The only technology that died more times than VR is AI, and that seems to have worked out
- Reference: 1776236588
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/04/15/hardware_metaverse_will_happen/
- Source link:
Reading [2]Neal Stephenson's post on the topic , you might think so. After all, if the man who coined the term "metaverse" reckons it's dead and buried, who are we to argue?
As someone who has a bit of prior art in the field – building networked consumer [3]VR systems for Sega before Stephenson set pen to paper – I can tell you what Neal got right, what he got wrong, and how he's missed the point he himself made.
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Stephenson says no one will wear VR headgear. That's always been true, because crossing the boundary between digital and biology is never easy.
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Very early VR hardware like the head-mounted display Ivan Sutherland produced in the 1960s earned the nickname "Sword of Damocles" because he mounted its motion-tracking armature on the ceiling.
[7]Youtube Video
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The first recognizably modern VR system, the 40-year-old [9]VIEW system NASA developed to train astronauts for extra-vehicular activities, was also uncomfortable. It was only tolerable because the alternative involved donning scuba gear and floating in a giant fishbowl – an impossibility in orbit when astronauts needed to rehearse a mission.
Jaron Lanier may have been the first individual to employ VR as a creative medium, using it as an artist's tool. Char Davies followed that path – and won a Prix Ars Electronica for her fully immersive [10]OSMOSE , art with a unique quality of experience born out of immersion, repeating the pattern established with VIEW.
Sometimes immersion is the only way to do things.
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VIEW and OSMOSE both required "immersants" to suit up: goggles, trackers, headphones. OSMOSE also required a band to measure the expansion of your chest cavity, enabling you to "float" in the virtual environment like a scuba diver in a water column. That's a lot of kit – and, 30 years ago, it needed to be powered by a supercomputer.
Fast-forward to 2014, when two engineers mounted the stage at Google I/O and introduced [12]Google Cardboard : 50 cents' worth of folded pizza boxes and plastic lenses turning any reasonably capable smartphone into a full-blown VR headset.
In a flash, the number of VR systems went from a few thousand to a few billion, enabling enthusiasts to create a wealth of interesting things with very little infrastructure. Thanks to Google Cardboard, VR became commonplace.
Most of what happened post-Cardboard centered on refining the experience, making it smaller, lighter, and less likely to make users feel sick. Part of the appeal must be that it won't cause motion sickness.
[13]AI has made the Command Line Interface more important and powerful than ever before
[14]OpenClaw is the most fun I've had with a computer in 50 years
[15]Tech that helps people outshone overhyped AI at CES 2026
[16]Vibe coding will deliver a wonderful proliferation of personalized software
That's not a new thing. Motion sickness led to the cancellation of the Sega VR project I worked on back in 1993, and it affects many people who use immersive virtual reality. That's a big reason people don't like headsets. They tried it once and it made them sick. Who wants to use tech that makes them nauseous? (We already have X for that.)
The surest path to nausea-free immersion leads through augmented reality. Keeping people in the real world – with some synthetic additions – grounds them in a way that VR can't. Even the best "pass-through" systems, such as Apple Vision Pro and Samsung XR, still feel a bit weird. Most folks can only tolerate using them for about an hour.
Yet augmented reality can only work if it's continuously mapping the environment. Every AR system must be a surveillance system (the main point of a [17]book that I wrote in 2020). That's not malevolence, it's engineering practice. So there's the paradox: to get the kind of immersion our bodies can tolerate, we need to give ourselves over to total surveillance.
Stephenson reckons that's too big an ask, imagining public reaction against "glassholes" as real and permanent.
Yet he also makes an observation about the "software metaverse" that undermines his argument. Nobody visited Horizon Worlds because there was no reason to go there. Meanwhile, millions enjoy Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite every hour of the day because these metaverses offer fun things to do.
So what happens when we reach the happy combination of a "good enough" pair of spectacles and a killer app? That's when Stephenson will learn it's never been about the device. It's about what the device enables us to do.
When AR spectacles and a "killer app" come together, the whole thing takes off. Just like AI and [18]OpenClaw . Which reminds me: the only technology that has died more times than the metaverse is artificial intelligence. And that seems to have worked out. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/25/meta_cuts_700/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/24/neal_stephenson_death_of_metaverse/?_gl=1*b2i0uq*_ga*MTI0MjE1MDMxNS4xNzE5OTg5NTg5*_ga_JXW44Y23NM*czE3NzYxMzkxNzMkbzIxNDAkZzEkdDE3NzYxNDEwMTckajU1JGwwJGgw
[3] https://www.sega-16.com/2004/12/sega-vr-great-idea-or-wishful-thinking/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ad9hwFIHIJF6Hoqmcin29gAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ad9hwFIHIJF6Hoqmcin29gAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ad9hwFIHIJF6Hoqmcin29gAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjbILO8gSQw
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ad9hwFIHIJF6Hoqmcin29gAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://immersivearchive.org/nasa-viewlab.html
[10] https://youtu.be/54O4VP3tCoY?si=oqd7LZRcqKtHsLBb
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ad9hwFIHIJF6Hoqmcin29gAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Cardboard
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/11/ai_needs_command_line_interface/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/19/50_years_using_computers/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/09/ai_sideshow_ces_2026/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/10/vibe_coding_is_good_enough/
[17] https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=augmented-reality-unboxing-techs-next-big-thing--9781509540938
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/19/50_years_using_computers/
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
WTF?
"Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite every hour of the day because these metaverses offer fun things to do."
Since when have these been part of the metaverse? Is Halo now part of the metaverse? GTA? Quake? Pacman?
Oh and here is the thing, those make PROFIT. Not a single AI company makes money. Just like the Zuck's metaverse they lose money at an unsustainable rate.
All the companies building these "wonderful" gizmos and gadgets around the likes of OpenAI, what will they do when the bills go up by double? Triple? Tenfold?
Do you honestly think able sighted people will pay £250 a month for their glasses to go "That's a tree." "You've entered the pub and your friends are telling you to take off those fucking glasses" or "I can translate that for you. Just wait 10 minutes staring blankly ahead while I process the information as my connection is really poor" "
Re: Since when have these been part of the metaverse?
Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite are all virtual environments that can host multiple people at the same time. Would doing that through glasses rather than a monitor make much of a difference?
Can you really not see a difference between single player offline and multi-player online or are you just nit-picking over vocabulary?
All the article is saying is that the physical technology isn't as important as the experience it enables.
The reason the Zuckaberg metaverse failed isn't "VR is shit" it's "the metaverse is boring".
Re: Since when have these been part of the metaverse?
Actually, it has failed because it was both. VR is shit and everything Zuck touches is boring.
Re: Since when have these been part of the metaverse?
AI is great for creating content that looks correct, but does not need to be correct.
For example, AI can use geophysical map data and low resolution satelite images to create realistic looking, but incorrect high detail sceneries that are great for flight simulators.
Do NOT use AI generated content in court
VR is good when the user experience does not involve large body movements. While VR DOOM will have you run into your living-room walls and furniture, a VR flightsim truly make you feel like you are SITTING in the cockpit. (add a motion chair if you have the liquidity).
The only logical conclusion is that the last two computing bubbles (three if you consider VR gaining from 3d TV technology)have seen the IT industry spending a gazillion of liquidity to unwittingly improve the flightsim-experience.
Re: WTF?
They're desperately trying to invent solutions to problems that don't exist based around one single idea 'laziness & convenience' the idea that everyone will use them because they're too lazy and care more about their own convenience.
Sadly... that actually works for a lot of the gullible and easily led people... This forum is a microcosm of people who know and understand them better.
My carpenter... thinks he's a musician because he writes a few words for lyrics and tells grok to create a song in the style (insert band/singer name here)... He's so happy about his creations and wants to play them for me.. they're utter garbage... I'm sat there nodding and smiling whilst thinking... well... that's just a poor job at imitating 'Yello' with bad lyrics.
That's the kind of people we're up against if we want generative AI to fuck the hell off.
Re: WTF?
Additional... the only problem that does exist that they want to solve is wages... they want to remove the need to pay anyone a wage... Quite how they imagine people with no ability to work will be able to pay for the services they want to create... seems to elude their tiny little minds.
AI, and that seems to have worked out
I think the jury is still out on that. Not holding my breath.
Re: AI, and that seems to have worked out
I'd say the Jury is shuffling in, slowly. And they are sad because their retirement has heavily bet on something they are about to proclaim pretty much useless.
Re: AI, and that seems to have worked out
" …the Jury is shuffling in, slowly. And they are sad… "
Reckon the Judge will be asking for his black cap?
There's a bit of wobbly logic at the end of the article.
The author argues that what we lack is a "killer app" for AR, and brings as examples Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite.
However, all of those are fully VR worlds, and none of them are AR. Although they use similar tech, VR and AR are extremely different domains, and you really cannot conflate them if you are discussing applications.
VR has failed and continues to fail largely because isolating yourself from surrounding reality comes with a large number of extremely difficult challenges (both social and technical) that have nothing to do with how good the visor is. Let's pretend you could stuff it in lightweight glasses, make them 16K full FoV resolution, and make the battery last 24 hours - guess what? Most people still wouldn't use them, because almost none of us can have a "VR room" in their house. And if the VR app doesn't require me to move around, I might as well just sit in front of a screen: it's not actually much worse, and I can use a coffee mug at the same time.
As for AR, that eliminates the problem with your surroundings, but the problem of "do I really want to move around, and if I don't, why don't I just use a screen" remains. That makes the space of interesting applications very limited: I'll reiterate that not a single one of the author's examples is AR. There is exactly one AR application that I would call very successful, and that's Pokemon Go. As far as I can see, it was a one-off, never repeated, and it worked just fine with a regular smartphone. It's not exactly looking good for visors.
Yes. I thought the article glided almost seamlessly* from VR to AR before admitting there's still no killer app. It rather belies the headline.
* Assuming you weren't looking too closely.
Never mind
As long as there are people with more money than sense, this fad is going to continue bumbling along on its rickety railroad.
It's not doing any real harm (unlike pseudo-AI, or "social media"), so let's just let it live, sit back and have abeer while laughing at it.
The only technology that died more times than VR is AI
Both worse than vampires and equally blood sucking; bloody hard to be rid of permanently.
Don't also imagine neither is too keen on being illuminated by honest bright suniight.
The glassholes are undoubtedly are so deficient in sense to eventually queue for a Neuralink or similar brain implant to implement and biological/electronic VR etc inside their otherwise empty skulls. Everything their eyes look at and ears hear might be streamed to some global AI/VR cabal.
Hype
Both VR/AR and AI have their place in the modern world, but NOT in everything and definitely not for everyone. The problem is the Hype Merchants. A new technology comes along and the Marketers start the hype and then seem to compete with each other as to how much more they can hype their tech than anyone else. Cue over-investment, bubble, bubble, bubble, POP, and 95% of the investors lose their shirts. Meanwhile a few USEFUL instances of the tech remain but for a while are tarred with the failure of all the hyped dross.
Cost?
OpenClaw, apart from being a security nightmare, burns tokens. The free money is coming to an end (Sora canned, Mythos is enterprise only) so AI will work out until the end of 2027 at the latest, then it won't.