Low-pixel displays can't replace high-pixel displays (yet). It's all about the speed your head can move, vs. the speed your eyes can move, vs. the speed your display can refresh.
As a simple test, try holding your head still while moving your eyes back and forth ten times, from one extreme of your FOV to the other. Then try moving your head back and forth ten times to see things beyond your FOV on each side. Two observations when I try this: (1) the eye movement was much faster than the head movement; (2) the head movement was much more tiring.
In fact, eye movement is the fastest thing we can do, and even uses special circuits to reduce latency:
"Saccades are the fastest movements produced by the human body. The peak angular speed of the eye during a saccade reaches up to 900°/s in humans; in some monkeys, peak speed can reach 1000°/s. ... Under certain laboratory circumstances, the latency of, or reaction time to, saccade production can be cut nearly in half (express saccades). These saccades are generated by a neuronal mechanism that bypasses time-consuming circuits and activates the eye muscles more directly."[1]
Head movement apparently maxes out at 500°/s or so, and that's not comfortable to keep up for long. So it's at least twice as fast to access high-resolution information by eye movement as to access the same information at lower res by turning your head. That's the tradeoff between using a fixed monitor at your max comfortable resolution, and using a lower-res head-mounted display.
At the same time, a fixed display (for now) allows you to move your head more rather than less while reading comfortably. A head-mounted display has to update the display in response to your head movement, and a fixed display doesn't.
As a test here, see how fast you can move your head back and forth while reading text on your fixed display. Then see how fast you can move back and forth while reading on your DK2. The second will be slower, because the Oculus has to impersonate a pixel on your virtual display by juggling which physical pixels are used to render it as your head turns. In addition to further throwing away resolution by aliasing your virtual display onto your real display (the virtual text has to look sharp regardless of how it happens to overlap with physical pixels), this means the refresh rate is a limiting factor on how fast you can turn your head and still read. The text which was crisp while your head was still is physically blurred before it even gets to your eye, because the Oculus can't quite keep up with where it should be. That stops being a factor at, say, 1000hz, but we're not there yet.[2]
So on a fixed display, you can actually move and stretch your neck and turn your head without affecting the reading experience; on a virtual display, those movements will blur the text you're trying to read.
I'm very excited about all of the things VR can be -- just saying that one thing it can't be, yet, is a replacement for a high-resolution monitor when you're trying to quickly access lots of text.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade [2] http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/down-the-vr-rabbit-hol...
There is a virtual space 10 times bigger than 27" monitor, but it's only in my head, and I have no need to see it in 3D space.
But that's because I work in this space every day, I know all filenames by memory, I always know exactly where I wanna go, and type cmd+t followed by filename automatically.
This VR idea is like flying through places, but you don't need that if you can teleport.
I can't imagine this being useful in day-to-day programming, but definitely would use it for discovering an unknown project.
It's not, didn't you watch the video? You don't fly, you sit still. Even if you would want to move your virtual presence, I'll guarantee you that the computer can teleport you faster than your brain can, not that I think that would be comfortable..
Anyway, I'm glad that you're happy, so by all means stay happy.
And then there is the problem of you brain can think about things that aren't actually done, yet. Computers can certainly help in this regard, but they are more about sharing something that was done in a different way. Consider walking through a house. Sure, a computer can let you walk through one that hasn't been built physically, yet. I'd wager skilled architects can imagine walking through one that hasn't even been built virtually yet.
And, finally, there is the problem of thinking about data structures that are literally gigabytes in size. I have a hard enough time thinking about ones that are megabytes in size. I'm not entirely sure accurately visualizing large instances would really even help.
once you're familiar with your dev environment, you don't need to have it floating around in VR space. Its all memorized pretty much, instant access, L1 cache. so to look at something in VR you turn your head and the view pans. To look at it in your brain, its just there, instant lookup.
one requires a transition in space to access information (flying) the other does not (teleportation)
Though as the other guy brought up, I guess it may not be the most natural way to read text if you have to actually move your neck, but it may be decent enough that you could adapt to it. And thus, you could write code on the train/bus to work from your phone (at least, until someone mugs you and steals your expensive phone VR setup heh).
To a degree. But I when I work I have two WQHD monitors (2560x1440) with one turned on its side so I have one text editor with a vertical resolution of 2560. When ever I work on a laptop, even an HD laptop, I miss this setup so much as it feels like I am drinking through a straw.
Because of this I am unsure if VR, which is going to be much less than what I am working with now, is going to be a serious replacement.
I think pixel density is what people want - to make full use of that 3240p you would have to move your head quite considerably, to make use of a large monitor from 75cm away doesn't need nearly so much head movement.
It's what I want and am hoping for, but the current DK2 is in no way usable for this
edit: ah I see, I hadn't factored in the warping of the optics, if you're correct then the effective resolution would only be around 900p so I'm being too optimistic :)
The display technology and software is still a long way away however.
OP here. Well, I'm a bit more optimistic. Oculus now has ties with Samsung's display manufacturing, relationships with Nvidia and Facebook's cash. I wouldn't be surprised if they become the driving force behind high-density 5" displays and graphics horsepower in the next few years.
need some new/better input devices in addition to jey oard to manipulate the objects in the space.
does the oculus have a "axis lock" feature of some sort? foe instance, lock X so that any head movements only change the users camera along x?
Note that in the video there's just one editing window, in an IDE obviously there could be editing windows and references all around you. You would never need a mouse as your head movements convey positional information, though you can use a mouse of course, and with good keyboard controls I think you can have an editing space ten times as big as the traditional dual 27" monitors give you.
No more hiding buffers in tabs, no more disruptions of flow as you're scrolling through your buffers looking for the right one. You just access the visual memory in your brain to intuively remember where you left the buffers you use.
Also, the idea that this would somehow be bad for your neck sounds ludicrous to me, how is staring for hours at a stationary rectangle with miniature information more natural and easy for your neck muscles than having information spread around you in even spacing at a comfortable virtual distance? I think it's going to be a relief for nearly everyone.