Horizon Workrooms promises a virtual future of teal despair You can say a lot about Facebook's insane parasitism of human society. Like the fungus that infects an ant and takes over its nervous system, making it climb to the top of a plant and erupt in an explosion of spores, Facebook has mindlessly evolved to exploit us with maximal efficiency. There is no moral guiding the act of …
My experience is different.
I've "attended" a few conferences in online in the last couple of years, and I've actually found VR to be an immense aid to focus.
Sitting at a screen, it's all too easy to pull up a Facebook tab and zone out of the meeting/talk entirely, but in a VR headset, distraction is far less immediate. Hell, you can't even just glance at your phone under the desk, like we've all done in physical meetings.
Also, don't underestimate the power of positional audio. With voices coming from multiple directions, people can talk at the same time without any of them becoming incomprehensible. There are video-conferencing apps out there that take advantage of this (based on research findings that people don't care much whether or not the audio position matches the actual physical location of the screen avatar) but at the moment the "big boys" (MS, Zoom etc) don't, and I'm not sure why not.
Given that I usually have to document discussions, calling up a tab with something else is the last thing on my mind...
Also, don't underestimate the power of positional audio. With voices coming from multiple directions, people can talk at the same time without any of them becoming incomprehensible.
That doesn't work face to face or with surround sound for me. As soon as two or more people speak at the same time, I can't follow what anybody is saying. I can't filter out one voice over another or concentrate on conversation, it all washes over me in a jumble of words.
The worst is TV, here in Germany, often in the news, they'll have the original voices in the background and the translator talking over the original soundtrack. I often only understand half of what is being said, because I am getting words in different languages jumbled in my head - the worst is English original with German translator talking over top.
>people can talk at the same time without any of
>them becoming incomprehensible
So you're not used to business speak?
https://www.theguardian.com/careers/careers-blog/worst-office-jargon-phrases-staff-love-hate-management-speak
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7457287.stm
Lucky you.
Presumably, you're attending those conferences because they are related to something you have an interest in.
I challenge you to sit through a 90 minute meeting, 89:30 of which is your manager talking in detail about other people's projects, and keeping your attention on everything that is being said, for those 30 seconds where your input is needed, without becoming distracted, all the time overcoming the urge to open a wrist just to test that reality still exists. Too many of those, and your brain is going to end up like some sort of blancmange.
Yes, and a side-effect of the pandemic is a long-overdue move towards shorter and more focused meetings, which I'm hoping will live on in the back-in-the-office world.
As for work meetings, well if I'm in a "webcams-off" meeting, I'd started lying on the floor to eliminate computer-based distraction and continue to listen, and then I moved to putting on my VR headset and using virtual desktop to stream the browser wirelessly to my headset halfway across the room. With the mouse and keyboard out of my hands, I was able to focus, despite being in a dull, uninteresting management briefing.
Oh, and some of those conference talks were monumentally tedious too.
And what is the exact point of not being able to zone out when that what is being showed or said is of null interest for you?
On the other hand: If the content is so important, why exactly would you want to zone out?
Usually, in civilized companies and institutions, you get a list of points before a meeting. And is understood that the during the exposition and discussion of the points that are of lesser interest to you, you will not be required to pay attention or even participate.
Also: If the point is important, you may want to do something else than staring like an owl. You may actually want to take notes. And some people need to scribble or fidget to actually pay attention to what is being said. That is actually a learning strategy taught in "How to learn" courses.
Sure, for you, particularly, it may be a good thing. But I seriously doubt that it would be good for general use. Specially because it forces a way of working that is not fit for the majority of us and restrict the flexibility of a real meeting, be it online, in RL or hybrid.
That I eschewed Fecalbook years ago and anyone suggesting that I contact them by SpyBook gets told that it is not going to be possible.
Then ZuckBaby comes up with this POS. Ok, they do need to sell those warehouses full of Occulus devices somehow but this?
Get lost and stay lost.
I hope that this dies a horrible death but I get the feeling that it will linger on for a while yet just like their messenger screen thing. I see the ads for it have started appearing again on UK TV.
Like Alexa devices, these are nasty little bugs that slurp your life up that you have to pay good money for. Facebook and Amazon etc are relying on the stupidity of people. There are enough of them out there, especially in the USA. After all, they elected Trump as grifter in chief.
Don't sit on the fence like that; tell us what you really think.
p.s. I'm with you. The sooner Bookface drops off the planet the better. The problem is, we're a problem-solving species. We like to work on interesting problems, irrespective of the end user... hey, that's a neat trick, let's do it.
I spent the last five or ten years of my career ignoring the wiles and blandishments of the defence industry, who had many technically fascinating projects they wanted me to work on... but I didn't hold with what happened when the product got used. Maybe software engineering training should include more emphasis on what happens when you've done the technically fun stuff.
"You can say a lot about Facebook's insane parasitism of human society. Like the fungus that infects an ant and takes over its nervous system, making it climb to the top of a plant and erupt in an explosion of spores, Facebook has mindlessly evolved to exploit us with maximal efficiency.
There is no moral guiding the act of hyper-categorising people and feeding them to whatever entity wants them most, but it delivers cash. So it will be done. Democracy may falter as a result, pitting families against themselves in a new civil culture war, but the spreadsheet looks good."
Am loving those first two paragraphs. This is why I don't use Facebook any more.
"But in the meantime, somebody hide this guy's thesaurus for a bit, 'mkay?"
Maybe have a dictionary at hand so you can look up those difficult words? It's almost like you're eschewing the ability for the human mind to learn.
Eschew
Verb
Deliberately avoid using; Abstain from.
"He appealed to the crowd to eschew violence"
Hey, the reason I abandoned FB wasn't the company itself ... it was the people I ACTUALLY KNOW. Their selfish behaviour, their childish petulance, their irritating food-photos, their inane gibberish, their unspirational mottos. The company is truly terrible, make no mistake, but it really brings out the very worst in people and that's why I can't bear to look at it. I thought we were better than that ... I guess I was wrong. As the Joker said, "You get what you fucking deserve."
Take the blue pill, climb into the Feacebook pod where you will be plumbed in and provided with everything FB thinks you need for the rest of your existence. You will watch virtual ads and buy virtual items from those ads while having virtually all of your energy and will extracted.
Then you will die.
VR is good for the environment though. You no longer would have to buy a fancy furniture or get those bookshelves filled with statement books. No need to go to hairdresser for a trim either. Less pollution and all that.
Imagine shopping with your partner for a new set in virtual Ikea or getting that LV drip with premium 10-bit high res textures.
You no longer would have to buy fancy furniture
Nor fancy pants, or pants at all. And I can pretend that what's I am drinking is coffee.
But I can still do that with a computer, no need for a VR that will add another nausea-inducing layer to the experience.
(1.5 years of this and still we didn't get a no-pants icon?)
All "problems" that can easily be fixed by technology, in the eyes of our wannabe tech masters. Just imagine what the application will look like from the bosses point of view.
"Minion Number 7 : maximum away glance time exceeded! Demote! Demote!".
"Alexa air monitor detects traces of alcohol! Terminate! Terminate!"
At what point will the headset only operate once you've snapped a remotely activated electrode onto your squishy bits?
"AI determined punishment : 12V jolts for 15 seconds".
Brew of choice in the US Pacific North West (Seattle, and bloody Redmond where I, as a Unix guy, unfortunately live).
One cannot hide from it. From my deck where I'm sitting, there are four breweries and five "tasting rooms" within walking distance.
IPA, Double IPA, Triple IPA, YouPA IPA, WePA IPA, Let's PA IPA.
I prefer a good Porter.
Having spoken to a couple of brewers about it I think there are two main reasons for the popularity: the strong hops were the biggest break from that bland MAB (middle American beer), that was often the only thing available. And, it's difficult to go wrong because no one will know if it's over- or underhopped. This is one of the reasons behind it in the first place: the hops masked the cheap beer and long and unsuitable travelling conditions.
Personally, I prefer gentler bitters where the balance of malts and hops is more difficult to fudge. But variety is the spice of life!
What I find truly frightening is how the sheeple will slurp it up because that is easier on the brain cells than declining the click-through. People will complain, but that won't stop them using it.
I confidently predict that Facebook are already negotiating with Microsoft to license a 3D version of Clippy to guide us around their virtual orifice and explain how everything you ever wanted lies behind the virtual ribbon floating a finger-poke up, just above your head.
I've had a developer Oculus on my desk for some time now. Pre Facebook.
It looks cool and collects dust but it's otherwise worthless since I don't have a Facebook account.
Per Alastair Dabs: "I can't even Give my old hardware away."
At least my old 3.5" floppy drive comes in handy once in a while installing DOS 6.2.
Honestly, Facebook has the worst user interface that I've seen in decades, and makes simple things difficult. I can't imagine adding VR goggles to the mix.
Even though I've found some real utility on Facebook (the many Living in France groups) it always feels like battling upstream in a river of molaaes
And of course Facebook the corporate entity is evil scum.
Don't use Facebook, never have used Facebook, and I never will use Facebook - anything. This is just the worst possible creation, one that I hope arrives stillborn. FB obviously think companies will buy the product (and associated per-user license), buy the Oculus headsets and all pile into this dead-eyed virtual meeting room all the while FB captures all the data and starts monetizing at a new level. Would corporates even be happy with the potential boardroom spying that would ensue. Nah, this is DOA for sure.
A company that has a foot hold in flogging VR headsets now comes up with an online conference facility that can use them.
It is bad enough as it is with all the online meeting tools without having to require specific headsets as well. There are also significant issues with a lot of this tech, particularly in the VR space that makes it completely and utterly useless for those that have any sort of special requirements to interface with their computer. Some is even more basic, there are huge numbers of people out there with hearing or eyesight issues that tech is blindly excluding.
The trouble is that the developers of a lot of this equipment or software have no comprehension of anyone other than themselves using it.
I was project manager for IBM Immersive Virtual Reality Systems in the mid 90s. Tele-presence was a concept then that no one really wanted to touch, so was tele-dildonics which seems to have fared a little better (having a better user experience). Augmented Reality has a much better business case and potential use-cases. Having an information overlay can be useful and would work even in video-conferencing sessions (not for the video, for supplemental information - as in action items, or "ignore him he's a ****er"). In either case, never put anything produced by Faceplant near your head.
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