Zuckerberg Sees Project Cambria ‘Eventually Replacing Your Laptop’

It's almost the present too. Compared to using a real laptop, the resolution is not as good, and the headset does not last long enough, but it's already entirely usable today. I even experienced an upside: no more screen-glare!

With a way to have the headset be usable all day long, better network connectivity to stream higher quality picture, slightly better pass-through, and software that exploits the gigantic screen VR enable, I could see myself using this.

People that are skeptical of VR/AR replacing computer monitors, I suggest trying it first.

But I'd rather go without technology than end up locked into in the Zuckerverse.

If you think of it like this, monitors and our current HCI paradigms are basically bandwidth limitations to productivity. A more immersive productivity experience could be conceived of in AR/VR/MR, a la Minority Report / Tony Stark’s lab. They’re have been some really interesting articles floating around of people already doing this.

I just wish it wasn’t Facebook pushing this forward.

There are a number of things needed before we get there though: * AR glasses or contacts that are not intrusive * AR glasses or contacts that can use prescription lenses * Lightweight finger-less gloves that provide 23DOF, enough to model the human hand [1]. Gloves would need to detect finger positions through light sensors or nerve monitoring, as finger-less is needed so users can interact with real world * Good spatial audio, ideally in over the ear (so they don't get dropped) ear buds that are used with the glasses/contacts for head tracking * Ideally, a headset or something that measures user's facial muscles, allowing your avatar's face to mimic yours * Belt or something that holds power and main processing, as well as tracks torso positioning * The protocols needed to manage and exchange VR/AR digital assets * The protocols needed to render those assets, ideally is a customizable way (I might want to see a realistic rendering, someone else might want a medieval fantasy spin)

If NeuralLink takes off then that could theoretically replace the above, but I'd bet the above will exist before NeuralLink is ready and approved for consumer use.

I'm interested to see how close Project Cambria comes to the above. However, my take at the moment is that it will be targeted at VR gamers and VR socializing, not AR. There is a huge market for VR applications, but AR has much bigger potential - while also being a harder nut to crack.

My hope is that this is all Open Sourced, or that Open Source teams get there first.

[1] Mansor, N.N.; Jamaluddin, M.H.; Shukor, A.Z. Concept and application of virtual reality haptic technology: A review. J. Theor. Appl. Inf. Technol. 2017, 95, 3320–3326.

When the iPhone came out it was completely obvious how great it was. Sure there were naysayers, but they were a vocal minority predicting Apple’s impending bankruptcy while the product sold in droves. It took only a few years for smartphones to be completely ubiquitous. Once people saw it, they wanted it.

VR is not the same. The first Oculus came out in 2016, and it’s been a fringe product ever since.

Can Zuckerberg truly believe he has the Next Big Thing here? Is there some sort of obligation for big companies to tout their Next Big Thing, even if they realistically know it probably won’t take over the world? Am I just wrong and we’ll all be using VR headsets instead of laptops in 5 years?

I’m just continually stunned at how committed they are to this.

1. Eliminate personal knowledge.

2. Eliminate points of comparison to the past.

3. Separate people from each other.

4. Unify experience, especially encouraging mental experience at the expense of sensory experience. //Where this article stands out to me.

5. Occupy the mind.

6. Encourage drug use.

7. Centralize knowledge and information.

8. Redefine happiness and the meaning of life in terms of new and increasingly unrooted philosophy.

We can't give any company root access to our brains. Our planet is sick and we need to start to distance ourselves to think critically on solving these problems without them taking over our lives. While this would be more accessible than say a chromebook or a laptop, we have to remember those who create the devices also get to dictate the experiences on them.