Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

blog.vive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 77 posts

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#61

Post by dawnbreez »

veli_joza wrote: post #30

Just look at this nonsense [1]. We have brand new technology with unlimited potential for new abstractions and paradigms. So, what do we do? We make a virtual desktop workstation, the same one we had since 70s! We limit all rendering to a 2D surface, make it curved and put a nebula in the background. Is this really the cutting edge of information technologies? Also, we need both mechanical keyboard to sense key press…

Keyboards are still a highly precise and versatile text input method. Voice isn't good enough yet (and you may never get good enough voice recognition, thanks to homophones and the issue of making up new words).

While just putting a window on a nebula background works as a Proof of Concept, it does need further innovation. The keyboard, however, does not.

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#62

Post by gervase »

BatFastard wrote: post #41

As someone who has been a developer of virtual worlds for 17 years. I can say that this is a very incremental change, as all of the changes have been since 1994. Personally I think we need to reimagine interfaces to the world around us, even the virtual worlds (VR/AR/MR) around us. Voice input, AI, hand sensing technologies could make for new ways for changing the worlds. The book Daemon by Danial Suarez and his eSpa…

I think motion sensing is probably the way forward; voice control is intrinsically limiting in most (crowded) environments where computers are used today.

Considering humans can ride bikes, drive cars, play instruments, etc. (including typing on keyboards!), I think that indicates that non-verbal, physical interaction is not nearly saturated as a transmission channel.

Conversely, it's hard to imagine someone verbalizing "navigate to HN" in a loud open-space office, or "Excel, create a pivot table" or whatever. I think it's fine in private spaces like your home, but in public spaces, you're implicitly broadcasting your activity to everyone around you, which I consider to be a strong negative.

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#63

Post by theptip »

veli_joza wrote: post #57
silversmith wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's nonsense. What I see is incremental change. Take the workstation, and move it to virtual space. Then add more 2D screens. Then try a different input or display method, one small step at a time. Sounds reasonable to me, much more so than re-inventing every part of the interface at the same time, and hoping to get it all within spitting distance of what's right.

I would also hope for such incremental change, but I don't see it happening. If you take a look at historical development of desktop OS UIs, you'll see all concepts established in 80s and not much (any) progress since then. Icons, buttons, menues, windows, even whole applications (file manager) are unchanged, while there's very few new UI elements (date picker, for example). VR should be considered as completely new…

> VR should be considered as completely new medium.

I think you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. There are plenty of teams working on brand new UI/UX experiences in VR, and I'm sure that in time the old 2d paradigms will have more competition. But also, I still choose to use a terminal for git when I could use a GUI, so I'm not actually convinced that "2D windows in VR" are going to or should go away.

The OP shows a great step towards being able to replace your workstation with some VR goggles, a keyboard, and a CPU. That prospect excites me more than any "new medium" VR experiences that I can see on the immediate horizon; being able to work from a beach hammock and not compromise on workspace efficiency is incredibly appealing.

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#65

Post by nwah1 »

ethbro wrote: post #58
nwah1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the same thinking behind Elon Musk's startup Neuralink, but given that there really aren't any options that are substantially better, Logitech isn't being stupid. Perhaps some combination of voice, gesture, and 3D could be useful specifically while in-game. But for productivity, I don't think there's anything better than a traditional workstation. Voice has privacy issues. Gesture recognition is inaccurate a…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#History QWERTY All that needs to be said about the difficulty of changing a primary interface method.

Very much aware. I use colemak, because I was convinced by the arguments of QWERTY's insufficiency.

Although, the costs of switching outweigh the benefits for almost everyone, except for those with repetitive stress injury.

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#66

Post by nwah1 »

numbsafari wrote: post #53
nwah1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the same thinking behind Elon Musk's startup Neuralink, but given that there really aren't any options that are substantially better, Logitech isn't being stupid. Perhaps some combination of voice, gesture, and 3D could be useful specifically while in-game. But for productivity, I don't think there's anything better than a traditional workstation. Voice has privacy issues. Gesture recognition is inaccurate a…

Voice not only has privacy issues, but could you imagine working in one of those god awful “open floor plan” offices with a bunch of people speaking in JavaScript all day?

We'd all need to get the Cone of Silence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1eUIK9CihA

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#67

Post by BatFastard »

jayd16 wrote: post #56
BatFastard wrote: post #41

As someone who has been a developer of virtual worlds for 17 years. I can say that this is a very incremental change, as all of the changes have been since 1994. Personally I think we need to reimagine interfaces to the world around us, even the virtual worlds (VR/AR/MR) around us. Voice input, AI, hand sensing technologies could make for new ways for changing the worlds. The book Daemon by Danial Suarez and his eSpa…

A lot of these technologies are being developed and its pretty awesome. However, I'll argue there's clearly space for a keyboard in the virtual world. If you want to sculpt a model in the real world, you'd use clay and your hands. We can use VR to move away from KBM interaction for things like that. If you want to write a book in the real world you...type it out. Its the best way we know to get text out of your brain…

Indeed everything in its place. However I really don't think I would go into a virtual world to write a book, or do any other kind of activity that requires a lot of keyboard interaction.

I used to hope for the unlimited monitor space, now I am not so sure how practical that really is.

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#68

Post by BatFastard »

gervase wrote: post #62
BatFastard wrote: post #41

As someone who has been a developer of virtual worlds for 17 years. I can say that this is a very incremental change, as all of the changes have been since 1994. Personally I think we need to reimagine interfaces to the world around us, even the virtual worlds (VR/AR/MR) around us. Voice input, AI, hand sensing technologies could make for new ways for changing the worlds. The book Daemon by Danial Suarez and his eSpa…

I think motion sensing is probably the way forward; voice control is intrinsically limiting in most (crowded) environments where computers are used today. Considering humans can ride bikes, drive cars, play instruments, etc. (including typing on keyboards!), I think that indicates that non-verbal, physical interaction is not nearly saturated as a transmission channel. Conversely, it's hard to imagine someone verbaliz…

The Deamon book has some cool motion interaction in it. They call it the Shamanic interface! I really want to make one of those, too bad tech is not readily accessible yet.

Is subvocalization a possibility? Mic or EEG setups might need to be slightly different.

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#69

Post by richardknop »

BatFastard wrote: post #41

As someone who has been a developer of virtual worlds for 17 years. I can say that this is a very incremental change, as all of the changes have been since 1994. Personally I think we need to reimagine interfaces to the world around us, even the virtual worlds (VR/AR/MR) around us. Voice input, AI, hand sensing technologies could make for new ways for changing the worlds. The book Daemon by Danial Suarez and his eSpa…

Voice input is good for people who have clear sounding voice and generic American accent. Which is maybe 5% of the world. For people who speak English with thick accent or don’t speak it at all or have deep / less clear voice this would be massive decrease in accessibility.

I don’t personally believe in voice input. English is my second language but I have spoken it daily for close to 10 years. I can’t get Siri to understand what I say so I just keep it disabled and iPhone keeps bugging me to enable it.

We cannot rely on voice input as that is a dead end. Until we figure out how to link thoughts directly to computer inputs keyboards will be the king.

Re: Logitech announces a development kit for using keyboards in virtual reality

#70

Post by DoctorMemory »

I understand Logitech wants to keep selling keyboards and I agree that keyboards are currently the fastest way to enter text. However, it IS the wrong direction. The better direction is what will be opened with tools such as the Vive Knuckles enabling a more complete language of gestures. It seems to me that the better way forward is to stop clinging to an old paradigm that requires bulky equipment that can obstruct the user's volumetric interactions and instead to build off of those volumetric interactions even though there is a cost of a learning curve. I doubt businesses will implement it since they run the risk of alienating current gen customers and thus losing money. I think there will be some VR experiences aimed at younger customers that will implement it and over the next decade we will wonder why we ever tried to bring a keyboard into VR/AR instead of just using our hands.
Post reply on HN