Microsoft and Meta promise facehugger PCs piping cloud desktops into VR headsets Microsoft and Meta have teamed up in the metaverse, to bring the software giant's OS and productivity tools into The Social Network's Meta Quest virtual reality hardware. The two internet giants today promised that in the future, Windows 365 will become available on Meta Quest devices, offering the chance to "stream a Windows …
This could bring the movie to new unexplored heights. \
And give a new meaning to the phrase "Death by Powerpoint".
p.s. I feel someone should acknowledge how much genius is contained in the "Facehugger PC" monicker.
Can't wait for some facehugger headset add-on to appear on Etsy, and an entire office to wear it at work.
Other facehuggers than Geiger's finest are available, which may reflect the intent more accurately (it can upset your customers to have the support rep burst halfway through the help desk consultation: that does not reflect Company Values, although it does make the rep feel better than having to dealing with that bunch of morons one more day). Those other huggers tend more towards mind control, creating a (literally) single-minded army bent upon World Domination (ref. CEO's Vision, para 3).
Such alternatives include Starro or my favourite, the huge one-eyed leaves that the Zero-X crew encountered back in the 60's: the botanist kneels down to look at the plant, the leaf unfolds and schwup! Hmm, wonder if Geiger or Scott ever read that story...
The drugs in silicon Valley getting now? I mean if this pure cocaine based bs by now someone sensible would have gotten involved to put a dampener on things but no. It's like they're all on a joint acid trip where they feel they must get more people to see the world how they do (in Marks case, creepy, unblinking, dead eyed staring World...).
Has no one pointed out the closer to the uncanny valley, the more disturbing the result?
I've occasionally speculated on using HMDs to get an enormous virtual screen. We never did get the best bits from Sun's Starfire movie prototype.
The main problem I've noticed is that the horizontal FOV is too small. I haven't checked the specs for the new one but I can't imagine it's much better than the Quest 2 which IMO was awful for watching films.
And if you want decent viewing clarity you have to have the beefy PC to go with it so that you can scale up the headset's default per-eye resolution to something approaching worth it.
Maybe in a couple of decades the tech will be up to the job, bulky headsets just aren't good enough for anything outside of a gaming session.
People wear contacts or get eye surgery because they don't want to wear stuff on their faces, the idea of actively having to wear something like this for the entire working day, or even half the day is horrifying.
I have a CV1 at home, I'm a fan of VR in general but it's got a LONG way to go even with the more modern headsets.
> The Microsoft / Meta model of VR is that I don a headset and then...umm...sit down in front of a row of screens and interact with them? I must be missing something.
You're right, it seems boring and unambitious, doesn't it? A bit corporate a bit safe, a bit tediously grown up. Maybe that's deliberate on Zuckerberg's part?
AR and VR have scope to touch a wide areas of our lives in ways we don't know yet, and Meta would rather not have us remember Facebook's past actions when we, as a society, as institutions, as individuals, have conversations about how to use these new technologies.
AR and VR have scope to slurp wide areas of our potential data profiles, in ways that haven't been monetized yet.
Just imagine, you could know what someone is thinking not just by tracking their cookies, click-throughs and mouse-movements - but every nod of their head, twitch of their pose, and glimmer in their eye! Imagine how much MONEY is to be made by closing a fast content-recommendation loop around such an immersive experience, manipulating people into buying more stuff, following our political sponsors, and selling the proles to the big employers, governments and insurance companies on a scale never seen before!
THAT is what Zuck & Co are having orgasms about (that and the second poll answer)
Cloud desktops? That means Zuck gets to see what's on your headset screen, remember. So stay away from the VR porn on the face-mounted telescreen.
So, 'Avatar 2' is being released in 3D, but when I checked the listings at my local flea pit, there wasn't one single film being offered in 3D, so how many places still have the ability to project in 3D I wonder? I think I still have some 3D glasses somewhere..... although I doubt I'll go see Avatar 2 as the first one sucked so much.
If I could wear glasses that are just as comfy as my glasses that wirelessly connect to a local machine and project information into the world I already sit in then I would do away with monitors and have some nice pictures on the walls instead. I could do that. I have to look through glass as it is for anything to be in focus. Fully enclosing myself in VR isn't appealing, I don't want to be completely shut off from reality more than I am.
> If I could wear glasses that are just as comfy as my glasses
Everyone I've read with anything good to say about VR/AR headsets or Google glasshole style devices is someone who wears spectacles. They never seem to realise that the rest of us don't need or want to wear glasses. What seems like an obvious device to computerise to them is anathema to everyone else.
Weird - I keep seeing people who don't need to wear corrective lenses wearing glasses every Summer. Even people who have contact lenses have been spotted wearing sunglasses. I'm informed that some even wear them indoors just to look cool!
It is almost as if people are happy to wear something that hooks over their ears to hold things over their eyes just as soon as doing so provides a benefit to them.
But there are also probably people with a crippling fear of specs who will try to divert attention from their own limitations by claiming to speak for *everyone* who is already lucky enough not to need a prescription.
>>Everyone I've read with anything good to say about VR/AR headsets or Google glasshole style devices is someone who wears spectacles.
I wear glasses and have nothing good to say about VR. Quite aside from the inherent selfishness of the experience, the headsets do not cater for my vision requirements, and no - unless I DO wear my glasses the experience is not in focus. Granted some headsets allow lens inserts, but then that is ANOTHER pair of glasses I have to buy.
Sigh - I guess I am not the target market.... again.
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> Everyone I've read with anything good to say about VR/AR headsets or Google glasshole style devices is someone who wears spectacles.
It is plausible that many tech bloggers wear spectacles, and that your sample size is sufficiently small that I believe that what you say is what you observed.
Does everyone who thinks earphones are a good idea already use hearing aids? It is my friends with uncorrected eyesight who are more likely to don a pair of sunglasses when the sun is shining brightly.
All the commenters above express variations on "I just don't get it!! What are they thinking?" which is sensible. However, don't confuse what Meta and MS are saying on stage with what they are considering in boardrooms and research teams.
They put this presentation on for specific, fairly focused, reasons of their own. 'Oh, it's a way of aiding remote team collaboration'' or some such such, using today's tech. It's a bland, non-threatening use for uninspiring hardware. However, they are paying smart people a lot of money to analyse how the game will play out over various timescales. The tentative map of this landscape they are keeping to themselves. On stage they didn't talk much about scaling education, on architecture, on role-playing new social policies in a persistent game over months - like a super-complex focus group exercise. In private they will be assessing all these things.
Take Facebook's A / B testing of political advertisements some years back - try advert A on this group of people, and B on some others... get feedback on which has the most effect. Now make it more invasive, persistent, fine grained... Yuck, right? Horrible.
Let Facebo... ahem, Meta, near our children?! No! is an obstacle they face. Microsoft might have an easier job of being accepted, after all, little Johnny already Skype's his grandma, and does his homework on Office. So, brand reputation matters to these companies as they seek to touch more our lives. And these is a company that has always been self aware of it's own reputation and has been notably competent at managing it: Apple.
Not only does Apple have a better reputation for privacy than Meta, it's clear that they've long been mindful of their reputation amongst parents (I,e people with caterers and more money than teenagers).
And of course Apple has been laying the groundwork for an AR device for years, has a near unlimited budget for research and acquisitions, and already has supporting hardware being used by millions its customers, such as headphones with spatial audio or watches which know where they are in relation to other devices.
Meta know this of course, and in greater detail and scope. Short term, Apple are well placed to prevent Meta from developing a monopoly or reaching a critical of threshold of users. And that's likely a good thing, since their business model doesn't evolve around advertising, and the strong emotions that advertisers have to provoke in people to make them 'engage' as proof their eyeballs saw the client's message.
It's..................... the Windows desktop! A 2D image, meant to be displayed on fixed size monitors! Think of all the benefits of being able to view two dimensions in three dimensions! For example, it runs on the expensive headset you just bought!
Or maybe the 3D Windows desktop is on the way, so they'll move from the ultra flat modern interface aesthetics to 3D icons in an infinite 3D desktop space. Imagine the possibilities of a 3D spreadsheet! Or 3D Teams meetings, where you can look at 3D video of other people wearing VR headsets.
Spy magazine performed a prank to see how willing marketeers would be to promote an idea that was utter nonsense: Bunnyburgers
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