Is there a UI good enough?
Well that's hard to say as I have yet to delve into what Firefox has done yet.
However, just like with the mobile web, it's going to take some new engineering and rethinking of what the web means to VR in order to make it meaningful.
Based on some UIs that I've already seen I have some ideas on what could be done already and 180 degree UI with a 360 degree template would be most suitable IMO as there's no logic to needing to spin around the room just to use a website,, YET, unless it's a game of some sort or an immersive video..
If it doesn't exist already I'd expect 360 PDF files just like you can insert pictures in a PDF today they will just be 360 so that needs to be addressed.
I'm thinking the big step forward will be a simple way for US to take 360 avatars of ourselves, much like Google Photo Sphere which guides you thru taking all the images and then stitches it together into a 360 image. I've made a few of those and they're very cool. We need something similar that allows us to insert ourselves into VT with life-like avatars which will put a whole new spin on things like GOTOMEETING.
Imagine the first time you attend a fully VR conference and it's inexpensive because there's no actual travel, no planes, hotels, cabs or rental cars. Not only that, we could have them all the time for just one specific topic just like the current online meetings with the major difference being that everyone's virtual presence would be there and we could network just like in person in a virtual room. Not there yet but I'm sure some very clever people will figure out how to make that happen in a couple of years based on where it's at today.
Until then we could get VR videos of upcoming conferences, concerts, plays, operas, travelogues, TV, movie shorts and more which is already happening. Netflix has a player and I think Hulu is coming next. Youtube also has a bunch of 360 VR now, and that could easily take off like wild fire if the video recording gear comes down in price. Ever watch a movie sitting on the moon next to the Apollo lunar lander? I have! Virtually that is! :)
Bandwidth vs video quality is the only issue at the moment as at times I feel like I'm back in 19K modem-land trying to download a 5MB file when I'm attempting to download high quality HD VR content where the files easily exceed 2GB.
Bandwidth speeds, bandwidth limitations, file sizes and way better video compression (they're working on this I've been told) are the real kinks that need to be worked out before everyone can truly enjoy VR the way it's meant to be seen.
With most cell phone plans I've seen with a 10GB cap or less, 3-4 full HD 360 videos and POOF! you're done for the month. Although I have a true unlimited download plan, it's just too slow unless you're using the cable wifi
. While 4G is fine for streaming a lower resolution VR video, it would take way too long to download a 3GB file, esp. on a shaky cell connection.
You don't realize just how shaky the connections are until it fails over and over and you have to restart it, assuming your software doesn't take leave of it's senses and dump your partial file which Firefox regularly does do to an easily reproducible bug, even on Comcast. That's right, even the cable modem connections aren't good enough on a regular basis for GB files without breaking all the time. Could be their FTP software at fault in some cases as one of the most problematic I've encountered was with a paywall which typically means some jury rigged PHP or PERL script, but it could just be the connectivity having issues.
Whatever the case, Firefox has a bug that if you hit RETRY and it doesn't start downloading a single byte and fails again, the next RETRY blows away the partial download and you start over from scratch. Forget using the solid as a rock multi-threaded FTP programs on any site where you need the paywall cookie.. Forget add-ons like "Turbo Download Manager" or as I call it "Turbo Download Mangler" as it made things even worse, not better, as I couldn't restart the damn things when they failed.
So far we've come and now it's like I was back in 1996 again working from home with a shaky dial-up connection except it goes 50mb/s or some insanely fast speed.
I've got the speed, I've got the bandwidth, I just don't have reliable tools.
FYI, I'm talking about the desktop browser as the mobile download is almost unusable as there WAS NONE in Firefox! You have to install some download add-on, then share to the download, yuk, blah, pooey! and it didn't even work very well so I gave yup. Chrome on the phone was a little better but not much for massive downloads so I bailed to the desktop where I can quickly download over USB 3.0 once downloaded.
Blows my mind that such a simple FTP issue would still exist all these years later that I feel like I'm using x-modem over a 2400bs modem every time I attempt to grab a 2GB file or bigger. Damned annoying. Wish I could just get the content shipped on a stack of 64GB SDD cards. Sheesh.
Maybe Chrome or MSIE would do a better job, can't do any worse, could it?
Famous last words.
