No chance of that for me, I don't have the eyes for it.
I'm not waiting for that, I doubt it would truly be worthwhile in my lifetime. (I'm 62)
In fact, I expect that *any* worthwhile real VR and AR is well outside my lifetime. It's ****hard****.
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Apple Expecting to Ship 1.5 Million Units of $2,000+ AR/VR Headset in 2023
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In fact, I expect that *any* worthwhile real VR and AR is well outside my lifetime. It's ****hard****.
It really depends what you want technology to actually do for you. Thirty years ago I was at the 'cutting edge' of running a home studio using a fully-loaded Amiga, but loads of people held on to their Revoxes and Fosteks because the results were better at the time. They showed as much interest in using computers to record as I'm currently showing in VR, and for the same reason: other than being a novelty, it didn't allow you to do anything better.
New technology replaces old when it solves a problem, and for Joe Public that usually means improved convenience. Joking aside about holodecks and neural links, until new ways of interacting with the world absolutely need you to use a VR headset, and somehow that interaction improves the convenience of something really important for a lot of people, I think VR is going to remain either a novelty item for playing 3D games or employed in a small number of specific uses in industry.
Outside of industrial/corporate uses I'm not fathoming who would spend $2k on this, especially with a lack of actual applications. The only application which kind of makes sense is gaming, and Apple doesn't seem like they have the background in that, and at $2k it better be a heck of a lot better than a $400 Oculus headset. But I don't think gaming is the target at all, I just can't fathom what the target will be.
"I can send letters to communicate. Why do I need a phone?"
"I'm rich and can attend any live event at any time, so I don't need VR"
This is what your arguments boil down to.
Communication in VR/AR is completely different to that of a phone, just as phone is completely different to a letter. In VR/AR, you get to feel like you are in someone's presence - that they are right in front of you. The tech is early so there's a lot that can be improved, but this is a unique and important usecase, because humans want to feel like they are together with their friends/family instead of just hearing someone's voice.
Most people can't regularly attend live events, so VR fills in that gap, and can create new types of events only possible in a virtual world.
Exercise is work you say? That's precisely why VR/AR would help - to make it feel less like work and more like a fun game, which in turn can help people do exercise longer and harder without physically exerting themselves as much.
They've been thinking about this for years, which is why they are spending billions trying to fix it, so that with variable focus optics, VR/AR can work as prescription glasses better than any actual pair of glasses can. That's not today, nor is it in 2023 with this headset, but it's something they are working towards for a 5+ year timeframe.
VR as it is today stinks, and I say that as a Quest 2 owner and someone who really likes some VR aspects. But at the end of the day you are still donning a clunky, hot/heavy, socially isolating headset with tunnel vision, blurriness, god rays, and flailing around in your basement. There are really no killer applications to speak of, other than a very very few select games which will pretty much only attract gamers.
The Holodeck analogy is really applicable here, although personally I think it will be more based on contact lenses, which that technology is already out in prototype but more in the AR space. If VR/AR is going to be ubiquitous it certainly ain't going to be some huge headset. When the technology filters down to a pair of light glasses I think we might see more inroads, but then again using glasses for those who don't need them because of eyesight is another burden.
VR will mature, but I think the level of technological innovation needed for it to mature to a product that most consumers would want is really grossly underestimated.
It's pretty easy to see why VR would be preferred in many important usecases.
Perhaps the most important and human usecase of all - being with other people. People don't really like phonecalls or videocalls compared to real life, because they know that real life provides a sense of togetherness that these technologies don't get close to. Humans evolved to detect other human faces in striking detail up-close in our near-field vision. Intimacy and trust happens in personal distance space, something that can't be replicated well with a screen.
This is where VR would come in, to make people feel like they are together, especially as the tech matures and the experience feels lifelike. The corded telephone changed the world and only transmitted our voices.
Other uses for VR would include the ability to travel and attend events in a perceptually real way, to change identity at will, to enhance exercise, to provide more engaging and fun education, more productive computing work, and more.
Obviously headsets will not always be clunky, hot/heavy, socially isolating headset with tunnel vision, blurriness, god rays, and have you flailing around in your basement. This will be fixed as the tech matures, and this will be done without a Holodeck and without contact lenses.
So anyone who wants to wait for those, I look forward to them throwing in the towel and just giving in.
The tech does need many major advancements to appeal to average consumers, yes.
Consumers don't ask for perfection though. If they did, we'd be in the stone ages.
What do you mean you don't have the eyes for it? And why would you want the Holodeck if you don't have the eyes for it?
And the iPhone really did solve a problem -- mobile, go anywhere, communication. My first mobile phone was a bag phone that didn't even have its own power source, so I had to plug it into my car, but I bought it. I had a CB radio before that. The added in perk of having storage and a camera always on me is no small benefit either!
I do think VR will have it's 'iphone' moment. Mobile phones and handheld digital music players had been out many many years before the introduction of the iphone but yet it took someone with vision to see what was possible by merging different techs into one with the result being the iphone. Based on that I think VR will have it's own similar moment.
Of course, and eventually cars will all be self-driving and will fly and people will live on Mars. I don't think anyone is really saying that VR won't evolve to eventually become usable by the masses, at least I'm not, I just think the technological hurdles are really underestimated. A huge part of those technological hurdles are consumer comfort and having technology that is invisible to the user. Having any sort of headset, and even if in 10 years the technology filters down to a set of light glasses, will still be a hindrance to users.
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I described my vision in another message, but to put it in a nutshell, no 3D vision and my eyes don't track like a normal person's eyes. Trying to fool my eyes/brain to see fake 3D actually causes really bad headaches.
Because my normal vision and coping mechanisms would be used in a holodeck.
Why wouldn't your normal vision and coping mechanics be used in a VR headset?
It's not like the end-game display tech would be any different. VR headsets would just use varifocal/light-field/holographic displays. Then it would be optically the same as a Holodeck.
This is why we don't need the Holodeck. VR headsets can advance far enough to meet expectations.
That's too slow. I got my first mobile phone for driving, because if I had a problem, I wanted to be able to call in an emergency. Some people don't need a phone, but I do and it solves a lot of problems for me as an IT worker.
I actually hate going to live events, and am not really interested in seeing them remotely either. Different strokes for different folks.
Besides, you can go to a lot of events in place of the cost of the VR headset and internet connection.More like 50-100 years. People really underestimate how vision works... It'll happen eventually, that I agree, but it'll still need to solve problems that can't be solved in an easier way for it to be used by the masses.
Well sure, some people don't need a phone and don't need live events, but many do, and that's a big market fit.That's too slow. I got my first mobile phone for driving, because if I had a problem, I wanted to be able to call in an emergency. Some people don't need a phone, but I do and it solves a lot of problems for me as an IT worker.
I actually hate going to live events, and am not really interested in seeing them remotely either. Different strokes for different folks.
More like 50-100 years. People really underestimate how vision works... It'll happen eventually, that I agree, but it'll still need to solve problems that can't be solved in an easier way for it to be used by the masses.
Variable focus optics is not 50-100 years off. We have prototypes that already work. The problem is getting these to be shippable and affordable.
It seems not many people can even be bothered to argue over this, if you look at the volume of posts here or in the Glasses subforum. The only way I can see metaverses taking off is if they manage to make luxury goods cheap. Everybody have a yacht and your own island kind of thing.
Absolutely incorrect.
When the iPhone was released people were waiting for the 3G version. Apple was late to that game. When 3G came then boom, flying sales. Took less than a year.
VR hype has come and gone since the 90s. It’s not a new product.
And each wave of VR hype has had a mix of hypers and maniacs who make outlandish suggestions for VR uses - You wiLL haVe cyBeR oFFiCe. YoU wiLL bE hAppY tYpinG in The Air.
For 25 years some of us old timers have seen this. The barrier is always the same - Sane people don’t want to wear a basket on their face.
The difference with the latest wave of hypers is that these are new young generation of men who have become very lonely because of social media, they are very toxic, they refuse to go out and socialize because they have no confidence in their social skills anymore after using so much social media, so they very angrily insist:
- you must use VR instead of a computer and monitor.
- you must sit there in your VR cocoon like a lonely isolated creature and do all kinds of different professions and entertainment inside this isolated bubble with a dumb basket attached to your face.
We have a anti-social mental health problem in society because of social media and instead of trying to fix this problem some people want to go deeper into it.
Or maybe people can advocate for both having a fulfilling real life and using VR as an improvement over the anti-social problems with today's technologies, because VR would be a much more social digital alternative to current digital solutions.
VR might have failed in the 1990s, but things are very different this time around. That's clear for anyone to see.
The way that they simulate 3D so close to your face. It gets really complicated in how 3D vision really works, but it's safe to say any 3D vision systems so close to your face can only fake 3D, and they have to make a lot of assumptions (actually generalizations) in how you see to make it look 3D.
This is really hard for me to explain, and I have no formal training in in 3D vision other than satisfying my own curiosity, but even though I can't see in 3D like a normal person does, but the brain is wonderfully adaptable in in the way it perceives things. I don't just see a flat screen like vision. I see what looks 3D to me. Rather than stereoscopically interpreting 3D, I see 3D via perspective and my brain interpreting 3D that way. Basically like everyone else sees in 3D outside of 25 or 30 feet. Unfortunately all the ways of faking 3D currently are based on stereoscopic vision and not perspective, so all it does is look like 2 images and my brain gets confused in putting them together. Since I never had stereoscopic vision, it never learned how.
Now if I could have one side blanked out, it would be workable as perspective works just as well on a flat image, the focusing part isn't that easy and I can't really imagine the mechanism that would have to be employed on the "glasses" to suit non standard eyes. (and just what is standard eyes anyway, there's a LOT of variation)
You see 3Dness in the real world through ocular parallax, change in focal depths, and high lumen lighting.
VR today has ocular parallax, but does not have variable focus or the brightness required for true-to-life depth-based lighting.
That will change though. This is not unique to the Holodeck. You can achieve the exact same optical path as the real world in a headset. We have the technology to do this for each depth cue, and the math/physics checks out. Getting this to be shippable and affordable is the real challenge, and will take 10+ years to get there, but certainly not 50-100.
When it does get there, the photons from a VR headset will have the same physical properties as real photons, which means everyone will be able to see into a VR headset as if it is reality, with the brain always accepting the optical path.
Too much hopium, my man.
Social media platforms no longer want to moderate the hatred and toxic behavior. They officially gave up and now they just blame YOU. They won’t blame their support for bots or their own promotion of toxic and scammy ideas.
The VR platforms already have even worse than Facebook and Twitter. I would post links to what is happening on them but you probably heard already about children being approached by gangs of adults.
They will no moderate. They do not want to moderate. The dark side of Silicon Valley’s new generation wants a world full of division, fighting, scamming, hate crimes.
They have made money from it and they do not want to risk changing their business models.
If Apple does any VR, it will be a very controlled entertainment sandbox with some fun apps on the side.
Just don’t expect what the extreme fanboys expect. They will be going to toxic Meta for that.
Maybe. We'll just have to wait and see.
And comfortable enough to wear. That's the hard part, even if you don't count simulating 3D in a way everyone can see and deal with. Variable focus is the easy part, like you said, we already have that, though dealing with something like cross-eyed or duane syndrome eyes is a lot harder than it sounds. (In the future those will probably be solved medically so will go away, but not for existing people.)
Yep, pretty much.
Lets just say I'll believe it when I see it. We're nowhere close to that yet!
Uh, that's just a mock-up not based on any information. So your complaint should be addressed to the author, not to Apple.
This could be a great product for scientist who wants to visualized the molecular structure of enzymes. I had a physical puzzle/model I used in Organic Chemistry class in college. Oh wow, they're still selling the molecule kits.
Although the kits are relatively inexpensive, you'll need a lot of them to create something complex. Not to mention it would be pretty heavy.