
What's New (and Crazy) in Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality (VR)
Should your business invest in it?
- Try before you buy: Do you sell a product that customers want to see or experience first? VR can let them take a virtual “test drive.” It’ll save you money you’d otherwise spend on logistics, production costs and possibly brick and mortar retail outlets.
- Research: Before you put a new product into production, VR can let users test it out. There’s no need to manufacture a prototype when you can ship it straight to their headset. (Cool fact: Experts are predicting that by 2115 VR tech will integrate “haptic” touch sensation as well.[2])
- Employee training: An interactive approach can be more impactful than a manual or instructor-led session.
- Virtual offices: Down the line, imagine if your employees could interact with their colleagues as if they were in the same room - but from the comfort of their own homes? The savings on an office space could be well worth the tech investment.
Ambient Computing
Think of ambient lighting. Ambient music. An ambient element is tuned to your immediate environment, adapted to enhance a particular mood or activity.
- Sensors that monitor sound, motion, temperature, location and more. Often, these will be embedded in devices you’re already using.
- Interconnected devices that use these sensors and other monitoring tools to communicate with you - and each other.
- Ambient services that use all of the above to analyze data and make complex events happen.
Should your business invest in it?
- Stay focused. What business outcomes can an ambient system contribute to? Concentrate on your goal and then determine what tech can help you get there - not the other way around.
- Go step by step. Break down each step of the business process you’d like to develop or optimize so you don’t get overwhelmed.
- Put customers first. How will they initially react - and then interact - with these new systems? Put their experience first.
- Get disruptive. Are there ways you can disrupt your industry with ambient tech? Are there other companies you can parner with to create new types of networks that
- would benefit both your customers?
- Get office smart. We’re already on the road to having “smart homes” that feature ambient tech. Adding similar “smart” features to your office can make your
- employees more comfortable and productive.