Virtual Reality is going to change the world
notch.net
notch.net
> And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition.
> Don’t get me wrong, VR is not bad for social.
He is right - "social", especially in the way Facebook is doing it at the moment, is terrible for VR. Terrible for any technology that has such an incredible potential to change the world.
This acquisition makes one thing very clear: VR does not need social. Social needs VR.
They were probably in talks with a number of other companies, but Facebook jumped the gun and made an offer they couldn't refuse, in order to prevent their "competitor" from getting it.
</speculation>
I wonder if FB is going to use OR to rebirth Facebook games, or maybe make their own foray into the gaming industry.
That is so much more important to a startup than just money.
http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1wf6mg/so_no_way_to_...
He really puts his finger on one of the reasons why this deal feels so weird here, I think. Nobody who contributed to the Oculus Kickstarter did so because they were hoping Oculus would get flipped to a mega-corp. They didn't do so because they wanted the Oculus team to have a big, splashy VC-style exit. They did so because they wanted the Oculus product. And the history of products that have been swallowed by mega-corps, after the swallowing, is not encouraging.
It's an outcome that strikes directly at the heart of the Kickstarter ethos. Everybody wins in this deal -- except the people who donated to the Kickstarter. Those folks... well, they kind of end up looking like suckers.
> "Oculus will continue operating independently within Facebook" --Mark Zuckerberg
Nothing is ever going to change, until suddenly it all does.
Google actually does a better when they decide to keep the product (Android, Blogger, Google Docs...), but it's impossible to know whether they're buying the product or the team until they either integrate the product or shut it down.
No need to tinker. It's not like when you buy a startup that's bleeding money with 50 engineers that you could add to your existing products.
Facebook with games? HN's community and most people who would buy something solely for games would disagree. But who knows, maybe we'll see Facebook operate a successful diversification strategy by perfectly catering to both casuals and hardcore gamers. Unlikely but one can dream...
Yeah, corporate acquisitions are often not in substance what they are superficially described as...in technical terms, Disney "bought" Pixar, but they did so entirely with Disney stock, $7.4 billion dollars worth, and made Steve Jobs by far Disney's largest single shareholder, and, while Pixar remained a distinct entity within Disney, much of Disney's management was replaced with Pixar management (who retained their roles in Pixar, as well.)
Let's not forget that a huge part of the pitch was to be part of a developer community that sets out into an as of yet unknown realm.
I don't think people are worried about what Facebook might do to Oculus, the product. They have a hard time seeing Facebook the social engine and Oculus, the developer community coexisting peacefully. In a way, they're already making a rather concrete case against it.
Plus, I saw Oculus as a technology to build upon. I was already planning to use it with robotics. Now, its merely a pawn in Facebook's game.
I'd like to know why Oculus sold to Facebook. That's bullshit. If there's ever been a company that didn't need to sell because its so obvious they are going to be huge, its Oculus.
"For the record, I am coding right now, just like I was last week.I expect the FB deal will avoid several embarrassing scaling crisis for VR."
"I have a deep respect for the technical scale that FB operates at. The cyberspace we want for VR will be at this scale."
Then band signs deal with record company. Fans hate band for "selling out".
Band wants to release music. Have a sucessful kickstarter and release an exciting first album to backers. Everyone is excited.
Band then signs to a label that won't let people listen to the music without signing in to a social network first, and who will post "Joe Bloggs likes Band!" on your wall, and who only let you listen to the music in their app.
Then band signs deal with Facebook. Fans don't understand why.
Facebook has done just as much music recording as they've done virtual reality: none.
It's kinda a twist to the normal Kickstarter warnings—if you back a product, it might not ever succeed, jut disappear. This was a product that people backed, that was too successful, and looks like it's about to disappear.
* You can't see it as investing, because you're not getting any share.
* You may see it as pre-ordering a product that doesn't exist (and I think that's how most backers see it), but you don't get any consumer protection if the project fails or doesn't live up to your expectation.
* All is left is seeing Kickstarter as a charity. You're giving charity to a for-profit organisation.
Kickstarter, as a company, cannot and does not promote any view of backing except patronage. You are literally a sugar daddy for the people working on the project. Backing buys their time. Time they have promised to use to make a thing you want, but your only recourse if they don't is to not buy anymore of their time.
I don't see why this can't be some share of the company. Giving away 10% for a huge chunk of seed money ($2.4m in this case) is actually way better than you'll ever do from angel investors or any kind of incubator. So if the product is successful, throw a unit at a backer as well as a tiny percentage of the company. Just so they can not feel cheated when you sell for a multi-billion dollar exit that is not in the interest of your backers, because in that case they all get their money back.
You don't have to say "your backing guarantees you X% of the company", you just say "in addition to receiving a VR, you will also receive an X% stake in the company if we are successful."
The SEC can get involved precisely now, not when the funding happens, but rather when the options are given out.
10K drops by an individual are no different than an angel investor.
There should be a chip-in-level for crowd-funding campaigns that require the OP to provide some % equity into the project.
They are different. An angel investor is investing - they may lose that 10K. Someone dropping 10K on a crowd funding project is told the rewards they will get up front and receives them when the project is complete.
So far accepted. The difference is that the angel investor buys equity share with their money, while the individual gets a piece of the product if its development and production will succeed.
If it had been 'investing', the funders would have gotten a piece of facebook's two billion acquisition bucks, right? That's what investing means, right? As you mention, "without having to give up any equity."
I think kickstarter funders on technology projects are frequently suckers, but it's not got a lot to do with 'skirting the laws around crowdsourced investing'.
I think many people _do_ give to kickstarter campaigns when it's a group of people they _feel like helping_. This is a bigger part of non-technology project kickstarter transactions, but I think it's probably a part of technology projects too, as can perhaps be seen in the way they are pitched on their project pages, or how funders respond to them -- obviously Notch didn't give $10k just as a 'pre-order'.
It's not _just_ "I want to pre-order this not yet existing tech thing which hopefully will exist", it's also "I want to help these guys succeed, I understand they're scrappy nobody's who might not be able to do it without me, I'm willing to take on some risk and perhaps pay a premium in part because I want to help them, and I know they're taking on risk themselves." It's not about equity, in fact it's more... charitable? Solidaritous? Helpful?... than equity.
I mean, consider, if Facebook itself started a kickstarter project to fund some new device or platform -- do you think people would fund it on facebook?
I think it's both predictable and understandable people feel 'sold out' when they thought they were funding some scrappy strivers who were putting themselves on the line for the project too, only to have those scrappy strivers make a huge amount of cash by selling out to major corporation -- before the product you thought you were helping to make possible was even finished.
"Kickstarter does not offer refunds. A Project Creator is not required to grant a Backer’s request for a refund unless the Project Creator is unable or unwilling to fulfill the reward.
Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. Project Creators may cancel or refund a Backer’s pledge at any time and for any reason, and if they do so, are not required to fulfill the reward."
So, if you go on kickstarter and never have any intention to deliver rewards, you're breaking the TOS. How often have this actually happened? I'm sure some number of funded projects have probably disappeared -- but is it really a significant number considering the scale of Kickstarter?
I also see that roughly 45% of projects are funded -- so that's a pretty decent filter right there. For my own anecdotal experience with Kickstarter, I've yet to be "cheated" -- a couple of games I've bought/supported are still under development, but seem to be right on track (Elite, Start Citizen, Torment and Wasteland 2). I've backed some one-off projects, and helped kick-start three businesses: hexbright.com, Printrbot and peakdesignltd.com/capture/
Why should I be upset that my "reward" for supporting these are a subsidized great little product, and not half of a share of the company? I mean, the risk investing in something like any of these seem on average much larger than "most probably getting a cheap, unique product". Yes, the reward is less too -- but I don't understand why people seem to think this has something to do with investing?
Kickstarter provides actionable market research. That's it. It's a chance to trial selling your product, proving it's viability.
Sure, if I had a million dollars lying around, it might have been great if, say the founder of hexbright came to me and asked me for captial, so that I could be the one benefiting from his idea, not him. But for "real" me, that haven't got any substantial capital to invest, that outcome would've been worse. I think it's great that Kickstarter helps lower the need for up front investment for starting a business.
You know what the money during the kickstarter campaign was for? The first DevKit! They raised money for the dev kit and guess what? The people you chipped in got their dev kits.
As far as I can see, people got exactly out of the kickstarter campaign what they wanted. They helped to start the business of Oculus and in return even got the DevKit to experience the first results on the road to VR.
I hardly think just cause you started your business with a kickstarter campaign and gave the backers what you set out to give them should exempt you from ever getting acquired by another company somewhere down the road. If that were true, why go on kickstarter at all? That would basically mean you will always stay a small time player. If you can survive at all because you will have to do it all by yourself. Next thing you know, kickstarter backers demand that you also don't accept other investors money because then, these investors would also have a say how to do things.
On the other hand, Kickstarter is a platform where people invest in future of some geeks. A successful funding drive plays on emotions, on promises and a glimpse of the future.
A lot of the people that got a dev kit were closely monitoring what Oculus was doing and were pleased. Those people feeling let down by Oculus not staying independent is perfectly reasonable and fine to state. It is also fully okay to withdraw your future support because they are now part of a company that shows not general interest in helping any companies but themselves.
And then those same backers complain loudly when those geeks succeed at business. Oculus just sold, before launching a product, for a quarter of the value of Electronic Arts (revenue: $3.7B). Perhaps Oculus (the business) was too successful for its backers, but there's not a lot of teams that would have turned down a deal like this.
There is no point in telling people that they should be happy about that.
Generally you could look at market cap, or derive the present value of future expected cash flows (meaning how much would you have to invest today in order to receive $3.7B in interest payments annually).
And because of that it should be a rule that no other investors or partnerships should be possible once you go to kickstarter?
What about the past two rounds of investments Oculus went through? Did all backers threw fits like this? How many other entities have given money to Oculus and have a say in how things should be run at the office?
They never threw fits cause they a) didn't know who invested and was now calling the shots or b) didn't care enough to find out.
Only thing different is that is is well publicized that fb and oculus are now in business together. Had they done this quietly, nobody would have freaked out like this. Is it really too much to ask to put the freaking out on hold until there is actual evidence that things are being run into the ground? fb does not have a track record of acquiring and then fucking up the acquired tech. Examples are still instagram and whatsapp. They are also part of an open hardware initiative and they make contributions to open source. As far as a software company goes, they do things right.
So long as they keep their promise to let oculus work independently nothing changes other than oculus now has one big money source instead of many many smaller ones that all want a say how to do things. Unless the last two rounds of investments were all angel investors and not venture capitalists, I'd say a single silent money giver is better than many small noisy ones.
I have neither implied nor called for that.
The only thing I explained is that the reactions are perfectly understandable and should be taken seriously - Oculus played the Kickstarter game as much as the backers.
Say, I'm running a kickstarter and put a tier of funding as "equity". I put aside 10% ownership of my brand to those willing to pay $1,000 or more (for instance). If I set up terms that those who pay above $1k get equity relative to how much they contributed would that be wrong?
An example, 10 people paid $1k to each earn 1% equity in my new company. Or, say 20 people each paid $1k, would get 0.5% each. (20k total, 1k contribution).
Terms are loose, and this is all speculation, but at a theoretical level is there anything wrong with the founders creating such an incentive?
https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter+basics#faq_...
Do you think the internet's reaction would be different?
The Kickstarter angle is interesting.
I'd be peeved as well if I was a supporter and this happened. Aren't KS Projects by implication a "Project for the People" first and foremost? Should KS Backers at least get a small return for making a $2 Billion exit possible?
No. You know exactly what you buy (or try to buy) when you support a Kickstarter project. There's no equity in the companies you support. Not at all.
Disclaimer: I have never used Kickstarter myself, and this one more data point against doing so. But I'm just pointing out what would be right.
Strident stri·dent strīdnt/Submit adjective 1. loud and harsh; grating. "his voice had become increasingly sharp, almost strident"
synonyms: harsh, raucous, rough, grating, rasping, jarring, loud, shrill, screeching, piercing, ear-piercing
It's not just that. VR is not going to be a product that appeals to masses. I don't think it will change the world. It could impact the world of gaming, potentially, and only CERTAIN areas of gaming only.
There are several reasons for that. First, it's a peripheral. You'll need to convince people to buy another 300-400 USD of gear on top of a powerful computer OR a PS4. The PS4 may be winning on the market, but peripherals have a bad History of not selling very well on consoles. Even the Kinect, which sold relatively quite a lot on Xbox360, failed to deliver anything really revolutionary.
For PC gamers, you'll probably need a very powerful graphics card to make full use of it, and we already know that this kind of market is already a small minority in terms of PC users.
There are several issues with VR as well: it's not something you can use to replace the screen completely. You'll probably feel dizzy, nauseous, tired after some time with it. Your eyes will end up hurting. It will work well with cockpit-like simulators (and there aren't many of them left anymore...) but not so well with FPS where camera movements have to be extremely fast. There are other games (3rd person view ones, top view games) where using an Occulus won't really make sense anyway.
As for social applications, I don't know. It's already possible to do videoconference in pretty good quality but few companies actually use it, and still fly people all over the world because they find it works better to have face to face contact to solve issues and discuss projects. I'm not too sure the benefits of VR will outweigh its disadvantages in the everyday world.
And this is coming from someone who badly wants a consumer Rift for gaming.
What about when the device is $20 instead of $400? When it doesn't make you nauseous? When it's so close to face-to-face contact that you can replace 10 or 20 percent of your business travel?
That's what I am saying, we are FAR from being there. If we even get there.
15 years ago, how far were we from having a 6 inch super computer in my pocket that can communicate immediately with anyone in the world? A choice of a million apps? Music on demand? Movies? All in a touch screen device?
And Palm/BB/MS are bit players?
If we get there? not if... when. Maybe not next year, but you have to be BLIND if you can't see how far CELL PHONES have come in 5, 10, 15, 20 years.
Not a far stretch to say that we'll have mass market VR within 5-10 years.
> What about when the device is $20 instead of $400? When it doesn't make you nauseous? When it's so close to face-to-face contact that you can replace 10 or 20 percent of your business travel?
We are FAR from having a very cheap VR solution. The VR gear is likely to be 300 or 400+ USD for a while and that will prevent mainstream adoption because it's a peripheral.
We are far from having solved all the problems related to discomfort, nausea, eye strain and stuff that goes with VR systems. Have you had a rift on your heard for 5 hours in a row ? If you had, you'd know what I am talking about.
So close to simulating real human contact? We are not even there YET in terms of 3D technology, we are far from photo realistic human representations on screen, let alone VR.
So yes, we are far from these objectives.
EDIT: and your comment regarding mobile phones to drive VR is senseless. mobile phones are too limited to drive any kind of complex 3d environment, they are limited by battery size, by watts and how temperature they can cope with, and by the size of their processors. The past few years should clearly indicate the pace in mobile phone processing power is slowing down rather than accelerating. You don't get 2x performance every 6 months anymore on a new mobile phone.
> we are far from photo realistic human representations on screen, let alone VR.
Would we actually need to simulate human representations in order for it to be photorealistic? For example, what if your VR headset displays information consumed from a set of stereoscopic cameras?
There would be a lot of complications. (Won't the other guy also be wearing a VR headset, thus obscuring the cameras? Though not necessarily if it's one-directional)
Imagine a VR conversation with another person who's in front of a stereo camera. You can't move your headset much, but you can tilt and pan slightly - basically stay in place and move your head. Imagine combining the VR technology with 3d scene reconstruction such as: http://petapixel.com/2013/07/24/researchers-reconstruct-high... - performed in realtime using the stereo camera. It could potentially present a fairly convincing VR experience of speaking with them in person.
(I assume that you need to perform scene reconstruction in order to generate a display according to the user's head movements in his VR headset given that the camera can't track and mimic the movement in realtime.)
When you have a clear visor that you're looking through that will seamlessly super-impose exactly matched visuals to reality with enriched data... yes it wil change the world.
Follow the calendar of the Mayans; everthing in cycles. Observe these cycles for great benefit!
In this case, industry cycles around new tech will revolve. Certain circles will reach maturity, age and collapse. All circles will repeat an evolving pattern, spiraling out...
This is how technology evolves:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMY_JlBfClI
AND
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie-6tcX5jKg#t=15
Think of each end-point of an arm of the spiral as a market leader in that category.
They will evolve, separate, matasticize and cannabalize the other objects in their tech-arm-thread.
We need another visualization of colliding spirals to illustrate this -- but they all start to grow from similar seeds....
We need hybrid LCD/OLED displays that give us an alpha channel.
That's augmented reality (google glass), not virtual reality (oculus rift).
Porn == Money
I could see making this argument for true AI, maybe, but even then I doubt it's true. When in human history has allowing people's minds greater degrees of freedom resulted in progress slowing down, let alone stopping?
This just sounds like "Kids these days..." kind of nonsense to me.
That is how people are going to act towards those who deliberately cut themselves off from real life to spend time on VRs. There is going to be bullying among children and harassment among adults (but I repeat myself). There will be lawsuits and alarmist attempts at legislation.
Now, I don't really think either side of this coming dichotomy is healthy or correct. I think that escapism is fun, but it's not real life, but it is a strict subset of valid ways to spend real-life time. However, if your prediction bears out, that dichotomy is going to form.
Everyone thinks it's a great story when the heroine sets out to avenge her father's murder and ends up saving the world. Most people do not actually want to have their father murdered and then deal with an existentially-threatening war for the survival of the human species. Likewise, everyone enjoys a good round of the Hero's Journey, but most people don't really want Spiderman-level responsibility (and yet find superheroism largely meaningless without it).
Many people really enjoy sports dramas in film. Very few people want to pack endless hours over a period of years into athletic training and then find out they've only got even odds against the opponent who also trained hard. Even fewer people want to just beat sports video-games by some athletic equivalent of "Rare Candies", leveling up without actually training or working hard.
Oh, and people who actually try to do the stuff portrayed in romantic comedies are called creeps, let alone the entire creepy-vampire-romance section of the bookstore.
People would have a much better point about escapism "overtaking" real life if more of our culture's fantasies consisted of experiences we actually really want to live through when confronted with the possibility.
That is, the ubiquity of computing devices that you get with smartphones, which the iPhone kicked off, is something genuinely fairly new, which not a lot of people had previously imagined. VR, on the other hand, is something people have been imagining for decades, producing compelling fictional versions; but every attempt to implement it suggests that it's not actually a very good idea. VR proponents are stuck with a nostalgic vision of the future, rather than trying to imagine something genuinely novel.
(On the other hand, people were imagining video phones as the next big thing for years, and they seemed to never take off, until they did; Skype hasn't replaced non-video phones, but it is ubiquitous.)
VR headsets will be cheap and basically disposable accessory within 10 years; I'm pretty sure they'll be available for under $100 by end of the decade.
Apart from some limited, low-resolution medical trials for people who've lost their eyesight already, this is firmly in the arena of science fiction and not going to happen any time soon.
Define any time soon.
The year I was born the ZX80 was released, it cost about two weeks wages (revolutionary at the time for it's price point) and had a 3.25Mhz processor with 1KB of memory.
Against that backdrop imagine walking up to someone on the high street and handing them a Nexus 5 and pointing out that it's floating point performance was about 50% faster than the Cray-1 which was then the state of the art (at about $8 million then dollars) oh and it has 256 times the RAM and a two orders of magnitude more storage and costs less than a weeks wages and run for a full day off a single charge consuming less power than the Cray 1's circulation pump.
It's a hard call to say "not going to happen any time soon" when we have proven the basic principle.
This predicts nothing about augmenting the optical input in people with healthy eyesight. I mean, who is going to volunteer to have their normal eyesight irreparably damaged to play a VR game?
Yeah but mobile processing power is not increasing at the same pace now as it was 2 years ago. The pace is clearly slowing down, just like computational power on PCs too. You don't get 2x faster processors every year anymore. They are adding more cores, but that's not nearly the same thing as single thread performance.
> Don’t get me wrong, VR is not bad for social. In fact, I think social could become one of the biggest applications of VR. Being able to sit in a virtual living room and see your friend’s avatar? Business meetings? Virtual cinemas where you feel like you’re actually watching the movie with your friend who is seven time zones away?
Do people really see this as the mainstream use of VR? Do people really see a mainstream use for VR at all?
I can't see it. It's not the future of computing to me.
VR is incredible, it's magical and amazing. I've used the dev kits and the feeling of presence is awesome. The first time I wore the Oculus DK1 was the first time I felt teleported to a different location.
Despite all this, I still don't want to use my Oculus every day — not even once a week. It's a great system but the feeling wears off once you are immersed in the actual experience. It doesn't make my communication or consumption of information any more efficient, not like the way mobile Internet devices have done. Not even like the way my graphics tablet improved my ability to be artistic with my computer.
I see VR as dramatically changing a small but highly focused subset of the entertainment landscape, and being used in many niche areas (such as architectural visualisation). I can't see it replacing the way we use our computers in general. Perhaps I am just shortsighted, and I would be happy to be proven so.
When it comes to video games, for people who are really into getting immersed it could see major usage. But for every day activities, I think that video conferencing and other forms of communication we already have basically cover those niches.
I think the vision outlined above is entirely possible. An integrated microphone with surround sound headphones was going to change gamedev forever. Who knows how that would bleed into other types of scenarios than gaming?
I'd watch a movie with someone using an Oculus. It'd be a fun experience.
I'd watch a movie with someone using an Oculus, sounds fun. But I can't see it beating the experience I have now: once a month I invite family and friends, we cook food, sit around and use the projector to watch a good movie on a large screen. If VR can beat that experience, I could see it going mainstream for entertainment.
My argument isn't that VR has no use, it most definitely does. It's that I can't see VR fundamentally changing how we use computers (like mobile has done).
Which is why Google is focusing on AR not VR. The use cases for AR seem more immediately obvious and valuable to a mainstream audience.
VR's killer use case is gaming. This is why I'm sad about this acquisition. Zuck's post about VR being the future of social seemed way off base. First, get gaming right, then broaden your vision.
With Sony now in the space, I'm positive we'll get an announcement from Microsoft sooner than later. I'm not a huge MS guy, but to me, they are the company to look toward for getting VR gaming right.
For me, 3D does nothing to get more immersed into the story. Frankly most of the 3D movies suck. Weak plots sprinkled with in your face 3D effects. Booooring.
It is about the plot and the acting. The content, not the form. Look at Hitchcocks movies. Would adding 3D do anything for them? Look at Jim Jarmushs movies or at "Lost in translation", would adding 3D do anything for those? Would adding VR do anything for those? I don't think so.
In the end it is about content. Second life and "there" was all the hype around 2005 but the hype wore off. Maybe it is time for 3rd life with the OR and the myo armband now. I think it depends on whether there is something in there that makes it worth while to come back after the initial "whoa this is awesome, wow" effect wears off.
For my own part, I'd love to see a VR based construction application like Sketchup where you are IN the model and build something with gestures. I'm pretty sure that would fly with the maker possy.
People don't remember the first VR boom either.
Really? I wonder if it would actually feel like watching a movie with someone, or if it would just feel like watching a movie alone.
VR, like social media, has the potential to connect us with people distant to ourselves, and distance us from those nearby.
Edit: just because social is a bigger area than gaming, does not mean VR is more likely to take off in that area. It entirely depends on how you actually use it and what experience it gives you.
You could argue that video calls would kill voice calls because video calls are "more immersive". Obviously that didn't happen. You could also argue that voice calls would kill text communication, because obviously talking with your voice is more natural. Again, it didn't happen - text communication is bigger than ever, look at WhatsApp. In the space of social, ease and speed of consumption trumps immersion.
Why do you think it would look anything like what we currently consider social networking? Why are people so painfully short-sighted?
I have said many times that facebook won the social network wars long before google even released google+. Anything that comes along to kill facebook will look nothing like what we consider social networking today. It looks like facebook may be the one to invent its own killer.
Even if it's the same as putting on a pair of sunglasses, it's still too much for me.
If it's a matter of me just closing my eyes and experiencing what I want, then I agree with you. But I don't think that's even the same direction as the VR we are discussing.
Edit: I misunderstood, I thought you were talking about improvements to VR hardware.
However, seeing social networking and VR mesh together — even some hypothetical social networking of the future — seems an odd direction to me. VR is very inhuman in terms of the physical experience, social networking is very brief and notification oriented. I can't see the two a match.
VR is great, I use it and love playing with it. I don't want it to be involved in my social experiences unless it's the following: inviting people around to try cool VR demos while watching what they are experiencing on a large screen, that is fun.
Why do you think the fact that "next-gen" social networking will look different excuses three massive friction points of VR (buying the VR gear, buying a decent computer, and strapping on an ungainly headset)?
It's not short-sighted to see problems, it's short-sighted to ignore them. Unless you have a reason to think you can. Do you?
> I have said many times that facebook won the social network wars long before google even released google+.
I don't see how that's remotely relevant.
> Anything that comes along to kill facebook will look nothing like what we consider social networking today.
You're wandering in circles, still not addressing the friction problem. VR has huge friction points and dubious value-add outside gaming. Either argue that the friction isn't as bad as we think or argue that the value-add is larger.
"The sensation of 'being there' is so powerful that it will make 'virtual family gatherings' possible in a way that video conferencing and facebook haven't"
That's an argument (albeit not one I'm convinced by). See the difference?
And the history of technology has shown that these "friction points" never last. Why do you think this will be any different? Short-sightedness.
>You're wandering in circles, still not addressing the friction problem.
That statement was to set up the point that Facebook is so forward thinking here that they might be the one to create their own killer. Stop being an ass.
Only the history of technology as understood by someone who puts blinders on to focus on success stories alone. Selection bias.
Do you know when the first hydrogen fuel-cell was built? 1851. Before the American Civil War. It took a century to figure out how to get them to output significant power before they found an application on the Apollo missions. It has been another 50 years and nobody has solved the H2 storage problem yet. AI has a bunch of problems that are like this but on a shorter time scale if you want a CS-related example.
These aren't isolated incidents; the history of technology sees a constant stream of people hurling themselves against Hard Problems and consistently failing to solve them until someone with the right combination of specialization, drive, timing, and strategy cracks the case. The people that succeed invariably attribute their success to "not letting conventional thinking hold us back," but that's a load of feel-good nonsense, as evidenced by the long string of "forward-thinking" failures that everyone likes to ignore.
There may be a steady trickle of breakthroughs coming out the end of the pipeline, but that doesn't mean you can point to a droplet anywhere in the pipe and say "it's about to come out!"
This isn't so bad if you're a gamer, or you're at home and wanting to experience some entertainment (similar to wearing headphones). But I can't see this style of VR changing the computing landscape the same way mobile computers have.
So if Facebook comes up with VR that doesn't involve covering your eyes, that's great. But that has little to nothing to do with what they acquired in Oculus.
The fact that every VR example given by Facebook so far sounds super contrived (seeing a virtual doctor, really?) doesn't give me hope that they know where VR can be really effective — a small subset of entertainment.
Instagram became popular because photos are a richer way of saying some things than Twitter.
Your point about text messaging misses that this isn't an "either/or" thing.
I can imagine a VR app that lets you share your experience of standing in the Grand Canyon or jumping from a plane or being at a concert.
The hardware is a big problem though. I can see Google Glass growing quicker because of that.
Years beyond that, if the resolution is there, I think virtual displays will replace the way many of us currently do work.
I like to watch movies and TV shows with friends and family, not alone.
I cannot see VR as advantageous for the work I do: design, programming, painting, writing. I enjoy working outside or in cafes, where there are people and noises and things to eat and drink. Places to walk.
Most of my programming happens when I step away from computers. When I'm at a computer all I am doing is transcribing code and design, not being creative.
A decent number of people are more comfortable texting or emailing than they are calling. They prefer quiet social settings over busy ones. Many favour time alone.
My wife and I sometimes watch TV/movies together, often separately - in the latter instances, I'd quite happily do this via VR goggles and headphones, either immersed or with a virtual display.
My brother lives in a different state to me. I'd really like to watch movies in a virtual cinema with a voice channel overlay so we could talk crap about what we were watching.
Reading in bed or on the couch, I'd be keen to try doing that via goggles rather than holding a device.
palpicorn
peppercorn
pibcorn
pilcorn
plenicorn
plumicorn
popcorn
preadorn
preborn
prestubborn
pronghorn
Hmm... I think you mean "peppercorn", yah? Those motivated a lot of international trade.
"An ear tuft of feathers, as in the horned owls."
I... didn't realise there was a word for that.
'People watching a mobile device all the time!?' Look at we are now...
I wouldn't be surprised when we will be programming with a VR set so you can put almost unlimited lines of code on your retina.
People make predictions all the time, many of them pretty good. Did a significant number of people think Color was going to be a smashing success?
I'll happily predict that the Pono is going to fail pretty thoroughly, because I simply don't believe many people are going to spend tons of money on clunky hardware that plays very expensive music at dubiously appreciable improvements in quality when they already carry a phone that has unfettered access to way more music at lower prices at quality they already think is fine.
Likewise, if anyone wants to take my $100 on a bet that in 2019, we won't be strapping a scuba mask onto our face to use Facebook, it's available.
In the same way that it took phone functionality as a trojan horse to mass tablet adoption, gaming might finally make 3D development gain critical mass with consumers.
To be fair, I haven't ever tried one so I can't comment on the experience itself. But from what I've heard, the developments in VR have scaled significant hurdles that make it something exciting and viable.
I think history has shown that sometimes seemingly-small developments in 'input' or 'output' can have a huge effect: fingers for touch screens (one of the biggest reasons for the iPhone's success, I think), a mouse and a GUI for computers (initially gathering dust in a research lab, if my history is correct), and arguably even something like retina displays.
Very often we underestimate the value of these developments, especially us geeks who are right on top of things and follow the small increments: "iPhone? I had a PDA x years ago (stylus though, but that's a minor detail)," or "tablet? it's just a bigger touch phone!"
(apologies for mostly using Apple as an example. I'm sure there are many others, but these just spring to mind.)
It began with performed and written stories. When storytelling through film became popular in the 20th century, proponents marveled at its technical potential: the ability to control viewers' eyes and to immerse them in a dream world. There were also critics who suggested it might be too immersive: detracting from face-to-face conversations.
Over time the technical "Wow" factor of film mostly faded. In its absence, viewers started to remember what made virtual reality feel real all along: the quality of the content. Sure, some people still marvel at 3D screenings and similar technology, but we mostly focus on the narratives rather than the medium.
If history is any guide, there is no medium for virtual reality. After the initial "Wow" factor of a new viewing experience subsides, we'll realize that the content is responsible for carrying us into a dream world.
Facebook can try to ensure that the games are geared towards social interactivity that benefits their platform, but in the end, the developers truly pick the direction. Anyone can buy a dev kit and see what they can build with it.
Maybe Facebook wants Oculus Rift to operate as a completely separate entity outside their core business. Maybe it's something they believe in and want to expand into a new genre. Mark has some interesting insights on where to take it: https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/1010131905052397.
Think about when Microsoft got into gaming and created Xbox. Now imagine if they didn't.
To me that would be a legitimate concern with any non-hardware company purchase of a hardware company.
All of Halo series would be on PC.
When they made Halo, they made a pretty good architecture for showing wide landscapes/buildings/vehicles and large-enough numbers of troops onscreen at once. During the alpha experimentation with the game, apparently they seriously took a look at using this to make an RTS (albeit one really outside of the usual starcraft mold), rather than a FPS.
We might have gotten a non-crappy Myth III.
Maybe Sega would have released the Dreamcast 2...
Call of Duty and the FPS genre would not have been ruined.
Interesting how it all boils down to trust. You could think of all kinds of amazing possibilities, but if you don't trust them, it's 100% off.
Kinect would have been developed independently and be sold the same way the leap motion controller is sold today, and console and game makers would have licensed it instead. Not so bad I think.
But I think the bigger issue here is I just don't want Facebook involved at all. Because all roads for Facebook lead to ads, and that is the last thing I want tagged to my eyeballs when I'm trying to enjoy my VR experience.
Even on the desktop/mobile side, I'd gladly pay the $1.05 (or whatever my LTV as a customer is) to Facebook so that I'd never have to seen another ad from them ever again.
A sad day indeed.
Don't get me wrong- I'm extremely upset about it due to facebook's clearly evil history - I don't know how anyone could deny this, given user exploitation and tracking[0] - and the fact that Oculus Rim values the combined ideas of virtual reality and augmented reality (which I don't think should be combined) as 1/10th the value of Whatsapp is beyond me.
However, is souped-up video conferencing really such a terrible idea? I wouldn't go to a 10-year high school reunion on Oculus, but I definitely would reunite with my college buddies every few weeks if we had something less lame than Skype or Google Hangouts to do it on.
[0] http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/11/facebo...
Facebook has accumulated enough ill will over the years -- with its cavalier attitude towards users' privacy, with the multiple times it's screwed over developers who bet the farm on their platform, and so forth -- that people just automatically assume now that if you lie down with Facebook you get up with fleas. "Facebook" means technology that, at its heart, is looking for a way to screw you over. It's a tainted brand.
If it were any other company making this acquisition -- Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, anybody -- you'd see much more willingness to give it the benefit of the doubt. But people see the Facebook logo being slapped on the Rift and assume, from bitter experience, that this means their Rifts will be turned against them, in the same way that Facebook turned their browser and their smartphone and their network of friends against them.
Coming soon to an immersive 3D VR headset near you: a lame Facebook-branded knockoff of Second Life.
Filed under: #metaverse
But yes second life applications... I don't see it at all.
I would hit anybody over the head who would dare to say "Yeah, I hate Oculus now. If only they had gone with Google instead of Facebook"
Really the pot calling the kettle black, here. And make no mistake, any of the other companies you mentioned should have resulted in just the same kind of backlash. Not a single one of them cares about you or your privacy. They are all out to collect as much information as possible. It is high time people realized this.
Uh? Notch very specifically notes social VR would likely be great, and that he does not mind, just does not care.
Did you see what is currently the top comment on this thread?
Since their market cap is roughly $100 billion, that figure would probably be closer to $100. Would you pay that much? It's an interesting thought.
And that's a shame.
You take the long view, I see.
Here is a video of a grown man crying like a small girl. If that doesn't convince you, I don't know what will.
But I could see a serious paradigm shift for video games, especially future massively multiplayer games.
Of course, technology gets smaller, so I wouldn't say "never."
As of now I am looking at this acquisition with intense skepticism. I am interested in the Rift from a pure gaming perspective, and facebook hasn't proven themselves in that field yet, or at least not in the way that I agree with.
With that said I do look forward to seeing what happens with this. Good or bad I believe that this is something that will be talked about for a long time.
This seems really true to me. Zuck gives the impression that he's in it for the power, and not for the love of technology. That's what makes this acquisition disappointing.
These all sound like crap ideas
First, probably not anywhere near technical feasibility for at least several years. Remember the lag when a bunch of avatars were in one place? Or how long it took for a scene to fill in after you teleported? And the bandwidth, good lord...
But then I imagine what it would be like if the bandwidth and server performance issues were magically solved. And I realize that it was all imagined before decades ago, in Snow Crash[1].
[1]http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Neal-Stephenson/dp/05535626...
It's a big problem even for much less ambitious "VR"-esque worlds like MMORPG games. Usually they'll have to locate one server in Asia, one or more in Europe, one or two in America, etc. to accomodate for lag.
But long story short - As Zuck said, it's a long bet. But one that most gaming companies won't want to be associated with. But they're not going after gaming anyway, gaming was 2 words in the press release. They're going after experiences, of which they have no prerequisites in place (healthcare, sports games, etc.)
I'll be looking forward to whoever shows up in place. It's just such a shame - I felt like they were the awesome people to look forward to seeing help change the gaming landscape.
Just like touchscreen smartphones, initially we had the iPhone which is relatively locked down and controlled by a single vendor, but now we have cheap, commoditised hardware of acceptable quality.
More importantly, the real 'platform' for smartphones is the web, which is as open as any we've ever had. Eventually, VR will have something of the same.
I'm glad to see that at least Notch gets it.
I don't see anybody rushing to put their VR IP into the public domain.
VR not so.
But will Facebook be the company to make that happen? The great walled garden will turn into the great walled immersive world. If Facebook manages to pull that off we will all be poorer for it.
Just like 3D televisions/displays did? I have heard this for over a decade and I am still not convinced.