Bodyswaps – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

May 27, 2021

Don’t Stress About a Job Interview With Bodyswaps’ new Simulator

Job interviews don’t tend to be the most pleasant of experiences as potential employers grill you on what makes you suitable for a particular role. Hence why a lot of people tend to get nervous, flustered and then worry they’re not presenting themselves in the best light. This is where soft skills training specialist Bodyswaps comes in with its latest solution, a job interview simulator.

The Job Interview Simulator course is split into four modules aimed at helping you practice your pitch whilst teaching you various interview techniques and how to answer questions with confidence. The modules are:

Managing Interview Anxiety
Landing The Perfect Job, On Your Own Terms!
Three Steps to Answering (almost) Any Question
Interview Simulation

There are 75+ questions to work though, with behavioural analytics on verbal and non-verbal performance given. Thus, students can gain confidence in a safe virtual environment and repeat modules to help bolster weaker areas.

“Educational institutions often lack the resources to engage students and give everyone the time and attention that mastering great interview skills needs. Our Job Interview Simulator leverages VR and AI, to support repeated, autonomous and hyper-personalised practice. For students, this is an opportunity to learn to present their best self and get the job of their dreams. For organisations, it’s a groundbreaking approach to boosting student outcomes, quickly and at scale, in these challenging times,” said Bodyswaps CEO Christophe Mallet in a statement.

If you’ve been stressing about an upcoming interview then good news, the simulator is available today, with a free demo available via the Bodyswaps website. For the best experience, you’ll want to be in virtual reality (VR) but the software does support smartphones and PC’s as well.

Bodyswaps offers a range of soft skill training solutions for individuals and employers including Active Listening, Clear Communication and Challenging Non-inclusive Behavior. It joined HTC’s global XR accelerator program, Vive X, in 2020 to help expand its content lineup, with more course planned for 2021. As further updates are released, VRFocus will let you know.

May 16, 2021

The VR Job Hub: Bodyswaps, Holonautic & Facebook Reality Labs

Every weekend VRFocus gathers together vacancies from across the virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) industry, in locations around the globe to help make finding that ideal job easier. Below is a selection of roles that are currently accepting applications across a number of disciplines, all within departments and companies that focus on immersive entertainment.

Location	Company	Role	Link
London, UK	Bodyswaps	Sales Lead – VR Learning SaaS	Click Here to Apply
London, UK	Bodyswaps	Account Manager – VR Learning SaaS	Click Here to Apply
Horw, Switzerland	Holonautic	VR Unity Developer	Click Here to Apply
Horw, Switzerland	Holonautic	3D Artist & Designer	Click Here to Apply
Horw, Switzerland	Holonautic	3D Animator	Click Here to Apply
Sunnydale, CA – Seattle, WA	Facebook Reality Labs	Product Experience Quality Engineer	Click Here to Apply
Remote, Contiguous US	Facebook Reality Labs	Head of Global Contact Centre Operations	Click Here to Apply
Menlo Park, CA – Burlingame, CA	Facebook Reality Labs	Technical Program Manager	Click Here to Apply
Redmond, WA	Facebook Reality Labs	Material Science Research Group Lead	Click Here to Apply
Redmond, WA	Facebook Reality Labs	Systems Integration Engineer	Click Here to Apply
Pittsburgh, PA	Facebook Reality Labs	Firmware Engineer	Click Here to Apply
Redmond, WA	Facebook Reality Labs	Software Engineer – Network	Click Here to Apply
Sunnyvale, CA – Redmond, WA – Seattle, WA	Facebook Reality Labs	Optical Scientist, Waveguide Design	Click Here to Apply

Don’t forget, if there wasn’t anything that took your fancy this week there’s always last week’s listings on The VR Job Hub to check as well.

If you are an employer looking for someone to fill an immersive technology related role – regardless of the industry – don’t forget you can send us the lowdown on the position and we’ll be sure to feature it in that following week’s feature. Details should be sent to Peter Graham (pgraham@vrfocus.com).

We’ll see you next week on VRFocus at the usual time of 3PM (UK) for another selection of jobs from around the world.

June 26, 2020

Vive X Doubles Value of Investments, Adds 7 new Startups to Portfolio

The HTC Vive X investment program has helped numerous XR companies around the world develop and bring their projects to market over the past few years. This week Vive X announced that the value of its investments has nearly double as well as revealing seven new investments.

Since its launch in 2016 Vive X facilitated more than 100 deals across its six locations around the world. 17 of those companies in its portfolio have received additional outside funding in the last year, amounting to over $60 million of investment.

Real-time VR CAD collaboration platform Mindesk is one of those companies, recently acquired by Vection Technologies Ltd; an Australian multinational software company.

One area that Vive X has focused on is enterprise software to improve training, collaboration in the workplace and other use cases. “We work closely with our portfolio companies to help them operationally, and we see them not only weathering the economic storm but thriving,” said Marc Metis, Vice President, HTC Vive in a statement. “We will continue to invest aggressively, especially in the area of enterprise XR, where we are able to add considerable value as a leading player with deep market experience.”

As for the seven most recent companies Vive X has invested in, they are:

3Data – “3Data is 3D platform for IT & Cybersecurity Operations. Through the power of WebXR, Artificial Intelligence, and IoT, 3Data fuses multiple real-time data streams and intelligently cross-correlates alerts, logs, and raw sensor data into a Virtual Operations Center allowing remote IT teams to more efficiently detect and respond to threats, reduce downtime and mitigate risk all in a single, collaborative 3D space.”
BodySwaps – “BodySwaps is a complete soft skills training solution for corporate and education organizations that combines behavioural science, data and immersive VR simulations to create deep and lasting behavioural change.”
Imaged Reality – “Imaged Reality developed 3DGAIA, the first Enterprise VR platform for the Oil Industry that helps to reduce risk and uncertainty by bringing the field to the office. It enables immersive learning and remote collaboration connecting expertise across the globe.”
Maze Theory – “Creating narrative experiences centred on active participation, Maze Theory is the developer behind immersive VR experiences like Doctor Who: The Edge of Time and Peaky Blinders, The King’s Ransom.”
ORamaVR – “ORamaVR has built the world’s most intelligent VR training simulations for healthcare education and assessment. By applying principles of neuroscience, spatial computing and machine learning, ORamaVR is focused on the rapid acceleration of human learning in medicine. An award-winning, evidence-based, deep tech start-up, ORamaVR has developed a proprietary software development kit for high-speed, scalable prototyping.”
Talespin – “Talespin is building the spatial computing platform to power talent development and skills alignment for the future of work. Founded in 2015, the company leverages its proprietary XR technology platform Runway to deliver XR-based learning and training applications, mixed reality field tools to support employee job performance, and to advance the collection and alignment of skills data.”
VantagePoint – “Vantage Point was founded under the belief that while technology can cause apathy, immersive technology can drive empathy and fundamentally make the world more human. Today Vantage Point is actively developing the platform and the products to train people on EQ-driven Soft Skills that matter, with the ultimate goal of enabling humans to unlock their full potential. Vantage Point tackles enterprise training around important topics such as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and Workplace Anti-Sexual Harassment training.”

As Vive X continues to support early-stage VR/AR startups, VRFocus will keep you updated.

June 2, 2020

Soft Skills Training Specialist Bodyswaps Joins HTC’s Vive X as Platform Goes Live

Everyone at some point in their working lives will probably come across a manager or fellow employee who grates on them, whether that’s through poor communication, listening or other behaviours. Bodyswaps is a virtual reality (VR) platform which specialises in these soft skills, announcing the launch as well as joining HTC’s global XR accelerator program, Vive X.

Bodyswaps is a training solution for enterprise and educational organisations looking to supply employees with new tools when it comes to interacting with others, boosting confidence to create a positive behavioural change.

The launch of the platform this week comes with three modules, Active Listening, Clear Communication and Challenging Non-inclusive Behavior. The team has three more planned for 2020, Job Interview Skills, Emotional Intelligence and Unconscious Bias Awareness.

Using active reflection to encourage behavioural change, Bodyswaps worked with behavioural scientists and learning designers to create its solution, where learners can act with their own voice and swap perspectives to watch themselves back. The platform supports all major standalone VR headsets to aid remote learning.

A UK tech startup, Bodyswaps was conceived during Digital Catapult’s immersive tech accelerator, Augmentor, by co-founders Julien Denoel and Christophe Mallet. Its growth will now be supported with additional funding and business support by Vive X.

“With Vive X’s support and investment, we plan to make our solution accessible on more platforms, expand our library of soft skills simulations and develop our analytics solutions to provide clients with behavioural data at scale,” says Mallet in a statement.

“We are pleased to announce Bodyswaps as one of the latest startups in Europe to receive the backing of Vive X. We have had a focus on Enterprise VR with our latest group of investments and believe soft-skills training is an area with particularly high growth potential. Bodyswaps stood out because of its innovative and scalable approach to VR learning that cuts across many different industries,” adds Dave Haynes, Director of Vive X & Developer Ecosystem, HTC Vive.

For those interested in giving Bodyswaps a try you can book a demo and download a trial version on the official website. For further updates on the platform, keep reading VRFocus.