From: Marc Bernatchez Subject: Re: INDUSTRY: Virtual i-O death???? Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 17:19:17 -0500 At 14:53 97-03-18 GMT, you wrote: >On Sat, 15 Mar 1997 15:46:34 +0000, in sci.virtual-worlds you wrote: > >>Jorge Alvoeiro wrote: >> >>> According to the latest VR News mag ViO is in difficulties and according >>> to the author of the article this is due to the fact of '... low-cost >>> HMDs produce unacceptable image quality' Sorry but I DO NOT AGREE >>> with this conclusion. Virtual reality is something which CANNOT >>> develop into the consumer market only because there is NO MARKET >>> for it. But even more basic is that THERE IS NO CULTURE of >>> virtual reality. >>[...] That's a sad news needless to say. It's not that surprising thought. VictorMaxx went under for a basic reason, they had only one main product to sit on, the CyberMaxx HMD. The same problem could be potentially harmful to Virtual-IO... the lack of diversification. Like Robin pointed out, the current technology somehow limits the real widespread use of HMDs. This is especially true for the low cost ones. They must use a very cost effective and minimal component count implementation to keep the price low etc. A successful VR only company, to my opinion, must at least exploit all the sides of the market. Yes, I've used the term "market" because I believe there is one. It's a very narrow and inactive market for the moment, but I hope it will gain speed in the years to come. The problem is not that much linked to the technology being insufficient to enable people to produce efficient VR peripherals. It's much more a question of education of this very market which is anemic at the moment. The hype around the VR industry is probably the most nuisance of all the problems. It blurs all the realities of VR to the eyes of the people. [...] >>Thge only place I agree with you on this is the idea of communicating >>with the computer solely through a library of gestures. However, >>immersive systems which use 3D equivalents of two diemsnioanl menus, >>sliders, icons etc. take a minimal amount of time to catch on to. That's good you put this on the table Robin. Makes me remember an occasion where I tried to explain the benefits of such a user interface inside a VR system. To give a little context, I have made a VR GUI that let the user manipulate the VR simulation using intuitive "life-like" controls. You know what the people replied? "We don't need yet an other Windowz like GUI with pull down menus and such. What I want in a VR world is to be able to fly, teleport, use abstract objects to do things, not to be restricted by physics laws, be able to evade from the every day life, ...". And it goes on. In sort, they wanted to have an hallucinating ride, have fun, etc. While this is on side the VR could be good at, I observed that it's 10000 times harder to make these people see and understand the more scientific, serious usefulness of VR. There again, I'm not surprised as such. The hype we see everywhere always tend to show VR as the most hallucinating ride of your life. It's magic, it's a non real experience, it's fantastic, etc. It's time we start thinking about giving the population a wider view about the VR market. Maybe we could try to start a web site project that would focus on giving people the historic, definitions and general education about what is VR, what it can be good for, the applications that can benefit from its use, etc. The first phase would be to build a web site but it should not be limited to the Internet boundaries. If we can get our ideas enough organized on this web site, we should try to attract the press and magazine's attention. If I can regroup enough persons, we may start doing something. I think that Bob Jacobson would be interested by this kind of project recalling he mentioned his interest in building something around the historic of the VR field. What do you think Bob? We all have very little time but if the interest is there, I say, let's do it. What I have in mind is to form up some short of a VR group that would do kind of round table chatting about subjects and we would put content on the web site once we get on a common ground agreement. That way, we could have a web site that better represent the current state of VR and how the population should see it. We should have people in every sphere of the VR field in the group in order to have a better averaging of opinions. Any takers? If you are interested to participate, E-mail me and I will put up a list of the people in the group. >>> So STOP that nonsense about CONSUMER MARKET. There are enough ViOs, >>> CyberMaxxs and Virtualities situations already. Let's direct our >>> attention into the development of virtual reality projects for schools >>> and secondary education. Until such decision and redirection of market >>> forces are taken Virtual Reality is NEVER going to develop at any level. That would be a mistake to try to focus solely on schools to develop the VR concept. I mean, okay, it's one place where there has and will still be major discoveries leading to better VR systems but it's only a small part of the puzzle. Like Robin said, in many cases, schools tend to have very limited financial resources and can't afford costly equipment most of the time. We must not neglect the commercial oriented development centers. They are the ones which can get the most financing and such to get rolling. Cheers =============================================================== Marc Bernatchez | www.imaginative.com/vresources E-mail: mbernat@total.net | www.gel.ulaval.ca/~mbernat ===============================================================