Rift, Vive, and Virtual Reality

240 Hz noise will come with natural temporal noise reduction in the brain - makes sense. I'm guessing the small size makes the fast transitions easier? Does a tech that can be driven at 240 Hz in a one inch display scale up to drive a 60" display also in 1/240 th of a second, or does the larger screen need more effort.

(I've literally zero knowledge of what it take to make a display show stuff! Beyond RGB coloured dots.)
Hmm. Depends on the particular display technology, I’d say. OLED and micro-LED screens intrinsically support extremely high framerates. There is a data transfer cost in terms of power draw as well, but for these technologies that should be modest vs. the cost of generating the actual light. LCDs are trickier in this respect.
 
The mainstay diffuse white backlit LCD-s have response time problem, it's because the standard fare in LCD's nowadays involves unpolarized LED as source (but comparatively ultra high efficiency compared to OLED and even microLED) ,scattering light guide, diffusing, polarization recycling layers. This is a quite lossy scheme, then they have high pixel fill, and high transmittance to make up , and that takes toll on response time because that's deemed lower priority .

BTW, looks like TN can close the gap in "color reproduction" vs. IPS , if the diffuser layer is on the outside , not yet on the level of IPS off-axis gamma shift , but very close, see:
Optical design and roll-to-roll fabrication process of microstructure film for wide viewing LCDs

RGB sequential LCDs usually have very high (sub) field rates - the better ones submillisecond response (plus efficiency and pixel fill advantage) .
 
I tried some arcade VR in a chinese Joypolis. A Oculus powered chinese (?) skiing game was pretty crap and buggy, but a walkaround space marine shooting game (where you had an actual gun, motion capture gloves and the PC in a back pack) was pretty cool. Unfortunately it bugged out after a while and everything became black.

I can't be bothered look up the names of the titles since I am in China (no google) at the moment.
 
Magic leap doesn't seem so great anymore but at least it's possible to purchase one. I don't know if I love or hate how the leap looks. It's pretty dramatic to wear something like that in public :D

The Magic Leap One’s field of view is constantly distracting. Field of view is a huge problem for mixed reality headsets, which can generally just project images into a moderately sized rectangle in front of you, leaving the rest of the world bare. Magic Leap has improved on Microsoft’s HoloLens in this respect — it’s got a 50-degree diagonal field of view, which works out to a rectangle that’s around 45 percent bigger. But it’s not nearly enough to look around the world normally. Moderately sized objects were cut off if I got too close, and full-room scenes appeared only in patches.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/8/1...-edition-preview-mixed-reality-glasses-launch


 
we should see HoloLens 2 later this year and they had a patent that talked about doubling fov. So hopefully they were able to do that . Also from what I have read the tracking on HoloLens 1 is better than magic leap. So it will be interesting to see how much they improve that also
 
MS do seem to have totally gazumped Magic Leap with the Hololens. This version at least. It doesn't seem to be offering anything compelling so far that Hololens hasn't already done.
 
One thing I don't like about the Magic Leap is that it limits peripheral vision. I wonder if that was deliberately done to try to get the user to focus more on the limited FOV of the holographic lens. Myself I'd prefer the ability to see the world around me as with the HoloLens than have a more restricted view of the world with the Magic Leap when walking around.

Other than that the 2 devices seem pretty comparable except that one came out 2 years ago.

Regards,
SB
 
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Magic Leap's PR bollocks talks about drawing directly onto the canvas of the human mind rather than sticking images in front of users. Obviously what they're doing same as everyone else is sending photons to the retina. But is there anything actually different and clever in what they're doing, or is it exactly the same ordered grid, fixed resolution 2D representation as everyone else just on a fancy, translucent display medium?
 
Recent reports say Magic Leap is 'open to a new round of funding' . I'd be amazed that if after the luke warm at best reaction to it's release (it basically doesn't work) and a stupid price point it doesn't quietly die a death. The buzz around VR / AR seems to have dropped noticeably the last year or two and I can't see more people stumping up cash for it.
 
Recent reports say Magic Leap is 'open to a new round of funding' . I'd be amazed that if after the luke warm at best reaction to it's release (it basically doesn't work) and a stupid price point it doesn't quietly die a death. The buzz around VR / AR seems to have dropped noticeably the last year or two and I can't see more people stumping up cash for it.

The buzz hasn't died , its just moved. Oculus Go had an amazing launch and is selling pretty strongly , we got to see half dome from oculus. Their big show is some time towards the end of next month so I am sure there will be a lot of excitement there as santa cruz their 6dof stand alone headset should be released and we might get a release date on half dome. Valve has been really quiet except some press on their knuckles controllers but when they are ready for their next gen headsets I am sure buzz will take off again. Sony is kinda out there with a headset but they don't have a new hardware platform launching this year so I wouldn't expect much in the way of buzz from them. MS has HoloLens 2 which is rumored to be announced in Oct. There is also some rumors that point to new windows mixed reality headsets using the Kinect camera that was recently shown off for their slam system instead of the current stereo cameras. That should give much better tracking and of course newer screens and lenses should help make them an interesting release.

Aside from that there is really nothing else out there. Maybe if Apple or Google get into the market but I think both of them may be in magic leaps situation where they don't have anything much better than HoloLens or now magic leap and well MS did it 2 years ago. I think unless either of them have something decently better and can release it at a grand or less they will stay quiet for now.
 
I don't foresee new hardware resulting in new buzz. It's like Kinect 2 versus Kinect. Kinect was awesome; best selling peripheral ever because it was so new and different. Kinect 2 was far better than Kinect in hardware, but it generated little buzz because everything new and exciting about Kinect was no longer new and exciting. Same with VR. The last round of hardware was the first in this wonderful new world. The next round will be iteratively better. You'll have cheaper headsets, but people aren't going gaga about getting into VR. They may dabble if cheap enough. You have superior quality headsets for the existing fans, and for AR like Hololens, but they're too price for mainstream enthusiasm.

Ultimately, people aren't staying away from VR because the FOV is too small or the experience is too blurry - they just aren't that interested in donning a headset. Regardless of hardware, there's still no killer app experience that's making everyone want to play VR. It needs something like a VR/AR Fortnite or Pokemon Go. It needs a Kinect Adventures. And it needs a price-tag that's inclusive, so either some mind-bogglingly awesome PC experience that works with a cheap Windows MR headset, or a $150 widget that people will buy en masse, or something like a pair of specs that'll replace smartphones as an everyday item so that people are willing to spend the $500+ to have it. Until then, any enthusiasm regarding VR and AR will be muted, akin to waiting for the next-gen TV sets to be announced, or wondering what Apple will add to the next iPhone.

Google get into the market
As they've invested $500 million into Magic Leap, it seems unlikely they'll have a discrete product of their own. Only real player could be Apple, which seems implausible as there's nothing that really fits the Apple world until we have cool Aviator Sunglasses with displays. I think they'd like Facetime with AR etc., but I doubt they'll jump in this early before the experience can be worth doing. Kinda like iPad didn't happen until the tech was good enough to enable it properly, while others experimented for years with devices that never took the world by storm due to limitations. A me-too headset from Apple would be very unlike them.
 
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Apple Newton.

Also while the margins Apple can command were strong enough to make their smart watch a business success it was niche and awkward. Reality distortion field protects them from fallout so they can keep on going till those have broader appeal.

AR/VR is too nerdy is the bigger problem.
 
The reason VR is nerdy is because the tech is being pushed, which isn't Apple modus.

Newton was built within the limits of the tech of the time, which meant producing an electronic organiser rather than tablet computer - they didn't try shoving a Mac in something the size of a Star Trek prop.

Uhura-tablet.jpg


Tablet computing was big, bulky, and a bit rubbish, or very expensive and limited, until the tech had matured enough for the iPad, which is when Apple produced it. Smart Watch is a conceptually okay idea in the same way a smart phone is. Apple TV is another product that makes sense regardless whether it sells or not - from the earliest version, the tech fitted the environment.

It's not that Apple only releases products that'll sell gangbusters. They'll dabble and epxerimenr, but what you don't see from Apple by-and-large are products clearly trying to push what is comfortably attainable. They wouldn't release a 12", 8 lb 'tablet' in 1985 with a battery life of 20 minutes. They wouldn't release a 'smart watch' in 2003 that's an inch thick, weighs 250g, and warms to 42 degrees C in operation. This wouldn't happen from modern Apple...

BxGOIDxCUAERvCv.jpg


They wouldn't include facial recognition in their devices until they had a depth-camera that could do the job more reliable than the rather premature efforts of their rivals. They won't release a big headset now that's trying to make VR fabulous before it's really ready. What's need is very high resolution displays, fast tracking, and eye-tracking for foeveated rendering, plus ideally a super slimline look. When the tech can do it (and Apple could be researching as much), then they'll release something which might shake up the industry a bit once again if not least because it'll have Apple brand clout.
 
The first generation had atrocious battery life and it's main selling point (handwriting recognition) was lackluster. Apple watch 0-gen was likewise half-baked.

As I said, between margins and reality-distortion field they get away with it.
 
I don't foresee new hardware resulting in new buzz. It's like Kinect 2 versus Kinect. Kinect was awesome; best selling peripheral ever because it was so new and different. Kinect 2 was far better than Kinect in hardware, but it generated little buzz because everything new and exciting about Kinect was no longer new and exciting. Same with VR. The last round of hardware was the first in this wonderful new world. The next round will be iteratively better. You'll have cheaper headsets, but people aren't going gaga about getting into VR. They may dabble if cheap enough. You have superior quality headsets for the existing fans, and for AR like Hololens, but they're too price for mainstream enthusiasm.

Ultimately, people aren't staying away from VR because the FOV is too small or the experience is too blurry - they just aren't that interested in donning a headset. Regardless of hardware, there's still no killer app experience that's making everyone want to play VR. It needs something like a VR/AR Fortnite or Pokemon Go. It needs a Kinect Adventures. And it needs a price-tag that's inclusive, so either some mind-bogglingly awesome PC experience that works with a cheap Windows MR headset, or a $150 widget that people will buy en masse, or something like a pair of specs that'll replace smartphones as an everyday item so that people are willing to spend the $500+ to have it. Until then, any enthusiasm regarding VR and AR will be muted, akin to waiting for the next-gen TV sets to be announced, or wondering what Apple will add to the next iPhone.

As they've invested $500 million into Magic Leap, it seems unlikely they'll have a discrete product of their own. Only real player could be Apple, which seems implausible as there's nothing that really fits the Apple world until we have cool Aviator Sunglasses with displays. I think they'd like Facetime with AR etc., but I doubt they'll jump in this early before the experience can be worth doing. Kinda like iPad didn't happen until the tech was good enough to enable it properly, while others experimented for years with devices that never took the world by storm due to limitations. A me-too headset from Apple would be very unlike them.

So the ps5 wont generate buzz ?

Look the issue on the pc is easy. You need to set the thing up and are stopped by wires. The headset is tethered but on the rift you need to run at least two sensors with their own wires to the pc. The vive requires two lighthouses that need power. Next generation may have slam built in and you wont need the extra sensors. Then your stopped by hardware even two years later thanks to mining you still need a fairly expensive computer.

On the mobile side we still don't have a real 6DOF headset and when it does come out I think we will be expensive most likely over $400. So that will need to come down in price but it will still create buzz.

As for a game like fortnite or pokemon go. We have that in rec room . But there will be more that come as time marches on.
 
So the ps5 wont generate buzz ?
Course it will. Consoles are hugely popular and a new generation after 5/6 years of waiting sparks a lot of interest. However, look at PS4Pro - didn't generate loads of enthusiasm, because it's a marginal update. It's more of the same, so the wider response isn't enthusiastic. These VR updates are more of the same only a couple of years into the start of VR, providing iterative steps.

On the mobile side we still don't have a real 6DOF headset and when it does come out I think we will be expensive most likely over $400. So that will need to come down in price but it will still create buzz.
It depends what you mean by buzz. It'll get mentioned in tech articles on newspaper sites, definitely. It's unlikely to have the everyman in the street putting down a VR headset on their Christmas/birthday list if there's no reason to own it. It's unlikely we'll see a new headset selling 5+ million in the first six months like other products with real buzz.

This generation of VR, everyone was waiting with baited breath to see if it'd usher in a new future of experiences. There was a long lead-time of promise, then a rush of opportunities. Well, it didn't. All sorts of things dampened the experience and have kept it a niche interest. That buzz surrounding the promise cannot come again unless there's a new possibility on offer. What you'll have now is incremental growth, either slow and steady or tapering off, until there's a killer app. Maybe that's why the PR from the likes of Magic Leap is so hyperbolic, because they are trying to generate a promise that'll excite people? The cold reality is it's a slightly different take on what's already out with numerous immersion breaking limitations.

I also think this issue about applications is something the industry needs to appreciate and do something about. We've had crazy investment in the hardware, to make fancy toys that don't fit people's ordinary lives and interests. How about investing $500 million in software and applications instead of just hardware? These big businesses seem to be operating on the principal that 'if you build it, they will come', ignoring the example shown in the console space where it's games that sell systems and just pushing out a box without support is creating something that'll die. The hardware has been developed over years with top investment, while the software has been left to indies to fill the void, shouldering the burden of risk of targeting a new, unproven market.
 
Course it will. Consoles are hugely popular and a new generation after 5/6 years of waiting sparks a lot of interest. However, look at PS4Pro - didn't generate loads of enthusiasm, because it's a marginal update. It's more of the same, so the wider response isn't enthusiastic. These VR updates are more of the same only a couple of years into the start of VR, providing iterative steps.
yet a ps5 would be compared to the pro and thus consoles will enter the same situation. For the rift it came out in 2016 so a 2019 headset would be 3 years which is longer than a cell phone cycle (1 year) and those still generate buzz .

It depends what you mean by buzz. It'll get mentioned in tech articles on newspaper sites, definitely. It's unlikely to have the everyman in the street putting down a VR headset on their Christmas/birthday list if there's no reason to own it. It's unlikely we'll see a new headset selling 5+ million in the first six months like other products with real buzz.
5m will be a lot of units for a newer tech. Tvs are what 80-90 years old at this point. I think the first one was in the 30s. Consoles are about 40 years in now , cell phones are 25years or so. I doubt any of these were selling 5+ million in their first 6 months of the early generations of the hardware either. These are all products that took a long time to get to the point they are now. For numbers I would expect to hear something in Sept with Oculus connect conference , the go seems to have done pretty well and the rift keeps plugging away. But I can buy a 50 inch tv or bigger for what the rift launched at and I still needed an even more expensive pc to run it. The go and santa cruz wont require that

This generation of VR, everyone was waiting with baited breath to see if it'd usher in a new future of experiences. There was a long lead-time of promise, then a rush of opportunities. Well, it didn't. All sorts of things dampened the experience and have kept it a niche interest. That buzz surrounding the promise cannot come again unless there's a new possibility on offer. What you'll have now is incremental growth, either slow and steady or tapering off, until there's a killer app. Maybe that's why the PR from the likes of Magic Leap is so hyperbolic, because they are trying to generate a promise that'll excite people? The cold reality is it's a slightly different take on what's already out with numerous immersion breaking limitations.
What like 6dof with no wires ? That seems like a pretty good new possibility. Even if santa cruz is $500 it still removes the $600-$2000 pc requirement. It removes all the sensor set up also. oh and it will come with better lenses and screens than the rift did .
I also think this issue about applications is something the industry needs to appreciate and do something about. We've had crazy investment in the hardware, to make fancy toys that don't fit people's ordinary lives and interests. How about investing $500 million in software and applications instead of just hardware? These big businesses seem to be operating on the principal that 'if you build it, they will come', ignoring the example shown in the console space where it's games that sell systems and just pushing out a box without support is creating something that'll die. The hardware has been developed over years with top investment, while the software has been left to indies to fill the void, shouldering the burden of risk of targeting a new, unproven market.
Investing $500m you say ?
https://www.roadtovr.com/facebook-founder-says-its-investments-in-vr-content-will-total-500m/

Guess Facebook is years ahead of you in that thought process

Even HTC is investing in lower amounts
https://www.roadtovr.com/htcs-100-million-vive-x-accelerator-confirms-33-vr-companies/

Big triple A titles take years to develop and costs tens of millions of dollars and are released on multiple platforms. A call of duty will release on pc , xbox , playstation , Nintendo and so on . Fortnite is on everything that exists at this point. So yes you wont see the next elder scrolls as VR exclusive but we are seeing some bigger titles coming out and as the headset base grows so will the size and scope of games.


I am thinking at this Connect we will see santa cruz pricing and release date + an enhanced rift with the newer lenses from go / cruz and higher res panels to refresh the current rift. I am hoping for a half dome release date but we might not hear about that till next e3 or sadly next connect as I don't expect it before fall of 2019.

Out of those the one that will garner the biggest buz will be cruz and its complete freedom from wires.

Oh and just to address the magic leap situation. They pushed massive hype for a product that in turn is plagued by the same short comings that the first gen HoloLens released two years before it suffered. This would be more akin to the situation that the vive pro faced when it was just a vive with higher res screens costing hundreds more than the launch price of the original vive.
 
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