Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Health at Tech. Are you so in a couple
Speaker 1: of months, we're going to be at a full year
Speaker 1: since Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook the company would change
Speaker 1: its name to Meta and that would act as a
Speaker 1: sort of parent company for products like Facebook, the social
Speaker 1: media platform, as well as Instagram, WhatsApp, etcetera. As to
Speaker 1: why Zuckerberg and company wanted to change the name, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of possible reasons. Some of them range
Speaker 1: to the cynical, such as, you know, the name Facebook
Speaker 1: has a sort of stigma attached to it and the
Speaker 1: company would really like to distance itself from that, to
Speaker 1: the practical. You know, Facebook is just one of many
Speaker 1: products that this company offers. So it is kind the
Speaker 1: confusing if you if you called the company the same
Speaker 1: name as just one of the things it offers. All
Speaker 1: the way to the aspirational that Meta is a reference
Speaker 1: to the apparently unavoidable approach of the metaverse that we
Speaker 1: cannot escape if we wanted to. Now, the metaverse as
Speaker 1: a concept is, I would argue, still pretty wibbly wobbly timey.
Speaker 1: Whymy as the doctor would say, there's kind of a
Speaker 1: general idea about what it will be, you know, some
Speaker 1: sort of persistent, online, interactive and immersive environment. On the
Speaker 1: more modest side, this could potentially just be the next
Speaker 1: big evolutionary step and online social networks. On the more
Speaker 1: grandiose side, the metaverse could be the new way we
Speaker 1: interact online with everything. I mean, it wouldn't just be
Speaker 1: how we socialize or entertain ourselves. It might dominate how
Speaker 1: we interact at work. You know, we might attend virtual
Speaker 1: meetings in a virtual eating room. It could dominate how
Speaker 1: we shop as we peruse virtual aisles, and it would
Speaker 1: be essentially everything. It would be the virtual equivalent of
Speaker 1: the real world around us. Now, if you extend that
Speaker 1: vision to dystopic proportions, you get something like Ready Player
Speaker 1: one by Ernest Klein or snow Crash by Neil Stevenson,
Speaker 1: and for the record, I personally prefer snow Crash now. Many,
Speaker 1: though not all, conceptualizations of the metaverse incorporate virtual reality
Speaker 1: or VR in an intrinsic way, So this concept has
Speaker 1: users dawning virtual reality gear so that they can really
Speaker 1: immerse themselves into this persistent virtual world. So I thought
Speaker 1: I would chat a little bit about some of the
Speaker 1: challenges that have accompanied virtual reality, because I think it's
Speaker 1: good to acknowledge the hurdles before you rush headlong into
Speaker 1: an uncertain future. If you don't acknowledge the challenges that
Speaker 1: are in the way, then it's just gonna make it
Speaker 1: more difficult to address those challenges when the time comes.
Speaker 1: So I want to really do that in this episode
Speaker 1: and talk about the things I see as being barriers
Speaker 1: to entrgue for the metaverse in the future. Now, by
Speaker 1: the time the metaverse is actually a thing, which will
Speaker 1: probably be maybe a decade from now, it's quite possible
Speaker 1: that all of these issues will have been solved. But
Speaker 1: without talking about them, it's hard to, you know, come
Speaker 1: up with solutions. So first of all, let's define some terms.
Speaker 1: What is virtual reality? Well, unlike the metaverse, this is
Speaker 1: something that we can more easily define. We typically credit
Speaker 1: Jarren Lanier with coining the phrase virtual reality. Lanier has
Speaker 1: done incredible work in computer science and in virtual environments,
Speaker 1: but the fact is there were earlier concepts similar to
Speaker 1: what we call virtual reality. Some of them had names
Speaker 1: like artificial reality. Anyway, the basic idea when you boil
Speaker 1: it down, is that you're using to tchnology to surround
Speaker 1: a user with a computer generated environment or a computer
Speaker 1: generated reality. So it should be immersive and it should
Speaker 1: also be interactive, because if the environment is not interactive,
Speaker 1: it feels like you're standing in a still photograph of
Speaker 1: the environment. You wouldn't be able to do anything, and
Speaker 1: your sense of immersion would very quickly kind of crumble. Uh. Like,
Speaker 1: the most you might be able to do in such
Speaker 1: a primitive implementation is to change your point of view
Speaker 1: by moving your head around. But otherwise your options would
Speaker 1: be really limited. So for it to be a real
Speaker 1: virtual reality experience, you need to have some sort of
Speaker 1: agency within the environment, some way to interact with the
Speaker 1: computer generated environment that's around you. Now, virtual reality is
Speaker 1: a subset of a technology we call mixed reality, and
Speaker 1: this is a term that would come a little bit later,
Speaker 1: but it was really meant to help contextualize the spectrum
Speaker 1: between virtual reality and augmented reality. Okay, so in an
Speaker 1: ideal virtual reality implementation, we're talking something like the holidayck
Speaker 1: in Star Trek. Everything that the user's senses would be
Speaker 1: provided by the computer, so that would include not just
Speaker 1: whatever the user is seeing and hearing, but also what
Speaker 1: they can touch and smell and maybe even taste as well.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, all the stuff that the user is experiencing
Speaker 1: wouldn't be quote unquote real. They would be computer generated.
Speaker 1: It would be a simulation of the real. Augmented reality
Speaker 1: or a R, on the other hand, uses a computer
Speaker 1: to enhance or augment your experience in the real world.
Speaker 1: It's a overlay of digital technology on top of what
Speaker 1: you're really experiencing. So a common example is imagine you've
Speaker 1: got a pair of glasses that let you see the
Speaker 1: world around you. So it's at transparent lenses you can
Speaker 1: look around and see everything, but those lenses can also
Speaker 1: overlay digital information within your view of the world around you.
Speaker 1: So maybe you're using the glasses to display turn by
Speaker 1: turn directions as you make your way to a destination.
Speaker 1: So you could see the directions, but you can also
Speaker 1: see through the directions to the real world and beyond
Speaker 1: and that, you know, it's kind of like heads up
Speaker 1: displays and military aircraft. They've had these for for many
Speaker 1: years now. That's an example of augmented reality, and like
Speaker 1: virtual reality, augmented reality doesn't just have to be tied
Speaker 1: to vision. More often than not, that's how we see
Speaker 1: these implementations, but it doesn't have to be vision based
Speaker 1: at all. It could include sound, It could include other
Speaker 1: sensations as well, like tactile feedback or what we call
Speaker 1: haptic feedback. The important bit is that a computer is
Speaker 1: generating the things that you are sensing in order to
Speaker 1: give you more information or enhance your experience within or
Speaker 1: real world environment, not to replace it, but to enhance it.
Speaker 1: So a great augmented reality implementation shouldn't distract you from
Speaker 1: what's actually going on around you, which is easier said
Speaker 1: than done, because often we like to put cool stuff
Speaker 1: in our tech, and that cool stuff might ultimately prove
Speaker 1: to be a distraction from the real world, which is
Speaker 1: kind of defeating the purpose of augmented reality. But back
Speaker 1: to virtual reality now, in the eighties and nineties, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure some of you remember. Some of you listeners
Speaker 1: out there are probably around my age or maybe even older,
Speaker 1: and you might remember what virtual reality was like when
Speaker 1: it was debuting in the late eighties and into the
Speaker 1: early two mid nineties of the technology that could bring
Speaker 1: virtual reality out of the hypothetical concept phase and into
Speaker 1: a primitive but working model was really taking shape, and
Speaker 1: it required a ton of work. I do not want
Speaker 1: to be dismissive of the incredible technological innovation that was
Speaker 1: required to make virtual reality possible when you start thinking
Speaker 1: about all the different elements that have to come into play.
Speaker 1: That you have to have various types of accelerometers and
Speaker 1: sensors to be able to tell when someone is turning
Speaker 1: their head to what degree, at what speed, you know,
Speaker 1: and be able to reflect that in the view that's
Speaker 1: get sent to the user. Like that alone blows my mind.
Speaker 1: It is a not an easy thing to solve, at
Speaker 1: least not initially, and it required so much work. Head
Speaker 1: malone displays needed to be able to really track a
Speaker 1: person's head movements accurately and with as little latency as possible.
Speaker 1: Latency is delay. If you've ever played a bad video
Speaker 1: game where you push a button and there's a delay
Speaker 1: before anything happens, you know how latency can be frustrating.
Speaker 1: There's there's kind of a similar issue. It's not we
Speaker 1: wouldn't call it latency, but occasionally you might watch a
Speaker 1: video where the audio is out of sync with the video,
Speaker 1: where you might see someone moving their mouth but there's
Speaker 1: no voice coming out, and then a couple of seconds
Speaker 1: later you hear the voice. That is incredibly frustrating experience
Speaker 1: to to try and watch a video where this problem
Speaker 1: has arisen. Imagine that, but it's with a first person experience.
Speaker 1: You're having imagined that the world around you is having
Speaker 1: this weird delay. So with virtual reality, and you know
Speaker 1: generally just mixed reality, latency can really spell disaster, or
Speaker 1: could at least spell the need for a clean up
Speaker 1: on Aisle three, because if there's a delay between when
Speaker 1: you turn your head and when the environment you're looking
Speaker 1: at matches that motion. In other words, when you're your
Speaker 1: perspective matches what you're physically doing. If there's a delay
Speaker 1: between those things, you get this unpleasant swimming sensation that
Speaker 1: often can lead to motion sickness. Other aspects of the
Speaker 1: R can also provoke emotion sickness response, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit more later in this
Speaker 1: episode it but yeah, that's one of the big things
Speaker 1: that early VR researchers were trying to minimize is that latency.
Speaker 1: So in the early days of R things were really primitive.
Speaker 1: The equipment was incredibly expensive. Most of the time, you're
Speaker 1: talking about stuff that's custom made for a research project.
Speaker 1: You could try to pull things off the shelf and
Speaker 1: incorporate them into your designs, but it's just that no
Speaker 1: one was making these things like head mounted displays as
Speaker 1: a commercial product, so you had to do it all yourself.
Speaker 1: You know, you might cobble it together with existing stuff
Speaker 1: to make it happen, but still was a lot of labor.
Speaker 1: The equipment was really bulky, the resolutions were really low,
Speaker 1: so you were talking about very simple graphics because you
Speaker 1: just couldn't pull off anything complex. And lots of folks
Speaker 1: who are working in the field really we're focusing on
Speaker 1: specific applications that would converge into the technology of virtual reality.
Speaker 1: But there was so much to be done right, Like
Speaker 1: it's it's the sort of thing where you couldn't have
Speaker 1: one person pioneer everything. You had to have lots of
Speaker 1: different specialists to kind of get all the pieces to fit. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: while this was taking shape and as amazing as it was,
Speaker 1: it just wasn't ready for prime time. But the more
Speaker 1: hype minded folks would step in and they kind of
Speaker 1: messed everything up. See, early virtual reality worked in a
Speaker 1: manner of fashion, but it wasn't sophisticated, and you know,
Speaker 1: if you were looking at it as a form of entertainment,
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily satisfying. Head Meldon displays we're really heavy.
Speaker 1: I mean we're talking about before flat panel displays really
Speaker 1: became a thing. So you were wearing effectively a small
Speaker 1: monitor on your face that was too heavy for a
Speaker 1: person to wear comfortably for any length of time. So
Speaker 1: a lot of early VR systems used displays that were
Speaker 1: in turn suspended from a rig that was you know,
Speaker 1: mounted on the ceiling. You know, you would have this
Speaker 1: grid where you would have cables come down and support
Speaker 1: at least some of the weight of the headset so
Speaker 1: that a person could wear it without you know, crumpling
Speaker 1: to the ground. But that also limited the user's movement, right,
Speaker 1: they couldn't walk around with these things because they were
Speaker 1: tethered two. Uh, these rigs that helped support the weight.
Speaker 1: That obviously limits the VR experience somewhat. Doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: the technology wasn't incredible, just means that maybe it wasn't
Speaker 1: the right thing to spring on the public. Now, on
Speaker 1: top of all that, compute power and graphics processing were
Speaker 1: nowhere close to where they are today. So rendering graphics
Speaker 1: takes a lot of juice, it takes a lot of
Speaker 1: processing power, and so early VR implementations were incredibly primitive
Speaker 1: compared to the video games of today. In fact, they
Speaker 1: were primitive compared to the video games of the time.
Speaker 1: Like if you were to play a best of class
Speaker 1: computer game at the same time as the experience a
Speaker 1: VR game like Dactyl Nightmare, you would say, Wow, these
Speaker 1: graphics are terrible compared to what I can play at home,
Speaker 1: And the stuff that you can play at home back
Speaker 1: at that time doesn't even come close to measuring up
Speaker 1: with what we can achieve today. So it would take
Speaker 1: a lot of time to develop software and hardware approaches
Speaker 1: that could create a high resolution experience. Now I mentioned
Speaker 1: Dactyl Nightmare just now. When we come back, I'm going
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit more about it, because I
Speaker 1: feel that that experience really kind of illustrates the limitations
Speaker 1: of virtual reality during its first phase and help explain
Speaker 1: why VR ended up having a long period where no
Speaker 1: one was really talking about it. But first, let's take
Speaker 1: this quick break. Okay, let's talk about Dactyl Nightmare. Now.
Speaker 1: This was a VR experience that debuted in nine and
Speaker 1: it's a great example of a simple, early and primitive
Speaker 1: VR game. Now, the way I experienced this was that
Speaker 1: there was a shopping mall about half an hour away
Speaker 1: from where I lived at the time as a kid teenager,
Speaker 1: where you would go and there was this one storefront
Speaker 1: that had been turned into a VR arcade. I think
Speaker 1: they had maybe four pedestals where you would get up
Speaker 1: on the pedestal, there'd be a ring that would close
Speaker 1: around you, so it would limit your movement that way,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't walk off the pedestal and trip and fall
Speaker 1: and break your leg and sue the store or whatever.
Speaker 1: You had those ginormous headsets that were partially suspended from
Speaker 1: the ceiling to help take off some of the weight,
Speaker 1: and you played a couple of different games, the main
Speaker 1: one being Dactyl Nightmare. Um. The virtual world in Dactyl
Speaker 1: Nightmare consists of just five platforms in an otherwise featureless void,
Speaker 1: so it's just darkness all around you. In these five platforms.
Speaker 1: You have one platform at the center and the other
Speaker 1: four platforms are bordering the center one, So there's one
Speaker 1: on each side, and they're slightly higher up than the
Speaker 1: center platform, and there's a staircase leading from each of
Speaker 1: the bordering platforms down to the center. And it was
Speaker 1: the first person shooting game, at least usually that's the
Speaker 1: way it was. There were a couple of other modes
Speaker 1: in it, but as the first person shooting game, and
Speaker 1: players were represented as crude polygonal people by people things,
Speaker 1: and occasionally another crude, ligtal flying creature, the so called
Speaker 1: dactyl Tera. Dactyl would swoop in and grab a player
Speaker 1: and fly off with him and then drop them. If
Speaker 1: you do an image search for Dactyl Nightmare you'll see
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. And again, I don't want to
Speaker 1: dismiss these early attempts at virtual reality. So to achieve
Speaker 1: something like Dactyl Nightmare took a ton of work. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think the mistake was trying to bring VR in
Speaker 1: its state in the yearly nineties to market a little
Speaker 1: too soon, because people who experienced games like Dactyl Nightmare
Speaker 1: had varying reactions. I mean, there were some folks who
Speaker 1: did it and they saw the promise of v R
Speaker 1: and they said, well, This is a really cool idea,
Speaker 1: and I can't wait to see what it looks like
Speaker 1: when the tech has matured right Like they're saying, this
Speaker 1: is clearly not where it needs to be right now,
Speaker 1: but I can't wait to see where it evolves. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of other people, I think the vast
Speaker 1: majority who their reaction kind of boiled down to this
Speaker 1: is awful. I can't believe people were making such a
Speaker 1: big deal out of this. This is just a fad now.
Speaker 1: In previous episodes of Tech Stuff, I've talked about the
Speaker 1: Gartner hype cycle. The company Gartner created a sort of
Speaker 1: a graphical representation of the process that an emerging technology
Speaker 1: tends to go through with regard to height. So this
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily relate directly to the capabilities of the technology
Speaker 1: as much as how we perceive and treat the tech,
Speaker 1: how much our expectations can often exceed whatever the tech
Speaker 1: is really capable of doing. So early on in an
Speaker 1: emerging technologies life cycle or hype cycle, the interest in
Speaker 1: the technology skyrockets. That's what we saw with VR in
Speaker 1: the early nineties. People start blue skying how the tech
Speaker 1: is going to change everything, And in fact, I would
Speaker 1: argue we were in that phase with the metaverse last year,
Speaker 1: or you know, late last year, maybe early this year,
Speaker 1: and some companies still I think, are But I think
Speaker 1: a lot of other people feel they've already past the
Speaker 1: heak of hype and are on the downward slope at
Speaker 1: this point. Some of us, anyway, I know, I am
Speaker 1: now generally in this cycle. You have what is called
Speaker 1: the peak of inflated expectations. This is the highest point
Speaker 1: of hype, where your belief in the tech is well
Speaker 1: beyond what the tech can deliver. We saw this with
Speaker 1: autonomous car technology. I was definitely guilty of this, where
Speaker 1: I was convinced that we were maybe a year or
Speaker 1: two away from autonomous cars revolutionizing the way we get
Speaker 1: around and and virtually eliminating things like vehicular accidents and deaths.
Speaker 1: That was sadly, wildly too optimistic. It was incredibly naive,
Speaker 1: and I fully own up to that. So, as the
Speaker 1: name suggests, the peak of inflated expectations, we sort of
Speaker 1: have this realization that the tech that we were so
Speaker 1: hyped for can't possibly live up to the hype that
Speaker 1: we've bought into, maybe even hype that we ourselves have generated.
Speaker 1: So our excitement for the technology then come is crashing down,
Speaker 1: it bottoms out and what Gardner refers to as the
Speaker 1: trough of disillusionment. But then once we hit rock bottom,
Speaker 1: once we've you know, kind of woken up to the
Speaker 1: fact that we placed ridiculous expectations on this technology, we
Speaker 1: can then better evaluate what the tech actually can and
Speaker 1: can't do, and maybe we start to get a little
Speaker 1: excited again. Now we're not going to go as crazy
Speaker 1: as we were in the beginning, but we might get
Speaker 1: a little more optimistic. And this is the slope of enlightenment.
Speaker 1: And then we hit the plateau of productivity. This is
Speaker 1: where our expectations for the tech and the actual capabilities
Speaker 1: of the tech finally level out and we can actually
Speaker 1: be productive with the technology. We're no longer you know,
Speaker 1: throwing out hyperbole about what the technology is going to
Speaker 1: be capable of doing. Uh. And I think we're a
Speaker 1: ways away from that with the metaverse, largely because again,
Speaker 1: we we don't even have a full satisfactory definition of
Speaker 1: what the metaverse is going to be yet, so it's
Speaker 1: kind of hard to get to the plateau of productivity. Um.
Speaker 1: But a lot of us, I think are a little
Speaker 1: more disillusioned by the promise of the metaverse than uh
Speaker 1: than h hyped for it. Anyway, once folks got a
Speaker 1: good look at what VR could and more importantly, couldn't
Speaker 1: do back in the nineties, we had that trough of
Speaker 1: disillusionment real hard, and for the scientists and engineers and
Speaker 1: programmers and such who were working in the VR field,
Speaker 1: that was a total disaster. That sudden decline and interest
Speaker 1: meant that it was really hard to get financial support
Speaker 1: to do research work in the field because like it
Speaker 1: just wasn't popular. If something is not popular and people
Speaker 1: have turned against it, it's very hard to convince the
Speaker 1: folks who manage money to pour it into that field.
Speaker 1: So some folks who are researching ways to use VR
Speaker 1: and say therapy, found themselves cobbling together systems from the
Speaker 1: DEO game components. Video game consoles became like a popular
Speaker 1: go to source two kind of Jerry rig a VR
Speaker 1: system out of all these different parts. So that was
Speaker 1: still happening. There were still great work being done in
Speaker 1: R and D, but the general consensus was there was
Speaker 1: no money to be made in creating full systems. So
Speaker 1: it's not like you could just go and buy a
Speaker 1: virtual reality system off the shelf. And to be clear,
Speaker 1: like when I was talking about Dactyl Nightmare, we weren't
Speaker 1: talking about home virtual reality at all then. This was
Speaker 1: These were systems that were far too large and bulky
Speaker 1: and unwieldy and expensive for the average person to get
Speaker 1: one and have it installed in their home. VR continued
Speaker 1: in these years, but in a much more modest way,
Speaker 1: and there were a few attempts to bring VR into
Speaker 1: home gaming, but most of those, like for example, there
Speaker 1: was a planned VR set that was meant for the
Speaker 1: sake of Genesis, a lot of those would get shell.
Speaker 1: The ultimately just decided that this was too much work
Speaker 1: and too much expense and there wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: enough payoff, and those projects were largely abandoned. Now flash
Speaker 1: forward more than a decade until we get to two
Speaker 1: thousand nine, Palmer Lucky, the creator of Oculus, had started
Speaker 1: building head mounted displays. Not this point, technology had improved significantly.
Speaker 1: Flat panel displays where a possibility that really brought down
Speaker 1: the bulk and weight of headsets. The development of powerful
Speaker 1: processors for smartphones would ultimately be leveraged to handle processing
Speaker 1: for a lot of VR systems which helped reduce latency
Speaker 1: and boost resolution and also increase your field of view.
Speaker 1: That's how many degrees of vision you have from side
Speaker 1: to side within a mixed reality headset. Now, in two
Speaker 1: thousand and twelve, Palmer Lucky launched a Kickstarter to fund
Speaker 1: the development and manufacture of the first Oculus developer kit.
Speaker 1: And it would be an over so qplification to say
Speaker 1: that the Oculus solely made VR a viable possibility. Again,
Speaker 1: that's that's dismissing tons of work from other people and
Speaker 1: other companies. However, the Oculus, I think would you could argue,
Speaker 1: was easily the most visible example of VR technology that
Speaker 1: could at least approach the old promise of VR and
Speaker 1: make something that was a decent implementation of that promise.
Speaker 1: So the dreams of the eighties and nineties were unrealistic
Speaker 1: at the time, but the Oculus seemed to be a
Speaker 1: little bit closer to what we were hoping for. You know,
Speaker 1: A couple of decades earlier, other manufacturers would start to
Speaker 1: make VR headsets too, and there was a push to
Speaker 1: develop better systems, UH, including ones that would be self
Speaker 1: contained and others that would require a PC to run software.
Speaker 1: While the VR system would kind of act as your
Speaker 1: display and input device. Now early on, there were a
Speaker 1: few big obstacles standing in the way of VR adoption.
Speaker 1: One is that the really early VR headsets in this era,
Speaker 1: the being like the twenty twelve to say Steen or so,
Speaker 1: most of them required a physical connection to a PC
Speaker 1: if you wanted to actually use them. So, like the
Speaker 1: VR systems around the eighties and nineties, it just wasn't
Speaker 1: quite possible to have a really powerful VR headset that
Speaker 1: could stand on its own is, you know, disconnected from
Speaker 1: any other piece of equipment, So it had to tap
Speaker 1: into the superior processing power, particularly for graphics processing that
Speaker 1: a PC could provide. That meant that that provided to
Speaker 1: other limitations that would come along with this requirement. One
Speaker 1: would be that a user would be physically tethered to
Speaker 1: a computer. There would be a cable connecting their headset
Speaker 1: to the computer system that would limit their movement. They
Speaker 1: could potentially get tangled up in cables that could be
Speaker 1: awkward or even dangerous, So it really was a limitation
Speaker 1: in the technology, one that programmers would really have to
Speaker 1: take into account when they were creating their VR experiences.
Speaker 1: Like you wouldn't want to create a VR game for example,
Speaker 1: that would require people to have to physically turn around frequently,
Speaker 1: because potentially you're just talking about tangling them up in wires.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe if you're sadistic and also a game developer,
Speaker 1: you'd want to do that, but you know, ethical programmers wouldn't.
Speaker 1: But the other big hurdle on top of this tethering
Speaker 1: was and is cost. Oculus offered a couple of different
Speaker 1: developer kit models during its crowdfunding phase where you're talking
Speaker 1: about relatively low costs, I mean in the early early
Speaker 1: days of Oculus. So these developer kids were intended to
Speaker 1: go to people who would create VR experiences, right. It
Speaker 1: was meant for people who wanted to build stuff that
Speaker 1: folks could experience within VR. This was not meant as
Speaker 1: a consumer model. However, Obviously there were a lot of
Speaker 1: gamers who really just wanted to get their hands on
Speaker 1: the next cool toy. They wanted a developer kit, not
Speaker 1: because they planned on making anything, but because they wanted
Speaker 1: to experience stuff. Now, that first developer kit was available
Speaker 1: if you backed the original kick Starry campaign, and I
Speaker 1: believe it was a three level or higher. That's actually
Speaker 1: on the cheap side for VR hardware. But then in
Speaker 1: those days, there wasn't much you could do with it anyway,
Speaker 1: You'd have the hardware, but there wasn't a whole lot
Speaker 1: of software to run on it. So the whole point
Speaker 1: was that this tech was really just meant to help
Speaker 1: developers create compelling content for the system, because without the content,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to sell the system. This is the
Speaker 1: same thing we've seen with video game consoles. H In fact,
Speaker 1: I think that the most recent Xbox console really suffered
Speaker 1: from this problem that there was a perception and that
Speaker 1: the Xbox Series X lacked enough exclusive, compelling content to
Speaker 1: justify buying the console, whereas people were looking at the
Speaker 1: PlayStation five and saying, there's a long list of exclusive
Speaker 1: titles for this this console. There there's a great library
Speaker 1: of content. I want a PS five, And so getting
Speaker 1: a good library of content is absolutely critical in order
Speaker 1: to sell a platform. Now, when Oculus launched its original
Speaker 1: consumer model, so this is beyond the developer kids, this
Speaker 1: is when they're ready to actually go to the store shelves.
Speaker 1: The first Oculus headset released Bioculus itself was the Rift,
Speaker 1: and the asking price was six hundred bucks. Now you're
Speaker 1: talking about the cost of a full video game console system.
Speaker 1: And keep in mind this is without the PC you
Speaker 1: would need to actually run the ding dang darn thing.
Speaker 1: Oculus was recommending that users have a PC with at
Speaker 1: least eight gigabytes of ram uh and the equivalent of
Speaker 1: an Intel I THREEPU and a g Force g t
Speaker 1: x nine sixty or a m d f x forty
Speaker 1: three fifty graphics card or better, as well as Windows
Speaker 1: eight or more recent operating system. That was actually a
Speaker 1: step down from what they were originally going to suggest
Speaker 1: users make sure they had. They They brought down the
Speaker 1: system requirements, not because the tech suddenly got more efficient,
Speaker 1: but probably more because Oculus wanted to diffuse some of
Speaker 1: the complaints that the system requirements to run the hardware
Speaker 1: at the recommended levels would mean you would need a
Speaker 1: like a thousand dollar PC on top of the six
Speaker 1: hundred dollar headset and controls, and now we're getting into
Speaker 1: really expensive territory. As it was, by reducing those requirements,
Speaker 1: it was closer to like a five dollar PC, So
Speaker 1: you're still talking bucks total in order to have a
Speaker 1: working RIFT and PC combo, assuming you didn't already have
Speaker 1: the computer at your disposal. If you already did, if
Speaker 1: you were a gamer who already had an incredible system,
Speaker 1: then you were pretty much set. But for anyone who
Speaker 1: just wanted to get into it, this was a really
Speaker 1: big barrier to entry. So uh, cost is another hurdle
Speaker 1: to the adoption of virtual reality in general. It still
Speaker 1: is today. One thing that was monumental in Oculus is
Speaker 1: history between when it was developing its first system and
Speaker 1: when it released it was that Meta, which was just
Speaker 1: Facebook back then, acquired Oculus, so Meta bought Oculus. This
Speaker 1: was also when it became clear that Facebook would add
Speaker 1: another requirement to using Oculus hardware. Users would need to
Speaker 1: link their system to a face Book account, so if
Speaker 1: you didn't have one, you had to create one and
Speaker 1: link your account to your Oculus hardware, which rubbed a
Speaker 1: lot of people the wrong way. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of VR enthusiasts, people who have been supporting Oculus since
Speaker 1: the kickstarter days, who were absolutely furious with the idea
Speaker 1: that this was going to have to be tied down
Speaker 1: to a Facebook account. These days, by the way, that
Speaker 1: has changed at least a little, because now you no
Speaker 1: longer need to link your Oculus hardware to a Facebook account,
Speaker 1: you just need a meta account. And you might say
Speaker 1: that's a pretty fine distinction, and I would probably agree
Speaker 1: with you. All Right, We've got more to talk about
Speaker 1: when it comes to the challenges of VR adoption and
Speaker 1: how that blaze into the metaverse. But first, let's take
Speaker 1: another quick break. Okay. So, one way to address cost
Speaker 1: as a barrier to entry into any kind of technology
Speaker 1: is for the company that makes the tech to sell
Speaker 1: it at or below the cost of manufacturing. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, the retail price for the item is the
Speaker 1: same or perhaps even less than what it cost you
Speaker 1: to make it in the first place. Now, why would
Speaker 1: you do that. You would lose money on every unit
Speaker 1: you sold. Well, if you're counting on the hardware to
Speaker 1: be a conduit for an ongoing source of revenue from customers,
Speaker 1: then it might be worth it to take a loss
Speaker 1: on the hardware sales price. Console manufacturers do this all
Speaker 1: the time. They sell customers a console that is near
Speaker 1: or sometimes below cost, and then they count on game
Speaker 1: sales and things like subscription services like Xbox Game Pass
Speaker 1: to make up for that gap. So, yeah, they lose
Speaker 1: money selling the console but they make money by selling
Speaker 1: you games and services, and so the console is just
Speaker 1: the entry point to to grab you as a customer
Speaker 1: and to keep you for as long as they possibly can.
Speaker 1: You could benefit too out of it. It's not like
Speaker 1: it's purely parasitic. This is a symbiotic relationship here, but
Speaker 1: it is sort of the The gamble that these companies
Speaker 1: make is that they'll sell these these initial pieces of
Speaker 1: hardware for a lower price than what it costs to
Speaker 1: make them. Often, not all the time. Not everyone does this,
Speaker 1: but a lot of companies do. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: some of the other Oculus models and then later what
Speaker 1: would be branded as Meta Hardware. Because the name has changed.
Speaker 1: The Meta has eliminated Oculus as a brand essentially and
Speaker 1: replaced it with Meta. So the actual hardware the brand
Speaker 1: names have stayed the same, but the or at least
Speaker 1: the model names, i should say, have stayed the same,
Speaker 1: but the brand has changed from Oculus to Meta. That,
Speaker 1: by the way, also rubbed a lot of Oculus supporters
Speaker 1: the wrong way because Meta, when it made the change,
Speaker 1: made the statement that they weren't making any changes to
Speaker 1: any of their various brands, although they didn't mention Oculus
Speaker 1: at the time, and people say, well, the reason they
Speaker 1: didn't mention Oculus is that was a decision they had
Speaker 1: already made. They were getting rid of Oculus as a
Speaker 1: brand name. But anyway, in the company, Facebook shipped the
Speaker 1: Oculus Go. Now, unlike the Rift, the Go was a
Speaker 1: standalone headset, so you didn't have to tether it to
Speaker 1: a PC. You had a headset that could be free
Speaker 1: of that cable connecting you to a computer. The headset
Speaker 1: used a Qualcom snap Dragon eight twenty one processor, which
Speaker 1: is the kind of processor you might find in a smartphone,
Speaker 1: and it ran on a version of the Android operating
Speaker 1: system and could run apps specifically designed for mobile based
Speaker 1: VR experiences. Now, the Oculus Go was more aggressively priced
Speaker 1: at one dollars for the base model, which was a
Speaker 1: thirty two gigabyte storage model, or you could go up
Speaker 1: to the sixty four gigabyte model for two still much
Speaker 1: cheaper than the six d dollar asking price for the
Speaker 1: original Rift. However, it was also much more limited in
Speaker 1: power compared to the Rift, right because the Rift, again
Speaker 1: was being powered by a PC. So depending on the
Speaker 1: type of PC you were using to send signals to
Speaker 1: your Rift, you would be having an incredibly sophisticated experience
Speaker 1: when compared to an Oculus Go, which was running more
Speaker 1: at a smartphone level. Now, Facebook would take the Oculus
Speaker 1: Go off the market in the summer of Essentially the
Speaker 1: Go was being replaced. In fact, was already in the
Speaker 1: process of being replaced by a newer headset, the Oculus Quest.
Speaker 1: Now the Quest it actually debuted in the spring of
Speaker 1: so there was some overlap between Oculus Go and Culus Quest.
Speaker 1: The Quest, like the Go, is also a standalone headset
Speaker 1: that runs on Android. It has more features than the
Speaker 1: Go did, and the cost reflects that. Because the base
Speaker 1: model of the Oculus Quest was introduced at three nine dollars.
Speaker 1: This was a sixty four gigabyte model, and the higher model,
Speaker 1: the hundred twenty eight gigabyte model, was four d dollars. Now,
Speaker 1: that's still cheaper than having to buy both headset and
Speaker 1: a new PC. But the Quest could not measure up
Speaker 1: to the graphics quality of a PC based VR system,
Speaker 1: so there were trade offs. Yes, you didn't have to
Speaker 1: spend as much money as you would for one of
Speaker 1: the more sophisticated systems, but then you wouldn't have the
Speaker 1: capabilities of those more sophisticated systems. Now the Quest would
Speaker 1: also get a successor. It got a successor in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: called the Oculus Quest two, which these days is now
Speaker 1: called the Meta Quest Too. Originally, the base model of
Speaker 1: this hardware was priced at two dollars for sixty four gigabytes,
Speaker 1: and then the hud gigabyte version was Interestingly, starting this month,
Speaker 1: which is August of twenty two, two years after the
Speaker 1: Oculus Quest to debut, the price of both models has
Speaker 1: now increased by one dollars. That's unusual because typically you
Speaker 1: see price tags for tech go down after they've been
Speaker 1: out on the market for a couple of years. But
Speaker 1: that's not what we're seeing with the Quest Too. So
Speaker 1: imagine like you went to buy a PlayStation five and
Speaker 1: you find out that now the PS five regular retail
Speaker 1: price has gone up by a hundred dollars. You'd say, well,
Speaker 1: not only has this console been out for a while, uh,
Speaker 1: it hasn't been readily available because of chip shortages and such.
Speaker 1: Why is the price going up? Why would Facebook now
Speaker 1: Meta hike the price tag of this older technology. Well,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of potential reasons. One of them
Speaker 1: is that the company is struggling to attract new users
Speaker 1: and to grow as a company. Remember that company successes
Speaker 1: is tightly tied to company growth in the stock market,
Speaker 1: and when you're not growing, investors start getting nervous because
Speaker 1: they feel like they're not going to get a good
Speaker 1: return on their investment. That's an oversimplification, it's also true,
Speaker 1: so so so Facebook Slash Meta has spent billions of
Speaker 1: dollars on mixed reality and metaverse initiatives. These are not
Speaker 1: going to pay off for years to come. Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: has said as much. This is not me passing judgment
Speaker 1: on Meta. Mark Zuckerberg has said it's going to take
Speaker 1: years of research and development to create the metaverse, and
Speaker 1: so we're going to be pouring billions of dollars and
Speaker 1: investments into that that realm, and it will be a
Speaker 1: while before we see that mature, to see it emerge.
Speaker 1: So you could say that maybe increasing the price tag
Speaker 1: of these devices, which have been on the market for
Speaker 1: two years already, is more about Meta trying to lose
Speaker 1: less money. It's not about them trying to make money
Speaker 1: off selling the hardware, but maybe have less of a
Speaker 1: loss as they sell the hardware, Because when you're talking
Speaker 1: to your investors on an earnings call and your lost
Speaker 1: numbers from your Reality Labs division are raising eyebrows, you
Speaker 1: start to think, maybe there are ways I can control
Speaker 1: spending a bit more while still investing in the field,
Speaker 1: because I still believe that this is I'm projecting into
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg now, but I still believe in the metaverse idea.
Speaker 1: In order to get there, We're still going to have
Speaker 1: to invest, which means we are going to have to
Speaker 1: spend money, which means at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: when we have an earnings call, it's going to appear
Speaker 1: as a loss for that department. Maybe I can limit
Speaker 1: those losses in different places to take some of the
Speaker 1: sting out while we're also trying to increase our revenue
Speaker 1: in other arenas. Anyway, the hardware cost issue for the
Speaker 1: consumer hasn't really gone away. I've talked exclusively really about
Speaker 1: Oculus in this series or this episode rather, but there
Speaker 1: are lots of other companies that are making VR sets,
Speaker 1: whether they are standalone's, like some of them make a
Speaker 1: VR equipment where you slot a smartphone into a headset
Speaker 1: and the smartphone acts as your processor and display. Others
Speaker 1: go the full custom equipment approach. Some are tethered to PCs,
Speaker 1: some aren't, and they come at a range of prices,
Speaker 1: but they all tend to be pretty expensive. And this range,
Speaker 1: by the way, also creates confusion in the market, right
Speaker 1: because not all VR is the same. Something that's smartphone
Speaker 1: power it is not going to look or play like
Speaker 1: something that's running on the top of the line gaming PC.
Speaker 1: So for a lot of people that that price is
Speaker 1: a prohibitive barrier to entrgue to get into virtual reality.
Speaker 1: That also serves as an obstacle that companies like Meta
Speaker 1: are going to have to figure out a way around
Speaker 1: if they want to bring their vision of metaverse whatever
Speaker 1: that might turn into, into reality. If they want to
Speaker 1: have the same kind of level of adoption for the
Speaker 1: metaverse as what they've seen for social networking sites, they
Speaker 1: have to figure out this cost problem, because with that
Speaker 1: price tag being that high, it's going to prevent tons
Speaker 1: of people from taking part in it, and then your
Speaker 1: metaverse is a nonstarter. Like if I can afford to
Speaker 1: get into the metaverse, but none of my friends hand,
Speaker 1: then where's my incentive to get into the metaverse? Like
Speaker 1: if if everyone I know and love isn't able to
Speaker 1: access it, then it doesn't have a whole lot of
Speaker 1: appeal to me. So that's an issue that has to
Speaker 1: be solved. Now, let's jump back into motion sickness, because
Speaker 1: that's another big hurdle to the adoption of VR and
Speaker 1: thus a potential stumbling blog on the way to the metaverse. So,
Speaker 1: motion sickness from VR is often called cyber sickness, and
Speaker 1: for some people the VR experience can be so unpleasant
Speaker 1: due to motion sickness that they'll swear it off after
Speaker 1: one bad experience. But interestingly, some folks at Iowa State
Speaker 1: University recently did a study on cybersickness and they wanted
Speaker 1: to test to see how long it would take people
Speaker 1: to adapt to the VR experience where they don't get cybersickness,
Speaker 1: or if they do, their symptoms are much less severe.
Speaker 1: That study observed that people who are prone to cybersickness
Speaker 1: usually start to feel the symptoms within ten minutes of
Speaker 1: their VR experience. That is not very long. Like, if
Speaker 1: within ten minutes of trying out of technology you start
Speaker 1: to feel sick, it could be a real tough cell
Speaker 1: to convince you that this is a technology you should
Speaker 1: be purchasing for your own use. The symptoms are pretty
Speaker 1: much the same as motion sickness. You know, you have nausea, headaches, dizziness, sweating,
Speaker 1: you get a sense that you're still moving even when
Speaker 1: you're you're sitting still. That to me is the worst.
Speaker 1: You also can have I fatigue. I think that might
Speaker 1: have more to do with the fact that you're looking
Speaker 1: at a screen that's just a few inches away from
Speaker 1: your eyes. But because I don't I don't associate eye
Speaker 1: fatigue with motion sickness. But it is a symptom of
Speaker 1: cybersickness frequently. Now, if you've ever felt cybersickness or seasickness,
Speaker 1: or really any kind of motion sickness, you know how
Speaker 1: unpleasant that can be. And as I get older, I
Speaker 1: find myself more prone to it. Unfortunately. UM I'll never
Speaker 1: forget the time my wife and I did a park
Speaker 1: hopping trip at Disney World. We experienced three attractions that
Speaker 1: had VR elements to them. The first was Flights of
Speaker 1: Passage at Animal Kingdom. It's an Avatar themed VR ride.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. I still have never seen the movie Avatar,
Speaker 1: so I was writing this ride going I don't know
Speaker 1: what's happening, but it's pretty amazing. The second one we
Speaker 1: rode with Star Tours, which is at Hollywood Studios. That's,
Speaker 1: of course, the Star Wars themed VR ride. The third
Speaker 1: was Soaring, which is a ride where you sit on
Speaker 1: what's essentially a giant swing as you are in front
Speaker 1: of a huge panoramic screen that that has a projection
Speaker 1: film that gives you a sense that you're flying over
Speaker 1: various landscapes. And afterward, my wife and I both felt
Speaker 1: a little off. But it wasn't until we went to
Speaker 1: watch a three sixty degree panoramic film and Epcot that
Speaker 1: we realized we had overdone it. And we spent many
Speaker 1: of the following hours sitting on a bench in Epcot's
Speaker 1: World show Case pavilion and feeling on the verge of
Speaker 1: being sick. Thankfully, neither of us went beyond the verge,
Speaker 1: but we were right up to the edge. And cybersickness
Speaker 1: is very much the same sort of thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: it really was cybersickness that we were experiencing. And you know,
Speaker 1: when I first played an Oculus and early Developer kit
Speaker 1: version of the Oculus, I was put into a spaceflight
Speaker 1: simulator type game and within minutes discovered that I was
Speaker 1: not feeling well. So what's actually going on? Well, your
Speaker 1: inner ear and your brain are getting some mixed signals. Uh.
Speaker 1: These things help you maintain your balance. They detect things
Speaker 1: like acceleration. And when your brain is getting input that
Speaker 1: suggests you're moving around like crazy, and then another part
Speaker 1: of your brain is saying, hang on, we're totes not
Speaker 1: moving at all, then there can sometimes be a problem.
Speaker 1: This dissonance between these bits of our nervous system can
Speaker 1: cause us to feel sick. Now I like to think
Speaker 1: it's the brain saying I have no idea what's happening,
Speaker 1: Just go make them throw up, and then the brain
Speaker 1: storms out of a adored lambs it behind it. I
Speaker 1: don't know where the door goes to, but that's what
Speaker 1: I think. That's probably because of Homer Simpson. It's probably
Speaker 1: not what's going on from neurological perspective, but it makes
Speaker 1: me contextualize it. Anyway, back to Iowa State University, the
Speaker 1: researchers got a test group of a hundred fifty undergrads.
Speaker 1: Because I mean, if you've got undergrads that's essentially guinea pigs,
Speaker 1: go ahead and throw them into an experiment and these
Speaker 1: undergrads would play a VR game. Uh They started with
Speaker 1: a game called Jurassic World Aftermath, and the researchers said
Speaker 1: that they wanted to pick a VR title that was
Speaker 1: exciting enough so that players would want to continue playing
Speaker 1: the game. They would only stop if they weren't feeling well,
Speaker 1: instead of stopping because the game was boring. So they
Speaker 1: needed a game that was going to be compelling enough
Speaker 1: that the reason why someone would stop wouldn't be because
Speaker 1: they hated the game. So as the students played the game,
Speaker 1: they were asked every four minutes to kind of rate
Speaker 1: how they were feeling feeling, using a ten point scale
Speaker 1: to indicate, you know, were they feeling really sick or
Speaker 1: were they feeling fine? And some folks would stop earlier
Speaker 1: than others because of cyber sickness, and they would come
Speaker 1: back to do additional sessions throughout the week. The researchers
Speaker 1: observed that through exposure, people would gradually get more used
Speaker 1: to VR and feel fewer or less intense symptoms of cybersickness,
Speaker 1: and they found that three twenty minute sessions in a
Speaker 1: week could lead to significant improvements. They also, however, noted
Speaker 1: that there were outliers who showed less progress, Probably they
Speaker 1: are not a good fit for VR. And the study
Speaker 1: also found that in general, women have a harder time
Speaker 1: to adjust to VR and reduce symptoms of cybersickness than
Speaker 1: men do. That's not to say that's true across the board,
Speaker 1: It's just that it was something that was more of
Speaker 1: a tendency they observed. That is a tough sell because
Speaker 1: you are asking customers to buy into a technology that
Speaker 1: costs a few hundred to several hundred, maybe even more
Speaker 1: than a thousand dollars, especially if you want to top
Speaker 1: end system, you might be talking about more than two grand,
Speaker 1: or or that might just be a starting point if
Speaker 1: you want to really sick gaming rig that can also
Speaker 1: run VR. And on top of all that, the experience
Speaker 1: of using the equipment can be unpleasant, at least at first.
Speaker 1: So for some people it might be insurmountable, which means
Speaker 1: they'll likely be left out of any metaverse implementation that
Speaker 1: depends upon mixed reality as an interface. So this is
Speaker 1: one of many reasons why I am skeptical of the metaverse.
Speaker 1: I just see that there are a lot of challenges
Speaker 1: we have to overcome in order to make it something
Speaker 1: that the general population can easily interact with. If it's
Speaker 1: not something the general population can easily interact with, it
Speaker 1: represents an enormous digital divide where the people who can
Speaker 1: afford it and the people who aren't getting sick from
Speaker 1: using it are able to access it, and the rest
Speaker 1: of us can't, which means all those amazing capabilities that
Speaker 1: are being promised in these discussions of the metaverse will
Speaker 1: only apply to a small slice of the population. That's
Speaker 1: why I am majorly skeptical of the metaverse, and I'm
Speaker 1: wary of it, uh, even as I have to talk
Speaker 1: about it and occasionally sit on panels about it. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I thought I would really take the specific perspective of
Speaker 1: how virtual reality fits into that metaverse picture and use
Speaker 1: that for our tech Stuff tidbits that now is officially
Speaker 1: longer than most of my regular episodes. You're welcome, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm wrapping this up. If you would like to get
Speaker 1: in touch with me with topics for future episodes, let
Speaker 1: me know by taking on the I Heart radio app.
Speaker 1: It's free to download. Just go to the tech Stuff page.
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