Virtuality Podcast Boston Virtual Reality

Valentin Heun is a VP of Innovation Engineering at PTC where he is leading the PTC Reality Lab. His research focuses on new computer interaction methods for the physical space. His work was named by Fast Company as Boldest Ideas in User Interface Design, and has received global recognition.
 
Powerful ideas are hidden in simple implementations
00’40”: Valentin Heun background and his experience in the MIT Media Lab
02’40”: Graphic design as a human perception problem
05’05”: The potential of Augmented Reality through spatial learning
06’30”: What are the origins of the ptc reality lab?
08’15”: What were the first few projects the ptc reality lab worked on?
11’00”: AR is not a second world on top of the existing one.
12’20”: Technology changes the physical world around us.
14’45”: Using AR to guide a robot spatially instead of through a screen
16’25”: PTC’s Expert capture product
17’25”: The reality zone
18’40”: Combining AR with IOT to create value
19’50”: Understanding and interpreting data with AR
21’20”:  Societal concepts and technological infrastructure are holding AR back from entering the world
28’15”:  The concept of contextual computing in order to serve the relevant AR experience
30’20”:  Contacting the ptc reality lab for potential collaborations
Notes:
Videos of ptc reality lab:
https://www.ptc.com/en/about/reality-lab
Chark fink convergence:
https://finkmetaverse.com/product/convrgence-papeback/
Contact the ptc reality lab team:
Awesome@ptc.com

XR is changing how we learn. Lorenzo Vallone, from the Award winning studio Xennial Digital, sat down with us at VRX 2019 to share their thirteen STEM education experiences, A Magic leap climate
change visualization, and their social impact work in Guatemala and Columbia. Xennial Digital won the award for the 2018 most innovative company by the La Prensa newspaper.
The most unique part of Xennial Digital is how they are partnering with schools to make high school students product designers on their educational platform. This results
in a product that is made for students by students with expert oversight and guidance. Their success is shown when students spend forty minutes modifying variables
to observe and understand outcomes.
00'35": Xennial Digital general overview

01'20": Working with private schools for a virtual reality pilot to get kids excited about science

03'20": Getting students involved in the development process as product designers

05'30": Formalizing the program with an interdisciplinary group of kids

08'40": Discovering what about STEM children love or find interesting and capturing that curiosity in the product.

12'40": Climate change visualization for Magic Leap

15'00": Working with non-profits in Guatemala to provide students with XR technology

17'28": How experiences in the virtual world were able to transcend into the real world and provide people with the aptitude to change the world around them.

22'30": Columbia Human rights festival project around landmines in rural areas that are still killing over one thousand people each year.

25'50": How to dissect a pig.

27'25": The business value of XR technology
29'45": Perception of the self and others in virtual reality

30'58": Rebuilding the Globe Theater and performing William Shakespeare Virtual Reality live with trained actors

34'25": Training people on these new technologies is critical to adoption.
 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/XennialDigitalXR/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/XennialDigital Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/11508318 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xennialdigital/ xennialDigital.com
Miami VR Expo 
http://miamivrexpo.com/

We sit down with Derek Belch, CEO of Strivr, to discuss enterprise VR training. Strivr is the leader and best known
for their product delivered to Walmart installed in each store on over 17,000 Oculus Go's. The conversation begins around the origins of Strivr between Derek Belch and Jeremy Bailenson then moves into the details and challenges of onboarding enterprise clients. After covering the details of custom XR training we move onto the bigger picture of of using AR and VR for training and their use cases from custom training, to sports, and improving
soft skills. Lastly, Derek closes out the conversation by sharing proven value and stats delivered to clients.
 
00'00": How did Strivr get started?

03'25": The Strivr mission statement

05'00": Approach training as religion and performance improvement

05'20": Was VR a hard sell to clients?

06'45": challenges in the enterprise space

07'20": Oculus enterprise licensing

08'27": Logistics of building for enterprise at scale

10'00": Is everything custom or are some things reused?

12'20": Training modules aren’t all that different from games. What are the differences?

15'14": How do you work with the creating a statement of work?

17'05": Is strivr set to exclusively working in the enterprise and sports verticals?

18'10": What’s next and how is newer technology changing how VR training is done.

21'20": Is the cost or the technology holding back AR from widespread enterprise implementation?

23'20": Who is requesting AR?

23'50": How setting unrealistic expectations are misleading stakeholders and consumers.

25'15": What are the most requested use cases from potential clients?

26'30": Soft skill use cases and how Soft skills are a hard sell because it’s difficult to measure value.

28'22": What are the challenges behind implementing sexual harassment training?

31'00": The science supports that VR is more effective for training.
Links:
Strivr.com
virtuality.show
bostonvr.org

After the reality virtually hackathon, we spoke with Brian Cohn from the winning team move2improve. Others on the team were
Roghayeh (Leila) Barmak
Betsy Skrip
Cameron Peirce
Chris Berry
 The reality virtually hackathon had 450 developers from 35 countries composing 105 teams competing for various prizes. 40% of participants were women/non-binary. This makes the reality Virtually hackathon the largest, most diverse XR hackathon in the world.
Brian is the chief data scientist at Kaspect working with fortune 10 companies, hospitals, and biotech companies. Brian's Phd focused on human muscle control patterns as they related to heath, development, aging and pathological conditions. 
 
We discuss Brian's experience at the Reality Virtually Hackathon before digging into his medical background. We then dig into Brian’s work using peripherals to track and treat diseases such as Parkinson’s. In each of the topics we discuss, a resounding theme is data privacy and how collected data is used and we ask the question... Does the data even need to be collected? 
 

01’30”: how did move 2 improve go from idea to hackathon winning team among 105 teams.
03’00”: diseases and traumas that require physical therapy
03’35”: Building the team at the Reality Virtually hackathon.
04’27”: Is XR the best fit for move2improve?
06’20”: The move 2 improve experience explanation.
08’20”: How does move to improve help the clinician?
08'55”: USC study to evaluate the VR data collection of tremors and “shakiness”.
10'50”: healthcare expenses and VA initiative to do more telemedicine.
12’00”: HIPPA and XR as a data collection device
13’10”: FDA approval for commercial grade therapeutics
14'00”: building in safety protocols into XR environments
14'50”: At what point did Brian pick up XR development?
16'05”: The importance of conservatively collecting and user data
17'00”: Oculus Runtime and mobile app data collection example
18'00”: Data doesn’t have to be big to make a big change!
19'50”: Brian’s takeaway from the Reality Virtually Hackathon.
 
BrianCohn.com
realityvirtuallyhack.com
 virtuality.show
 

The wild: A cloud collaboration tool for sharing and desiging ideas.
Connected platform to
Jason parks was able to connect with Gabe Paez, CEO and co-founder of The Wild, A cloud-based, real-time collaboration platform
for designers to create and share immersive experiences.
00'30": Brief overview of the wild
03'00": Creating shared spaces with agency
03'30": How an interetest in Lucid dreams led Gabe to create the wild
05'10": Supported formats for models you can import into the wild
06'55": Target groups are Architechture, Engineering, and Construction: Gabe warns start ups not to shotgun to each vertical.
08'00": Focusing on experience designers and creating virtual spaces with their use in mind.
09'40": How can a company interact with and use the wild?
11'35": From a plane to my office, How and where can people connect to the wild?
15'00": Who is using the wild now and for what purpose?
16'42": How does the wild support partners and new users?
thewild.com
https://twitter.com/TheWildXR
 

Charity Everett is an ARTiste who is working on a groundbreaking episodic storytelling project that utilizes AR while exploring the themes of humanity, and evolution of art, technology, and storytelling.
Charity cut her teeth in XR while working on a VR musical experience as a part of the inaugural Oculus cohort. She has since completed multiple Artist residencies, spoken at GDC, AR in Action, and ArtTechPsyche IV at Harvard.
 
Show Notes:
0'00": Charity’s Background and first VR project
4'40": Mobile based AR and real world examples
5'30": Accessibility not just as an experience but as a medium anyone can use to express themselves.
7'35": What is Go Back Fetch it?
8'15": Challenging preconceived notions about our reality.
10'05": charities choice to root the digital experience in physical pieces.
11'00": How the project started and changed as Charity worked on it.
14'00": Basis for the title and art style of Go Back Fetch IT
15'05": A trip to the moon by Georges Méliès
16'30": development process and techniques for go back fetch it.
17'35": information about how to find charities work.
18'20": What should viewers take away from Go Back Fetch it?
19'50": where does charity expect people to interact with Go Back Fetch it?
21'00": What apps can be used to interact with Go Back Fetch it?
22'20": Advice from Charity to aspiring creatives
23'20": AR without coding and how to get started
www.gobackfetchit.com
Twitter: @CharityARtiste
Charity@gobackfetchit.com