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Facebook recently acquired OculusVR for a hefty $2 billion. Before the purchase, Oculus raised more than $91 million in venture funding after an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign put them on the radar of techies and gamers alike. With all of this attention and all of this money now being invested, it looks like virtual reality is making a huge comeback.
So, what’s virtual reality? The clue is in the name - it's the experience of a world that doesn't actually exist.
We aren't talking about getting yourself lost in a book or daydreaming about a photo or painting however, even if these technically are also experiencing some sort of virtual reality.
The virtual reality we are talking about is one created by computers that allows you to experience and interact with a 3D world that isn't real by putting on a head-mounted display and some form of input tracking. The display will typically be split between your eyes, creating a stereoscopic 3D effect with stereo sound, and together with the technology and the input tracking, it will create an immersive, believable experience, allowing you to explore the virtual world being generated by the computer.
Talent acquisition is always a cornerstone of success for any business.
The job name of ‘headhunter’ may sound funny when you think of it, but it highlights just how crucial securing exceptional employees can be. Making mistakes in recruiting and screening will result in average performance and a lot of time waste until you can part ways with this employee and find another one.
This is one of the chief uses of virtual reality for the workplace: it offers recruiters an environment in which they can assess potential hires much more effectively.
But it’s not only about screening, but also about connection: by using VR, both the recruiter and the applicant can get a better sense of whether their values are indeed aligned and compatible.
At first, only NASA used virtual reality to create training sessions for its pilots. It made sense since it was all about fast reflexes and every fraction of a second mattered. Since simulating a spaceflight doesn’t strike us as being that much different from playing a futuristic computer game, NASA’s use of VR made sense. Using VR in education was the next step.
But then, slowly, many companies started using VR training programs for their staff, even though their line of work looked nothing like a space mission. UPS, KFC, and Siemens are only a few examples, and more are following in their footsteps.
Furthermore, by using VR during the training of new hires, you can also help them have much more realistic expectations about the job they will perform. This reduces the time of adjustment and transition to the role, making them to be much more productive in the long run. Plus, it’s fun, so what more could you ask for?
People thought video interviewing would live up to its promise but later it was realized that both hiring managers and candidates can lose out on some important interpersonal interactions in video interviews. The concept of virtual reality can actually give the feeling of real-time and very close interpersonal interactions during the video interviews by simulating the real-life environment.
There are already plenty of tools that help businesses work with freelancers or even employees located at a distance. Managers tend to be content with conversations over Skype or Slack and think that they make real-time collaboration as real as it can get. But when VR also comes into the equation, the previously inevitable time waste is cut down drastically.
Furthermore, you enable your teams to actually foster a sense of community previously reserved only for a traditional office setting. You could even mix AR (augmented reality) with VR for an incredible blend that will completely transform your workplace collaboration for the better.
A huge part of making a business success revolves around finding new ways of stimulating your sales team and enabling it to become more performant. To a huge number of businesses, hacking the formula of sales performance equals more or less to lasting success in their niche.
This is where VR steps in as a game-changer: if you give your sales team (and support staff) a way to really interact with the customers. This will help both your employees find ways to understand how to operate more effectively and what the customers want, and you will also provide your customers with a first-class experience of service.
Enterprises already use immersive technologies, such as augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR). However, experts expect it will take 5 to 10 years before these technologies reach a mature level. Businesses already experiment with VR, but hesitate to fully commit. On the other hand, customers are fascinated by the new entertainment possibilities, but do not want to invest in head-mounted displays (HMDs) as long as the offering is so small. This is going to change during the next five years.
To keep pace with consumer interest and leverage the opportunities of immersive technologies, organizations must address three main challenges in hardware and technology.
The price for VR is too high
VR right now comes at too high of a price point for many. A lot of big investors like Google and Facebook have pumped billions into the VR market, allowing for some very powerful hardware like the Oculus Rift to hit the market in the last year. The issue, according to is that consumers weren't quite ready for it all.
Price and content are absolutely critical for understanding whether our industry is going to get to maturity. When you're spending $1500-2000 for a new tower PC as well as all the sensors and tethering for a head-mounted display [HMD], that's a lot of money! It's hard to come up with a product of any type, besides a car, that sells at volume at that price point.
The good news is that is has given VR developers the chance to learn. There are two promises that need to come for VR – that of the first 100 million users, and that of the next 100 million. But how do you get there? You need a comprehensive solution that includes CPU, GPU, HMD, that costs $1000 or less.
Take this from an enterprise perspective, where a design team may require several VR machines for its workflow and the price issue only compounds, the biggest challenge is, for lack of a better term, TCO [Total Cost of Ownership] -- how [VR] adds business value to what you're doing.
In the B2C world it's very easy to see what that could be because you can influence consumers. In B2B or within a business it's really the collaborative aspects and being able to share.” Soqui said that, from Intel's perspective, companies see the value of VR right away on the enterprise side – particularly when it comes to collaborative tasks like sharing virtual designs across teams and virtual prototyping.
VR Needs Killer Content
But even if you can overcome the price factor, VR still faces a very big hurdle in the form of a lack of must-have content. The number one challenge right now is that compelling content – content that's habit forming from a consumer perspective.
While there are plenty of well-received games for VR as well as emerging use cases on the enterprise side, VR has still yet to find its killer app – that use case or program that will make VR essential for consumers and business.
But rather than a single application, adoption of VR will have to come through education –- letting businesses and the public experience what it can do, whether that be at conferences and expos, having experiences in public places, or doing social outreach. “Think of touchscreens for example. At first touch seemed very gimmicky, but today if you touch a screen and it isn't a touchscreen it feels like somebody broke it. It's become habit forming and you count on it. So how do you that with VR?
VR however will enjoy some challenges unique to technologies like touch because it comes in its own form factor. Unlike things like touch or voice control, which augmented exciting technologies like phones and TVs, VR is a almost whole new thing entirely with its HMDs and controllers. And making it available on phones has its pros and cons. “The phone gets people talking, but it's more of a snacking thing. People throw their Google Cardboard away and think they've seen all VR has to offer. But once you get people to try other VR experiences it becomes, 'Wow, I didn't know it was that, as well.
VR need to be mobile
If you've tried any VR experience you've probably noticed one very cumbersome aspect – there's a lot of cords. That's something that may be fine for more static experiences (i.e. a sporting event where you just sit and look around), but if you want users to move around, especially in an enterprise setting, where multiple users may be sharing a design space and walking around, having a bunch of cords streaming around a room becomes annoying at best and a safety hazard at worst.
The problem with the cord is if a user is effectively locked into a box, restricted by the cord, it essentially defeats the purpose of having them immersed in a supposed 360-degree environment. The freedom of movement is key for VR moving forward. “This industry won't work if you're tethered to a PC. It won't work unless you can experience things the way you do in real life. Bringing this same sort of experience into the home will be the true tipping point for VR – and it's only one to two years away by his estimation.
VR need to be 5G speed
VR and AR technologies, on all ends from collaborative enterprise to consumer entertainment, are already demanding more than ever from our computer hardware (see price concerns mentioned earlier), and soon they'll be doing it for our data communication speeds as well.
The answer for many lies in the further development of 5G – opening up more of the spectrum for faster wireless communication. Intel is already working to develop technologies that would use the 60 Ghz spectrum for wireless VR and is working on beamforming and signal bouncing methods to keep these higher frequencies from being blocked by solid objects.
5G will also have larger implications as the Internet of Things (IoT) expands. Other companies like Qualcomm and T-Mobile are also investing heavily into 5G development and National Instruments recently announced a channel sounder system, created in collaboration with AT&T, for scientists and engineers working to develop 5G technologies.
When you first heard of 5G four years ago, it was all about low latency and mass connection of devices. Over last three to four years it's come down to something a lot more practical.
What we see is a clear set of goals and objectives for 5G. If you want augmented reality into your devices you want to push your download data rates to 10 Ghz. The spectrum currently available for cellular communication is simply not adequate for the demands VR and AR (as well as other IoT technologies) will place on networks. Today's 4G communication is is based on sub-6 Ghz. That spectrum is not enough and we need to expand the spectrum to much higher bands.
VR need Cybersecurity
As with any connected technology it's only a matter of time before cybersecurity issues are raised. While there has yet to be any sort of high-profile hack or cyberattack conducted via VR, but anyone who follows cybersecurity should consider it only a matter of time given how little attention is being paid to the intersection of VR and cybersecurity right now.
For example, if I'm in an enterprise and there's a headset do I want someone to steal my headset? Do I want someone to take the headset, and put it on, and see the collaborative thing I'm doing? These are all questions Intel is grappling with. We can do things like biometric tracking, authenticating the end user and we need to have the headset managed in with IT environment – the security and manageability aspects are the things the industry is looking at next.
The same security measures companies have already applied to laptops and desktops will have to be applied to VR headsets and rigs. It could be another form of attack or all of sudden that expensive headset gets used somewhere else – that's an important asset.
To conclude, in all new endeavors and with all improvements that await us, the world of VR will get more engaging. Current hurdles and challenges in VR ecosystem are not permanent. Still, all stakeholders involved from makers and raving fans to clients should work on improving conditions for VR to adopt, evolve, prosper and disseminate.
How Virtual Reality (VR) Devices are Impacting the Workplace. (2024, Feb 12). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/document/how-virtual-reality-vr-devices-are-impacting-the-workplace
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