That is the difference, I guess.
I need performance, and I don't care about looks.
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Valve Drops Mac Support for SteamVR Less Than Three Years After WWDC 2017 Announcement
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That is the difference, I guess.
I need performance, and I don't care about looks.
So, you don't actually know about the topic then. FYI, SteamVR 2.0 allows multiple VR headsets in the same physical playspace (which can now be up to 6x6m), and everyone in the space is visible to each other.
I don’t HAVE to. The post tyranne201 was responding to likely wouldn’t consider the google t-rex as “those that game”. I’m now wondering, how does one really make any quantitative statements about gaming? Even saying “electronic gaming” doesn’t really narrow it down enough because you’d span from Mattel Classic Football to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 all under the same huge umbrella. I could look at how much money is made on one versus the other, but even that’s tainted nowadays with paid DLC and microtransactions. Would anyone be able to examine internet traffic to offer any valuable comparative data? This is WAY off topic by now, so I’ll take my musings elsewhere.
Fair point.
Grouping Switch Lite and iOS versus PC Windows, Switch Lite and iOS wins
Grouping Bucket of water and iOS versus Switch, bucket of water and iOS wins!I only looked at the numbers for Steam because you and others brought it up which I think is valid. ”There’s at least 95 million active users playing a game once a month” is a powerful thing to say. But, yeah, there’s a lot of folks outside that value.
How exactly does SteamVR 2.0 both show the other person who is within your play space and hide them when there is a virtual object obstructing your vision? If you throw up an outline you break immersion. If it only goes up when close it will always be on because you would need to know when the other person is within 6 feet of you else someone is getting a concussion.
I don’t HAVE to. The post tyranne201 was responding to likely wouldn’t consider the google t-rex as “those that game”. I’m now wondering, how does one really make any quantitative statements about gaming? Even saying “electronic gaming” doesn’t really narrow it down enough because you’d span from Mattel Classic Football to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 all under the same huge umbrella. I could look at how much money is made on one versus the other, but even that’s tainted nowadays with paid DLC and microtransactions. Would anyone be able to examine internet traffic to offer any valuable comparative data? This is WAY off topic by now, so I’ll take my musings elsewhere.
This really ends up being the point that drives the discussion. The stricter you define a video game the more it requires expensive dedicated hardware. The looser you define a game the more devices you have to consider. I mean, do you count the pay-to-win games on the app store as games? Do you consider recreational excel a game? Do flash games count as gaming? Is a video game defined by the intent of the developer or the function of the player? How many gamers do you count when playing a local multiplayer title? If I buy a game on steam but have it installed on three PCs, is that one gamer or three? What if three people play it? What if three people play it on one PC? Where do let's plays count. If I watch a let's play am I participating in play on that game? What if the let's player uses advice I give vs ignores it vs I don't speak?
1. I have worked on Microsoft products for many years. If it's not a windows update breaking things like removing static IP addresses off of servers then it's deleting data. That's just Windows Updates. How about in Windows 10 having settings and control panel? Interface design is a mess. Microsoft Edge is the new browser, oh wait, how about Microsoft Chrome? It should go without saying it is a virus nesting ground and if you decide to buy a windows PC for a loved one, you are basically technical support for life because it's not intuitive for newcomers. Should we bring up Windows 8 interface that was so confusing, MS fired the head windows guy and reverted back?
2. Plastic laptops are the main laptop offering of Windows Laptop with metal being exception. Every MAC is of high quality construction regardless of price point.
3. Apple's platform is ripe with Synergy that MS has tried to copy recently. I can text or make/answer calls from any Apple device. Been doing that for years too btw. Location sharing, reminders, and continuation of work flow is all baked in as well.
4. No argument here. I think the hardware while dated is good enough for most people which is the target, enthusiasts need to spring for the top of the line or Mac Pro boxes with insane price points. Or like you did, build a cheaper custom PC and deal with the shortcomings of another OS.
5. Google has been abandoning products left and right. Stop it. How many texting apps are they gonna make? The almost abandoned Google Voice for Hangouts now Hangouts is getting abandoned. Google Plus or what ever the social service that was counter to Facebook also got left behind. I could go on but you get the idea. Microsoft is the same and sometimes even worse. You know they were the first to come out with a mobile OS for phones? Yea, it was hot mess that stagnated and died due to lack of innovation. They tried again but you know how that ended up. Sounds like Internet Explorer right? Yes, the browser that almost destroyed the world wide web.
I know you are a fan of MS and Google so don't take it personal. Look at the bright side, Halo 3 PC is supposedly coming after all these years!
You really are inflating the frequency of these issues. If less than 1% of users notice an issue it's hard to get upset about it. Sure, it sucks, but most peoples issues are self-inflicted.
So... your point is that Windows laptops offer more options? If you don't like a design don't buy it. Also, this is fairly irrelevant to the topic of VR. Sure, there are Window's laptops that can drive a VR headset, but you don't need a laptop.
I don't know if it's weirder that you think Apple was first to do these things, or if you think it's relevant to VR.
I wouldn't call the ability to select any hardware a shortcoming.
What are you going on about? Google's not relevant to the conversation. Chromebooks aren't a thing anyone is considering for this application. And, are you talking about Windows CE / Mobile? What's your point? It was supported for over a decade. Sure, that's short for Microsoft OSs but it's not exactly abandonware at launch. Microsoft's issue was that they tried to push 2 operating systems before they dominated with one. But it was a popular alternative to RIM's options. They waited to long to refresh their design and by that point the were far behind. But there was never a lack of innovation. If anything they innovated to much.
Right... so, for clarity I am not a fan of any of these companies. They make products that are good and bad. Although, again, Google isn't really relevant to this conversation.
Halo was supposed to be a computer only game. Had it remained a Mac exclusive than maybe this news article wouldn't have existed. Anything Bungie made at that time was going to be a huge hit and as Halo proved, it didn't have to be good.
I need to repeat this, because it seems you either missed it the first time or forgot. Halo is a boring game. It's place in video game history comes from nostalgia and not some novel progression in video game history. It's claim to fame is that it was the best looking launch title available for the Xbox. But death by committee is baked through the game and it has the same sales figures as Ubisoft's Just Dance.
The article mentions that SteamVR will work on Parallels, anyone actually gotten this to work? I tried to work with Parallels support on it once but they too baffled to figure it out for me or the article is wrong.
The same way it shows you your controllers, and hides them when they're behind a virtual object you're working on.
A hinting outline isn't "breaking immersion" - it's exactly the sort of HUD annotation people are demanding Apple put into their real world with AR.
Again, SteamVR 2.0 supports a 10mx10m / 33x33' (rechecked figures) playspace - it's designed to allow teams to work collaboratively in the same environment.
What people want from AR does not equal what people want from VR. The value of VR is immersion. If I can see where other people in the room are in real space within the VR space it breaks the immersion because their avatar may not be in the same place. So if their avatar is to my left, but they are to my right I am either going to punch accidentally or I am going to be distracted by them being in two places.
Also, it's unrealistic to expect people to have 33x33' playspaces.
WTF? The way it works is it shows you avatars of the other participants in their actual location where their headset is. The same way as it shows you your own controllers, where they actually are in your hands. Everyone can walk around in the same space, and they all see the same fixed environment - typically the work area, same as you'd have a table in the centre of a meatspace design studio.
A 33x33 playspace is exactly what you'd have in a workplace where you have people collaborating.
Probably nobody buys a Mac just for gaming, but it's a nice addition.
I have a 15" MBP with Radeon Pro Vega 20 - it's primarily my work tool (and as a web developer I certainly don't need the power), and generally I prefer to play on the PS4. But I invest in the better graphics "just in case". It's nice to fire up Borderlands 3 on my laptop while away from home traveling too far for the PS4 Remote Play to make any sense. Both work with the PS4 controller, which I do carry around the world with me.
Valve moving away from Mac was foreshadowed by their handling (or the lack of it) of the Cataling force-push to 64 bits. Ever since Catalina killed 32 bit apps, nothing from my Steam library works anymore, it would have been nice to play some of the older games I still like (L4D2 or TF2, BL2) but not enough to go into the dual boot scenario.
What is the point of the shared space? You severely limit the immersion by restricting everyone else from moving. If everyone is trapped to the same box, and they can't leave the environment than they don't need to be in the same playspace. All being in the same playspace does is increase the likelihood that two people will collide. If all you need is to have two people looking at the same thing in VR than just have then sitting at their own desks.
Meanwhile, this is a feature targeting a very small segment of a already small market and it doesn't solve any of the problems with mass adoption of VR.
Gotta say I'm not surprised by this. It's sad to see, because in order for VR to gain adoption it has to be simplified, and Apple with the MacOS could provide that. Unfortunately it also needs a ton of performance, and even when a game is cross-platform it often performs so much better under Windows that I cant imagine trying to get a decent VR experience on the MacOS at this point. Combine that with poor cooling designs and excessive throttling, and you have major hardware and software roadblocks to implementing VR well on Apple's ecosystem. Even running it in Bootcamp with eGPUs might be problematic with the throttling, as VR can really tax your CPU, not just your GPU, and you absolutely have to maintain certain minimum frametimes to make the experience enjoyable (i.e. excessive CPU throttling is a really, really bad thing in VR, much more so than in traditional gaming). I just don't see it working out. Like I said, too bad, because VR as it is today is already pretty damn impressive, but you've got to be willing to be extremely persistent to get the best out of it. It is very much not "plug and play," at least not if you want to push your experience to be the best it can be. For example, I would say I probably put 20 hours into getting Skyrim VR to provide the experience it should have provided right out of the box, because the title is fundamentally broken in a number of ways that have to be overcome with the use of third-party mods and tools. The devs didn't even both to fix the Bethesda-engine physics bugs that occur above 60fps in that title. And that kind of thing is pretty common right now in VR - just lots of stuff to overcome unless you are extremely un-discerning when it comes to your overall experience.
Because sitting at a desk is a limited way to use VR. It's literally missing the point of it as a platform / medium / interface, unless you're making a vehicle driving simulator.
I'm sorry, but I can't figure out if you're being deliberately obtuse - do you normally collide with other people when you're in a room with them? What makes you think you'd collide with them in VR? It's the exact same proprioceptive experience, with the exact same visual and aural cues you use to navigate a shared space with your un-helmeted head - you can see their avatar in the place they're standing, they can see yours, you can hear them and hold conversations (with no lag) - it's a full meatspace experience. The proprioceptive immersion isn't a result of things looking "real", it's a result of the things that are there, coming from correctly stereo-separated perspectives, and updating at a high enough refresh rate, that they are frame-of-reference-static, relative to the HMD's movement. A ghostly avatar of another person in your space will do nothing whatsoever to "break" the immersion.
Have you used a full 6DOF VR externally-cued system to do any work tasks? If all you've done is sit with an Oculus (or other inside-out camera based system), or looked "out" at pretty virtual locations, that's missing the point.
VR as a tool is about being able to walk around in a space, to walk around virtual objects, and to interact with them at a 1:1 scale.
A shared space in VR is the exact same thing as a shared space in any product design or fabrication studio, it just lets you work with a blanked environment, and virtual materials. It lets you work big, and means you only need a single set of lighthouses that all the helmets can cue off etc. You can also divide a 10x10m Steam2.0 space into multiple sub spaces, if you want to. Either way, it's a lag-free groupwork environment.
If you look at Windows 3.11 as the point at which PCs ceased to be commandline devices for all but niche requirements, it was 9 years between the release of a fuly realised, fully functional mainstream GUI computer (original Mac), before the WIMP paradigm became the dominant way all computers were operated.
VR has only had 3 or so years since turnkey 6DOF systems became available (original Vive), so another 6 years before it's fully mature seems perfectly reasonable.
Mass adoption is a matter of cheap GPU power (Apple has neither cheap, nor power), and time for the first generation of tools to become production-mature - most of which is standardising things like Open/Save UIs etc. Right now, most VR tools are roughly analogous to Linux GUI tools - good enough to get work done, but with occasional rough edges.
Right... you are limiting the use of VR if you force people to work within a confined area. That's what you are claiming is so good. Being in a confined area. Because if the person is right next to me and I want to go two rooms east, either they need to come with me or there is going to be an outline of a person who is next to me in real space but not next to me in virtual space.
You just put someone in my play area and than gave conflicting information about their location. In the virtual world I am on the other side of a room, but in real life they are 2 feet away. When I go to reach for something on a shelf I am going sucker punch them because they are in my path in the real world even though they are in a different room in the virtual one.
Or we are always in the same room and the whole VR things could be done at a desk.
That works until there is a wall between you two.
If I am not supposed to see them, than by definition it broke the immersion.
I have a Vive, a Rift, and a Hololens 2. I am sure you are going to point out some feature they don't have. But it doesn't matter because that's what the market has. Any other solutions are not mass market items.
That's my point.
Ah. So you are pointing to a very limited poorly applied application of VR. What you describe is better served by AR. To make it work in VR you have to intentionally abandon the core of what makes VR special.
What does this have to do with a 16 year old playing minecraft and 45 year old woman playing rummy with her friends? Some engeniers working at Boeing isn't going to make VR mainstream.
It can mature as much as it wants. I have said that there is both hardware and software improvements that can make VR even better. The core issues however is that VR isn't a social experience, and people want social experiences. Even our cell phones have been designed with the idea that occasionally more than one person will want to use it at the same time. [/QUOTE]
Mass adoption is a matter of cheap GPU power (Apple has neither cheap, nor power), and time for the first generation of tools to become production-mature - most of which is standardising things like Open/Save UIs etc. [/QUOTE]
I disagree wholeheartedly. Those things will improve its limited use, but it won't make it adopted by everyone. AR however has the potential, but isn't a sure success.
Agreed, but that isn't the real issue. The issue is that at its fundamental core VR doesn't solve the problem that people seek out human contact and avoid activities that isolate individals in their social groups. Sure, some people might enjoy VR for slightly extended durations compared to what they can tolerate today, but it doesn't fix primary social dynamics.
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OK, here's where I can't figure the disconnect in your argument - the problem with AR, is that any environment where an AR task is done, is full of distracting real world background - unless you specifically need to integrate virtual objects with real world environments, AR is just VR without the ability to hide the distractions. The point of VR as a tool, is that it's able to blank the background. It is a better way to do many of the things people talk about wanting AR for. Look at a tool like Gravity Sketch - who in their right mind would want to try to design a car, in a room with walls, furniture, other people etc in the background. There's a reason we put art in galleries - it's to isolate it within a neutral space, so we can appreciate it in terms of itself, and itself only.
I still don't get your issue with bumping into people, unless you've never been in a situation where several people are working on a single thing that they are evaluating together. I also don't get your fixiation on whether you are or are not supposed to see something - immersion isn't a function of "reality", it's a function of stereo separation, and frame-permanence. A translucent avatar of another person you're sharing a workspace with, doesn't make the proprioceptive experience of the space less convincing to your body, vs actually seeing a physical person with your naked eyes.
What I use VR for work-wise, is mocking up objects that gat fabricated in the real world (I've also used it for achitecture with a Sketchup plugin that provides a full VR-based conversion of the toolset), but you're never wanting multipe people to go off to different locations (which you can do with Steam 2.0) - you're all there to look at and work on the same objects in the same location without the distraction of the studio environment.
My experience with VR outreach, because one of the things I do (or at least did when group activities were allowed) is open days for our VR lab - we'll put anything up to a couple of hundred people through the system in a few hours, children through to aged pensioners, is that realistically the limiting factor on "acceptance" is cost. Noone complains about the headset being too heavy, uncomfortable, about it being hard to use, or not immersing enough etc - it's the ~AU$5k setup. As 1080ti-level performance starts to reach lower down price-wise, that will change.
AR is not just VR. It is an different tool with a different experience. It's not trying to be simulation it's trying to be a tool. You call real world objects distracting? I call them essential. Most people want to interact with real world objects while engaging with a virtual object. They want to drink. They want to take notes with a real pencil. They want to see their friends actual facial expressions. AR offers the ability to read virtual and physical books. It lets you work on a task, in the real world, while pulling up videos and objects of what you should be doing.
Your use case, of everyone focused on a single shared object is the dream of AR. It's far more productive to have a room with just the tools you need than a room dedicated to simulating an empty room and than trying to simulate the objects and people you want with you. You can't do everything with one controller. And you loose so much information by not seeing the real world. So much of the feedback one gets from collaboration is non-verbal and all that is lost in VR but retained in AR.
I agree that VR excels in an isolated environment. I have mentioned that before in this thread. But it's biggest strength is also its weakness. That is the fundamental issue I have with it. It's isolated. Anything you do to remove that from the experience cheapens its value.
And for every person who builds something in a virtual environment there is 100,000 people who want to do it with real world materials. AR supports this, VR does not.
How many people do you have in this shared environment? 5? 10? You are not going to convince me that the cost saving of having one play area outweighs the annoyance of having that many people in that small area. If it's less than that that my point remains valid. You have separated the group into VR and non-VR people and in the real world that situation is actively avoided.
If the VR experience limits my movement to the area I can walk in, and everything is designed to focus attention on some single object, like it is art, than why do we need a shares space to work together? I can't see their face in VR, so I can't read reactions. I don't need their physical presence to have them help do something. What is the point of a shared playspace over two separate playspaces?
So in that one phase of design (which admittedly most people don't do) having a blank canvas with access to other peoples non-verbal responses, personal handwritten notes, real physical models, coffee, a pencil and paper, your phone, other computers, etc. might be useful. But that's not possible with VR.
I don't believe you that hundreds of people use the VR for hours. I think you are trying to say that hundreds of people use it for a few seconds to minutes over the course of hours. That doesn't represent mass market interest. It shows off how much humans enjoy trying new experiences. How many of those people go directly to Best Buy to get a VR headset? I suspect most people make some remark like 'hmm that's interesting/cool' while feeling the novelty is short lived and the experience is disorienting.
Although you do get the infuriating challenge of trying to explain to people how to use VR while not being able to actually show them. Yeah, good software makes it more intuitive but if your first VR experience occurs as a result of being in a place that has VR and not as a result of seeking out a VR experience than the learning curve is likely far greater.
I agree that cost is a limiting factor, but it's not the one that is keeping the platform from reaching expectations. It's also not the sea sick carsick feeling many people have while using it. It's the fact that in your demo they the social experience isn't using VR but the discussion after everyone tired it. When people buy a VR headset that shared experience doesn't translate at home and the early adopters have show the mass market they don't want one. That's what keeps it from becoming mainstream.
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Remember, VR allows video passthrough - you can do AR-like stuff with VR headsets now - for example, Miller's AugmentedArc welding trainer:
...but you can't do cleanroom environments with "AR Glasses". AR is a subset of VR.
To be honest, most of your AR examples don't seem to have any real need for AR headsets - why would you use AR to pull up a video, when you've got actual screens with vastly better picture quality that you can use? Why use an AR headset to read a virtual book, when you can bring up a virtual book on an iPad?
All of these tasks you're talking about doing while using AR, are going to be with a headset that's just as bulky as a VR headset. There is no display-based "glasses size" AR coming from Apple, or anyone. AR has a non-miniturisible problem of physics and optics, and the minimum distances needed to project sharp images onto human eyes. Just like Apple couldn't magically get around physics for the Airpower charging mat, I have no confidence in their ability to do it for optics.
Lets be clear about this, you're not getting a set of Oakley wraparounds with a heads-up display for the real world, you're not getting Lindberg Air Titaniums that you can watch video on while sitting on a train - that is toothfairy scifi tropes.
Just because Apple files patents on AR glasses, doesn't mean they can actually productise them.
Magic Leap burned through billions on their Ponzi Scam, and all they came out of it with (while making fedora-wearing Glassholes look like the peak of sartorial elegance), was an Ozymandais-scale trainwreck, whose only achievement is to suspend a 3x3" window a foot in front of your face, through which you can look at transparent Nintendo 64 quality graphics.
That isn't a product, or a workflow.
*edit* what is a workflow, is adding 3D to existing display paradigms, including iPad displays, by building on existing 3DTV glasses tech. Looking at an AR object on an iPad is 2D, Looking at an AR object on an iPad while wearing 3D glasses, would be 3D.
Now, if you think people are more likely to want to spend all their day at their desk in a Hololens / Northstar setup, for AR to just be a small part of all their different working tools, than they are to want to immerse in an environment where everything is done inside their tool, that's where we're going to have to disagree. All the VR workers I know do around 4 hours as a continuous session, their tools have reference boards in the workspace, notes areas etc. They're not drinking coffee while they're working, they're using both hands, and their entire bodies to do the job. None of these people are using it for "simulation" (except insofar as they're simulating a workspace) it's for product design, 3D modelling & animation, architecture etc, and what they like about it, is that it's not sitting at a desk.
As for facial expressions, take a look at realtime facemapping that existing VR headsets can do using their downfacing cameras, which can see the bottom half of the user's face. You can send a realtime animated mesh of a person's face, in lower bandwidth, and get a higher visual quality than actual video, and unlike a person with half their face obscured by an AR rig, that mesh-driven avatar can be full face.
Well, I have my own direct experience of it, we use VR for hours on end. Loss of a sense of time is perhaps the most consistent symptom I see in people using it, mostly because of how utterly engrossing the experience of the tools is, but also, because a total lack of distraction means flow states are maintained.
Just to touch on why you'd use multiple people in one tracked space, vs each person in their own space (apart from lower costs on lighthouses from only needing one set for the playspace, rather than a separate set for every person), my suspicion is that the overhead in synchronising multiple players locations relative to in-world virtual objects etc is going to be a lot higher than simply having them all tracked within the one singular playspace environment, especially when you add the overhead and latency of audio streaming etc.
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You can't do good AR. You can do a nausea-inducing version with significant lag and poor real world image quality. The whole benefit of real AR is to remove the lag associated with capturing the environment.
Trying to replicate AR in VR makes VR a stop-gap to true AR. It does not make AR a subset of VR.
Why use a AR? When you can't reasonably have a screen in front of you. Anything that requires you to be moving about, be in a confined space, or always have access data without looking away. Surgery, mechanic in a tight spot, training for things like driving cars, trucks, or boats.
I never said it needed to be.
Again, it doesn't have to be in a pair of raybans. Society won't be very accepting of hidden cameras, so it doesn't need to be a solution that is always on you.
Right... again... I am not asking for that.
You are just repeating yourself and I am not making an assertion that this is required.
The hololens 2 shows that AR exists in a form that is functional.
No, but the HoloLens 2 is. The product has issues, but not any of the ones you addressed.
Great. But that is as related to AR or VR as a pop up books is.
People generally prefer their tech to disappear. VR forces you to make the world disappear. Which is great, for the short periods you want that to occur. But as soon as you need actual collaboration with other people, or access to anything else in your environment it's no longer useful.
Because they can't. That isn't a selling point.
I agree. Your use cases for VR are very limited and most of what you are describing isn't how the average person wants to use VR. Those same people would prefer an AR solution.
That doesn't exist in consumer products. Also you can't capture the facial expressions of people not wearing a headset. Remember, in no situation is everyone wearing AR or VR, but you still need to be able to work with them.
For 4 hours. I adamantly disagree that the average person can use VR that long. Your sample is biased because it's based on people who have trained themselves to do it. Not everyone can overcome all the issues of VR to get to that point. More importantly most people will not want to do it.
It is a solution to a problem caused by the device itself.
What's your definition of "good" AR - Lag is a camera issue, put a 120fps camera on the front of a VR headset, you're well over the nausea threshold. I get seasick looking through the electronic viewfinder of a mirrorless camera (hence I shoot with DSLR), because they only use a 60fps refresh and I'm very lag-sensitive, but I can work in VR all day - you just have to have the refresh over 90fps, which all good headsets do.
I maintain, AR is a subset of what VR can do - VR systems can do AR tasks, AR systems cannot do VR tasks, that makes AR a subset, and VR a superset. If Apple can call AR on a phone screen "AR", then AR through a VR headset is just as much AR. If you're going to insist on a "no True Scotsman" definition, then what you're fetishising is the tool's aesthetic and methodology, not its utility.
Realistically the only distinction between the AR & VR, is one of them can block out the outside world. Whether that is achieved by a VR headset that has passthrough video, or a fitted AR headset that has a lightsafe electrically opaquing visor doesn't really matter - the point is the size of the thing is going to be similar either way.
Wide field of view, and high quality graphics, necessitate a certain size of lenses and length of optical path, regardless of what sort of headset they're in.
If you look at the environmental requirements for Hololens, you basically need to build an environment around it. I don't buy the "just use it while you're active" argument. It sounds like it's just as tethered to specialised, controlled locations, as a Vive is to its lighthouse-designated playspace.
As for surgery, this is not the dark ages, we don't do most surgery with naked eyes. It's mostly keyhole, and mediated through cameras already.
And training is already done through VR - you absolutely do not want learners operating vehicles with their vision obscured by anything if they still need so much hand-holding that they need in-vision training materials.
That's why we use VR for vehicle training.
So, it's the size of a VR Headset, it's as face-obscuring as a VR Headset, but it's able to do less than a VR headset.
Unless the technology is so compelling that using it is the point of the tech - all these AR tasks you're talking about, you're making incremental improvements to other tasks, at the cost of a bulky head appliance. It's a dispensable addition. What VR provides is workflows and capabilities that simply can't be done with AR, or any other way. Again, VR hardware's capabilities are a superset of those of AR hardware.
I mean it's being done right now with consumer headsets that have inside-out camera tracking - A person in a hololens can only be seen from the nose down - so it's the exact same facial area that's exposed.
I literally put old-age pensioners with no prior exposure to VR in it, and after a 15 minute demo, they work in Tilt Brush for hours on end. Their only limits, are standing endurance, not the use of the headset itself, which would be the same limits an AR user would encounter. So, your opinions don't match my observed experience.
Here's where things stand IMHO:
- AR-Only headsets are not inherently any more compact than VR Headsets, outside of the science fantasy of "AR Glasses".
- AR-Only Headsets are just as tethered to controlled environments, as VR headsets are to their playspaces.
- VR Headsets can do AR tasks just as effectively, even moreso because they can process passthough video, eg low-light image amplification, contrast boost, darkening tint etc.
And, while we talk about whether things are niche, and what "ordinary" people are going to want to use, we need to remember, ordinary people get surgery on their eyes, to avoid having to wear glasses at all. Glasses of any type are not a thing "ordinary" people want to wear, ever. You say people want their tech to disappear, but an appliance you have to wear on your face is as intrusive as tech can be.
I also think a major motivator for the AR fantasy has some pretty creepy class issues bound up within it - people who live in a 1%er fantasy world already, are inherently more likely to think about ways to augment that world. Ask someone in a single-room studio if they want to take up space with extra virtual objects, or if they want to have a limitless vista / empty distraction-free workspace, Vs. a wealthy person whose house is bigger than the Steam Home, you're going to get different answers.
A 120 fps camera isn't all that you would need. You also need screens putting out 120 fps at its low point and even that doesn't seem sufficient. Considering there is still a difference between 120 and 240 fps monitors I think the hardware for VR to simulate AR is far from close. Maybe someday they can get the tech inside a headset, but that isn't a soon solution.
AR Systems could do VR tasks by blacking out the screen, but I go back to my previous point that AR and VR are as related as cousins.
If we are able to get past the huge issues that VR has with replicating the functions that AR has VR still has to deal with the issue that it's not going to be accepted. The Auto industry can't get the government to allow high speed cameras to replace side mirrors, we will not see mass production VR headsets approved in the driver seat. We don't have the built in limitations that AR has.
Again. You are focused on size.
Hololens 2 doesn't teather to controlled locations.
This is absolutely false. Laparoscopic surgery is only used for a some surgical procedures and many surgeons don't have access to or training on the equipment so the rely on more traditional approaches.
Not training. Actually using the vehicles in practice.
You keep saying less. I disagree with that statement. VR can its best partially simulate an AR experience, but it is always a simulation and never an open platform that can be used while off. It still can't be used with a true social experience.
Yes. All tools are incremental improvements to other tasks.
That's not true. You can see their eyes quite clearly.
Even if this is true it doesn't fix the selection bias. I put people in VR all the time and after minutes they have no intrest in it.
- The size of AR and VR headsets is not a concern.
- This isn't true, they are not tethered to controlled environments.
- VR headsets can not do AR tasks anywhere near as effectively with any technology that is even on the horizon. Unless someone has a smartphone sized GPU that can power two 240 hz 8k displays without being plugged into a computer VR can't do anything close to what AR can do right now.
I agree that they neither are going to be more popular than smartphones, but AR has a much better chance of general social acceptance than VR. And social acceptance in everyday scenarios has to be the goal. You are not going to see regular use of VR in a coffee shop or a vehicle. You will see it with AR.
I can tell from your word choice and your understand of the technology that you really do know a lot about the hardware. As for surgery, no. Not only is Lasik no where near as popular as wearing glasses, even in very progressive areas of the USA and Europe, the number of people undergoing the procedure is decreasing. I can't tell you why? It's probably not price since that has dropped substantially.
Ok... now I am confused. Do you think virtual objects take up real space? People can use AR outside. They can use it anywhere. It's not like VR where they need a spare room devoid of furniture.
