> Debian neither endorses nor prohibits the use of generative AI tools in the development, maintenance, or documentation of software, packaging, documentation, and other media published within the Debian Project.
Steam Frame has black and white passthrough but it's not good enough for AR. They sell a third party's passthrough camera as an add-on though which is $130 I think and clips on the front. Since the Frame runs open Linux with KDE this is really interesting to me.
I had to scroll to the bottom to realize that this had absolutely nothing to do with Unreal Engine or Epic. There's no reason to think that Epic wouldn't have an "Unreal Labs" creating harnesses to help them with software engineering.
This plainly seems like a trademark issue in progress considering it's in the same exact domain and considering how many others were confused the way I probably was.
I liked the 3D effects on the homepage of unreal labs https://unreallabs.ai/ - so I was sure it's related to 3D engine makers, and of course great idea to have an agent for that too.
Unreal is trademarked. This is not in question. And personally I 100% thought this was an agent specifically for dealing with the Unreal Engine, and was interpreting all of that information in that context. Very weird name for a company/product.
Same. Specially given how some harnesses connect with blender for 3D asset generation and creating real 3D worlds like those architecture examples but many of the 1-shot game examples too.
>Computer software, namely, game engine software for video game development and operation; Computer software, namely, software development tools for the creation of computer-generated imagery and graphics for the production of video games; Computer software, namely, software development tools for the creation of computer-generated imagery and graphics for the production of content for virtual worlds and 3D platforms; Computer software, namely, software development tools for the creation of computer-generated imagery and graphics for the production of motion pictures, television shows, videos, 3D animations, 3D simulations, 3D visualizations, virtual reality motion pictures, virtual reality television shows; Computer software, namely, software development tools for the creation of computer-generated imagery and graphics for the production of virtual reality video games; Virtual reality game software; Virtual reality software for creating multimedia content; Augmented reality game software; Augmented reality software for use in mobile devices for integrating electronic data with real world environments for the purposes of entertainment
Maybe if UnrealLabs were a banana company. But they are a software company. The trademark they have on "Unreal" is for computer software and lists a bunch of domains related to the software development of video games/3d models.
My Volkswagen has ChatGPT and I've used it exactly once, and Android Auto has been pushing Gemini which makes my usual voice commands "play X on Spotify" take longer or fail as it misinterprets the results.
I ran into this too. It blew my mind that I could run Linux just fine but I couldn't even install Windows because it had no wifi driver and it wouldn't install without a network connection.
I tried putting the driver files on a USB stick but the Windows installer refused to recognize those.
As an Australian I can say that for me personally the free energy periods have been amazing and are an example of the functional free markets making life better for the average person.
No, Australis ai a perfect example. Australia has an average electricity cost of close to 0.3 USD / kwh. That's not cheap. It's not clean either at 525g co2/kwh. The US is 0.19 USD / kwh and 384g co2/kwh. France is 0.22 USD/kwh and 41g co2 / kwh.
Here in Queensland the state owns the regional electricity company, Ergon. ∴ most of what they do that doesn't generate money (such as doing free electricity rather than charging for it) is taxpayer-funded.
Even though the power here (North Central Queensland) isn't too expensive, Ergon is run with an aim to make a profit [1] [2] even if the last few years more infrastructure seems to be needing repairs due to changes in weather conditions and or replacing ancient old or relatively new poor quality wooden poles.
Given the power here has periods where it barely goes a day without blinking out, or line repairs that can take almost 2 days now after a somewhat mild storm, there's been a large uptake of solar power panels, those that knew hooked up Island style where they can feed in their own small generator to take advantage of the panels during the day if there was no grid power, more recently batteries have become more affordable, making installation worthwhile.
The Company’s profit after income tax equivalent expense was $80.919 million for the year (2023: $225.754 million loss).
Revenue from sales of electricity is higher when compared to 2023 due to an increase in notified prices as published by the
Queensland Competition Authority in 2024. Residential and small business tariff rates increased significantly for 2024 with price rises of 29 percent and 27 percent respectively. Large business tariff rates rose between seven and 17 percent. Expenses are marginally lower compared to 2023 predominantly due to a reduction in fair value losses. More stable electricity trading conditions contributed to lower market movements on forward electricity derivative contracts.
This is one of the main selling points for me. I threw my CV1 in the trash when facebook required a login. I want to see what OpenXR apps are like. Is freecad and blender usable? I want to tinker with gaussian splatting. When finger tracking starts to develop can I reasonably use it for input without controllers? Could this ever be a practical replacement for a six monitor desk?
Also, my simracing seat has been very lonely. I'm so happy that there is an HMD running arch that gives the user root.
Blender works in VR (using any OpenXR compatible headset). To view scenes in VR, you can use the free built-in VR Scene Inspector addon. To edit and create scenes in VR, you can use the Freebird XR addon for Blender (https://freebirdxr.com/).
Fingers crossed for OpenXR working properly in Steam Frame! In which case Blender and other OpenXR-compatible apps will work too.
Disclaimer: I'm the author of Freebird XR, a VR editing addon for Blender.
far from claiming they are as low as meta, but that is their business model which never gets mentioned in this comparison, leaving readers to confuse gabe newel with RMS as some freedom authority
DRM isn't really the story with Valve. Their business model is offer good service. Part of that is not being hostile to users. Users don't want to be spied on and have their data sold, so Valve doesn't do that. People want autonomy over their hardware, so they give them that. It's even in their marketing material for the steam machine. The frame is a computer running arch. If you want to 100% opt out of Steam and write your own driver stack, they're not standing in your way. That is uniquely pro-user and freedom in the tech industry. Also, their open source initiatives with proton and fex should not be discounted.
If there's a morally grey stone to turn over then imo it's the not-gambling-wink-microtransactions and even then it's no more predatory than what is common in the gaming industry.
There is a real danger if Valve ever gets sold in bad hands - the only hope is Gabe Newell living long enough or find a good successor who can continue having a majority stake in the company.
valve service is terrible!
they just have first mover monopoly advantage. absolutely fan boyism thinking they have good service.
steam was and always will be awful. they just publish whatever the game studio sends them. try installing gta V from steam... you get Two Launchers besides steam! all three ad ridden.
As much as I like gog and their game distribution model and buy most games there, this is a huge exaggeration and actually false. A game studio/publisher does not have to use DRM in steam and many of them don't. Examples are Larian (baldur's gate 3), cd project red (witcher, cyberpunk), and quite a few small and big studios that don't. Basically afaik most games that are in both gog and steam don't have DRM in steam. DRM is far from steam's fault, it is game studios/publishers that have pushed that, long before steam too.
And the built-in Steam DRM is laughably easy to bypass once you've bought the game, IIRC - just a small thing that responds with fake user id + license status.
No, EA etc decide to ship adware launchers and steam distributes them.
Plenty studios do not ship adware launchers, and steam does not inject adware into them or anything. Even if steam gets percentage from the ads or whatever (I dont even know if this is the case) EA anyway ships the same adware outside steam.
I do not like this but let's blame it to the ones actually doing it, than the ones that dont oppose it.
Valves bread and butter has been their distribution channel. Before Valve, there was no major player that provided a seamless gaming download experience. Anyone who’ve gamed in early 2000s understand the pain point of downloading and correctly installing patches from a daemon site.
Their model is DRM, but they have no vendor lock-in (in theory, at least). You can use a Valve product (or non-valve product) and never use Steam, or use Steam on any of the 3 major OS's. You can't say the same for an apple product.
I say in theory because yes: Steam in reality has a monopoly in the PC gaming market. And while many games are on multiple stores, odds are many games will only be on Steam. That's a more invisible hand form of a walled garden, but there's definitely an argument to be made there.
Valve’s DRM is just about the least invasive and easiest to crack DRM systems on the market. The only way to be less invasive is to not have DRM at all. Obviously that’s preferable, but Valve’s setup is one that keeps publishers on the platform: provide a basic DRM system and allow publishers to add more if they want. If you don’t like what someone like Ubisoft does on the platform you’ve got plenty of other options (and third party DRM is clearly labeled within Steam).
I don’t think people see Gabe Newell the way you describe. They just appreciate that Valve makes business decisions that have basic respect for their customer base. They are fully aware that he’s a billionaire yacht aficionado.
Capitalism and likability are not mutually exclusive, it’s just that so many capitalists have taken the route of maximizing serfdom.
> Valve’s DRM is just about the least invasive and easiest to crack DRM systems on the market.
In fact, their own documentation spells this out specifically[0]:
> The Steam DRM wrapper by itself is not an anti-piracy solution. The Steam DRM wrapper protects against extremely casual piracy (i.e. copying all game files to another computer) and has some obfuscation, but it is easily removed by a motivated attacker.
Being able to comfortably sit back / lie down and work is an interesting proposition. The Apple Vision Pro is too bulky and expensive to carry that whole category on its own, they need an 'Android equivalent'. But I think Apple messed this up by creating an absolute patent minefield (some 5k patents for AVP features iirc).
I'm looking forward to the day when we can implant a chip in our neck that will override the senses. Imagine having your body doing a hard workout session while your mind was at work or on vacation
If you think this is a joke and humanity can’t be that evil then look up the the „Brookes Ship“
> Brookes was reportedly allowed to stow 454 African captives, by allowing a space of 6 feet (1.8 m) by 1 foot 4 inches (0.41 m) to each man, 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) by 1 foot 4 inches (0.41 m) to each woman, and 5 feet (1.5 m) by 1 foot 2 inches (0.36 m) to each child. However, the poster's text alleges that a slave trader confessed that before the Act, Brookes had carried as many as 609 captives at one time.
That's the samsung galaxy xr which is cheaper and lighter but it's not good enough run high resolution content for long periods without thermal throttling
The thing is, the AVP has a ton of quality-of-life features, eg relating to gestures, and most of them locked behind patents. Looks like we'll have to wait 20 years before other devices will be able to match it (or whatever the expiry date is on those patents).
Step 1: Someone builds hardware with lots of capabilities because of the hardware it includes, even if they aren't capitalized on by the manufacturer or the software provider. Importantly, it's easy to run your own hardware on it.
Step 2: Open source projects implement whatever they want. Preferably, they provide a framework that allows high extensibility, if the software provider didn't already.
Step 3: People download and install open source plugins that violate stupid patents. It's still a patent violation, but as long as the people providing it aren't profiting monetarily, the ability to recoup damages from lost profits or royalties is very hard.
There's some nuance there, and different ways it could (and should) be done to avoid most consequences, but not so long ago (maybe still?) people commonly combined codecs and software from different parties for ffmpeg, which to get around some issues with distribution refused to compile the source and provide a binary, because that would make them a target, but just the source didn't (to a greater or lesser degree).
Where there's a will there's a way, and if a company is going to obtain stupidly simple patents which they often claim is to keep other companies at bay, we can put that to the test. If they go after individuals for usage, pressure them.
If we're lucky, what we're seeing is an ebb and flow between open source and the companies that capitalize on it, and we're in the ebb. I'm hoping for the flow.
In this case however, many of the patents have a hardware element to them. Gaze+tap is powered by an inside camera to track eye movements and a Lidar sensor at the bottom of the rim for motion detection. Not sure your playbook would work out there.
That's the "someone builds hardware with lots of capabilities because of the hardware it includes" aspect. The patent isn't on including a camera and lidar, it's how they're combined and used, and that's often software, or can be emulated at a cost in software. As a manufacturer you can't be sued for including non-patented hardware components that have other uses. Foveated rendering uses inside cameras too. Lidar sensors are useful for better hand and spatial tracking overall. Combining them with software that performs a specific purpose utilizing them is what seems to be patented here.
Well, I hope you're going to be right. My gut feeling, however, is that putting all the little bits that make up the AVP experience together would already have been too much to ask from other manufacturers in the absence of any patents. Just like how we can't seem to get Mac-quality hardware from other manufacturers even at Apple's (somewhat ridiculous) price points (and I say that as someone who doesn't like Apple for its proprietary practices). So the chances that someone is going to deliver a similar quality product, or arguably we'd require something even better (less bulky), in the hope of some gray-zone playbook to work out, don't seem great.
> Just like how we can't seem to get Mac-quality hardware from other manufacturers
I don't have too much experience with them, but I thought the ultrabook category was the answer of the rest of the market to the Air, at least.
I'm not sure the problem is that nobody makes the quality hardware, but that maybe it's just as pricey and that nobody trusts the companies that do the same as they do Apple to buy it at a large premium. Many companies have the ability to put together something of a similar quality and sell it (even if not at quite the profit, still probably some profit), but are you going to trust an Asus or MSI product that costs the same as the equivalent Apple product to have the same quality? Perception is important here. MSI or Asus could put out something better than Apple if they wanted to and didn't care about the cost, but I doubt anyone would actually believe that it was better even if they did (and even if they like it initially, they may suspect it won't hold up over time). Such is the power of the brand Apple has built, and that's in many ways more important than the actual quality they provide.
That’s how it works with the Quest 3 on an updated OS. If you’re using hand tracking then you gaze + tap thumb and finger together to select, or pinch and hold to grab a corner for resizing or a border for dragging.
That’s not how it works, there is no gaze support. I just double checked and couldn’t find it in any Accessibility or Experimental settings. Apologies for the misinfo.
(Also no inward-facing cameras ofc)
What I was thinking of was on iPhone. It was Eye Tracking + Dwell for selecting.
Hands act as a pointer on the Quest, with a pinch action to select and drag.
afaik the AVP has a dedicated Lidar sensor for gesture detection. I'd say Apple has managed to patent more basic stuff than that (pinch-to-zoom, rounded corners,...)
Oh, that'd make sense. I think the quest 3 has a depth sensor, but they mostly use that for room setup. I don't even think it has IR emitters for low light.
But that's the age old question about patents, if they're being granted too much they stifle innovation and competition instead of the opposite... (which is the point you were making as well).
On the quest 3, I've felt like the screen is just a bit too low res to use comfortably as a monitor anyways, so I imagine the Frame won't be much different. The better weight distribution should help a lot though.
The question here is whatever Steam Frame displays resolution is sufficient to work with text. So far only mass produced device that was really suitable is a Vision Pro.
So far all reviews I've seen been centered around gaming and not work.
It is said that human eyes can resolve down to 1 minute of arc(1 MOA or 1/60 degrees). Each eye has about 160 degrees of HFOV and 125 degrees of VFOV.
From there, you can work out requisite resolution for desktop replacing VR googles: 11K per eye.
The catch is that human eyes actually only have
~1 degree of full resolution area and ~30 degree of active area, and the full 200 degree HFOV is only realized by moving them around and subconsciously compositing images, so most of panels can bee left unlit, in theory.
But the panel resolution requirements is the same, and our technologies are just not there to make a true desktop replacement VR goggle, yet.
For me personally the Quest 3 is absolutely unusable for any text work. Even small font in games looks shitty. This is so far off for what it ought to be for comfortable work that I'll wait for devices with at least double the resolution per axis, i.e. 4x the pixels of the Quest 3 screens to even bother trying again.
Edit: And I'm writing this on a 32" 2560x1440 display which looks just dandy to me, so it's not like I'm super sensitive or have above average eyesight (quite the opposite actually)
I have tried this in the past and it wasn’t nearly sharp enough but I guess I see people using 1080p screens at work and those make me want to rip my eyeballs out.
I guess from the comments we can draw conclusion that its different to everyone.
I had Quest 3 for a few months to play games and I feel okay playing, but every time I tried to open IDE and terminal after 10 minutes my brain just say full stop. I tried different fonts, themes and zoom levels, but it just feel wrong.
I feel similar feeling of discomfort as if I try to work on something not in computer in low light in real world. Might be it have something to do with my bad eyesight.
I honestly did not tested AVP enough. Its just good enough for me not to immediately want to stop using it, but again I have no idea what would really happen after a week of use for 3 hours. I did it once for a few hours and it felt amazing, but its Apple and there lots of other reasons not to buy their locked down hardware.
> every time I tried to open IDE and terminal after 10 minutes my brain just say full stop.
I'm wondering if it is because the screen was "flat" in front of you and you had no possibility to change your perspective. It would be interesting if the IDE had been in 3D space and you would look at it as if it was on your desk, capturing head movements etc.
This is certainly interesting idea, but I guess main problem isnt just UX and representation on 2D surface, but just pure amount of text data that you suppose to look at and understand what exactly it does.
When you have fiction or game dialogue text there is good bunch skimming going on so you dont care about every single symbol and or digit. So eyes dont get stuck looking at specific parts of text.
So yeah its very much possible that using VR as a virtual monitor setup it's just wrong aproach and there have to be paradigm shift in how we interact with dev environment to use it efficiently in VR.
For me it's more that flights are extremely boring. I find watching any movies or TV shows on a plane to be a horrible experience. The noise of the plane can ruin even the best of movies.
Maybe better for a train; the benefit is that when you unfold your bike for the last mile, you just put your work into partial transparency and navigate using the external cameras.
Also only possible if you've got a power outlet (Surprisingly even today many long haul flights do not) as its only got just over an hour of battery life.
It has a 21.6 Wh battery. You can easily get a power bank 3+ times this capacity, thus can last 4x longer. If anything, I would rather have that weight in my pocket or backpack than on my head, all things considered.
Anecdotal, but on the last few flights that I've taken. I was told that you can use them, but you can't charge them on the flight. This was inside the US, American Airlines, and United. I can't speak to the other airlines.
In constrained plane environments https://github.com/vk2diy/hackbook-m4-mini works well and has long battery life. I fix the screen to the seat using adapted helping hands and use a wireless keyboard/mouse for input. Super comfy as long as your eyes can deal with the reduced distance (look down the aisle occasionally).
Magnifying style shop glsssed might actually be perfect for this. I use them for electronics repair (they also only focus close which is sort of a benefit here). Downside for me is they fit in a way that is too high (they are designed for looking straight ahead) that would be great for this
Using it while flying will be complicated by the fact that all airlines have banned the use of power banks. If the onboard USB socket isn't very powerful then you'll only get an hours' use.
I can confirm that all the flights I have been on this year we were told not to use power banks. You can have one with you (well you have to since you're not allowed to check large lithium ion batteries) but you aren't allowed to actively use it.
I've flown on half a dozen different airlines this year and all have had exactly the same stance: no power banks in checked luggage, and if they're in hand luggage you must be able to see them at all times (not in overhead storage).
You're also not allowed to use them even if you do have them with you. This is all very strictly enforced with reminders at the check-in desk and several announcements before take-off.
100 W sockets? All the flights I've been on that provided power have had a really low current USB A port that can barely keep my phone from discharging when the screen is on.
Looking at the vendor page for that 5K colour camera, the page directly says they only support Windows and macOS. :( :( :(
> The Arcturus Vision apps include Arcturus Vision Camera for recording and playing 5K HDR spatial video, Arcturus Vision Gaussian XR for exploring 3D Gaussian splats, and Sync for transferring recordings to Windows or Mac (with conversion for other players on Mac).
It's an open Linux box, using standard interfaces. You can use ffmpeg and scp to transcode and transfer, or whatever else you're comfortable with. Even if Arcturus provided an app, most Linux users probably wouldn't use it.
I agree except for disparaging the AVP as not being a real computer while the steam frame is.
One lets you one-tap download native Microsoft Office, one runs it through a browser or via bespoke vm/wine configuration.
Instead, I'd say the difference is that both are consumer devices, AVP geared primarily toward computing while steam frame is geared primarily toward gaming, but the steam frame is open enough for you to develop upon and customize to meet whatever use case you desire.
The issue is that magnifying the screens to fill your vision makes reasonably sized text very hard to read. You have to make the entire screen/text in front of you fairly large to make it legible. There are many other headsets with identical resolution panels, you can find this info everywhere
To be fair there because most of the submissions about Windows are negative ones, which means the comments are either "Windows sucks" or "I'm glad I stopped using Windows"
The last time I remember hearing positive news about Windows was the Win 7 launch.
I recently wiped Windows off my wife's machine after the last straw broke with Windows - it gave her a full screen prompt after a reboot that forced her back to Edge and copied all of her local documents to OneDrive.
She only plays a handful of games and browses the web, Bazzite was a no-brainer replacement.
That OneDrive thing was what convinced me to finally get rid of Windows. I bought a new machine, copied my old desktop over, and only then realized all my tax returns and other sensitive documents had been copied to a Microsoft server somewhere.
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