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Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

reuters.com

31–40 of 78 posts

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#31
post #27

Its kind of underappreciated how much of a failure their entire software stack is (Bosworth should be the first to leave). For those paying attention, the technical VR "stuff that works" is basically written by Qualcomm. The user side Android system is, really badly done and irritating for people using it as people like Carmack have pointed out. This is possible the biggest software development blunder in history, th…

> the technical VR "stuff that works" is basically written by Qualcomm. I worked at Oculus on the product that became Quest from 2014-2019 and this statement could not be more wrong. You need more than a vulkan driver to make a VR headset, e.g: * lenses that minimize distortion and chromatic aberration, that are lightweight and compact * astounding amounts of work on inside-out tracking to make it work within latency…

> lenses that minimize distortion and chromatic aberration, that are lightweight and compact

That was Corning, not Meta.

> astounding amounts of work on inside-out tracking to make it work within latency and power budgets with sufficient accuracy

That was Valve, not Meta.

> latency reduction and prediction throughout the stack

That was Carmack, so technically Meta, but it was also 6+ years ago.

> foveated rendering

That was a waste of time.

> supporting all of those things in Unity and Unreal

I'm sorry, I haven't seen the Unreal code, but based on what's in the Unity code, this being a "win" is laughable and maybe signals the low expectations you have to also think that Android hasn't had a material impact on day-to-day dev experience.

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#32
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes its still the underlying software thats terrible. It's an almost straight port of normal android into the headset which is at least familiar but they've really not made any progress in making it more VR and comfortable over time. Lots of small tweaking of whats probably not a great overall fit for VR. For a direct example look at the room boundary system and setup. Even with the new depth sensor and the color pas…

It's flawed, but have you tried the competition?

Yeah, the Quest's boundary setup process astounded me at how polished and user-friendly it is compared to the Vive and Index's room setup process.

Anyone saying that the Quest's software is obviously terrible lives on a different planet than me. The Quest is so simple and works so well, especially compared to other VR headsets+software I've used. I really like the Index too which I use a lot and think does some small things better, but I find it hard to deny the Quest is much more approachable and polished.

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#33
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this include the newest headset? That one looked pretty good feature wise.

The tech that works in it is still Qualcomm. The UI is going to be the same that the other quest headsets have

What other headset shares the Quest's UI? Most headsets aren't even standalone like it.

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#34
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech that works in it is still Qualcomm. The UI is going to be the same that the other quest headsets have

What other headset shares the Quest's UI? Most headsets aren't even standalone like it.

Given they were talking about the quest 3, it shares the same UI as the quest 2

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#35
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other headset shares the Quest's UI? Most headsets aren't even standalone like it.

Given they were talking about the quest 3, it shares the same UI as the quest 2

Sorry, I thought the implication was that the UI was also made by another company.

In my experience the UI and everything in the Quest 2 and 3 works great so I don't understand where the original poster is coming from at all.

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#36
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the technical VR "stuff that works" is basically written by Qualcomm. I worked at Oculus on the product that became Quest from 2014-2019 and this statement could not be more wrong. You need more than a vulkan driver to make a VR headset, e.g: * lenses that minimize distortion and chromatic aberration, that are lightweight and compact * astounding amounts of work on inside-out tracking to make it work within latency…

> lenses that minimize distortion and chromatic aberration, that are lightweight and compact That was Corning, not Meta. > astounding amounts of work on inside-out tracking to make it work within latency and power budgets with sufficient accuracy That was Valve, not Meta. > latency reduction and prediction throughout the stack That was Carmack, so technically Meta, but it was also 6+ years ago. > foveated rendering T…

Meta does a ton of ongoing work to optimize the stack in the headset. I was just reading about Application SpaceWarp (https://developer.oculus.com/blog/introducing-application-sp...) earlier today and it's impressive.

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#37
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this include the newest headset? That one looked pretty good feature wise.

Yes its still the underlying software thats terrible. It's an almost straight port of normal android into the headset which is at least familiar but they've really not made any progress in making it more VR and comfortable over time. Lots of small tweaking of whats probably not a great overall fit for VR. For a direct example look at the room boundary system and setup. Even with the new depth sensor and the color pas…

What is the connection between Android and the user-level app code around something like your "store multiple rooms" complaint? Seems pretty far away from the kernel and runtime there.

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#38
post #32
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's flawed, but have you tried the competition?

Yeah, the Quest's boundary setup process astounded me at how polished and user-friendly it is compared to the Vive and Index's room setup process. Anyone saying that the Quest's software is obviously terrible lives on a different planet than me. The Quest is so simple and works so well, especially compared to other VR headsets+software I've used. I really like the Index too which I use a lot and think does some small…

Quest 3 is my first and only VR device so I'm obviously not in the know in these matters, though I have to say I don't see what is so terrible about Quest's flavor of Android either.

For a regular user, most everything seems to work well. Setup was easy, UI is polished and simple enough to get out of your way, and I personally haven't encountered any show-stopping bugs with it. Maybe I don't expect much out of it, as I see it more of an entry-point to actual VR applications I want to use, rather than something I'm more invested in.

If anything, I was surprised how well it worked for a product still so early in its lifecycle.

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#39

Its kind of underappreciated how much of a failure their entire software stack is (Bosworth should be the first to leave). For those paying attention, the technical VR "stuff that works" is basically written by Qualcomm. The user side Android system is, really badly done and irritating for people using it as people like Carmack have pointed out. This is possible the biggest software development blunder in history, th…

I'm shocked at how many bugs and UI issues I've encountered with the Quest 3 and the associated ecosystem (mostly the web store and android app). I can't help but think of Jonathan Blow's talk Preventing the Collapse of Civilization[1] when I use it. I tried listing all the issues I encountered, but gave up after 4 pages. The poor UX is a bizarre contrast to the foundational VR stuff, which is fantastic.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko

Re: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

#40

Fish rots from the head, as they say. In my opinion, the technical know-how of Zuck was perfectly valid to build Facebook, but not this. VR/AR/anything with real-time world simulation and rendering is completely different from the web tech stack and could be considered to be a different world, with a different mindset. Carmack obviously had the appropriate mindset, but AFAIK not the power to act. So Suck and his appo…

> In my opinion, the technical know-how of Zuck was perfectly valid to build Facebook, but not this.

Technical know-how is the least of their problems. The tech is irrelevant to me. Facebook's user-hostile and abusive actions have made it so that now anything they make is automatically something I want nothing to do with.

In my opinion, no matter how good the tech is, anyone foolish enough to participate in Facebook's "Metaverse" is just bending over, spreading, and asking to get screwed over and over again. The company has repeatedly demonstrated that it is toxic, criminal, and actively harmful to their users. No amount of fancy VR tech could ever be cool enough for me to let them use me. They can change their name as many times as they like, but they've already shown us what they are.

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