| >It is the obvious extension of existing trends in technology. I'm not so sure, but perhaps... although there's some really big problems that need to get solved to get there, and some of them aren't technological problems. 1. The technology isn't there yet. To their credit, it might be getting close though. A not insignificant number of people still get sick from VR goggles. The resolutions just aren't at present sufficient. Available portable computing power might not be enough at present. IMO, the cartoonized VR environments we can currently produce on the fly aren't going to be of as much interest as more realistic environments and avatars. The spatial resolution of sensors and lack of tactile feedback aren't gonna cut it for even the most basic tasks. 2. People wearing VR goggles look dorky AF. In fact, they ARE dorky AF. I don't think Facebook's upper management fully appreciates this issue. Social stigma is a hell of a thing to try and fight. It's not impossible to do, but it will be way more challenging than I believe they think it is. 3. No one wants to wear a blindfold in public. VR goggles are basically that and worse. AR might be able to address that, but for whatever reasons, having a screen in your hand doesn't trigger the same vulnerability response people would have to VR goggles. (It should, because it steal our attention like nothing else, but it doesn't.) People don't feel comfortable if they can't read the social cues of people around them and see danger approaching. I think one of their strategies is the most promising: Turn AR/VR into a common workspace standard. Monitors are big, clunky, hard to move, inflexible, etc. If you could use VR to create a really clean functional workspace to replace the monitor, that might be a real winner and help drive up comfort and adoption issues. This is still a really hard domain to solve though. In video calls, we still have a lot of people who call in on their phone. This technology is compatible with lots of devices. One person wearing a VR isn't going to be compatible with everyone else though. If I'm meeting you, in general and especially for anything with higher stakes, I don't want to talk to a fucking cartoon, I want to see your face. |
Agreed, but they have form in this area. I remember when FB came out, and it was considered completely insane to use your real name on the Internet.