{"id":379,"date":"2022-06-24T17:13:16","date_gmt":"2022-06-24T17:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theratlabs.com\/?p=379"},"modified":"2022-09-13T09:21:58","modified_gmt":"2022-09-13T09:21:58","slug":"should-you-be-excited-about-metas-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theratlabs.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/24\/should-you-be-excited-about-metas-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Should you be Excited About Meta’s Future?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Should you be Excited About Meta's Future?<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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It\u2019s no secret that I\u2019m an Oculus die-hard fan. As a company, it was beyond promising, attracting some of the most prominent people in the industry to join a small, scrappy startup with nothing but a dream and a pocket full of Kickstarter cash. (Side note: everyone should read \u201cThe History of the Future\u201d) To stop myself from writing 15 pages about Oculus\u2019s history, I\u2019ll skip to the important part. In 2014 Facebook bought Oculus for 2 billion dollars. There were a few immediate positives and many potential complications for those waiting for Oculus\u2019s debut VR HMD, the Rift. For one, the price of the Rift would be lowered, as now Facebook is willing to take a loss on hardware to make up for in software sales. Also, Oculus now had far more resources at its disposal, with Facebook money helping fund the development of advanced optics and mobile hardware and creating more monetary incentives for developers.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Oculus's original Rift <\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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The potential downsides were numerous, with everyone\u2019s primary concern being a Facebook login requirement, which for most is a dealbreaker given Facebook\u2019s extensive collection of user data. A less apparent downside to those outside the walls of Facebook was the clash between Oculus engineers and Facebook management, as Oculus wanted to focus on PC hardware. At the same time, Facebook was insistent on pushing mobile hardware. This assistance led to severe conflict within the company, eventually resulting in the departure of Oculus\u2019s founder Palmer Luckey, CEO Brendan Iribe, CTO Michael Antonov, and various other engineers and critical staff. All the company\u2019s departures were quickly replaced with Facebook engineers, resulting in the death of Oculus and the birth of Meta. In recent interviews, Palmer Luckey\u2019s view on the matter was optimistic, stating, \u201cWhen we were acquired, people told me Oculus would be taken over and turned into Facebook. I think it\u2019s been the other way around: Facebook got taken over by Oculus, and it turned into Oculus.\u201d when interviewed by Wired magazine. Frankly, it\u2019s hard to disagree with him; Meta has bet big on the metaverse, with Oculus being the spearhead in its push to secure the company\u2019s future. So, should we be excited?<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Over the last few days, Meta has revealed a lot of experimental hardware, ending with holocake 2, which looks like project Cambria on steroids. It\u2019s clear they\u2019re putting in the effort, and with all the money they\u2019re dumping into research, their only competitor is Apple. Given recent apple leaks, their first HMD will be more expensive than a MacBook Pro, and given Facebook\u2019s software dominance, it\u2019s hard to imagine it will have better experiences than the 300$ quest 2. Still, Facebook is scared of Apple entering the market, and rightfully so, given Apple\u2019s ability to dominate every industry they enter. Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s solution is Project Cambria, an over $1000 HMD with full-color passthrough and mixed reality capabilities. It\u2019s a promising product, with many sources claiming it\u2019s supposed to be a laptop replacement. However, making a genuine laptop replacement has specific requirements; for starters, it needs an operating system that isn\u2019t Android. Oculus Quest currently uses a custom Android version, which, while great for games, lacks the productivity software base of windows and Linux. Hopefully, they\u2019ve realized this internally and have created either a compatibility layer between android and windows applications or have chosen to use a custom fork of Linux for Cambria.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEither expectation is unrealistic at best, but in the same way iPad OS isn\u2019t a laptop replacement, neither is Android. Another Problem is Varifocal. Right now, all VR HMDs use lenses that are focused at around 5 ft, meaning in VR, anything 5ft away or further looks normal, but as soon as you look at anything closer, it appears blurry. The solution to this problem is lenses that change their focal length based on where the user is looking. Meta solved this problem with the Half Dome 3 Prototype, but they have stated that the lenses and eye-tracking aren\u2019t good enough for a mass-manufactured product yet. The final issue is the display resolution. If you\u2019ve ever tried to read small text in VR, you\u2019ll know it\u2019s nearly impossible, with tiny text either too blurry or too far away to read. Solving this problem requires incredibly dense displays that Meta has managed to implement on their Butterscotch prototype. So, everything Cambria needs to be a success exists, but the chances of it being ready for Cambria are slim. In conclusion, Cambria is a step in the right direction, but until Meta\u2019s prototypes have matured into shippable products, it\u2019s hard to be genuinely excited. Don\u2019t get me wrong though, I will probably order Project Cambria when it ships later this year.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Either expectation is unrealistic at best, but in the same way iPad OS isn\u2019t a laptop replacement, neither is Android. Another Problem is Varifocal. Right now, all VR HMDs use lenses that are focused at around 5 ft, meaning in VR, anything 5ft away or further looks normal, but as soon as you look at anything closer, it appears blurry. The solution to this problem is lenses that change their focal length based on where the user is looking. Meta solved this problem with the Half Dome 3 Prototype, but they have stated that the lenses and eye-tracking aren\u2019t good enough for a mass-manufactured product yet. The final issue is the display resolution. If you\u2019ve ever tried to read small text in VR, you\u2019ll know it\u2019s nearly impossible, with tiny text either too blurry or too far away to read. Solving this problem requires incredibly dense displays that Meta has managed to implement on their Butterscotch prototype. So, everything Cambria needs to be a success exists, but the chances of it being ready for Cambria are slim. In conclusion, Cambria is a step in the right direction, but until Meta\u2019s prototypes have matured into shippable products, it\u2019s hard to be genuinely excited. Don\u2019t get me wrong though, I will probably order Project Cambria when it ships later this year.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Meta's Butterscotch prototype showcases retinal resolution <\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Project Cambria has some big promises to fulfill<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should you be Excited About Meta’s Future? It\u2019s no secret that I\u2019m an Oculus die-hard fan. As a company, it was beyond promising, attracting some of the most prominent peopleContinue readingShould you be Excited About Meta’s Future?<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-backend","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theratlabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theratlabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theratlabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theratlabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theratlabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/theratlabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422,"href":"https:\/\/theratlabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theratlabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theratlabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theratlabs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}