That's a bit misleading. VR has been rejected time and time again, at least on the PC side of things where major industry wide attempts have been made going back into the 90's. The current attempt (Occulus and Morpheus) mark yet another attempt. Whether it succeeds or gets rejected by the general public again, remains to be seen. The level of immersion will be vastly better than attempts before them, but both still require you to wear a bulky HMD which is likely to turn off a lot of consumers.
AR has been rejected on it's first major incarnation. At least first that I know of, as I never got too excited over it and thus never really paid attention to AR. Google Glass fails due to a myriad of things. You have to wear something (VR you have to wear something even larger). It needed something to show an actual benefit that didn't also potential pose a health hazard to the one wearing it and navigating the real world simultaneously. Etc.
Room based AR hasn't really been attempted in a major way as of yet. It has some nice benefits in that it doesn't require anything to be worn. It doesn't pose a potentially significant health risk. But it does have its own drawbacks. Projection equipment may be expensive. Setup may be complicated. Effects can't be quite as vivid as wearable AR glasses. How do you deal with a person's body potentially occluding part of the AR experience? Etc.
I'm more interested in room based AR myself. Assuming it doesn't require you to actually move your body into the scene to interact with it, thus posing problems with potentially occluding and thus ruining the illusion of the scene. Not a big fan of actually having to wear something cumbersome (my definition of cumbersome is anything like Active shutter 3D glasses and up or lighter weight glasses tethered to a bulky processing/battery pack).
Regards,
SB
I think I had my first set in the mid-90's and the resolution was so awful I wondered why I had ever bought them. The good sets were all $10k and above, and I did try out a pair and was impressed. So I think that is why I have been waiting for good sets, so I am excited to see VR done right. For me VR makes sense for flight/combat sim, space sim, racing sim - games where something like TrackIR already adds to the experience. I think I would have hard time with a first person game, mainly because I would try and walk!
I played around with shutter glasses in the early 00's, but for me they just sucked. I hated the flicker, but I will admit Half-Life was rather fun.
However, I am not convinced we are there yet. Resolution still needs a bump, as does FPS (+90 please). Not to mention the strain you get on your eyes and head. I woke up last night and thought about the helmet idea - and honestly while it would look stupid, it really makes sense from a comfort point. Not to mention you would have an easier time adding headphones into the concept, plus being able to distribute the weight around. I think the media and other outlets would laugh it off stage and we would never see it again (IMO). I would be really surprised if Project B is a true helmet, or if we even see it today. Rumors have been around long enough that we know they are playing with something (see patents/purchases).
Anyone know what Project A is? (was it Kinect)
@eastmen -- I think AR might be going slower due to the eyestrain/headaches some are reporting. Google Glass is releasing 2.0 in a few months, so it will be interesting to see what they have changed. Would love to see what stereo AR MS was working on, seems interesting by the leaks we have heard from time-to-time from developers.
I still want to see more home automation, I love that I can use my WinPhone to control my t-stat with voice. Works great when you wake up cold, grab the phone and say "set temperature to 73". Taking this a step further and allowing Kinect devices that are sitting at idle to hear you and control those devices would be great. Something like the open-source project V-Crib. OT I know, but I still want MS to show us why they hired that Home Automation guy.
I will end this here, before I type more that gets me off-topic.
I've been waiting for MS to productize this .. it's been ready for almost 1+yrs now
https://twitter.com/josefajardo/status/507286877678739456
Intel is releasing something similar no? Maybe MS was waiting on Win10/Windows Mobile to be ready before rolling out devices with it. Surface Pro 4?
