I've got a long-standing bet with a friend that 'VR' will take off as soon as it becomes 'AR', ie transparent glasses that overlay information on the real world.
That, IMO, is the killer feature, and once it hits takeoff, the headset era of VR will be looked back at as a necessary stepstone that was ultimately completely replaced with what ultimately will be used.
VR by itself is probably a thing. There are times when you want an immersive experience such as gaming or virtual exploration. But I expect it's a niche. I'm not wearing VR to your virtual meeting.
AR, in the inobstrusive/genuinely useful sense is harder but seems far more interesting. Yes, there are social factors to deal with as well, but I can certainly see worn information displays becoming a thing.
I don't disagree! Rather, it's just that I expect AR glasses to have a fully-blacked-out mode when necessary, and those full-immersion times will just be one (small, I'm willing to bet) mode of the overall headset.
As a side note, my friend and I first made this bet back in the DK2 days, and I was ~60% confident I was correct. What pushed me in to the 90%+ region was playing with an Oculus Quest. The guardian mode, freedom from wires, hand tracking, pass-through mode, etc... Everything that felt like a real step forward was also something that will ultimately apply to AR glasses. It really made me think I was on the right track.
I think the other things that's happened with VR is just the quality/size of TVs generally. No that doesn't deal with a few specific aspects of VR like flight simulators and FPS. But having a high-res 75" or whatever screen in front of you basically handles "virtual reality" for anything that doesn't involve looking around.
Can we be so certain of this, especially given the events of the last year? If VR technology had been perfected at the time, it seems very likely to me that instead of a shift to Zoom at the outbreak of the pandemic, many companies, government agencies and (especially) schools would have made the move to VR. It will be interesting to see how VR is integrated into our every day lives (both voluntarily and otherwise) as it is perfected.
Because that's not how people attend meetings. Meetings are mostly not-full focus events. That's not to say that VR couldn't have a role in, say, an in-depth review of a hardware design. But, the typical meeting? People are turning their cameras on and off and are probably spending about 50% attention depending upon how relevant the current topic is to them. This of course happens in the physical world as well.
>Meetings are mostly not-full focus events. That's not to say that VR couldn't have a role in, say, an in-depth review of a hardware design. But, the typical meeting? People are turning their cameras on and off and are probably spending about 50% attention depending upon how relevant the current topic is to them.
This is true, at least in part, because Zoom meetings allow this, not necessarily because this is the behavior that an employer views as ideal. If VR technology was well-developed, I think its likely that many employers would hold VR meetings for the very reason that employees would be forced to give 100% of their attention. Certainly this is true when it comes to schools, which have done everything possible to ensure that students are paying 100% attention all the time, aren't using supplemental materials during tests (cheating), ect.
>When North Carolina A&T State University junior Arielle G. Brown took her International Marketing exam in September, a cheating-detection program analyzed her behavior through a computer webcam the entire time. After the test, her associate professor fired off a furious email ripping into her class for some “negative behavior” the software had flagged.
>“A STUDENT IN 6 MINUTES HAD 776 HEAD AND EYE MOVEMENTS,” she wrote, adding later, “I would hate to have to write you up.”
Everyone keeps recommending vacuum robots to me, but they don't solve the hard parts of vacuuming. A vacuum robot will not move furniture around to get the dust in the corners. A vacuum robot will not clean the dust on my desk, or in my keyboard.
It is very true that a robot vacuum will not solve ALL your vacuuming problems.
It really only solves maintenance cleaning IE doing the main bits that get dirty most often like common walkways, near the front door etc.
For me, that is 90% of the work. I only live in a small place and wife and I appreciate it. In a large house, with 3 or more kids? I'd buy one for every floor if I had to.
For the other 10%, I have a dyson battery powered stick thing. Gets into the nooks, does the keyboard and the car too.
And there is something nice about being able to do the dishes, wash and dry clothes, vacuum the floor; all while playing games.
But there are already glasses like this? Google Glass, Epson Moverio, Magic Leap are the first few that enter my mind. And none of these seem to really be "taking off". Sure, there are niche applications that match the constraints of these, but it's not clear to me at what point your bet would be considered to have failed because of a lack of "taking off"...
The only thing that comes close is the Hololens, and if you ever get a chance to play with one (which I do recommend!) you'll see immediately why it Isn't There Yet™. The biggest killer is that the field of view is tiny- think a single A1/Letter sized sheet of paper held at arm's length. It feels less like AR and more like a view portal, and since it currently has no way to block light behind its projections, everything is washed out. Not to mention that it's closer to the headset side of things than regular glasses.
It's certainly a start, but there's a long way to go.
Nitpick: you mean A4. As an aside to those who don’t get to use ISO A paper sizes, they are trés cool. The x/y edge sizes are the (edit) square root of two. A0 is 1 square metre in area. Each step (A1, A2, A3, ...) just chops the sheet in half.
As an aside, there are also ISO B and C series paper, although I believe that the C standard was withdrawn somewhat recently. The area of B_n is the geometric mean of that of A_n and A_{n-1}, while the area of C_n is the geometric mean of that of A_n and B_n. Without context, C4 paper sounds quite scary, until you realize it's probably related to A4 paper in some way. As to why it isn't just called A3.75, I have no idea.
It's bizarre how inverse-correlated motion sickness susceptibility vs VR sickness appear to be. I don't get motion sick at all, but even a few minutes in a poorly-designed VR experience makes me want to puke. Some of my friends are complete opposites. Most people I know are lean one direction or another, usually pretty strongly.
I do wonder if this is a simple statistical fluke, or if it's pointing at some deeper aspect of our biology.
But motion sickness is when there's acceleration. That is, the physical acceleration is the cause of the sickness. It's not the visuals.
VR sickness is when there's somewhat equivalent visuals, but not acceleration. So I could see motion sickness and VR sickness being essentially opposites.
Arm-chair psycho-psychologist: Extra attuned to your eyes, and you get VR sickness because your body keeps refusing to follow what your eyes are telling your brain. Extra attuned to your body, and you get motion sickness because your eyes keep refusing to confirm what your body is telling you.
Anecdotal evidence: if you get motion sickness, you can help mitigate it by focusing on the horizon (ie, feed your eyes what your body is already telling you).
If you get VR sickness, maybe you can concentrate your focus on your body/breath to mitigate.
I worked on a relatively compact head mounted display that the company thought would be successful for 3D movies (this was 2005/6). They also imagined that users would want to watch this content while traveling on airplanes. We did some (cheaper) user testing by putting people in the back of a limo and driving on highway 280 in the bay area. One of the users had to pull over to vomit. He was an ex-fighter pilot.
I get very motion sick, but I do fine in VR. The only time I get sick with VR is when the motion is not correlated with my head movement.. for example, if you turn the camera with a controller.
I was "walking" around in some VR meeting thing called RecRoom, I wanted to throw up. If I was teleported, it was mostly okay, still nauseating but holy cow it physically hurt to move like that.
Yeah, I really wish people qualified where they're having the problems.
Seated experiences where you use smooth locomotion are bad. Aircraft (or spaceship) cockpit type experiences are even worse because not only do you have translation that's out of sync with your inner ear and sense of movement, but you have rotation as well (which is much worse).
also, newer headsets are much, much better than in the 90s.
Right, but as I'm sure you realize, if that's the case, then mass-adoption of VR is a non-starter. We /love/ games and movies that transport us to places. There are very very few movies with a static camera, though I do happen to like them.
I am not sure. In the past year I have actually started to see quite a few non techie friends buy the oculus quest and are avid users.
I do feel like we are at a turning point where VR will become the dominant non mobile gaming device of the future. If it will be used much outside of gaming is the big question.
Agree with you. I think we've just entered a period of rapid adoption, and the driver is FB making better and better low-cost entry level devices, hopefully pulling along more and more competitors.
I think VR headsets are within a factor of 10 of the cost of a good monitor, and within a factor of 5 of the angular resolution of 20:20 vision. It seems very plausible to me as the resolution goes up and costs come down that e.g. a company would start pushing employees towards a headset instead of multiple monitors within the next decade.
It guess what I learned is that each piece is about a "concept." Say it clearly. And enjoy it years later by reading it again. And finally publish something, no matter how small once monthly.
1. "smudge factor" - does this ink dry quickly?
2. "dropped pen on point from distance" - is the pen resilient when dropped on/close its point?
3. "consistency factor over time"- does the pen deliver flow throughout its lifetime?
For #1, the experience is immediately soured if the pen is lifted onto my hand seconds after writing. Some brands have this problem - and it sucks. Ex: if writing quickly in a pocket moleskine, close it, and then open to find lifting on the other page.
For #2, most pens dropped on their head distorts the roller ball action. I've lost a few pens to this problem.
#3 some pens I've had in this list will not last the whole way through - either the ball rolls too much ink, or jams over the lifetime, rendering the remaining experience less than ideal.
I've been journaling for a few years, daily, and always carried a roller pen of various brands. My go to continues to be the uniball vision, which is good, but still is subjected to all above.
I agree with you about #1; it bothers me, too. I have a suggestion which you may not like: switch away from Moleskines.
I have a stack of used Moleskines. For years I used them exclusively, buying them in bulk. Honestly, I gritted my teeth a little each time I picked one up. I love the ergonomics and the size, but the paper is awful.
I'm not alone in this opinion[0]; an unopinionated Google search turns up plenty of similar criticism. The surface is too slick and hard to absorb ink well, so nearly everything smears. It's also oddly prone to ghosting through to the other side, especially with felt tip pens. It's hard to win.
I tried everything with them: fountain pens, gel ink, liquid rollerballs, fat and fine felt tips, space pens. What worked best were cheap-ass Bics, but only because the ink is basically colored glue, and they're punishing to write with.
I've since switched to artist sketch books, like Pentalic Nature Sketch[1]. I don't care about the brand. I just go to my local art supply store and buy something in the right size with good-feeling paper. There are some ergonomic compromises (e.g., maybe you don't like spirals), but the paper is first-class, and that's become my priority. I get my Hi-Tec-C refills from JetPens, and they have some good notebook advice[2].
If you're looking for a Moleskine kind of size but want paper that isn't terrible, I like Leuchtturm1917 [0]. It's reasonably easy to get a hold of in all of the parts of the world I've lived in so far.
God moleskines have the shittiest paper. They have a nice form factor with the size, elastic band, and rear pocket, but they are garbage to write on with every pencil and pen I’ve tried - and I’m an artist, I had a lot of different tools to try the last time I tried them.
Currently I have multiple Pentalic Traveller Pocket Journals lying around (https://www.pentalic.com/traveler-pocket-journal/), they are basically “Moleskine except the paper isn’t waxy trash that your ink slides off of”. No spiral binding, either, they’re perfect bound.
I was complaining in another comment about the ink refill that came with a Waterman pen I was given not working well. And, yes, it was specifically on the Moleskins I use that I was having a problem. I'd have to get the pen "started" on another piece of paper to write reliably. (The Uni-ball gel pens are fine.)
One thing I don't get is, why this obsession with roller/fountain/gel pens when ballpoints have none of the issues and arguably have better ink properties?
If by "ballpoint" you mean something like a Bic pen or a Fisher Space Pen, it's an easy answer for me. In a typical day I cover several pages with text and sketches. I want a pen that works well for both.
I don't believe that ballpoints have better ink properties. Quite the reverse. I believe they make more predictable marks on low-quality paper, but that's one of only a few benefits.
Ballpoints tend to have large balls and produce a fat line. I like finer lines with more detail.
Ballpoints tend to have thick ink. It doesn't dry quickly on the page.
Ballpoint ink tends to accumulate on the edge of the ball, and leave periodic ink turds on the paper.
Ballpoints tend to require a lot of pressure to produce a line. I want to use as little pressure as possible.
Put another way, I want a pen that with little pressure produces a fine line that is easy to modulate (thick or thin, dark or light) and dries fast. I've yet to find a ball point that comes close to those properties.
It is what I mean, but I am fascinated that I find that ballpoint works better for me for those purposes. To be fair the ballpoint I use took me a while to find - Parker Jotter case with refills they now call "QuinkFlow." They write smoothly without requiring much pressure, with quite a thin line. The only pen I found that can produce a thinner line is a Pentel Needle Tip with a 0.3mm ball.
The thing I love about any ballpoints though is that they are pressure-sensitive - they produce a lighter line with less pressure, which is great for sketches and shading. I find that rollers are either on or off.
I never experienced the ballpoint ink not drying, in fact the opposite - ballpoint is usually dry instantly, while with rollers I have to be mindful and wait a few seconds or more with pooled ink.
The only issue I found ballpoint has that roller doesn't is the "ink turds" you mention. These happen especially when I try to draw long straight lines (maybe even with a ruler). At the end of the line if I'm not careful I can end up with a giant drop of ink that can turn into an unsightly smudge. But, I found a way around it - I need to keep rotating the pen so that different sides of the ball enclosure collect the ink, letting the collected ink get pulled into the paper.
As for #1, if my experience is anything to go by, substitute your Moleskines for Leuchtturm notebooks.
(I've used Moleskines as my go-to field notebook for fifteen years or so, until making the switch to Leuchtturm a couple of years ago - the paper is vastly better, ink dries faster, less bleeding, pages are even numbered - overall an even better product than the moleskines (which I am still very fond of, mind)
Smudge factor is a really important point. I think that should be measured in seconds. Maybe call it "smudge time" or "drying time"? Test it at different intervals until it doesn't smudge: 20lb paper, a 1 cm straight line and a kleenex for smudging.
Mod making was a digital cabal concept, with local leads forming fiefdoms. They were opinionated to a design/delivery. Sometimes straying to other mods, but mostly focusing on one concept at a time.
Valve also hired really heavily from the mod community. I spent a good portion of my youth in that scene and the people that they hired they really went far for(relocation, visas, etc).
I think most of the leads for the more popular mods(outside of CS obviously) ended up there in one form or another if they were interested in it.
Nice writeup. I was part of a mod team that got by Valve long time ago, and indeed it was a giddy fun time. We had no idea what we were doing, but we just created a game that we wanted to play - and it seemed to have worked.
This is why I refer to it as Technical Tax. Your technical tax bracket is proportional to the amount of cruft and bitrot in the system. A technical tax bracket of 100% means every last bit of development effort is expended on simply maintaining the status quo. So, efforts to lower technical tax bracket can come from refactors, and cleanups, but also from introducing new technologies that diminish current limitations unlocking new capabilities.
https://dev.to/solidi/what-is-a-principal-engineer-anyway-55...