The potential of unencumbered communication between people, real people, was mind blowing. In those days we had “long distance calls” – you had to pay per minute to reach people outside of the arbitrarily placed boundaries (they were intentional, but created as a toll by telcos). This meant you really only called people that weren’t in your city when there was some sense of urgency, or you had business reasons.

Along comes the web, which gave those that cared to learn how, the ability to publish anything we wanted to – for anyone on earth to read. The history of the web is covered well elsewhere so I’ll spare you that rollercoaster. At the time, say 1995, big news media and publishers controlled the narrative, and people were simply one-way consumers – reading magazines, newspapers, and watching TV as the sole sources of information inputs. There were exceptions of course (the BBS, Usenet, FidoNet, Compuserve, AOL, etc.) but most people didn’t know about them.

The sense of wonder and possibility that accompanied this new Information Age has materialized in my world in the form of technology startups. I use the term startup, though it’s not really the best descriptor. It’s more like tests, or more commonly MVPs: I have an idea for a thing, dissect it, build it, then let a few people use it and see what happens. If there’s enough interest, I’ll add a revenue model and test/iterate.

By the way, this is a terrible approach for most founders and will result in a lot of lost sleep and relationships. If you’re looking for the quickest path to MVP, please pick up the Startup Owners Manual and read every page. I do not recommend the “build it and they will come” approach.

I digress. I’ve been reflecting on this ability to make things quickly quite a bit lately. It feels a little like a superpower. I can take something that exists as a simple idea to the computer screen in all of its glory. It may be ugly, but it will work. There’s a term in web development called “full stack” which means front end (browser/client side using HTML/CSS/Javascript etc.) and back end (server side databases/scripting languages, etc.). Today most people are trained (or choose) to specialize in one or the other. There are technical and non-technical founders, single founders in search of co-founders to fill some gap or even help formulate the idea itself.

I’ve been working on a few ideas and will present them here for your scrutiny and feedback. With the launch of Apple’s Vision Pro, one of these ideas has been occupying more time in my brain than it has in a while. It may be the first to materialize… it’s a new take on the web in 3D with no changes required to the web itself. It works with existing websites and infrastructure. More on that soon.

How about you? What’s your superpower?

If you’re an entrepreneur or a freelancer, working from home won’t be new. What’s changed is the perspective, the obligation. Before 2020, we were more able to move our workspace to a coffee shop or a local coworking space for a change of scenery, or to feel more connected to our community. Doing so today brings with it a whole host of new risks, but our desire to be connected and to have that change of scenery remains.

Working from home has its challenges and benefits, and tomes have been written on the subject. This post will address something that isn’t covered in the main stream news cycles, or by many people at all. Yet. This post is about moving what we think of as our work space into a virtual space. The term “virtual” as related to work has been used to describe a physical workspace that’s disconnected from the company’s owned or leased space. We’ll fix that today.

When you see images or video of “virtual reality,” it’s important to remember that what you’re seeing is a two dimensional view of a 3D space. When you’re in VR, what you see surrounds you, it engulfs you. You are moved from one physical location in to a space that feels real. This is simple to explain, but until you put on a headset, the words simply don’t do the description justice.

Working in VR.

The concept of the “virtual reality headset” has evolved quite a bit recently. It’s been liberated, really, and has reached a price point that consumers find pleasing ($299). It’s less than half of what millions pay for their phones, yet the headset provides so much more. It’s an opportunity to immerse yourself into another experience all together, no imagination required.

Virtual reality is no longer synonymous with games and gaming. Of course that all exists, but for myself and many others, it’s a secondary or even tertiary use case. I use my headset primarily for work, then entertainment (movies, YouTube, etc.). Gaming happens every now and then.

A PC (Mac, or PC) is no longer required to enjoy virtual reality. Today’s headsets have all of the processing power built directly in. They’re wireless, and apps install directly into the headset. For our post today though, you’ll want to have a computer available. Its screen is what will be visible inside of the VR headset.

Here are the basics required for working in VR

1. A Virtual Reality headset. I recommend the Oculus Quest 2 exclusively.
2. A PC (Mac, Windows, or Linux)
3. ImmersedVR – the software that connects them together.

ImmersedVR has two components. First is the app that gets installed on the headset. That app then connects to an agent that is installed on the computer. The result, like magic, is that your computer’s display appears as a window inside the VR headset. If you have two physical displays, then you’ll have two displays in VR. If you don’t, ImmersedVR gives you the ability to create up to 5 “virtual” displays.

Getting started is incredibly simple: buy the headset, then install ImmersedVR on the headset and on your computer. It’s really that simple.

Frequently asked questions.

Why do I recommend the Oculus Quest 2?

It’s small, it’s light, its high resolution screen is perfect for displaying computer screens in VR, the battery lasts for what I think is a perfect VR work session (2.5 hours), it’s wireless, and it’s inexpensive. For the first time the cost of the headset isn’t the road block, perception and experience are.

Previous to Quest 2, a VR setup would have a giant wire connecting the headset (with no brains of its own) to a massive gaming PC. That whole setup would cost thousands of dollars. The Quest 2 is $299, all in, and ImmersedVR is $0 (free).

Why do I recommend ImmersedVR over other screen solutions?

While there are other options for displaying your computer’s screen in a headset, ImmersedVR is the only one built from the ground up to work on all platforms, and to make the experience a social one. You can connect to public rooms and have the ambiance of a coffee shop, co working with perfect strangers. Don’t worry, they can’t see your screens. The experience is mind blowing. When someone speaks, you tend to look in their direction to their avatar.

ImmersedVR is also focused exclusively on working in VR, from individuals to enterprise. With a paid plan, you can create private rooms that can hold up to 8 people. This means a small remote team can get together, share screens, pair program, work on a presentation or whatever.

The other most common software does show your displays, but it’s primary use is to enable desktop quality gaming on the wireless headset.

How do you type in VR?

The first question most people have at this point is “How do you type in VR?” It’s a great question because the thought of using controllers to type long form prose or code on a virtual keyboard is the thing of nightmares. The answer is simple though. You use the exact same mouse and keyboard that you would normally. If you’re already a touch-typist, then this will seem natural. If not, well, there’s hope. There are dozens of touch typing tutorials available on the web – just use them while connected to your headset! The rest is cake.

Think of it this way… the headset simply takes the idea of a physical display and moves it into the headset. Everything else is exactly the same.

How much physical space is required?

The Oculus Quest 2 has a guardian concept to help keep you safe (thus the name). You can draw, using your controllers, a space as large as 25′ x 25′ if you have room for it. For computer/laptop work though, I use a setting called “stationary” where the headset draws a circle that’s about 2 meters in diameter. Working in VR takes no more space than sitting at your computer (or standing as I do). If you reach out and come close to your guardian, then the guardian becomes visible as a warning.

How do I drink my (coffee, tea, beer, etc.) with a headset on?

Straws. Straws save the day.

What if I need to see the world outside of my headset?

The Oculus Quest has a feature called “Pass through.” This feature allows the cameras on the front of the headset to pass reality in to the headset. You can access this feature with two gentle taps on the left or right side of the headset. You can then see everything (in black and white) on your desk or in the room. It’s a beautiful thing. When someone comes in, two taps and you’re having a conversation. Two more taps, and you’re back to “the office.”

How do I make or receive calls in VR?

If you’re on a Mac and use an iPhone, then make sure that they’re connected using Facetime Audio. When your iPhone rings, your Mac will alert you and use FaceTime audio to answer the call. I’m not sure how to connect an incoming call to your mobile device to Windows. For outgoing calls however, you can use Google Voice and set the caller ID to your mobile phone’s number.

In summary.

There are three required components to working in virtual reality: a headset, a computer whose display will be used, and ImmersedVR. The benefits that working in vr brings (focus, social interaction, and team work) are well worth the price of admission. Feel free to share this post with your team, and I’ll be happy to field any questions.

The time has come. I’ll see you in VR!

How many of you remember what the gaming ecosystem looked like in 2007? There were consoles, PC gaming, Macs were practically a no-show except for “light” games, and mobile gaming was ports of 8 bit gaming engines and evolved versions of snake.

No one cared about playing games on the phone, that’s not what they were for, they were for email (Windows CE, Blackberry), messaging, and phone calls. Nokia’s N-Gage platform notwithstanding

Fast forward to today, iOS and Android (phones) own the market that was created when the iPhone was released… that market is called “Casual Games.” There’s been no shortage of debate about how powerful the phones are, and how well they can play games, but without a doubt, nearly everyone plays games on their phones.

These games aren’t typically using the latest whiz-bang graphics, or VR, or or even team play. They’re nothing like what a “gamer” would play. They’re far to uninteresting. The gamer wants wicked refresh rates, absurd FPS, and the latest and greatest GPUs and CPUs with as much memory as possible. Add a VR headset and the requirements increase further.

The casual gamer wants to be able to enjoy themselves, play puzzle games, grow farms, checkers, peer to peer backgammon, and so on. Things that run perfectly on their mobile devices.

What’s happening today is a very similar revolution. Oculus released the Oculus go, powered by what amounts to a mobile phone’s core. They’ve stripped the non-essential software and hardware and put it in the market.

What’s different this time? The Oculus Go leverages a well tuned app store ecosystem, developed with their partners at Samsung while building Gear VR. Why does the app store matter? Says Greg Joswiak, Apple vice president of iOS, iPad and iPhone marketing, in a Rolling Stone story called “Apple: How iPhone Gaming Revolutionized Video Games”

“We thought maybe we’d get 50 apps to start, but on the first day we had 500, and we thought that was an omen. But I’d be lying if I said we thought it would be as revolutionary as it would become. It’s changed the world. It’s changed the way software is written and distributed. It’s changed the gaming industry.”

Simply? Consumers want an easy button. The Oculus Go is incredibly simple, and easy. The Oculus Go is not for the “gamers” among us. It’s a very simple and elegant entry into the consumer VR space. It provides exactly the same experience that the current casual games do on iOS and Android, but in VR. You can play with friends, watch movies and TV, and of course you can do most of it in real time with friends.

Here’s a quote from a friend of mine, and new Go convert/evangelist Elie Finegold: “Got another one today for my wife so we can hang together while I’m traveling.” This comes from our first experience in Oculus Rooms. He and I spent the better part of an hour just chatting and catching up. He was so taken by it, well, you see what happened.

We’re on the edge of something great here. I hope you’ll follow along for more as it unfolds.

Previous Go stories:
New to the Oculus Go? Here are 10 apps to get you started.
Wireless consumer VR: slip it on and Go. Anywhere.

You may know the game Breakout, which originally appeared on the Atari gaming system in 1976. From there we had Super Breakout and a whole host of clones and variations in the 90’s an 2000’s. Arkanoid on the Mac platform was another of my favorites. Then came along Vector Ball 3D which turned the axis 90 degrees, so instead of a paddle moving left to right along the bottom of the play area, it now moved up/down, left and right. In Vector Ball 3D allowed forward and backwards as well.. This gave us a great glimpse of what would become possible once we could play in a truly immersive 3d experience.

This brings us to ZeroTransform’s Proton Pulse, one of my 10 must haves for new Oculus Go users. I posted to Reddit shortly after picking my Oculus Go asking if anyone had a recommendation for a breakout style game. Proton Pulse was one of the games mentioned, so I went directly to the Oculus Store and purchased it.

The game itself was written for the Gear VR years ago, and hadn’t been updated since. The tracking of the paddle uses head movements, as the default Gear VR didn’t have a hand held controller. Even with that limitation, the game play was still great.

What strikes me most about Proton Pulse is the environment itself. It’s very bright, very neon, and full of color and movement. I can’t help but think about the early visions of what VR would look like in the future (circa 1995) via Lawnmower Man, Hackers, Johnny Mnemonic and other scifi movies. Maybe the word I’m looking for is Cyberpunk. The soundtrack lends itself to this as well, with original music from Jake Kaufman [Virt], Dan Behrens [Danimal Cannon], and the developer himself, Justin Moravetz [Rave-TZ]. It’s pulsating and electric.

The updated Proton Pulse leverages the Oculus Go controller, and the game itself has been upgraded to Proton Pulse Plus, the same game that’s available across all of the other VR platforms.

This is a casual arcade style game that requires your attention. It causes you to put your thoughts on hold while you focus on getting to that next level. This is a good thing, and precisely the promise of virtual reality.

Proton Pulse Plus from Zero Transform is available for $4.99 (a steal in my opinion) from the Oculus Store. Yes, I did in fact buy it twice. It’s that good.

The Oculus Go is available starting at $199 for the 32GB model from your local Best Buy, or from Amazon. Yes, the link to Amazon is an affiliate link, so I will earn either $1.99 or $2.49 if you buy the Oculus Go with that link. If you do, thank you!

Without further ado…

1. Claro. Claro is an incredibly detailed puzzle game that uses sounds and fine motion to great a serene setting. It’s one of the best examples of what the Oculus Go platform can be. It’s not a AAA VR gaming title with blood and gore, it’s far better. It’s peaceful and makes you think.
2. Amaze 3D Videos. The Amaze team is building a platform with true 3D videos. They’re not full 360, and frankly they don’t need to be. While the Oculus Go certainly can do 360° video, and well, most people I know use it sitting down. Have you ever watched a 360° video sitting on a couch?
3. Facebook 360. There are many different type of videos within the Facebook 360 app, but I found the true 360 experiences to be the best. Specifically, watch the video with Bill Gates in Africa (and be prepared to look around in his car. It’s fascinating.).
4. Proton Pulse. One of my favorite types of games is the breakout game. In these games your job is to move a paddle across the screen to keep a ball bouncing into bricks. It’s a classic game. The goal is to clear the bricks and move to the next level. Proton Pulse takes this into VR, and changes the plane of play. You use your head to move the “paddle” and clear the bricks. There are power-ups and interesting treats as you get better at the game. This one experience solidified the value of the purchase. It’s a great example of an immersive world, straight out of 90’s scifi. It’s now been updated to use the Oculus Go controller!
5. Wonderglade. This casual game caught me by surprise. The graphics are incredibly detailed, and the app itself is constructed like a board game. It’s not a board game by any means, but it has that feel – it’s more like a launch pad. You move a character to each experience, then enter the experience. Your view turns into the game you selected, and you play away. My favorites are the putt putt game, and the basketball challenge. Neither of which are what you just imagined. At all.
6. Retarget. This is a puzzle game, with a casual “toss” game play. You toss a red ball toward glass containers, and if you shatter the wrong objects, you lose the level. It felt a lot like an Angry Birds wherein you can complete the level with grading. You can immediate try again to improve your finish. It’s very addicting, and uses the 3D space well.
7. Art Plunge. If you’ve ever wondered what it’d be like to go into a painting like the Mona Lisa, now is your chance. The world inside the painting has been meticulously recreated to show action and scenes that would have surrounded the setting of the painting. You have to see this to believe it. What caught my eye more than anything though is the navigation technique. Incredibly creative… pick it up to see what it’s like.
8. Gala360. This is a very simple concept – take incredible 360° photos and show them in a slide show. The unique value here is that in some cases the artists that have taken the photos are available for hire. There are photos from all over the world. Jungles, cityscapes, rooms… everything you can imagine. It’s well worth the $3.99 to unlock all of the images. That’s a Latte from your favorite coffee shop, and it goes to the photographers that have included their works.
9. Oculus Venues. A few nights ago, Vance Joy graced the stage at Red Rocks Amphitheater and along for the ride was NextVR. This particular experience gave you several views of the venue, changing intermittently as you chat with your seat mates. If you choose to, you’ll have up to four seat mates, with the full ability to chat. If you turn and look around, you’ll be surrounded by other people wearing the Oculus Go or Gear VR. The Facebook details of your seat mates play a role in who you’re seated next to. It’s incredibly helpful to see what things you have in common (friends, groups, etc.) before engaging in conversation. The content is still evolving, but I can’t recommend it enough. Social VR is the future, and Venues does a great job of showing us how and why.
10. Along Together. I’ll be completely frank, I haven’t purchased this one… yet. It’s two to three times as much as the average title in the Go store, but based on the reviews it’s worth every penny. Out of 37 reviews, 92% are 5 stars, the rest are four stars. Right, nothing below four stars. It’s billed as a VR platformer with problem solving and puzzles that will keep you entertained for hours. It certainly is nice to look at, and showcases what’s possible when experiences leverage the available hardware.

Of course there’s always Oculus Rooms (social game play, like checkers, boggle, etc.) with fellow Oculus Go users, Netflix, Hulu, the web browser (YouTube, gmail, Flipboard, Reddit, etc.) and other things you’ll find entertaining. Look at the reviews of the things I posted above, and view similar things. Also, be sure to keep up with the What’s New section. Find and join the Facebook Oculus Go groups (here, here), and the Reddit dedicated to the device.

If you haven’t yet picked up the go, here’s a link to Amazon. Yes, it’s an affiliate link, so I will earn either $1.99 or $2.49 if you buy the Oculus Go with that link. If you do, thank you!

I live in 350 sq ft. with my wife, daughter, and two dogs. It’s nice to be able to zone out and be in my own space without having to be tethered to the PC and the Samsung HMD Odyssey. I’ve even used it outside in a camping chair.

My current usage patterns suggest that it’s a replacement for using Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Flipboard, and so on on my iPhone X. I set up a couple of web based Google Mail accounts too. It’s remarkably usable for these things. I have bookmarks set for all of them, so they’re just a click away.

As far as VR experiences, there are several things I keep going back to. Wonder Glade has several mini games. For some reason, I really enjoy the basketball and mini-golf.

Proton Pulse is a great breakout/bricks type game apparently made for Gear VR as it uses head motions, not the controller. I expect that’ll be updated, but it’s well worth the $2.99.

A couple of other interesting things: Mondly (interactive language practice) and MelodyVR (360° live concerts with multiple camera positions).

I also love that Altspace is here. That brings the promise of social VR to an untethered, inexpensive headset. I haven’t tested all of the games, but being able to play with others, cross platform, is intriguing.

I haven’t test the party feature yet. I have a few friends with Go, but if you’re ever online at the same time I am, I’d be happy to give it a shot.

Of course the consumption experiences are great too. Hulu, Netflix, Amaze, Gala… they all do exactly what you expect.

There are some things that would make the experience better, but they’re certainly not show stoppers. Copy and pasting text, a “right click” somehow in the browser, pairing of other Bluetooth devices (keyboard, mouse, headphones), and a way to view a computer’s screen interactively. Think Bigscreen, but two way.

Imagine setting up a virtual server at Digital Ocean with Ubuntu, and being able to control that machine from your Go, anywhere with WIFI. I’d love to use this for work, but like with VR in general, this is still a wide open area for devs to tackle.

More soon.

You can pick one up at Best Buy, or follow this link to Amazon. It is an affiliate link, so if you make a purchase there, Heather and I will receive a small percentage of the sale.

The idea was simple really – a central repository for your digital persona. Create an account with your email address, upload a photo (or photos), and any developer that uses the Gravatar APIs would automatically have access to your data to fill in profile information. It meant you could update and maintain your profile in one place and that data would be updated all over. It’s a one to many internet profile.

The time is now for a multi-dimensional version of this application. Here are a few ideas:

• Open, and decentralized using an IPFS style storage engine
• 3D avatars – as many as the user can create, but only one active at a time
• Support for the major model formats (3ds, max, c4d, maya, blend, obj, fbx)
• All avatars would have a well documented skeletal API for movement controls when used in 3rd party systems
• Tight integration with OpenSVR – the Social VR API
• Character inventory storage and retrieval – think cloud storage for the “bag of holding” with pouches for each application using the APIs.
• Toggles for things like user name display, microphone control, bubbles, and content rating controls
• Enable API based import – Sketchfab -> OpenAvatar with one click.

This concept would allow developers to spend less time building avatar systems, allowing them to focus on the thing that matters most – the experience. Users benefit by having the same avatar everywhere that matters. If you want to play Robo Recall as a fairy princess from wherever… well this makes that possible.

Being able to recognize other players by their avatar across all Social VR experiences would make the experience feel closer to reality. It might seem strange to see a photo realistic avatar in a cartoon world (like Rec Room), but that’s what needs to happen.

What do you think? Leave a comment below?

Here are more stories in the VR category.

The individual titles available are getting more immersive and users are spending hours, hundreds of hours, with HMDs engaged. Game titles like VRChat, Rec Room, and OrbusVR are taking off. Their common theme? They’re Social VR.

Each of the major players in the space have some form of home (or house) as their default location when you dawn the gear. All of them act as launchers for other experiences and applications. Steam VR launches and interacts with the Steam platform, Oculus Home/Dash interact with the Oculus ecosystem, and Microsoft and Sony have their own. Oculus Dash 2 is a step in the right direction, and even has some elements of Ready Player One. But what happens with Vive or Windows Mixed Reality users?

Facebook took a remarkable step last week by opening the once Rift exclusive Facebook Spaces to Vive users. Of course anyone could use it with Revive, but this is official support. It’s a recognition that the combined market is a much larger opportunity. But I digress.

One thing they all have in common is that these core launchers are not social in any way. I can’t invite you to hang out in my Cliff House, then jump into a game of Rec Room together and return the house upon exit. None of them work this way. Why? More importantly, why should they be?

Let’s liberate Social VR and make it open source and cross platform. Not just OS, but dev environment too. Maybe OpenSVR?

What if we could build an open API for Unity, Unreal, and WebXR that remembers the state of a user’s VR experience? As the user exits, this object would collect data about that specific point in time then save a 360 degree “live” image (like Apple’s iOS) of the exit point. It could track play/use over time and dozens of data points that could come in handy.

The 360 degree image captured at the time of exit could wrap the inner sphere of a teleportation portal. We’ve seen a form of this with 360 degree videos in Facebook Spaces. To play the game again, tap the sphere in High Fidelity or your preferred open Social VR platform. To play with friends, have them tap the same sphere, anywhere in the metaverse.

This sounds way harder than it is. This is a layer that gets built into the developer’s tools of choice. Similar things exist for iOS (Game Center) and Android, and Microsoft has the XBOX platform. What I’m proposing is 100% open source.

As we move toward work in VR, shared experiences with friends and colleagues will be transformative to human relationships. This is an important step.

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment below!

The early days of VR were research (funded by the military), big business, health, and science. The latest generation is about intense immersive gaming – sweat, fatigue, adrenaline, and anxiety all present. The experiences are as genuine to your brain as they need to be.

As we move toward the future of VR, it’s important that we recognize its strengths and weaknesses. The immersion is real, the interaction is real, and the relationships are real, too. Affordability is no longer the barrier, with incredibly immersive HMD (Head Mounted Display) experiences starting at $276 and VR ready PCs at around $719 (less if you build your own). If you’re on a budget, Google’s Daydream platform is a good starting point, as is Samsung’s Gear VR platform– each under $100.

So what’s the opportunity? Here’s a fact: I haven’t seen a VR native spreadsheet, presentation software, or a word processor. No calendaring, time tracking, coding environments, email, you get the idea. In fact, I’ve seen very little in the productivity space that isn’t a simple github proof of concept done over a weekend to prove it can be done.

This isn’t to belittle the efforts of pioneers, to the contrary. It’s to point out that many of these were built before Sony sold 2 million PSVR systems, and Microsoft threw their hat into the VR ring with Windows Mixed Reality.

The opportunity is now.

Opportunity 1) games don’t require much in the way of input. In fact, many of today’s use cases don’t require a keyboard at all, and this is a good thing. Getting text into VR is a slow process: a) you learn to touch type, b) use a virtual keyboard with the same level of patience (and time) it took to learn the physical one (sometimes decades), or c) wait until dictation isn’t awkward in a shared physical space.

Opportunity 2) In the same way that the web changed what it meant to compute (“The network is the computer.” John Gage, Sun Microsystems, 1984), the web can change what it means to experience work. All of the major technology companies have web based versions of the basic productivity suites, and they’re all solid implementations. What does it look like to combine these with WebVR, an open, web based graphics library for virtual and augmented reality?

What’s stopping you from building TextEdit or Notepad for VR, using the WebVR A-Frame as the framework? Companies building VR tools for work today are going to be the Apple, Microsoft, and Google of the future. It’s an open, green pasture, and no one is on the field.

What do you think? Are we ready to start thinking about what it means to work in VR? Are you ready for meetings in a virtual shared space? Does VR allow home office workers to feel like a part of the team?