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Chunk ,

The metaverse silicon team? Money really was too cheap in the pandemic.

gurmif ,

Is it really surprising that a massive company investing billions into a nascent technology would develop in-house chips for it?

Chunk ,

Yes

gurmif ,

Ok… Why is it surprising?

Chunk ,

Because building a chip design branch is a very large undertaking.

  • Chips are expensive to design
  • Expensive to manufacture
  • you need to buy millions and millions of them
  • the lifecycle of a chipset has a much longer tail than their metaverse attempt

It’s surprising because they invested all that money on a product they don’t know is going to take off (metaverse) and the chips won’t be ready for a very long time.

What kind of chip are they even building? There are massive corporations that have spent a very long time building performance, low power cores (Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung) but instead of buying from them they want to reinvent the wheel.

It’s surprising because Facebook thinks they can catch up to the other chip design companies which takes an enormous amount of investment over decades. It’s not a 1, 2, or 5 year thing.

So, now I’m curious. Can you please explain why you think this is a very normal and unsurprising thing for Facebook to try and do?

Also, are you even a chip designer? Are you even an engineer at all?

pdxfed ,

Wonder if he’ll make an oh-so-brave mea culpa and be praised for it like when they did massive layoffs early this year? Of course it’s your fault dude, you’re the founder and CEO! What an asshat.

partial_accumen ,

If the cuts are deep, they could hamper Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s project to build augmented and virtual reality products enabling access to a set of immersive virtual

VR is interesting to me. I have zero desire for a facebook product, I don’t care how good it is.

Zuckerberg has to realize he, as the messenger, is poisoning the future he wants to exist.

Skies5394 ,

It’s a shame that Oculus was gobbled up by them, and a shame that they seem to be the only ones capable of making an untethered unit.

I’ve used the quest, and could take or leave the built in stuff, mostly leave, but the untethered desktop VR experience was something else.

I just won’t ever buy a Facebook product.

p03locke ,
@p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

They even pissed off John “Literal Rocket Scientist” Carmack enough to leave.

Tetsuo ,

Weren’t they talking about adding ADs right in VR ?

Seriously, what a nightmare. You try to escape reality playing a video game in immersion through VR and you get served ads ?

That added to privacy issues at Facebook, I would never touch that product.

PersnickityPenguin ,

Unfortunately, Oculus was started by a Maga head so… I’m not sure who is worse. Probably the Maga head but Zuckerberg sold privacy data to Cambridge analytica.

LukeMedia ,

Yeah, I’m still using my Quest 2, but I’m sure in time there’ll be a really good offer from someone else, and I would buy that. I’m really interested in what Valve might have to offer soon

Varyk , (edited )

I was bummed that they bought oculus, but now they’ve advanced the tech so much and made it so clear to the market that people want unrestricted vr that I’m hoping the whole debacle jumpstarts a stream deck equivalent, just a headset with decent tech running on open source software or minimally restricted software that just works.

That’s why the oculus was so good, they just released it it developers play with it, no logins, no required software environments, just creative fun

LukeMedia ,

I’m with you. I want Meta to keep heavily developing in the VR and AR space, but not so I can buy products from them. I just want the increase in new products and innovation from other companies that would come with that development.

Varyk ,

Yea, exactly. I searched around a little and it looks like that’s actually working out, there’s some tiny companies offering 4K VR glasses for 500 bucks now; it’s not exactly an open environment again like in the heyday, but at least it isn’t tethered to a massive data mining corporation.

I’m not sure if there are open environment alternatives. Actually, I didn’t even know 4K had gotten so cheap already, It was encouraging to hear about all the little companies making new goggles.

I loved using the, I think it was 1080p Oculus DK2 for watching movies and playing games, so I can’t wait to be blown away by one of these 4K kits just a few years later.

LukeMedia ,

I think an open alternative would become more likely as VR becomes more adopted. While I don’t like Meta, they are doing a good job at increasing adoptions, and that’s something that I’m certainly happy about.

doublejay1999 ,
@doublejay1999@lemmy.world avatar

I was quite sad when I crossed Occulus off my list following the acquisition.

I would have loved one.

H2207 ,
@H2207@lemmy.world avatar

I think the Quest 3 now has DRM and a bunch of other intrusive components, so that’s definitely off the table.

Pico looks promising, will have to do more research.

HidingCat ,

Isn't Pico even worse? It's by Bytedance, the Chinese company behind TikTok.

H2207 ,
@H2207@lemmy.world avatar

Is it? Yeah maybe not then.

HidingCat ,

If this is what you were thinkng of, then yea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PICO_4

I'd rather get a Quest 3, at least you can use a separate Meta account now.

H2207 ,
@H2207@lemmy.world avatar

Yep, wired VR it is then for the time being. Because of a recent leak there’s speculation that Valve are releasing some new VR headset, also the fact that they updated the SteamVR UI to feel more “Steam Deck” is good evidence, I guess we’ll wait and see…

HidingCat ,

There's that, yes, but downside for me is that Valve doesn't release hardware officially in my country and it always gets inflated by middlemen when it goes on sale here. So the value on offer goes down by quite a bit.

namingthingsiseasy ,

This is the core problem. The overlap between people who use facebook and people who are interested in VR is not very big. Most people on facebook just want to see pictures of their grandchildren and are hardly the kinds of people who would be early adopters of technologies like this. VR enthusiasts on the other hand simply have no interest in whatever kinds of shit Zuckerberg has to offer. Some might hold their noses and try it anyway, but you’re just making your potential userbase smaller and smaller.

This idiotic “metaverse” thing has always been a hilarious joke and is doomed to fail. This has been obvious ever since it was announced. Zuckerberg got lucky with facebook turning out to be a great way to creep on^W^W keep in touch with friends and other contacts. He’s not a visionary and doesn’t have a clue how to build a new thing people want from scratch. But he thinks he does cause he got lucky with facebook.

IphtashuFitz ,

I worked at a university years ago and saw some VR prototypes for things like medical/surgical training, remote interaction (remote surgery, hazmat, etc) and other things. Very cool uses of the technology where it makes a lot of sense.

Seeing the VR used there the way it was makes me completely uninterested in using it for any sort of social/personal use any time soon. VR clearly has a lot of niche applications, but not as a general social/entertainment platform.

PlantJam ,

I’m interested in VR, but the cost of decent, non-oculus hardware is prohibitive.

TheDarkKnight ,

It sucks, because I’ve listened to a ton of interviews with him discussing VR/AR and I actually think he is super interested in the tech and is doing pretty incredible stuff in the space. But the blatant disregard for people’s personal privacy and Facebook/Social Media’s destructive history prevents me from trusting Meta in this area and many others. What’s sad is that Zuck actually is pretty damn smart, and I think he’s one of the few billionaires that really understands tech. They’ve been open sourcing things and just getting better overall in a lot of ways but at the end of the day the trust isn’t there.

Peanutbjelly , (edited )

I loved the CV1 oculus. The moment Facebook integration started happening I noped the fuck out of there. Also can’t stand overly proprietary environments. Acquiescence to researchers like yann lecun would be the only reason I don’t absolutely detest meta at this point.

detalferous ,

It would have been less bitter if they hadn’t promised that Facebook would never be required or integrated at the time Facebook bought them… just before they made it an integrated requirement.

LukeMedia ,

At least they reversed it, but they probably still waited for most people to give in and make a Facebook account. I still log in with an Oculus account.

detalferous ,

I have two VR systems. Neither require an account

You shouldn’t need to log into hardware.

LukeMedia ,

While this is true, it was not in consideration during my purchase. I was not as informed at the time. I’ll wait for a time when there is a good competitor for untethered VR, that is also an appreciable difference to upgrade.

LukeMedia ,

Love my CV1. My quest 2 gets more use since it’s wireless, but I’ll never not love the CV1

eee ,

VR is potentially cool, but meta is building a version of Second life that has less privacy and more monetization. Hard pass

Dkarma ,

I was ready to buy a vr headset until I realized the only one under 1000 was meta.

Nope.

cyberpunk007 ,

Same. I even tried it and it’s really cool, and at that price point I would… but meta. I even heard at one point they forced you to log in with your facebook account to use it. Wtf? I don’t even have one. So basically I’ll wait for the valve index 2.0. VR is not mature yet and they all have quirks and trade offs.

Amir ,
@Amir@lemmy.ml avatar

HP Reverb G2?

Dkarma ,

I refuse to buy hp products. Hard pass.

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:

If the cuts are deep, they could hamper Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s project to build augmented and virtual reality products enabling access to a set of immersive virtual worlds known as the “metaverse,” particularly the AR glasses that he has predicted “will redefine our relationship with technology.”

The FAST unit, which has roughly 600 employees, worked on developing custom chips to equip Meta’s devices to perform unique tasks and operate more efficiently, differentiating them from others entering the nascent AR/VR market.

A separate chip-making unit in Meta’s infrastructure division focused on artificial intelligence work has likewise hit roadblocks.

Meta currently makes a line of mixed reality headsets called Quest and smart glasses designed with Ray-Ban eyeglass maker EssilorLuxottica (ESLX.PA) that can stream video and speak with wearers through a new AI virtual assistant.

A first version of that product is set to be completed next year, although Meta is not initially planning to make it widely available to consumers, the source said.

Meta has slashed around 21,000 jobs since November of last year as it has sought to reassure investors that it was reining in costs amid waning revenue growth, high inflation and concerns that Reality Labs was losing too much money.

The original article contains 482 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

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