VentureBeat: Qwaq, offering a 3D virtual workplace
Naane
· 2 years ago
Computers are good at letting you navigate through and edit documents, which if duplicated in the real world would mean a mess of sorting through paper, writing, erasing and re-writing. However, just as computer documents don't translate well to reality, 3D worlds don't actually translate well to computers. Computer games that use 3D worlds, from Second Life and World of Warcraft to Team Fortress 2, have to make their controls simple - attempting to make the range of motions available in the real world possibly in the game quickly makes control impossible.
If you were infiltrating a terrorist stronghold in the real world you could easily sidle down a corridor in a cautious half-crouch, while waving a teammate back with one hand, unstrapping your assault rifle with the other and talking on your headset radio. All of that requires only the instincts we all learnt by the age of 2. Doing that in a computer game would require jabbing at a mass of keys whose mapping first has to be memorised. In effect, someone moving around in a virtual world is trying to compress the entire range of motions the body is capable of into their ten fingers. That's why the sequel to Team Fortess removed the players' ability to throw grenades, set demolition charges and fake death; the game was more fun with less buttons to worry about.
That's why talking to people and other collaboration is generally best suited to reality. Trying to move the whole process onto the computer via a 3D world very quickly runs up against the aforementioned entire-body-through-ten-fingers problem.
Basically, I don't see what makes this different from Microsoft Bob.
Not to mention the company flogging it is called Quaq. Quack, as in fraud, fake, charlatan, snake-oil salesman. The founders either have big cojones or a complete lack of self-awareness.
All Comments
If you were infiltrating a terrorist stronghold in the real world you could easily sidle down a corridor in a cautious half-crouch, while waving a teammate back with one hand, unstrapping your assault rifle with the other and talking on your headset radio. All of that requires only the instincts we all learnt by the age of 2. Doing that in a computer game would require jabbing at a mass of keys whose mapping first has to be memorised. In effect, someone moving around in a virtual world is trying to compress the entire range of motions the body is capable of into their ten fingers. That's why the sequel to Team Fortess removed the players' ability to throw grenades, set demolition charges and fake death; the game was more fun with less buttons to worry about.
That's why talking to people and other collaboration is generally best suited to reality. Trying to move the whole process onto the computer via a 3D world very quickly runs up against the aforementioned entire-body-through-ten-fingers problem.
Basically, I don't see what makes this different from Microsoft Bob.
Not to mention the company flogging it is called Quaq. Quack, as in fraud, fake, charlatan, snake-oil salesman. The founders either have big cojones or a complete lack of self-awareness.