Meta VR prototypes aim to make VR 'indistinguishable from reality'
roadtovr.com
roadtovr.com
Maybe when I can get a headset that offers onboard focus-adjustment and some kind of omnidirectional treadmill I'll sink another thousand dollars into VR but until then I am done.
That being said, body tracking is what made the platform click for me. Hanging out with friends from all over the world in an immersive space feels like the future.
Hooking up a Quest 2 to Steam works well and it means that you have a platform that will support numerous headsets.
Where that leaves Meta though is an interesting question.
its unlocked, but all the new proprietary VR apps are not going to be backwards compatible with it.
(not to drag it too much, I hope to be working on the open source side of the metaverse, but I think OP has a point about forward compatibility, there's very little reason to throw down good money for another headset with a limited lifespan, we're still in that early adoption / fast trash phase)
The Go existing at all was probably a mistake. It was a good test bed but it was always headed for immediate deprecation, it could’ve just stayed in the lab.
Compare it to the PDAs (e.g., Palm Pilot) of the late 90s early 2000s. They were cool, but hard to use. Though they were popular, they were far from mainstream. Then the iPhone came out, and a few years later everybody had a computer in their pocket. VR sorely needs a similar disruption.
I don't know which thing will work out and which won't, but people telling you why they won't or will never use it is not that meaningful to me. I have seen too many things in my life that people say they will never use become quite common. I have always had my best successes on new technologies so I am always rooting for people trying to create new hardware.
FWIW I love my Quest 2 and use it every day. Your mileage will vary.
When I say it it didn't need a case, I dropped that phone many times, and the screen never cracked due to the metal rim. In the end as os update bricked it. Went to an s8 which was slippery as could be, with its glass back. Cracked both sides and short order, and from there on out I've needed a bulky case to wrap my delicate flower of a phone.. Damn.
I'd happily buy one again if it had modern specs.
In my opinion it already is. I have an OQ2 and play whatever the golf simulator is, and a sailboat simulator in it all the time, but it's exactly the type of quick, 2-3 minute sessions that used to be mobile games or tiktok. From lifting my laptop off of my laptop to starting a race in the sailboat game takes less than a minute, and almost all of that is just load times on the game.
(The sailing game is marineverse, btw. Lots of fun when its 115 degrees out in Phoenix and too hot to go on real water)
I don't, wife does, it's always a production for her.
As for the Ready Player One experience. There is a different issue to be addressed and that is the finite experience offered by modern day "games." Taking a look at Diablo Immortal and it should be clear of what little runway there is to live your life in VR. Experiences extended by lootboxes.
Even games that don't use that mechanism are bloated through artificial grinds. Economy resets and just lack of budget for story outside of 80hrs. Why even sink the development time in if you have the former to fuel profit margins?
There's a lot more to be said inside the scope of what XR is and how it will impact. And its not just comfort or accessibility preventing adoption. There is no killer app and it's the same with crypto. But that's more to do with the current limits of concepts we have relied on to get to this point.
The problem is that you want different levels of simulation at different times so developers just pick the easiest one to implement that is still fun. If there is an MMORPG you might want the ability to simulate actual cooking but at some point it becomes a grind and you just want to press a button instead of repeating the same recipe over and over again.
I have a headset I bought a few years ago (PSVR), and while it’s easy enough to set up, I don’t want to rearrange my living room every time I use it.
I think you're missing what I'm saying: while I have space, the space I have requires some effort to make VR-ready. Wireless is interesting (I can use it in my backyard, for example), but that comes with its own set of caveats.
The minute, enterprises use VR to improve productivity, everyone will switch to VR.
I'm always astounded by the lack of imagination from smart people that they get so fixated on small things while completely missing the bigger picture.
That's how you end up with Grammar Nazis, REST Nazis, TDD Nazis, Security Nazis, Code Format Nazis.
Make no mistake, society needs people who are obsessed or paranoid about little things, but they aren't the ones you look up to or go to for next generation advances.
So, as usual I'll take any HN future prediction with grain of salt and stick to people who have created Trillion $ companies or built products used by Billions.
But when you create a digital twin for traingin, VR or AR, it will be easier to teach a robot to do that job without any human. It might be that VR/AR is a short intermediate step, but robots are the future.
And i' still waiting for the master skill application. Were is it? What is it? Why does the lizard talk about tech stuff in his video only and not about what you will do with it? Guess why?
But i think it will end up like 3d printing: Fun and niche for nerds and the professional versions are better and more expensive and only yused for their usecases.
And even then, not so many people care about being productive or to master new skills.
When I say skills you are limiting your imagination drudge-work skills. Skills could also be Tennis, Dancing, Sex, Golf.
Productivity could also be fixing your car, bikes, plumbing.
VR is one of the few technologies which both lazy and active people can benefit.
Unless you put yourself in the category of a neck-beard who doesn't like moving from your lazy-boy and also don't like porn, the category of people who won't benefit from real-life VR is very tiny.
Once something benefits them, People will jump through all kinds of hoops to get them
I think tech bros are way overestimating the interest of people in general. Nobody's going to train for sex or sport in VR, it lacks 90% of the experience.
People want to live real world thing, not evolve in a virtual world alone with appendices that barely mimic real life sensations.
A $300 VR headset has none of those barriers and is open to millions of developers and can constantly iterate.
Understand the difference and you'll become a better investor.
Else you are just falling for the Availability Heuristic Fallacy
The other issue is even if people are open to the VR device itself, I think you absolutely have to nail the experience for them the first time or else people will treat it like a fad and then never give it a go again. You don’t have a second chance to make a good impression.
But I only use my VR system for fitness, and only a few fitness oriented or active apps. It is the killer but only VR app for me.
I don't think the Go was a very good product. Facebook was right to double/triple down on the Quest, but that does leave early adopters a bit in a mess with outdated hardware (although I'm on my third quest system already).
It's similar to the feeling I get when I'm coding and in the flow: time stops, and I can't think of anything else. And this is coming from someone who always hated exercise, so it has been a pretty fantastic experience so far (~1 year). But YMMV.
ps: if interested, I have 4 free guest passes (it gives you 30 days free trial, instead of the normal 7). Email in my profile.
pps: strongly recommend Quest2 with extended battery (or counterweight [2]), so the weight is more evenly distributed in your head. I had some neck pain at first, until I replaced by the elite strap with extra battery.
- sweaty and nasty as hell on the headset - no substitute for a proper gym or run or swim, there only so much stuff you can do on the ground or punching the air, jogging on the spot - conditions you to only be active in VR, which coddles you in an environment that does not mirror real world applications of your body
Im happy to be debunked but those are my impressions. I’m very fit, frequently go to my nearby boxing gym, i just couldn’t see myself doing this
FWIW, sweat is solved problem; there's plenty of silicone covers [1], sweat bands, etc. And the parent also mentioned of wearing glasses, but prescription lenses are widely available (I use these ones [3]).
I'm just puzzled by your comment of "doesn't mirror real world applications of your body"; as if boxing, squats and cardio in general weren't "real world" :)
[1] https://us.vrcover.com/collections/silicone-covers
[2] https://www.facebook.com/groups/getsupernatural/
[3] https://www.framesdirect.com/virtuclear-lens-inserts-for-ocu...
It depends, a bit, what your fitness goals are.
If you're doing squats because you want to be able to lift 100 lbs boxes confidently, or boxing because you want to fistfight in the real world, you might be limited by the fact VR can't provide resistance; detect if you're putting enough force in; or punch back.
On the other hand, if you're looking to get your heart and lungs going, burn some calories, and generally compensate for the fact you've been sitting at a desk all day? Anything from ballet to bodybuilding will do, including VR exercise.
It basically looks like simple movements repeated over and over. Because all you have is 2 controllers. There’s no way to add complexity or load because that would just be dangerous if you can’t see your surroundings.
In practice, moving around is not a problem, provided you have some minimal space around you (they recommend a 7ft diameter circle). I use their workout mat [1], which is perfect to give you a sense of where you are in the room at all times. I've also successfully used for exercise in hotel rooms when travelling (a bit more challenging, depending on the layout).
[1] https://shop.getsupernatural.com/products/vr-workout-mat
Definitely don't do this in your living room with your three year old toddler around (as I learned very quickly :) ).
You have to add your own load (or "weight") to your movements, it won't work if you are just out to win the game with minimal energy expenditure (which the software won't really penalize you for).
It's worth asking what your goal is though. If it's only to burn calories, what matters is a mix of intensity and how long you do the activity. Walking for two hours burns more calories than running for 10 minutes. So through that lens, a game that has you moving only a bit, but that you will play for an hour, is a pretty good idea.
If you don't have that much time, or your goal is more health-focused in that you want to get your heart rate up, there are definitely games that make that happen. A boxing game is considered the gold standard, but there are other games that definitely make me sweat.
All in all, it's an activity I enjoy doing, and that I can do every day without leaving the house, which for my specific situation is exactly what I needed.
It isn't that bad with the silicon wrap around the eye piece. Keeping your headset clean is a simple wipe down after each session.
> there only so much stuff you can do on the ground or punching the air, jogging on the spot
The "game" aspect allows for long sessions of punching things in the air, dunking, and some knee movements (no running in place yet). You also have to psychologically charge your punches or your slashes to add weight to them (otherwise you aren't getting much out of it).
> which coddles you in an environment that does not mirror real world applications of your body
Real world application of my body is programming 8 hours a day. I'll take an hour of shadow boxing a day even if I won't be able to apply it at work (thankfully).
You really do have to give it a serious try though. If you aren't enthusiastic about it, it probably won't work for you, and even if you want to try it, it doesn't guarantee that it will work for you.
Expect to have sore shoulders/back after throwing a few thousand air punches as hard as you can.
But honestly, it's not real boxing it's a boxing themed cardio exercise. At a purported 10-15 calories a minute it seems like a pretty good cardio workout as well.
One day it'll end up consolidated into some equivalent of Windows/Mac/Linux, probably categorised into the same sort of "business/professionals", "artists/creatives", and "geeks/tinkerers" approximate major demographics.
If you need some hints about which platform(s) will "win", keep an eye on what I buy. And avoid them. I have a GearVR/S6Edge - on a shelf with my Apple Newton, Sinclair ZX80, and Betamax video recorder. I think perhaps my only technology win is the turntable I bought in 1985 and still use...
I suspect I'm a fellow harbinger. I thought Apple was cool in the 90s and that Microsoft was on to something in the 00s-early 10s (including Win8/Phone), so I'm at least a solid 5+ years off (or, as a positive spin, simply much too early).
[1] https://boingboing.net/2019/12/03/harbringer-of-doom.html)
But:
> Harbinger households tend to be white, suburban and headed by older, less-educated single parents.
Ouch...
> I thought Apple was cool in the 90s and that Microsoft was on to something in the 00s
It's not on my shelf of bad decisions anymore, but in '95 I though I was making the best possible purchase when I bought a Mac 6100 DOS Compatible... A Mac with a daughterboard that had a 486DX2 which ran MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 and later Win95. (I paid $1200AUD for 3 8MB SIMMs for that, so the DOS board didn't;t have to share RAM with the Mac...)
Bad at picking products and life partners.
I remember it was great for emulation of SNES and GBA games because of its physical keyboard.
> The Motorola Droid on Verizon is the first device to feature Google Maps Navigation. It’s a completely free service that offers 3D maps with voice guided turn-by-turn directions. The VZ Navigator available on most Verizon Wireless phones costs an additional $10 a month for use. A decent turn-by-turn direction App on the iPhone sells for a one time fee of nearly $80-$100. On the other hand Google Maps Navigation is entire free and is offers a lot more.
They are shipping soon after many delays.
And they still are. I hate virtual keyboards, it's just a terrible experience. It requires a lot of attention, has low accuracy and features like swipe are too unreliable that I find them useful in the long run.
I just don't like being slowed down by a clever feature not working as expected and so for me a physical keyboard simply cannot be replaced. It always feels like a fragile crutch otherwise.
Sure it's got mechanical parts but reliable switches are not rocket science. Now analog sticks are a different story apparently.
I mean you're not wrong. They're just sl8ghtly more expensive
ps. I like a lot Cory Doctorow's articles; also Boing Boing was among my favorite sites in the early 2k; I'm saddened to see what it has become today: mostly a shop for overpriced crap. Suffice to say that after noticing my account was terminated during my long hospitalization in late 2020 with no warnings given, I didn't create another and removed the site from my bookmarks.
That's what "normal people" means.
Plus it will probably break if you get a hair stuck in it or accelerate at over 0.1g, and everyone will blame the user for wearing it wrong when it happens.
Nobody ever asked for disruption... that's why it's called disruption. But it turns out that VR never really disrupted games anyways. It just created a new category. Most people don't care about VR and have just continued playing normal games that are already expensive enough. VR has just added to the pie, not taken a slice.
With VR and multiplayer it’s opened an entirely new world of immersive and emergent gameplay. I’ve had more fun playing silly custom maps in Pavlov than I’ve had in decades of traditional gaming.
I wouldn’t call VR a disruptor so much as a replacement for current displays and an addition of a new form of human interface device. People will probably still play pancake games in 10 years time using a keyboard and mouse or a game controller but they’ll be wearing a headset so they can have their game displayed at whatever size and fov they find optimal. There will also be a huge number of VR games and gamers and probably also a lot of mixed games where you can play in either VR or on a (virtual) screen.
Someday VR will be there. It's not physically impossible. Supersonic passenger travel will never be efficient because aerodynamic drag exists. VR just needs a few generations of slimming down the hardware, innovating on control input, and streamlining the software. In 20 years we'll probably be in a place where eyeglass form factor full FOV AR/VR is a thing.
I still think that while VR wont get mainstream, AR will deffinitely do.
Exactly, we are still in early days for VR. Many of the annoying things will get better.
And back then we had Moore's Law on our side.
So truly mainstream VR might be 20+ years from now.
I'm a huge VR nerd, I love collecting headsets and playing with new ways to display visuals. But I've never thought it would be a mainstream product, because of exactly what you said: you have to strap something to your head
It really isn't that immersive. Once you are into the game or story it doesn't matter whether you are reading a book, watching a TV or viewing it through VR. You get immersed regardless
My main interest in VR is playing with the idea of replacing my monitors for coding, graphic design and 3D modelling. 3D modelling in VR is already very good and better than a screen due to the hand-tracking and being able to easily manipulate directly in 3D space (not the immersive display, so much)
Their drivers caused what has probably been the only windows bluescreens I've seen in a decade.
Then because they can't provide individual downloadable versions (or for that matter even recover them from their build artifacts, per support) anytime something breaks following an update your SOL until they fix it, if ever. (this is part of a larger dark pattern of creating "installers" that actually are only downloaders that download whatever version is current and install it without saving the downloaded image).
I'm in the situation where about a year and a half ago they pushed an update which broke my setup, and they can't seem to fix it, nor are they apparently motivated. The solution is basically buy a new computer/reinstall the OS/whatever and see if that fixes it. I'm not the only one, reddit is full of people having various problems like this, and some have even gone so far as to create restore point style scripts for saving/restoring the install.
Their USB drivers have been trash, or they have some requirement that isn't clear, which means that its a game of plugging in the headset and sensors into random USB ports until it decides everything is going to work (maybe).
I could go on, but their software people obviously aren't up to the task of providing kernel mode code, or debugging problems in the field.
Funny bit, one of their recruiters poped me an email shortly after I gave up on their software/support teams actually being capable of fixing things. Right into the trash it went, I can't imagine working for a dev shop that can't even recover older versions of their build artifacts to do a/b testing.
Right now its just in the category of "never give meta/etc money for anything because they will f$*k you and never blink" I don't do bus with google, and I won't do bus with facebook, they are just to big to notice when they squash people like me.
These things were all essentially experiments, or at best a little taster of VR for those not ready to invest in serious (PC-based) VR. Decent VR needs a truckload of GPU power, and these early attempts to use phone hardware for VR were never going to be much good.
It is also used by architects when designing buildings and different spaces, so it can also be used in professional environment.
On the other hand, I think that all the meta thing is just corporate hype blown out of proportions. I can imagine tho that for some people their R isn't that great, or they will never have a chance to experience certain places in the world in first person. My 90 years old great-grandmother can experience Iceland only through TV documentaries, google street view or maybe VR.
Until VR headsets are as light and unobtrusive as ordinary glasses, VR will remain niche.
Honestly, I kind of suspect it's this decade's 3D TV; enormous hype, quickly followed by the whole industry pretending they were never involved in it.
AR is the real deal for the immediate future. AR has direct applications in a lot of environments.
To put it shortly, AR is something that will be truly useful within the next 5-10 years, VR is something will be truly useful within the next 20-25 years.
Once we get the tech to actually put it into glasses properly, it will be ubiquitous.
Google Glass failed because the tech wasn't there yet, smart glasses need to look like regular glasses. Once they do, then of course everyone will want it. For anyone willing to wear glasses, smart glasses are basically the smartphone killer (or enhancer).
VR is the odd one out for mass-market consumer products. Flight simulators and the like don't cut it as "mass-market".
In that time they’ve debatably eclipsed the entire VR headset industry units sold over the past decade - about 10 million mostly PSVR, but some Samsung, Vive and Valve.
The PS5 has sold 20 million, for reference.
I think it's complicated.
First of all, I don't really know a lot of people talking about and using VR. So the first thing would be to check real adoption. There are a ton of famous products that were purchased in large quantities and then only collected dust.
PS5 for sure doesn't suffer from that. Quest 2... the jury might still be out.
The second thing is, PS5 is famous by being hamstrung by supply issues. PS4 sold almost 120 million units, and for sure it wasn't abandoned in some corner of the house.
The third thing would be the ecosystem. Number of titles, their sales, the overall market value, when including the platforms themselves and the products sold on top of them.
My impression so far is that VR is still far from mainstream. It's very loved by enthusiasts but it's not at the late adopter or laggard stage, it hasn't crossed the chasm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm).
Making it indistinguishable from real life should be easy then.
But I will admit that even though each time I take off the dust from my Quest I am wowed at the experience,
... each time I take off the headset I shrug and I'm like "cool".
Maybe we just need to come to grips with the fact that _as an entertainment or work_ device, it's friggin awesome - and as far as "reality" goes, it's pointless.
Now of course if it came to a point where you don't want to remove the headset.. but thankfully personally I don't have any worries.
A funny philosophical thought.. you reproduce the sense of smell, taste .. etc... Then people will be like, "umm, it's just like my real life now.. what is the point?" Other than being "transported" (for fake) and experience another place.
I think that's the main misconception with VR. There is the dream of "living another life". But it's just entertainment.
edit: I should also add that despite promising stories in the media, the ability of VR to heal trauma, to heal our nervous system, to make us better people... is still very much up in the air.. and as I am healing trauma myself I can see how VR could just as well unbalance the nervous system. I mean you're already seeing how "novelty" messes us up in social media (inifinite scroll etc)... why should we expect VR to make everything betteR?
New equipment may be too expensive and novel for home purchases, but an arcade could invest in those fancy omnidirectional treadmill and VR gloves.
The demand is there. People pay $30+ for a spin class, why not VR lightsaber zumba?
Video games in the 80s and movies started off in commercial locations before becoming cheap enough for home use. I'm not sure why VR hasn't followed their model. I've assumed it was because the tech isn't there yet.
Believe it or not but a lot of people go to group sport to be surrounded by people, not to be alone in a virtual world.
It is sad that we are unavoidably headed to a world where a company like Meta monopolizes control of two of our five traditional senses (sight and sound). Their business model is based on behavior modification and I fully expect their highly-compensated employees to be endlessly creative in the application of headsets to that end. The sheer scale of R&D expenditure required to get realistic/usable VR is daunting and seems beyond FOSS capabilities. Not just hardware, but software like SLAM/VIO or image processing. I backed the Simula One headset but the disparity in development resources between them and meta is pretty astounding.
I also have a htc vive pro + wireless transmitter + highend pc and i don't think at all that this will replace a normal monitor setup on a table.
Why?
Because wearing a headset on your head is just cumbersome.
I don't think anyone would ever sit in any outdoor setup with a VR headset on their heads because it looks idiotic, it ruins your hair and its too expensive to let it lay around.
And at home? At home people stoped wearing pants why would they give up a good display for a headset?
This is exactly what people thought of 5+ inch phone screens, and now nobody cares.
I keep seeing ads/promos for VR with people on a train/subway in a VR headset. I hope you don't mind having the rest of your stuff taken from you while you crush it in what ever game you're playing on the subway
Real world with the AR "Killer App" - whatever that is. Google Glass will (sadly) be accepted by everyone in society eventually.
<s> Alexa/Siri: The optimal carriage for the train you are taking will stop 12 paces to your left. whoosh... screeech!
Alexa/Siri: Enter the door to board the train.
Alexa/Siri: The person seated 3 metres in front was recently given a 1 star Co-Rider review with the notes:"Loud shitty music."
Alexa/Siri: This person approaching you has been flagged for viol.... </s>
But it doesn't really matter. Ads will ruin everything. They always do.
Then, Black Mirror comes along and ruins it for everyone, because of course people will use it exactly as they proposed it could go. After seeing that, I don't want any part of it.
Is there a rule of the internet/tech/life that says for any good use, people will first take it to the dark places thereby ruining any potential good usage first?
To be clear, I'm not asking for anything. This is from their own PR that I've seen this advertised as a use case.
i.e. something like the hololens or spectacles
It's getting there though. Vuzix have made really nice flat AR displays for their Blade. They just don't have a clue how to sell them afaik.
Not to say that it is some kind of blissful experience, but it works reasonably well to go get a glass of water.
you gain IRL latency for reduced pixels
Not something I care about in both counts. And I don't think people care. In fact I was at a trade show this weekend where someone was playing a Q2 game and everyone looked really interested.
And messing up my hair, well I hardly have any :)
But sitting stock still, I was so distracted by big obvious pixels. I can’t imagine trying to do real work with text at that resolution.
For me, Quest 2 is very obviously a "not there yet" product that seems to mostly appeal to kids and people who don't actually care about graphics or comfort. It's hot, battery life is bad, strapping over a pound on your face for hours at a time is not fun, and the graphics are visibly bad - even just sitting still the edges are horribly aliased and the screen door effect is massively apparent. Plus the nausea for many people, and the complete lack of spatial awareness. I will say that untethered is massively better than tethered, though, even with the graphics penalty. Quest 4 (I don't think v3 will be a big enough improvement) or whatever Apple eventually releases might actually be appealing, though.
DDR was as really great fitness app back in the late 90s, early 00s, similar experience, but it required insanely expensive hardware if you wanted to do it at home at any decent quality (rather than just a novelty for a few parties). The Quest has none of that problem (though most of your work is in your arms rather than your legs). It is also too bad Microsoft didn't go the fitness route for Kinect, that worked fairly well also in getting sore at least.
An air pressure hard pad...well...you have to buy a DDR arcade unit. Those are going for $10k+ last time I looked. Then you have to find a place to put it....
And if your definition of 'flimsy' is 'requires some maintenance every decade', note that the product we're comparing it to, the Oculus, has a lithium ion battery in it that's e-waste after less than half that time, and good luck getting spares in a market that discontinues its products every couple of years.
DDR is in this awkward space where it's either cheap and garbage, or expensive as all hell. The DDRGAME stuff, from what I've heard is somewhat pricy AND garbage.
VR as a whole still has a long way to go though, for sure. You need like 8k per eye or something crazy before you're "maxed out" on what humans can perceive IIRC.
tl;dr human vision is higher than 8k, but megapixels is not the right concept to measure it
I do agree with you that the resolution is still to low to replace screens.
looks like that's getting slightly better, as long as you tether to a massive desktop to fit its massive enthusiast GPU
I can't imagine doing real work with text too, but it's enough to be immersed in realistic worlds like hl alyx.
I am always astounded by such claims, like have you guys ever travelled outside the Western hemisphere at all?
Furthermore, the resolution on a Quest for viewing actual text for long periods of time is entirely too low, and that's not even considering the fact that it can be very difficult to get the entire virtual screen to be in focus given the fresnel lenses. What do you do your programming on, a TI 83 screen?
My prediction if this takes off: Just as in Phones right now we will see a period of mono/duopolism after which lawmakers around the world will start to decide that the public space expanded into a new field and that companies such as Meta are unfit stewards. Then laws will be written to align platforms more with whatever the local society expects. (And some people will, again, complain about that "overreach")
I expect more comments on how to influence this technology versus dismissing it as not applicable for the human race.
That doesn't change the fact that the input problem for AR/VR is not solved. Some VR is trying to solve this by integrating back in the mouse/keyboard. Others, like Elon, are trying to leapfrog to human-brain interface.
Neither of those efforts change the fact that for current AR/VR your input is lower bandwidth than a smartphone which is already lower bandwidth than mouse/keyboard.
This input bandwidth limit means that the applications for the tech are currently very minimal and means that any product being sold today is unlikely to do well.
VR is just not very "real", and I don't think we can ever make it real enough with the tech path it is on. Human brain interfaces seem like the best bet, but they are so far away that I don't think they'll be commercially available in my lifetime.
Currently though? They're all kinda shit. And there doesn't seem to be a clear incremental step from "current" to "good enough" for a GIGANTIC range of scenarios, so it seems reasonable to claim "it's not coming any time soon".
And I say all this as an enthusiast. When resolution and compute power increases a bit, I'll probably make a real effort to use VR (AR seems further away) to replace my desk/monitor(s)/etc for work. But without a ton of effort and severe tradeoffs, it's not really currently feasible.
1. Google Glass: This is the most underwhelming and lamest thing ever. Tried for 20 seconds and never thought about it again.
2. 3DTV: meh, I’dr rather watch 2D.
3. Magic Leap / HoloLens: this is way less cool than the commercials, tiny field of view, incredibly far way from something actually usable.
4. Oculus DK2: jaw dropped, holy shit moments. WOW!
That’s not to say VR is perfect. In fact, it’s far enough away from perfect I currently never use it. But it is so much more impressive and close to being amazing than these other categories.
You're creating a false dichotomy - probably unintentionally, but I find it's important to point it out. As one of these naysayers, I'm not against VR because I'm somehow skeptical of futuristic/modern technology (nuclear fusion when?), it's because I am specifically against VR/AR in the hands of a megacorp like Facebook. If all this development was happening in the open, like for example the web developed, I would be jumping on this yesterday. As someone who's dreamed of the Star Trek holodeck since I was a child, the thought of becoming an Oculus dev to pursue this dream does not excite me one bit.
Obviously this was just one example to demonstrate the convenience of VR/AR over smart phones. You would not be using VR/AR for "just that one thing". The applications are numerous:
* Ability to have virtual workspaces with multiple high-resolution simulated monitors (and that's just the low-hanging fruit of simulating existing workspaces at a lower cost and more portability, it is entirely possible that VR will lead to completely new workspaces. But let's be a pessimist and assume simulating existing workspaces is the best we can do.). I mean if VR can deliver this one thing and nothing else, I would say it will be a huge success.
* Ability to read/work on commute without getting a headache from vibrations (since the image will be stable)
* Lifelike interaction with friends and family in a moment's notice and no air pollution
* Videogames
And these are some of the easier and less speculative uses of VR.
How are you actually defining "new" here? Have you considered that you are defining "new" in an amorphous way that allows you to reject everything new that VR/AR offer?
AR allows one to create virtual objects with actual position and shape in the real world. We can see these objects in their location in the world, and interact with them. That is the abstracted case of what is truly new -- the thing that simply does not exist without AR.
From this abstract case, we can give concrete examples. When buying products online, one can discover what furniture will look like in their house, or what clothing will look like on their body -- they can better see it from every angle and the form it will take. In terms of "adult entertainment", one can literally experience a virtual person up in your face and on your body, something that is just not offered by any existing form. Shit, we can attach a virtual note to a physical object (that only select people get to see!), we can use a ping pong table without needing to own a ball, we can see "subtitles" next to a person who is talking, we can see a label next to our friend in a crowded place without having to constantly cross-reference a map on a phone screen... honestly. Have some imagination.
If you can see this list of things and say "none of that is new", then I seriously challenge you to define "new" for me, because I'm willing to bet you are not applying the same rigorous definition to smartphones.
None of these things are achievable in the same way with a 2D screen because by definition a 2D screen lacks the ability to literally display along the Z axis. Our minds perceive in 3D, not 2D. A 2D screen literally provides less information about distance and location to the senses. Moreover, a 2D screen has a complete inability to create the feeling of presence, something that is new to AR/VR.
Actually, to act as if the feeling of presence is not new, despite you apparently having used a headset, seems bizarre to the point of incomprehensibility. Use VR porn and tell me that’s not a completely new, compelling experience. I’m addicted to it — it’s like I’m literally having sex. Honestly, your rejection of presence as revolutionary means I don’t actually think it’s possible to get anywhere with this discussion.
Lastly, your difficulties developing something compelling with AR is not a sufficient argument that nothing compelling can ever be achieved with it.
So, take that idea. It's not a novelty experience. It's not fluff. It significantly improves the lives of hearing-impaired people.
Did you even come up with this idea? If so, why were you not able to create it? Have you considered that perhaps it was due to the fact that something like this is extremely difficult to develop and can't be done by a regular team over a period of 'months'? Have you considered that AR/VR isn't just going to be made transformative within a <1 year time period of you getting your hands on it?
On the other hand, if you didn't even come up with such a practically beneficial idea as this (or were unable to see how life-changingly useful it'd be for the hearing-impaired), then the issue with all of your ideas being "fluff" was not due to the technology at hand.
This even sparks my imagination further. Right now, if someone yells at a hearing-impaired person from behind, they have no immediate way of knowing (any phone-based solution is not going to give quick information about the direction of the yell when it's in-pocket). On the other hand, an AR headset will be able to immediately inform that person that a loud voice has come from exactly the direction it is pointing to, because it can literally show an arrow in their visual sight. That is so goddamn exciting and useful. And I simply can't comprehend how you cannot see it.
is it particularly surprising that people who know what goes into the sausages might be skeptical about feeding them to everyone for every meal?
The public imagination is bent toward the cyber-dystopian, whereas these two technologies represent other possible futures.
https://lookingglassfactory.com/product/overview
I don't really know what programmable matter means, sounds like biology to me :)
here's a quick sizzle reel that shows the product - it's a stack of transparent displays that produces a very convincing depth hologram, I've seen them in person, they're really cool
More like "people who know to a degree what goes into salads act like they know what goes into sausages."
More often than not, it is about as interesting and insightful as watching Steve Ballmer staging a mock funeral for iPhone in 2010[0].
0. https://macdailynews.com/2010/09/10/microsoft_windows_phone_...
Then there's also the history of each recent step forward in technology coming along with increased top-down control and surveillance. Here, it's especially important to be skeptical of Meta's influence on VR specifically. I think Meta's goal is to create a fully walled garden where they can surveil their users freely to sell ads. An App Store for VR, but with even more monitoring and advertising. This is not a future I want, regardless of the benefits of the technology itself.
Can't it just be a niche/enthusiast product for another decade or so? There's enough people that care and it to keep our afloat. It doesn't have to shift a billion units
But realistically, what exactly is the appeal of it? The Metaverse? I mean, if no one can figure out how to make a fun MMORPG these days, what makes you think the "Metaverse" will actually be something people will want to spend time in? And why would Facebook be the one who actually figure out how to build some super appealing virtual world, they have 0% experience in doing this. It's gonna be boring, in immersive VR, still boring. And who really wants to wear these headsets? They always gonna be somewhat bulky.
But even if you could make it super immersive, and super fun, and totally appealing, you always gonna be one thing that's holding you back: Your real body, yes unfortunately we are all tied to these meat bags, so our dream of moving into our self created Matrix is always gonna be somewhat limited.
I mean you gotta be realistic here, no matter what we do, life will always be best experienced without a VR headset on. It might have some cool fun uses, but that's about it.
so we will have a majority of people being totally dismissive of interacting with avatars through goggles (I hate the experience personally, feels like putting on a blindfold), and a growing minority that wouldn't have it any other way, divorced from anything going on IRL
if this sort of thing is not unique to this particular group I could see it reinforcing the schism you describe, with online "communities" hesitant to talk to each other with goggles off lest it be discovered that a virtually established milieu may depend more on the avatars than the people behind them
There are quite a few people that have met up irl after building a relationship in apps like VR Chat, I think they've probably had the same success rate that people who met through chatrooms or dating sites have.
Fortnite 'concerts' are choreographed just webcasts. fashion areas are just microtransactions. there's nothing new there.
I just know that nobody wants to actually do the Carlson dance in VR when they can instead push one button in Fortnight to do that emoji.
VR has some interesting games and interesting effects. Emulating reality is not it at all. We as a tech society are still trying to figure out what VR is good for.
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My best experiences in VR is and remains Beat Saber.
A few other games (Keep Talking and nobody Explodes, Super hot, the spaceship shooter game from the lab) are good and fun.
There is nothing like reality in these games. In fact, the closer things get to reality (ex: throwing objects in Superhot) the worse the experience gets.
In contrast, when you become a fantasy avatar who moves a spaceship around with your hand (space shooter from the Lab) and I can play that for hours.
The best experiences are honest about what VR does well and what doesn't work well. Real life experiences are best one in real life, not with expensive $1000+ goggles on a computer.
I always see people mention VR fitness. I would love a synthetic gym with every piece of gym gear ever made and then build our own new gear from there. The problem is there is no way to lift synthetic weights by just strapping a monitor to your face, obviously.
I'm with Carmack on this one, reality may be better than VR for you but there are a lot of people in the world where that may not be the case either all the time or for some of the time. A VR headset is cheaper and more attainable than moving to a new city/state/country. Meeting people in VR is easier than trying to make new friends offline. VR allows people to choose everything about their physical appearance, not just clothing but physical proportions and attributes, gender, etc. Is it escapism? To some degree yes but it does allow for real social interaction on a level not previously possible with a computer. That means a lot to people who aren't able to socialize with others offline for a whole host of reasons.
We've been meeting up online since 2020 due to the pandemic. We all know the problems with online meetups, and it has nothing to do with the nonexistence of VRChat (which obviously exists)
Awkward pauses and slower conversations and a far less intimate feel occurs due to this latency. It's enough to hold a work meeting since most people talk one by one, but not good for say... an online prayer service where coordinating everyone's timing to the Our Father or Hail Mary prayers is completely impossible.
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You literally can't sing or pray together online. It's a very dull experience.
And that’s with VR still very much in the gen 1 (maybe gen 2 if you want to be generous) phase of development. Within five or ten years tech like eye and mouth tracking and partial/full body haptics (which are all already a thing, just niche) will be typical offerings.
I don’t know to what extent it’ll displace existing tech. But the popularity of it today (especially in spaces where artists and developers can do whatever they want) is real and growing crazy fast.
They don't need to build a super appealing virtual world, they just need to figure out how to get you coming back to something every day, even if you don't like it and/or think it adds negative value to your life.
Assuming the sun doesn't engulf us first.
Reality is VR will always be distinguishable from reality.
I have an Oculus 2, and before that I've had a couple of Windows VR headsets when Microsoft was doing their push; they're all gathering dust in a box now...
It doesn’t just have to be on bike. I would say walking directions are far more valuable.
Let’s take what I say is the Peak AR Device:
Glasses with Shuttered Camera + LIDAR, Bone Conducting Audio, Haptic Feedback, High Quality Microphones, & Smart Assistant.
Often when I’m out in the city and finding a new place I would rely on my phone. Often the GPS on my phone would be screwed since I was underground and I would have to look at the streets on the map to see where I am relative to where I need to face and go. On the newer models of the iPhone I can use it’s LIDAR feature to tell it exactly where I am , but it’s cumbersome to wave your phone back and forth. An AR glasses would already be scanning around, know exactly what direction your facing , and give you visual indicators of where to go the whole trip.
Let’s say someone who speaks a different language ask’s you a question like say directions , an often enough encounter where I’m from. With the strides Apple are making in their Translate technology (with much more to go), the translated speech can appear as text right in front on your screen. Let’s say the show you a piece of paper enter in a different language. That same translate technology can show you a translated page. AR , if we get there, will be amazing and all of the technology I said above already exist in mobile form.
Kidding aside, the scenarios you describe sound closer to a tech demo than a killer feature to me.
As someone who gets lost often to ability to have directions to everywhere is a killer feature to me. I can also see LIDAR based glasses being a huge accessibility device for the blind.
It's a pain to set up and get on, it has issues, but those experiences will continue to be attractive as the technology eventually fades into the background.
I won't let VR goggles enter my home. I'm not the only one. Maybe it's the future, but I'll hold it off as long as I can -- especially if it's Facebook, with all their ethical blindness and attention monopolizing -- that's pushing it.
Will you also ban game consoles and televisions? Will you limit his internet usage to wikipedia, and only non sexual articles?
There is a lot of room between 'I don't support meta's endeavours' and 'BAN VR', and you've jumped directly on the extreme end of a scale for seemingly no reason.
Thanks won’t claim that VR is better than being outside, but to me it seems a hell of a lot better than sitting on the couch with a phone.
Honestly, the full sensual immersion of VR is the last thing we need in our house at this point after 2 years of COVID. I need my kids to get more physical exercise and time outside this house, not less.
Just a few examples, rhythm games like Beat Saber, Pistol Whip and Synth Riders are at least on the level of Zumba or other aerobic dance exercises. Thrill of the Fight is a boxing game that is seriously intense and one of the best stress busters I have ever seen. Even something like eleven table tennis is essentially identical to playing real table tennis so is also much better than being a couch potato. VR is part of my and many other people’s overall fitness regimen.
I played games as a boy and young man as well. But I also wrote BASIC and 6502 assembly, or built forts in the woods, looked at neat plants, soldered projects for my VIC-20 or Atari ST, read ElfQuest graphic novels and acted them out with my friends, explored the local RadioShack, rode my bike, etc. The nature of my son's gaming obsessions has actually made it hard to get him to diversify.
Parenting is not easy. Defining limits is hard, but if you don't things can go sideways really badly and we have learned this the hard way.
Regarding VR specifically, I feel like limiting it comes more naturally _because_ it is so all-encompassing. It should be regarded as a special activity that you do for short bursts of time, en preferably as a social activity. It also helps that it's quite physical compared to other types of games. But in the end I guess we'll have to introduce these things slowly and watch how our kids handle it. If they show addictive tendencies it might be time to limit it.
> AR/VR is inevitable.
Calling a given technology "inevitable" shuts down criticism.
There's nothing inevitable about a technology that takes charge of our two most important senses (sight and hearing) at once. I think that counts as sensory deprivation to a lot of people.
A quibble with this - the next gen is all about full color high res passthrough and many headsets like the Quest have open ear headphones so you still hear your surroundings. I think it's going to be much less isolating than the "VR is an isolating dystopia" people think.
Glasses or contact lenses could change that. I can't wear contact lenses anymore but I wear glasses all the time. Light glasses, not heavy ones.
"This technology is boring and going nowhere ... so I read an article all about it and then took the time to make a comment about it ..."
I'm ready to predict that these people are radically wrong. The VR adoption curve is so sharp now in the 10-15 yr age bracket that people haven't caught up to the fact it is happening yet. I say that as someone with children in that age range and > 50% of their friends suddenly have and use VR routinely. These kids are all super acclimated to spending large amounts of time in VR. These kids are "primed" to become the next wave of tech users.
HN folks, get ready to feel really, really old in 5 years from now - probably how all our parents / grandparents felt when we showed up with smart phones.
But the way I see it rippling through that demographic is pretty crazy ... the kicker is that to join in with multiplayer you need a headset to play. So once a couple of them are doing it there is a pretty strong pull for the whole group to get on board. My theory is that this demographic is a bit "under the radar" and hence we are seeing less reporting on this than you would otherwise.
because its already a thing in virtual spaces.
> probably nothing that would require you to get a mortgage.
oh so now you expect it, but you think its not a lot of money. Seems like you're in agreement with him about purchasing virtual spaces, you just think its worth the money.
How many UIs are 3D? How many people are using motion controls?
Spatial computing will bring about a fundamental UI/UX design refactoring of established 2D applications we just take for granted as fully baked. It won't replace them, like screens didn't replace books, but it will allow for enhanced functions we didn't know we were missing until they were in front of us and it will be offered in a more delightful human centric experience at the same time. HN dogs can bark but the caravan is rolling.
Improving this space isn't dependent on new technology either. We don't need more fps for them to solve the UX problems, they could've been solved for 3D navigation on a 2D screen - but they haven't, it has always been easier, faster and more accurate to navigate a 2D space.
However, the weird mEtAVeRsE wet dream zuck is pushing is total BS. NOBODY wants to live/work in VR. It's a fun thing to do for short periods of time for entertainment, and AR/VR is a cool tool for certain tasks (e.g. interior design).
The idea that we're gonna be flying through cyber space like some kinda Hackers (the movie) scene is just nonsense. It's honestly bad UX that people have been trying to push forever. Windows 95 had this goofy virtual world thing where you were in a room and all your software was on bookshelves and other silly shit that was a fun gimmick, but infinitely less efficient than buttons, menus, and sorted lists.
Also, unless headsets get MUCH lighter (and less sweaty) while simultaneously getting much better battery life they aren't going to be a thing people wear for long periods of time any time soon.
I'm willing to bet in the distant future almost all our lives will be virtual because it is simply so much cheaper than physical things.
Our video games will become more immersive, I would not be surprised if a generation or two a family holiday could be a week inside a video game.
Our work conference calls are becoming more and more immersive. I would not be surprised if work from home and work in the office eventually meet in the middle where you are physically at home but with a virtual representation sitting in a vertical office, where communication and collaboration are easy.
And while I don't use Facebook and feel uncomfortable about Meta owning the dominant virtual space, I absolutely think it will happen and prove very popular. Have you seen how much time people currently spend scrolling their phones with the little interfaces and small viewports? Lying on the couch with goggles between dinner and bedtime will be the norm soon enough, IMO - watching TV/movies, experiencing spaces, browsing content, socialising, learning, etc.
AR/VR is inevitable
Maybe not tomorrow, but by 2040?
We don't have the tech to do massive enormous orders of magnitude larger than typical MMO servers.
And of course the movie was some sort of dystopian web3 nightmare without considering the evil tech CEO. It showed the characters having fun going to doom world for PVP with real money and permadeath at stake. The main characters father loses everything because he dies in the game. But it was fine because the main characters were talented so it looked fun. This isn't a requirement for a virtual world of course, but the concept of the VR economy implies the game needs to be a lot less game and a lot more business. Not a spunky playground where you, a non pro gamer, will be able to do anything noteworthy.
Now that the site is established, it moreso attracts people who are interested in the established, and less-so attracts people who are interested in new things. This problem tends to amplify itself, as a community that rejects new things is also going to drive away people who are interested in new things.
Now that Hacker News is established, it's just not "it" anymore. "It" is somewhere else.
But this is all just a theory. The counter to this argument is that many people on Hacker News in 2007 expressed serious reservations to Dropbox/cloud storage when it was first revealed -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863. So perhaps what we're seeing is that problem-solvers (developers) also tend to be problem-finders.
Everyone's VR I know is in a drawer.
They aren't remotely the same.
An example of this is in game development. The app library is currently so that that it has opened up a huge opportunity for solo indie developers to build simple games and end up at the top of the sales charts. And we’re talking about something that has outsold the new Xbox.
Tech people like to wax on about how concerned they are about Facebook, but these comments usually are just a chance for them to take a few swings at a favorite corporate punching bag, not because they have any particular interest in VR.
I think in many ways the HN community is going through a deep skepticism cycle where everything new is dismissed. After Zuckerberg’s huge gamble pays off and creates a bigger gold rush than mobile, this same community is going to be posting guides on how to custom program hand tracking gestures and detailed breakdowns on how the distortion correction works.
While I can't predict the future, I tend to think that VR is more of a 3D TV situation than a smartphone situation; an industry which is hitting market scaling issues ("Argh! Everyone in the world has a HD TV/Facebook account!") is pushing a new thing, to expand its market, and it's not particularly clear that consumers want it. This all feels very top-down; giant companies deciding what consumers will want next, and telling consumers they want it. This works less often than you'd think.
Now, this eventually worked for the TV industry with 4K and particularly HDR, but those were both less jarringly different from what people were used to, and had more creative support (your average film director was much more excited about HDR than 3D...)
I think I'd be more enthusiastic if:
- VR headsets weren't still so bad. Merely good VR devices is still a long way off.
- the existing VR experiences weren't still so bad
- the market wasn't completely fragmented and any purchase you make now is very short term
- any meaningful degree interoperability is still way off in the future
- the dominant player wants a walled garden where you are a powerless guest - at best
And if Zuck's walled garden is where the action is going to be at, I might sit it out entirely. Why would I invest my time being part of a community where I have absolutely no rights? That would be a really poor choice.
There are legitimate reasons why people aren't as enthusiastic as you. And it doesn't make them naysayers.
The fundamental flaw IMO is that VR always over promises and under delivers.
Meta will make VR indistinguishable from reality but of course we don't mean smell as part of reality.
Indistinguishable from reality but of course we are not talking about going under water, feeling water as being wet and feeling like you are floating in water.
Indistinguishable from reality but of course we don't mean a virtual massage parlor that someone could touch your back and it feels like your back is being touch.
We mean we are going to make the tech equivalent jump from a 15 inch CRT monitor to a 27 inch nice LCD monitor and pretend VR is now indistinguishable from reality because that is what the Emperor wants and the Emperor signs my checks.
To me, you either need a full body suit, disregard smell and then stand on an underwater treadmill with a motorcycle helmet on or it is all a waste of time until we have a good brain computer interface.
In that time I have relearned an old adage that people before my generation would know well "the last mile is the longest mile". In R&D this feels far more extreme than in running.
VR seems very similar to autonomous driving. Quest 1/2 are light years ahead of what we had a decade or so ago. At the same time it's nowhere near to the point where it's going to be a major part of my day. The Quest was mind blowing when I first used it, but I got bored remarkably fast. Most importantly, none of my problems with quest are the problems that are being solved here.
The biggest one, in my opinion, is still space. I want a 10'x10' area to run around in to even start having fun, and even in a house I still don't have an open space that supports that without moving furniture around.
The mobile phone took over our lives because it's so small and convenient. Large TVs work because we've been building homes around them for decades, and TV spaces are also communal, family/friend spaces. This brings up another issue, VR is fundamentally isolating. I get annoyed enough when friends don't look up from their phones.
The remaining obstacles for VR to conquer seem to be arguably bigger problems than the ones that self driving cars need to tackle to take over the roads.
Wait. Why? Online games exist. They're social.
I'm not really a gamer. But it's interesting why social interaction in online video games is some secondary tier to social interaction playing basketball, for example, or just talking in coffee shop - or on the phone...
Though I'd say interaction in games can easily beat "talking on the phone".
Audio is likewise a matter of cost. And manufacturers not cheaping out on components, I'm looking at you HTC (and the notoriously horrible Rift S too).
I'm looking forward to programmable smells based on a combination of basic smell cartridges. That's totally a thing people are working on.
Touch is a hell of a lot harder to solve. More could be done to provide good haptic feedback. Haptic vests and facial interfaces already exist (at additional cost, of course), but the problem is the more crap you have to add to your body the more inconvenient (and sweaty) VR gets. I believe providing better VR touch interfaces is key to the development of the technology.
And I really, really don't want to taste anything in VR!
I don't usually touch, taste or smell my friends either.
> In particular, body language from those around you is either missing entirely or is very rudimentary.
That one is fair game.
It would be very out of the ordinary to not touch or smell your friends quite frequently.
While some people prefer not to, hugging, patting on the back, nudging, passing objects back and forth, and even less common things like holding hands or touching each others' hair are very common social interactions.
Smelling just happens passively when you're spending time with biological creatures who have perfumed clothing, armpits, and hair, and sweat to boot (among other less desirable odors). This isn't necessarily a great thing but experiencing the biology of other human beings is personally important to me.
To not taste things with / alongside your friends would also be out of the ordinary.
So unless they also have headsets that are interacting with you, it's likely, that both you and they want to spend time with each other in real life, and when you go into VR, you're isolated from them.
I dunno, escapist industries are pretty big, and occupy quite a big of most people's non-work waking life. Film, tv, video games, books, comics, social media, etc..
We're really getting to the point where it's mainstreaming.
When I think about who would have the time and motivation to sit in a VR world all day long I can not imagine girls or a lot of adults of some type.
I really struggle seeing anyone outside of a private space wearing it in public, in an office or public transport. It looks weird. It removes you from reality and your surroundings.
So who is left? Boys? Already single man motivation for playing the same games all day long like egoshooters etc.
Porn will be a motivation for sure.
I still really hate facebook/meta and don't have a lot of faith that they can make the world a better place, but I now feel like VR can add a lot of real value and is fundamentally a good goal.
How often?
How is your long term motivation?
How often? Couple of hours a month
Long term motivation? Do more social stuff with remote friends and, once it's more comfortable to wear for more than two hours straight, also work in VR.
I've gone through phases since purchasing it where there is one game or another that I get into, but the general theme has been something with a 'physical' aspect to it + skill development (Beat Saber is a characteristic example here). The exception from that theme was when Half-life Alyx came out—I enjoyed it and put a good amount of time into it. Similarly, when I've felt more social I've deviated from my usual pattern and used Big Screen VR (social movie/tv watching app with virtual theaters/lobby) to hang out and talk with others.
Currently—and this has been going on for months—I play Zombieland VR: Headshot Fever daily. My sessions are typically between 20min and 1hr. For me it's a great way to get into "flow" because it forces you to keep your attention on your external environment, precisely control your actions (i.e. aim accurately), waste absolutely as little time as possible (the goal is to beat levels in smallest amount of time, compete with others on high score list)—and the biggest selling point: I can do this while standing up and moving around a bit, it's not going to keep me at my desk where I've already been all day.
I've been using the headset regularly since I bought it (a couple months after it was first released). I've gone through "dry spells" with it where I kind of forgot about it or didn't have anything I felt like playing—but mostly I've found consistent use for it.
So is this part of your moning routine? Waking up, doing vr sport, showering?
Sounds like VR is not for you, and that's fine, but mocking people who think wireless is a big deal is just nonsense.
"Basically a few gimmicks" yet refuses to do any basic research and buy a few games to actually try it out. Huh.
The other one I really enjoyed was replaying the Resident Evil 4.
After that you just need to launch the SteamVR app in the oculus dashboard.
I thought this for a while when my Dad (68), wife (45) and kid (5) all got into it really hardcore. They each got their own and were playing everyday, so much they had to recharge multiple times a day. I was actually a bit concerned. Then they all just completely forgot about them and now only my kid plays it, maybe once a month, for 10 minutes.
For me, the real mainstreaming point though will be when we have actual lightweight glasses or goggles rather than headsets. With AR and VR built in. And/or attachments for glasses would be even better for me since glasses are tough to wear with headsets.
I get giddy thinking about being able to have weekly dinners or watch movies with my family across the country and have it feel like we're actually there. This feels far off, but it seems like zuck is getting the pieces together, like the Codec photorealistic avatars [1], to make this happen.
Facetime, Zoom, etc, it's just draining not being able to hold eye contact because of camera placement. And people get distracted. And the current products, BigscreenVR and the weird cartoon avatars and VRChat, just don't do it for me.
FB will probably fuck this up, but I see the vision.
1 - https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/28/22751177/facebook-meta-c...
It's ridiculous how technology hasn't been able to replicate the 'hanging out on a couch watching Netflix or playing a videogame together' experience. All I need is the audio and video synching to work, with no feedback, and low latency conversation. I feel like you could stick a TV on your couch with a cellphone on top and accomplish this. Facebook could start by letting you do the most basic stuff like watch Netflix together. (Also it would help if Netflix wasn't 480P...)
Astonishing that that feature seems to be dead and we don’t have any kind of decent replacement for it. I got a lot of mileage out of it watching crappy movies with friends.
A true 3d native window manager. where I can arrange each individual window anywhere in the 360 degree space?
Until that is solid, VR is not the productivity tool I was hoping it can be.
Just like Mobile(ios, android), Microsoft could not possibly drop the ball any harder here.
But it isn't compatible with my varjo aero headset - which is limited to Windows only.
If I had truly understood that windows doesn't have a native 3d window manager for VR, there's no way I would have bought the Aero.
Finally, there's an issue of who owns and controls the space you work in. With WFH, it's nice to be in a space that I fully control and can customize to my needs. If history is any guide, a VR space will become heavily monetized, if not by Meta then by someone else. And the possibilities for surveillance - either by your employer or the "owner" of the space - are now limitless. I'm not naïve enough to think that history won't repeat itself.
Would you agree that it might be useful for architects or product designers to see the things they are designing instantly at the right scale?
New technologies don't have to be a full replacement of your whole workflow, they can just augment it.
Downside: as far as I know, you need a WMR headset to use it. There might be mods to use the Mixed Reality Portal (the VR window manager) with other headsets, though.
Here's a random YouTube video demonstrating it: https://youtu.be/gPkcDg8IECU
Still too many walled gardens.
I've thought about building something myself but honestly all the crap in X11 is too distracting anyway and half the time I just switch to VTs to focus.
So, VR is the training.
I only do VR games now where people don't have to developer "VR-legs" for it.
Same with Golf+. Avoid the virtual walking/flying stuff and just occasionally teleport. No motion sickness.
In the late 1990's I was part of an early VR motion sickness study at my uni, and I lasted about 20 mins before I refused to go any further, because I just wanted to get out before I threw up again.
So a couple years ago I was trying out all the new VR setups with the shorter head tracking->frame improvements, and I'm here to tell you I still get radically sick in any first person VR setup. 3rd person (moss, witchblood) i'm fine and can play for hours. But there is something about 1st person perspectives and i'm feeling it within a couple mins and I simply won't push myself to the point of throwing up again, its really miserable, its like being sea sick without the ability to stare at the horizon and feel better, or get quick relief upon return to dry land. It takes at least as long as I was immersed in it before I start feeling normal again.
PS: I also hate 24FPS movies, I find them really jerky even in a dark theater, with an actual projector. Especially pans just drive me bonkers, so maybe it was all the doom training/etc but I have a very low tolerance to low FPS video/games/etc.
No one now has a clue as to what VR will eventually look like. Meta is clueless, VR critics are clueless. But the fact is that VR changes how we interact with the internet in a fundamental way. IMHO. :-)
I'm not an expert in the area, but resolution and HDR seem like basically solved problems - in that they're just logical progressions of where we are today. The focal depth one I didn't understand. He says normal monitors are a fixed distance, whereas in VR and AR you need to focus on different distances. But these VR headsets are just a fixed distance away, so how is that really a problem?
Fundamentally these problems are clearly necessary buticie not sufficient for VR.
HDR is trickier than you think because devices like cell phones can improve their dynamic range by just making the screens brighter- increasing the range by raising the top end- but there's a certain cutoff on how bright a VR screen can be and still be comfortable.
I think the idea is simulating depth of field by blurring different parts of the image based on where the user's eye is looking.
It lays out the problems Meta had most progress in. Another very significant VR metric is FOV which was not discussed.
> He says normal monitors are a fixed distance, whereas in VR and AR you need to focus on different distances. But these VR headsets are just a fixed distance away, so how is that really a problem?
You want dynamic focus to convey the feeling of real world eye focus, and make the projected scene more natural/believable.
Your eyes also focus like the autofocus of a camera and the cue from that is called accommodation.
The two should match to provide perfect perception on reality. Certainly a VR headset works with a fixed focus for everything, but to get the ultimate perception of reality without eye strain a VR headset should be able to simulate focusing distance.
(Who knows, however? Meta’s Super Bowl ad might be revealing their real intentions. In that ad a discarded animatronic Android gets to relive its past with VR. VR is good for the elderly because you can enjoy it without learning anything new. I think one of the worst things about getting old that I experience is presbyopia where you can’t focus over the whole range so you have to wear two pairs of glasses. Maybe I’d find it easier just to have it all in focus all the time.)
I hope this will eventually be the case, but with current iterations, navigating and interacting with VR UIs and experiences is quite difficult for people who aren’t already familiar with game controllers and console-like menu systems - especially the elderly.
Focal depth is one of the cues your brain uses to perceive distance, in addition to (potentially more than, depending on which cognitive scientist you listen to) binocular vision. You don't mind that monitors are a fixed distance from your eyes because you don't expect them to give you real depth (your eyes can just focus on that distance). If, however, you want something to be "indistinguishable from reality" you need to emulate changing focal depth, which means (I guess) changing the angles that rays hit your eyeballs at.
IMO that's one of the reasons that 3D movies always looked so fakey; they could emulate the binocular vision, but they couldn't emulate the focal depth, causing a perceptual dissonance.
You can test this by looking at your hand 6” from your face so it partially blocks your keyboard a couple feet away. You’ll notice that either the keys are blurry or your hand is as you shift focus between the two.
Future gen headsets will use eye tracking to understand which object in a scene you are looking at, and make that object sharp while making other objects blurry. This helps produce more realistic depth, while also dramatically improving performance as most of the scene can be rendered in lower resolution.
However, the resolution/refresh-rate needed for immersive VR/MR is not quite a solved problem. If you assume something like 100deg horizontal and vertical for each eye and something like retina (not screen door or blurry) 40-60pix/deg resolution, you're looking at 5k x 5k per eye at 120-180Hz for 2 eyes. You can't do that over a single DP 2.0 link, and it would be too power hungry anyway. That leads to a requirement for fast eye-tracking and foveal rendering (only rapidly refresh where you're looking in high resolution)... and gains you ~10x reduction in bandwidth/power.
Then you get to directly monitor the user's attention, build a DL model of their attention, optimize it for maximum interaction, and sell the model to the highest bidder.
In VR, dynamic depth is simulated using stereo-screens where each pupil is pointed at a dynamic focal point BUT stero-focus is not the same as lens focus. Because of this, VR produces a disjoint sensation where stereo focus changes to the simulated position but lens focus remains fixed.
You can experience the difference by holding up a finger and looking at it, then look at a distant object. Notice that you'll see two images of your finger as you focus away. That is stereo focus. Now do the same while covering one eye. Notice that the finger is now blurry but not doubled. That would be the lens focal difference.
Identities which someone can invent for themselves which can be independent generally from geography, genetics, looks, temperament, age etc. Freedom to be whoever and whatever you want to be. Today's social VR users are often playing with their own identity right now.
It's all about image, a spectacle, a way to make personalities and reality flexible and it's a way for identity to be expressed as a kind of collection of things that can be commodified and packaged up for sale. That's the future which is looked at.
However I think we might see a genuine sub culture emerging, as a reaction against this. We can possibly see some of this in some of the language used in a few strange semi-underground youth music events today. It's not anti tech, and not anti identity at all! More like a demand to be in control of their own methods and ways of consumption. A certain ironic detachment from corporations.
It's easy to be a skeptic right now. The headsets are heavy, the experiences aren't perfect, etc. But what you see now is just the beginning. The VR skeptics and naysayers are the same people who dismissed personal computing. VR is absolutely game changing and it is just a matter of time until the technology is there to truly win over even the most die hard skeptics.
It might well work out, but it's silly to just bucket VR skeptics as generally skeptical, or "the same people who X".
The reason I'm not convinced (anymore): humans are incredibly good at abstracting things. We don't need extremely high fidelity or realism to understand concepts, or interact with an environment. I am transmitting ideas from my brain to yours, right now, via text. Text. That's how good we are. As such, once the wow factor wears off, VR's downsides start to overwhelm the upsides. VR sickness is still a thing. Discomfort and heat. Isolation from the world.
If I'm right, you'd expect a lot of crazy good demos, and then usage to fall off over time. This is the exact thing you see in user data.
If you had to describe the value proposition of VR - what is it? "It's just really cool" isn't as compelling as I once thought.
Does the "wow" factor wear off and leave too little benefit to overcome the downsides? Yes, for a lot of people that is the case. I've witnessed it in many of my friends who I convinced to get a VR headset, absolutely sure that it would become their main source of gaming, only to see them barely use it outside of a couple games for a couple hours a week. Some of that is due to the lack of good content, but some of it is inherent to the discomfort and difficulty "getting into" VR.
I'm an outlier I guess. Much of what VR offers syncs with my life now. I don't play competitive multiplayer games as much as I used to. I'm starting to prefer longer form and immersive content. Single player games are actually enjoyable and not completely boring, when in VR. Gaming sessions are naturally time boxed, due to issues of eye strain and general discomfort in VR. I don't want to game for hours on end anymore and VR provides a natural mechanism for that. 1-2 hours a day, and I'm good.
But those are fairly unique attributes and qualities to be looking for in a gaming platform and definitely do not represent what traditional gamers are attracted to. There remains an enormous swath of young men (and increasingly women) who want ultra competitive and comfortable gaming which provides boundless opportunity to sit and consume. VR likely struggles for another simple reason which is most people's tolerance to simply stand for more than an hour is quite small.
All of that said ... I still think this its early and there's enough benefit in VR that I have a very hard time seeing it going away completely. It might never catch on as a gaming platform, but for seated content like work, I could see it being a great solution if / when the technology improves.
I’m speaking not only of shooter/action games, but also quests, rpg, fixed-altitude (non first person) sims, third person character control in general. Basically the same games like on PC, but with a depth component and a little changes in controlling, if any.
Instead we have: jump-around and slash games; games that require to walk, move hands and point/look around, cinematic panoramic “games”, meditation “games”, and other try-and-forget lo-fi bullshit which almost no one would buy if it wasn’t VR novelty. Which fades away in just a week.
Basically, today’s VR is a tiny niche like any other flat-sales Steam niche. And it will stay so. Because most people like to sit and relax. When a job requires them to walk, jump and move their hands, they start to think about to maybe land into some office. When they want to talk to someone, they sit down. When they work with visuals, the last thing they want is to stay up and stress their hands. Hands at the belly is the most comfortable position for extended time.
How VR companies are unable to understand these basic, stupidest and already explored principles is frustrating.
Not everyone looks for lazy relaxing experiences. You mention shooters, but if you tried Pavlov you'd see how transformative this tech can be for the gaming industry. And don't get me started on horror games.
The quest 2 is also currently selling more units than xbox series X and S, and the growth rate would make every investor salivate. There are plenty of projects and startups exploring this space. Gaming is the most flashy, pr friendly application but right now the big bucks are made in the enterprise applications and here again the potential is immense.
Also I bet that these sales you mentioned are in line with the other pandemic trends. When you’re locked in for half a year with these “news” and no clear perspective, you’re ready to believe in any escape hatch they provide.
That said, I don’t mind if what VR is now is mainstream. I just look at the obvious and can’t understand. With minimal software changes anything could run on a headset and standard inputs, if given a chance. Instead these vendors locked themselves into the paradigm of bumping into furniture.
project wingman an air combat game like ace combat is an amazing seated experience.
try it
And Facebook will get the opportunity to own the platform completely for the first time. So the soon they reach their goal, the better. Actually, it is a smart move.
When it gets to the point of comfortable, unobtrusive and affordable AR/VR/MR glasses with good hand and head tracking built in, that will be a really different experience than the current standard. Maybe throw in a couple of small convient cameras that can just plug in and adhesive to the wall for external tracking.
And with the high speed Wifi available now, or the possibility of connecting to a smart phone (maybe in a pocket or some type of necklace-like carrier), I don't think you need a lot of compute in those devices.
So imagine you just put these glasses on and get 6 virtual wide screen monitors, turn to the right and its your favorite virtual coffee shop, with people inside with fairly realistic recreations from the capture and expression and eye tracking being done by the external cameras. There is 3d positional audio as well.
Imagine with a small camera on the desk, or built into the glasses, doing finger tracking on virtual keyboards. Suppose someone makes a little 'clicky' membrane that provides a bit of tactile feedback regardless of where you press on it.
Now I only need my smart phone and a pair of glasses. I don't need a monitor or a keyboard. Once people realize that every virtual keyboard can easily be 100% customized for any application, physical keyboards may become passé.
When you have good eye and expression tracking, realistic avatars enabled by high-performance AI models, 3d positional audio, realistic environments.. then there really isn't that much difference from being there in person. And there are a huge number of advantages such as convenience and time saving, being able to instantly "travel" to a popular hangout spot even if you are 400 miles away from your friends, etc.
Pretty much everything you can do now in VR, but make it more comfortable and remove some of the friction points, better integration between applications and with the real world, somewhat more realistic, etc.
Suppose automation and robotics continue to improve. Maybe artificial muscles like https://www.artimusrobotics.com/ are widely deployed, enabling high strength-to-weight ratio mobility and much more dexterous, faster, and more general-purpose robots.
In 20 years people may look back and be amazed at how much time and energy we wasted driving around to do everything in person, and how everyone restricted the majority of their "in-person" interactions to small localities.
I remember watching TV shows in the late 90s talking about the VR revolution that was just around the corner. It seems that Virtual Reality™ is still just screens on faces. The whole article is about displays and lenses.
Regarding the 'indistinguishable from reality', a virtual reality would need to include things like smells, environmental conditions like wind and rain and thinner air, and physical sensations like pain.
In many ways we're not really sure what 'reality' is, so suggesting that one could make a virtual reality that is indistinguishable from actual reality doesn't even really make sense.
Virtual Reality is just ersatz senses.
* Full field of view.
* Not having the feel of a clunky headset on your face.
* Not having to regularly align and adjust the headset so that the visual looks right.
Carmack says all that has to be squeezed down to swim goggle size to go mainstream. Eyeglass size to become ubiquitous, like smartphones. Eventually, but it's some years out.
Meanwhile, we should see low-end standalone systems (Google Glass 3.0?) and high-end tethered systems with a base station doing the graphics.
Also the UE5 demo running on a PS5 doesn’t mean that it could push pixels on two screens at the frame rate needed for VR.
I don't understand why anyone would willingly let the monetary constraints of the physical world dictate how they interact with the world-at-large.
All of these goals can be achieved with real holographic displays. We need the equivalent of a GPU optimised for computational holography, and a display with high enough resolution to render phase coherent interference patterns (rgb omg). No lenses will be required. This is the endgame for wearable displays.
Even with the crappy compression on YouTube, you can watch a scene where you are on the beach in VR. After all, isn't that the dream? Of course you can't feel the waves splashing on your feet, but you can definitely enjoy the feeling of being in that space. However, the lack of the bright deep blue sky is really noticeable.
Likewise in games. I definitely preferred Skyrim VR on Quest via a cable over the RIFT because the blacks are much deeper (oled), but on the other end of the spectrum, the sky is always lacking in brightness.
My hunch is this is going to be hard to solve... I mean most homes today don't even have any kind of lighting that remotely reproduces the outdoor lighting.. I doubt that the small screen inside the headset will be able to simulate a bright blue sky... I mean I don't think it's just a matter of "intensity".
But who knows I am clueless, it could be that the pixel density is what prevents the screen from giving the "bright blue sky" depth of light.
But if it will be locked to an FB account then fuck that shit.
also, race to the bottom. think about the 10 lowest-quality-of-life individuals you know. what do they talk about?
I think it's a kind of tragedy of the commons. That said, things continue to be mostly OK, most of the time, for most people.
Solve that set of problems, and you might get to a point where you could build actually useful things in VR. Like a work environment for CAD or 3D modelling or whatever that has actual benefits over traditional interfaces.
I also don't use my quest 2 because the fidelity just isn't good enough.
I think whoever solves the casualness of VR will become the next big tech giant. It is looking like Facebook will come back HARD.
As mentioned by the other comment, the ability to read text clearly is important and missing. That holds back a lot of productivity use cases.
Unlimited weightless 60 inch monitors which fit in a single laptop bag is real nice. 10 hour battery life with a pocket sized battery pack. Unlimited with a 12ft USB-C cable.
The only thing I can see making it better for what I do is higher text fidelity. Anything else would be a luxury, and unnecessary for repeated full days in VR.
beat saber was a good pivot. its my gym when I travel now
it also seems like a wrong goal in general because to me the entire point of VR is that it's not bound to physical reality, investing billions of dollars so you can sit on a photorealistic sofa I think defeats the purpose. I think the popularity of Minecraft, Fortnite or VRChat shows that people aren't looking for realism but interesting experiences you can't have offline, with community being the most important thing.
Personally, I don't really want or look forward to a future where people spend a lot of time in a headset, but if there were a lightweight, comfortable option it would be fun to explore experiences every once in awhile.
Sort of. Discomfort/nausea issues hold back VR and will be addressed by this work.
It's weird to me that these multi-billion dollar companies are investing so much R&D money into supporting my niche hobby, but I suppose I shouldn't complain.
Slightly confused as to why they stuck the zuck into what looks like a plywood shed though?
But VR is not going to be a wide success, it will be a really nice 360 image viewer for when those cameras become popular and cheap. It has its place , but it is obstructive. And it cannot become a status symbol, which imho is a big driver behind iphone sales
VR is more immersive, but it's a lot less convenient than just a 2d screen and I don't see that changing.
And of course I'm not going to get a product that needs to be tied to a mandatory Facebook account.
The after-market Quest head kits for ~$20 make it much more comfortable.
https://www.scifipulse.net/richard-herd-passes-to-the-final-...
https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/1454230235847688200...
I'm personally imagining Zuckerberg as a .hack fanatic like myself and my brother were back in '03.
These critics give that same example and a few others trying to prise open what Zuck and others are thinking and what it actually means for consumers
I mean, in his defense he might be pretty normal by lizard standards, I don't know. Calling him weird just seems unnecessary in that context.
>He of course wants every human interaction to be monetizable by Facebook, total control of our dopamine channels, ...
I agree. It'd be a much better future for everyone if he'd just throw his advertising biz in the garbage. Apple is going to kick Meta's ass in the long run just by virtue of their privacy stance—which isn't all that great to begin with, but it sure does beat "our intent is to sell every iota of information we collect on you."
I think you're discounting (ha) the allure of free/cheap to people who don't have disposable income. Which is to say, most people.
Laziness, apathy and network effects are perhaps equally powerful forces. After all, I continue to use Google and Instagram despite my knowing how the sausage is made there.
That's not true. That's why credit exists. Selling poor people shit they can't afford with terrible terms is a long-standing American tradition.
When a debtor is unable to pay (often times through no fault of their own), the creditor eats the cost because their margins are good enough to allow for it. That effectively represents a wealth transfer between corporations providing the services and the corporations providing the credit.
Obviously this happens with mortgages, cars, and other extremely high value things. IRS debts, student loan debts...
But what about credit cards? Don't they have mechanisms other than tanking your credit report? And if not, why don't poor indebted people simply default all the time to remove debt?
That said, I was mostly talking credit cards, since that's what most tech services would fall under in a zero-money consumer situation.
>And if not, why don't poor indebted people simply default all the time to remove debt?
Some do, but having your credit ruined for seven years sucks for most people. Likewise the courts don't exactly smile upon those who run up huge debts with the intention of defaulting.
People in the US are willing to spend extra on the Apple phone. There's already drama over the stupid blue text/green text thing, imagine a world where you know that your social interactions with a Facebook user are snooped on. I think it could lead to some significant ostracization. Private party -- no Facebookers.
Reality shaping is like that - but coercive and in reverse. How much do I need to nudge your perceptual world with ubiquitous, desirable lizard-brain augmentations before you stop believing in reality?
Ideally, one would attempt to tie the user’s livelihood to the platform to keep them engaged.
Thinking about it, those diamond-lacking iPhones look quite shabby, already!
I also agree it is far from perfect but pretty good. Used to be on android but it was easier to use the same devices as my wife.
I don't think iPhones signal much (in the US at least) -- they have like 50% market share here.
"You're forgetting the poor people"
Imagine Oculus becoming Meta without the Facebook baggage – a hardware-focused company with a major services play, but no adtech business.
I think this was called Magic Leap. I don't know, I think I still prefer Rony Abovitz awkwardly dancing around in a space suit rather than Zuck.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/05/apple-icloud-photos-scanni...
No they should not.
Content scanning is just an assumed part of every major tech platform these days. That of course doesn't necessarily make it right, but it still places Apple's privacy stance significantly ahead of Meta.
My understanding is that while this is certainly superior to your data being actually sold, privacy is nonetheless adversely affected in fairly significant ways.
> Apple delays plans to roll out CSAM detection in iOS 15 after privacy backlash
https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/03/apple-csam-detection-delay...
Instead of the baseline being they probably are privacy first, now it is "carefully inspect every announcement to see if they are backtracking yet again"
I don't really envy their position; if I built a business that sold hardware and software and found out that customers were using my product to distribute child porn, I would probably be willing to abandon lesser principals too.
You might also be against the latter, fine! That’s a perfectly reasonable position to hold. But don’t muddy the waters by calling it something fundamentally different.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46618582
"In total, it said the social network had special arrangements with more than 150 companies to share its members' personal data. Most of these, it said, were other tech firms, but the list also included online retailers, car-makers and media organisations, including the NYT itself, among others."
Suffice it to say Facebook's track record with PII is pretty terrible. At some point the word sell really becomes a matter of semantics.
Facebook is and always has been deep in adtech, which is fundamentally slimy. It's no surprise that led to a history littered with data privacy blunders.
>Again you are bumping the waters.
On the contrary, my chemistry knowledge is too poor to do such a thing.
It would be much greater if he actually cared for society and would fix what he did with facebook, addicted mobile/facebook games and fake news.
But hey now the poor can have a 1-2k high quality VR Headset with full immersion to see others in a VR Chat while living in a dumpster.
---
On a more non emotional side: Of course i like the idea of a high quality VR Headset but i'm not sure what FB thinks what this will do for FB. Those millions/billions they invested in their Metaverse will not become something great.
I'm still very confinced that VR is a novelity and nothing people will just be in all day long. Why would they?
Lets compare it to others:
Apple key notes are about new hardware, new usability.
Google IO has a ton of diversity, doing things for society. They talk about taking good pictures of people with all type of skin tones. They talk about 24/7 sustainability, better and easier security, protecting their users, skin mold detection and they have android.
What is Meta talking about? How to put all of us into a VR world with probably a ton of monetarization. Awesome \o/ the poor who can't afford their own house/home are then sitting in a cheap/bad flat, sitting in a chair with a VR Headset on?
And of course there will be a handful people playing around with this, but you know Second Live is also probably still running...
Google is one of the few companies were their Keynotes are so boring because they actually fix real life boring shit which affects us all.
As said, imagine we would spend our energy in our society to actually bring poeple back together.
Social hubs just in a way that people want to go there. Imagine what you could build up with that money
If you grew up in the 90s, you probably remember hand held PCs, and Apple Newton. Those were pretty cool. I wouldn't really HAVE to have one, but those were pretty neat. Then the "PDA" appeared -- I knew many who had those and used them for business. "Regular folks" didn't really need one but they could find these devices to be pretty useful. Then Blackberry came about, and then BOOM -- the capacitive touchscreen, and the iPhone with a few killer features that drastically changed mobile computing for the last 15 years. Everyone has one.
Sometimes it takes decades for someone to "get it right" as tech matures. VR is in the pre-newton stage... if we are to compare the "final form" of VR to be what we think of smart phones now, VR is probably in the "60's or 70's era" stage of development. We probably won't see an explosion or a revolution of VR-tech for a few decades.
Some units have some of those qualities but none have all of them. I can see units having all of those qualities within the next 10 years.