Amanda Watson, the engineer who pioneered the AirLink and several other technologies for Oculus, was hired at Valve.
An article about her work at Oculus and Meta: XR Update
No Frame today, it looks like.
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126 replies
Nice! 2 hours ago in case anyone was wondering how old the screenshot is.
Thank you!
Social media's use of time since posting of timestamps is so frustrating.
Yes, but it makes sense in relation to other posts. It is just frustrating after longer period of time then a few minutes or hours, or when screenshot like this.
The layouts generally have room to state time in relation and the actual time. Even a simple date would be better than only relational. Most hide the real time in a hover over or click on the relational time whoch isn't captured in a screenshot.
Social media screenshots are so common it is time to update to show both be default.
But then it wouldn’t drive you crazy, and you wouldn’t sign up and find the post just to find out the actual time
And if you don’t make the conversion then that’s basically stealing /s ^but not really, they actually think like this^
I think the compromise is a visual indicator of age - color or an icon indicating recency, in addition to a good old fashioned date timestamp.
I'm not a fan of coloring for age of post. Usually the compromise is, when mouse hover it will show the actual date in a on hover popup. How about when clicking the time it changes to a timestamp (and back) or while mouse is hovering / touching the time it changes on the fly (without any hover tip, Edit: I just realized that most people don't use a mouse on their phone :D also this would require dynamic changing with JavaScript).
I would so much rather just have a full timestamp. I can do the delta fine myself.
And most of the time I’m just using the delta to get to the timestamp.
It makes perfect sense when using the website. The problem isn’t the timestamp, it’s the lazy people who share fuzzy inaccessible screenshots instead of links.
it makes sense to include the time passed since posting, yes
doesn't make much sense to not include the date and time posted
But that’s perfectly fine if you’re not screen grabbing and posting elsewhere?
So then what you’re saying is it’s not fine. Cause screenshots of Twitter is basically all the internet is these days.
no, it's not just show me the damn time it was posted. I hate when only relative information is given.
I was wondering that!
I thought the Steam Frame was going to be available "soon", so it came as a bit of a surprise that they just hired someone to work on it.
They did release dramatic updates to the Steam Deck post release. Worked out well for that, no reason they'd stop.
I wish I could have a cool job like that instead of this soul crushing one I've ended up with
I wish I could have a job…
I’m going on 20 months of unemployment.
My dude, I wish you nothing but the best of luck. It’s hell out there, but don’t let it get to you. You’re worth it and will find what you need.
Jobs at Valve or Meta are very demanding and people can usually only cope with it if your life is your job and the many hours don‘t feel like working. These people are obsessed with what they are doing. It can be very soul crushing if you either loose that passion or want to have a life outside your job (like friends, a romantic partner, a time intensive hobby etc.).
Any source for that?
Note: I am not saying this is bad practice. These companies try to offer you the best work environment and a very good salary. If you like working then this right for you and it will not necessarily feel like work. Also things might have changed in the last few years at Meta.
I just listened to https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/ruff-talk-vr/id1568389515?i=1000610060284
She is definitely very passionate and obsessed about working on VR tech doing it in her freetime for month presumably years even after she left Meta.
Good for her. Valve doesn't run on the same talent recycling process you see in much of the industry. They're small and retain talent.
I agree with the sentiment, and I'm sure Valve are one of the better companies to work for, so I'm happy for her...
But Valve aren't small.
They ARE the PC gaming industry. They generate billions in revenue and control something like 75% of the global PC distribution market. I know they keep trying to sell themselves as just a small company, because they're a small internal team, but I really wish they'd snap out of it and scale up a bit to match their market. Especially when talking about their hardware side. I live in New Zealand, and the number of conversations I've had with people who have gone to some pretty extreme lengths to get a hold of Valve hardware is ridiculous. I'm not even talking about the new stuff, I mean the damn Steam Deck. I find it incredibly frustrating to hear people refer to them as a small company. Jolla is a small company. Valve is not.
Anyway, sorry, /rant
Small was in regards to the number of people they employ. Valve runs a lean ship of a few hundred.
Neither Jolla nor Valve are small companies, 200 and 350 (ish) employees respectively. But company size has nothing to do with revenue or profit, it's literally just people on the payroll and a cutoff of your choosing.
I don't think it's really fare to compare the distribution capabilities of a hardware company vs a software/service company, though. And doesn't this hiring kind of imply they're expanding their hardware side?
From employee count they both would easily fit the legal US definition of a small business, as that's usually 500 or fewer, but can be as high as 1500 in some industries, depends what they'd be classified as.
Some are just directly about revenue too, so you could in theory be too big to be a small business even if it's just a single person - and by that standard, Valve is obviously not fit to be a small business.
Whoa, I think in many other countries it's small upto 50. 500 feels so high - the ceo wouldn't even know everyone.
I was being vague about the cutoff because Jolla isn't in the US and I didn't want to look up every country's definition lol
It's great if you can work for a company that hires the actual smart people instead of management.
Very cool! You known what would also be cool? Releasing the damn thing!
Given the current chip market there'd be a 400+ USD upcharge from the previously stated price of "below the (Valve) Index"
What's upcharge? Is that like updog?
What the fuck is updog?
Fuckin' not muchdog, what's up with you?
lol, nice one!
You're the best kind of person
Bestiality mostly
Sort of a synonym for markup, an additional cost on top of the original planned price.
I understood that reference
I can already run cyberpunk on my pc. I want this so I can now see it in VR in higher quality than my current headset, wirelessly, with a much less bulky format.
It might be outdated, but it won't be overpriced. Meta made it clear their next headset will not be subsidised. And Pico are saying their next headset will be a Apple Vision Pro competitor.
lol why would you try to compete with something that no one's buying
It's not overpriced if that's what components and comparable hardware costs now and in the future, it's just the new normal.
From the OEM standpoint no, but from the component standpoint the RAM makers are charging far more than the production cost and all of that certainly isn't going into new production
It's more than good enough for CPU imo but the GPU is going to really struggle. I think though most people just want onboard processing for the foveated streaming support and plan to use it with an actual PC, where I've heard the headset is extremely comfortable and lightweight despite what is then an overspecced processor
For standalone it should be faster than a Quest 3, so I think it's a stretch to call it outdated, it's still not great though
They have to finish HL3 first so that it has a launch title worthy of a new platform.
I am extremely hopeful about steam frame. Wikipedia says it will still run linux like steamdeck.
Ofc it’s going to run Linux, it’s default OS is going to be some variant of SteamOS
Eyup. ARM Linux.
This is what actually has me excited over it
If I can somehow afford a Steam Frame down the road, great! The real hype I'm feeling is in knowing we'll have Linux support for all sorts of mobile devices boosted by the advances they'll be supporting on the software side
https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/building-an-arch-linux-aarch64-port-for-holo-core.html
Meta's push towards virtual and augmented reality has clearly been a massive failure from the billions they invested into the "metaverse" only to come up with a shitty VRChat clone that lasted mere months. Meanwhile the only reason they're really in the news lately is because they stole Google's failed smart glasses concept, paired up with Ray-Ban and made the ultimate tool for creeps to record and harass women without their consent.
Valve are wise to poach their talent who have undoubtedly been throigh wave after wave of mass layoffs. The only other more significant hire they could have made other than Amanda would have been somehow bringing the fourth-dimensional being housed in a meatsuit known as John Carmack on board. But he's busy with AGI.
According to the article linked, she left Meta already in 2022 (anticipating the layoffs that followed soon after). Still a good talent for Valve to pick up now that they got into wireless VR with the Frame.
Just imagine Carmack at Valve.
Immediate singularity
I can't give you anything more than an upvote, so here's a positive comment on your insightfulness/accuracy +1
Wouldn't it be great if turning that giant valve actually did something. Like...I dunno, someone in the next room shouts "turn that back on right now !"
there should be a sign that says "Do not turn valve"
It shuts off all the water to the toilets.
I love it when people demolish stereotypes. Nice work.
What stereotypes?
That VR sucks maybe?
People with glasses can't work in VR!
That Half Life 3 isn't coming out
That engineers can't have awesome style obviously. Too long have we suffered under the burden that we all dress like dweebs, sometimes with a really bad attempt at dressing cool, but here she is actively challenging that stereotype
(But fr I absolutely love the skirt + leather jacket look and am making a note to try it at some point)
Exactly, what stereotypes indeed. Let them rot.
The ones with baseless assumptions from a bygone era.
So basically every stereotype.
You don't know any?
Ohhh! I like that!!! Fuck Meta!
Neat
Congratulations to her on getting the job
It's cool that she was hired. Let's hope more VR hardware is released from Valve in the near future.
I really think they need to do a Frame Lite that just does streaming. A 16GB ARM powered standalone device was probably a great idea two years ago, but now we have all this. *gestures to fucking everything*
Considering Valve's customer base, this is really what I expected out of the Frame. I find it odd that they focused on standalone compute alongside a novel streaming function (foveated streaming) when the two are mutually exclusive in gaming use.
Because translating x86 to ARM will kick Microsoft while they're already down. This is just the justification to the means.
Especially when they want to sell it alongside the Steam Machine.
I just want a movie watching device that makes it feel like I'm in a theater. So I guess I'm agreeing with you, how do we get this
Good for her. And for us!
Amanda after 15 mins: wait, don't we want to steal every piece of data of every user??
While the steam hardware survey is opt in, it is still data harvesting lol
True, but consent always makes things feel different.
Very elementary!
She is giving me Dr Who vibes in that photo.
Possibly a Whovian.
Has there been any news on some kind of proper VR desktop? Not a version of windows but something that is a new OS shell and can be used with a keyboard and allows task switching and using multiple VR apps at once?
did you forget that Linux exists?
It should definitely be on the basis of linux, but not really what I mean. I mean a UI OS shell optimized for VR and things like eye tracking and controllers and how to switch from controller to keyboard. This is like an unsolved problem afaik. Like IOS and android designed a new shell for a non-desktop platform. I read a bit about Apple Vision Pro how they designed their UI widgets with eye tracking in mind.
At the minimum I want to be able to play a VR game like Elite Dangerous and pull up a video chat panel or browser window / notepad to look up stuff without exiting the game.
reminds me of that one episode of community
Which one? It's been a while and I haven't seen the last season I think.
oooh sry cant remember the specific season/episode, but it revolved around the dean and superintendent getting hooked on a experimental vr operating system iirc
I guess this one: Community S6E02 Lawnmower Maintenance And Postnatal Care. I probably mean the exact opposite lol.
https://scifiinterfaces.com/2023/12/18/community-lawnmower-maintenance/
There are multiple such projects, for example: https://wiki.vronlinux.org/docs/fossvr/stardust/
But the same wiki mentions a few more.
The problem is that the hmd resolution isn't really good enough for reading small text.
Thanks! And yeah I expect higher resolution to be the real killer app for VR. Once you can actually replace a multi monitor setup with VR?
I was told the Apple headset's resolution is like the lower limit in resolution for that to work ok, so I guess those type of screens will come to more affordable HMDs some time in the future.
I think Macs Vison Pro was somewhat geared for productivity. Might be sorta what youre talking about.
Even valve is poachin' gee whilickers.
Now if they hire Guy Godin as well, the wireless VR dream team will be complete
Is it true that their only like 5 engineers (exaggerated obviously and rule all of valve code)?
Certainly not 3 🤷
4 is right out!
I reject the notion that technological advancement requires teams of hundreds of engineers.
That being said, the above statement is less and less true every year (look to physics atm), but VR still has a lot of low hanging fruit that need funding OR passion, not necessarily both
Depends what kind of technological advancement and what scale. New graphics tech for games? Sure, a small team might do better at communicating and getting features out quicker. A new, bigger kind of particle collider for high energy physics experiments? You need a good team just for one of the many of kinds of magnets, another just for a particular kind of detector, and so on for thousands of components (and advancements in software for all of the above) which need to be pushed forwards.
(I know you basically said as much, just wanted to expand on it a bit)
Cool!
Now get to work Amanda, the Internet demands more cool shit from Valve in exchange for money!
She has a lovely smile, I hope she enjoys her time there
She does! She should smile more! /s
Lemmy behavioral study, day #1105:
A person does not get crucified for having a blue checkmark if they are a girl engineer.
What is going on with her cheek? It is swollen and looks like she just had a tooth extracted.
Sometimes people have different faces than everyone else. It happens a lot, actually.
Source?
/sHey, I've found the target audience for the DLSS5 instagram filter!
It's just the lighting. Don't overthink it.
I mean, maybe she has? I doubt anyone here knows the answer lmao.
It's not, everything below her nose is symmetrical. Her hair is covering one side of the top half of her face.That and the light are making the bottom half of that side look bigger.
Ugh, I'm done. I feel gross for nitpicking a woman's appearance.
I don't see what the fuss and anger is all about. With ai fakes and distortions everywhere pointing out a problem with a photo shouldn't be such a big deal.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think your comment specifically was gross. There's just people who are over analytical and hyper critical about women's appearance. I felt like I was getting close to that and it gave me the ick.
She's young and her facial fat hasn't sagged yet
Do you also think her eyes are on the sides like a fucking prey animal?
It is her hair.
Says a lot about you that, of all of her achievements and qualifications, and the fact that she not just revolutionized but practically created the field of consumer-grade wireless VR... you get stuck on her being a woman.
God's menagerie is vast, but the fences are low.
Maybe thats fair but now you’re just being an insufferable jerk
Then you should really try harder.
My high school bully had more bullying power in their left small toe.
Is "being constantly miserable online" how younglings define "bullying" these days? I apologize, I didn't know. Could you at least call me fat or make fun of my name or interests? Then maybe I'd feel something other than slightly sorry for you. I don't want to leave you hanging.
I never considered it before, but do you think she might? Maybe pat me on the head and call me a good boy?
I up voted because I want to see how the Steam Frame turns out and this is good news for that.
A mix between r/UpvotedBecauseOfGirl and r/UpvotedForRepresenationOfWomenExcellenceInSTEM