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HTC Announces $100 Million Fund For Virtual Reality Startups (roadtovr.com)
An anonymous reader writes: HTC today announced the Vive X accelerator program through which the company will invest from it's newly created $100 million VR fund. The fund aims to kickstart the VR ecosystem in support of the company's Vive VR headset. Applications for the accelerator program, which will open first in Beijing, Taipei, and San Francisco, are open today. The company says their aim is to "help cultivate, and grow the global VR ecosystem by supporting startups and providing them with expertise, special access to advanced VR technology, financial investment, mentorship and unmatched go-to-market support."
The article sidebar cites social VR as a way to get the tech rolling. How about a generic business meeting app? Simple avatars like the ones in Second Life would suffice here, because the participants in a specific situation already know each other and are limited in number, so there is no need to get fancy. What would be important is the ways in which people could interact virtually in a meeting space? Could they exchange meaningful informational as easily as face-to-face without the infernal overhead of arranging conference rooms and interrupting normal work routines.
Sometimes I beat off
Hands on mouse and dick, click click
Mom knocks, fuck off bitch!
Anyone wanna come over and hang out? I'm in Seattle, and I'm an alchemist.
People don't want fucking VR. If people wanted VR, they would be buying VR products. They're not. There is no market. You're solving a problem that doesn't exist. This is the dog from hell. You should take it out back and shoot it. Augmented reality is the future, though not that creepy Google Glass. People don't want VR. I'm saying this for the benefit of anyone who thinks they can make money on VR. Don't try. The market has spoken. They're not interested. Put your time and money elsewhere so you can actually make money.
People don't want fucking VR. If people wanted VR, they would be buying VR products. They're not. There is no market. You're solving a problem that doesn't exist. This is the dog from hell. You should take it out back and shoot it. Augmented reality is the future, though not that creepy Google Glass. People don't want VR. I'm saying this for the benefit of anyone who thinks they can make money on VR. Don't try. The market has spoken. They're not interested. Put your time and money elsewhere so you can actually make money.
Would be nice if they added support after claiming that there would be support from day 1.
At best it will be a niche product like for gaming.
I agree 100%
People don't want the weak and non-immersive attempts at VR that have been made in the past.
The only-now-being-released wave of VR products are an entire league above anything we have ever seen before.
The market has not yet had time to speak.
Alex Bell pitched his new telephone idea to the telegram cartel at the time, and they thought it was a complete waste and wouldn't even consider it. So he started his own business, and utterly destroyed them.
HTC hasn't exactly been running at a profit for quite some time. I believe Q4 2015 they lost $101 million. I'm surprised they can scrape $100 together, let alone $100 million.
I want the holodeck
I bought VR. My husband bought VR. Eat a dick.
You are basing this on what? The first somewhat decent headsets ever arr still backordered for months and you are ready to discount the entire paradigm? Don't be foolish. Also, I've tried VR and absolutely want it.
I bought VR. My husband bought VR. Eat a dick.
OMG the immersion! I can even taste it!!
Personally I want VR.
VR for (on rails) tours of places and entertainment = Great.
VR for normal games = Ok I guess if the fidelity of the screen is atleast as good as a normal computer monitor and if it's comfortable.
VR games stuck in one place with a controller = Not the most interesting, especially if the one above isn't true.
VR games with some freedom of movement and tracking of the person = Good but since we can't move around everywhere with these kinds of products (Vive and PC) and realistically not even outside if the current reality is completely replaced by a virtual one it will be an on rail experience such as the shot from a vehicle games or Duke Nukem Forever and so on. Not the best.
Personally I too think the most interesting applications lie in augmented reality where the real world could become more interesting / have additional content brought too it. Missions in the real world. Say table tennis or laser game or whatever in the augmented world. People could do legal graffiti everywhere. Touring and facts about the environment and so on.
The market and usefulness of augmented reality must be much higher. There's still room for a "Real-life Shadow warrior" where you battle daemons in the somewhat real world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
...HTC shareholders announced that they would prefer to see that money distributed as real dividend to shareholders, rather than dissipated into VR thin air.
I work at a VR company in California. A manager from India was telling external recruiters he only wanted resumes of other workers from India. The major qualification was someone who once lived in india so we ended up with a lot of engineers who knew nothing about VR. I checked around and at other major tech companies they almost all had this problem. Why do managers from India break the rules of companies committed to be equal opportunity employers? If you look at your organization chart at your tech company I bet you notice quickly that Indian managers and indian executives have tricked HR and managed to hire only other people from India. At worst I suspect they are racist and believe the blacks, latinos, chinese and caucasian people are inferior. At best they are just hiring their friends into high salary positions. It would be an interesting study to find out what is going on. Check your org chart I bet you will be surprised that this is so very true.
People don't want fucking VR.
Betting against the porn industry is ill-advised.
If people wanted VR, they would be buying VR products.
People ARE buying as fast as can be fabricated.
There is no market. You're solving a problem that doesn't exist.
You can create a market if you can demonstrate the value of a product. VR sucks up until the time you try it. Disruptive change is possible if you can deliver requisite value.
Augmented reality is the future
Who cares? This is like people spewing garbage like smartphones are the future or tablets are the future. They are all just computers with a slightly different physical interfaces. AR vs VR are head mount displays. In the future HMDs will be both.
Don't try. The market has spoken. They're not interested. Put your time and money elsewhere so you can actually make money.
Oh I keep forgetting the world is saturated with low hanging untapped markets ripe for the plucking. Stay away from anything hard or uncertain.