they only have control to deal with.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#227
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Draw a diagram of how you think it will work.

How I think what will work? 3D video chat? You need a diagram for two cameras, a 3D monitor, and ordinary 3D glasses? Or did you mean something else? Perhaps something you've been assuming I'm talking about because your response to abstract notions is hostility and arrogance, rather than a search for common ground and understanding? Perhaps you've assumed all this time that I've been saying a specific product, the Ri…

And now you have changed the rules again. Don't pretend like you're looking for common ground when you keep changing the fundamentals of the discussion.

The discussion is, oculus rift, 3d chat. Diagram it.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#228
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How I think what will work? 3D video chat? You need a diagram for two cameras, a 3D monitor, and ordinary 3D glasses? Or did you mean something else? Perhaps something you've been assuming I'm talking about because your response to abstract notions is hostility and arrogance, rather than a search for common ground and understanding? Perhaps you've assumed all this time that I've been saying a specific product, the Ri…

And now you have changed the rules again. Don't pretend like you're looking for common ground when you keep changing the fundamentals of the discussion. The discussion is, oculus rift, 3d chat. Diagram it.

That may be what you want the discussion to be, because then you "win" according to some "rules" you wish existed, but it's not. Or wasn't, rather. The discussion is long over. It was over the moment you decided to be a dick.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#229
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now you have changed the rules again. Don't pretend like you're looking for common ground when you keep changing the fundamentals of the discussion. The discussion is, oculus rift, 3d chat. Diagram it.

That may be what you want the discussion to be, because then you "win" according to some "rules" you wish existed, but it's not. Or wasn't, rather. The discussion is long over. It was over the moment you decided to be a dick.

So no then. You can't. Because it doesn't make any sense and it's a bad idea. I'm sorry you had to be the person who had the idea and I'm sorry I had to be the person to call you on it.

Okay, to be honest, everybody has this idea about VR. In your mind you see a glorious 3d representation of person you are chatting with, if your imagination is powerful enough, you can even feel the frame of the headset on your face and the wash of the display glow against the contours of your nose. But everybody who ever thinks about this idea, and is in a position to try and do it, runs into the same fundamental problem. Because in their imagination and their dreams, they're never in the place of the person they're chatting with, to see what they're seeing and they never realize that what the other person must see is them with a headset on...and then they realize the person they first saw in their dreams must have one on as well and the entire illusion shatters. You can't achieve the kind of telepresence we all wish for today or anytime in the near future.

I know you're struggling with accepting this scenario, but I've watched this same scenario play out for 30 years. There's nothing new about the Rift except it's consumer cheap. I've personally used systems better than the Rift and the moment you get the headset on, you realize VR telepresence, via video, won't ever work.

Nobody wants to have that kind of chat experience, so the only other possible mode is to do it with avatars.

Guess what, that's what's currently being done.

https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=5...

http://www.worlds.com/index2.html

https://www.activeworlds.com/index.html

http://someyworks.com/vc/vc.html

http://www.vr-fun.net/

The experience is obviously not what you or I are talking about though, even the first link which actually uses a VR headset (the Rift). But there's a very long list of well known issues to surmount that haven't been solved yet for very good reasons. No amount of "let's suppose that..." will make some of those very hard things a reality. At least not with the goal of something the general public will accept in enough volume to make it worthwhile.

Sorry to be a dick, but there really are unworkable ideas. You're a consultant, you know that you sometimes have to break bad news to the people you work for when they simply can't do something because it's not possible. You might come across as an asshole when you do, and people's feelings might get hurt, but somebody has to break the bad news.

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