17 comments

  • mabedan
    1 hour ago
    This is the first feature which makes me kind of excited for VR. I live away from my country and my parents for over 20 years and I’d love to be able to sit in my parents’ living room, or have them sit in mine and share a moment together. FaceTime is already great, but I can imagine this will feel more intimate.
    • skeezyjefferson
      40 minutes ago
      we are decades away. its why carmack quit to pursue other avenues. the chasm between the state of the art (gaming) and where VR currently is (essentially, mobile) is too big not seem shitty in comparison. The then-recent proliferation of Arm and SoC made the industry think it was possible, they even convinced Carmack, but the bandwidth just isnt there. The innovation required on the software side is massive - so theyll just wait for hardware to get better.
    • ojo-rojo
      1 hour ago
      +1 To add to the experience of connecting to people, I can also imagine our family members taking a photograph together while in VR of the family living room – a memento we can take away. That would work if our VR avatars are realistic representations of ourselves, which I think Meta can do (?)
      • lm28469
        58 minutes ago
        This sounds like an absolute nightmare. Technology disconnected us over decades, then gave us "solutions" to stay in touch 24/7, people are lonelier than ever but we keep pushing for more of this shit. You can already call and video call your family, basically for free, what does VR bring to the table ?

        "Hey John, grandpa will expire soon can you quickly jump in your headset and upload yourself to his VR cabin in the wood, the one we rent from MetaSpital for $99 a day, to take a selfie with him before he dies alone in a cold hospital room"

        • kakacik
          34 minutes ago
          That's an extreme take, venting off some inner fears and frustrations?

          There are many use cases where this can add value. People these days live far from their families, what's wrong with connecting in a better/different way if desired?

          Not everybody wants or can stay with their families for whole life and that's fine, something about personal freedom and right to self-determination, desire for massive personal growth that exposure to different cultures invariably brings in, adventures and so on.

          • lm28469
            24 minutes ago
            > something about personal freedom and right to self-determination

            This has to be satire, god emperor Zuck and his megacorp Meta fighting for our personal freedoms and right to self-determination. You're already living in an alternate universe apparently

        • mabedan
          28 minutes ago
          I agree with the general sentiment. I also think we forgot how to enjoy quality time together and these “solutions” will make matters worse. But in some scenarios, like what I described, which is just spending time together, it can help
        • andybak
          53 minutes ago
          It's just another way to record a time and place. No more different to a video than a video is to a photo. Just slightly more fidelity.

          It's a good thing. It's a nice thing. Chill.

          I get that there's reasons to be angry at big tech but this isn't one of them. Accurate and easy 3d scanning, high fidelity rendering and a way to view in 6dof stereoscopic is just a great use case entirely separate from the machinations of our evil overlords.

          • lm28469
            51 minutes ago
            And how does a 3d rendered world that doesn't exist anywhere other than in a computer has more fidelity than real life ?

            > It's a good thing. It's a nice thing. Chill

            That's your opinion, the fact that VR tanked hard seems to indicate most people don't agree

  • jasode
    1 hour ago
    Somewhat related is 3D / LIDAR scanning tech of overlapping photo captures using Matterport: https://matterport.com/

    It's popular with real estate agents. Not quite "virtual reality" but it also doesn't need expensive glasses. It does seem like future smartphones with AI may be a decent cheaper substitute for $6000 Matterport cameras.

  • UberFly
    3 hours ago
    Meta is the Yahoo of current platforms. It happens to all of them eventually...
  • wewewedxfgdf
    3 hours ago
    The Zuck really doesn't want to let go of the MetaVerse does he?
    • hnlmorg
      54 minutes ago
      There is some sense in it and I’m surprised by all the naysayers here.

      For starters, Quest is by far the biggest selling VR/XR headset. So he is already seeing some success here.

      And as we’ve seen before, Facebook isn’t going to dominate forever. It makes complete sense throwing large sums of money at future technology while you still have large sums of money to burn.

      Chasing new technology when you’re already behind and your revenue is decline is a guaranteed way to fail.

      Moonshots like this you waste a tonne of money when that money is comparatively cheap anyway. Plus it keeps people talking about your business, which is never a bad thing.

    • mrheosuper
      2 hours ago
      And i happy for that. Someone has to bite the bullet to push the VR tech.
      • hansmayer
        1 hour ago
        Right, but why?
        • reassess_blind
          1 hour ago
          Because someone needs to pour the money in to get us to "Ready Player One" level game immersion.
          • Cthulhu_
            1 hour ago
            But is there much of a demand for it? VR has been a feature of video games for over a decade now, last time I used it I thought it was good enough (that was 6-7 years ago), technology wise. But it's nowhere near as popular as e.g. regular displays.

            Any movie depictions of VR are fully immersive - Ready Player One (at least the film) takes some liberties in depicting the game world as if it's immersive, even though the guy plays with VR glasses and force feedback gloves/suits, all current-day technology. Most others have a direct brain interface. Some (Star Trek) model a realistic immersive environment around the player, but both of those are very much science fiction still.

            There's some brain / tech interfaces, but if I recall correctly the brain has to learn to handle the signals first, there's no way to create a perfect, instant link.

            • lm28469
              55 minutes ago
              The people who wish for these worlds are either complete shut in, terminally online or already spending 8+ hours a day playing video games and walking past their lives.
              • andybak
                16 minutes ago
                No. We're fairly normal actually.
          • lm28469
            1 hour ago
            Meta alone could have solved like 50% of famines/heavy malnutrition currently happening in the world if they used their metaverse budget to do something useful. And they'd still be so rich they wouldn't know what to do with the leftovers.

            No one "needs" to push for that bullshit metaverse, the real world isn't shitty enough, yet, apparently they're dead set and achieving that, for people to wish to live in a computer.

            • cloudflare728
              49 minutes ago
              You don't understand how money works.

              They are not burning money, they are employing people like you directly or through 3rd party partner companies. The beneficiaries can decide themselves how to spend money. They can live a good life or help others.

              • lm28469
                21 minutes ago
                Ah yes, they're just redistributing the money, the trickle down economy right ? They're basically a non profit humanitarian association at that point
        • taskforcegemini
          1 hour ago
          why not? As good as the options have become, for many purposes they are still not quite there yet
          • fragmede
            1 hour ago
            Yeah, but how are we going to get there if we don't work on it?
    • not_a_bot_4sho
      3 hours ago
      Metaverse is a huge deal among Zune owners and Quiby subscribers.
      • shermantanktop
        1 hour ago
        I heard about on MySpace. I think it’s going to be Web 2.1!
    • lm28469
      1 hour ago
      I was in LA in 2015 at the peak of the VR hype, I don't think zuck got the memo that it flopped hard between then and now.
    • Cthulhu_
      1 hour ago
      He should've just spent the money to buy Roblox, Fortnite or Minecraft. Second Life at a stretch.
    • the_gipsy
      1 hour ago
      The FacebookVerse.
  • clintonb
    3 hours ago
    VRML was one of my early computing interests. I’m actually excited for more ways to share 3D spaces with folks!
    • aitchnyu
      1 hour ago
      In 2000, I was 10 when I downloaded a web page with an applet to walk into a cell. But a VRML player was a whopping 10mb and it would have jammed up the phone line for hours and costed a fortune.
    • skeezyjefferson
      36 minutes ago
      remember even back THEN, they said VR would change how we work. I guess its just a common misconception we keep making
  • throw-10-8
    36 minutes ago
    Its hilarious to me how people in these comments still give Meta the benefit of the doubt and think the core feature of this is anything other than blatant data harvesting.
  • crashingintoyou
    2 hours ago
    I'm eager to see this become more widely available, at least once such spaces can be shared. Not yet available to me, but hopefully soon.
  • halflife
    3 hours ago
    Semi related, is horizon worlds still a thing? Is it being developed? Are there active users?
    • queltos
      8 minutes ago
      Surprisingly it is. Thought it was dead in the water especially against VRChat. But it is continuously worked on and if I did get that right it will get a new engine as well. Accidently hopped into some worlds recently as they are (annoyingly) promoting it heavily in the quest library. And there are plenty of worlds with many players, 99% of which being small kids it feels.
  • XorNot
    3 hours ago
    This one is actually quite interesting: there's direct uses for any ability to rapidly extract digital representations of physical spaces.
    • righthand
      2 hours ago
      Like spying on the room around the person and trying to advertise to them more Funko Pop dolls?

      What are the other direct uses?

      • Cthulhu_
        1 hour ago
        I can think of a few:

        * Surveys (I had the county come in once in my sort-of legal rental appartment when they were legalising them, they needed to make a floor plan and fire safety recommendations)

        * Real estate, which already uses 360 degree photo's and simplified 3d floor plan models

        * Video games. Very generic usage.

        * Virtualised museums, but those would likely need extra work to make all the placards etc readable

        * Street View next level, also indoor navigation.

      • baq
        2 hours ago
        Remodeling a kitchen for one.
  • nicman23
    1 hour ago
    so that is why they werent giving access to the color cameras in oculus 3 to apps

    i want my point cloud scanner dammit

    • andybak
      47 minutes ago
      They've relented on that now. There's a (somewhat limited) API for camera access.
  • alfiedotwtf
    1 hour ago
    I just hope we’ll be able to download and keep our files, rather than have them hold hostage… it would be nice to use this as a personal archival of houses and pass them down like a family album.

    Now there’s a sad sad thought - imagine if Kodak required monthly subscription to vote your photos

  • bluehat974
    1 hour ago
    Imagine scanning a cooking courses and be able to move in the space to watch cooking technique in any angles, would be awesome
  • alex1138
    2 hours ago
    A fundamental problem with Metaverse is that their parent companies (Facebook, Insta, and as far as Whatsapp it's a clear antitrust case) don't work

    People don't see posts from friends. The site spams you to death. They hijacked your email address, and replaced it with a facebook.com address. They've lied rather a lot about things generally

    And that company is now the one presenting a Metaverse/VR/AR/whatever

    It should be DOA just based on reputation, never mind the technical merits

    • fsiefken
      1 hour ago
      what if they open source the 3d->vr tech, or inspire people to create open source alternatives? it's a net win
      • timeon
        42 minutes ago
        They already open-sourced React. I consider it net-negative for the web. While nice API for developers, it resulted in slow websites for users.
        • alex1138
          20 minutes ago
          And the license controversy
  • clownpenis_fart
    1 hour ago
    [dead]
  • thrown-0825-1
    45 minutes ago
    [dead]
  • growthwtf
    3 hours ago
    Rendering takes a few hours means humans are building it at least partially.
    • andybak
      2 hours ago
      False. This is just gaussian splats being queued up on a server somewhere