By the time they find out it’s vaporware, it’s too late. I’ve got to get into this.
— Erlich Bachman
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.
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-struc...
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.
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)
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...
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.
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...
AR seems much more interesting, albeit subject to a lot of challenges around social norms etc.
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
sv goofy startup == sv goofyness
sv startup != sv goofy startup
https://rocknerd.co.uk/2016/12/14/virtual-reality-its-the-ne...