Fool me, this is real good shit ! [the VR thread]

[Dvorak]

Shit me, I'm practically wetting myself now. Abrash and Carmack together again. This is HUUUGE.

Again!

Err.. well, maybe (and I say maybe!), so _maybe_ I was wrong and something good will come from this. Eventually.


c'mon, make it right, guys

[Dvorak]

btw Dev Kit 2 - anyone got it already?

[Darkflame]

Phones did usher in a wave of patenting, mostly due to touch/multitouch/UI innovations and rapid improvements in wireless technologies. I don't see this happening in VR as the concepts aren't new: people were using VR headsets 20 years ago. They've just got better and cheaper.

Touchscreens were also around for 20 years or more too. The mere presence of something doesn't mean there's nothing left in the field that's innovative.

Also, while you might be right with some wireless tech innovations, little done on touchscreens has been really "new". Same ideas, just ported to smaller devices we hold.
Genric Slide to unlock, bouncing interfaces. Oh, and a overly generic patent over augmented reality tech...most of which is 50 years predated.

These arn't innovations. This just evidence of a broken patent system rewarded for quantity over quality.

"first to patent" is all that maters these days.

And even if things get patented it doesn't mean things get held up.

True, if you got the legal muscle to challenge them.

When big firms are involved they usually end up cross-licencing their patents, i.e. giving each other access to them, with additional payments to allow for the different values of them. Apple and MS have a big cross-license for example. Apple licensed some of Nokia's patents and pay them for every iPhone. Etc. I'm sure Sony and Facebook could do the same if they needed.

Yeah, legal maneuvering.
These deals can involve thousands of patents - I actually highly dought they ever read over them. Its about hedging their bets, mutuality assured destruction, et all.

Android phone makers have had to pay, requiring dozens of separate licence agreements and payments for Android, clogging up the courts in the process. It would be much cheaper and easier if Google took care of this but they refuse to.

Given Google is basically giving away slightly altered Linux destro with a custom skin, thank fuck for that.
Acknowledging their OS is ""copying"" people would help open the doors to more open source projects being sued.

Settling out of court and doing "we wont sue you if you wont sue us" deals is financially convent, but it doesn't sort out if somethings a genuine innovation, and who came up with it first.
Not everyone has been patent portfolios, and I fear for when some of these company's start going after upstart company's.

[Misfit]

btw Dev Kit 2 - anyone got it already?

They aren't released until July!

[gumboot]

And even if things get patented it doesn't mean things get held up. Many wireless patents are included in standards, so anyone can implement them.

Having something in a standard does not mean that anyone can implement it. In fact, it doesn't necessarily mean that anyone who pays a licence to the standards body can implement it.

[pogo]

Phones did usher in a wave of patenting, mostly due to touch/multitouch/UI innovations and rapid improvements in wireless technologies. I don't see this happening in VR as the concepts aren't new: people were using VR headsets 20 years ago. They've just got better and cheaper.

Touchscreens were also around for 20 years or more too. The mere presence of something doesn't mean there's nothing left in the field that's innovative.

But early touchscreens were crap, really crap. Not the screens but the software, such as the Tablet edition of XP, early (pre iPhone) phones with touch screens, ATMs and POS devices. iOS was a massive improvement, founded in part on new inventions.

I think VR is much more evolutionary – people have been waiting for better hardware, not decent software. Maybe someone will come along with a groundbreaking new way of interfacing with them but I doubt it, I think it would already exist.

These arn't innovations. This just evidence of a broken patent system rewarded for quantity over quality.

I think we just see this differently. You just need to look back at the reception the iPhone got. It was truly revolutionary in its impact, and forced everyone else to respond.

Given Google is basically giving away slightly altered Linux destro with a custom skin, thank fuck for that.
Acknowledging their OS is ""copying"" people would help open the doors to more open source projects being sued.

Not 'slightly altered'. FOSS Patents has been keeping score and so far there have been 29 cases of people paying licenses for Android:

http://www.fosspatents.com/2014/03/micr ... ement.html

They wouldn't need to do this if it were just Linux. And these are only the ones made public. Many if not most licenses will be negotiated in private. In other cases firms can't agree a license and end up in court, as happened when Apple took Samsung to court.

[gilesgoat]

btw Dev Kit 2 - anyone got it already?

It should be out in June/July, we did pre-order it already.

[Dvorak]

They aren't released until July!

btw Dev Kit 2 - anyone got it already?

It should be out in June/July, we did pre-order it already.

oh

[pogo]

And even if things get patented it doesn't mean things get held up. Many wireless patents are included in standards, so anyone can implement them.

Having something in a standard does not mean that anyone can implement it. In fact, it doesn't necessarily mean that anyone who pays a licence to the standards body can implement it.

By 'included in standards' I meant patents that were included in such a way that anyone implementing the standard can implement even the patented bits. The usual way is to commit to license the patents on FRAND terms, FRee And Non Discriminatory. All that means is once the patents are licensed to someone implementing the standard, everyone doing so must be able ('free') to license them on the same terms ('non-discriminatory').

This is a common way to construct complex standards which include patented technology. Often it's needed as the patent isn't anything special. It's something like a compression or encoding technique, one of many that could have been used, but they had to choose one for the standard. Sometimes the patents included in standard are pooled, into a patent pool, which can be licensed together.

[gumboot]

And even if things get patented it doesn't mean things get held up. Many wireless patents are included in standards, so anyone can implement them.

Having something in a standard does not mean that anyone can implement it. In fact, it doesn't necessarily mean that anyone who pays a licence to the standards body can implement it.

By 'included in standards' I meant patents that were included in such a way that anyone implementing the standard can implement even the patented bits. The usual way is to commit to license the patents on FRAND terms, FRee And Non Discriminatory. All that means is once the patents are licensed to someone implementing the standard, everyone doing so must be able ('free') to license them on the same terms ('non-discriminatory').

Yes, so anybody is free to pay licensing fees to implement the standard, but not necessarily to implement anything different from the standard using related techniques. It's only useful for commodity goods; it's still crippling to innovation.

[pogo]

Usually you don't want to implement something different - standards, like WiFi standards, Bluetooth standards, 3G standards, USB standards exist so devices can interoperate. If everyone does something different it's not really a standard, and so no need require FRAND licensing for the patents.

Back on topic: I think there's room for someone to produce a standard for VR devices, which anyone can implement. Have it so they all interoperate and so apps written for one will work on all of them, much like the standards for e.g. USB devices such as mice, keyboards, mass storage, hubs. You never need to check compatibility for these, you just buy them.

Then you wouldn't need to have the resources of Sony or FB to make a VR device, you could just make your device to the standard, advertise it as "Open VR (or whatever) compatible" and sell it in Maplin and similar gadget shops. There would be room for thousands of manufacturers, as there are for USB devices.

[gravy]

Shit me, I'm practically wetting myself now. Abrash and Carmack together again. This is HUUUGE.

Again!

Err.. well, maybe (and I say maybe!), so _maybe_ I was wrong and something good will come from this. Eventually.


c'mon, make it right, guys

Just heard he's been there for a while but its been kept under wraps. Hope he got part of the purchase money. Abrash is all sorts of awesome.

[gumboot]

Usually you don't want to implement something different - standards, like WiFi standards, Bluetooth standards, 3G standards, USB standards exist so devices can interoperate. If everyone does something different it's not really a standard, and so no need require FRAND licensing for the patents.

That's precisely my point. Licensing a patent for implementation of a standard means that you're _still_ blocking use of the identified concepts for anything new. When you try to advance the industry, rather than to produce a commodity version of somebody else's technology, patents are every bit the obstruction that they would be without any licensing.

[Orangy Tang]

Back on topic: I think there's room for someone to produce a standard for VR devices, which anyone can implement. Have it so they all interoperate and so apps written for one will work on all of them.

Valve are already doing this: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abra ... 0Steam.pdf (start from about slide 18).

The API looks pretty complete, and there's a few interesting bits (like using a look-up texture to do the distortion filter) that suggests maybe they're using it internally to talk to both their own VR prototype and Occulus.

[gilesgoat]

Back on topic: I think there's room for someone to produce a standard for VR devices, which anyone can implement. Have it so they all interoperate and so apps written for one will work on all of them.

Valve are already doing this: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abra ... 0Steam.pdf (start from about slide 18).

The API looks pretty complete, and there's a few interesting bits (like using a look-up texture to do the distortion filter) that suggests maybe they're using it internally to talk to both their own VR prototype and Occulus.

Despite all this looks/sounds interesting I think maybe it's a bit too early to talk about this (?).

To be honest "all I've seen so far needs improvements", I am really MUCH looking forward to see Oculus 2 but "I'll believe it when I'll see it".

Before to even start with "one size fits all" approach we need "something that FULLY works as one would expect" and I still see "there's still quite a lot to do in that sense".

I'd be very happy to have "one thing that REALLY WORKS REALLY WELL" rather than having N things that work "quite but not Carling yet" ..

Time will tell there's a lot of hype in all this which is very good because it will push development and improvement BUT "there's still lot to improve".

In this case, never SO much like anything else is truly a case of "I'll believe when I'll SEE it"

But it's good there's N > 1 working on this kind of stuff, hopefully we'll see more and more of it.

[edit] - if N things are going to come out my money goes on the one that works best, not on the cheapest .. now hoping there will be one that works best .. WORST case scenario would be N things working "quite but not as I'd like them" that would be then .. hum .. then you really don't know where to put the money on ..