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INTRODUCTION TO VR AND INTERVIEW
Last week I started with the introduction to the topic of Virtual Reality and now it’s time to hear a specialist comment from Mr. Tero Pänkäläinen. I sat down with him at Bulevardin Kahvisalonki to discuss what Virtual Reality is and what is the impact of VR towards our life.
WHO IS TERO PÄNKÄLÄINEN AND WHY VR?
Tero Pänkäläinen – Deeptale/Virtuaalimaailma.fi
Tero: “I started out in the media business and been working mainly in tv-broadcasting for MTV3. I feel I have a strong passion for storytelling and virtual reality was something I felt that could be the next level for immersive stories. I’ve always shown interest for the future and what’s the next innovation, but if I would pinpoint one particular moment which kickstarted my VR boom —> It would be Chris Milks Ted talk. How Chris talked about his own history of making interactive music videos, 360 videos etc resonated to me and kickstarted this whole process inside me.”
WHAT DOES TERO PÄNKÄLÄINEN DO WHEN IT COMES TO VR?
Tero:“I started my own website called virtuaalimaailma.fi which focuses in bringing news around the topics of virtual- and augmented reality. Website is showing interest in a wide perspective of different companies and there are already over 500 people receiving my weekly newsletter. After starting the website I hooked up with Mika Peltola and so our own AR/VR company called Deeptale was formed. We focus with Deeptale to create influential AR/VR experiences towards people. Our main target will be for companies who want to create value from AR/VR. A lot of companies do see the benefits of AR/VR in business, but are still quite careful to implement this technology. Probable way to kickstart our business is to have our production network here in Finland and sell outside Finland. ”
Juha: I strongly recommend you to subscribe to Teros newsletter (In Finnish) atvirtuaalimaailma.fi, as he brings you the hottest news on a weekly basis. Perhaps you might even find the killer app just for your business when it comes to AR/VR.
Tero:” In the 1950’s, when TV became popular among the general public, certain companies would be sponsors for an entire TV-show. They could promote their products openly and have high visibility. I see this also a possibility in VR that a company will order a VR project and be the sponsor of it and in the same time promote their products inside the experience.
HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE AUGMENTED REALITY & VIRTUAL REALITY?
Tero:”I believe AR is more easy to explain and to demonstrate, as we have Snapchat&Pokemon Go, that augment our own reality through an app or computer generated content. AR,VR and Mixed reality are still trying to find their places of what all of them actually mean. I believe mixed reality will be a kind of norm, at some point, as AR has the biggest potential when it comes business. ”
QUICK AND DIRTY ANSWER FOR DEFINING AR&VR
AR: Computer generated objects that are added to our own physical world. Gateway between physical and virtual world.
VR: We transfer a person to a completely artificial place, so it’s our gateway to step in to a virtual world.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF VIRTUAL REALITY?
Tero:“We can solve a lot of challenges and real problems with Virtual Reality, so it’s not just a gimmick that gamers can enjoy. There are multiple business and social aspects that VR can address.
VIRTUAL MEETINGS/PRESENCE
Tero:”Let’s say you work in an international company that requires you to travel around the globe. Let’s face it that nobody is immune to the effects of jet lag and instead of flying –> you could actually be in a business meeting virtually present from your home. Arranging a virtual meeting from your home office with Holoportation enables you to give all what is required for full communication.”
Juha:”We know from scientific studies that around 90% of all communication between people is non-verbal, so instead of just relying on skype calls for business –> Holoport yourself there and give it all you got.”
CURE TO PHOBIA, ALLERGIES BY FOOLING YOUR BRAIN?
Tero:” VR has also been scientifically proven to work as a cure for phobias and allergies. We can create simulated environments for people with specific phobias.
- Fear of spiders
- Fear of flying
- Fear of speaking to a crowd
- What’s your fear you would like to cure with VR?
People can experience things safely that otherwise would in real life prevent them from doing these. Thanks to modern VR devices the experiences are becoming so immersive that you can fool your brain completely. Your brain will make you believe that you actually experienced what you saw.”
TRAVEL AND EXPERIENCES?
Tero:” I don’t think VR will ever be able to completely replace travelling, but it does give you an simple and cost efficient way to experience places from your home. I have a strong belief that VR will provide us all a way to relax by transporting us to an virtual environment. VR and Holoportation have the potential of creating real value by cutting down unnecessary travelling.”
Juha:”I love the idea of me being able to travel from my sofa even if it’s just for a small moment. How about after work you take a dive with whales or climb a mountain to feel the adrenaline. You don’t need save all that money and wait for you next vacation because you can just travel everyday from you sofa. It can have a positive effect on the environment by reducing unnecessary travel and cutting down emission.
I believe the youtuber TheGamingBeaver sums up my feelings after last week experiencing HTC Vive and theBlu”
HOW ABOUT THE FEEL?
Juha:“What about feeling physically our VR experience? Feeling, touching are an essential part of being a human being and is there a possibility that we can at some point feel what we do in VR? Can we see that in 15 years we have a VR device attached to our brains that can send impulses to our body and make us feel what we experience in the virtual world?
Tero:” I think it’s totally doable, but it will take a while, as the technology is just starting to grow a foothold. But as we have seen with mobile phones –> Tech becomes faster and packed all the time into a smaller container, so this is bound to happen also for AR and VR tech. VR has the ability to fool the brain in good and bad. Biggest thing is that we can tap in to peoples emotions in ways that wasn’t possible before.
Great example of an academic study is from Stanford University – Virtual Human Interaction Demo”
HOLOPORTATIONS, TAP IN TO YOUR EMOTIONS ETC
Well it seems VR has a lot of potential to impact our lives in a positive way, but we’ll continue the discussion later on this week in our part 2. We’ll go deep in to topics like:
- Who will benefit from VR?
- Are we in a simulation already?
- Why does Facebook invest money to VR?
- What are PRO’s and CON’s of VR towards our life?
- Summary and ending words
Thanks for reading and stay posted for the PT 2 of our interview, cool stuff coming up later on this week. Like and share this post if you find this useful and interesting.
Let me hear your thoughts about VR and the topics above
Originally posted in my blog:
Juha
Published by Juha Petteri Falck
7 years ago 
