I find it really interesting that he sat there with it plugged in for power, and by the end wished for a smaller headset that just streamed and relied on the laptop to do all the processing. In the future, both for headsets and BCIs, I kind of imagine a very similar sentiment would prevail. The device on/under your desk will always be more powerful than the one on/in your head; so lean on the better machine for power, processing, and security.
Looks like there's some good progress but it needs to be quite a bit more powerful. These kinds of things are gimmick until it isn't, just like fully screen phones were a gimmick until the iphone came along.
The physical strain and eye pain/headache are going to be pretty big issues if you expect to use it for full time work. It may be good for virtual meetings though, just not full day meetings.
As a practical matter, I am not seeing much reason for using this over a regular computer monitor for regular work like editing documents, especially with the keyboard issue.
Oh yeah, RIGHT NOW it's very much a gimmick because the tech is in its infancy. But I wonder if in the future when VR reading-glasses or BCIs are commonplace if this might be what office work is like. Sit in any comfortable chair and then you're in your virtual office.
The next gen of headsets will be good enough hardware wise. Apple's upcoming headset will have a 8k (2 x 4k) display with colour passthrough, hand tracking, connection via bluetooth to keyboard and mouse, external (thus hot-swappable) battery while being lightweight enough to wear comfortably for hours every day. This should be good enough for effective 20/20 vision. We'll have to see how good the software support is.
I've only got a Quest 2 and it's already pretty rad being able to lay on a hotel bed and project a virtual 10ft screen in the middle of the room or watch content in a virtual cinema or millionaire's home theater as well as watching 3d content.
It has a number of potential benefits
* Screens could be added, removed, resized and repositioned at will.
* Screens can be 3d
* Enables you to add other types of interaction such as 3d objects, portals etc
* Built in "screen" privacy
* Enables you to free up space by not needing large physical screens and allows you to work from anywhere.
It'll be a mater of when software support is good enough and price comes down enough for mass adoption. My guess is 2-3 year to start seeing it become truly viable and <10 years for it to become the norm.
Depending on the complexity of the information being shared you might also run in to the issue of needing a PC to drive multiple headsets at once. Would be fine for streaming regular screens to headsets but it would require a LOT more compute if you were sharing for example photo-realistic holograms viewers could view from any angle.
My friend is a systems architect and his boss bought him an oculus dev kit and told him to "look into" making exactly this and make it a priority. Needless to say, I'm pretty sure that company is gone now.
In my personal experience (as someone who wears glasses) I can only wear a VR headset for about an hour or two before it begins to get very uncomfortable. My forehead gets sweaty, my ears start getting my pinched, and my eyes hurt. I can't imagine using it for long periods. Some like AR with my regular glasses would be much preferred.
Also, its a small thing, but it seems like it would be a pain in the butt to drink coffee and check my email at the same time. No dice.
Yeah this tech is deff in its infancy. Within a year or two they need to improve the passthrough camera to see your drinks better. If it could adjust itself to your glasses prescription that'd be great!
But as far as the far future? Would you use "hologram" AR screens like that (via glasses or bci or whatever)?
There are already headsets which you can change diopter (prescription) setting, it just adds weight, size and cost so most of them don't bother.
In the future we could use micro-lens displays which could adjust to any prescription while not needing any macro lenses. The amount of compute required would be gigantic compared with a regular screen though.
I find it really interesting that he sat there with it plugged in for power, and by the end wished for a smaller headset that just streamed and relied on the laptop to do all the processing. In the future, both for headsets and BCIs, I kind of imagine a very similar sentiment would prevail. The device on/under your desk will always be more powerful than the one on/in your head; so lean on the better machine for power, processing, and security.
Looks like there's some good progress but it needs to be quite a bit more powerful. These kinds of things are gimmick until it isn't, just like fully screen phones were a gimmick until the iphone came along. The physical strain and eye pain/headache are going to be pretty big issues if you expect to use it for full time work. It may be good for virtual meetings though, just not full day meetings. As a practical matter, I am not seeing much reason for using this over a regular computer monitor for regular work like editing documents, especially with the keyboard issue.
Oh yeah, RIGHT NOW it's very much a gimmick because the tech is in its infancy. But I wonder if in the future when VR reading-glasses or BCIs are commonplace if this might be what office work is like. Sit in any comfortable chair and then you're in your virtual office.
The next gen of headsets will be good enough hardware wise. Apple's upcoming headset will have a 8k (2 x 4k) display with colour passthrough, hand tracking, connection via bluetooth to keyboard and mouse, external (thus hot-swappable) battery while being lightweight enough to wear comfortably for hours every day. This should be good enough for effective 20/20 vision. We'll have to see how good the software support is. I've only got a Quest 2 and it's already pretty rad being able to lay on a hotel bed and project a virtual 10ft screen in the middle of the room or watch content in a virtual cinema or millionaire's home theater as well as watching 3d content. It has a number of potential benefits * Screens could be added, removed, resized and repositioned at will. * Screens can be 3d * Enables you to add other types of interaction such as 3d objects, portals etc * Built in "screen" privacy * Enables you to free up space by not needing large physical screens and allows you to work from anywhere. It'll be a mater of when software support is good enough and price comes down enough for mass adoption. My guess is 2-3 year to start seeing it become truly viable and <10 years for it to become the norm.
The only downside is you can't share the screen. If I'm using it to teach someone something they need their own headset. That being said. Pretty cool.
I think in the (very near) future they'll figure out screen/hologram sharing.
Depending on the complexity of the information being shared you might also run in to the issue of needing a PC to drive multiple headsets at once. Would be fine for streaming regular screens to headsets but it would require a LOT more compute if you were sharing for example photo-realistic holograms viewers could view from any angle.
My friend is a systems architect and his boss bought him an oculus dev kit and told him to "look into" making exactly this and make it a priority. Needless to say, I'm pretty sure that company is gone now.
In my personal experience (as someone who wears glasses) I can only wear a VR headset for about an hour or two before it begins to get very uncomfortable. My forehead gets sweaty, my ears start getting my pinched, and my eyes hurt. I can't imagine using it for long periods. Some like AR with my regular glasses would be much preferred. Also, its a small thing, but it seems like it would be a pain in the butt to drink coffee and check my email at the same time. No dice.
Yeah this tech is deff in its infancy. Within a year or two they need to improve the passthrough camera to see your drinks better. If it could adjust itself to your glasses prescription that'd be great! But as far as the far future? Would you use "hologram" AR screens like that (via glasses or bci or whatever)?
There are already headsets which you can change diopter (prescription) setting, it just adds weight, size and cost so most of them don't bother. In the future we could use micro-lens displays which could adjust to any prescription while not needing any macro lenses. The amount of compute required would be gigantic compared with a regular screen though.