WEBVTT - VR, the Metaverse, and Barriers to Entry 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.120 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:16.840 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:20.440 and Health at Tech. Are you so in a couple 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:22.759 of months, we're going to be at a full year 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.960 since Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook the company would change 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:30.400 its name to Meta and that would act as a 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:33.440 sort of parent company for products like Facebook, the social 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:38.960 media platform, as well as Instagram, WhatsApp, etcetera. As to 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.400 why Zuckerberg and company wanted to change the name, there 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:44.600 are a lot of possible reasons. Some of them range 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.080 to the cynical, such as, you know, the name Facebook 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:50.040 has a sort of stigma attached to it and the 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.840 company would really like to distance itself from that, to 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:56.760 the practical. You know, Facebook is just one of many 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:00.080 products that this company offers. So it is kind the 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.160 confusing if you if you called the company the same 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.360 name as just one of the things it offers. All 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:10.960 the way to the aspirational that Meta is a reference 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:14.039 to the apparently unavoidable approach of the metaverse that we 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:17.520 cannot escape if we wanted to. Now, the metaverse as 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:22.960 a concept is, I would argue, still pretty wibbly wobbly timey. 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:26.200 Whymy as the doctor would say, there's kind of a 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.760 general idea about what it will be, you know, some 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:35.720 sort of persistent, online, interactive and immersive environment. On the 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.920 more modest side, this could potentially just be the next 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:43.240 big evolutionary step and online social networks. On the more 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:48.000 grandiose side, the metaverse could be the new way we 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.760 interact online with everything. I mean, it wouldn't just be 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.920 how we socialize or entertain ourselves. It might dominate how 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:58.680 we interact at work. You know, we might attend virtual 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.320 meetings in a virtual eating room. It could dominate how 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:06.440 we shop as we peruse virtual aisles, and it would 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.360 be essentially everything. It would be the virtual equivalent of 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:11.880 the real world around us. Now, if you extend that 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:15.880 vision to dystopic proportions, you get something like Ready Player 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:19.760 one by Ernest Klein or snow Crash by Neil Stevenson, 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:24.519 and for the record, I personally prefer snow Crash now. Many, 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:29.720 though not all, conceptualizations of the metaverse incorporate virtual reality 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:35.079 or VR in an intrinsic way, So this concept has 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.600 users dawning virtual reality gear so that they can really 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:43.000 immerse themselves into this persistent virtual world. So I thought 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:45.480 I would chat a little bit about some of the 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:49.040 challenges that have accompanied virtual reality, because I think it's 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:53.040 good to acknowledge the hurdles before you rush headlong into 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:56.800 an uncertain future. If you don't acknowledge the challenges that 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.600 are in the way, then it's just gonna make it 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.560 more difficult to address those challenges when the time comes. 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:05.600 So I want to really do that in this episode 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:08.600 and talk about the things I see as being barriers 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.800 to entrgue for the metaverse in the future. Now, by 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.119 the time the metaverse is actually a thing, which will 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:18.720 probably be maybe a decade from now, it's quite possible 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:20.960 that all of these issues will have been solved. But 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:25.560 without talking about them, it's hard to, you know, come 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:29.200 up with solutions. So first of all, let's define some terms. 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:32.360 What is virtual reality? Well, unlike the metaverse, this is 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:36.680 something that we can more easily define. We typically credit 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:41.040 Jarren Lanier with coining the phrase virtual reality. Lanier has 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:46.480 done incredible work in computer science and in virtual environments, 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:51.240 but the fact is there were earlier concepts similar to 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:54.120 what we call virtual reality. Some of them had names 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:58.480 like artificial reality. Anyway, the basic idea when you boil 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.800 it down, is that you're using to tchnology to surround 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:06.000 a user with a computer generated environment or a computer 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:10.400 generated reality. So it should be immersive and it should 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:14.760 also be interactive, because if the environment is not interactive, 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.200 it feels like you're standing in a still photograph of 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.640 the environment. You wouldn't be able to do anything, and 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:25.760 your sense of immersion would very quickly kind of crumble. Uh. Like, 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:27.400 the most you might be able to do in such 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.120 a primitive implementation is to change your point of view 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:32.400 by moving your head around. But otherwise your options would 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.159 be really limited. So for it to be a real 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.560 virtual reality experience, you need to have some sort of 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:43.160 agency within the environment, some way to interact with the 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:48.320 computer generated environment that's around you. Now, virtual reality is 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:52.240 a subset of a technology we call mixed reality, and 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:54.720 this is a term that would come a little bit later, 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:59.200 but it was really meant to help contextualize the spectrum 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:05.479 between virtual reality and augmented reality. Okay, so in an 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:10.599 ideal virtual reality implementation, we're talking something like the holidayck 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:15.080 in Star Trek. Everything that the user's senses would be 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.520 provided by the computer, so that would include not just 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.320 whatever the user is seeing and hearing, but also what 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.800 they can touch and smell and maybe even taste as well. 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.560 But ultimately, all the stuff that the user is experiencing 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.880 wouldn't be quote unquote real. They would be computer generated. 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:38.760 It would be a simulation of the real. Augmented reality 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.960 or a R, on the other hand, uses a computer 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:46.719 to enhance or augment your experience in the real world. 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:51.560 It's a overlay of digital technology on top of what 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:56.320 you're really experiencing. So a common example is imagine you've 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:58.800 got a pair of glasses that let you see the 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:01.400 world around you. So it's at transparent lenses you can 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.719 look around and see everything, but those lenses can also 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.719 overlay digital information within your view of the world around you. 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:11.920 So maybe you're using the glasses to display turn by 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:14.720 turn directions as you make your way to a destination. 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:17.599 So you could see the directions, but you can also 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.320 see through the directions to the real world and beyond 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:23.920 and that, you know, it's kind of like heads up 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:27.760 displays and military aircraft. They've had these for for many 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.600 years now. That's an example of augmented reality, and like 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.799 virtual reality, augmented reality doesn't just have to be tied 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.440 to vision. More often than not, that's how we see 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:42.240 these implementations, but it doesn't have to be vision based 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.400 at all. It could include sound, It could include other 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:49.000 sensations as well, like tactile feedback or what we call 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:53.440 haptic feedback. The important bit is that a computer is 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.120 generating the things that you are sensing in order to 0:06:56.160 --> 0:07:00.120 give you more information or enhance your experience within or 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:03.920 real world environment, not to replace it, but to enhance it. 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:08.640 So a great augmented reality implementation shouldn't distract you from 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.160 what's actually going on around you, which is easier said 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.040 than done, because often we like to put cool stuff 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.239 in our tech, and that cool stuff might ultimately prove 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:21.280 to be a distraction from the real world, which is 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:24.120 kind of defeating the purpose of augmented reality. But back 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:28.000 to virtual reality now, in the eighties and nineties, which 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:30.360 I'm sure some of you remember. Some of you listeners 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:32.960 out there are probably around my age or maybe even older, 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:36.480 and you might remember what virtual reality was like when 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.520 it was debuting in the late eighties and into the 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:44.440 early two mid nineties of the technology that could bring 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.800 virtual reality out of the hypothetical concept phase and into 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:52.680 a primitive but working model was really taking shape, and 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:55.160 it required a ton of work. I do not want 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:59.240 to be dismissive of the incredible technological innovation that was 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:03.760 required to make virtual reality possible when you start thinking 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.600 about all the different elements that have to come into play. 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.400 That you have to have various types of accelerometers and 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.520 sensors to be able to tell when someone is turning 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:16.800 their head to what degree, at what speed, you know, 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:20.120 and be able to reflect that in the view that's 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:24.360 get sent to the user. Like that alone blows my mind. 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.200 It is a not an easy thing to solve, at 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:30.880 least not initially, and it required so much work. Head 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.920 malone displays needed to be able to really track a 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:38.000 person's head movements accurately and with as little latency as possible. 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:43.480 Latency is delay. If you've ever played a bad video 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:45.920 game where you push a button and there's a delay 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.200 before anything happens, you know how latency can be frustrating. 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:52.959 There's there's kind of a similar issue. It's not we 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:56.240 wouldn't call it latency, but occasionally you might watch a 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.800 video where the audio is out of sync with the video, 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.840 where you might see someone moving their mouth but there's 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:05.920 no voice coming out, and then a couple of seconds 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:09.280 later you hear the voice. That is incredibly frustrating experience 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:12.160 to to try and watch a video where this problem 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:18.160 has arisen. Imagine that, but it's with a first person experience. 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.160 You're having imagined that the world around you is having 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.720 this weird delay. So with virtual reality, and you know 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:29.280 generally just mixed reality, latency can really spell disaster, or 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:31.360 could at least spell the need for a clean up 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.120 on Aisle three, because if there's a delay between when 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:38.600 you turn your head and when the environment you're looking 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:41.079 at matches that motion. In other words, when you're your 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:45.679 perspective matches what you're physically doing. If there's a delay 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:48.839 between those things, you get this unpleasant swimming sensation that 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:53.280 often can lead to motion sickness. Other aspects of the 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:57.000 R can also provoke emotion sickness response, and we're gonna 0:09:57.080 --> 0:09:59.440 talk about that a little bit more later in this 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:03.640 episode it but yeah, that's one of the big things 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:09.640 that early VR researchers were trying to minimize is that latency. 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:14.079 So in the early days of R things were really primitive. 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:18.559 The equipment was incredibly expensive. Most of the time, you're 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.880 talking about stuff that's custom made for a research project. 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.280 You could try to pull things off the shelf and 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.680 incorporate them into your designs, but it's just that no 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:33.040 one was making these things like head mounted displays as 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:35.360 a commercial product, so you had to do it all yourself. 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.160 You know, you might cobble it together with existing stuff 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.080 to make it happen, but still was a lot of labor. 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:47.480 The equipment was really bulky, the resolutions were really low, 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.400 so you were talking about very simple graphics because you 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:53.960 just couldn't pull off anything complex. And lots of folks 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:58.320 who are working in the field really we're focusing on 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:06.160 specific applications that would converge into the technology of virtual reality. 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:08.040 But there was so much to be done right, Like 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.600 it's it's the sort of thing where you couldn't have 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:15.360 one person pioneer everything. You had to have lots of 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:19.640 different specialists to kind of get all the pieces to fit. Unfortunately, 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:23.440 while this was taking shape and as amazing as it was, 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.840 it just wasn't ready for prime time. But the more 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:31.400 hype minded folks would step in and they kind of 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:36.280 messed everything up. See, early virtual reality worked in a 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:40.960 manner of fashion, but it wasn't sophisticated, and you know, 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:44.079 if you were looking at it as a form of entertainment, 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:49.960 it wasn't necessarily satisfying. Head Meldon displays we're really heavy. 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:54.200 I mean we're talking about before flat panel displays really 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:58.240 became a thing. So you were wearing effectively a small 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:01.520 monitor on your face that was too heavy for a 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.839 person to wear comfortably for any length of time. So 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:09.199 a lot of early VR systems used displays that were 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:13.280 in turn suspended from a rig that was you know, 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:16.720 mounted on the ceiling. You know, you would have this 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:21.000 grid where you would have cables come down and support 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:24.080 at least some of the weight of the headset so 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.200 that a person could wear it without you know, crumpling 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.360 to the ground. But that also limited the user's movement, right, 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:32.600 they couldn't walk around with these things because they were 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:38.240 tethered two. Uh, these rigs that helped support the weight. 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:42.400 That obviously limits the VR experience somewhat. Doesn't mean that 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:47.680 the technology wasn't incredible, just means that maybe it wasn't 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.520 the right thing to spring on the public. Now, on 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:55.080 top of all that, compute power and graphics processing were 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:59.359 nowhere close to where they are today. So rendering graphics 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:01.920 takes a lot of juice, it takes a lot of 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:07.720 processing power, and so early VR implementations were incredibly primitive 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:10.640 compared to the video games of today. In fact, they 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.480 were primitive compared to the video games of the time. 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:16.520 Like if you were to play a best of class 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.839 computer game at the same time as the experience a 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:25.040 VR game like Dactyl Nightmare, you would say, Wow, these 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.640 graphics are terrible compared to what I can play at home, 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:30.839 And the stuff that you can play at home back 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.480 at that time doesn't even come close to measuring up 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.920 with what we can achieve today. So it would take 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.360 a lot of time to develop software and hardware approaches 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:44.560 that could create a high resolution experience. Now I mentioned 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.040 Dactyl Nightmare just now. When we come back, I'm going 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:49.960 to talk a little bit more about it, because I 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:55.840 feel that that experience really kind of illustrates the limitations 0:13:55.880 --> 0:14:00.720 of virtual reality during its first phase and help explain 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:06.160 why VR ended up having a long period where no 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:08.800 one was really talking about it. But first, let's take 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:22.280 this quick break. Okay, let's talk about Dactyl Nightmare. Now. 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:26.600 This was a VR experience that debuted in nine and 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.440 it's a great example of a simple, early and primitive 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:33.840 VR game. Now, the way I experienced this was that 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:37.680 there was a shopping mall about half an hour away 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:41.080 from where I lived at the time as a kid teenager, 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:45.440 where you would go and there was this one storefront 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:48.840 that had been turned into a VR arcade. I think 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:53.680 they had maybe four pedestals where you would get up 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.080 on the pedestal, there'd be a ring that would close 0:14:57.120 --> 0:14:59.560 around you, so it would limit your movement that way, 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:01.720 you wouldn't walk off the pedestal and trip and fall 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:04.800 and break your leg and sue the store or whatever. 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:09.600 You had those ginormous headsets that were partially suspended from 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:11.360 the ceiling to help take off some of the weight, 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.320 and you played a couple of different games, the main 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:19.280 one being Dactyl Nightmare. Um. The virtual world in Dactyl 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:23.760 Nightmare consists of just five platforms in an otherwise featureless void, 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.560 so it's just darkness all around you. In these five platforms. 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.880 You have one platform at the center and the other 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:33.840 four platforms are bordering the center one, So there's one 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.560 on each side, and they're slightly higher up than the 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:40.440 center platform, and there's a staircase leading from each of 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:44.040 the bordering platforms down to the center. And it was 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.960 the first person shooting game, at least usually that's the 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:48.560 way it was. There were a couple of other modes 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:50.400 in it, but as the first person shooting game, and 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:57.280 players were represented as crude polygonal people by people things, 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:02.600 and occasionally another crude, ligtal flying creature, the so called 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:06.440 dactyl Tera. Dactyl would swoop in and grab a player 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.040 and fly off with him and then drop them. If 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.400 you do an image search for Dactyl Nightmare you'll see 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:13.960 what I'm talking about. And again, I don't want to 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:18.040 dismiss these early attempts at virtual reality. So to achieve 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.760 something like Dactyl Nightmare took a ton of work. Uh. 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:24.920 I think the mistake was trying to bring VR in 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:29.000 its state in the yearly nineties to market a little 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:33.080 too soon, because people who experienced games like Dactyl Nightmare 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.400 had varying reactions. I mean, there were some folks who 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:38.200 did it and they saw the promise of v R 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:40.800 and they said, well, This is a really cool idea, 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:42.520 and I can't wait to see what it looks like 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.760 when the tech has matured right Like they're saying, this 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:47.800 is clearly not where it needs to be right now, 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:50.680 but I can't wait to see where it evolves. There 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:52.400 were a lot of other people, I think the vast 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.560 majority who their reaction kind of boiled down to this 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.160 is awful. I can't believe people were making such a 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:01.520 big deal out of this. This is just a fad now. 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.280 In previous episodes of Tech Stuff, I've talked about the 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:07.960 Gartner hype cycle. The company Gartner created a sort of 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:12.240 a graphical representation of the process that an emerging technology 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.240 tends to go through with regard to height. So this 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:19.680 doesn't necessarily relate directly to the capabilities of the technology 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:22.480 as much as how we perceive and treat the tech, 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.560 how much our expectations can often exceed whatever the tech 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:30.120 is really capable of doing. So early on in an 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:34.520 emerging technologies life cycle or hype cycle, the interest in 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.600 the technology skyrockets. That's what we saw with VR in 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:42.080 the early nineties. People start blue skying how the tech 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.840 is going to change everything, And in fact, I would 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:50.440 argue we were in that phase with the metaverse last year, 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.320 or you know, late last year, maybe early this year, 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.399 and some companies still I think, are But I think 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:59.880 a lot of other people feel they've already past the 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.919 heak of hype and are on the downward slope at 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:05.840 this point. Some of us, anyway, I know, I am 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:09.640 now generally in this cycle. You have what is called 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.840 the peak of inflated expectations. This is the highest point 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:17.120 of hype, where your belief in the tech is well 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.760 beyond what the tech can deliver. We saw this with 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:22.880 autonomous car technology. I was definitely guilty of this, where 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:25.720 I was convinced that we were maybe a year or 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.960 two away from autonomous cars revolutionizing the way we get 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:35.800 around and and virtually eliminating things like vehicular accidents and deaths. 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:42.080 That was sadly, wildly too optimistic. It was incredibly naive, 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:44.639 and I fully own up to that. So, as the 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.359 name suggests, the peak of inflated expectations, we sort of 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:49.439 have this realization that the tech that we were so 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:53.600 hyped for can't possibly live up to the hype that 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:57.199 we've bought into, maybe even hype that we ourselves have generated. 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:01.119 So our excitement for the technology then come is crashing down, 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:04.640 it bottoms out and what Gardner refers to as the 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:09.479 trough of disillusionment. But then once we hit rock bottom, 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:13.080 once we've you know, kind of woken up to the 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:17.720 fact that we placed ridiculous expectations on this technology, we 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:20.879 can then better evaluate what the tech actually can and 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:23.240 can't do, and maybe we start to get a little 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:25.639 excited again. Now we're not going to go as crazy 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.000 as we were in the beginning, but we might get 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:32.040 a little more optimistic. And this is the slope of enlightenment. 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.679 And then we hit the plateau of productivity. This is 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.959 where our expectations for the tech and the actual capabilities 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:43.159 of the tech finally level out and we can actually 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:47.320 be productive with the technology. We're no longer you know, 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:51.639 throwing out hyperbole about what the technology is going to 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:55.720 be capable of doing. Uh. And I think we're a 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:59.320 ways away from that with the metaverse, largely because again, 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:03.560 we we don't even have a full satisfactory definition of 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:05.600 what the metaverse is going to be yet, so it's 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:09.639 kind of hard to get to the plateau of productivity. Um. 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:11.320 But a lot of us, I think are a little 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:15.040 more disillusioned by the promise of the metaverse than uh 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:19.960 than h hyped for it. Anyway, once folks got a 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.040 good look at what VR could and more importantly, couldn't 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:25.919 do back in the nineties, we had that trough of 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:30.280 disillusionment real hard, and for the scientists and engineers and 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:32.760 programmers and such who were working in the VR field, 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:36.639 that was a total disaster. That sudden decline and interest 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.760 meant that it was really hard to get financial support 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:43.480 to do research work in the field because like it 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:46.080 just wasn't popular. If something is not popular and people 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.000 have turned against it, it's very hard to convince the 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:53.080 folks who manage money to pour it into that field. 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:55.879 So some folks who are researching ways to use VR 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:59.879 and say therapy, found themselves cobbling together systems from the 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:04.080 DEO game components. Video game consoles became like a popular 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:09.080 go to source two kind of Jerry rig a VR 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:13.480 system out of all these different parts. So that was 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.760 still happening. There were still great work being done in 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:20.159 R and D, but the general consensus was there was 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:22.600 no money to be made in creating full systems. So 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:24.760 it's not like you could just go and buy a 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:27.640 virtual reality system off the shelf. And to be clear, 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:30.879 like when I was talking about Dactyl Nightmare, we weren't 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:33.919 talking about home virtual reality at all then. This was 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:36.840 These were systems that were far too large and bulky 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:41.040 and unwieldy and expensive for the average person to get 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:45.080 one and have it installed in their home. VR continued 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:48.240 in these years, but in a much more modest way, 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:50.840 and there were a few attempts to bring VR into 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:54.199 home gaming, but most of those, like for example, there 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.399 was a planned VR set that was meant for the 0:21:57.440 --> 0:21:59.840 sake of Genesis, a lot of those would get shell. 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.480 The ultimately just decided that this was too much work 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:05.200 and too much expense and there wasn't going to be 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:09.879 enough payoff, and those projects were largely abandoned. Now flash 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:12.280 forward more than a decade until we get to two 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:17.080 thousand nine, Palmer Lucky, the creator of Oculus, had started 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:22.560 building head mounted displays. Not this point, technology had improved significantly. 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:26.160 Flat panel displays where a possibility that really brought down 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:29.680 the bulk and weight of headsets. The development of powerful 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:33.760 processors for smartphones would ultimately be leveraged to handle processing 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:37.240 for a lot of VR systems which helped reduce latency 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:41.520 and boost resolution and also increase your field of view. 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:46.480 That's how many degrees of vision you have from side 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:50.640 to side within a mixed reality headset. Now, in two 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:53.720 thousand and twelve, Palmer Lucky launched a Kickstarter to fund 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:57.800 the development and manufacture of the first Oculus developer kit. 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:01.400 And it would be an over so qplification to say 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:05.480 that the Oculus solely made VR a viable possibility. Again, 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:10.560 that's that's dismissing tons of work from other people and 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:15.320 other companies. However, the Oculus, I think would you could argue, 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:19.840 was easily the most visible example of VR technology that 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:24.760 could at least approach the old promise of VR and 0:23:24.800 --> 0:23:29.040 make something that was a decent implementation of that promise. 0:23:29.680 --> 0:23:33.240 So the dreams of the eighties and nineties were unrealistic 0:23:33.280 --> 0:23:36.719 at the time, but the Oculus seemed to be a 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:40.439 little bit closer to what we were hoping for. You know, 0:23:40.480 --> 0:23:44.080 A couple of decades earlier, other manufacturers would start to 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:46.359 make VR headsets too, and there was a push to 0:23:46.440 --> 0:23:50.000 develop better systems, UH, including ones that would be self 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:54.800 contained and others that would require a PC to run software. 0:23:55.160 --> 0:23:57.080 While the VR system would kind of act as your 0:23:57.160 --> 0:24:03.399 display and input device. Now early on, there were a 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:06.560 few big obstacles standing in the way of VR adoption. 0:24:07.400 --> 0:24:11.480 One is that the really early VR headsets in this era, 0:24:11.600 --> 0:24:16.959 the being like the twenty twelve to say Steen or so, 0:24:17.640 --> 0:24:21.000 most of them required a physical connection to a PC 0:24:21.320 --> 0:24:24.879 if you wanted to actually use them. So, like the 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:28.280 VR systems around the eighties and nineties, it just wasn't 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:31.719 quite possible to have a really powerful VR headset that 0:24:31.760 --> 0:24:35.320 could stand on its own is, you know, disconnected from 0:24:35.359 --> 0:24:38.480