The idea people will be strapping computers to their faces for meetings will “take off in a huge way” any time soon is extremely far fetched for me.
The "strapping computers to their faces" meme is just stupid hyperbole. It's no more insightful than declaring that nobody wants to stuff a computer into their pocket - when 99% of people now carry smart phones (and mostly, large ones - as large as they can possibly fit).
That depends on how exactly you define "smartphone". I might still have an old Nokia brick with a little screen and a web browser lying around somewhere.
There is a fundamental disconnect in motivation here.
When VR/AR makes it, it won't be strapping what I imagine you are thinking to your face. I imagine glasses or maybe people will even entertain a visor or shield
I have an Apple Watch. Why? Because it lets me use my phone less. It is a purposefully less capable and less attention-seeking device which I can use to check the nature of a notification in a socially acceptable way and then go back to living life without pulling out my phone.
AR/VR is fundamentally having a phone strapped to your eyeballs. You’re saying “but it can be made lightweight and comfortable!” I’m saying you’re missing the whole point: I don’t want a phone strapped to my eyeballs, even if it weighed 0 g and was soft and velvety. It’s a step backwards.
I would love for that technology to exist, because I have AR applications in mind that I think could be industrially useful. But I would despise that becoming the normal mode of interface to the world, the same way I despise people having their heads in their phones all day long.
I don't turn my camera on in meetings and it's often "broken", some idiotic headset that my manager forces on me is going to be similarly buggy and "broken"...
Depends on how you define 'computer': content creation or content consumption?
Because everyone with a 'computer' in their pocket has nothing more than 'interactive television' in their pocket.
They literally do not do computing on it in any meaningful way.[1]
[1] Maybe they use the calculator. But that's about it.
The issue is a great many people just won’t want to sit wearing anything at all on their face in a meeting - especially those who may have put effort into appearance of their hair and makeup etc etc as just one of many examples.
It’s also not a “meme”, or “hyperbole”. That is literally what you have to do today and in near term with an AVP or meta Quest etc- strap a heat generating, heavy, sometimes fan cooled (AVP) computer across your face.
I mean, teams/zoom gets me 99% of the way there. I can see people, read lips. What do I gain from a "virtual environment"? Because I can already talk to people all over the world, right now. And they can share their screen and stuff. It's a pretty good system.
Business meetings in headsets is just completely delusional. It is one of the dumbest tech ideas of all time.
AVP doesn't need the webcam on.
"Inside" it, your avatar could be anywhere wearing whatever, no bed pillows, PJs, or family creeping not-so-stealthily behind you.
The barrier to using a webcam is already lower, and people routinely refuse to do it.