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Wednesday, April 20, 2016

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Brookston Holiday

Yeah, you're probably right.

I still really, really want one.

Wagner James Au

I think it's cool tech too, I just wish we could talk about it without injecting all this "IT'S GOING TO CHANGE THE WORLD!!1!" shit.

ginsu

Hiya ... I think you're misremembering some key things that Philip said about presence waaay back in the SL days ... First of all, it's not just about a visceral sense of presence in an immersive environment, but being present with other people who can react with you in real time. Your pithy comment about books is cool - I love books! - but as fully as they imagine a world and put you in it, they don't put you in a world with other people who can also react and respond to that world.

Secondly, though just as importantly, Philip always knew we were constrained by the state of technology, and the only users who could really feel the sense of presence were the ones who would fight through the constraints of limited technology. It takes real determination as well as imagination to fight through the clumsy UI of a keyboard, mouse and monitor to force your mind into another world. VR is never going to have more users than the state of the technology allows.

But the unyielding march of technological development will continue to lower that barrier, and the real proof of whether a sense of (social) presence is compelling only comes when the barrier is virtually zero: 10000 peak GFLOPS/s in the client device, display embedded in contact lenses, sound in cochlear implants, input and sensory output embedded in clothing, etc. All of those things will exist, if only because the high-end market will demand it. And then from there, we can see whether demand allows for a scale of production that lowers prices enough to support a mass market.

I've been enjoying reading your been-there-done-that weariness over VR hype, and believe me I share an awful lot of the sentiment. But I don't buy your objections when they are based in "Well we tried that, it failed," or "Companies have tried that for 20 years," or "Technology is too expensive" - because here you are essentially making technology predictions, and this type of prediction has been proven wrong time and time again in the history of information technology.

I am more interested in your objections that are based on the limits of human nature - e.g. people can't be immersed, they need to multitask; people don't want to sit, people don't want to be in an enclosed room for too long; people prefer the world around them to the world in their heads. These are really interesting assertions about human nature, and as a culture writer you are really well equipped to unpack those assertions and explain more about what those limits are about, and why they exist.

monkey monkey monkey

Data exploration will be VR's killer app.

sirhc deSantis

Turning users into money sources and feeding the chase for the next throwaway fad will be VRs Killer Apps. Shrugs. Plus ça change.

Iggy

"authentic experiences, as authentic as in real life"

Define "authentic."

Walking around virtual Paris may be fun and even a great way to plan actual travel. But as compelling and "authentic" as the real thing? That idea is worse than bullshit. It's actively evil because it tells us that we do not need to engage with our bodies in the real. It's making Buadrillard laugh somewhere at these hucksters and those who buy into their schemes to make money.

It's romantic to say "I'd rather endure an uncomfortable plane ride, the indignities of French Customs, an expensive hotel, and more just to savor a black-flour Breton crepe and I want to feel the breeze on the back of my neck as I tote it to a park to eat it. " I do, and yes, I want the actual "fecundity of the unexpected," to use William Least-Heat Moon's term, an authenticity that comes with physical travel to places that are not hyperreal like Disneyland or over-planned to the point of banality, like the American Interstate.

I will, however, concede that walking around a simulated Rome of Vespasian's era and interacting with others wearing VR rigs would be very, very cool. Now THAT I could appreciate since what I'd call "the authentic Ancient Rome" is long gone.

If this VR tech goes mass market, it will be time to raise the Project Mayhem flag of Tyler Durden over a pack of promises that the fake can equal "the authentic."

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