Meta's chief scientist says VR progress was "more gradual than I would have liked"
In a podcast, Michael Abrash looks back at 10 years of VR development and describes the challenges of the next decade.
In the latest episode of the Boz to the Future podcast, Meta CTO Andrew "Boz" Bosworth spoke with Michael Abrash, Chief Scientist at Reality Labs Research.
Abrash, who has had a long and successful career in the tech and gaming industries, left Valve in 2014 to drive VR and AR research at Oculus and Facebook. Over the past decade, he has become known for his technology outlooks and predictions, which he presents annually at Meta Connect (formerly Oculus Connect).
I listened to the podcast and picked out the three quotes I found most interesting. For the full context, please listen to episode 19 of Boz of the Future, which is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Looking back at the technical and commercial evolution of VR technology over the past decade, Abrash concludes:
"To be honest, it's been more gradual than I would have liked, but the reason is, it's really hard to take these steps. It really is. And I've got new appreciation, even though I've worked at four hardware companies before, a new appreciation for how really difficult it is to make consumer electronics."
When asked what he was most proud of that made it out of the lab and into a product, Abrash replied:
"But obviously we discussed hand tracking, and I think that has been a huge thing. Pancake lenses. Pancake lenses, I think, you know, something, we really led on, and they changed the form factor dramatically. Something that isn't in people's hands at this point, but the people certainly have seen is Codec Avatars. The day that we do this in VR, that's the day I say, yes, we have, you know, we have made it."
Looking to the future, what are the biggest challenges for Abrash?
"I think the biggest technical challenge is in the Display area. Every place else, cleverness matters a lot. There are always paths forward. It's just a matter of figuring out a lot of difficulties. You talked about the law of thermodynamics. Two laws, also the law of gravity. If you tell me, I have 200 grams for a headset, yeah, I can do the display system, no problem. If you tell me I have 60 grams, now there's a problem, right? And so coming up with something that's socially acceptable, that uses little enough power so that it can be usable throughout a day, that is affordable and that weighs little enough there are, there's some real discontinuities to solve there. And as you said, we're working all kinds of areas, you know, lasers, micro LEDs, wave guides. But physics turns out to be a problem. They will get solved, I have no doubt, but it's not trivial."
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