From OC2, but semi-offtopic - What did people think about the Michael Abrash lecture "These are the good old days"? For me it was one of the most inspiring lectures on engineering solutions for HCI solutions. The cool part was that it positions Oculus as a technology company supporting senses far beyond vision.
Inspiring, yes - but it's also disheartening with respect to how far away we are from highly-convincing VR.
It's not even a matter of engineering the solutions; we have yet to fully understand so many of the problems, and we'll need years (decades?) of research before beginning to think about some of the solutions. That's not to say it can't be an overall positive technology/experience in the meantime, but it'll likely be many years before it's free of certain side effects (e.g., nausea, discomfort) that bother people.
In a few months you'll be able to easily try the consumer Rift, the HTC Vive and see for yourself how convincing the VR is. I think you might be pleasantly surprised.
While the road toward "perfect" VR is just getting started, these first-gen consumer sets have crossed the starting line, and are qualitatively different from earlier VR experiences.
(BTW, while comfort isn't a totally solved problem, for 1:1 motion, these sets (and PSVR) are pretty good and I think for most people, won't make them sick.)
Not making me vomit is definitely on my checklist for new tech. Glad we're at that milestone. I am still not sure how we best deal with the desire to move around in physical space without bumping into things, in this way the augmented reality route feels like it will be more useful. Having watched the space for the last 30+ years I heartily agree these are good old times :)
