Lol when the iPhone came out, literally everyone was criticizing it for how expensive it was.
Also, looking at the functionality it had when it first came out, it wouldn't have really been very useful for me (no app store, basically just an iPod + shitty browser + phone).
Anyway, does anyone actually think that VR isn't going to revolutionize computing over the next 10 years?
TBF back then no site was optimized to be viewed on a small screen, only after the iPhone and then Android came along did we get "mobile-friendly" or even "mobile-first" sites...
That's not entirely true. WAP browsing was the norm for most mobile devices. The stuff we call "mobile-friendly" now is light years ahead of what we had then.
Fennec (Mozilla Firefox for Mobile) was already a thing before iPhone was released.
The distortion here is that capacitive touch took on with iPhone release. Which lead to a surge of websites supporting such (albeit usually optimized for iPhone/iOS + Safari).
No mainstream phone launched with Fennec. Safari on iPhone was a game changer when everyone else was used to WAP browsing which was all scaled down, text-based web pages.
Of course, but that doesn't mean Fennec wasn't miles ahead. I mean, the original iPhone didn't even have multitouch zoom. Innovation vs invention. People have rose-tinted glasses about the past. They forget the bad, only remember the good.
Sorry but you're wrong. It doesn't matter if Fennec was miles ahead if there was no device to use it on (unless you knew the magic incantations to get it working on one) and the original iPhone did have multitouch zoom too. Jobs demoed it on-stage.
Absolutely, I don't believe VR will revolutionize computing in the next 10 years. It already has had two chances of doing so. Like 3D screens it has a wow effect but isn't that much better given its very real downsides.
Video conferencing using existing equipment and connections is arguably just about the only more immersive virtual experience that has really taken off. And that was somewhat forced on people and plenty here are still "FU. I'm not turning my camera on" in a work context as it is.
We can conceive of other uses but turns out that you can either get most of the way there for far less money and effort and/or the market for "spare no expense" is tiny.
When the iPhone came out they lowered the price by 1/3rd 3 months later. This brought it in-line with Palm/Windows/Blackberry handsets. The browser was also really incredible compared to other phones/devices at the time.
I think the fundamental problem of the Apple Vision Pro as it stands is that you can't put it in your pocket like the iPhone. It's also a lot more awkward to put in a shoulder bag than the iPad is, and the iPad hasn't exactly revolutionised computing either.
When the iPhone came out, people criticized it for the lack of keyboard and 3G. The price was similar to other premium phones of the time.
VR has always been about to revolutionize computing in the next n years. The technology has been available for decades, but so far nobody has been able to find good mainstream use cases for it.
How has the technology been available for decades? There are many requirements for useful headsets beyond just strapping a low-resolution screen to each eye. Even the Vision Pro at $3500+ isn't quite there yet: it's heavy, external battery with a short battery life, has a limited field of view.
The technology to make VR/AR useful for specialized applications has been available for decades. For example, South African fighter pilots had AR sights in the 70s, and the Soviets copied the idea in the 80s. The technology has improved over the decades, but so far nobody has found good mainstream uses for it.
I do think this is going to be similar to the iPhone launch in 10-20 years. The VR headsets that we have in 2035 will be useful, affordable, and revolutionary.
What? No, they're calling it a spatial computer because they don't want it to be lumped in the same category as the other VR devices. Because... theirs is $3500 while other VR devices are $400.
They literally just built a VR headset... do you seriously not think the Apple Vision Pro is a VR headset?
Your description also fits the Meta Quest 3, which is clearly marketed as VR headset. Granted, the Apple device has far better hardware and seems to be more polished, but the capabilities are very similar from what we've seen so far.
At the very least it's a VR and AR headset so no, it's not just a VR headset. And, considering Apple's track record on stuff like this, it's probably more accurate to call it a spatial computer since spatial awareness while using it can be adjusted on the fly. You can't do that with any VR headset right now.
I recently retired my Quest 2 in favor of a Pimax Crystal QLED. The resolution is superb, and it's well-suited to my primary use case (gaming/flight sim), but I will say that the one app that I miss from my Quest 2 is Immersed. I _really_ wish I could use my Crystal for productivity, but I've found no other virtual desktop app on any platform that can compete with Immersed.
I’ve tried it with the Quest Pro, but latency and connectivity issues in combination with the clunky Quest operating system and confusing Immersed user interface, pushed me away.
I want it to just work. Put on the headset and immediately be connected.
Can anyone help me with some questions about this program? (I assume the founders will see this thread once they notice the HN hug of death)
1. How exactly is AI being used here? Is there an AI chat-bot that I can ask for help? Do you generate problem-sets with AI? Check answers with AI? Is it GPT-4?
2. Do you utilize Spaced-Repetition in any way? Have you found that to be useful?
Hi there, my name is Justin Skycak, I'm the Director of Analytics & Algorithms at Math Academy, I developed all of our quantitative software, and I'd be happy to answer your questions.
1. The AI is more like an expert system that emulates the decisions of an expert tutor with regard to what tasks a student should work on at any given point in time (what should the student learn next, what do they need to review). There's a knowledge graph that encodes structural relationships between thousands of math topics (such as prerequisite relationships, but also other types). And then there's an algorithmic reasoning system that looks at a student's answers, overlays them on the knowledge graph, figures out what the student knows (and how well they know it), and decides what learning tasks are going to move the needle most given their personal knowledge profile. The decision-making is inspired by cognitive learning strategies such as mastery learning, spaced repetition, interleaving, minimizing associative interference.
2. Yes, spaced repetition is a core part of the system. Each student has a personalized spaced repetition schedule that adapts to their performance on each topic, and when choosing what topics a student should review or learn next, we're always trying to implicitly "knock out" as many due reviews as possible to maximize learning efficiency. (For instance, if a student is due for a review on one-step ax=b equations, we can implicitly "knock out" that review by having them learn two-step ax+b=c equations instead.)
From a quantitative standpoint, the spaced repetition model was one of the more challenging (but equally fun) parts to build. You normally think of spaced repetition in the context of independent flashcards, but in a hierarchical body of knowledge like mathematics, it gets really complicated because repetitions on advanced topics should "trickle down" to update the repetition schedules of simpler topics that are implicitly practiced (while being discounted appropriately since these repetitions are often too early to count for full credit towards the next repetition).
Our spaced repetition model not only accounts for implicit "trickle-down" repetitions but also minimizes the number of reviews by choosing reviews whose implicit repetitions "knock out" other due reviews (like dominos), and calibrates the speed of the spaced repetition process to each individual student on each individual topic (student ability and topic difficulty are competing factors).
It would be awesome if you could also add GPT-4 as a kind of helpful tutor. Not sure if you're already experimenting with that.
> Our spaced repetition model not only accounts for implicit "trickle-down" repetitions but also minimizes the number of reviews by choosing reviews whose implicit repetitions "knock out" other due reviews (like dominos), and calibrates the speed of the spaced repetition process to each individual student on each individual topic (student ability and topic difficulty are competing factors).
That's super interesting and definitely one of the issues I faced while building anki cards for math classes I took in undergrad. Thanks again!
He's true math nerd, and definitely not a marketer. In fact, I don't think a single marketer works at the company. It's a bootstrapped labor of love and I've been following their journey for almost a decade.
> I am finding Apple to be such a greedy, hypocritical company and am getting disgusted by their PR image
I definitely agree with this but don't have too many issues with them installing the Journal app to be honest. I actually like the app personally, but totally agree with your sentiment.
No, being venture backed implies you're cashflow negative and you're relient on funding to live.
If you're a founder of a venture backed company, one of your main jobs is to build a pipeline of investors and constantly be planning for the next round of funding (that takes a significant amount of energy away from building the company).
With this strategy, you raise one round, then you go back to being similar to a bootstrapped founder where your only focus is to make the business sustainable and you're not spending mind-share trying to raise more money.
No, being venture backed means a venture capitalist invested in your company. All that other stuff is just like, your opinion, man. It's extremely popular in Silicon Valley but that doesn't mean it's a fact, or even that it's particularly common in the rest of the world. In fact, I'd wager most venture-backed companies only raise one round, and this endless-money fever dream is the rarity.
Okay so your entire comment thread is really arguing about the semantics of what the phrase “venture-backed” means. I really don’t see what’s the gain by pursuing this line of discussion other than to be argumentative. Everyone clearly knows what everyone else means.
No, my entire comment thread is about this article pretending to have invented a third option, when in fact it's still just the two. It's a bullshit clickbait headline, where a more honest one would have been "Endless fundraising isn't necessary" or something. Everyone clearly doesn't know what everyone else means, or else the headline wouldn't be misleading and someone else wouldn't have tried to convince me that 'venture-backed' means your business should be a ponzi scheme.
> I don't know how to tell this without being condescending, but do you guys even understand how farming works?
Not sure why you're being condescending when you're totally uninformed & wrong lol.
> The fertile soil is a result of a long process of bringing organic material and ash and depositing it on the field. Exactly the opposite of what we are doing today
2 minutes of research would tell you that the Terra Preta soil consists of
- tiny, broken pottery shards
- weathered charcoal
- bones/compost/manure
> It is very easy to see how this developed. They probably have noticed that if they keep throwing their leftovers or feces in a particular area, everything starts growing better there. The same if you throw out ash. Which they had lots of beacuse they were burning a lot of wood every day, living in the rainforest and not facing energy price hikes. If you have a village and you hunt and gather every day, if you constantly keep burning wood fire and spread it all around your village for thousands of years -- guess what -- whether you planned it or not you will create those fields because I bet nobody would be trucking the garbage far from the village.
The fact that you keep referring to them as hunter-gatherers when they've clearly developed an advanced fertilizer is hilariously absurd.
I think it would be better if you just red my comment more carefully.
Nowhere I called them "hunter-gatherers". That's something YOU wrote. You took words "hunter" and "gathered" and created in your mind "hunter-gatherer" which is completely different because it has a specific meaning.
People are still hunting and still gathering to this day. This does not make them hunter-gatherers. Hunter-gatherers describe a civilisation that is primarily concerned with hunting because they do not farm anything. These people were clearly farming, but farming does not exclude hunting or gathering.
The pottery, bones, compost and manure do not indicate advanced knowledge of farming. This just describes a dumping ground of a pre-industrial civilisation. That's pretty much all of the garbage they had. And they had to throw it somewhere and that somewhere was around them where the fields were.
I am not saying they didn't have any knowledge, but saying they had advanced knowledge is just jumping to conclusions.
Condescending on the original comment was because the authors could have asked any farmer and would get an explanation of what is happening.
Condescending on a response was because a guy didn't even bother to read my comment and was putting stuff in my mouth that I didn't say. And also because uses condescending language (like "hilariously absurd") when clearly wrong.
Do I think people should be nice to each other? Yeah, I do. But I also believe my self-imposed obligation to being nice to you is conditioned on you following minimum rules. I am not expecting much, really. Like don't say I wrote something which I did not. Or put a minimum effort when writing an article if you expect kind response. If you don't do it, I reserve my right to respond about it the way how I feel.
I believe requiring everybody to be nice to everybody else in every possible situation is not a good way to have an advanced civilisation. I think there was a Black Mirror episode to that effect.
> I think it would be better if you just red my comment more carefully.
> Nowhere I called them "hunter-gatherers". That's something YOU wrote. You took words "hunter" and "gathered" and created in your mind "hunter-gatherer" which is completely different because it has a specific meaning.
Someone who hunts and gathers every day is definitionally a hunter-gatherer, and vice versa. If you didn't mean to call them hunter-gatherers, then perhaps it's you who should be writing your comments more carefully.
> Nowhere I called them "hunter-gatherers". That's something YOU wrote. You took words "hunter" and "gathered" and created in your mind "hunter-gatherer" which is completely different because it has a specific meaning.
> Someone who hunts and gathers every day is definitionally a hunter-gatherer, and vice versa. If you didn't mean to call them hunter-gatherers, then perhaps it's you who should be writing your comments more carefully.
I mean, that pales in comparison to the power the government has. And our government (in the US at least) is clearly not democratic (DNC rigged their primary to prevent Bernie from winning... we have an election between Trump & Biden and most Americans hate both choices, etc.)
You should be far,far more afraid of that since government spends more than a trillion every year.
Our government isn't authoritarian. It has executive function (and certainly a degree of corruption) but also an obligation to it's citizens. If you spend trillions (or even just millions) of taxpayer dollars without democratic oversight, you'll probably get investigated.
There is the whole "monopoly of violence" concept but that only works because lawmaking is largely a democratic process. It's harder for the government to agree on a 50 billion dollar transaction than it is for private citizens to do the same thing. There's ample reason to fear both, and I wouldn't suggest that individual agency and concentrations of wealth "pales in comparison" to government power (unless you're discussing combined-arms warfare).
If some lonely dudes can't find a girlfriend, so they talk to a chatbot instead, why is that bad?