Ellie Martin – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

February 24, 2018

Small Startups Should Embrace Virtual Reality

Startups have had a good run over the last half a decade. With platforms like Kickstarter helping innovators and solopreneurs get their ideas off the ground, to global communities that support the rapidly growing startup world. One of the key aspect of making sure your startup is growing at a steady pace, is embracing all of the available technology that can help you do just that.

One of the biggest advancements in workplace technology is virtual reality (VR). While this might seem to be far-fetched for a small business, VR is actually more accessible than newcommers might think. Here are some resources that will help you learn more about why VR could be just the thing you small business or startup needs to experience significant growth.

Try before you buy

For small businesses budget is always important. Getting your company off the ground requires substantial resources, and leaves little room for extras, especially at the early stages of development. For small businesses that means having to focus their resource, but that doesn’t mean that they have to miss out on the latest technology available. There are various platforms that give both individuals and companies the option to rent out a VR headset. This cost-effective option will help your budding business harness the opportunity of exploring how immersive technology can benefit your business.

In fact, even if you do have the funds, renting a headset before going out and buying one might be the best solution for any company looking to embrace VR, no matter what stage of development.

VR can diversify your team

Today, it’s easier than ever to make sure your workplace is diverse, not just culturally, but also when it comes to skills. With remote work becoming more and more popular thanks to a rise in communication technologies, small businesses and startups have the opportunity to find top-notch talent, no matter where they are in the world.

Making use of VR can help you connect with potential colleagues, or help to create a sense of connectedness with coworkers, especially those who are half way about the world. While allowing employees to work remotely has contributed to many positive shifts in the contemporary workplace, it’s well understood that feeling part of a team is vital for productivity. VR could be the ideal way to bridge the gap between team strength and flexible work models.

Bring your product directly to your customer

It’s well understood that personalize communication with consumers has been a game changer. For those who are working in retail, using VR isn’t just good for piquing the interest of potential customers, it can also be beneficial when it comes to building a loyal consumer base. VR lets your consumer have a more immersive experience, which shows that your business is both innovative and dedicated to making sure consumers get their needs met.

Whether you want to enhance team building experience or attract more consumer, VR can help you explore ways to grow your business. In addition to helping startups increase brand awareness and revenue, embracing VR sooner, rather than later, is a wise decision as it will very likely be a staple in the workplace in the near future.

March 10, 2017

Will VR Transform Remote Work?

Remote work is on the rise. According to a recent Gallup poll, 37% of the US workforce have worked remotely for their job in some capacity. It’s no mystery as to why telecommuting is increasing in popularity. It has been shown to decrease stress and increase productivity considerably. Remote workers typically feel more relaxed and express greater satisfaction with their company despite the fact they typically work longer hours. Additionally, both the employer and employee spend less money as cutting the commute and the necessary office space reduce expenses significantly.

Telecommuting, as an idea, is nothing new — the term was coined in the seventies, and began picking up traction as a viable option for workers in the 1980s. Over the past three decades, advancements in technology have made remote work a possibility for most career types. As software and hardware have advanced, digital awareness and proficiency have rapidly grown as well. Currently, it is estimated that 3 billion people have access to the Internet, nearly half the world’s population. In North America, 90% of the population has access, and a great proportion have attained a high level of digital fluency. Whether you’re a writer, a human resources manager or a computer programmer, chances are you’re able to do your job effectively using only your computer and a reliable Internet connection.

Home Office Work

Despite its incredible benefits and increasing availability, remote work still faces many challenges. For instance, although employees work more efficiently at home, they are less likely to be promoted as quickly as their on-site counterparts. This could perhaps be to attributed to the lack of physical interaction they have with their colleagues. Going into an office may very well lead to building stronger relationships. Feelings of isolation are a real possibility for fully remote workers as well. While remote workers have been shown to foster friendly virtual work environments, they still may be lacking the feeling of truly belonging or of being an integral part of the company and its culture.

Virtual reality (VR) could possibly address all these challenges in one fell swoop. Workers could immerse themselves in a simulated work space where they would have the opportunity to interact with coworkers in meaningful — albeit virtual — ways. Or, it is possible that advancements in telerobotics will result in “teleporting” to work.

VR has been around since the nineties, but only in the last few years has it become a viable mass-market product. VR is already beginning to inundate mediums like video games, television and film, and is even showing signs of radically changing social media.

As the cost for consumers to jump into VR steadily decreases, development for new and interesting applications of the nascent technology rises. Over one million people have used Samsung’s VR headset last year, and that’s only the beginning. Google’s cardboard VR has virtually eliminated the cost to participate in VR.

Talented developers and engineers are taking advantage of the immense interest in VR. Engineers like the students at the University of Pennsylvania, who have created a robot, named DORA (Dexterous Observational Roving Automaton), that acts as an out-of-body host for VR users. DORA allows users to see, move and interact with others remotely. “I have experienced the future of remote work, and it feels a lot like teleportation,” Christopher Mims wrote in his piece about telerobotics for The Wall Street Journal.

Hololens Apps

Unfortunately, telerobotics is still very costly. Cheaper solutions, however, do exist. Social networking giant Facebook is investing a massive amount of time and money into VR and plan to offer affordable hardware for their social VR app. In their app, users create avatars that interact with each other in real-time in either virtual or real-life settings. Facebook’s social VR app, or a technology very similar to it, could be used to create virtual work spaces.

VR is fast becoming a ubiquitous technology. This ubiquity will make projects like DORA a reality. Telerobotics would effectively solve the problems faced by remote workers, and could make telecommuting more attractive to employers. Even if telerobotics proves to be too expensive in the short term, social VR will undoubtedly transform remote work. VR will make remote work a more social experience, and hopefully provide remote workers and employers alike with a greater sense of involvement, commitment and dedication.

February 9, 2017

3 Things We Can Expect from The VR Industry This Year

2016 has come and gone, and with it, we got an exciting glimpse at the long-awaited birth of the virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) industries. No longer is VR a science-fiction fantasy—anyone who has put on an Oculus Rift and lost themselves in its realism for an afternoon could tell you that. Nor is augmented reality a developer’s daydream—Pokemon Go, which enables people to catch digital Pokemon in real-life physical locations, was one of the biggest hits of the year. The possibilities of VR at this point are, quite simply, boundless.

Oculus Rift - Touch

The monumental technologies that have shaped our world in the last three decades—mobile phones, personal computers, etc.—arrived quietly, but before we knew it, they controlled everything (the first iPhone came out less than a decade ago). 2016 may be remembered as the first year VR became an accessible commodity to those seeking it, as well as a press darling, but 2017 looks to be the year that VR hits the mainstream. As Jesse Joudrey, CEO at VR Chat, states: “In 2016 VR has barely begun to affect the world. It’s like the first iPhone. There are a small number of people that are extremely excited about it, but it’s true power (for the iPhone it was the app store) still hasn’t been created.”

To hear evangelists tell it, VR may be the most important invention since the printing press. Some believe that VR will usher us from the ‘Information Age’, where we’ve had unprecedented access to vast amounts of data, to the ‘Experiential Age’, where we can experience and interact with the information itself. “VR has the potential to more fully express and explore the full complexity of the human experience, [take us] from the Information Age to the Experiential Age, and catalyse a new renaissance that unlocks the latent potentials of our creativity and imagination,” Kent Bye, Host of Voices of VR podcast, has said. Which makes 2017 a very exciting year for the VR industry. Here are three things we can expect to see in the next twelve months:

Halo_Header2

1.A Killer App to Emerge

Bye has compared VR to the Gutenberg Press, “because it’s a new medium that captures human experiences in a new way, but we still don’t have the equivalent of the 1454 Gutenberg Bible, which was an inflection point of adoption… we’re still waiting for the app that is going to drive VR engagement beyond gamers and enthusiasts.”

Although the VR technology is available, right now, to the average non-technical person, it still seems either too pricey, inaccessible, or unnecessary. The way that Halo moved millions of Xbox consoles, or Facebook was the social network to rule all social networks, so too does VR need an experience that can persuade with the force of its own necessity. Watch for this—a game, a movie, a less pricey headset—to emerge soon, as whoever comes up with it will make a lot of money.

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A Transition from Early Adopters to the Mainstream

VR, until now, has been largely limited to events or conventions. It isn’t a fixture of living rooms across America. Yet. As the industry grows—Facebook and YouTube now support 360 degree videos, and Microsoft and Sony are busy integrating VR into their consoles—we will see more casual and diversified users buying VR, from kids putting it on their Christmas list to soldiers using VR to deal with PTSD. As time goes on, the industry will grow, and the bigger the market, the more incentive for innovation.

Quill - Wesley Allsbrook

VR Art Will Emerge

VR is an entirely new medium, far more immersive than anything humanity has ever conceived. It’s so exciting and so new that whatever emerges from its potential will probably be zanier than any prediction we could ever make.

In 2016, short immersive horror films, such as Oculus Rift: Blackmass, skimmed the surface of the technology (allowing one to look around a moving film), but 2017 and beyond looks to be the years in which developers brilliantly innovate the platform to deliver new and unprecedented experiences. VR will be found in the museum space, in journalism, and in education, just to name a few. The iPhone fundamentally changed society within a decade, and VR looks to be a more disruptive technology than the smartphone. 2017 should be an incredible year for VR.