Chat apps work just fine. I already feel tired, just thinking about having to wear VR gear all day while I work.

If we ever get to that point the VR gear would need to be effortless.

No, just mandatory.

Place Obligatory "Matrix" comment here.

Devs still have control over where they work.

Current VR gear? Maybe. Future VR gear, especially with big tech money in it? Maybe not so much.

Meanwhile, pairing a modern phone with the Bluetooth receiver in a rental car is still somehow a frustrating adventure more than half the time...

Physical cables my friend. Cables.

Joking aside, I've stopped using bluetooth in any vehicle that is not mine (actually using a rental this moment since my car is being worked on right now). Pretty much all rental cars have been built in the past 3 years, and for the most part they all have a USB for Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. So much easier to just use a cable and not hope the wireless connection stays working.

Though the cable itself isn't reliable sometimes and will disconnect itself/pause audio upon reconnection. Maybe good ol' FM and CDs are the way to go.

doesn't android auto also depend on BT? not clear to me why, but I believe it has to be on.

in any case, I find Android auto just trades one set of issues for another. voice control is kinda iffy for all but the most unambiguous commands. I also experience deadlocks at least once a week that require restarting the head unit, phone, or both. I've had this issue with two different phones in two different cars. not sure what the root cause is, but it is really distracting when navigation freezes halfway through a trip through an unfamiliar area.

I cannot speak on Android Auto specifically and what the requirements are currently (though I intend on migrating to an Android device in the near future) my '22 Subaru only allows Android Auto or Apple CarPlay to work via the cable, as you can link the phone over Bluetooth to the 'generic phone' controls, but not the phone-specific-display controls.

Though I haven't had issues in regards to the headunit failing just yet - I've had the phone lock up a few times, but I think that is in part due to the age of my iPhone (6s) and the lack of processing power/ram.

In the future you won't wear VR, VR will wear you.

Maybe you’re not the target audience.

I have a project currently deploying a bunch Microsoft Teams Rooms at a client. It tries to create a similar experience in a physical space. People are confused as hell by it — it doesn’t work the way they’re used to / expecting, so they give up within a few minutes and just connect an HDMI cable to the main screen.

We weren’t even going to have HDMI as a fallback, but the executives demanded it because they weren't willing to spend 5 minutes every meeting dealing with the tech when the problem is that it didn’t work the way they wanted it to.

I cannot imagine my users in-office all donning headsets when many attendees in a meeting are just there to listen while working on other things. I personally like to take those kinds of “listening in” calls while doing work around the house. I’m not sticking my face in a VR headset for that.

I'm with you - the "listening in" calls are where it's at.

If we get to a point where we're "forced" to don headsets for meetings, it can't be long before dummy heads with realistic eyes (to fool the inevitable eye-tracking/iris scanning "presence" check) appear on the market.

A bit like those mouse jigglers they're sell to prevent your status moving to "away"

This sounds like my world and yes Execs can't seem to reconcile that their personal laptop cannot control a camera linked to an android app on the other side of the room. That's not what they asked for initially, they asked for the one-touch join the meeting crap that the salesman sold them on. Come hell or high water though once they get in the room they want their personal laptop to drive the meeting.

It is infuriating.

Yeah the tech is wonderful when there’s a good facilitator who knows how to use it effectively, but the problem is most meeting facilitators are not very good and have their own personal style that might not match up with any given product. Getting to the outcome of the meeting is far more important than using some fancy software, and for 90% of meetings you can get there with Zoom or Teams on a laptop.

What company in their right mind would allow a company with Facebook’s privacy record to have access to all of their most important IP? You would have to be insane.

Virtual spaces for work already exist and (almost) nobody uses them, so I don't know what a different name for the same thing is expected to accomplish.

Nobody uses them because they are clunky and unnatural. The leap of faith is that soon the technology will make these things seamless and natural. Only then will virtual spaces take off in a meaningful way.

Here's a wild idea, meet in person.

What if they're in different cities?

There's plenty of companies that are distributed across countries. On my team I have teammates in Macedonia, Costa Rica, USA, and Germany. Even without Covid restrictions, that's going to be expensive and time consuming for us to meet in person.

Then you know it will be worthwhile

Linux was built using a distributed team without the metaverse. It seems like we’re doing just fine?

Email is fine, thanks.

> Think of the metaverse as a more advanced slack+zoom

What do you think is missing from today's slack+zoom (or discord +jitsi/google meet, or whatever) combo that would make you more productive?

Idling. The single most important thing I’ve lost since the pandemic started is the capability to overhear conversations.

I can no longer pick up on junior team members talking themselves into trouble and nip it in the bud, I only get exposed to that trouble by the time they’ve invested enough time into it that it becomes a much harder discussion.

When I go grab a cup of coffee I no longer overhear other teams talking about their projects, and ask them if they mind me sitting in to learn more about what they’re doing.

A lot of the organic social interactions that serve as a medium for knowledge diffusion are just gone.

> I can no longer pick up on junior team members talking themselves into trouble and nip it in the bud, I only get exposed to that trouble by the time they’ve invested enough time into it that it becomes a much harder discussion.

Perhaps the environment isn’t right for them to just ask for help?

> When I go grab a cup of coffee I no longer overhear other teams talking about their projects, and ask them if they mind me sitting in to learn more about what they’re doing.

Demo days?

> A lot of the organic social interactions that serve as a medium for knowledge diffusion are just gone.

Happy hours?

Have you joined any company happy hours with 6+ attendees?

It inevitably turns into an awkward mess. Sure you can use breakout rooms but the social happy hour via zoom/slack is not a solved problem.

Yesterday at my work they had a Christmas event where normally they hire a speaker to come to (normally in person, but now on a Teams call), and this year they brought in a lady who's a comedian and minor Canadian celebrity.

She got through the first 25 minutes or so of her routine (which was incredibly awkward -- standup does not work without a crowd, and it's just you telling jokes to your own empty living room) and eventually at one point her audio got stuck as she was saying the word "and" and it literally just kept looping her saying "and and and and and" over and over. They tried to troubleshoot it for about 10 minutes. Her video was still working, but every time they enabled her audio again it was just the looping "and and and and." I felt kinda bad for her. The whole thing felt like a plastic recreation of a real experience, and the technical difficulties at the end were emblematic of it all.

> standup does not work without a crowd

There's a Zoom comedy show my partner has been attending for 1.5 years, and she bawls every week. So, it's possible for a show to work out.

Maybe she was self-aware of the situation as well and decided to turn it into material for next joke

Since there is a sub-set of people that don't even join company happy hours in person, that feature alone could not be sufficient so.

I would change careers if I had to work in VR. I don’t like people and wfh is a dream. I’ve been doing it for 10 years and won’t ever go back.

2010 - what do you think is missing from your work skype group chats that would make you more productive?

Nothing.

Well, IRC worked well enough as a chat app back the day as well. Besides large group chats, I didn't miss any features compared to Teams. And let's be honest, those group chats aren't that productive most of the time.

Now imagine Zuck being in charge. How could it not be a toxic wasteland?

John on Accidental Tech Podcast (http://atp.fm) has articulated some pretty solid criticisms.

Facebook has historically sucked at hardware. Why would that change?

Whereas other parasocial hosts attempt to protect their users, like MMOPRGs mitigating griefing and cheating, Facebook and Twitter amplify and profit from toxicity.

Etc.

That is a common social media criticism, "amplify and profit from toxicity". I find the charge vaucous for several reasons.

1. "Give what the numbers say you want." or "Maximize profit * area of instance." are what they actually want. Even if it leads to emergent antisocial behavior it is set by results instead of a goal in itself. 2. The charge itself could be applied to any form of media, and yet there is a blatant double standard. If one accused three letter network of it you would get a response of "well duh"! 3. The implicit idea that negativity is a bad thing is outright dangerous, yet clearly promoted by the accusatory tone. Publishing government misconduct also promotes negativity and a publication may profit from it. So does speaking out against injustice. Crude and callous as it may sound, maybe some outright deserve the negativity.

> 2. The charge itself could be applied to any form of media

Correct. Zuck, Dorsey, and PageBrin just stole the old guard's lunch money. Just like broadcast toppled print, papyrus displaced clay cuniform.

It's an old story. The power elite always seize control of popular communications. Technological progress begets a changing of the guard.

> and yet there is a blatant double standard

By whom?

There is always a resentful cohort moaning about "kids these days".

There is always some cranks (like me) performatively rejecting the whole system. Yesterday's Kill Your Television is today's Delete Facebook.

While the masses keep plodding along, amusing themselves as able, self medicating, seeking some kind of respite from the never ending sting of the human condition. Moo.

What you describe is working in VR. But please stop conflating VR with metaverse. Although, I reckon, they will soon be synonyms if we continue like this.

>This meta verse thing really could be the way we work remotely soon.

Oh please god kill me now.

For real. The last thing I want is to get disciplined or fired because the eye scanners in my work helmet told my boss that I looked at non-work related items for 3.7% of my work day and they only allow for 2.9% of the work day not visually engaged with my screen.

> Think of the metaverse as a more advanced slack+zoom, not as a Minecraft/Roblox alternative.

The next question is why? Followed by the heath issues problems. You’re supposed to look away from a screen every 10 mins for 10 seconds. How can I do that with the screen strapped to my face? And why we’re here, why would I go to my private space inside the metaverse to get away from people? Why not take the damn headset off? The whole idea is forced.