It seems the long-term solution will involve eye tracking so that the device can "focus" with you.
I was thinking that would be ideal, however there is another issue to overcome with that solution, the Inter Pupillary Distance (IPD) would have to change with your focus.
We have two IPDs - near and far. With current headsets you set the IPD to your far (or relaxed) IPD measurement. If your IPD is off (your pupils aren't in the center of focus of the lenses) then the image will appear blurry. So some sort of modification will have to be made to the optics or the IPD adjustment will have to be motorized and set to respond to your focus change.
Just because advertising has infected other mediums, doesn't mean that advertisers are entitled to infect everything.
Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.
I don't have a problem with DRM that doesn't get in the way.
Even more than that. Valve has worked hard to make Steam very feature rich. Unlimited installs, In home streaming, cloud synced saves, family sharing, big picture, VR mode, the card collecting meta-game, community features, Windows, Mac, & Linux support (most titles with access to all available versions), built in patching, built in modding support (workshop), etc.
Sure it has DRM, but they hugely offset the inconvenience of the DRM with features that take care of a lot of annoyances and issues players have had with or without DRM.
Not saying they're perfect. Their customer service could be greatly improved. That said, 7 years and I haven't had to call them for an account issue (knock on wood).
Virtual Boy was not a VR device as we use the term now
Or even back then. The Virtual Boy was released in July 1995 . That same year the VFX-1 (a true though limited by the technology of the time) virtual reality headset was released.
My only question would be how would you verify that the provider is returning a realistic answer?
I would guess by crowdsourcing the data like they do with google maps (and slow roads, contruction, accidents). If multiple users report a source as being slow then it'll get marked as such for all others.
The app can do this in the background. And since it's done per app if you get a slow connection, then the next request for data can ignore the lying node.
as a gamer I'm no longer interested in 4K video since I know Occulus Rift (and competing VR set) are coming.
Same here, I've been due for a monitor upgrade for a while (was running a triple 19" monitors), but it doesn't make sense to do that now since the budget can be used to snatch up Oculus CV1s when they come out (for less money)!
It would have seemed sane to only tax ***coins when cashed out or exchanged for a good.
An analogy I heard for the current IRS guidance is that it's like taxing furniture makers for the full price of a couch (minus material + labor costs) when they combine wood, cloth, and padding. Furthermore they must calculate the price based on the current sale price of the couch in furniture stores.
If you're looking for other online glasses providers (and want to avoid the Luxotica cartel) there's a few alternatives that I've seen come up on previous discussions:
We bought 3 pairs from Zenni Optical for just at ~$100 ($110 I think?) and we've been *very* pleased. This after paying $250 - $300 per pair year after year at the local places. Seriously, the glasses online are so cheap it's worth it even just to have a throwaway (for going to the beach, theme parks, etc) or a backup pair.
On the PC, Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed is a great example of this. The game runs smooth on modest hardware on single player or local split screen multi-player. It even supports 4k resolutions (though I have not tested this myself yet).
If the game uses lower detail meshes and textures when it goes split screen, it hasn't been noticeable.
Except the Linux community isn't expecting you to support SteamOS alone, they want you to support Linux at large
As part of the Linux community, I'll have to disagree. This also came up the last time Steam on Linux was discussed . As was concluded there, each distro can implement their own package that installs steam and any missing dependencies necessary to get it to work. Alternatively, the user can devote a small partition to Steam OS and switch out when they're done working for the day and want to game instead. In fact, the user can install SteamOS and separately install the steam client in their main distro and have them both share the same game install folder and only boot into SteamOS when a game isn't working as well as expected in their favored distro.
That said the developer can just choose to support SteamOS and leave it at that. As a *bonus* the game should work in other Linux distros.
I think there's more value than an extra sale here.
Valve is offering game developers a single target in Steam OS.
Right now a game developer has to contend with: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 32bit or 64 bit, various versions of Direct X (different versions of windows are limited to certain Direct X versions). Bug in the OS causing you grief? Submit a request to Microsoft and hope it gets fixed (hah!) or code around it. Getting customers to upgrade to the latest windows is not always feasible due to the cost.
SteamOS will offer one version. Which version do you support? The latest one. 64 bit or 32 bit? SteamOS is only 64 bit. Bug in the OS affecting your program? You can look up the code, fix it, and submit the patch to Valve. Did you find a fix or setting that'll improve everyone's Steam OS experience? Submit it!
You pay shipping to receive packages (to the post office). You also pay for the content of those packages (to whoever you bought the item(s) from).
Now more and more people start ordering stuff from Amazon. The local post office realizes that their mail trucks are filling up and they're unable to pick up all the packages they need. Some of the packages get left behind, some get crammed into the truck (and end up damaged), some make it through.
They also notice that a third of all packages have Amazon logos.
Does the post office:
A) Use the extra money it has been receiving from postage fees to upgrade it's fleet, buy more trucks, hire more drivers, etc.
B) Pick up on Amazon's generous offer to have some items already stocked, packaged, and automatically labeled next to the Post office so that commonly ordered items can be transferred locally instead of going through the USPS's now heavily taxed fleet?
C) Extort money from Amazon in exchange for their customers receiving their packages in a timely and undamaged fashion (which their customers are already paying for).
Now you can say the main difference is that the post office is charging per package vs selling a service to its customers where they can receive a certain amount of mail (say in pounds) per day. Either way though a service is being promised, paid for, but not fully delivered.
And now to add self interest:
What if you got an ad flyer from your local post office with "Now you can order movies and books from the USPS!" while at the same time movies and books that you are paying shipping to receive from Amazon are getting delayed, crushed, or lost.
115 Million households *.75 = 86.2 Million households with internet. 31 million Netflix Subscribers / 86.2 Million Internet users = 36% of households with internet in the US use Netflix. Yes, over a third.
So based on that I would surmise that a substandard Netflix experience would be a dealbreaker for 1/3rd of all internet customers and a larger proportion of *high speed* internet customers (since people who don't need to stream video opt for the cheaper services).
This is like buying a computer case from Newegg, paying for 3 day UPS shipping, then the UPS driver that shows up to Newegg and demands a tip to pickup the package because it's too big and heavy and without the tip the package could take much longer to arrive.
The shipper shouldn't get to charge twice for a shipment. Likewise ISPs shouldn't be allowed to sell data delivery to its customers then try to also extract fees from the data providers.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems the long-term solution will involve eye tracking so that the device can "focus" with you.
I was thinking that would be ideal, however there is another issue to overcome with that solution, the Inter Pupillary Distance (IPD) would have to change with your focus.
We have two IPDs - near and far. With current headsets you set the IPD to your far (or relaxed) IPD measurement. If your IPD is off (your pupils aren't in the center of focus of the lenses) then the image will appear blurry. So some sort of modification will have to be made to the optics or the IPD adjustment will have to be motorized and set to respond to your focus change.
When monitors are 40 or 50 inch, then 4K will make sense for gaming
What do you mean, "when"?. 40+ inch UHD ("4K") gaming monitors are already here! Even comes with freesync.
Just because advertising has infected other mediums, doesn't mean that advertisers are entitled to infect everything.
Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.
I don't have a problem with DRM that doesn't get in the way.
Even more than that. Valve has worked hard to make Steam very feature rich. Unlimited installs, In home streaming, cloud synced saves, family sharing, big picture, VR mode, the card collecting meta-game, community features, Windows, Mac, & Linux support (most titles with access to all available versions), built in patching, built in modding support (workshop), etc.
Sure it has DRM, but they hugely offset the inconvenience of the DRM with features that take care of a lot of annoyances and issues players have had with or without DRM.
Not saying they're perfect. Their customer service could be greatly improved. That said, 7 years and I haven't had to call them for an account issue (knock on wood).
Virtual Boy was not a VR device as we use the term now
Or even back then. The Virtual Boy was released in July 1995 . That same year the VFX-1 (a true though limited by the technology of the time) virtual reality headset was released.
There's an excellent video infographic showing the breakup of AT&T and years later the the pieces re-constituting themselves .
You don't need 360 capture
Sure you do. What if the user decides to rotate their head 360 degrees in less time than the current latency to the remote system?
My only question would be how would you verify that the provider is returning a realistic answer?
I would guess by crowdsourcing the data like they do with google maps (and slow roads, contruction, accidents). If multiple users report a source as being slow then it'll get marked as such for all others.
The app can do this in the background. And since it's done per app if you get a slow connection, then the next request for data can ignore the lying node.
but the American people are not theirs to command
no constitutional authority for the federal government to prohibit us from visiting Cuba
All these islands are yours except Cuba. Attempt no landings there.
only can use certain types for igloos.
Nobody wants to be the owner of a yellow igloo.
they will be used to propel "fast food" to a whole new definition of "fast".
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ORDER HUMAN.
Please stand in front of the burger cannon to receive order in 3... 2...
Yeah, but even engineers can get lazy. Why try to get 3900 mile lines even when you can just copy an paste the hoover dam blue prints 20,000 times?
as a gamer I'm no longer interested in 4K video since I know Occulus Rift (and competing VR set) are coming.
Same here, I've been due for a monitor upgrade for a while (was running a triple 19" monitors), but it doesn't make sense to do that now since the budget can be used to snatch up Oculus CV1s when they come out (for less money)!
Easy way around this. Netflix could purchase thousands of DVD players, set them to stream, and lease the player to the customer.
Each month you can call in so many times to have them change the movie in the player!
It would have seemed sane to only tax ***coins when cashed out or exchanged for a good.
An analogy I heard for the current IRS guidance is that it's like taxing furniture makers for the full price of a couch (minus material + labor costs) when they combine wood, cloth, and padding. Furthermore they must calculate the price based on the current sale price of the couch in furniture stores.
If you're looking for other online glasses providers (and want to avoid the Luxotica cartel) there's a few alternatives that I've seen come up on previous discussions:
Zenni Optical
glassesshop ?
goggles4you
cheapglassess123
Warby Parker
Classic Specs
We bought 3 pairs from Zenni Optical for just at ~$100 ($110 I think?) and we've been *very* pleased. This after paying $250 - $300 per pair year after year at the local places. Seriously, the glasses online are so cheap it's worth it even just to have a throwaway (for going to the beach, theme parks, etc) or a backup pair.
On the PC, Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed is a great example of this. The game runs smooth on modest hardware on single player or local split screen multi-player. It even supports 4k resolutions (though I have not tested this myself yet).
If the game uses lower detail meshes and textures when it goes split screen, it hasn't been noticeable.
Except the Linux community isn't expecting you to support SteamOS alone, they want you to support Linux at large
As part of the Linux community, I'll have to disagree. This also came up the last time Steam on Linux was discussed . As was concluded there, each distro can implement their own package that installs steam and any missing dependencies necessary to get it to work. Alternatively, the user can devote a small partition to Steam OS and switch out when they're done working for the day and want to game instead. In fact, the user can install SteamOS and separately install the steam client in their main distro and have them both share the same game install folder and only boot into SteamOS when a game isn't working as well as expected in their favored distro.
That said the developer can just choose to support SteamOS and leave it at that. As a *bonus* the game should work in other Linux distros.
I think there's more value than an extra sale here.
Valve is offering game developers a single target in Steam OS.
Right now a game developer has to contend with: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 32bit or 64 bit, various versions of Direct X (different versions of windows are limited to certain Direct X versions). Bug in the OS causing you grief? Submit a request to Microsoft and hope it gets fixed (hah!) or code around it. Getting customers to upgrade to the latest windows is not always feasible due to the cost.
SteamOS will offer one version. Which version do you support? The latest one. 64 bit or 32 bit? SteamOS is only 64 bit. Bug in the OS affecting your program? You can look up the code, fix it, and submit the patch to Valve. Did you find a fix or setting that'll improve everyone's Steam OS experience? Submit it!
My bet is that HL3 will be the first source2 game and it will have full VR support and be sold in bundles.
As cool as that would be, Gabe also said this in the same AMA:
6) We aren't holding any game until VR is shipping. You don't want to create that kind of dependency.
Definitely replay it from the beginning. The dialog you've missed is pretty awesome and sets up one of the important characters in the game.
I think the better analogy is the post office.
You pay shipping to receive packages (to the post office). You also pay for the content of those packages (to whoever you bought the item(s) from).
Now more and more people start ordering stuff from Amazon. The local post office realizes that their mail trucks are filling up and they're unable to pick up all the packages they need. Some of the packages get left behind, some get crammed into the truck (and end up damaged), some make it through.
They also notice that a third of all packages have Amazon logos.
Does the post office:
A) Use the extra money it has been receiving from postage fees to upgrade it's fleet, buy more trucks, hire more drivers, etc.
B) Pick up on Amazon's generous offer to have some items already stocked, packaged, and automatically labeled next to the Post office so that commonly ordered items can be transferred locally instead of going through the USPS's now heavily taxed fleet?
C) Extort money from Amazon in exchange for their customers receiving their packages in a timely and undamaged fashion (which their customers are already paying for).
Now you can say the main difference is that the post office is charging per package vs selling a service to its customers where they can receive a certain amount of mail (say in pounds) per day. Either way though a service is being promised, paid for, but not fully delivered.
And now to add self interest:
What if you got an ad flyer from your local post office with "Now you can order movies and books from the USPS!" while at the same time movies and books that you are paying shipping to receive from Amazon are getting delayed, crushed, or lost.
I have not seen any data, but my gut feeling is that the number is a fraction of a percentage of people who have high speed connections.
Look at it this way:
* Netflix has over 30 Million subscribers .
* According to the US Census data, 75% of US households have internet.
* 115 Million Households in the US
Some math:
115 Million households * .75 = 86.2 Million households with internet.
31 million Netflix Subscribers / 86.2 Million Internet users = 36% of households with internet in the US use Netflix. Yes, over a third.
Now add the fact that cable companies are losing cable TV customers in the hundreds of thousands *each quarter* and you can see how more and more people are depending on Netflix (and other services) to fill their video entertainment needs. The name for the trend is cord-cutting .
So based on that I would surmise that a substandard Netflix experience would be a dealbreaker for 1/3rd of all internet customers and a larger proportion of *high speed* internet customers (since people who don't need to stream video opt for the cheaper services).
This is like buying a computer case from Newegg, paying for 3 day UPS shipping, then the UPS driver that shows up to Newegg and demands a tip to pickup the package because it's too big and heavy and without the tip the package could take much longer to arrive.
The shipper shouldn't get to charge twice for a shipment. Likewise ISPs shouldn't be allowed to sell data delivery to its customers then try to also extract fees from the data providers.
I opened the link scrolled through it, only to get all excited that my card (the R9 290) was trouncing everything else in one of the charts!
Then I realized I was looking at the temperature charts....