Watch the avatar of Jeremy Dalton, the VR/AR lead for top analyst firm PwC, discussing the importance of virtual reality and augmented reality in Sinespace, the upcoming Unity-based virtual world (a proud NWN media partner sponsor). The talk itself gets started around 2:55, with Dalton's presentation running until about 38:30, and the rest of the video devoted to audience Q&A. Lots of interesting nuggets, such as the wide range of VR use cases Dalton cites -- for instance (around 32:30) he talks about how VR is being used to reduce prejudice by having volunteers embody in VR an avatar of a different race -- "that has been shown to decrease levels of implicit racial bias". Far as business use cases, it's noteworthy that PwC itself uses VR to enable its real estate team to visualize office designs, and to immerse clients in depictions of the future.
The Q&A brings up some interesting points:
Jeremy has a good take on the "What's VR's killer app" question, answering that that's not quite the right question -- it's like asking what the killer app for smartphones is supposed to be, when there are so many. He wraps up by offering a smart note of skepticism about immediate mass adoption, saying "VR will not become overnight in near future":
"I would advocate patience, and I would say it's inevitable, but it's probably going to take, I'd say 5 to 10 years," says Dalton. He then goes on to cite an estimate that up to one third of the population will get nauseous and otherwise reject VR experiences, no matter how much the graphics or hardware are improved. (That sounds right to me, especially considering studies that a large percentage of women get nauseous from VR.)
Give it a watch, and if you have some follow-up questions for Jeremy, I'll let him know and he'll hopefully address them here.
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