Comment by giobox | Hacker News Reader

Comment by giobox | Hacker News Reader

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VR/AR is such a new paradigm for interacting with computers I think that its inevitable companies will make many failures before finding the apps and hardware that clicks with customers.

In 2017, we had only had mainstream non-beta VR headset hardware in the marketplace since 2016 (original consumer Rift, HTC Vive), lets not forget the 20 years of PDA hardware/software attempts we lived through before the mainstream smartphone designs we all use appeared in 2007. I expect a very similar arc will be followed for VR/AR, especially as the interaction model is so different from screen based.

I'm happy to see some development out "in the open", and wouldn't be so quick to criticize small project flops; VR/AR needs to begin somewhere. Zuck isn't trying to pretend VR/AR is ready for primetime either yet, he's made it clear he wants to be in a very strong position when/if the market does heavily move to VR/AR hardware, which he obviously believes strongly it will over time.

VR/AR is such a new paradigm for interacting with computers.

Not really. I tried Jaron Lainer's original VR rig back in the 1980s. The Autodesk system from the 1980s. The W Industries system ... the HTC Vibe. The Microsoft HoloLens. There's been progress, but usability really hasn't improved all that much.

You can shoot at people. That works fine. You can sort of use swords. Everything else, not so much. That's why Beat Saber is still the most successful VR game.

Some Autodesk people once thought that VR would make it easier to use CAD, because selection in 3D with a mouse is such a pain. Didn't work out, and 3D selection with a mouse got much better.

If anybody gets this right, it might be NVidia Omniverse. That's an attempt to do for 3D what shared text editors do for text documents.

I'm still waiting for a coder's VR IDE, but the pixel resolution isn't there yet. I want to be surrounded by my code and use gestures to run it, simulate it, explore it, debug it. I want to be able to "feel" a keyboard under my fingers and see them typing on it. I want spatial audio cues so I can hear my chokepoint inner loops grinding. I want a live gource-like [0] tree that lets me fly through my repo history.

I want 3D emacs.

[0] https://gource.io/

Gimme a fast compiler

I think the biggest selection problem is the Minority Report UI problem: hanging hands are not precise tools, nor are they comfortable to hold up for > ~a minute. In particular, it is very hard to do even one pixel-perfect point+grab+release in 3D space, let alone do it over and over -- in large part because you can't easily lock a dimension or the position and rest your hand. Touch-screens are hard to get precise-clicks on for a similar reason: with a mouse I can line it up and hit fire, with touch I'm firing until I let go.

If someone gets the right metaphor going there, I think it could work great, but the naive solution of 1:N direct scaling the position of your hand to a co-ordinate in space isn't it. I imagine it'll be something like direct correlation to get 'in the neighbourhood' and then an easy modal toggle to a 'precision' mode, where you move something in small increments along just 1 or 2 dimensions, using a comfortable binary gesture.

Or maybe AI will get really good at guessing what alignment the user wants.

As far as control interface goes, it seems almost inevitable that we'll eventually have a breakthrough/refinement for some sort of mental control without physical movement (similar to how some amputees control their advanced prosthetics). It would be a game changer for VR.

I think the biggest selection problem is the Minority Report UI problem: hanging hands are not precise tools, nor are they comfortable to hold up for > ~a minute.

Right. The Autodesk people figured that out by 1990. It's like trying to draw while wearing mittens. And they had fingered gloves as input devices. During the 1990s, there were many attempts at tactile interfaces. None of them ever caught on. My favorite was the levitated metal ball. It rested over a shallow bowl, and offered all 6 degrees of freedom, plus it could resist your movement and push back.

VR is good for looking at 3D models, but not for working on them.

3d selection in VR is better. Just give it a hundredth of the investment we've given desktop UI

The Autodesk system ran on what, a pair of RS/6000? I got to chat with some of their guys showing that off at a trade show in off moments over a few days; they were great at running the demo but were umm... unenthused about the prospects of anyone keeping the system running for any time without high grade help.

The most useful thing you'll probably ever be able to do in it will probably be using a web browser and software on a virtual computer in a virtual environment. Essentially just making certain interactions virtual but stay the same.

Oh my, reading your comment I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. I too tried the old VR headsets, played doom on one and got a massive headache. I thought VR was bad and stupid after that. Then I tried the HTC Vive and holy molly I almost cried after trying it. Now I own an Oculus Quest II and… it is the future. I’m sorry but this is it.

Notably, I think eye contact is a killer app for VR and none of the headsets can do it yet.

Facebook is smart to be in there doing experiments and failing though. That's table stakes for having a shot at winning the competition.

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