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Why did the metaverse die? Because Silicon Valley doesn’t understand the concept of fun
(www.fastcompany.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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Technology
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Dear tech developers, if you are listening please put VR projects on the back burner. They are an interesting future technology but the currently possible technology that people would adopt if it were economical to do so is AR. A simple heads up display with an integrated personal assistant has enormous potential in both personal and business uses right now if it was reasonably priced and reliable. You could replace cell phones.
AR has a huge battery life and size problem. The amount of video processing that thing would need to do to be useful, would result in an enormous device with an hour or two of battery life. Rendering it useless for any real world consumer application.
On top of that it has a gigantic privacy and surveillance problem.
And if that wouldn't be enough, what the heck are you going to do with it? Everything an AR headset could do, you can do today with your phone already. There is very little need to wear that functionality on your head all the time.
For some rare business use cases it can make sense, that's why Microsoft Hololens is still around, but even they struggle to finding any areas where it makes it past the "nice idea" stage and actually into a working product.
VR is just a marketing hype to collect VC money, that's it.
Just like crypto, AI, Cloud, Big Data, share economy, Internet of things, etc. They all get hyped like hell, burn billions of VC money, and after a few years actually useful products might appear, but are several orders of magnitude more mundane.
It's so predictable, that even Gartner found out about it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle
I'm honestly wondering if the new Apple thing will take off like this. It's overpriced, but this is the company that sells $700 wheels to people successfully, and the concept looks great.
You know all those programmer memes about screen arrangement? You could have them all and more with a single headset.
VisionPro might work as monitor and TV replacement, but I don't see it taking of as some kind of person assistant that you wear when you go outside your house. Battery life alone completely kills that usecase
Try a movie via hmd for a half hour and you'll be looking for a monitor.
HMD already has replaced my TV, and that's a crappy one from 5 years ago. VisionPro is on a whole different level in terms of features and resolution. The ability to have a virtual screen wherever you want it and however big you want it shouldn't be underestimated. And that's not even counting everything else the headset can do.
Wait, is the battery life public? It's a separate battery pack connected to the set by wire, so it doesn't have to be terrible.
Yes, it's public and official: "The external battery supports up to 2 hours of use, and all day use when plugged in."
VisionPro can barely be considered a portable/mobile device and it won't even last through a modern movie.
Yikes!
Yeah, it's probably going to be relegated to toy status then. Maybe we'll revisit this in a few years once we figure out how to do it on lower power.