Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality News & Discussions

[Cyber_Rebel]

So, Apple is marketing this as a new form of (spacial) computing rather than a standard VR/AR headset. Honestly, their approach to this is likely the correct one. Focusing on streamlining the technology, utilizing only hands, eyes, and voice recognition is not something any current competitor actually does, and actually makes the entire experience feel a lot more natural. This is by far the closest we've gotten to any sort of brain to computer interface for mass adoption, assuming the gestures will be seamless with the interface. Damn thing doesn't seem to need headphones or earbuds either for that matter. 4K resolution is also an incredible step.

This was made with eventually replacing everyday computer interfaces in mind, and I can only imagine how things will be when generative AI is added into the mix. Imagine the AI Avatar APIs we've been seeing actually represented within a mixed reality setting, or having your art, music, and eventually videos generated on a seamless platform. Looking at the capabilities, it reminds me a lot of what people were expecting from Magic Leap, only Apple actually delivered. Once it's streamlined further, this is likely what we can expect our future to look like:

[peekpok]

I think the Apple headset looks really nice and during the promo video I definitely thought "I want it!" Only rich people will be able to afford this first version of it, but it makes me excited for the future of AR/VR.

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

[spryfusion]

[weatheriscool]

Apple is reportedly working on 2 new AR headsets
One of them should be significantly cheaper than the Vision Pro.

Just last week, Apple revealed its first-ever augmented reality headset, the $3,499 Apple Vision Pro. But the company is already hard at work on multiple follow-ups.

This is according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who shared his thoughts on Vision Pro in the latest instalment of his Power On(opens in a new tab) newsletter. Gurman says that Apple plans to launch a cheaper variant of the headset, and speculates on several ways in which the company could bring down its significant price tag. This includes using lower-quality displays, a less powerful chip than the Vision Pro's M2 (perhaps an iPhone-grade chip, or an older Mac chip), fewer cameras, and a simplified headband design. Apple wouldn't compromise on the Vision Pro's external, "EyeSight" display, or the eye- and hand-tracking systems, he argues.

https://mashable.com/article/apple-cheaper-vision-pro

[wjfox]

[Tadasuke]

[Tadasuke]

https://wccftech.com/apple-vision-pro-p ... nt-system/

Apple Vision Pro Will Not Be Immediately Available To Customers After Release, Headset May Only Be Purchased Through An Appointment System

Apple Vision Pro Will Not Be Immediately Available To Customers After Release, Headset May Only Be Purchased Through An Appointment SystemApple Vision Pro Will Not Be Immediately Available To Customers After Release, Headset May Only Be Purchased Through An Appointment System

Requiring an appointment prior to making a purchase is a practice that is not unfamiliar to Apple, as Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says in his Power On newsletter that the last time the company introduced such a marketing tactic was with the first Apple Watch, which launched back in 2015. With the company building specific areas in its physical outlets for potential buyers to try out the Apple Vision Pro, these spaces will also serve as a hub to take the correct band size, along with other measurements, as stated below.

[weatheriscool]

[Tadasuke]

If you had talked with me in 2005 or 2015, I would tell you that virtual reality means an actual virtual world in which you go into. Not some small, minor, cheap, sub-par, pixelated "experience" that you can't even feel or interact with much.

Virtual world ought to be a world and not some lousy, scroungy app for Quest 2 or something similar. What we are seeing today is nothing compared to true virtual reality that will probably be available one day (don't know when, maybe in 160 years?).

Btw, this is a talk posted on June 27th (mostly about VR) between Tom from Moore's Law is Dead and Sadly It's Bradley with whom he once talked before already:



Spotify link:
SoundCloud link:
Stitcher link: https://listen.stitcher.com/yvap/?af_dp ... /304797565

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

Meta Announces Quest 3 With New Controllers, More Power
Meta's new gaming-focused headset is available this month starting at $499.99.
By Ryan Whitwam September 28, 2023

Just a year ago, Meta pitched the Quest Pro as a critical part of its metaverse strategy. Now, it has unveiled the Quest 3 while pretending 2022 didn't happen. The new Meta virtual reality headset is aimed at gaming, with better displays, a faster processor, and redesigned controllers. It's also retailing for a third of the Quest Pro's launch price at $499.99.

Meta teased the Quest 3 early in the summer, hoping to contrast its approach with Apple's. The latter announced the Vision Pro in June with an eye-watering $3,500 price tag. It might not have all the advanced features of Apple's headsets, but the Quest 3 is still a substantial upgrade for Quest 2 owners. The device runs on Qualcomm's latest XR2 Gen 2 chip, which has double the graphics performance of Quest 2. It works with all the existing Quest games, but some new titles are on the way that will require its more capable hardware.

https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/meta ... more-power

[raklian]

[weatheriscool]

Lightweight AR glasses float a big screen in front of your eyes
By Paul Ridden
October 24, 2023

Augmented-reality wearable producer nReal has rebranded to Xreal and launched two pairs of AR glasses designed to virtually float a huge screen in front of your eyes. The Air 2 and Air 2 Pro models are up for pre-order now.

The company was set up in 2017 by former employees at Magic Leap, Google and AMD, and released its first AR glasses in 2019. The new models are destined to replace last year's Air glasses, which Xreal says are the best-selling consumer AR glasses on the market.

With this iteration, the company has focused on making the wearables more comfortable for the 50-60% of its user base that "spend between one and three hours" watching content through the AR glasses, "while maintaining superior display and fidelity."

https://newatlas.com/wearables/xreal-air-2-ar-glasses/

[Tadasuke]

I am definitely biased, because I've been pretty much taken over by the awesome idea of escaping this awful prison called 'reality' since my first year of primary school. However, I don't think we are progressing on that front very quickly at the moment, so I'm not holding my breath.

Very good and advanced VR or AR would need:
▪ much, much better performance per watt per dollar
▪ lots of small and cheap petabytes of storage
▪ lots of small and cheap terabytes of memory
▪ extremely good batteries in the case there is no external source of electricity
▪ AI that is super-convincing and very, very helpful
▪ ways to manipulate in the VR or AR space comfortably, easily and accurately just like we want
▪ overall miniaturization of nearly everything

We are not making huge progress in those areas in recent years. So it's not likely, that VR or AR will get very popular or very good in the next 15-20 years. But they may become quite good by the end of this century. I don't think that "Meta" is going to succeed like they may envision. For now, they succeeded in making hundreds of millions of peoples mental health worse. I certainly don't like or enjoy looking at how others [on Facebook] are doing, I just want to escape or at least live my life without interference.

I plan on being cautiously and moderately optimistic, but things at the moment aren't great. I'm not investing a single cent in the VR/AR space for now. I currently prefer to play older games (with perhaps a few exceptions), which I didn't manage to play or finish in the past for whatever reason. It's cheaper, easier and faster that way. Friends who bought VR, only use it for VRChat, or it just sits in a drawer.

[wjfox]

I am definitely biased, because I've been pretty much taken over by the awesome idea of escaping this awful prison called 'reality' since my first year of primary school. However, I don't think we are progressing on that front very quickly at the moment, so I'm not holding my breath.

Very good and advanced VR or AR would need:
▪ much, much better performance per watt per dollar
▪ lots of small and cheap petabytes of storage
▪ lots of small and cheap terabytes of memory
▪ extremely good batteries in the case there is no external source of electricity
▪ AI that is super-convincing and very, very helpful
▪ ways to manipulate in the VR or AR space comfortably, easily and accurately just like we want
▪ overall miniaturization of nearly everything

We are not making huge progress in those areas in recent years. So it's not likely, that VR or AR will get very popular or very good in the next 15-20 years. But they may become quite good by the end of this century. I don't think that "Meta" is going to succeed like they may envision. For now, they succeeded in making hundreds of millions of peoples mental health worse. I certainly don't like or enjoy looking at how others [on Facebook] are doing, I just want to escape or at least live my life without interference.

I plan on being cautiously and moderately optimistic, but things at the moment aren't great. I'm not investing a single cent in the VR/AR space for now. I currently prefer to play older games (with perhaps a few exceptions), which I didn't manage to play or finish in the past for whatever reason. It's cheaper, easier and faster that way. Friends who bought VR, only use it for VRChat, or it just sits in a drawer.

Maybe you need to think exponentially.

8K VR will be fairly common by 2030. And 16K by ~2042.

[Tadasuke]

8K VR will be fairly common by 2030. And 16K by ~2042.

I guess 8K VR will be using something like Nvidia DLSS 3.5 to interpolate frames (i.e. from 45 to 240 fps) and upscale resolution (from 1440p to 8K) also helped by eye-tracking and foveated rendering, because rendering fully native 8K in 240 frames per second would require at least hundreds of teraflops and at least 80 GB of really fast VRAM, which would be expensive and power-hungry in a 2030 desktop PC and probably out of question in a standalone headset (at least before 2040), similar to Quest. For now, I'm rather impatiently waiting for GTX 1080 + i9-9900K performance + 16 GB RAM [150GB/s] in a fully mobile untethered headset with acceptable battery life, perhaps coming in Quest 5 in 2029 for $549 (?).

[Tadasuke]

There is this relatively new field of VR photography. I've been following this particular VR photographer for many months, Neomance has a very large number of VR photographs (credits to Neomance and creator(s) of a particular VR space). This field will likely only grow with time. link to Neomance's VR photographs on Twitter/X

I have a personal policy to never have more than 200 followed accounts on Twitter/X, so I don't follow any more VR photographers. Out of pragmatic reasons. No way to follow more than 200 accounts/people, without some serious brain augmentation (not coming anytime soon). Similarly, no more than 200 "friends" on Facebook.

[weatheriscool]