I mean yeah it’s obvious that it’s an oportunity for making money on a new marked and so on, but, even if it’s a bit silly, dreaming of VR technology like in Ready Player One(minus the distopian world) for real life it feels like the bad guys already won, when we will have the technology. Like the omni One is just about to be launched for the market and it’s sold in a bundle with the pico 4, which is owned by Tik Tok. Do you get what is grinding my gears about that?
Personally, I actually expect VR to disappear from the market once more, or at least for there to be a long gap before the next stuff comes out.
In fact, I think, the Apple headset was the last notable hardware release of the current hype wave.So, yeah, the big privacy-invasive companies would definitely be a dealbreaker for me, but I don’t think this cycle really matters yet.
VR is the next 3DTV. It’s a neat technology that doesn’t need to be mainstream, but we have no shortage of company marketers desperately trying to create a narrative that every home needs it.
Well, there is the problem that if people spend several hundred dollars or more to buy a VR headset and potentially upgrade their PC/console for it, then they do expect blockbuster titles. A minigame collection, like the Wii had, isn’t going to fly. And blockbuster titles will only be produced, if there’s enough of an audience.
Like, yeah, it doesn’t need to be fully mainstream, but there is currently a disconnect between the number of
rich nerdswealthy techies that may naturally be interested in a VR headset and the audience size needed to pay for blockbuster titles.
Have you used any VR tech? It’s not something to be worried about
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Having used someone else’s quest that they’ve already sold their soul to sign up for they’re actually very good hardware wise, just a shame that’s because they’re subsidised by their ability to collect data
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I think it’s pretty great that Zuckerberg went all-in on the thankfully-wrong bet that his Second Life knockoff would somehow be popular and that people would actually want to strap a computer on their face to use it. 🤡
Which is to say, VR isn’t particularly high on the list of things I’m concerned about giant tech companies’ control of.
I recommend reading The Verge’s review of the Apple Vision Pro which concludes:
Apple may have inadvertently revealed that some of these core ideas are actually dead ends — that they can’t ever be executed well enough to become mainstream. This is the best video passthrough headset ever made, and that might mean camera-based mixed reality passthrough could just be a road to nowhere. This is the best hand- and eye-tracking ever, and it feels like the mouse, keyboard, and touchscreen are going to remain undefeated for years to come.
As someone who doesn’t want to live in a world where head-mounted cameras in public spaces become ubiquitous or even socially acceptable, I found that review to be good news.
I agree the idea of people wearing some Google glasses does kinda terrify me. At least with a phone you can see when somebody is filming you or not paying attention to you but reading their emails or whatever.
It’s certainly not ideal but is probably necessary to develop the technology. In a handful of years I’m hoping there will be less toxic options.
I think that most companies have been doing it absolutely wrong. Likely because they’re more interested in sucking more data from people to sell for profit than designing products that would appreciably improve people’s lives. Most of the handful of genuinely useful products are kept priced far too high for consumers. Apple, as insanely expensive as their product is, actually does seem to have identified some of the major issues that others have been completely ignoring but their implementation is a bit ridiculous.
The two companies that I know of that are actually making useful products are Xreal and Viture (haven’t tried the latter but they’re much my FOSS-friendly). For the price of a quality monitor/TV, they provide HMDs in a sunglasses form-factor that are actually usable for productivity despite only having 1080p displays. And don’t have creepy cameras. Yes, the lower FOV makes them less immersive but that’s actually beneficial - you can talk to and see other people in the “real” world. This and low weight makes them comfortable to wear all day and I’ve barely used my laptop or Steam Deck monitor since getting them setup.
I don’t think about VR produxts from those kinds of companies at all any more than their evil apps and websites.
Like a lot of hyped things, people still can’t actually functionally figure out good VR/AR applications that people would willingly strap a hot, heavy headset to their face for long periods. Nobody has time for that, most people are social and want to actually be around other people and not behind headsets. The terminally online and introverted are in the minority in humanity.
People who drive around wearing them in their Cybertrucks are a special subset of stupid. They obviously have not figured out anything helpful to do with them, either. This is why they are doing dangerous stunts instead of anything useful.
Also Valve is still a pretty big name in VR and I wouldn’t ignore the work they have done and seem to be continuing to do based on the Valve Index and rumors swirling about an Index 2 in the works. Valve is probably one of the few major players who take some amount of openness to their approach.
(Copying my comment from YT):
I fear AR will change society for the worse while making Facebook a lot of money. The reason why the internet currently has a bad effect on society is because it lets you block out the bad parts of reality while locking yourself a cozy bubble of content that suits you personally. Applying the same filter to people’s vision will only exasperate these effects. And a shift to AR will benefit Facebook massively: now, instead of just being able to influence what ads/posts you see, they will have the power to choose what parts of reality you percieve. Nobody will percieve the same reality anymore. Can you still see society being able to reach consensus then? Problems that are currently public will become private problems of those who cannot afford the AR to block them out. And all for Facebooks profit.
A truly responsible attempt at AR would focus on technologies that create the same experience for multiple – ideally an unlimited amount – of people. Think 3D tabletop diaplays, smart objects (think reMarkable tablet), holograms. This is accessible to anyone in the room (= inclusive), and guarantees that everybody will still be locked into the same, shared experience of reality.
I don’t give a shit. I can’t imagine ever using VR for anything other than a curious novelty. It’ll go the way of 3D TVs and keep going around and around every 20 years or so.
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Awful. Depressed. Hopeless.
