Jan 2, 2019 · 12m · a16z
a16z Podcast | Oculus and the (Mind-Blowing) Reality of Virtual Reality
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In this a16z podcast episode, host Chris Dixon and guests Balaji Srinivasan and Gil Shafir discuss why virtual reality hardware has finally reached a critical threshold of presence. They explore VR's transformative potential across telepresence, remote tourism, immersive storytelling, live events, and high-stakes enterprise training.
Statements from this episode (13)
Shafir: VR requires near-perfect quality to avoid motion sickness
“I think with virtual reality, it's something that you can't do a poor job with, because you've got a screen close to your face, it's really easy to get motion sick, and really small problems in the experience can really destroy it for users.”
Dixon: Crossing VR technical threshold transforms a gadget into genuine presence
“Once you kind of hit over that threshold, suddenly it goes from like this kind of gadget into this feeling of presence, which is like you're actually transported to some other place.”
Dixon: Virtual reality will be a pervasive technology within five years
“So what so in five years, I think we were all believers, this is going to be a pervasive widespread technology.”
Srinivasan: Users will control humanoid robots via VR for telepresence tourism
“So one application I'm pretty interested in is telepresence. So, you know, if you imagine in maybe three, five years, they've already got sort of demo units like this, you know, set up, but you've got Oculus on your head, and you've got something like the thal…”
Dixon: Asynchronous VR tourism will become a major application
“You can also, the other interesting thing is, and people are talking about this with virtual reality is you can prerecord the tour, have the three dimensional, like, so you go to the Taj Mahal, you have the whole thing perfectly then rendered in virtual realit…”
Dixon: VR first-person shooters will be too intense for players
“In using VR lately, I've come to believe that games like shooters are actually going to be far too intense because it's like being there.”
Srinivasan: Every piece of hardware ultimately integrates into mobile phones
“The destiny of every Piece of hardware is ultimately to integrate with a mobile phone or many of them.”
Dixon: Almost all smartphones will capture 3D imaging within two years
“I think within two years for phones, almost all smartphones will be able to take three to three D imaging.”
Dixon: Developing a new visual language for VR will take decades
“There's going to be a really interesting period, though, where people are sort of constructing that language which took you decades in the case of film.”
Dixon: VR movies will function like walk-around immersive theatre
“Yeah, it's going to be like, you know, those, like performance art plays they have in New York where you're like, you could, you get to walk around the play as they're doing it or something like that's how movies are going to be used.”
Dixon: Virtual reality and video conferencing will replace business travel
“You can basically replace business travel.”