Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

What's the killer app for the Oculus Rift? So far, there are roller coaster simulators and first person shooters. Those are fun, but the market is limited. (The roller coaster thing is fun for about half an hour, tops. The FPS market is bigger, but will only catch on if you can kill more effectively wearing the headgear.)

In the last go-round of VR, the killer app was supposed to be the Multiverse (as in "Snow Crash"). Now that Second Life is available but slowly sinking, that doesn't seem as compelling. The problem with Second Life doesn't seem to be graphics resolution, lag, or anything technical; it just isn't worth the trouble. There's an Oculus Rift client mod for Second Life, not that anybody cares. (The Second Life people should do a WebGL client; more people might try it.)

Interestingly, in the first round of VR, back in the 1980s, it was "gloves and goggles", so you could actually do something while in there. This time, the gloves seem to have disappeared. The stock controller is the XBox game controller, although there's an optional wrist-tracking controller. Full finger tracking, no.

> What's the killer app for the Oculus Rift?

100 years ago: "Risque" was defined as the lingerie section of a J.C. Penney mail-order catalog.

Tomorrow: A pioneering generation of habitual VR wankers.

> What's the killer app for the Oculus Rift?

Here's my guess: Feeling like you're in the same room with someone who is far away.

This is something I see mentioned a lot, and would be great (as a remote employee). However, either the people are 3D renders or wearing headsets themselves. Maybe I'm picturing it wrong though.

This is worth more than you'd think. The multiplayer demo I tried at PAX 2014 had me and a friend sitting maybe three feet from each other, and generic blank avatars in-game, but seeing him nod and nodding back myself was a hugely intimate experience. It's tough to describe, a purely emotional experience.

Do you think the experience was worth putting on a headset for? To chat with someone like that?

I ask because I wonder whether the overhead of using the device is outweighed by its value as a communications tool.

What's wrong with 3d rendered avatars? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zP0E2atshw

I think an MVP could even just represent people as a simple ball of light. I think just 3d audio with any 3d representation of position might be enough to give people a "fix" of presence with their loved one.

I actually think you could probably make a standalone stereo Bluetooth headset/glasses with clear lenses and two lasers that project a single 3d stereo positioned dot onto each lens. You'd just need a chip to position the audio and the two dots so I think you could do a really compact low power device and sell them for <$100.

You could just walk around your house, and the dot would stay close to you and talk to you and you would feel like they were in the house with you, rather than inside a little phone.

I agree on this one. For now it's stuff like Riftmax where you can run around and chat with people's avatars or watch a movie in the same virtual theater with others. Eventually, with better and cheaper/more common depth cameras we'll start to see recording and live streaming of environments and users for the first real VR telepresence. It's a ways off but communication, VR movies, and live entertainment are my bet for the things that will drive mass adoption.

Just like smart phones, it wasn't the early devices with clunky hardware, high price tags, and cool features that drove mass adoption. It was the move toward ergonomics and ease of use with a core set of common functions that turned it from a techie thing into something ubiquitous.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com