VR will be a niche, I agree, a subset of the subculture of gaming, which is a dead-end culturally, like playing bridge and golf and joining convents and monasteries were for earlier generations. And TV watching. Humans who contribute very little but consume very much.
AR, on the other hand, is a continuation of amplifying human senses, which we've been doing for at least since the earliest ground lenses that appeared 3,000 years ago or so. The purpose is to understand the environment to a greater degree. I wouldn't go out on that limb over this one, 'cause there isn't any stopping human knowledge gathering.
By the way, AR won't succeed if it's monocular, like Glass was. It has to be in stereo (3D) or it won't pull your neurons into the picture.
My neurons winced when I read that!
My sympathies. When Galileo got his telescope up and running, and saw little moons around Jupiter (?), he wanted to show the guys that the solar system was different from what they thought. His opponents refused to look through the scope.
I've noticed that people who've spent their lives in 2D media often dislike 3D. Makes sense, because using two eyes causes an entire readjustment of the visual system. Some great photographers and painters have been monocular, unable to see stereo in real life. Rembrandt was one. Errol Morris another. They pay better attention to composition and lighting for depth cues, I think.
I've been using VR clinically since 2001 - that's not a typo for 2011, but 2001, with what was a gaming headset called the vfx3d. I still have it and it still works clinically. But it's augmented (!) with an android based cellphone in a homido headset and my MacBook Air with a net connection so I can go out in the field with patients, eg on board stationary aircraft to practice flying in situ, in rehearsal become the thing. I'm also using green screen tech for augmented reality work placing patients in their feared situation eg in the middle of a pack of dogs.
Earlier this year, I was invited onto a panel to discuss VR and AR futures, sponsored by Samsung. There, I predicted the VR world would split in two: the high end gamer and training enterprise with the likes of Oculus running on windows based gaming rigs. And the second would be the mobile VR and AR world using cellphones, where exceptional latency and realism was not required, such as my clinical domain. My prediction was that Samsung would initially lead the way with its links to Oculus, but that will enter the space when the trough of disappointment is reached for Samsung. It's known is in this space as the article suggests, and history shows is is incredibly patient.
my other prediction on the panel was that AR would be the bigger of the two for the general public given its a much more social experience plus the commercial aspects it will give access to. I didn't say it, given Samsung was the sponsor, but I believe Samsung will not be in this space in five years.
Les Posen FAPS Clinical psychologist Melbourne, Australia peteo said:
VR will be a niche, I agree, a subset of the subculture of gaming, which is a dead-end culturally, like playing bridge and golf and joining convents and monasteries were for earlier generations. And TV watching. Humans who contribute very little but consume very much.
AR, on the other hand, is a continuation of amplifying human senses, which we've been doing for at least since the earliest ground lenses that appeared 3,000 years ago or so. The purpose is to understand the environment to a greater degree. I wouldn't go out on that limb over this one, 'cause there isn't any stopping human knowledge gathering.
By the way, AR won't succeed if it's monocular, like Glass was. It has to be in stereo (3D) or it won't pull your neurons into the picture.
VR is any thing but a fad, and will not be a nitch. Sure when the 3 HMD's launch next year it will be pricey to get into, but the costs will come down very fast. VR/AR will be the next computing platform, just a matter of time. The tech is just to compelling and useful ignore. I've seen many skeptics change their mind once they used one of the new HMDs. It's really that good.
VR will be a niche, I agree, a subset of the subculture of gaming, which is a dead-end culturally, like playing bridge and golf and joining convents and monasteries were for earlier generations. And TV watching. Humans who contribute very little but consume very much.
AR, on the other hand, is a continuation of amplifying human senses, which we've been doing for at least since the earliest ground lenses that appeared 3,000 years ago or so. The purpose is to understand the environment to a greater degree. I wouldn't go out on that limb over this one, 'cause there isn't any stopping human knowledge gathering.
By the way, AR won't succeed if it's monocular, like Glass was. It has to be in stereo (3D) or it won't pull your neurons into the picture.
VR is any thing but a fad, and will not be a nitch. Sure when the 3 HMD's launch next year it will be pricey to get into, but the costs will come down very fast. VR/AR will be the next computing platform, just a matter of time. The tech is just to compelling and useful ignore. I've seen many skeptics change their mind once they used one of the new HMDs. It's really that good.
VR will be a niche, I agree, a subset of the subculture of gaming, which is a dead-end culturally, like playing bridge and golf and joining convents and monasteries were for earlier generations. And TV watching. Humans who contribute very little but consume very much.
AR, on the other hand, is a continuation of amplifying human senses, which we've been doing for at least since the earliest ground lenses that appeared 3,000 years ago or so. The purpose is to understand the environment to a greater degree. I wouldn't go out on that limb over this one, 'cause there isn't any stopping human knowledge gathering.
By the way, AR won't succeed if it's monocular, like Glass was. It has to be in stereo (3D) or it won't pull your neurons into the picture.
VR is any thing but a fad, and will not be a nitch. Sure when the 3 HMD's launch next year it will be pricey to get into, but the costs will come down very fast. VR/AR will be the next computing platform, just a matter of time. The tech is just to compelling and useful ignore. I've seen many skeptics change their mind once they used one of the new HMDs. It's really that good.
I don't think the cost is going to plummet. To do it well they need very high end graphics cards to run the headsets. My son had a look on Valve's Steam which has comprehensive statistics on the hardware PC gamers are using. The most common graphics capability is Intel integrated graphics. Only 20% or so have a card capable of driving the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive given their currently published GPU requirements. The Sony PS4 hasn't got even close to adequate GPU performance to run a VR headset so they can probably be discounted.
The headset cost likely could come down quite rapidly but the cost of the GPU performance to drive them probably won't, given Moore's law seems to have run out of puff.
It's proving to be unprofitable to try and be a fast-follower of Apple. Google hasn't done well since Eric Schmidt got escorted out of the Apple board room. And while Samsung is the biggest fish in the Android pond, it's barely making any money. Apple is upping the ante in both hardware and software inclusions in the current stable of products. 3D touch hasn't been knocked off, the power of the SoC Ax is outstanding, and Apple's pursuit of Fashion Iconic status is not in the culture of copy cat companies. Apple has the sales numbers to make most hardware improvements cost effective over tens of millions of units, which just isn't the case with the primary suspects. In addition, Apple just keeps piling it on so the gap between Apple and the me-too companies just keeps getting wider with time.
Being a fast follower was a good-enough strategy when everyone was using off-the-shelf components, but Apple's advancements in hardware just don't translate well to its competitors today. Also, Apple is moving faster and faster with its HW and SW development, leaving the competition always behind the power curve.
All excellent points.
What are you talking about? They are TERRIBLE points.
1. Google came out with their own VR platform, Google Cardboard, in 2014. It already serves as the basis for several mainstream commercial products such as the Mattel Viewmaster VR. So there are no Apple patents or concepts for Google to copy or steal since they have already had their own platform for at least 4 years and a viable commercial - well technically not commercial since they give it away - product for the last 18 months. (And yes, Google's VR platform is also available on the App Store.)
2. Samsung came out with a VR product based on Google Cardboard in 3rd quarter 2014. Now they have a much better product that they co-developed with Oculus that has been on the market for months. So, with their own tech plus whatever they develop in conjunction with Google and Oculus, no need or desire to copy Apple.
Apple is a follower in this space, not a leader, and unless they can come out with something new and revolutionary they will remain that way. It is far more likely that Apple's efforts in this space will be similar to the iPhone 6/6Plus, Apple Watch and new Apple TV: very similar to and iterations of Android (and other) products that have been on the market for years.
Second: Samsung had a profit of $2.1 billion in Q3. In what universe is $2 billion a quarter barely making any money? No, I am not talking about in comparison to Apple's massive profits. Then again, there were plenty of quarters pre-iPhone explosion that Apple would have loved to make $2 billion in profits from the whole company let alone a single division!
3. Also, the claim that Google has not done well since Apple dismissed Eric Schmidt from its board: wrong. Their revenue last quarter was nearly $19 billion with a profit of $4.7 billion. Google is probably making more money right now from YouTube alone than they made almost ten years ago when they were a much smaller, much less influential company. As a matter of fact, this fellow states that Google's intake DOUBLED since 2011 - when Schmidt was shown the door - and 2014
In fact, Google's quarterly revenue now is 2/3 of what their ANNUAL REVENUE was in 2010!
Look, I know that they are the competition. Although technically Google considers its biggest foes to be Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon. Google isn't even trying to make money on hardware because they are not a hardware company. They are a search/advertising company first and an Internet services and software company second. Keeping Microsoft from gaining dominance in mobile search and using it to drive up their share of desktop search was what motivated Google to buy Android and release a mobile OS in the first place: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-day-google-had-to-start-over-on-android/282479. Remember, back then, before the iPhone, both Google and Apple were much smaller than they are now. As a matter of fact, both Google AND Apple combined back then constituted a molehill to Microsoft's mountain because of Microsoft's dominance in desktop/laptop OS. Google was terrified that Microsoft's attempt to enter their search/advertising domain with Bing and a major web portal would work and leave them decimated. And also, please recall that back then Microsoft also had a leading mobile platform and Google knew that mobile would grow. Adopting Android and giving it away for free - a brilliant idea because back then profit margins on mobile devices were very low for hardware OEMs so not having to pay Microsoft's not-insubstantial licensing fees gave manufacturers a huge incentive to not only adopt but market the platform, as they would make far more money on an Android device than on a similar Microsoft device as a result - was a survival strategy that worked like a charm. As a matter of fact, it worked better than they could have imagined because the combination of Apple and Google hammered Microsoft to the point where they were forced to switch CEOs and remake and reorient the company towards a services model similar to Amazon (and Google).
While it did cost Google their relationship with Apple (when in hindsight a strategic partnership would have made a lot more sense) let's be honest: retaining that relationship would not have saved Google from Microsoft. Even now in their ravaged, diminished and humbled state, Microsoft is still a much larger, more profitable, powerful and influential company than Google. Had Google not come out with Android, then Microsoft would have done what Google has done - flood the market with inexpensive but perfectly functional mobile devices. And Microsoft would have locked Google's search, email and other products off their mobile devices, and essentially done the same with PCs by making the mobile device account the same as the PC account. Where this has only been an OPTION on Microsft PCs since Windows 8 (because practically no one owns a Microsoft mobile device) with a larger market share in mobile they would have been able to make it MANDATORY. Because Google's search and advertising business is one where market share matters, there is nothing that Apple would have been able to do to help Google. Also, they would have had no real incentive to, as staying in business is Google's problem, not Apple's, and Apple hasn't exactly stepped up to keep some of their previous corporate partners and friends strong and vital either (see GT Advanced, now bankrupt).
Google already knows that their primary business is in decline, but now they are big, strong and profitable enough to shift from ads to software, services, even dabble in being an ISP and mobile provider and hardware seller. Their next big push is going to be competing with Microsoft and Amazon in the cloud in a major way, which is why their biggest move of the past year was to buy the company of the co-founder of VMWare and make that company its own unit in Alphabet with her as the CEO. But back in 2005, when they bought Android, they were nowhere near capable of doing that. Instead, back then it would have only taken a couple of bad years for them to be where Yahoo is now, and a couple more to be Alta Vista, Lycos or MySpace.
Bottom line: I know, Google is the competitor, the enemy, fire away at will, but please be factual when you do so. Google and Samsung are making boatloads of money (Google a lot more even if though Samsung somewhat less), aren't going away any time soon (or ever for the intents and purposes of the mobile industry as it is now) and Google for their part was only an indirect competitor with Apple in the first place. Samsung tried to be a direct competitor and failed. Right now Samsung's biggest problem is companies that are adopting Amazon's model with the Kindle tablet - break even on hardware to use to promote their software and services - and actually succeeding with it a lot more than Amazon ever did. Chinese Internet/mobile companies like Huawei and Xiaomi are the biggest threats to Samsung now, not Apple, and it would be in Samsung's best interests to realize that. But even if they don't, Samsung still has tens of millions of loyal Galaxy fans worldwide to keep them very profitable for the foreseeable future.
Comments
I've noticed that people who've spent their lives in 2D media often dislike 3D. Makes sense, because using two eyes causes an entire readjustment of the visual system. Some great photographers and painters have been monocular, unable to see stereo in real life. Rembrandt was one. Errol Morris another. They pay better attention to composition and lighting for depth cues, I think.
Very interesting, thanks.
The headset cost likely could come down quite rapidly but the cost of the GPU performance to drive them probably won't, given Moore's law seems to have run out of puff.
1. Google came out with their own VR platform, Google Cardboard, in 2014. It already serves as the basis for several mainstream commercial products such as the Mattel Viewmaster VR. So there are no Apple patents or concepts for Google to copy or steal since they have already had their own platform for at least 4 years and a viable commercial - well technically not commercial since they give it away - product for the last 18 months. (And yes, Google's VR platform is also available on the App Store.)
2. Samsung came out with a VR product based on Google Cardboard in 3rd quarter 2014. Now they have a much better product that they co-developed with Oculus that has been on the market for months. So, with their own tech plus whatever they develop in conjunction with Google and Oculus, no need or desire to copy Apple.
Apple is a follower in this space, not a leader, and unless they can come out with something new and revolutionary they will remain that way. It is far more likely that Apple's efforts in this space will be similar to the iPhone 6/6Plus, Apple Watch and new Apple TV: very similar to and iterations of Android (and other) products that have been on the market for years.
Second: Samsung had a profit of $2.1 billion in Q3. In what universe is $2 billion a quarter barely making any money? No, I am not talking about in comparison to Apple's massive profits. Then again, there were plenty of quarters pre-iPhone explosion that Apple would have loved to make $2 billion in profits from the whole company let alone a single division!
3. Also, the claim that Google has not done well since Apple dismissed Eric Schmidt from its board: wrong. Their revenue last quarter was nearly $19 billion with a profit of $4.7 billion. Google is probably making more money right now from YouTube alone than they made almost ten years ago when they were a much smaller, much less influential company. As a matter of fact, this fellow states that Google's intake DOUBLED since 2011 - when Schmidt was shown the door - and 2014
In fact, Google's quarterly revenue now is 2/3 of what their ANNUAL REVENUE was in 2010!
Look, I know that they are the competition. Although technically Google considers its biggest foes to be Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon. Google isn't even trying to make money on hardware because they are not a hardware company. They are a search/advertising company first and an Internet services and software company second. Keeping Microsoft from gaining dominance in mobile search and using it to drive up their share of desktop search was what motivated Google to buy Android and release a mobile OS in the first place: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-day-google-had-to-start-over-on-android/282479. Remember, back then, before the iPhone, both Google and Apple were much smaller than they are now. As a matter of fact, both Google AND Apple combined back then constituted a molehill to Microsoft's mountain because of Microsoft's dominance in desktop/laptop OS. Google was terrified that Microsoft's attempt to enter their search/advertising domain with Bing and a major web portal would work and leave them decimated. And also, please recall that back then Microsoft also had a leading mobile platform and Google knew that mobile would grow. Adopting Android and giving it away for free - a brilliant idea because back then profit margins on mobile devices were very low for hardware OEMs so not having to pay Microsoft's not-insubstantial licensing fees gave manufacturers a huge incentive to not only adopt but market the platform, as they would make far more money on an Android device than on a similar Microsoft device as a result - was a survival strategy that worked like a charm. As a matter of fact, it worked better than they could have imagined because the combination of Apple and Google hammered Microsoft to the point where they were forced to switch CEOs and remake and reorient the company towards a services model similar to Amazon (and Google).
While it did cost Google their relationship with Apple (when in hindsight a strategic partnership would have made a lot more sense) let's be honest: retaining that relationship would not have saved Google from Microsoft. Even now in their ravaged, diminished and humbled state, Microsoft is still a much larger, more profitable, powerful and influential company than Google. Had Google not come out with Android, then Microsoft would have done what Google has done - flood the market with inexpensive but perfectly functional mobile devices. And Microsoft would have locked Google's search, email and other products off their mobile devices, and essentially done the same with PCs by making the mobile device account the same as the PC account. Where this has only been an OPTION on Microsft PCs since Windows 8 (because practically no one owns a Microsoft mobile device) with a larger market share in mobile they would have been able to make it MANDATORY. Because Google's search and advertising business is one where market share matters, there is nothing that Apple would have been able to do to help Google. Also, they would have had no real incentive to, as staying in business is Google's problem, not Apple's, and Apple hasn't exactly stepped up to keep some of their previous corporate partners and friends strong and vital either (see GT Advanced, now bankrupt).
Google already knows that their primary business is in decline, but now they are big, strong and profitable enough to shift from ads to software, services, even dabble in being an ISP and mobile provider and hardware seller. Their next big push is going to be competing with Microsoft and Amazon in the cloud in a major way, which is why their biggest move of the past year was to buy the company of the co-founder of VMWare and make that company its own unit in Alphabet with her as the CEO. But back in 2005, when they bought Android, they were nowhere near capable of doing that. Instead, back then it would have only taken a couple of bad years for them to be where Yahoo is now, and a couple more to be Alta Vista, Lycos or MySpace.
Bottom line: I know, Google is the competitor, the enemy, fire away at will, but please be factual when you do so. Google and Samsung are making boatloads of money (Google a lot more even if though Samsung somewhat less), aren't going away any time soon (or ever for the intents and purposes of the mobile industry as it is now) and Google for their part was only an indirect competitor with Apple in the first place. Samsung tried to be a direct competitor and failed. Right now Samsung's biggest problem is companies that are adopting Amazon's model with the Kindle tablet - break even on hardware to use to promote their software and services - and actually succeeding with it a lot more than Amazon ever did. Chinese Internet/mobile companies like Huawei and Xiaomi are the biggest threats to Samsung now, not Apple, and it would be in Samsung's best interests to realize that. But even if they don't, Samsung still has tens of millions of loyal Galaxy fans worldwide to keep them very profitable for the foreseeable future.