Facebook develops holographic optics for thin and lightweight virtual reality
Facebook Reality Labs has published “Holographic Optics for Thin and Lightweight Virtual Reality”, its latest research into making VR headsets less cumbersome and more suitable for everyday use. Its latest paper outlines a “new optical architecture that is significantly more compact and offers the potential for better visual performance”. The paper’s researchers Andrew Maimone and Junren Wang propose new near-eye display technology that combines the holographic optics and polarization-based optical folding to help keep the optics as thin as possible while making the most efficient use of space. The prototype images show a headset about the size of a chunky pair of sunglasses created using this approach, a significant size reduction compared to the smallest headsets currently on the market. Tt present this remains a proof-of-concept and is but one of several approaches being explored by Facebook to reduce the size of headsets. Read the paper in full on Facebook’s research website.
VR is dead,
VR died in 2016, this is sinking so much money in facebook that is unbelievable that they still insist in such a failure.
No matter how light and thin you make it, don’t you get it???
the main problems of VR don’t go away for adding more resolution or lightweight devices.
How much failure facebook has to stand with VR to just sell or abandon this billion dollar flop?
What are the main problems of VR then?
Not sure about the percentage, but from what I remember around 1/4 to 1/3 of any group of people will develop either short or long term reactions like dizziness, nausea, fatigue and/or other negative sensory effects. It’s just not for everyone. VR can’t be the future of gaming/entertainment/communication/advertising/etc when it can’t be used by a third of your target group.
Of course, this isn’t something you’d want tell your investors but it has been a constant throughout all studies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality_sickness
I think it makes perfect sense for a tech company to invest huge amounts of money into these things. Whether I like that company or not.
By not doing anything you will never know if something will work and even 2/3 off the world population is still a huge market worthy of any company to invest in. Game controllers aren’t for everyone either.
The technical advancement itself seems exiting and it can have many applications for entertainment, design, medical and mechanical work. Just image those interactive film sets combined with this? Could be pretty cool.
Time to break up Facebook, though.
Entertainment, architecture and development, research, infotainment – probably. Medical, production – probably only for educational purposes. In fact, the biggest potential IS education, but there’s no money in that since social areas just don’t get the funding they should in most countries.
From a company/investment standpoint a LOT of VR tech is BS buzzwords over and over, but they sure will continue as long as they see financial potential. While it’s a good thing research is being done, it is not the future of a human-digital interface, and being visual only it’s not even a desirable one. They just don’t know where to put it, it’s not a wholesome experience by any means.
It’s hard to accept but maybe it’s time for us to finally realize that the most pleasant, educative and entertaining experience we could possibly have is being out in the fields, woods and fresh air, interacting with other live forms and stop sticking to pixel worlds. But we’re not that advanced yet 😀 Or maybe it’s just that it takes 30 years in front of a monitor to realize it.
If I had to choose between giving my kids a VR headset for a few hours or going out for a hike or to swim it wouldn’t take me a split-second to know what’s better for them. Take that, facebook and all the other BS companies selling us stuff doomed to end up in the bin anyways.
I may just be in the wrong industry after all 😀
I’m guessing they see a future for VR with social media, business voip and new ways to push miracle posture correction tat on us all. Just virtually sitting around with little head movement should work ok for most people (unlike say with a fps game where you need to constantly look around and turn)? I guess VR games will be a limited niche market for a long while to come, but more sedate applications where increased immersion could be a real benefit has massive potential.
Imagine a virtual evening with buddies in the Winchester Tavern – maybe firing off the odd shotgun round at zombies that get too close to the windows – especially if they can get around the virtual avatar issue. It could be a massive win for them.
Love it or hate it, Facebook is ran by smart people (not necessarily wise though),and they obviously have very deep pockets. Might be worth checking again in another 10 years or so..