Huge demand for Unity developers in coming mixed-reality world

News & General Discussion
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I suspect it’s not just about what goes in in “private” places. If you were out eating dinner and saw someone a few tables away facing your direction, with their phone up and pointed towards you, wouldn’t that be a little uncomfortable? Technically it can happen now, but it’s pretty obvious. With something like glasses, it becomes more surreptitious and, likely, subject to either regulation or backlash (however small or large, like the “glasshole”).

I wouldn’t be surprised if the use of recording devices on glasses was mandated to have some audiovisual cue.

Nothing but conjecture, by the way.

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Glad i learn’t at the right time :slight_smile:

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Partly because Glass didn’t do AR. It was just a little display floating in the corner of your field of view; it had essentially zero knowledge of the world around it, and couldn’t create images that integrate with that world.

And then, yeah, there’s the creepiness factor of having a camera on and pointing at people around you all the time. Some rumors have it that Apple’s glasses may not include a camera for this reason (though it would still have some sort of high-res depth sensor, without which AR is impossible).

And yeah, I do think Apple is going to make whatever it is as an extension to the phone. So when you need to take pictures or videos, you’ll still bust out your camera as you always have. But when you want to see all the additional layers on top of the world… you’ll do that through the glasses.

(No doubt you’ll also be able to do it, crudely, through the phone if you’re unfortunate enough to not have the glasses yet… but that will be a short transition period in the grand scheme of things.)

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Funny, when I said that in another thread recently, everybody jumped down my throat. As long as AR can manage full-blackout to do double-duty as VR, nobody will talk about the distinction any more.

If Apple is the company that makes it happen, my guess is it’ll be a marketing coup, not a tech win (e.g. the Apple crowd seems to automatically buy into anything Cupertino makes and declare it The Best Thing EVAR… but I openly admit a strong personal bias against Apple).

I’ve been reading a lot about the latest HoloLens plans and patents and MS is really stepping up their game. They plan multiple price points, they’ve fixed the narrow FOV problem, and they have some interesting new eye-tracking techniques in the works. I just have a strong feeling they’re lightyears beyond the competition, and that current-generation HoloLens is like when the military unveils some new spy plane. Sure it’s all high-tech and amazing… but then you find out it’s been flying for 30 years.

I’ve been trying to find out how to get a demo for my wife somewhere local to us. I was able to very briefly take a peek through one at Unite LA (somebody just walking by while my wife was in line for coffee or something). I’d have liked to have spent much more time with it as well.

I don’t think we’d buy the current gen, but next gen, we’re probably buyers.

I’d kill for AR (not VR “blindfold-mode”) screens all around me. That use-case alone sells it for this keyboard jockey.

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On the other hand… when AR-everywhere goes horribly wrong:

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Funny thing occurred to me. Apple might not want it to happen. After all who needs an Apple Watch, an Apple iPod, an Apple iPad, and so on if the Apple AR device can do all of the same functionality for you? I mean aside from the status symbol that some people use it for. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Sadly - marketing/advertising would be a complete forced fed experience as this video imo realistically shows throughout. Opt out for only a high fee/month.
Ads = the bane and eventual downfall of our industry unless we become the resistance! Terminator. lol

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But the following year, the Apple AR 2 will be 0.5 ounces lighter. And the year after that, the Apple AR 3 will have a higher resolution. And the year after that, the Apple AR 4 will have beveled edges, ad infinitum. I’d say ad nauseam, but that’s probably more apt for VR than AR. They’ll still have people lined up to get the latest and greatest model.

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:smile:
Now with enhanced VR Retinal scanning output display!

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Not to mention, Apple AR 1.0 will be priced to replace revenue lost on other gadget sales. No price is too high to secure your position in the Jobsonian Hip-o-Sphere.

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This is damn horrifying.

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Thought about also posting in the big gamification thread we had a few months back… the advertising is insane but the gamification part is much worse (to me).

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Basically, it pretty much reminded me of what I heard of Huxley’s Brave new World.

A noisy world that assaults all your senses at once all the time, and at the same time half of the thing you see are fake.

Definitely not the future I’d like to live in.

Hell, even “spend your life in a VR” or “Surrogates” scenario are better than this.

Basically, I’d prefer if all the new a shiny tech was used to make humanity reach greater intelligence or greater wisdom. And not to reduce people to the level of hamster in a hamster wheel chasing a virtual carrot.

Of course, hamster wheel scenario is far more likely to happen. And that’s why that video is horrifying.

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How about NOT buying into the hype, listening too much to futurists, “industry experts”, or worst of all, analysts (ugh), and just wait and see if any of this promised for 2017 will actually have happened by 2020?

Its all fine and dandy to point to the POTENTIAL of AR and VR. It has potential, and a ton of it for sure. But the hype that is currently building around it is very real.
Worse yet, analysts live of hyping stuff to high heavens hoping to be the ones to predict a very unexpected scenario when the hype becomes reality, yet somehow elegantly finding a way out if the hype bubble inevitable bursts… apple just couldn’t source the parts… The tech has been developed but got shelfed because of cost… the prediction DID become reality, just 2 years late.

I think SOME people will be pretty disappointed in 2 years when VR and AR development is still in its infancy, and more and more people will see that while both technologies seem to be doing well, they are filling niches more than replacing cell phones or other outlandish stuff like that.

Remember when “analysts” predicted that cell phones would replace PCs? Or Desktops would be replaced by laptops?
Well, in the end the Desktop PC is going strong still, even though everyone and their dog has a cell phone. And I still lack to see how VR would appeal to EVERYONE outside of some niches (more of an additional choice outside of it), and how AR could ever reach the mass market outside of certain niches (like the pokemon game that certainly was a big thing for a while, because it fitted well in that small niche of “gotta catch em all expieriences”).
I know quite a few people that would rather die than strap a VR Device to their face because they don’t want to have anything strapped to their face (and they probably don’t care for VR either way), and I know many that would rather turn off all AR features as they think these would distract them too much.
Hell, I know many that dislike car HUDs because they feel they get distracted by it. Maybe they would change their opinion if they tried it.
But how long will it take until all these sceptics, which might make up quite a substantial amount of the general public, have tried AR and found that its less distracting than they thought? 5 years? 10 years? Or will we have to wait for a younger generation that has less preconceived expectations of such tech because they grew up with it?
Can apple-esque hype alone overcome these fears and prejudices, and people change their opinion on AR just because it is cool and in at the moment?

I went off on a tangent though…

Will demand for Unity devs only get stronger in the future? Yes, but I would expect AR/VR only adds to an already increasing demand given how Unity has closed the gap to other engines in the PC space, and how multi-platform building will only become more and more important with more relevant console platforms this generation (with nintendo probably releasing a console again that cannot just be neglected), and mobile platforms getting strong enough to allow some porting of older PC or Console games now.
If you want to be at the forefront of technology, VR/AR is a fine place to be in at the moment. Just keep in mind: “hope for the best, expect the worst”… be prepared that the “analysts” pushing the hype currently might be wrong, and they might not hype the technology for anything else than their own best interests.

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Speaking of revenue, Apple had a record yesterday for highest stock price ever and was valued 700 billion USD. Was a Mac guy for two decades but the new clown at the top has no idea what he is doing. I am a developer and do not want my iPod videos hidden in an unaccessible folder, I do not want to Duplicate, Rename and Save when Save As worked grandly for two decades and was totally intuitive to a new user…etc. etc. etc. I want my OS X computer back and not some huge computing extension for an iGadget. I have a 2012 base iMac and it wakes up from sleep in about 0.5 seconds. I have a honking mega PC with the latest in the top performing components and it takes 5 seconds to wake up after a mouse jiggle. That being said i hope Apple puts out some decent VR or AR hardware so I can make more money servicing that sector of business and content creation…

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I was reminded of an anime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractale

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Don’t forget AR5 where they remove the lenses and force you to daisy chain 4 dongles plugged into your nostrils and your iDevice to beam the images straight to your corneas.

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Great book along these lines: The Peripheral by William Gibson

Also there’s the whole porn industry thing that will find a use for VR/AR…

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They already are. Checking if they’re adapting to a new technology can be one way to know if it will have a chance. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Hey guys I went down to a local indie dev demo night because they had some free beer and nachos and there were 2 guys walking around, they were basically scooping up anyone who worked with unity (I didnt even bring a demo or have any expreicence with AR and I got a part time job making augmented reality games ). So I guess start going to local game meet ups cause they are already starting to look for people

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