
Free Isn’t Cheap Enough – The Blog of Palmer Luckey - mrfusion
http://palmerluckey.com/free-isnt-cheap-enough/
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h2odragon
"VR Sculpting / CAD" is probably the best actual use for the tech as it seems
to be so far, nifty as that is (for me)... Many people have never _wanted_ to
design something, so making it easier doesn't mean much to them.

Immersive VR porn that involves fluids and smells, that could sell well enough
that people might make a career of content creation of it. Queasy feeling
video games, not so much.

The "Cyberspace" notion that arose after "Neuromancer" came out is so
captivating that it draws people to think that's the thing we need. Take the
display technology: 3d "retina resolution" FPS world... We keep seeing
hardware that comes as close as possible to that given current manufacturing,
and it's never good enough. it's always the hardware's fault, or there wasn't
enough appealing content...

No one really wants that kind of display, though. Nintendo's efforts were a
good enough effort to show what that can do. Autodesk's version made years
earlier and costing several limbs and organs more, was pretty much the same
thing.

"Ready Player One" shows a really cool VR world but... it's still the same
basic vision, the same basic thing, it's been since 1990 or so. However many
more boom and bust cycles VR goes through, it's still going to be the limited
use and limited appeal thing it has been because it isn't what anyone actually
needs.

So I'm a curmudgeon: I'm typing on a 1992 Model M and just replaced my 1996
Microsoft Trackball because a decent alternative has become available,
(finally! blessings on Elecom). I use these input tools because they are the
best I have found... And judging by the $500+ price on the MS Trackballs that
are still sold, and the large Model M / Mechanical keyboard fanbase, I'm not
alone in that opinion.

How is it possible that none of the VR research has yet managed to improve on
these input tools enough to dethrone them? Is there truly no real concept of a
300WPM keyboard equivalent that everyday users can use? Is it that we have to
ensure users upstream bandwidth can't exceed 1/10th of their downstream
(shades of "sit and consume like a good citizen!") I won't even mention voice
recognition because many people do not talk as fast as they wish to
communicate already.

Haptics would be nice, right? What could we do today, right now, with bubble
wrap suits with individual air pressure control of each bubble. Make the bugs
crawl all over you, tele-massage... There's potential there. Does anybody want
it? "I don't want to be touched" would have been a weirder thing to say in
public in 1990 than today. I don't think our culture is about to celebrate
skin as a sense organ anytime soon.

I'm just a bit cynical about "VR". Perhaps someday some of the VR work will
become widely useful, probably be under a different name, like "bio-
interfaces" or something, just because the VR meme has so much suction.

~~~
MrEldritch
The fact that we don't have good force-feedback technology yet is basically
why we don't have great VR input devices. Being able to make fast, precise,
confident movements _depends_ on having resistance and collision to take the
brain's motion control from open-loop to closed-loop. Even supposedly
feedbackless touchscreens have the benefit of screen friction and a defined
rigid plane.

And people have been trying with force-feedback; it's just _really hard_ to
make it work with something that allows for wide range of motion, isn't
massively cumbersome, and costs less than a new car.

~~~
tyleo
I think the previous poster makes a good point touting sculpting and design
apps as better applications as they don’t need such force feedback devices.

These VR devices are already as expensive as game consoles and all you get is
a single player experience that a companion can’t even watch as you play. The
force feedback devices may improve individual experience but wouldn’t help the
price point.

~~~
MrEldritch
Even sculpting and design apps would _strongly_ benefit from force feedback.
In fact, those are some of the specific things I was thinking of where the
kind of precise movements that closed-loop control enables are critical!

When you're drawing, for instance, the pressure and friction of the pencil
against the page is pretty critical for accurately feeling and controlling
your movement. You _cannot_ just wave your finger in the air with the same
precision or control you can draw a line with a pencil.

Likewise for sculpting - your hands are far more sensitive to precise shape
than your eyes are, and being able to feel the material resist against you
lets you use precise amounts of pressure to judge how you are deforming it.

As long as VR inputs involve waving your hands in the air unsupported, they
will _never_ be able to achieve the same level of precision input and utility
for serious tasks as a mouse or a drawing tablet.

