georgewsinger

Just to clarify: we produced no documents or testimony to Meta at all. We basically negotiated on some very pedantic things (deadline extensions and so forth), and they ended up dropping the subpoena altogether.

In Meta's defense, we found their legal team to be cordial and respectful.

Yes, for sure; however, the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 and 12GB of RAM on the Quest Pro isn't that.

We're also fundamentally a Linux Desktop platform, which ARM is finnicky with. We wanted to give people an experience that was truly comparable to what they would expect out of a comparable premium (Linux) laptop.

3.1 and 3.3 are talking about the Quest Pro's VR Desktop capabilities. We just added extra clarification to make this clear. We don't dispute that the Quest Pro can run its own native VR apps without WiFi streaming.

The title of our blog post ("Meta's Subpoena Dropped; Simula One vs. Quest Pro") is different than the HN title: I think HN might discourage dual titles? (We weren't the original submitter of this post to HN, so didn't choose the title).

Also: originally our post was only going to be about the Quest Pro, but then we found out that Meta dropped their subpoena, and so we just ad hoc attached the news to the beginning of the post as an update to our preorderers.

We acknowledge you can use native Meta apps in a standalone way (we discuss this in section 5). The problem is that there aren't many native productivity apps running on Meta.

Thanks for the feedback.

Our intention is to offer constructive criticism of Meta's product vision, not a sour attitude. Meta is marketing the Quest Pro as a productivity device, but to us it doesn't seem to have much teeth: it can't replace someone's laptop, requires WiFi tethering to a host machine to be used as a VR Desktop machine, caps the # of screens it can emulate to 5, and has poor pixel density.

Are these not fair things to point out?

Just want to clarify that I would never characterize Zuckerberg or Meta as "incompetent". Quite the contrary. I would instead more characterize the situation as Paul Graham did in one of his essays[1]:

> A lot of startups worry "what if Google builds something like us?" Actually big companies are not the ones you have to worry about-- not even Google. The people at Google are smart, but no smarter than you; they're not as motivated, because Google is not going to go out of business if this one product fails; and even at Google they have a lot of bureaucracy to slow them down.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html

We're working on camera boards now for our AR Mode (it will likely be featured in our an engineering update next week). After our boards are finished (~2-4 weeks), we'll be able to integrate them into our review units for our first integrated camera tests.

I haven't read. Will check it out!

A bit, but not much. Our tethered option is for people who want to connect to beefier hosts because they need the extra GPU power (or want to use our headset's high pixel density for gaming purposes). We've sold very few of them though. Our primary offering is our standalone unit.

I totally disagree with this. Early gaming consoles (~70s) took off roughly a decade before early PCs (~80s). Yet many of the people who bought the latter had little interest in the former. They were two completely distinct markets (with some, but clearly not extensive overlap).

We've had many people tell us (often on Hacker News actually) that they're not super interested in VR gaming, but are very interested in VR computing.

(I myself am one of these people BTW; despite working in VR for half a decade now, I have almost no interest in VR gaming, and wouldn't be interested in the field were it not for its enormous potential as a new thinking tool).

What you're seeing: a Meta headset tethered to a laptop over WiFi running Immersed.

What you're not seeing: a standalone VR headset running a VR Desktop OS natively with bleeding edge pixel density (i.e., like the Simula One).

We understand that Meta has some cool tools in its app store which can be used to get a feel for VR computing. But analogously, you could also purchase word processors for early gaming consoles too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AtariWriter

Our view is that dedicated VR computing devices are what the market actually needs.

I agree, and just want to reiterate what was written in the article: we genuinely feel no animosity towards Meta and its gaming headsets. We don't even feel animosity that they have leveraged their economies of scale to provide them very cheaply to consumers (something we aren't able to do yet[1]). We just disagree with their product vision, and are pursuing our own. We also think subpoenaing us for this case seems unreasonable.

[1] https://simulavr.com/blog/why-is-the-simula-one-so-expensive...

We understand Meta sometimes future projects that their devices will have broad office applications, but we're skeptical it has any teeth.

Consider that Atari tried to compete with office PCs in the early 80s with their 8-bit family, and failed: https://images.fastcompany.net/image/upload/w_596,c_limit,q_...

It's hard to focus on multiple things at once, and we're skeptical that the bureaucratic forces in play at a large company like Meta will allow them to do a good job at making their gaming platform also one that people actually want to work in.

Though I'm not a lawyer, I believe defendants in court cases are entitled to command witnesses (signed off by a judge) to provide evidence that could be used in their defense.

It makes sense in the abstract: e.g. imagine you're accused of murder, and you know someone saw you somewhere else at the supposed time of the crime, yet they refuse to provide evidence to help you. It would seem reasonable they could compel you under that circumstance to testify.

Since the FTC has initiated a court case against Meta, I assume they are provided a similar legal right to command competitors to provide evidence that they haven't behaved "anti-competitively".

The question becomes whether, in this particular instance, they're abusing that privilege by demanding information they shouldn't be entitled to from unrelated/extraneous parties.

Just want to clarify: we're not ignoring this subpoena and intend to comply with the law. We're in contact with a lawyer and are discussing our options with them.

Just to clarify: we're seeking legal counsel and intend to comply with the law.

Many other larger companies have fought these subpoenas (Snap, etc) and, as far as we can tell, still had to hand over items.

Does this support converting new keys into new modifiers? IIRC AHK allows you to do things like:

  - If CapsLock is pressed, treat it as a new modifier.
  - If CapsLock is released, send "ESCAPE".

If so, that would be swell.

Interestingly, the Newton was pretty cheap for its time: released for $900 ($1,844.29 in inflation-adjusted terms). IIRC the original price was supposed to be much higher, but at the last second it was cut lower.

Most first-in-kind technology is usually quite expensive[1] (especially during the 80s/90s era), but Apple has frequently been able to release innovative products (relatively) cheaply, as far as I can tell.

[1] https://simulavr.com/blog/paying-for-productivity/

It's amazing how gestures like this can have such positive impact people years later.

I know I've had moments where people have made unnaturally kind gestures towards me, and I still remember years later.

Really love the detailed specs, schematics, and board shots. Open hardware projects have an aesthetic all to their own, and understanding how hardware is built and works together somehow makes these products more enjoyable (at least this is a principle we've adhered to while building the Simula One[1]).

[1] https://simulavr.com/

This reminds me that Alan Kay really hates Linux: https://youtu.be/rmsIZUuBoQs

This stings since I really like Alan Kay and have been influenced by his ideas, but am also working on a Linux-based VR headset as a thinking tool[1]. I think Alan would approve of the hardware but not the software, perhaps ultimately saying something like "you can spend your whole life dicking around in Linux, but still not understand anything about computing".

[1] https://simulavr.com

Over the past few years people have presented a lot of (seemingly credible, IMO) red flags that Tether could be something resembling a scam, and on the verge of a sudden "bankrun" at any moment. The consensus opinion, at least 6 months ago, was that Tether = scam.

Yet they've survived the crypto crash, and their coin is still pegged to the dollar. I'm curious what people make of this? Have opinions changed?

Here's also more discussion on Simula's price: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29923197

For an open headset that requires neither a Meta nor a Facebook account to operate: https://simulavr.com ...

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This post chronicles the cost of early computing hardware over time, and you're absolutely right about how expensive things used to be: https://simulavr.com/blog/paying-for-productivity/

> Novel hardware devices (e.g., for VR, or the Wii remote, or for new musical instruments) can be used as the basis for new tools for thought. While hardware can be duplicated, it’s often much more expensive than duplicating software. And, in any case, the advantage for such companies is often in distribution, marketing, and relationships with vendors who make products for the platform.

SimulaVR was heavily influenced by the early visions for computing devices as "Tools for Thought".[1]

"Computing as an intelligence augmenter" seemed to be a really popular viewpoint through the 70s and 80s (even in corporate advertisements for computing devices). Then it somehow got co-opted by "computing as a medium for passive entertainment and video games", and then eventually as "a medium for social networking". I'm certainly not against these things in all contexts, but to me the exciting thing about VR/AR is that it creates a completely open field to make new advancements in the way human beings interact with machines to get stuff done immersively & with greater creativity.

Despite this, the entire VR ecosystem seems to be focused almost exclusively on gaming/entertainment + social networking (facebook "Metaverse"). I personally find it really exciting to think about how the extra dimension could help us create more interactive tools in line with Alan Kay (& co's) early visions. Before that's possible, we first need to get the basic hardware good enough to replace PCs & Laptops (for everyday 2-dimensional applications). After that, we can these devices as platforms to build better thinking tools on.

[1] https://simulavr.com

Am I the only person who doesn't get excited about cameras, but gets really excited about foldable form factor phones?

Yes. Things under consideration for this:

1. A chorded keyboard: some people are working on this.

2. A keyboard apron: I've built a prototype of one here: https://www.wolframcloud.com/obj/george.w.singer/business/pn...