Displaying items by tag: ar

The concept of an immersive virtual reality world is one that is often talked and written about. It also has been the subject of several movies. When it is the topic of books and movies, it is rarely a good thing. So, when we hear about the creation of a fully immersive world, we view it with a healthy bit of skepticism. Especially when the person behind it is Mark Zuckerberg and his company, Facebook. You might ask why, and there is an easy answer. Facebook ceased being a communication platform a very, very long time ago and is now nothing more than a way to collect information and push ads.

Facebook has not had the best history when it comes to handling online bullying, social stalking and even sexual abuse and exploitation. They do have and are continuing to develop tools to fight against this, but for the most part they do not take a very proactive role in policing this type of behavior. To some it seems that they spend more time “fact checking” and policing opinions than they do addressing any truly bad behavior. It is up to the user to make sure they are practicing good and safe habits when using Facebook or Instagram, not the platform.

There has been a lot of talk about Meta’s The Reality Labs department losing $10 Billion on devilment of Metaverse. Mant articles have focused on the negative and the overall amount of money lost while others have chosen to focus on more positive or normalized effects of the loss and what is means long term. The argument seems to be split in a couple of ways. The first is that $10 Billion is not a devastating loss in terms of R&D on a potential defining product for a company that made $117+ Billion in 2021. The second is that a $10 Billion dollar loss on a new product is a bad thing and might be an indication of a lack of true acceptance.

Microsoft has a history of making solid products that go nowhere. If you look at their history this is very clear from Windows Phone to Zune and more. They build it, fail to focus on penetrating the market and then scrap it despite the many talented people on the teams for each of these. Now history is repeating itself in the form of HoloLens.