Oculus Rift hack transfers your facial expressions onto your virtual avatar

If you have and you didn't get that feeling, that's fine. The tech is still pretty primitive and some people are more readily able to accept it than others (there's a good bit of research recently that shows there is even a hormonal influence). But it's not just a graphics gimmick. It's really a completely different way of thinking about applications.

To me, it literally feels like I'm wearing the program. Not the display. The program. Once exploited properly (and I admit, we're fairly far away from that), we will be doing things in it that will make 2D, external displays too unbearably difficult to use.

I mean, at the very least, we're going to see a sea-change in how 3D content is authored. It's going to massively drive down the cost of creating high-quality 3D models. It's going to make it more accessible, which means it's going to be used more often for things other than just games.

I personally think stereo displays and hand-tracking are a necessary developments to enable in-the-home 3D printing. 3D modeling on a 2D display is too hard for most people to do for even trivial tasks. But we will eventually see a decent modeling program created for an HMD. SketchUp was close, this is going to push it over the edge by making the manipulations far more intuitive.

The closest analogy I have is the difference of going from a text-based adventure interface to a 3D, first-person RPG interface. This is the next step after that. I've gone back and played Skyrim in the Oculus Rift, a game I've spent countless hours in, and been re-amazed at the chance to see such familiar places in literally a whole new way.

Minecraft-style graphics on an HMD feel more real, feel more like being there, than Crysis 2 on the highest settings on an 2D display, more real than watching an IMAX 3D movie. Having experienced a few "tourism" apps, the feeling is closer on the spectrum of reality to that of being there than that of watching it on TV. And that was a year ago on a Google Cardboard. It's only getting better, and it's getting better very quickly. That's what we're dealing with.

I do think there are enough people who will love it — for business and pleasure — that it will catch like wildfire, though I wouldn't be surprised if some people only use VR because all their friends do. Just like why I use Facebook.

> This can be done trivially today with Facetime and other video software. Its largely seen as a gimmick.

I find Facetime awkward and not at all like being with someone. That's in contrast to my visit to AltspaceVR a couple of months back. The community relations guy was giving a demonstration of body/handtracking, so his avatar was fairly well articulated. Despite everyone having robotic heads and the rest avatars being simplistic, I very much felt like I was in a courtyard with a group of people watching a man give a talk.

> In the end, people value efficiency, not meatspace equivalents of things. That's why Amazon has all its products with an easy search box and a one click button, instead of a virtual shop assistant.

People (will) value both. It's not like AmazonVR is going to be a giant mall where you walk to the electronics department and browse things by sight. The search box is a very good way to find what you want.

> That is a fairly obscure edge case here. Neurotic shoe buyers aren't going to buy a $500 headset and a $1000 gaming PC to buy shoes. They'll take themselves to the store, to you know, actually try the fit, which is fairly important.

I think GP is talking about a future where VR is cheap and ubiquitous.

> That sounds a lot more like AR, not VR, nor the meta-verse.

Technically augmented virtuality.

> You sound exactly like the people who were telling me Second Life would change everything about 8 years ago.

I never bought into the Second Life hype. Navigating 3d space with 2d devices is never going to feel right outside of a few experiences -- namely games.

> The concepts are exactly the same, you're just putting on a fancier display. The metaverse is a failed concept for what are fairly obvious reasons. SL proved the skeptics right, so why are we still having this ridiculous conversation?

One metaverse as envisaged may very well be a failed concept. That said, the fact that you use the phrase "putting on a display" makes me think you've probably never felt "presence" in VR. It is mind blowing, and that's the reason the conversation is circling back.

Holding up a phone or looking at a computer screen (or do you look at the webcam??) is nothing like feeling like you're sitting in the same room as your buddies who are themselves in New York and Toronto, while you're all playing a game on a virtual screen together, or just hanging out talking. I don't value efficiency when I want to chat, draw, beatbox or play with my friends.

Buying a shoe is not an obscure edge case. I'm not talking about shoe buyers blowing up the Oculus market when the first release comes out next year. Game players and nerds will handle that. But as acous points out, once the tech is cheaper and more ubiquitous it will take hold in other markets. Have you heard of Zappos? People buy lots of shoes online. They'll buy a lot more when they can play virtual dress-up and match things with outfits.

I think AR & VR will be so intertwined and cross-pollinated that there won't be much point in distinguishing between them pretty soon. But the IKEA furniture planning idea I mentioned could be extrapolated to "pure" VR and a metaverse-type place. I know I would much rather "go to IKEA" in VR than face the gauntlet that is their store-maze. Their whole catalogue will be a VR space you can explore. And I'm pretty confident that it WILL be - they already have super high resolution 3d models of every single product which they use to generate the images for their catalogues. They stopped using physical cameras a while ago.

You sound exactly like the people from 1970 who said "nobody will ever have a computer in their home". I bet Amazon would have sounded like a shit idea in 1985, I'm sure it had tons of naysayers even in the nineties. Same idea here only the timeline will be even more condensed. It's not just a fancier display. It's an entirely different experience. Why are you holding up an 8-year-old game as evidence when technology has come so far in that time?

I don't know what to say. You clearly have a bug up your ass about it. I doubt I'm going to convince you. I've been there, I've seen it, I work in and on it. I'm saying it's more than just a graphics gimmick. At the very least, it's a completely different way of thinking about applications. If you've experienced VR for yourself and and still don't see that, I don't know what to tell you.