"We Live In The Future": Post things that give you future shock!

[Yuli Ban]

[Yuli Ban]

Outrageous!!!

[funkervogt]

Based on the videos you posted, it looks like the technology is here, and all we need to do is wait for the price to come down.

[Yuli Ban]

This led me down a very interesting path that I can't stop thinking about. I thought the Index and Quest 2 and Pimax and Vive Pro 2 was where we're at in VR technology right now I knew that it would get better over the years inevitably, but I didn't know that VR technology is this far along

Imagine this five to ten years down the line. By 2031, we might be able to get the XR-3 for about as expensive as a Quest 2 or, at worst, an Index. What's high end now will be mid-to-low end by then, and God only knows what the high-end will be like thusly.

I for one hope that, by 2026, we ought to be able to go to Dollar General and pick up an Oculus Rift CV1 for $50. A dollar store near me used to sell a cheap-o mobile VR headset, but ever since mobile VR died, I've not seen it once. Then again, mobile VR is cheating anyway.
The real point is to show that what we consider mid-range today will be easily low-end in the very near future. By 2026, I fully expect Index-tier VR headsets to have at least some of the abilities of the XR-3. For example, Meta's Project Cambria seems to be going in that direction, being a combination of VR and AR with eye-tracking. And what Valve's planning to show off next year with the Index's follow up may have some similar abilities too (though we know nothing about it at the moment).

No matter what, that the technology to do what the XR-3 does actually exists is exciting. I remember a user on the old forums mentioned that VR progress had been dog-slow, and that's certainly true— thinking back to those early days of hype in 2013-2014, we all hoped that the XR-3 would be the standard by 2020. Considering that there were plenty of people who were absolutely sure that the Oculus Rift CV1 was going to launch with 2K displays and foveated rendering for $399 in 2014, that surely doesn't sound like an outlandish prediction except in retrospect. It's true that VR didn't develop as explosively as we hoped. It's unfortunate that Moore's Law gave out in the 2010s. But videos like this surely put an end to the idea that VR is dead. Especially considering how easy it is to trigger phantom sense in people. I used to feel phantom sensations in MOBILE VR; it's piss easy to induce it in me. Thrillseeker needed a top-of-the-line headset to do it, but do it it did.

VR relies on these sorts of para-psychological thrills to truly work, which is the whole reason why we're so excited for the future prospects of FIVR/full dive VR. Same deal with AR. Once it becomes possible to make our brains start naturally accepting the virtual as real on a consistent basis, even without FIVR, that's when mixed reality will truly go into overdrive.

[funkervogt]

Imagine this five to ten years down the line. By 2031, we might be able to get the XR-3 for about as expensive as a Quest 2 or, at worst, an Index. What's high end now will be mid-to-low end by then, and God only knows what the high-end will be like thusly.

Ten years sounds about right. Probably an upper-end estimate, in fact.

Check out the gadgets that appeared at CES 2011, especially the Samsung UN65D8000 TV. Gape in astonishment at 65 WHOLE INCHES (!) of 1080p (!!) resolution.
https://www.popsci.com/technology/artic ... ts-future/

It was offered for sale later that year for $4,299.99.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/tv-review ... 00-review/

And today, I'm not sure if Samsung still makes 65" 1080p TVs because everything of that size and up seems to be 4K resolution. The Samsung 65" 4K Tizen is on sale at Best Buy for $569.99. Keep in mind that the price is probably higher than it should have been thanks to the global computer chip shortage.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-65 ... /6401722.p

If Samsung were still making 1080p TVs, they would be cheaper than 4K models of the same size. And if the computer chip shortage didn't exist, those 1080p TVs would be even cheaper.

With those facts in mind, Samsung could probably be selling a UN65D8000 TV today for $429.99, which would be a 90% price decrease from 2011.

If we assume the same rate of price deflation, the Varjo XR-3 will drop from its current price of $5,995 to $599 by 2031. The latter is about the same cost as a PS5 console now, meaning it will be affordable to average people.

As I've long said, the 2020s will be the decade when VR becomes visually convincing and goes mainstream. It won't be the domain of a small clique of hardcore gamers and technophiles in a few years.

[Yuli Ban]

Indeed; this might even be the reason behind the sudden push towards the metaverse in the past few months. It certainly couldn't escape notice that the metaverse went from a niche topic to "Jim Cramer telling you to invest in it" virtually overnight (no pun intended).
Be it a conspiracy theory, but I for one believe that the big tech companies know exactly what's coming in the realm of XR. Because of the constant "VR is dead/just a fad/didn't live up to the hype" reporting of the past five years, a lot of people misunderstand where VR really is and just how far along it's come and our perception of just how much further it's going to go has been skewed by that genuine stagnation I mentioned. It honestly isn't going to take much more than the Oculus Quest 2 to make VR go truly mainstream.

These big companies I realize aren't trying to force the metaverse but rather get ahead of it because they realize that, as you said, this is the decade when everything will come together for XR. It's like with the iPhone. Once the tech reached that inflection point, everything just fell in place. Who knows what the iPhone of VR will be.

I remember comments on articles circa 2019 when mobile VR died that went "actually ALL of VR is dying." These comments aged very poorly and will only decay that much faster over the next five years

[funkervogt]

Indeed; this might even be the reason behind the sudden push towards the metaverse in the past few months. It certainly couldn't escape notice that the metaverse went from a niche topic to "Jim Cramer telling you to invest in it" virtually overnight (no pun intended).
Be it a conspiracy theory, but I for one believe that the big tech companies know exactly what's coming in the realm of XR. Because of the constant "VR is dead/just a fad/didn't live up to the hype" reporting of the past five years, a lot of people misunderstand where VR really is and just how far along it's come and our perception of just how much further it's going to go has been skewed by that genuine stagnation I mentioned. It honestly isn't going to take much more than the Oculus Quest 2 to make VR go truly mainstream.

These big companies I realize aren't trying to force the metaverse but rather get ahead of it because they realize that, as you said, this is the decade when everything will come together for XR. It's like with the iPhone. Once the tech reached that inflection point, everything just fell in place. Who knows what the iPhone of VR will be.

I remember comments on articles circa 2019 when mobile VR died that went "actually ALL of VR is dying." These comments aged very poorly and will only decay that much faster over the next five years

I agree with everything you said. Tech tycoons like Mark Zuckerberg have access to much better market analytics and tech forecasts than we do, but I strongly suspect they've some to the same conclusion we have about the rise of VR by 2030. Here is Zuckerberg's famous demo video:



At 10:29 he says the Metaverse won't be mainstream for another 5 - 10 years, and at 36:40 he says the Metaverse "might reach" a billion people in 10 years. That accords with the timeline we have agreed upon.

Another technology that will return this decade is augmented reality (AR) glasses. It was also unfairly dismissed as a forever-failure in the 2010s after Google Glass failed. Clearly, the problem was that it was a technology ahead of its time.

[funkervogt]

For the heck of it, I did a little more research on the Varjo XR-3 goggles. Remarkably, in ALL of the review videos I found on YouTube, the people give it rave reviews and say its video footage looks lifelike. See for yourself:







The pixels are so small and so densely packed that the "screen door effect" is gone, and the renderings are so detailed that they inspire awe. Consider that the people in the videos I posted are hardcore VR users who are hard to impress.

This means we've reached a crucial milestone in virtual reality: There now exists a VR device that produces a visually lifelike and highly immersive virtual experience. The technological hurdle has been surmounted. If every person could try out a Varjo XR-3 for an hour, they'd probably want to own one.

The only stumbling block is the high price tag of $5,995, which makes it unaffordable for average people. However, as with every kind of electronic technology, the price will sharply decline, and within ten years, something equivalent to the Varjo XR-3 will cost no more than a PS5 game console. At that point, we should expect mass adoption of VR across the world. We're close to the inflection point.

The 2021-2031 timeframe will see the rise of a VR goggle that will be as seminal to video gaming as the Atari 2600, NES, GameBoy, or Playstation.

[Yuli Ban]

[Yuli Ban]

[Yuli Ban]

[Lurking]

[Yuli Ban]

[wjfox]

[BaobabScion]

I think y'all will like this...

[TrueAnimationFan]

The whole vibe of "I don't know why you're pointing your finger in my face, but I find it annoying" reminds me so much of domestic dogs. Robot intelligence has a long way to go, but they're definitely catching up to us faster than we think.

[wjfox]

Robot vacuum cleaner escapes from Cambridge Travelodge

Published
3 hours ago

A robot vacuum cleaner made a break for freedom after giving staff the slip at a Travelodge hotel.

The automated cleaner failed to stop at the front door of the hotel in Orchard Park in Cambridge on Thursday, and was still on the loose the following day.

Staff said it just kept going and "could be anywhere" while well-wishers on social media hoped the vacuum enjoyed its travels, as "it has no natural predators" in the wild.

It was found under a hedge on Friday.

Staff at the hotel posted the story of the robot vacuum's great escape on social media, asking for it to be returned, if found.

"Today we had one of our new robot vacuums run for its life," the assistant manager wrote.

"They normally sense the lip at the entrance [to the hotel] and turn around, but this one decided to make a run for it."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-c ... e-60084347

[Cyber_Rebel]

Hotels across the US are using room-service robots to act as receptionists and deliver food, amid staffing shortages



https://www.businessinsider.com/labor-s ... ots-2022-1

Hotels across the US are using room-service robots to deal with staffing issues caused by a perpetual labor shortage.

The robots, created by Savioke, carry out simple tasks such as delivering meals or other items to guest rooms, Fox Business reported.

Savioke CEO Steve Cousins told Fox Business in an interview that the robots allowed hotel staff to focus on crucial tasks, like manning the front desk, at a time when staff levels remain at record lows.
-------------------------------------------------
According to a statement on Savioke's website, the company "creates and deploys beautifully simple. sophisticated, and friendly service robots." The machines work safely, securely, and reliably in human environments, the statement added.

Though it's becoming more common for businesses to use robots to tackle staffing issues, some say that there are drawbacks. These include robots running away from guests wearing lots of jewelry or chatting too much.

[TrueAnimationFan]

What I find interesting about this is that without the whole COVID induced staff shortage, this sort of trend would have been emerging in maybe 2030. The only downside to this is that by then, robots would have been more skilled at helping humans and better at communicating.

[Yuli Ban]

What I find interesting about this is that without the whole COVID induced staff shortage, this sort of trend would have been emerging in maybe 2030. The only downside to this is that by then, robots would have been more skilled at helping humans and better at communicating.

That's something I've mulled on as well before and I came to the same conclusion: 2022 should be indistinguishable from 2019, barring a few nifty things in AI. We shouldn't be having a revolution in automation on our hands. We shouldn't have MRNA vaccines. We shouldn't have massive online infrastructure developments. But we do. And it's all because of the pandemic. It accelerated trends that weren't going to force changes until at least the latter half of this decade.
In fact, because the pandemic didn't get squashed before the end of 2020, these massive ovrewhelming changes weren't able to be reversed so that we returned to 2019++. Right now, in an "optimal" timeline where COVID was soundly defeated in 2020, all remote working progress would have been undone and the business class would have ferried its workers back into offices sometime in 2021 while robotics commercialization would revert back to its silent shadowy state of advancement that it had been in all throughout the 2010s. So.... thanks anti-vaxxers?

The only downside to having all this happen now is that it's the rawest, least capable version of all this technology that's being forced into the limelight. It's amazing to see robots arise, but it's robots from the early/mid 2010s— the exact same robots we were gawking over back in 2015-2016 as "The Future™". Of course, you have to start somewhere. You need a foundation to build a starscraper, after all, and the stronger that foundation, the higher you can build. We probably ultra-accelerated trends in the late 2020s if anything.