zlacker

>>gumby+(OP)
The thing that got me about the Magic Leap is I couldn't find a reliable video of what it looked like through the lenses. Everything was clearly a CGI overlay or recreation. Reviewers claimed they were prohibited from showing video through the lenses.[0]

I can understand not wanting their product misrepresented, but all the secrecy and censorship about it makes me believe it is bad, and I'm not going to spend money on something I believe is bad.

0. https://youtu.be/TfzlU7nW23Y?t=34

>>daenz+X3
Another dimension to consider: if it's good, how long is it good for?

I just got done writing a long thread on the history of 3D as a novelty: https://twitter.com/williampietri/status/1203074623232851970

But the basic summary is that since the 1850s, people keep coming up with exciting 3D innovations that sell lots of units for a while, but that never make much of a difference. Stereoscopic 3D is interesting and fun; we all loved our ViewMasters. But once the novelty wore off, we put it on a shelf and rarely picked it up again. The ViewMaster is basically a slinky for our eyeballs.

I've talked with quite a number of people who have bought VR systems, and I have yet to find one who uses it with the sort of frequency that people use their gaming consoles, PCs, laptops, or phones to play games. Maybe this wave of innovation will eventually take face-mounted VR from "novelty" to "daily driver", but it doesn't sound like it's here yet.

>>wpietr+Nu
You are confusing tech deficiency for the lack of interest. Imagine if the tech was available so you can see 3D content covering the entire human FOV in 8K resolution that with almost no weight on the head just for $500, would you not buy it and use it full time? Things have came long way and still long way to go but our biological construction demands 3D tech and it's not going to change anytime soon.

>>sytelu+1L
I don't think I would. I already have the experience of immersion with current screens. I don't think strapping screens to my face will improve anything. And given the metaphorical and literal headaches of trying to fool the human vision system, I don't expect that I'd enjoy anything in the facehugger category.

This might change for me if we could bypass the eyeballs and the limbs, of course.

>>wpietr+sP
Although VR is technically "strapping screens to your face" that description doesn't do justice to the actual experience. I sense from your jocular put-downs the scepticism of someone that hasn't tried modern VR. Would I be correct?

>>andyba+T31
I have not tried the very latest generation, but I have tried previous generations. For me, it's really amazing/engaging/compelling for a while. And once the novelty wears off, it's not. I've also tried creating my own VR content and it's the same deal when I test it on people: really neat the first time, but interest quickly declines.

>>wpietr+uD1
> I have not tried the very latest generation, but I have tried previous generations.

Just to clarify - you mean VR with 6DOF tracking of head and controllers? Vive, Rift, Quest, Windows MR etc.

Or something else? For me this is the minimum bar to being "truly interesting VR". Everything before that was just a novelty in my view.

>>andyba+GH2
That's great, and I'll certainly try them when I get the chance. But please understand that every time there's a new generation of hardware somebody tells me that this time is different for 3D. And have done since the 1990s.

And I'll note that I've believed that myself as long as my use of the platform is modest enough that it stays novel. So what I'm really looking for here is what I look for when evaluating most new products: proof of sustained use by a broad audience.

My personal experience with a new product doesn't tell me a lot. There are things I personally love that never take off, and there are things I don't like that end up being wildly popular. The evidence that will tell me VR has actually arrived is when it's good enough that people stop using their TVs or their Switches or their gaming PC. Or, heck, use it 20+ hours a week at the office, letting their laptops gather dust. And not just the ~3% of the people who are technophiles, the people who absolutely loved their Google Glass. But at a minimum, people in the ~15% group of early adopters, with usage starting to leak into the early mainstream group.