Prediction Not checkable as stated
Russell: Facebook brain-computer interfaces will track emotional reactions over typing speed
“What wouldn't shock me, despite the lofty goals of getting this hundred words per minute, You know, kind of success rate. I have a strong feeling that what we're actually going to see is kind of getting ground truth reactions to, for instance, posts on social …”
Insight
Russell: Public metrics turn Instagram and Facebook feeds into happiness theater
“So a little bit of a counterpoint or pushback against that is, you know, if you look at Instagram or Facebook, the nature of having metrics publicly exposed to people and comment counts and things like that means that content typically can devolve into somethi…”
Opinion
Russell: Facebook was a poor steward of Messenger's early developer platform
“My kind of read on this has been that Facebook hasn't been, let's say, the best steward of Messenger as a platform, for instance, for the first six to nine months of it, other than the kind of Bots that Facebook itself specifically highlighted and linked to in…”
Prediction Partly held up
Russell: Full-Stack Standalone VR Will Deliver 2x-4x Mobile VR Performance
“But basically they'll be able to get two to four X the performance of the gear VR based headsets with the same hardware because they'll own the full stack.”
Prediction Held up
Russell: PSVR sales will surpass Oculus before 2016 holidays end
“At the very least, they will probably surpass Oculus plus Rift combined before the holidays are even out.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Russell: Real-time global camera coverage ('panopticon') is becoming reality
“The panopticon is going to be real. So this idea of a camera where you have a live view at any spot in the real world at any time, that's essentially becoming possible.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Russell: Apple and Google have hundreds working on VR
“It's clear that they have hundreds of people working on these”
Opinion
Russell: Mobile VR is a non-revolutionary teaser that feels gimmicky
“If you're looking at mobile VR, it's a step up from the kind of video where you move your phone around you. But it's still at times can feel gimmicky. It really depends on implementation, but It's not that revolutionary of an experience. It's a teaser.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Russell: Mobile VR power will eventually render desktop graphics gaps irrelevant
“And, you know, once they're as powerful as a gaming PC of today, you don't really mind the jump in graphics compared to, like, what your desktop could provide.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Russell: VR room-scanning will replace traditional phone calls
“I think that we're gonna see a lot of social usage of people getting in their VR headsets and quickly scanning in the room they're in and then hanging out with their mom for 20 minutes instead of doing the phone call.”
Prediction Held up
Russell: Current BCI tech will allow seamless thought-controlled computer actions
“And now with this current generation, it seems like between Elon, Facebook, probably something from Google that We're actually going to start to see these things that kind of invisibly actually just let you think something and have some kind of action show up …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Russell: Microsoft HoloLens costs $3,000 and has only a few hundred users
“You look at HoloLens, and it's 3000 dollars, and maybe a couple hundred people own it.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Russell: A socially acceptable Apple AR headset is still years away
“You have to make a headset that you're not embarrassed to wear in public, so maybe Apple can do it but probably gonna be a couple years.”
Insight
Russell: Screen usage perceived as antisocial is actually highly social behavior
“What looks like antisocial behavior is actually social behavior because there's more interesting people on the other side of that screen.”
Insight
Russell: VR motion sickness is caused by software design, not hardware
“Something I think isn't communicated well enough today is the fact that nausea typically, it's not the hardware itself. Oh, if you use this gadget, you're going to get sick from VR. It's experiences built in a certain way, using acceleration a certain way, mov…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Russell: AR glasses will float LinkedIn profiles above people's heads
“You're never going to go to an event like this and meet someone where you're pretty sure you've seen them before, but you don't remember their name. You're never going to have that awkward exchange because their LinkedIn profile is going to be floating above t…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Russell: AR is a couple years behind VR in development
“With that said, AR is a couple years out, even relative to VR in terms of difficulties around optics, in terms of computer vision.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Russell: Interactive VR is the future of education and museums
“And all I can think is this is the future of museums in the near term and the further term. This is the future of education. Like, why you know, why read a textbook about, you know, significant moments in history when you could just kind of actually get to liv…”
Prediction Held up
Russell: Most VR users will come from mid-tier and mobile devices
“And then kind of the PlayStation VR tier, whatever the mobile such standalone tier looks like, you're going to have trickle down of quality from the high end, but that's probably where actual, you know, numbers of users will, you know, that's where we'll see t…”
Assertion Supported
Russell notes the iPhone 6s lapped the Note 7 in app loading.
“The iPhone from last year was able to lap the Note seven that came out just a few weeks ago.”
What-if
Russell: Generic Pokémon game mechanics would have produced only short-lived success
“They could have slapped it on almost any gameplay concept, say, like, an endless runner along the lines of what was, what's the one that we all, or everyone played Temple Run. You know, you can imagine, like, in the same way that there's, like, a Spider-Man ga…”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Kyle Russell: AR glasses will be worn daily by 2021
“In five years there'll be glasses, and you'll just always have these virtual things floating around you as you're going through the day.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Russell: Future games will replace utility apps via core gameplay hooks
“What we're going to see is more games that end up accomplishing the goals of utility applications by keeping you hooked on the gameplay mechanisms.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Russell: World of Warcraft kept millions paying $15/month via endgame content
“World of Warcraft has done the best job of periodically adding more and incredibly, increasingly difficult endgame content for its most hardcore players, and this is what has kept it millions of people paying 15 dollars a month for north of a decade now.”
