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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.
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
This is actually the use case I'm more interested in.
Oculus pushing up the resolution of VR means we are creeping closer and closer to this being reality, and that's honestly more interesting to me then any amount of immersive gaming. Right now I'm typing this on a system with 3 monitors - when I'm coding something, I usually end up completely filling all those monitors - I have a preview/IRC on one, 3 text editors in the middle, debugging and project navigation on the other plus however many miscellaneous console windows.
I could keep adding monitors, but it would never be enough (as my brother discovered when he got up to 5 while developing a web app). What I'd like to do is just put on a headset, and make a 360 degree, 6 DOF bubble which would be 1 giant virtual monitor. Dispense with my desk and just have a chair with a keyboard and mouse support in my study.
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.
The problem is resolution.
If you think about it, even with the greatly improved version of the dev kit, you are still only dealing with 960 x 1080. I imagine this would make it terrible for reading text or fine information spread out over a large visual area. You'd end up having to move your head just while reading one screen, let alone be able to see multiple screens effectively at the same time. At that point, you may as well just use virtual desktops and switch between them.
In real life, this problem happened to me with 6 actual monitors. Yes I could add more, but then it becomes more effort to move my head to see the additional monitors than it would be to just flip to another virtual desktop.
And yes, monitor space is one of those things that you never have enough of. Most of the time I actively use 3, but once in awhile I get into something where I'm comparing stuff together or monitoring something in real time, and I find myself running out of space.
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!"?
"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.