Innovative Virtual Reality Apps Are Changing the Game
Virtual reality technologies are taking over interactive media as a new and exciting way to experience the word of the creative arts. More than that, VR allows users to travel the world, visit exotic locales, and see your doctor if you get sick. Most users understand VR as a technology best known for its rocky start and surreptitious counterparts that have made the technology somewhat intimidating from the outset.
Gaming goes immersive
However, thanks to kits like the Oculus Rift and PSVR, more users are able to experience the power of VR at home with friends and family. Even though it centers on gaming, VR can be used on these platforms to visit Mt. Everest or see the Grand Canyon. With VR, users can essentially travel the globe through apps that transport users to those places to hear and see what life is really like across the sea.
Google Expeditions is an example of one such app that uses the power of VR to allow users to see any number of things around the world in a way that could never be achieved before. Expeditions lets users go to Paris, France or Chichen Itza whenever they please. For a more narrow approach, users may want to use YouVisit VR to visit colleges around the country in a digital VR environment supported by the platform of their choice.
Streaming is social again
Major networks have joined in on the action as well with apps like Discovery VR by the discovery channel that lets users experience the wonders of the natural world in VR. Additionally, Samsung Milk VR, now simply Samsung VR, is a gargantuan library of VR content that spans a wide range of topics that can educate and entertain a user for a very long time due to the sheer amount of content available.
Each of these major brands uses its power to enhance the virtual experience and provide users with highly polished experiences that will stay in their memories for a long time after. However, if traveling the globe is not the main draw to VR then you may prefer the social VR apps like vTime and Facebook Spaces that allow users to interact with friends and family in a virtual world.
Virtual worldbuilding
These apps utilize the latest VR technologies to provide users with fun and exciting experiences that they can share with their loved ones. RecRoom and Project Sansar have shared gaming experiences that allow role-playing and shared simulation in the virtual worlds of your choosing. Each of these apps aims to make VR a more sociable and cooperative experience that can potentially change the way we interact forever.
Karuna Labs goes a slightly different route by using VR to imbue users with the skills to deal with their pain and make it more manageable on a daily basis. Each of these VR apps seeks to make life actively better for users regardless of their platform. This shows that the mixed reality technologies of today are far more important and impactful than the industry demonstrates as presented.
Finally, healthcare has been affected by VR as well with a number of apps that allow users to work on their pain and see their physician in VR. Apps like HealthVR and Floreo are made specifically to change the way users interact with and treat mental illness and autism. HealthVR specifically concerns itself with providing adequate healthcare to any user that has VR capability. Floreo utilizes VR to its fullest to simulate situations and help people with autism learn to deal with real-world situations.
Ultimately, VR can be used for whatever purpose that the developers put their minds to and, with the recent innovations in healthcare and travel, VR could be looking at an even brighter future than could have ever been predicted.
5 Innovative VR Apps that Can Benefit Your Company
Virtual reality has been making a little bit of a comeback in recent years. Gone are the days of clunky and burdensome Virtual Boy. Henceforth, Oculus Rift, PSVR, and HTC Vive. Virtual reality is supercharged and super hot, making the VR industry ripe for innovation and consumption.
While virtual reality is certainly entertaining, the technology can be used for everything from real-time training to in-person meetings.
The application of technology across these departments makes it more practical than not for a professional business environment. One of the best uses for office VR is training new employees. But, the benefits don’t end there.
Here are 5 innovative applications of VR that can benefit your company:
1. VR Training
Virtual reality provides a unique opportunity to completely immersed oneself in an entirely fabricated world. While this definitely has applications in video games and entertainment, there are also applications in which virtual reality would be very useful for getting acquainted with the new technology, tool, or situation.
Sometimes training can be dangerous or sensitive. When people could get hurt or expensive equipment could be damaged. What’s more, virtual reality can provide students or workers-in-training with a more engaging experience.
Organizations leverage virtual reality to teach young adults how to drive, medical students to do endoscopic surgeries, and onboard employees to new environments and working
2. Social VR
What motivates people to engage with apps? How do people relate to entirely new and foreign technologies? We’re social animals so it stands to reason that social engagement is what truly motivates action.
Facebook recently announced its intention to host a completely virtual social space, replete with exotic locales, fabricated meeting spots, and group activities.
Other apps have explored watching films together, transporting to places around the world using satellite imaging, and playing virtual games with fully 3D avatars.
While VR seems like isolating technology, it really can be designed to bring people together. Technology that connects us always has a longer shelf-life than the technology that isolated us.
3. Bonding exercises
Many remote employees find that VR socialization can help to connect with coworkers and make meaningful connections to their businesses. VR social apps are great for bonding exercises between employees as well. Cooperation and bonding are much easier to do with people that you can see, at least digitally.
The flexibility that VR provides makes iterative development an affordable strategy that yields great results. New innovations in VR are made constantly and before long it will be possible to create a full working environment at home.
4. Technical demos
VR makes the process of cooperation simpler which makes the development process much smoother. Creating tech demos can be a very expensive endeavor for companies.
Using VR environments to create those same tech demos, however, is not only cheaper but safer as well. VR tech demos do not run the same costs as creating physical ones and are easily testable at any time.
5. Architecture and design
VR can simplify this process by creating a virtual environment that mirrors a real-life design environment and provides the architect or designer with a completely immersive creative space.
VR design is also useful for those who want to design ambitious or expensive designs that would need fine-tuning in order to produce safely and securely.
Even aside from financial alleviation there are the pros of reduced design stress on the employees and more satisfied management. One of the hardest parts of design work can be the intangibility of 2D designs.
VR technologies have gone from pipe dream to reality in only a few decades. However, many businesses still ignore the technology as it is commonly believed to be exclusively used for entertainment.
As the trend of remote work continues to grow, more and more businesses are beginning to see the advantages that telecommuting brings.
The social applications of VR are also very useful for those who want to simulate the office environment for the benefit of cooperation.
However, the VR apps out there today make it more than feasible to simulate the experience and run a remote company without the fear of losing your workforce. VR is a landmark technology that is still only in the early days and already we have seen amazing applications across a wide spectrum of uses.
Romy Catauta works in the marketing field and is passionate about writing on mobile app developer hiring guides, web design, business, interior design, and psychology.