Clay Buffer, who was in charge of the project according to the information at the time, left Google four months ago. Google’s round of layoffs has also affected the Project Iris team.

Said round of layoffs was announced in January. I don’t think they experienced that at the time (or before, because these kind of layoffs don’t come out of the blue).

If this is true and visible How many virtual reality cases has Google killed?, I think it’s a good idea for Google to stop before putting something unworkable into production. As with Google Glass, more affordable devices aren’t ready yet. It is also inappropriate to offer products in a market that is looking for a use case and demand.

I own a first generation VR headset. All new generations add things incrementally, but don’t remove the biggest flaws. You need a great deal of physical space for many things. It’s also a “hassle” to use. Note that “hassle” is viewed from the perspective of the consumer. As a technician, I like to experiment with techniques and don’t mind setting things up. The average consumer does nothing more than take a smartphone out of a pocket and press a fingerprint reader. The consumer can do this anywhere, and it really has many use cases.

Unfortunately, VR is often seen as an add-on technology on top of something:
• You can play games. It can also be done with a normal game system. With the latter you also have many games, you are also more flexible in where you play. And you are less likely to get nauseous.
• You can enter the city. It can also be done with Street View on a normal screen.
• You can social network in virtual reality. Most people can do this in the real world, too.
• You can Sleeping in virtual reality. Outside of a geeky bunch, no one would ever do that, because if you have a regular bed and VR technology, most people can also sleep in bed without VR.
• etc.

VR/AR immersion is great, but it remains a gimmick. For the professional market, I definitely see opportunities in the higher (pricey) segment, but that’s not the huge part.

Augmented reality for the masses, or whatever they call the beast of the future, the current hardware isn’t really ready yet. If it needs more than glasses (and even then) and doesn’t add much to smartphone use, people won’t be walking around with them anytime soon.

[Reactie gewijzigd door The Zep Man op 28 juni 2023 08:04]