fill the extra space with batteries
on
Just a Phone?
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· Score: 2
Almost half the population don't have pockets, and thus the compactness of the phone isn't a big issue to them (these people are called "women" - have you heard of them? They carry phones in "purses").
Perhaps for them it makes sense to have bigger phone, and fill the extra space with batteries. Wouldn't it be great if it only needed charging every two weeks? A bigger phone is also easier to hold in between the shoulder and neck to allow brief handsfree use.
Re:if you don't want the features just don't use '
on
Just a Phone?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Why would anyone buy a fork when they can get a spork? Esp. for the same price?
Complexity is not without costs. The extra, unused, features do interfere. Longer and deeper menus take more user time and effort to navigate. Also, the phones with more features are also the one's that are slower to respond, causing missed digits and navigation errors (e.g. I can enter the sequence to add a new phonebook # quickly and without looking, but sometimes my phones stalls, and then I end up in some different menu when I finally look down).
And as the code bloats, bugs are more likely to creep in (why the heck do I have to reboot my phone 2-3 times a month?!) and more hardware and battery power are required. In mechnical engineering, there's the idea that (everything else being equal) the better design is the one with fewer parts.
There a several theories of motion sickness, and many of them overlap and also contradict each other. The theory that would seem to relate to your case the best is the "rest-frame" theory. Basically, it proposes that your brain needs to have a model/hypothesis of how you are moving through space, and how that relates to the other objects moving around you. When your brain receives information that contradicts this model, you get sick until your brain comes up with a better model. This might explain why one could get sick with inner ear cues alone (and eyes and ears closed)
The cue-conflict theory says that conflicting visuals and inner ear cues will make you sick. The Rest-Frame theory says that you get sick if the inner ear or visual cues conflict, not with each other, but with your mental model of your current motion. This might explain why the driver/pilot gets less sick, and why people can adapt to sickness. On the tilt-o-wirl, you might find that you could predict where your car is going in space (relative to the ground, it goes in a spirograph pattern) and keep your eyes looking at the point where you will be several seconds in the future. This might help.
2d treadmills, motion sickness and Redirection
on
Walking In A VR Future
·
· Score: 5, Informative
This is reply to several posts. There's been a couple inquiring about other kinds of 2-d treadmills and spheres, both of which exist (see below for links to videos and papers).
There are fundamental problems with all of these types of devices-- they 1) don't let the body handle momentum naturally and 2) don't stimulate the vestibular system in a way that is consistent with the visual or proprioceptive (the body's sense of where its limbs are) cues.
1) Momentum: On a 2-D treadmill, the omni-directional treadmill is supposedly fast enough that it allows for running. But when you are running and then change direction quickly, your body will lean into the turn to counter its momentum. Doing this on the treadmill will make you fall over. Someone once described it as "running on a slippery ice cube".
2) Vestibular cues: Our body can sense motion even without visuals or body movements. This is why some flight simulators have motion platforms [://www.simlabs.arc.nasa.gov/vms/motionb.html]. One post above said that the treadmill should reduce motion sickness because it provides body motions as well as visuals. But a treadmill doesn't cue the vestibular system. One theory of motion sickness is that it results from a mismatch of visual and vestibular cues. In the back seat of a car, your visual cues say you are still (relative to the inside of the car) but the vestibular system says you are moving. Similarly in a IMAX theater or while playing an FPS on a big screen, your visuals say you are moving but your vestibular system says you are still. Knowing how you are moving is critical for maintain balance and even surviving. The mismatch in visual and vestibular cues interferes with your ability to balance, and that's why dizziness results.
Luckily, one can fool the vestibular system, much as we can fool the visual system. Techniques include "wash-out" on motion platforms, electrical stimulation, and Redirection. Wash-out is where the motion platform moves the user to simulate the virtual motion, but then sneaks her back to the center of the room at an acceleration that is below what her vestibular system can detect. The shifting tiles look like a fabulous idea, and I wonder if one could implement a form of wash-out on those tiles.
One more thing, the problem with, as one post suggested, implementing VR in a huge wide open space (like a desert) is tracking. The computer needs to know where your head is and in which direction you are looking, very accurately and quickly, so it can draw the virtual scene from your perspective. By accurately, I mean with millimeter precision, and by quickly I mean it must update the images within tens of milliseconds of your head moving. If you focus your eyes on your figure at arms length, then rotate your head right and left, the reflex that moves your eyes to keep them locked on your finger is called the VOR (vestibular ocular reflex). It can react to head movements in 10 milliseconds.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps for them it makes sense to have bigger phone, and fill the extra space with batteries. Wouldn't it be great if it only needed charging every two weeks? A bigger phone is also easier to hold in between the shoulder and neck to allow brief handsfree use.
Complexity is not without costs. The extra, unused, features do interfere. Longer and deeper menus take more user time and effort to navigate. Also, the phones with more features are also the one's that are slower to respond, causing missed digits and navigation errors (e.g. I can enter the sequence to add a new phonebook # quickly and without looking, but sometimes my phones stalls, and then I end up in some different menu when I finally look down).
And as the code bloats, bugs are more likely to creep in (why the heck do I have to reboot my phone 2-3 times a month?!) and more hardware and battery power are required. In mechnical engineering, there's the idea that (everything else being equal) the better design is the one with fewer parts.
but do you have the arm strength? http://www.ok-cancel.com/comic/3.html (comic from OK/Cancel)
The cue-conflict theory says that conflicting visuals and inner ear cues will make you sick. The Rest-Frame theory says that you get sick if the inner ear or visual cues conflict, not with each other, but with your mental model of your current motion. This might explain why the driver/pilot gets less sick, and why people can adapt to sickness. On the tilt-o-wirl, you might find that you could predict where your car is going in space (relative to the ground, it goes in a spirograph pattern) and keep your eyes looking at the point where you will be several seconds in the future. This might help.
For a good descrition of several motion-sickness theories, see this thesis: http://www.hitl.washington.edu/publications/r-98-2 2/
There are fundamental problems with all of these types of devices-- they 1) don't let the body handle momentum naturally and 2) don't stimulate the vestibular system in a way that is consistent with the visual or proprioceptive (the body's sense of where its limbs are) cues.
1) Momentum: On a 2-D treadmill, the omni-directional treadmill is supposedly fast enough that it allows for running. But when you are running and then change direction quickly, your body will lean into the turn to counter its momentum. Doing this on the treadmill will make you fall over. Someone once described it as "running on a slippery ice cube".
2) Vestibular cues: Our body can sense motion even without visuals or body movements. This is why some flight simulators have motion platforms [://www.simlabs.arc.nasa.gov/vms/motionb.html]. One post above said that the treadmill should reduce motion sickness because it provides body motions as well as visuals. But a treadmill doesn't cue the vestibular system. One theory of motion sickness is that it results from a mismatch of visual and vestibular cues. In the back seat of a car, your visual cues say you are still (relative to the inside of the car) but the vestibular system says you are moving. Similarly in a IMAX theater or while playing an FPS on a big screen, your visuals say you are moving but your vestibular system says you are still. Knowing how you are moving is critical for maintain balance and even surviving. The mismatch in visual and vestibular cues interferes with your ability to balance, and that's why dizziness results.
Luckily, one can fool the vestibular system, much as we can fool the visual system. Techniques include "wash-out" on motion platforms, electrical stimulation, and Redirection. Wash-out is where the motion platform moves the user to simulate the virtual motion, but then sneaks her back to the center of the room at an acceleration that is below what her vestibular system can detect. The shifting tiles look like a fabulous idea, and I wonder if one could implement a form of wash-out on those tiles.
Links
Sphere http://www.vr-systems.ndtilda.co.uk/sphere1.htm2-D treadmills
Omni directional treadmill http://www.movesinstitute.org/darken/publications/ ODT-UIST97.pdf
Torus treadmill (great video) http://intron.kz.tsukuba.ac.jp/vrlab_web/torustrea dmill/torustreadmill_e.html
Redirection http://www.cs.unc.edu/~eve/rdw/
One more thing, the problem with, as one post suggested, implementing VR in a huge wide open space (like a desert) is tracking. The computer needs to know where your head is and in which direction you are looking, very accurately and quickly, so it can draw the virtual scene from your perspective. By accurately, I mean with millimeter precision, and by quickly I mean it must update the images within tens of milliseconds of your head moving. If you focus your eyes on your figure at arms length, then rotate your head right and left, the reflex that moves your eyes to keep them locked on your finger is called the VOR (vestibular ocular reflex). It can react to head movements in 10 milliseconds.