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Bloomberg Testing Productivity App For Oculus Rift
Nerval's Lobster writes: So far, the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset has found its most widespread use in gaming. But as the device rises in prominence, more companies are testing its capabilities as a work tool. Bloomberg is one of those companies, having designed software that allows Oculus-equipped traders and financial pros to view dozens of virtual "screens," each one packed with data. The platform is clearly aimed at those Masters of the Universe who stack their real-world desks with four, six or eight screens—the better to take the pulse of the markets. Think of it as a traditional Bloomberg terminal on steroids. "This is a mockup of how virtual reality can be applied in the workplace," Nick Peck, a Bloomberg employee responsible for creating the software, told Quartz. "I really wanted to explore how virtual reality could solve one of the most basic problems we hear about: limited screen real estate." A virtual-reality Bloomberg terminal isn't the only practical application proposed by Oculus Rift users: earlier this year, the Norwegian Armed Services began testing whether the hardware could be used to drive tanks, on the supposition that off-the-shelf cameras and a headset built for virtual gaming could prove cheaper than custom-built military equipment.
Screw wall street, I want to see the testing being done by the sex industry. I'm betting the Japanese already have highly interactive 3D-generated softcell shading hentai porn.
I suspect it's much better in the v2 dev kit (and it's much better resolution), but a big problem I found with the v1 devkit is that text is almost unreadable unless you are looking directly at it.
Of hedge fund managers battling it out with golden swords. The winner gets a Bag of Holding stuffed with Swiss francs.
This one, specifically:
http://www.sivatherium.narod.r...
Far from hard sci-fi but an entertaining read for sure.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Hedge fund managers battling isn't nearly as terrifying as the reality of them colluding
I've wondered if there was a VR Head Set out there that would immulate multiple screens. So that when I turn my head, that I would see the other screens. That I would buy NOW.
My Linux box has a nice, crisp, 2-page monitor on which I generally have 6 or 9 virtual desktops. I can cycle through them with a tap of the key, or go right to the one I need. A little mini "overview" panel in my toolbar shows me all windows at once, and I can even click there to go to a particular one.
But sure. Use a VR headset. That's good too.
Allowing skimmers to take more while they contribute nothing.
Why would hedge fund managers collude? The whole point is to get in front of everyone else.
What capacity is there to patent the semi-obvious capabilities of VR? Is there currently a patent for "multiple display simulation using virtual reality with head tracking?" Could someone patent the use of a virtual showroom where people view products in 3D before purchase?
I know I read about the tank thing before, and I was thinking "how hard would it be to knock out the cameras". Now reading this I can picture the next tank warfare thing being the equivalent of paintballs to blind the cameras.
Though the same sort of issue is true in self driving cars. If I don't have inner controls to take over manually what happens if some sensor goes out?
I refuse to sign
what starts as a toy for gamers, has evolved into a tool to help manipulate financial markets for the financial elite, and drive tools of death and oppression
I imagined a little different. I imagined watching the Bloomberg Oculus Rift Business News Cable Channel. Complete with 40 live scrolling tickers, 10 simultaneous real-time stock market charts, 5 talking heads on the side incomprehensibly shouting over each other, 1 giant random talking head in the center saying something inane about company XYZ, and me getting a headache, a headache which was not induced by any system or motion lag.
Why would hedge fund managers collude? The whole point is to get in front of everyone else.
DING! DING! DING! We have a winner for today's "common sense comment" award!
But really, there's a whole lot of people who truly believe that the hedge funds are trying to screw individual investors like themselves, and are colluding to do so. Nonsense. They don't cooperate to fleece a particular set of victims, they all try to fleece whomever they possibly can, including each other.
Is it really a 'productivity' application if it's just used for shoveling financial instruments around in exotic ways?
Having used a dev version of the oculus rift on which text is barely readable. This is going to be a long way off from replacing high res desktop monitors. The res off the rift will need to be quadrupled at least to provide a decent replacement.
So, you've got a truly great immersive display, and you're using it to display virtual screens?
That's... that's right up there with using a 4K display to more faithfully render the green characters of an old 3270 terminal. Or using your surround-sound system to accurately reproduce the noises of a manual typewriter. Or telling your autonomous car where to go by using a steering wheel and accelerator to drive a little virtual car along a 3-D map.
For Rockefeller's sake, you've got a display system that can render any 2D or 3D object! Can't you find someone with a little more imagination than the people who say "OMG, I can have a virtual screen for every spreadsheet ever!"?
You would think that Bloomberg's shrinking terminal count (which they've stopped reporting by the way) would make them realize 2 things:
1) The days of the terminal are numbered. And what that means is that turning data into pixels and sending them to (human) eyeballs may have value but computers processing the raw data are taking over. Bloomberg's use of the Oculus Rift is an attempt to preserve the "feed the human" model rather than "feed the computer" model.
2) Giving users "more information" (visually) doesn't necessarily improve the situation either from an ability to comprehend or from a cost perspective. "Less is more" is an appropriate aphorism here on multiple levels.
By the way, if you've ever seen a Bloomberg screen it looks like a 1980's DOS application. This bit of PR is trying to give them a cachÃf© ahead of their IPO. You know half of their shit is developed in Pascal...
This is really stupid. For one, there is already an open source application that does this:
http://hwahba.com/ibex/
Secondly, this (the Bloomberg one) is only a mockup:
Mockup is the right word. The virtual screens aren’t connected to an actual terminal; they are screenshots and videos.
Why is this news?
something like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPPBzmn6Fh4
It's High Frequency Traders, not Hedge Funds, that do the front running. If you going to slander people make sure you slander the right people.
I've had a similar idea for using with the Occulus Rift where I want to be able to pull individual applications out into their own "floating windows" in space while keeping them on the main desktop as well. Probably easily doable on Linux systems with the way window managers are in that environment, but I'm skeptical about how well it could be done on Windows at the moment since the API doesn't seem to expose the methods for something like that.
I feel Occulus Rift-style VR systems provide a great way to explore potentially new ways of working with the organization of applications in a productive environment. Only issue being at the moment is that the headsets get hot to wear.
"Think of it as a traditional Bloomberg terminal on steroids."
So it looks pretty cool, is pretty much useless and has shrunken testicles?
It's High Frequency Traders, not Hedge Funds, that do the front running. If you going to slander people make sure you slander the right people.
Well, OK then. Maybe HFTers front-run, maybe they don't. It's a near certainty that they don't all do that. It's also an absolute certainty that front-running requires cooperation from a brokerage/clearing house. It's also a certainty that at least one brokerage has been caught red-handed doing that (sorry, I do not recall details). So, the real front-running problem is dishonest brokerages not processing orders strictly in the sequence they're submitted--regardless of whether that's in collusion with a hedge fund or for their own account.
The real (alleged) problem with HFT is price manipulation via rapidly placed and cancelled orders.
Why would "rapidly placed and cancelled orders" by itself effect the market? It is because they are front running.
What you said was true but this is no longer true since the SEC has required brokers to operate on a best price instead of a best execution for trading. I will point you to Michael Lewis's "Flash Boys" – there are summaries floating out on the web. Because there are now multiple markets, a HFT can tease out information on a big order by offering a low price on a small lot (or, as you imply "rapidly placed and cancelled orders"). They then race ahead to other exchanges, front running the larger order.
Now, HFT is one of those words which encompass many different things. There are legitimate high speed traders that operate as market makers. Are these HFT? Langue is fluid. The front running HFTs are not adding value – they are just shaving pennies off of trades.