I'd borderline use this before I tried to work in an open floorplan office.

That said, it's too early on the hardware for resolution and size/weight.

If you want an intuition about why this will be compelling in the further future -

What is a memory palace and why is it so effective?

It appears that we encode a great deal of our thinking, memory, and conceptual relations in a spatial way in the brain.

Maybe a 2d laptop screen that portals into a world of constantly rearranging 2d windows doesn't give us a strong or intuitive sense of place?

What if your computing environment supported or even enhanced this type of natural way that your brain worked?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_memory#Virtual_reality

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-11/cuso-snt1107...

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

Potentially, you get to be more portable. Big screens are better (to some limit), but you can't carry 24-27" displays with you. With this, all you need to carry are the goggles, keyboard and mouse.

Imagine if program windows weren't constrained to the flat planes of your monitor, but could be anywhere in your field of view at your desk. That's the dream, and this is a stepping stone I think. Soon enough the VR headset will be slim and ergonomic, seamlessly combining reality and the virtual workspace so you don't feel separated (if that's what you want).

Someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like he's wearing a first-gen Vive, which is surprisingly light (especially when you swap the tether of a cord with the wireless adapter).

I've got nearly 2500 hours in VR and sometimes spend up to 8 hours a day with it on, and it is way less big/bulky than it looks.

I put giant googly eyes on mine, even. :)

I feel dizzy just looking at the window changing and also, I already don't look at my laptop screen preferring to switch desktops on my external monitor, so the idea of moving my head to look at stuff doesn't appeal to me. I guess VR as a screen replacement isn't my cup of tea (at least not yet, maybe it'll change in the future).

That's without even factoring in the fatigue from wearing the headset (both in terms of weight and having something strapped to me, eg I can only wear headphones for so long, even without sound, before my ears feel tired). I also don't like the idea of shutting the world out, especially since I like to use paper/white boards.

Agreed. I want this to be an improvement but real productivity has little to do with how many screens you can view simultaneously.

Attention is a finite resource.

In my experience, having some apps physically out of view (like OP's IRC and music videos) actually help with focus sometimes compared to a traditional monitor setup, where you always have a visual reminder in your taskbar or when you alt+tab to check in on IRC, Slack, HN, etc.

I guess you could mimic that experience by e.g. hiding your taskbar, but "out of sight, out of mind" definitely applies here w.r.t. focus, and it seems like a 360-degree space offers unique ways to keep things fully out of sight while still readily available.