"The technology is essentially a failure" is in the headline of this article. I have to disagree with that. For the first time in the history of the UNIVERSE, an entity exists that can converse in human language at the same level that humans can.
But that's me being a sucker. Because in reality this is just a clickbait headline for an article basically saying that the tech won't fully get us to AGI and that the bubble will likely pop and only a few players will remain. Which I completely agree with. It's really not that profound.
This is an advertisement. And it would be a better advertisement if it started by actually explaining what the products are, instead of diving immediately into a woe is me pitch and then abruptly pivoting to black friday deals.
The Steam Frame shows a lot of promise in terms of letting people play games on a massive virtual screen. But with the hardware, even more is possible. I hope they are working on a compatibility layer that allows 2D games to be rendered in 3D, like the 3D TV of the 2010s. In my opinion that would be a killer app.
Not sure if this is what you had in mind: Projected 2D views into a 3D "movie screen" environment is a feature of the Frame, per my understanding of their marketing, and of early reviewers' experiences.
If you meant, "do they take 2D render frames from videogames and convert them into pseudo-3d or actual 3d where the user can tilt their head to see a different view INTO the 2D game's universe, e.g. see behind bushes just by tilting head", then "no".
Stereoscopy is definitely possible, but it would be hard to hack it in without developer cooperation. I don't really see it happening for most flatscreen titles.
FWIW though, SteamVR already supports playing non-VR games on a "projected" display using any regular headset. It's not exclusive to the Frame, nor a future feature!
There are rumours that they are working on this, but I assume they've chosen to keep the exact software experience of the Frame under wraps for now. It would certainly make the experience of gaming on a giant virtual screen even better!
I mean like an official Valve fork of VorpX that works just as well as Proton. I have not had the best experiences with VorpX. But it becomes a much easier problem if you have standardized hardware and software.
I think it's a lot simpler than what you describe. The most important thing is to maximize enjoyment. Obviously a lot of factors go into this but at the end of the day the end goal is to enjoy your life as much as possible.
It depends a lot on how you're wired, of course. Enjoyment maximization for some people might be getting married, having a bunch of kids, being the head of a household. For others it might be accomplishing career goals or financial milestones. For others it might be adventure, to seek out new experiences, etc.
The biggest trap you can fall into is living life by the standards of others instead of your own enjoyment. That's what would likely lead to regret. I'd say to some extent (for me at least) there is a local optima to be reached where you aren't the subject of ridicule by others, but beyond that you need to take a firm stance towards identifying what brings you the most enjoyment and pursuing that relentlessly.
That's a question that only you can answer! For me personally I'd rather live a long life and see where technology and society goes. For a guy like Hunter S. Thompson, for instance, the other choice was preferable.
Probably a stupid question but if rocket launches really became as commonplace as airplane flights, would we see some kind of increase in global temperatures?
The short answer is yes. Airplanes account for 2.5% of CO2 emissions and rockets use massively more fuel than airplanes per flight (falcon 9 is ~10x fuel capacity of a 737).
But this is an insane scenario because there are about 100,000 commercial flights per day in the world. In all of 2024 there were ~250 orbital launches. So to hit the same rate as airplanes it would require a ~150,000x increase in the launch rate (or a ~15,000x increase to equal the CO2 emissions of airplanes).
I can’t see that happening for centuries, if ever. And if we haven’t figured out a way to deal with global warming in a few centuries the number of space launches and airline flights will probably both be zero.
They also disrupt ozone layers and leave combustion byproducts in the trail. CO2 raises temperature but dusts reduce temperature, idk which of those effects are dominant or if it makes sense to mandate an additive or something.
Not stupid at all. Definitely yes. Don't have the numbers on hand but it's orders of magnitude more CO2-equivalent released per kg-mile, especially when you factor in the fact that they are using methane.
Of course the reality is that this tech won't ever see adoption used that widely, but where is the break-even point?
Full flow staged combustion engines like Starships do not have significant un-burnt methane. They run slightly fuel-rich, but that results in extra CO emissions rather than CH4 due to the temperatures involve -- methane cracks at 1200C, Starship engine temperature is 3000C.
Starship's operations in Boca Chica do emit methane during ground operations. The mitigation for that is to use a pipeline rather than trucks for delivery.
Solid rocket motors emit all sorts of nasty stuff, like aluminum particles.
Completely agree with Cal but this just isn't going to happen. People's livelihoods depend on these platforms. They're extremely addictive. If one side retreats it only amplifies the voice of the other side. The only way something like a mass exodus from these platforms is possible is through legislation. But the platforms are so powerful and well funded and well lobbied that this is next to impossible. Expect things to get worse before they get better (if they do in fact eventually get better).
The addiction to these platforms is real in the younger generation. I try to reduce their screen time, they resist it, they claim they need it to relax.
Man, I'm so glad I was born in the era where kids just played video games instead of this crap. I feel my brain is better off for having sunk so many hours into video games... whereas the modern generation is walking away with deep propaganda brainrot and no attention span.
Reminds me of the environment. Large companies would rather blame individuals for "not doing enough to save the planet", when in fact we'd be better off with coordinated, collective action through legislation.
Pretty sure you would lose any election where you proposed a fossil fuel tax large enough to cause people to give up their large lots and large cars and overseas vacations and cheap toys, even without any lobbying by any “large companies”.
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