Facebook Is Shutting Down VR Content Division Oculus Story Studio | Hacker News Reader

Facebook Is Shutting Down VR Content Division Oculus Story Studio

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133 pointsImpossible97 comments

If facebook had real vision they'd focus on the Story Studio and forget the 'news/live video' briar-patch they're confidently striding into.

Build up the first early VR IP properties by making them widely available so they're established as a cultural bedrock like Disney has been with perpetual Mickey Mouse protection and the acquisition of a significant portion of your childhood (Marvel,Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.) and you've built something that will last for at least a few generations and give your succeeding executives breathing room to maneuver.

Or hire a bunch of labor to watch unrestricted widecast videos (I'm hoping they're just reinforcing ml analysis of videos in the short term, please?)

Film makers don't want to use VR. It is very limiting. Films in 3d were never very good, mostly because of the limitations it placed on camera movements. VR will be the same. When you cannot control what the audience is looking at you must resort to tricks, repetitions and slow pacing to ensure that they see what they need to before you move on. The beauty of film, over theatre or other "3d" experiences, is that the director can grab the audience by the eyeballs, force them to see what he wants/needs them to see. That's why films can be so much faster and more direct than live entertainment.

Take your favourite movie, or even one you just hated. Think of how it would be to "sit in" the action, tilting your head to look at anything and everything. You will miss all the details. You will miss the facial cues, the many non-verbal interactions between characters, because you were instead looking at the shiny thing in the corner. VR is for interactive experiences and theme park rides, not the carefully controlled storytelling of film.

Think of GOTG, of sitting in the spare seat of a spaceship during a battle. Every time a character says something you will hear it, but miss seeing them actually say it because you didnt know to look at them in time. Think of all the wasted effort to animate Rocket's face if the audiance is never looking at him while he speaks.

Cinequest film festival in San Jose, CA this past year added VR to their offering of entertainment delivery. Granted it was a mix of VR films, VR scene immersions, and panel-like how-to discussions, but doing so was an interesting choice.

> Film makers don't want to use VR.

Creators often like to play with multiple mediums. I'd give filmmakers the benefit of the doubt, and assume they understand that VR is a much different medium.

Well, VR films are a different medium, and I would expect that VR filmmakers would have to work harder to get the effects they want. This would necessarily result in relinquishing some amount of control over what people can see -- which is fine!

How have video games like Half Life 2, which never takes control of the player's camera, find ways to get players to look in the right direction? There's a lot of techniques like using lighting and other cues, without beating the players' heads with loss-of-control cutscenes.

> Film makers don't want to use VR

It may well be that those who do want to use VR for this won't be coming from the ranks of traditional film-making.

I imagine a lot of them will be young, and will be jumping into this without a significant background in other media.

Photographers don't want to use cinema. It is very limiting. When you cannot give the audience time to take an image in, you must resort to tricks, repetitions and pacing to ensure that they see what they need to in the frame. The beauty of photography, over cinema or other "motion" experiences, is that the photographer can grab the audience by the eyeballs, force them to see what he wants/needs them to see. That's why photographs can be so much faster and more direct than films.

Film and photography are too similar for such comparison. Film is inclusive of photography. Everything that can be done in photography can also be done in film, especially with today's devices that display both as easily. VR is different. There are things in film that cannot be done in VR, as there are thing in VR that cannot be done in film. But in terms of storytelling, VR is to film as the "Choose your own adventure" is to novels. By allowing the viewer too much freedom to ignore one path for another, the artist's message becomes lost. To defend his message the artist will resort to trickery, extra efforts that detract from the work. A Disneyworld ride can be fun, but we don't expect anything near the depth we would from a film.

I'm not sure that you're imagining the correct kind of VR content here. Imagine a film as set in VR where you are simply seeing the film from the first person perspective of one of the main characters, but it is otherwise still a film, i.e. you have no control over movement, pacing, plot, etc. It's just a film that you see from a different perspective, rather than something more akin to a videogame with watcher agency which you seem to be implying.

I think this format has a decent chance of taking off. Hell, it's already taking off in VR porn.

You can't get closer to cinema. You can't take your time.

Aside from being pointlessly rude, this is a nonsense argument. Photography and film are completely different mediums, as are film and VR, which is the point. Nobody ever tried to replace or transform photography into film, because that would be ridiculous; trying to make traditional linear movies in VR would be equally ridiculous.

The Tribeca Film Festival hosted a VR immersive this year. There was a showcase of several creative VR films and experiences. I'd say filmmakers are diving head first into VR. The descriptions of the films sound fascinating.

https://tribecafilm.com/immersive

"Film makers don't want to use VR. It is very limiting."

To an extent, I'd agree as I myself miss the ability to use different lenses, set the framing, etc as storytelling devices. However, it is a matter of knowing the limitations of the medium, and not forcing "traditional" film making techniques into the new medium. Only frustration will result.

However, this format is new and evolving. Part of the idea is to give the viewer control over everything. Forcing a traditional linear story line is going against the grain of VR. More and more projects are coming out with a "choose your own adventure" concept. Now that the tech is getting better, the tools content producers have to use will allow for more interactive content to be made. If the tech survives long enough to get there.

I heard an interesting interview with a filmmaker who was adamantly opposed to the terms "VR filmmaking" and "VR cinematography" - and not for the reasons you would expect.

To him, cinematography is an art and a science. Nearly 100 years of experience has gone into understanding lighting, scene composition, set design, focus, directorial decisions, blocking, framing, etc.

VR throws all of that knowledge out the window. As you say, camera motion is constrained. Cues change. Scene design is completely different. There's no quick cut, no soft focus, no depth of field. It is as different a set of skills as photography and painting.

But, unlike your pessimistic view of the future, he was (verbally) jumping out of his seat in excitement at the new challenges, and new opportunities this completely new medium could provide for storytellers.

Sure, VR storytelling is at the "Trip to the Moon" phase of refinement but it sure won't stay there. Don't compare current film to future VR. Future VR stories may (will?) be something completely unique unto themselves.

My view of the future is only pessimistic if one assumes that VR is the future. Im pessimistic of the medium, not the future of film or storytelling. I didnt support the "4d" craze either. That too came to nothing and film survived.

I'm a filmmaker who moved into developing VR experiences, and I couldn't agree more.

Film and VR are vastly different media.

By definition, the people that make interesting cinematic experiences in VR won't be "film makers". I don't know if we've created a job title for them yet.

It's a completely different medium, with completely different advantages, drawbacks, and considerations. Applying film techniques in a virtual environment is not the right approach, as your examples demonstrate. The really compelling experiences in VR will embrace the constraints you mentioned, not try to emulate a medium in which they didn't exist.

I went to New York a few months ago and saw a play called Sleep No More. It takes place across 5 floors of a warehouse, converted into an incredibly immersive series of sets. It's loosely-based on Hamlet, with multiple storylines playing out simultaneously in different parts of the hotel/hospital/graveyard/theatre. The audience wears fawkes-esque masks and is not allowed to speak, nor are they acknowledged by the actors in any way. You can wander anywhere you like, follow any actors you find interesting, rummage through drawers, read books you find lying around, etc. You really do feel like a ghost, and being able to move around the actors (or even leave the room, if you feel like it), is incredibly fun and interesting. It certainly didn't feel like a limitation.

So maybe VR has more to learn from theatre (and specifically interactive theatre) than film? Food for thought.

Yes! Theater and sports

Sleep No More is one of my usual touchstones when talking about narrative in VR. (Speaking as a VR dev here.)

In general, narrative in VR has to be approached VERY differently to film. It's not just that the viewpoint's moving or that it's 360 degrees, it's also that the viewpoint has its own agency within the environment.

Of all the comparisons I've come up with, actually, pen-and-paper roleplaying games seem to be the most useful ones when discussing how to fit narrative into a VR context. There's a commonality of simulated world and tension between experience and narrative there that doesn't really exist anywhere else.

I do not agree with this.

In addition to the other replies, IMO, VR film-making isn't even a thing yet. 360 videos are not VR. Right now, VR exists as a medium in the form of games and other sims using real-time rendering. Film-making will require light-field cameras, which don't yet exist in any practical sense. However, progress is being made:

https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/11/lytro-cinema-is-giving-fil...

As for how it would work as a medium, I would compare storytelling in games with cut-scenes to something like Skyrim. One is about showing the story to a passive viewer, the other is about immersion in the story. They aren't directly comparable.

Ulimately though, I think even light-field photograhy will be relatively short lived. The future will be simulated reality: essentially current game engines with much better rendering (possibly real-time path-tracing like Octane/Brigade). The reason being, you can film an actor, but unless you transfer that performance into a simulation, it cannot react to a nearby human.

Another thing that will most likely emerge to address similar problems from a different angle is "virtual theatre" this already exists to a limited extent in the form of multiplayer games.

Whether these will most resemble tradition artforms, or most resemble current-gen games remains to be seen. However, even games are starting to come of age as an artform and we're seeing more games that are closer to traditional stories (without relying on cutscenes), or interactive art (e.g., Journey). Also two of the most popular games of all-time, The Sims and Minecraft[1], are technically not even games. These distinctions are going to become more and more obvious in VR, and new categories will emerge as the audience moves away from traditional gamers and other early adopters, into the mainstream.

[1] Only applies to Minecraft in sandbox mode.

Seeing as this is an appropriate thread to shit on VR, why does nobody seem to care about the extreme lack of Field of View on these devices? Most Oculus Rift models are around 90 degrees, while humans have more than 180, probably closer to 200. Last time I tried VR, the huge black bars stopped me from thinking it was immersive. If the optics are a hurdle to cross, why not at least light up the edges with something reminiscent of Ambilight?

People were prototyping ambilight type stuff back in the DK1 days. Trouble is, it doesn't improve immersion because objects disappearing out of view is still jarring. At least with a black edge you can imagine you're wearing a dive mask.

If you want to know what developments are or aren't going to find their way into future VR, track down Michael Abrash's talks from Oculus Connect and other conferences. Realistically much of it is over a 5-10 year timescale, but a lot of research has been done in the last 5 years. Many things that seemed like good ideas in 2012 turned out to be dead ends, and some surprisingly simple things have been discovered (like a "virtual nose" reduces VR-sickness, which nobody anticipated).

I don't know why you think nobody cares. It's pretty obvious it will get better as display tech improves, and there are already plenty of prototypes showing that is the case. We just don't think it's important enough of an issue to wait and stay out of the field until it gets better.

Remember PocketPC smartphones? That's about where we are in the VR tech S-curve. They were horrible devices when compared to today's smartphones, just as the VR/AR 5 years from now will make today's tech seem. But we probably still needed the PocketPC to pave the way for the iPhone.

It's worth remembering that we have had VR for well over 20 years now, in one form or another. 5 years seems optimistic given that.

We've had affordable, consumer-grade VR for 20 years? VR that, you know, actually feels like VR? This is coming off a bit snarky, I know, but I've seen this written all over the place and I have to say, the VR we have today is nothing like the VR of twenty or even ten years ago. Not from a consumer standpoint, anyways. I'm not an expert by any means, just some guy on the internet who is excited about the future of VR and has done a bit of reading on this topic.

Just like the Pocket PC "feels like an iPhone"? It's worth keeping the context of the conversation in mind.

The tech behind VR has been available for quite some time, the fact that it's still so limited (and has shown so little growth beyond the existing headsets) doesn't encourage "full surround with high resolutions in 5 years" mentalities.

The machine that makes the machine is what hints rapid developments are coming. That machine is the global smartphone component supply chain.

It's a very different environment than when VR was build upon the desktop PC component supply chain, which brought things like the automated bank machine and interactive kiosks.

But that "machine" isn't currently putting a lot of additional effort into moving from 200 DPI displays to 400 DPI displays (most have hit their local maxima of resolution for size); the thing that's sorely needed for a better VR experience. Without that R&D being done by the phone industry, the VR industry will once again stagnate.

I don't think it actually is worth remembering. That hardware was so completely different from the hardware we have now, in terms of performance and price. Those displays were somewhere around 240x320 pixels at 30hz. The year-old tech we have today is 1080x1200 at 90hz. That's roughly 50x better, a magnitude and a half better. That's not even beginning to consider the several orders of magnitude improvement in the visuals we can push over that display.

It also comes at a fraction of the cost. Four headsets plus a cluster of SGI workstations to run them would probably set you back a million dollars. Today, you're looking at about $10,000. 100x improvement in cost. Hell, quantity has a quality all its own.

So, without even considering graphics (or ubiquitous and wireless internet access), we're looking at modern VR being at east 500x better than the tech from 20 years ago. I don't know any comparisons to make that are 500x improvements outside of tech. I don't think we can really learn anything meaningful from the VR wave of the 90s. What we have today is just a completely different situation.

50x in 20 years. I think it's fair to say that another 10 or 20x is required (displays 5x as wide with 4x more pixels per inch), that would be another 10 or so years, not a mere 5. Especially when display tech is not showing a lot of effort in getting beyond the current 200dpi.

VR display tech has piggybacked off phone tech, and phones are not actively looking for even higher pixel density. This means specialized research & design into display tech; something I don't see or even hear about being done.

You may not see it or hear it but it's actively being worked on... That's not including companies like Magic Leap and Avegant whose entire business is founded on custom light field displays for AR.

Magic Leap, the company who has been repeatedly panned on HN for providing a cool demo idea, with no actual product or research?

The "2 million mirrors" in the Avegant Glyph is roughly equivalent to 1080p; about the same resolution as the Occulus and Vive. The tech is also an adaptation of the same DLP technology that's been in use in TVs and projectors for decades.

light fields are nothing at all like the 2D image emitted by DLP projectors.

This is a printed light field - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AVAzGQMxEg

This is a light field plenoptic projector - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blb0TUBoZwA

That's true, but is kinda like saying we've had pen computing since the early 1960s - http://www.cadazz.com/cad-software-Sketchpad.htm.

Exponentials are never easy but I think we're about to see huge strides in VR/AR over the next 5 years, which will be built upon the only recently established global smartphone component supply chain. There were no commodity retina OLED screens even 10 years ago.

I think it's fair to say the tech has improved significantly, but from my perspective, today's VR is about as interesting a proposition as it was in the 1990's. Yeah, it's an interesting gimmick that would get old fast, and there's no killer app. In that respect, I don't think VR has changed at all in 20 years.

It is a tradeoff. The wider the FOV, the lower the amount of detail and the more visible screen-door effect is, assuming the same display tech. Higher resolution displays require more computing power. And that power could be invested into more convincing graphics and lower latency. Comfort matters too and better displays and optics can be bulkier and heavier. The final tradeoff is, of course, price.

I know there are plans for high FOV headsets. Both cheap and expensive, so wait and see. VR tech is too early for me to invest more than a cardboard.

>And that power could be invested into more convincing graphics and lower latency.

Fortunately, that problem is pretty close to being solved on a consumer level. A foveated rendering addon module for the Vive is expected to be shipping soon in China, by Q3 in North America [0].

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, foveated rendering means only rendering high-resolution images in your field of view. Basically, you don't see full detail across your entire field of view - only at the point where your eyes are focused. Everything outside that point can be rendered in lower resolution and you'd never notice the difference. It requires high-speed eye tracking to pull off, but it can greatly reduce the required horsepower to render a convincing VR environment [1].

[0] - https://uploadvr.com/7invensun-eye-tracker-for-vive/ [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNX0wCdD2LA

One factor that greatly limits my use of VR is that it is so uncomfortable with glasses on. I've seen people propose hacks and kickstarter projects. I don't understand why the people leading VR are turning a blind eye to the problem (no pun intended).

They just want to meet a subgroup's needs first. When there is a traction, they can move forward from there. But it seems the subgroup did not buy in after serval attempts.

I've had issues with glasses + Occulus but the Vive is a decent bit more roomy in there and it hasn't been an issue. Getting the headset on and off can still be a chore because I need to loosen the straps first.

You can also get prescription lens inserts but I think that's overkill for most people.

You can just cut the foam on the sides which inhibit the arms on each side. Put the foam back if you want to restore it.

Glasses have been "cool again" for the past few years. I don't know that we're overdue for another fashion cycle, but could VR be one thing that pushes them out again? I usually wear glasses, contacts some days, but if I know I'm going to be playing with a VR headset, I'll usually wear contacts that day.

Depending on what's wrong with your eyes you don't have a choice.

Exactly. My eyes are somehow causing contacts to turn around (they actually have a weighted side that is supposed to point down) and this causes great discomfort and I'd rather go without anything than go with contacts.

Many or most people do - I'm not suggesting that glasses disappear, just that it might cause many more people to choose contacts or surgery over glasses.

I tried contacts for a year and never got used to them. I suppose lasic would work for me, but I don't mind wearing glasses otherwise, and I wouldn't do it just for comfortable VR.

Which VR headset are you using? I've tried HTC Vive and I had no problem with glasses on. I also own a Gear VR and the lenses are adjustable enough so I don't even need to wear glasses.

Um, since the thing is already sitting on one's face, why can't they do adaptible optics so that the there's no need for glasses/contacts? (or any need to peel out the contacts)?

It's a problem solved long ago for binoculars after all.

I'm guessing it's a cost and complexity thing. More moving parts = more potential problems.

Separately, the HTC Vive sits over your glasses pretty easily, so it hasn't been a big issue. The Rift though... I have to bring out the contacts for it.

Moving parts are too expensive, I agree. But nowadays one can just 3D-print a set of lenses that will match one's vision perfectly, and making it possible to just snap them in and out might be easier to implement than any alternative.

You can't get anywhere close to 3D printing lenses

But there is a good point there--Zeni optical probably pays under $4 per pair of lenses it sells. If you had a slot to insert a lens it wouldn't be very expensive.

Not as 100% of the process, but you can print a blob that is 90% of the shape of your lens and grind the rest of the material away as you would have to with normal lenses. I've seen people do it. It's labor intensive, but less so than starting with a regular lens blank.

Back when I still had glasses, I tried 3D printing a small structure that takes in lenses from an online glasses shop. It didn't quite work, and I abandoned it because my Vive is pretty decent with glasses.

My cheap tacky Google Cardboard-esque phone based headset has a fair amount of accomodation, around +/- 3 diopters I'd guess. If they can do it in a $30 plastic fantastic, there's no reason for an $800 headset not to.

I couldn't imagine why on earth I'd need to wear my glasses for a screen directly in front of my eyes, and then I remembered that some people are farsighted.

I don't think the issue is seeing the screen itself, so much as it is the fact that everything hinges on tricking your eyes into refocusing in unnatural ways to induce depth perception. Even being nearsighted can screw this up in subtle but unsettling ways.

I'm not a domain expert though, someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm nearsighted and it always seemed like I still had to wear my glasses to get a good experience.

You don't need to wear glasses with GearVR. There's a built in compensation slider which works well.

Vive owner here with fairly big glasses. Never been a problem.

Ditto. I've not had problems with my glasses in any of the VR headsets, really, from the DK1 onward.

This makes a ton of sense. Oculus's biggest leverage is in improving the platform, not creating content. If anything, that money would be better spent on directly funding other studios.

This is smart, and great news for creators. As good as Facebook's own studio may have been, having to compete with Facebook for attention in a nascent medium is a huge problem.

But, then, developers have to trust Facebook as the owner of the platform. That's not always been a good bet.

Albeit, this is a different model that I'm not 100% sure about, but hope the investment/development agreements provide good coverage for developers.

> But, then, developers have to trust Facebook as the owner of the platform. That's not always been a good bet.

For sure, but that would've also been an issue in the scenario where Facebook was also competing with you as a content developer. At least this way, small developers have a chance to establish themselves before Big Media starts taking VR seriously.

Yeah, just feels a little more transparent when you know you're competing with them. This deal where Facebook is like "hey, we're out of this game" seems like a setup.

But, that's coming from someone who built on F8 years ago and witnessed their treatment of developers first-hand.

And, we've all seen what they've done to some popular apps on their platform. As well, their shameless capacity to copy successful apps (e.g. SnapChat) is just unnerving when you're considering partnering on their platform.

I also fell for their "Hey, come build a free business page on FB and drive your users to us; in return we'll make it easier for our users to find you". Sounded great, until they started charging you to reach your own audience after undertaking so much effort to corral them on Facebook.

All together, the sweeter they make the deal sound, the more wary I become.

as someone who actually owns an oculus, i think this is bad news. the biggest problem right now is the lack of quality content. the best content ive seen has come from Facebook so this is sad.

Wasnt that the reason 3d TV failed as well? Perhaps humans just don't have enough interesting things to say in 3d that they can't already do in 2.

It's still too early, I had that scene from Silicon Valley pop in my head about octopus, the animal in the ocean.

Maybe building out education and training for the platform would be a better use of resources. I am still not comfortable with something that close to my eyes. I want something like a holodeck from Star Trek Next Generation.

Measured business decision. Content producers are probably scared that Facebook is in the content business while also building the headsets.

Content producers have every right to be wary.

It’s a VR play. That’s the frothiest space in the Valley right now. Nobody understands it but everyone wants in. Any idiot could walk into a fucking room, utter the letters ‘v’ and ‘r’, and VC’s would hurl bricks of cash at them.

By the time they find out it’s vaporware, it’s too late. I’ve got to get into this.

— Erlich Bachman

I think there should be a version for AI too.

It’s an AI play. That’s the frothiest space in the Valley right now. Nobody understands it but everyone wants in. Any idiot could walk into a fucking room, utter the letters ‘A’ and ‘I’, and VC’s would hurl bricks of cash at them.

By the time they find out it’s just off the shelf models passed around as secret tech for next Deep Mind, it’s too late. I’ve got to get into this.

IOT

Software Defined

anybody remembers 'semantic search'?

It's now just "search". At least, Google's search is getting very good at "do what I mean". Occasionally it's a complete swing-and-a-miss but often it's spookily accurate.

Google does the opposite of what the "semantic" folks wanted - explicit, manual metadata. Indeed Google first rose to prominence because it was the first search engine to ignore the <meta> keyword tags (remember those?)

Except that Google acquired the semantic web startup Metaweb (aka Freebase) back in 2010. That tech became the foundation of the Knowledge Graph, which is deeply integrated into Google's stack, and powers Google Home / Assistant / etc.

That's a bit simplistic; Google definitively uses explicit metadata, they just don't blindly trust it like previous engines did.

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-struc...

At first, I really liked Google's DWIM changes. It's great for typos.

But it didn't take long before it started doing something other than what I meant. Taking words without typos and deciding I want something else because it made more sense. Showing me too results that did not match all terms ahead of results that did. The list goes on.

It's gotten particularly bad when searching for technical matters.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find better search engines. As far as I can tell, they're still the best game in town. They're just not as good as they used to be.

  OMG YOU GUIZE. SEMANTIC WEB. SEO.

The words remain as meaningless now, as they were in 2004. What did these people want me to do?

Use words... somehow? (alt text on images, human readable uris, meta tags, blah blah blah, that seems to be the gist of it, what a revolution)

I agree, for me, anything that mentions AI is instantly treated as horse poo until it does something really impressive

AI seems to be the replacement for "algorithm" in pitches these days.

Well, AI is usefull, at the cost of jobs ( eg. self-driving, accounting, ...)

VR is an new cost ( eg. You pay for something new that you didn't have before), AI can give you cost benefits ( you pay, but it's paid with something else), it's in a totally different range of services/products

Eg. https://cloud.google.com/blog/big-data/2016/08/how-a-japanes...

It's a funny quote, but it's a joke, I don't think the writers of the show meant it to be taken to heart. VR has its share of problems and it won't take off the way the iPhone did for the time being, but it's very tangible, and I think dismissing it as vaporware would be a mistake.

There's a small but serious niche developing, where VR turns out to be not only useful but probably necessary.

Places you can't physically access, but need to go, and require situational awareness of events in the surrounding environment as they happen.

Drone piloting. Deep ocean diving. Volcano exploration. Disaster relief efforts. Combat zones. Dangerous places that need human interpretation from eyes that can move throughout a scenario, and inspect from multiple vantage points, to inform decisions.

Beyond these practical uses, VR is less interesting. As entertainment it feels like an absurd compromise for a lesser value.

Thousands of dollars of equipment, and hundreds of dollars in content or subscription fees, all to enable a shut-in's lifestyle.

Imagine paying for VR tickets to the Fyre Festival.

Wouldn't a regular camera fit the needs of any of those? What does VR help here? Other than doubling the required bandwidth and not responding fast enough to your movements.

Bandwidth usage and high performance, hair-trigger responsive controls are likely to improve with emerging technology.

Also, consider the premise of haptic feedback, and simulation rigs. A pilot strapped into a harness that relays the live inertia of the vehicle being piloted has a better concept of the physical mass they are commanding.

It's one thing to look at a monocular video feed, and try to pull a clunky underwater ROV around. It's another thing to put on goggles, and sit in a rig that can spin you around, and relay a simulation of how the vehicle handles.

You would drive an 18 wheeler differently from a compact car, if you had something better than a single POV camera to observe from. A VR feed might enable the inspection of rear-view mirrors, or, even better, simulate augmented reality x-ray vision, by combining multiple cameras into a seamless transparent 360 degree view, with a ghosted 3D model of the physical vehicle overlayed on top of the composite video. Things like that can eliminate blindspots better than ordinary mirrors, as long as the system is online and actually works.

Sort of like this, but perhaps from a remote location, instead of as an actual physical passenger:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mini-augmented-vision-bmw-creates-a...

I'm inclined to agree. If I had to guess (which means bet on the opposite :-)), it's that VR will be very real but very much niche. I'm not sure about the zero value for entertainment though. Gamers and hardcore sports fans both spend (to me) absurd dollars on their hobby and VR may well have a role.

AR seems much more interesting, albeit subject to a lot of challenges around social norms etc.

Fwiw, drone pilots (I'm thinking racing drones here) don't use VR, they use low bandwidth and resolution single pov video, since it has the lowest latency. That low latency is quite important when doing precision maneuvers, even if it comes with the attendant analog artifacts (I.e. static).

VR will be essential for Mars colonists, especially while in transit. I think it will help people cope with living in enclosed spaces for long periods of time.

I think you completely misunderstood the quote regarding vaporware

Yeah, the term "vaporware" doesn't fit in the traditional sense. But the market for VR is very much vapor.

the SV series is so good at capturing the SV Startup zeitergast it's incredible.

I think it's mandatory to see all the episodes for someone thinking about starting a Startup.

HBO SV cast talks at Google https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOXup8chEoY

startup != sv goofyness

sv goofy startup == sv goofyness

sv startup != sv goofy startup

It's completely push-driven. The demand is negligible.

https://rocknerd.co.uk/2016/12/14/virtual-reality-its-the-ne...

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