Genuine question: Are there non-toy-related uses for AR/VR that exist? Or is that typical assumption that the applications will emerge only once the technology exists?
Certainly, it's early stages, which is why we (Mozilla Research / Emerging Technologies) are investing in it.
We're seeing a lot of industrial use of AR in manufacturing and industrial settings, though consumer use is still less common. If you have't come across it, this HBR article is one of the best public materials:
https://hbr.org/2017/11/a-managers-guide-to-augmented-realit...
VR is certainly still emerging as a platform and trying to get out of its hardcore gaming and training/corporate silos. We really believe from early user data and some more advanced markets (e.g., China) that standalone VR headsets and great cross-platform social experiences will help it reach more users.
All that said: I don't personally know what the "instagram of VR" will be, though I certainly wish I did :-)
It may not be Instagram-level successful, but BigScreen really impressed me. Sitting on a virtual balcony, overlooking a huge city while having multiple desktops scaled to different sizes showed me the direction that productive desktops will be heading in the next 10-15 years. I can see myself developing software in VR using virtual monitors rather than in my office with real monitors in the mid-term future.
The #1 problem with this vision is the resolution of the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. I haven't tried the HTC Vive Pro yet, but I'd say it's got to be about twice the resolution of the HTC Vive before I'll be able to actually use BigScreen the way it's meant to be used.
You'd need to reduce the weight of VR/AR glasses to that of regular glasses, i.e. <100g. Clunky heavy headsets stand no chance for professional use, fatigues sets in after 1 hour and gets worse every day of wearing it.
You can already get close to this with near eye light field displays[1], but the resolution suffers massively. As a bonus though, it can correct for a glasses prescription in software.
The vive fatigue is due to the non solid headmount. A PSVR style headmount like the Revive makes it infinitely less fatiguing as it no longer is supported by your face, instead it's held up by your spine and the deep muscles of the neck and upper back.
I get why people are excited, and maybe these technologies really will go somewhere this time. But the first commercial AR systems are 25 years old [1], and VR had a wave of popularity in the 90s as well . [2]
The only way we can really call today the "early stages" of either of these technologies is by imagining a future where they dominate. But that's the very thing we should be questioning. I note that pretty much anything 3D has a long history of being heralded as the "early stages" of a revolution that never came.
The most obvious example here is 3D video. We're at the tail end of a boom in 3D movies, a technology that now only gets applied to certain high-priced, effects-heavy blockbusters, and could well vanish. There was an even shorter 3D TV boom. [3] And of course there was the 50s boom in anaglyph (aka colored glasses) 3D. [4]
But previous to that there was the ViewMaster, which was imagined to have all sorts of potential. In WW II, the US military bought 100,000 viewers because they thought the magic of 3D would be better for training soldiers. [5] And this history goes back to at least the Brewster Stereoscope, which sold 250,000 units in the 1850s, and was also expected to be revolutionary. [6]
Given the many waves of hype in this era, I think we should be careful of thinking that we are on the path to some sort of destiny. Smart people have been fooled before. It's perfectly possible that this will be just another hype cycle whose main result is a bunch of dusty old hardware in the junk shops of 2050.
Yes, we're definitely familiar! We have people on the team who have been involved in the area since the first commercial AR systems, and a substantial portion of the team (including myself) lived through the previous era of VRML and VR hype.
> "The only way we can really call today the "early stages" of either of these technologies is by imagining a future where they dominate."
I'd suggest domination is not a prerequisite for success. Let's imagine a scenario where only 5% of the world population uses VR or AR on a regular basis. That's still a market of millions of people, but it's not at the level of world domination. Not every new technology has to replace the one before, it's far more common for old and new technologies to co-exist.
Maybe. But at this level of hype, I think that sort of niche success means people can't really call what's going on today the "early stages" of anything. Instead today would more be the bubble before the crash.
The ViewMaster is a fine example there. It's a neat novelty technology! I loved mine when I was a kid. People still love them today. Is it successful? Sure. Do millions of people own them? Definitely. But in retrospect the DoD purchase of 100k viewers doesn't seem like the early stages of anything.
Or think of satellite phones. The Iridium program was massively hyped, and it was a technical success. But commercially it never took off. Satellite phones are still available today, and there are circa a million subscribers. Was the 1990s hype the "early stages"? Again, in retrospect I'd say no.
So sure, domination isn't necessary for success. But I think future domination is necessary to retroactively justify the hype and investment of our current era.
Regarding justifying the hype, people are always going to hype new tech they're interested in, regardless of its commercial potential (I realise VR is nothing new, but this current generation of devices has already made further inroads into the mainstream compared to their predecessors). I don't think hype requires justification, it's just a reflection of what humans get excited about. To put it another way, imagine someone you know told you they were going on holiday to somewhere you've already been before, and they were really excited about having the chance to go there. Even if you didn't think this place was that great, would you expect them to justify their excitement?
As for investment, you have a point. Perhaps the level of investment will prove to be a mistake, but at this point in time we don't really know how big of a demand there will be for VR and AR. I'd struggle at this stage to predict how it will end up, but what I can say is that I can see evidence supporting the prediction that they'll be mainstream, as well as evidence supporting the prediction that they'll be niche. We probably won't know with any certainty until after the second or third generation of current devices is on the market, as that's the point where they're likely to take off commercially if they're going to. Speculation before that point can be fun, but I don't think it'll change the outcome.
Excitement is a feeling, which nobody has to justify. Hype is a behavior, and people can and should be held responsible for their behaviors.
Especially so given that hyping something is "to promote or publicize (a product or idea) intensively, often exaggerating its importance or benefits". It's not a neutral act. And in the commercial context, the purpose of hype is generally, in one way or another, to put money in the pockets of the person doing the hyping.
> "Excitement is a feeling, which nobody has to justify. Hype is a behavior, and people can and should be held responsible for their behaviors."
Depends who's doing the hyping. If it's a potential consumer, then hype is derived from excitement, and the same rules that apply to the justification of excitement would apply to the justification for hype. On the other hand, if it's a company hyping their products, then they may not be led by their feelings, but I don't see the harm in it either. What do you lose out on if a company is hyping their products?
If you honestly cannot imagine any negative effects of a hype cycle, especially when I just quoted the fact that hype involves "exaggerating its importance or benefits", then I really don't think I can help you.
Do I think there's anything wrong with the current hype cycle for VR? No. The way I see it, If someone knows they're being sold to, then they can assess that sales pitch accordingly.
What's more interesting to me is that you're implying that this hype (a.k.a. advertising) is having a negative impact on you, even if you don't intend to buy the product yourself. What's the worst case scenario here? That some investors make a bad investment?
If you honestly cannot imagine any negative effects of a hype cycle, especially when I just quoted the fact that hype involves "exaggerating its importance or benefits", then I really don't think I can help you.
Repeating yourself just highlights you don't know how to respond to someone questioning something you hold as unquestionably true. It's not healthy to hold onto anything as unquestionably true, so you have my condolences. Perhaps we have different views of what the hype cycle is, but it doesn't look like you're willing to explore that further. If you were willing to explore it further, picking a previous example where the hype cycle has either ended or is coming to an end, such as for smartphones (which appear to be largely seen as a commodity now), how would you describe the damage caused by the hype cycle?
It's not my job to educate you. It's not that I don't know how. It's that I think it's a waste of my time. I made that clear once and you ignored that. I repeated it because you apparently wouldn't take the hint. Which you ignored again, with more lazy, entitled waffle.
If you would like to make it my job to educate you, my casual consulting rate is $250/hour, 10 hour minimum, paid in advance to MBO Partners in Virginia. Until then, adieu.
> "If you would like to make it my job to educate you, my casual consulting rate is $250/hour, 10 hour minimum, paid in advance to MBO Partners in Virginia. Until then, adieu."
Forgive me if I pass on being enlightened on something as trivial as hype. I hope you teach something more substantial to those clients paying $250 an hour.
Comparing VR today, in a world where portable devices dominate, to VR even a decade ago, in a world where cell phones were only just starting to be commonplace, seems really useless.
The world is an extremely different place. This is, in my opinion, still very early days - by which I mean that we are still in an exploratory phase.
We've never been closer to having the technology necessary for it to take off - resolution was always one huge blocker, portability, weight, 'culture' in terms of computing being something everyone has access to, GPU power, battery, etc.
I'm not really comparing VR. I'm comparing the hype of VR. Because 20 years ago there were plenty of smart people just as confident that it was on the edge of becoming a giant thing.
As far as taking off, we might be close, and we might be far. It's tautological to argue that VR is coming soon because we're close to the level of technology that means VR is coming soon.
And it may never take off. Maybe we'll get to a particular level of technology where everybody is wowed by the tech but in day-to-day use nobody actually cares. That has happened over and over again with 3D technologies. We are definitely in an exploratory phase, but a great number of explorations don't end up going anywhere interesting.
The current hardware is toy-quality, so most applications are toys. When the hardware gets to pro-quality, the applications are virtually infinite (imagine being able to create any possible experience for any person... having sex with their dead husband, commanding the battle of Thermopylae, Ender’s Game, playing basketball against Michael Jordan, visiting family thousands of miles away, visiting dead family thousands of miles away, business meetings, etc etc)
HN is like an infinite pit into which all sarcasm falls, so just in case: pornography with live subjects isn't necrophilia just because the subjects have, since the time of recording, died.
Surely the more normal version is the one GP was talking about.
Broadly speaking, given a choice between getting on an airplane and traveling a few thousand miles versus strapping a headset on your face, there are plenty of scenarios where one can make a compelling case for doing the latter, even with today's hardware. Meetings, presentations, training, and more. The hardware is a big barrier currently, for sure; expensive and clunky. But that will change pretty quickly. The ability to showcase something without physically being there is very valuable. And yes, naturally, a lot more applications will emerge once the technology becomes easier to digest.
Training maybe. But humans are too much social animals for meetings (we already have setups with HD tvs, cameras, and high bandwidth connections and still fly to and from, almost as if being able to do so, or demand that they come to you, is a show of force and status) and presentations (never underestimate the value of the mingling that happens before, during and after a presentation) to happen remotely, unless we are talking some kind of sci-fi holographics.
google glass has found a great application in heads-up displays for factory floors and other large industrial machinery. it's arguably a lot more exciting than anything they tried in the consumer space; it has the feel of a problem being solved thoroughly and well.
I dont know what you would consider non-toy uses, but the company I work for uses VR as a means of demonstrating building structures and layouts to clients.
The model is built in Revit and using this method allows for easy fly/walkthrough and spotting of some issues that might not be as visible in the 3D viewer mode on your screen.
I really want to build a VR-based GUI for a Very Serious Program I'm writing in my free time. It's not a game.
So whether there are or aren't, there's clearly potential. It doesn't seem right to dismiss it just because it hasn't taken off yet - it's extremely early days.
Military has had their HUD which is a form of it. I predict you could sell AR/VR only to niche consumers and military and it will remain a gimmick for consumers like 3D television was. So it's a great move for Mozilla if their thought was joining MIC..
I've heard of a company very much looking to get AR going for CAD work.
And well, it is coming sooner or later. If as a browser, you aren't ready when they actually do, you might see an entire industry standardizing away from you.
Check out PTC Thingworx Studio. Many industrial companies are pursuing similar technologies - AR to visualize data streaming off machines in a factory or industrial setting
>Genuine question: Are there non-toy-related uses for AR/VR that exist?
No. It's why I've lost interest in VR/AR software development for now; the real work to be done is in hardware. Even the latest HMDs are too low resolution and bulky for any kind of productivity gain. AR will be amazing once the tech is there, but the current design paradigm of "smartphone-strapped-to-face" just isn't going to cut it.
Take regular glasses, and just make them a bit smarter, without changing their appearance much. Could be useful for displaying interface menu elements (e.g. your browser tool bar), this way you'd gain screen size and/or have more direct access to more tools at the same time, without clicking through lists and stuff.
AR is being investigated for a bunch of commercial use cases. Context-aware heads-up displays (or even simple phone-based AR for some things) could be useful in maintenance work etc in many industries.
Sales and marketing. Especially showing previsualization of something that will be built to desicion maker. Like a house tailored to your specs, you can walk around inside it.
