back to article Grab your Hammer pants – it's the '90s again: Facebook brings Virtual Reality back

Judging by the hype around Facebook VR, you'd think the '90s never happened. Back then, the Social Network™ didn’t exist and it was the era’s video game giants – Sega and Nintendo – rolling out virtual reality with great fanfare. However, both of the Japanese games giants cancelled their efforts before launch: Sega’s Virtual …

  1. AMBxx Silver badge
    Happy

    Cardboard

    If, instead of Oculus Rift, he'd produced a thing made out of a cardboard box, how much would Facebook have paid?

  2. Big_Ted

    VR . . . AR . . .

    Hey its the new 3D all the hype in the world, promise that we will all be begging for it and willing to pay a fortune just to try it once or twice, go meh and return to our 2D panels etc.

    Unless they can get it down to the weight and feel of a pair of ordinary glasses then its s dead duck.

    As to Zuck's "........will be able to run both VR and augmented reality and most people probably won't take them off except to sleep." all I can say is the mans an idiot with no idea of what real people want beyond a place to upload pictures of their lunch for someone else to look at.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Dead duck"?

      @Big_Ted; "Dead Zuck", surely?

  3. Anonymous Blowhard

    AR?

    Augmented Reality or Advertising Revenue?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: AR?

      Augmented Revenue?

    2. Mark 85

      Re: AR?

      It's about revenue. Full Stop. One of Facebook's draws was games. Logic says, this isn't about "immersive messaging"(1) This is about maybe a 3D type of Candy Crush or Farmville..... or....???

      (1) Now if the rodent site or Pornhub could buy into VR the market might... err... ahem.... explode. Except in North Carolina, of course.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: AR?

        Have you not noticed all the VR specific sections showing up on places like Pornhub?

        VR has been a 'thing' on the porn sites for a while now, allegedly...

  4. Raumkraut
    WTF?

    "Nostalgia is the most toxic impulse"

    Back in 1995, the public had no exposure to 3D computer graphics, except in the cinema

    Tosh! We 1993-era Brits got to experience the (thankfully short-lived) televisual wonderment that was: Cyberzone!

    http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Cyberzone

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkzF56tGYSg

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Nostalgia is the most toxic impulse"

      Holy balls. I wish I hadn't watched that clip.

      I raise you the bar scene from Hackers. Pure 90s cyber-chic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0e8ZMVqVCc

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Nostalgia is the most toxic impulse"

      Yeah, Cyber Zone (#)... that was a load of drivel.

      I didn't like on principle when it started because I was an Amiga fanboy (high-end versions of which were used in many early VR machines), and they were using PCs. Boo!! Hissss!!

      Truth be told, the show was boring enough in its own right- I vaguely remember thinking Craig Charles' "Awooga!" was trying just a bit too hard to force in some personality and excitement that just wasn't there.

      But another problem was that they ditched the futuristic VR headsets and had all the action appearing on screens. Which sort of wasn't the point. It was barely even VR, it was little more than people playing higher-powered versions of 3D Construction Kit games.

      (#) Even the name was generic and forgettable, I couldn't have told you it from memory alone.

    3. myarse
      Terminator

      Re: "Nostalgia is the most toxic impulse"

      Wow, that cyberzone clip was awful but I now really want to play Wipeout on a projector, listening to Underworld while chatting up Angelina Jolie. Might even have time to hack the planet afterwards.

      Can someone sort it out please, pretty please, please?

  5. Mr Dogshit

    I don't care

    I don't care.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As long as

    I can eventually "fly" around the Internet a la 90s movies im in.

  7. s. pam Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Please don't hurt Hammer

    He's got a hard enough job as a used-car salesman in Oakland California....

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I am the artiste of the slightly funny deal

    Disk beginning to rotate, faster, becoming a sphere of paler gray.

    Expanding.

    And flowed, flowered for me, fluid neon origami trick, the unfolding of distance-less home, my country, transparent 3D chessboard extending to infinity. Inner eye opening to the stepped scarlet pyramid of the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority.

    Burning beyond the green cubes of Mitsubishi Bank of America, and high and very far away I saw the spiral arms of the military systems, forever beyond my reach.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: I am the artiste of the slightly funny deal

      Nice. I can almost name the book but to be honest, it has been a long time.

      Have an upvote.

  9. x 7

    all this 3D stuff is very well, but as the world moves toward virtual reality interfaces, how are those of us who don't have 3D vision supposed to cope? I have one eye that squints, is lazy, and so out of focus that it need a lens like a submarine port hole to see. The other eye is near perfect. The result is the two eyes don't work together: I don't see 3D. Nor do many other people - I would suspect 5% or more of the population, though many aren't self-aware of it.

    The risk is that as technology advances people like me are going to become a new class of "disadvantaged" (for want of a better word) - unable to use technology because we can't visually interface with it, even though on a daily basis our eyes cope. There's a danger that in ten years time people like me won't be able to use whatever has become the standard computer I/O device because our eyes can't interface with it - this will be especially true of the elderly. We need to be really careful over how this technology develops, before we produce a two-tier civilisation in which those with lesser eyesight are unemployable in office work

    1. Lyle Dietz

      VR is more than just 3D. If it was only about 3D I'd probably be happy with my nVidia's 3D Vision. VR is about immersion. It gives you a wide field of view that tracks your head movement, giving you the impression of actually being there.

      I wouldn't show you a 3D movie, because that would be pointless and insulting. I would show you VR because while it might not blow you away the same way as everyone else, you can enjoy it.

  10. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

    1995 3D graphics

    'Back in 1995, the public had no exposure to 3D computer graphics, except in the cinema'

    Well, except for the real 3D virtuality systems.

    ..and games such as Ultima Underworld on the PC

    ..or DOOM in 1993

    ..and 3D Construction Kit on everything from 8 bit micros upwards

    ..and a 3D Maze in Excel 95

    ..or say, the Playstation 1, which I believe was quite popular, and released in 1994.

    I'll grant that PC 3D accelerators were rare until 1998 when the 3dfx Voodoo2 came out.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      REX HAS SEEN YOU

      Or Mercenary.

      Or 3D Monster Maze.

      1. Sir Runcible Spoon

        Re: REX HAS SEEN YOU

        Or even Elite

  11. Martin 37

    Pr0n!

    How come this has been posted for 3 hours and no one has mentioned Adult Entertainment? Porn is always a driver of adoption of technology, especially technology accessible to male teenagers.

    So when your teenage son spends EVEN MORE time alone in his bedroom with his Oculus "playing Call of Duty" and starts getting hairy palms ...

    This is obvioiusly the market Zuckerberg is aiming for, unless he just wants some of the action himself.

    1. Old Handle

      Re: Pr0n!

      I donno, by tying it into facebook, they will no doubt feel obliged to protect their clean image... err the clean image they believe they have, but at the same time, there's definitely a market for that kind of thing. An obvious solution would be to sell the gadgets but let third parties handle the porn, but that kind of freedom doesn't exactly seem to be in style right now. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Pr0n!

        Corporate image. Advertisers love all sorts of filth, but they don't like porn.

        1. P. Lee

          Re: Pr0n!

          >Advertisers love all sorts of filth, but they don't like porn.

          They love porn, they just don't want people to call it what it is because that limits their market reach.

          e.g. Fifth Harmony... doing a show at Disney or on earliteen/pre-teen shows.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Pr0n!

            I mean you're absolutely right. It's obviously more nuanced than I said. Corps love this particular narrow band of titillation which is extremely marketable.

            Especially as you say that Disneyesque approach of selling porn to kids, while having to sneak past the parents filters.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Used cars?

    Hammer van...hammer...Hammer van.

  13. ecofeco Silver badge

    InstaFacebookTwittergram does it again!

    The social relevance of VR 3D is such a fresh and innovative idea!

    Sarcasm? What sarcasm? Moi?

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon

      Re: InstaFacebookTwittergram does it again!

      People said that about the PC, the mobile phone, the internet etc. etc.

  14. Jim84

    Still stereoscopic

    All the present VR headsets still use stereoscopic 3D (two slightly different images). So people will probably get eye strain with longer use. Pseudo holographic (lightfield) displays would help, but would people rather just stand next to an 80 or 100 inche lightfield TV that is like looking through a window?

    1. Boothy

      Re: Still stereoscopic

      Quote: "will probably get eye strain with longer use"

      In real life, as you look around in the real world at real objects, they can be close, far, mid distant etc. Your eyes have to adjust to those distances, and it's this adjustment that causes eye strain, especially if you are switching between distant objects, and then close to. (e.g. Look at a map, look at the horizon, map, horizon, map, horizon, ouch after a while).

      The VR lens systems are all designed so that your eyes are at a fixed mid focal point, that should be relaxed for your eyes.

      And as you point out, this is not real 3D, but stereoscopic, so switching between far and close objects in the virtual world, doesn't require your eyes to actually refocus, as all the VR objects, are all at the exact same focal distance. So the same map, horizon, map, horizon switching in VR, doesn't require any focal changes in your eyes.

  15. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    All that about what VR is and how it works, not a word about what it does

    VR is immersive, yeah, I think I got that. And it is on its way, I definitely got that. Even here people are talking about it like it's inevitable. But what can you do with it now ?

    Well, on Steam for the past month I've been presented with an endless list of games and stuff that purport to be VR-friendly. What kind of things have I seen ? Well just last night there was a VR browsing application, where you surf the 2D Internet without removing your precious, eye-destroying facehugger. I found that one particularly ironic.

    Otherwise, there's a boatload of Frogger-quality gamelets, it seems that everyone and his brother are dragging out the 80s and chucking it in a VR world. Wonderful, we're going to have a bunch of fugly immersive games to justify $1000 of expense.

    There is not a single VR title on Steam that would even slightly incite me to go to the trouble of finding out if it is actually worth it. There isn't a single attempt to create even a lowly Minecraft clone that works in VR (not yet anyway), and that would be worth a look.

    But hey, by the time something worthwhile does come out, I'm sure the hardware will be dirt cheap.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: All that about what VR is and how it works, not a word about what it does

      (Domestic) VR does not have a killer app. It may never have one.

    2. Boothy

      Re: All that about what VR is and how it works, not a word about what it does

      Quote: "even a lowly Minecraft clone".

      Why would a developer bother to make a clone of Minecraft for VR, when Minecraft already supports VR?

      There is even a mod that enables the use of the Vive controllers, so that you can actually chop trees down and other actions via swinging your arm.

  16. DropBear

    6DOF is not relevant

    ...and never will be for the mainstream market. Most people have no desire to leap out of their chairs and stumble around in their home (or buy an even more expensive and seriously space-hogging "free walk" accessory), and to be honest your neck doesn't have all that much "travel" sitting in a chair - you can peek around corners just as easily with a controller or keyboard, with much less effort. Sure, there will be a few going ape for all that "freedom" but the bulk of the market will never progress beyond putting on a headset (if at all). At any rate though, as long as VR is beholden to the book of faces and / or keeps snooping on my every move and / or demands a king's ransom, I'm not interested at all.

  17. Roj Blake Silver badge

    Two Reasons Why it Won't Take Off

    1: People don't like wearing glasses (see the uptake of 3DTV and Google Glass, and the profits of contact lens and laser surgery people)

    2: You look like a right muppet with a VR headset strapped to your face.

  18. Chris G
    Coat

    In Reality

    You can See, Touch, Hear, Smell, Taste and feel the wind on your cheeks,,well, on private land with your trousers down.

    So how is wearing a headset even close to Virtual Reality when at best it is feeding only 40% of your sensory suite?

    It may seem more real than looking at a screen but it ain't close to reality.

    Mine's the one with the Holosuite pass in the pocket.

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