What are your thoughts about the Virtual Reality?

[mSanders]

VR is coming!

Billions and billions of dollars are being invested in it.

The cameras are coming with both better quality and better price

Do you think that is going to be a good usage in your business?
Are you willing to pay an agency to do that work for you (if it is not that expensive like righ now)?

Cheers.

 

[fisicx]

Do you think that is going to be a good usage in your business?

Do you think it is going to be good for your business?

My mate is a plumber. Not sure if a VR headset is going to help him fix a leaky tap.

 

[threenine]

I virtually have no idea

 

[JamesMason67]

Its hard (for me at least) to envisage what business could benefit from it. Is it not purely an entertainment gadget at this stage?

 

[JamesMason67]

I heard a couple of airlines are looking at installing it on their planes as passenger entertainment.
Probably has a big future in entertainment. Might be useful as a training aid? Driving etc?

 

[threenine]

I could see it revolutionizing Estate Agencies. In much the same way the internet has.
People could actually do Virtual House Walk-through.

 

[JamesMason67]

Yeah great idea. Virtual walk through holiday hotels?

 

[simon field]

 

[Carl "Excel-Expert" Nixon]

I think VR will have real problems jumping from entertainment to the business world. You cant walk around and do business with a VR headset on. What will have the biggest impact by far is AR, that is going to be huge. (Pokemon Go is giving us just a taste of how big)

The above mentioned washing machine repair will be able to put his AR specs on and view schematics as they work on the machine. Parts will automatically marked with part numbers etc. But that is a fair bit away yet - For that to happen the AR glasses will have to be no bigger or bulkier than normal glasses (Dont forget tech shrinks all the time at an alarming rate so this is not far away).

Meetings will be held around virtual products, virtual screens and walk throughs of buildings etx. You will be able to have projected head up screens of any size any where you want. It will have a huge effect in education and the medical world as well.

When they get down to the £100 mark and fit ordinary glasses it will be as common as tablets are now, if not more.

Search on YouTube for the Microsot Hololense demos to just get a taste of what it can do.

 

[mSanders]

Do you think it is going to be good for your business?

My mate is a plumber. Not sure if a VR headset is going to help him fix a leaky tap.

For now I totally agree. However, in the future your plumber mate would use VR for live streaming his unique skills in a series of demonstrations about what he is able to do in complex of tubes with explanations, for example.

I would bet everything you could do with video today, you will be able to do with VR videos or just 360 degree videos in the next 3 years.

 

[mSanders]

I could see it revolutionizing Estate Agencies. In much the same way the internet has.
People could actually do Virtual House Walk-through.

You got it!

I am looking to start a agency focused on virtual reality for estate agencies as well as hotel rooms and nightclubs. I want to democratize this technology. Nowadays, it is so expensive (price gettin' higher above 3k £) and I'll be able to decrease this to the range of 400 £.

cheers

 

[mSanders]

I think we could split virtual reality in two main fields:

VR - With headset (for a more immersive experience)
360 degree - without headset (you can see all around without that weird glasses a.k.a. those youtube videos)

I would bet in this market if I was an b2c like resort, hotels, night clubs or every kind of business that attracts a lot of people to their doors. People have that necessity to trust so this is a ver good approach to explore it.

Cheers

 

[fisicx]

Estate agents have already tried doing the 360 video and walkthroughs. There was a big marketing splurge on the things but they died off soon after.

If my boiler is broken I'm not going to be looking for a plumber with VR or AR on his website. I just want one who can get here today.

I'm sure VR and AR will be very popular but I'm not so sure they will become a useful business tool except in a few specialist areas.

 

[Paul Cardall]

I think we could split virtual reality in two main fields:

VR - With headset (for a more immersive experience)
360 degree - without headset (you can see all around without that weird glasses a.k.a. those youtube videos)

I would bet in this market if I was an b2c like resort, hotels, night clubs or every kind of business that attracts a lot of people to their doors. People have that necessity to trust so this is a ver good approach to explore it.

Cheers

AR glasses + Idiot behind the wheel = Carmageddon (anyone remember that game?)

I imagine AR will do for car accidents what the smart-phone did, only 100x worse.

 

[mcmm]

VR is a huge emerging market that will settle in particular key industries, entertainment, training, gaming, architecture, property sales and yes billions will be made in these areas.

I do think that VR will literally hit the limits of functionality and will be stuck in these key areas however AR is the sleeping giant here.

I agree the plumber down the road will not want or know one end of VR or AR.

That being said when the current technical limitations of AR have been addressed AR will be as ubiquitous as Google is now.

The potential for AR is far greater to society than VR. Imagine your entire digital world transposed into a device less AR and voice experience. Or even to wind back a little to an actual glasses style experience and your “how to” AR experience turns into something extremely useful (dependant on the AR content being relevant, up-to-date and an AI experience that can guide the AR dummy for unexpected real world events).

Whilst VR will find itself constrained in very specific and profitable key fields this is not true of AR which has huge potential in many areas.

Apple has recently released an AR development toolkit giving developers more scope to create. Google has recently released a consumer product allowing user to take a pictures and videos and objects are recognised using an AI Algorithm ultimately a first step in object recognition in AR, and Microsoft’s “Mixed Reality” Holo Lens is gathering pace.

There are quite a number of hurdles to overcome for AR to become a true reality, namely; computing power, visual display/projection, object tracking, real and augmented object interaction to name a few.

 

[fisicx]

I went to the pub last night and had a beer and talked to my mates. Not sure how AR could have improved things.