Hyphen-ated comments on New Year's Prediction Thread (2014) - Less Wrong
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The problem with all this 3d headwear seems, to me at least, to be that they don't really offer any substantial improvement over a monitor and mouse. Our brains don't need stereoscopic displays to percieve a 3d world. Our brains are very very good at building up a 3d representation of a world from just a 2d image (something that comes in very handy in the real world when one of your eyes is closed or non-functioning). And moving around a 3d world with your hand seems to be about the same, if not easier, level of difficulty than moving around with your neck. And the main disadvantage with headwear is discomfort.
I'd give the Oculus Rift a 50% chance of success.
At least augmented reality headwear (such as google glass or the very amazing Meta Spaceglasses: https://www.spaceglasses.com/ ) have something to offer that can't be had by a traditional monitor. However, it still remains to be seen how much people will actually desire those things. I can definitely imagine the Spaceglasses being widely used by creative professions.
EDIT: Changed 'fatigue' to 'discomfort'.
The big advantage over a monitor is immersion. When I tried out an oculus rift I felt like I was inside the virtual space in a way that I've never felt while playing FPSes on a monitor. That's not a small thing.
Another advantage is that it increases how many input axes you have. Think of games where you're flying a spaceship or driving a car and you can freely look in all directions while controlling your vehicle with both hands. That's impossible on a standard monitor.
It's not impossible. Games frequently allow you to use the arrow keys to move around while using the mouse to change the view direction (or vice versa).
I know that; I've played FPSes with that control layout for thousands of hours. I said "while controlling your vehicle with both hands" which means, for example, with a steering wheel, a throttle+joystick, or a keyboard+mouse with the mouse controlling something besides camera angle.