Virtual Reality

I just want a minimap and waypoints. Maybe a highlight function so that it's easier to find the thing I need in a grocery store too but that seems a tad unrealistic

Mixed reality is pointless at the home right now. Industrially I want it for warehouse workers yesterday. Make it highlight shit they need and it’ll reduce mental load and cycle time

I disagree. Companies have demonstrated how well AR can work.

If my mom had an AR headset, I could more easily help her troubleshoot why her printer won’t print or why her PC has no internet.

AR can also use enhanced data sources to overlay information you cannot normally get on your own. (example: sporting events. See player stats when looking at each player. See game related info. etc.)

The issue is that we don’t have quality, lightweight AR headsets yet. Ideally something with both cellular and wifi.

Apple’s Vision Pro may change things.

Also I think Pokemon Go gave us a sneak peak into what AR gaming could be.

Well, if we are talking about a headset, I totally agree. I'm not strapping an alien horror movie prop to my face just to see fake waterfalls behind my PC or to allow Adobe to spam my peripheral vision with ads.

But if we are talking about regular glasses, assuming the technology keeps shrinking, then hell yeah all I want is mixed reality and rendering on top of real images.

The potential for board and card games is huuuuuuuuuuge though.

The author is missing the other use cases for high quality passthrough:

• "Pausing" your VR experience temporarily to interact with the real world without taking off the headset. Checking a phone, grabbing a drink, etc.
• Selective passthrough that allows seeing portions of the real world. Being able to see your own hands/arms/body is a huge improvement in VR. As is seeing your desk, chair, etc.

I get what he’s saying, but I just think that adding screens wherever I want them e.g. above me while lying down while still feeling in my own environment sounds way better than entering some other VR space entirely

The cool stuff is augmented reality. Basically low tech projected holograms. You have many informations in a heads-up display, kinda like they have in fighter jets already, or in video games, but you can have many things. Highlighting direction (when driving or walking), highlight things you're looking for adding informations to objects you're seeing... But we're far away from this still.

A few more ideas for MR:

• Instead of watching a movie in VR by myself, give me a Tom and Jerry projection that I can follow around the house. Something that allows me to associate happiness with my home. Maybe just random Smurfs living around the house.
• Embrace the clutter in a haunted house overlay. The sock under the couch will transform into a shadow hand reaching toward you. Faces will try to press through your walls. This is a hell no for me btw.
• A storyteller avatar who sits with you and talks while you are relaxing. Something to combat the loneliness of isolationism.

If AR could take the form of glasses about as lightweight as regular glasses, I could see it being more of a thing. Until then, I doubt AR plays a huge role. At least with pure VR, your real environment doesn't play as much of a role so you don't need the portability as much.

Imagine playing D&D in a park, with the monsters and spells blending seamlessly with the outside world

Or AR projected onto a real tabletop for TTRPGs and board games

I would like to have a HUD in real life. Shows me a path to where I am going on the ground. Pops up reviews on items I am looking at in the store.

He's completely forgotten how extremely super useful it would be for industries.

Instantly identify machines and components, quick and simple navigation, simple overview even over very large machine parks and similar environments along with simplified coordination, etc. Along with quick access to detailed documentation and status information and guides like visual repair instructions, etc.

While I appreciate and partially agree with his view, I'm personally glad they did tackle MR as soon as it was viable.

I very much have a use case for it and I have been using the pro for it and being disappointed with the results. Our family hangs out together for hours every day. And while I can watch pretty much anything on TV and still enjoy both it and our conversations, lately I have taken to using mixed reality to continue participating in the social aspects of hanging out, while enjoying my own content. Usually I'm playing a game instead of watching TV.

With mixed reality on the Quest pro, I can still see everyone's faces and they can see enough of mine to get my facial expressions. But it's tough for me to always make out what is happening on their TV. So I mostly have to go by audio cues to follow along with their content and any conversations they have relating to it.

With the Quest 3, I'll be able to see their screen too.

And that's not even mentioning just how nice it will be to look at my phone front and center rather than peaking through a hole, or just in the lower quarter of my vision on a Quest pro without the light blockers on. Or pinning another floating screen to my phone, like a text document stickynote type thing. Augmenting my phone could get interesting.

Can't wait til VR is more compatible with outdoors, I know they work fine outdoors, and being careful/vigilant with it is enough to make it already completely viable. But companies aren't gonna jump on it or make software for that use case until it's less likely to lead to an increase in headset failures overall. But I would love for headsets to have GPS and cell capabilities. Augmented outdoor exercise games are the main thing I'm waiting for. Though of course there are also risks to exercise gamification to sort through. Same sort of thing, people being encouraged to do it without knowing the risks or participating in mitigating them for themselves. Tough to get stuff like that realised.

I would be curious to hear him list some of the low hanging fruits.

I remember when people like him said it was pointless to put a camera in a cell phone because the quality was so bad at first. Apple has historically done well creating markets that didn't exist, or were niche, until they made a product that caught on with the masses (iPod anyone?). And I say this as no fan (and currently don't own any products) of Apple

Well if the cybernetically perfected master of the multiverse and sealer of the anti-life algorithm John Carmack says so it must be true.