MorePowerToYou
Joined 10 years ago
Joined 10 years ago
I work in San Francisco in an office with multiple tech companies. VR/AR is about 99.9% invisible. It's occasionally mentioned by developers/gamers upon returning from GDC. Otherwise, it's completely off peoples' radars. I think the technology has potential, but claiming it's "the next iPhone" is inaccurate. It remains to be seen.
I touched on this before https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12104656. Imagine waiting in an airport and browsing instagram or watching videos on a relatively large, private display via glasses. The tiny, visible-by-others smartphone display would look very primitive in comparison.
The fully-autonomous route runs head-first into the inevitable, messy problems with software: security, maintenance, feature creep, complexity, unreliable networks etc. In theory, humans could nail all of these in car software. In practice, it's highly unlikely. The software industry can't even get basic security for IoT devices right.
The human-in-the-loop route runs directly into the only problem more daunting than reliable software: human nature. Human overrides for self-driving cars that need to be activated in a timely manner will not work. The drivers won't be paying enough attention to react in sufficient time. Note that overrides add even more complexity to an already fantastically complex system.
I guess my primary gripe is that it's just not comfortable relative to any other form of entertainment. It's worse than reading on a phone or tablet. It's worse than playing games on a phone, console, or PC. It's worse than watching movies in the theatre. Sure, those are high bars and VR is still kinda young. But all the hype is quickly being exposed as bullshit. VR isn't catching on. Catching on looks like the iPhone in 2008-2009 or the web in the late nineties.
A service that provides this "trial relationship" could work. When I'm looking for a new job, I could do one hour per day of real work for a few companies. After five days, both employer and prospective employee will have a better understanding of each other than a single day of interviews allows.
There's practical concerns. Companies certainly wouldn't give prospective employees full access to internal codebases or data. Companies would have to break off small tasks which could devolve into throw-away take-home assignments. Employees at the company would have to endure the annoyance of dealing with prospective hires. It might be worth it for everyone.