Virtual and augmented reality will turn any space into a workspace, letting remote teams collaborate as if they're in the same room. The shift could shrink corporate campuses and replace travel with holograms and gesture-based meetings.
Hey everyone, this is my new video cast via Adobe Voice. This week we talk about how virtual reality and augmented reality will change the workplace forever. Get ready. Virtual reality is about to change a key area of your life. No, it's not how you play games, watch movies, or get diagnosed. It's how you work. More and more companies rely on creative capacities of a dispersed workforce. Virtual tools will empower them just to do that. Virtual reality is the new headquarters. Talent is everywhere these days, and smart money is finding ways to tap its potential. The big corporate campus is becoming a thing of the past. Virtual reality makes every space your workspace. It unleashes workforce potential in unprecedented ways and will completely transform the ways we collaborate. The greatest challenge of a dispersed workforce is finding ways to replace the collaborations that happen in a face to face environment. That's why companies like Apple still want big corporate HQs. Virtual reality can make you feel like you're sitting next to your colleague, even if he or she is a continent away. What's more, in a virtual environment, the ways you can collaborate go well beyond what's possible in an office. New virtual tools come online. You'll see them increasingly geared towards creating meaningful work environments and events. Microsoft's just announced HoloLens is a great case in point. The product is aimed squarely at the workplace, which makes sense coming from the world's leader in productivity software. HoloLens generates augmented reality, or AR, which combines a user's physical environment with holographic representations of data. Users working together manipulate these holograms with simple hand gestures rather than clicking buttons or keys, without ever leaving their physical surroundings. This is way different from pure VR, which creates an immersive digital environment. Microsoft strategy is also different from rivals such as Facebook and HTC who target gamers with their new VR gear. HoloLens full potential is several years away in the future. Oculus and Vive are already in the marketplace at prices consumers can afford, while Microsoft has just released a $3,000 developer toolkit for HoloLens. However, HoloLens is already compatible with 2D window applications, and plenty of developers are taking notice of HoloLens stunning 3D capabilities. Conceptually, HoloLens is more in common with Google Glass, which was first released in 2013. But Google put their cart ahead of the horse. Google Glass lacks software to fully unlock its potential, and its recording abilities spark privacy concerns. Google, however, is still deeply invested in augmented reality. They have released Cardboard, a $15 consumer VR headset, and are working on a new version of Google Glass for the enterprise. Inevitably, all of this competition will be good for consumers. It will lead to convergence as the best solutions rise to the top and inspire others to create even better ones. While pure VR or virtual reality may first gain traction among gamers, workplace users will soon recognize its potential to streamline and enhance everyday tasks. VR and AR would become essential parts of the corporate toolkit, much in the way social media has already been embraced in the workplace. In fact, there's already a virtual desktop for VR that lets you use all of the productivity tools you know and love on your PC and in an immersive environment. In the near term, you will see all the above. Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Apple introduce VR tools for their existing products. These will tap immersive technologies potential to enhance formal and informal collaborations through email, conference calls, online meetings and hangouts. VR and AR will soon become the new primary methods for meeting face to face within a company. Wearing a headset at work or while telecommuting will become commonplace or and socially acceptable. This will reduce travel costs and expenses and will make virtual experiences just as meaningful or more so than anything that happens within the walls of a corporate headquarters. So get ready because the enhanced virtual workplace is coming soon to an office, couch, coffee shop and beach near you. Thanks again for listening and watching this week's update. How VR and AR will change the Workplace forever. This is Anthony 1esto. Have a great week.
