Rumii – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

February 1, 2018

rumii: Social VR App für Unternehmen und Bildung

Genug gespielt: Im Gegensatz zu VRChat, Rec Room und andere soziale VR-Netzwerke richtet sich rumii vornehmlich an Unternehmen und den Bildungsbereich. Bereits über 500 Firmen sollen seit dem Launch im Early Access letztes Jahr dabei sein. Das Ziel: herkömmliche Videokonferenzen zu ersetzen.

rumii für virtuelle Meetings in VR

Die Social-Network-Lösung rumii hat ähnlich wie der 2D-Messenger Slack hauptsächlich professionelle Anwender im Visier. Diese können sich mit der Anwendung in der virtuellen Realität treffen und beispielsweise Meetings abhalten. Auch Unterricht oder Weiterbildung sieht der Anbieter Doghead Simulations als Anwendungsgebiet. Zu Beginn steht die Schaffung eines Avatars, den Anwender selbst einrichten müssen. Hier gibt es etliche Optionen, um die Comic-Figur möglichst dem eigenen Äußeren anzupassen. Teilweise sind die Einstellungs-Möglichkeiten noch viel zu grob, die Prozedur trotzdem ziemlich zeitaufwendig, wenn man halbwegs eine Ähnlichkeit herstellen will.

Danach darf man die Lobby betreten und bekommt eine kleine Einweisung, wie das Ganze funktioniert. Bis zu 20 Avatare können sich an einem Ort tummeln. Die Anzahl der Räume ist unbegrenzt, Anwender können jederzeit einen neuen Raum anlegen. Der steht dann in drei Größen zur Auswahl und reicht vom kleinen Konferenz-Raum bis zum Auditorium. Dort lassen sich auf „interaktiven Wänden“ diverse Medien miteinander teilen, beispielsweise PDFs und Bilder. Allerdings scheint hier noch einiges im Argen zu liegen und zumindest in unserer Version war es nicht möglich, etwas hochzuladen. Dafür funktionierte das Whiteboard, auf dem man kleine Zeichnungen anfertigen kann.

rumii vr

Bisher setzt rumii auf die PC-Brillen HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality Headsets und Oculus Rift. Man kann allerdings auch im 2D-Raum unterwegs sein, rumii unterstützt hierfür neben Windows auch macOS. Später sollen mobile Brillen und Smartphones folgen. Doghead Simulations bietet einen kostenlosen Plan an, mit dem Anwender alles in Ruhe ausprobieren können. Die Team-Größe ist dann auf drei Telnehmer begrenzt, außerdem stehen lediglich 1 GB Speicherplatz auf dem Server zur Verfügung. Der Aboplan lockert die Limits, für 10 US-Dollar im Monat erhält man 10 GB Speicherplatz. Die Teamgröße ist dann unbegrenzt. Falls die Entwickler noch einige Baustellen beseitigen können, dürfte rumii durchaus Chancen bei der angepeilten Zielgruppe besitzen.

(Quellen: Upload VR/Doghead Simulations)

Der Beitrag rumii: Social VR App für Unternehmen und Bildung zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

January 30, 2018

rumii Is A New Social VR App Aimed At Enterprise and Education

A screenshot of Rumii by Doghead Simulations

Doghead Simulations’ rumii wants to be the VR application you boot up when you put on your headset to go to work in the morning.

With over 500 companies signed up in Early Access after launching last year, rumii is a social VR app with a difference. Instead of meeting up with friends to share videos, hang out and play games, the app is designed as a professional tool for work meetings and education spaces. Aiming to replace video conferencing, users adopt virtual avatars and then communicate over voice chat while sharing materials over a range of features like desktop sharing, 3D model loading and web browsing.

The platform supports up to 20 users at one time across the HTC Vive headset as well as traditional platforms for those that can be there in VR.

“rumii is the office building or classroom where many social VR apps tend to be more of the place you go for happy hour with friends,” Doghead CMO Amber Osborne told UploadVR. “We give top priority to providing a high quality VR experience in our features, from the sound of the audio, the expressiveness of our avatars to the customizable work and classroom environments.”

As such, rumii is available as either a monthly subscription service or users can purchase their own local servers with a license. A free option supports up to three users with 1GB of storage while the $9.99 a month option allows for an unlimited team size and 10GB of storage.

Tagged with: rumii

August 17, 2017

Can an Infinity Ward Co-Founder Succeed in Social VR?

Infinity Ward is home to some of the biggest selling videogames of all time. Having birthed the Call of Duty franchise, which after more than a decade of annual releases is still topping the charts every holiday season, Chance Glasco suffered ‘videogame burn out’ after his seventh edition in the industry-leading series. After taking some time to decide what was next, Glasco has turned his attention to virtual reality (VR).

Call of Duty: Ghosts key art Perhaps inspired by Infinity Ward co-workers James Chung and Pete Blumel, now heading-up World War Toons developer Studio Roqovan and Crowe: The Drowned Armory’s The Rogue Initiative, respectfully, Glasco is now invested in a new VR platform: Rumii. Now, alongside Elbert Perez, a college friend, Glasco has founded Doghead Simulations with the aim of reinventing virtual meeting spaces.

Despite the proliferation of social environments within VR – the likes of vTime, Big Screen, Facebook Spaces and the recently closed and then re-opened AltSpace VR t to name just a few – most organisations still use video services to conduct long-distance conversations. Glasco is confident that Doghead Simulations can create an application that will change that, but is cautious by suggesting that most people simply don’t know that technology currently exists; and even if they did, would not necessarily adopt it without experiencing it first.

In an interview with Forbes, Glasco offers a famous quote from Henry Ford in reference to using VR for a long-distance meeting: ‘If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.’

“Instead of making the horse faster, we are trying to bring you something totally different. Something that’s better than a horse,” Glasco said. “Say you’re an architect in New York and you have a client in London. You could import a CAD file and walk through the house that you’re working on. So you’ll get that sense of scale, especially for things like engineering, that isn’t captured very well just by using video technology.”

Rumii screenshot Doghead Simulations consists of 17 developers working across three different continents. Within this arrangement, the studio is perfectly positioned to address the challenges that long-distance communication in VR faces as they experience them themselves.

“I think one of the biggest issues is that you’ve got a lot of people who work together who don’t feel like they’ve been together. So using the power of social presence, we’re a lot closer,” said Glasco. “The thing with Rumii is you really feel like you’re with other people, your brain just buys into that sense of team, and collaboration is a lot stronger than using video.”

Akin to the likes of AltSpace VR, Rumii will allow for businesses to customise their own virtual spaces. From social feeds to stock tickers, interactive walls in meetings rooms and shared desktops, Rumii will offer a full suite of tools designed to get the job done. But those already familiar with VR have heard all of this before; what does Rumii do that’s different?

Doghead Simulations are preparing for the future of VR technology rather than what’s immediately in front of the team. Suggesting technology such as eye-tracking and depth-sensing cameras will be comfortably incorporated into Rumii in time, Glasco is confident that the experience will be superior to a common teleconference.

“Something like 67% of people doing teleconferencing are actually doing something else, like writing an email or playing a game on their phone. But with VR, you’re closed off to the world around you for that meeting – there’s nothing to distract you from outside that meeting,” said Glasco.

Rumii screenshot Rumii has been designed to run on multiple head-mounted displays (HMDs) and operating systems, and has an application process already in place for a beta testing phase. No release date or pricing strategy has yet been announced for Rumii, but you can find out more at the official Doghead Simulations website and VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest from the studio.