hey it's me
yeah joanna stern i you didn't recognize
me
you know like my my new look but really
that
that's me well this is me this is real
life me and that's avatar virtual
reality me but actually i'm getting a
little tired from working from home in
the same space so i'm going to go back
in here
i think i'll also go here and here
yes the office sure when cobia 19 first
hit
and we all went into lockdown video
calling brought us together
it was even fun but now the zoom fatigue
is real
i rarely even look at my colleagues
anymore
so i've turned to virtual reality and as
it turns out
an increasing number of fortune 500
companies are embracing this technology
too
it makes sense as companies have
extended work from home policies until
late 2021
or even indefinitely they're looking at
ways to bring individuals and teams
together
plus even before the pandemic virtual
reality used within businesses was
forecasted to grow from 829 million in
2018
to 4.26 billion in 2023
so a few months ago when it became
apparent we weren't going back to the
office
anytime soon i started trying it out for
myself
i had a lot of questions can virtual
interaction really mimic the real world
what do you need to make it all work can
you really be productive in there will i
feel like i need to barf all the time oh
boy
to test it all out i worked with a
startup out of new york city called
spatial
to recreate one of my favorite places in
the office
yes the elevator
don't you really want to turn around
face backwards yes i spend a lot of time
in the elevator in the office
i have a whole video interview series in
there it is an elevator
yeah okay fine spoiler it's not a real
elevator it's a three wall set
working are you sebastian thrawn are you
vidya from twitter
are you wait what are you
i'm a holographic avatar of
anandagarwala the ceo of spatial
well nice to meet you can we shake hands
yeah wow wow look at that we don't even
need six feet
we can even high five
wow so where
are we facial is basically a holographic
collaboration platform
imagine if zoom had teleportation so you
just put on a headset
and with a realistic avatar generated
from a simple 2d photo
you can feel like you're in the same
room with someone
it's actually kind of crazy how real it
feels in there
i mean he does not look like him
as like a real person but his presence
feels very real but of course anand is
in his office in new york city
and i'm in my childhood basement in new
jersey my producer
also in a headset in his home in
brooklyn connecting in spatial was
really quite easy
and anyone can do it i signed up for a
spatial account on the company's website
and uploaded a photo of myself using
some machine learning it turned that
into my avatar
then i downloaded the spatial app on
this new 299
oculus quest 2. it works on the older
one too
it also works on a microsoft hololens
augmented reality headset
oh which you know just costs 3 500 all
right let's do it you don't need any
extra hardware with those headsets
all the head and hand tracking just
works when i move my head
so does my avatars when i move my hands
so does my avatars
then you can join one of the spaces
spatial makes the company made this
custom elevator for me
but the preset spatial meeting rooms are
being used by all sorts of companies
do you have a sense of who's using
spatial what types of companies
anywhere from you know forty percent of
the fortune 1000 to
just regular small teams and people
trying to stay connected so
some of the customers are like pfizer
mattel a manufacturing company
also companies in fashion um you know
government agencies intelligence
agencies what about the spaces
themselves are people customizing them
to look like they're real office spaces
yeah so that's been a huge feature
request we've added a couple more
environments like a boardroom
and even an abstract one where you can
overlay your own but we are going to add
support for that
within the spaces you can talk but you
can also use 3d tools
to brainstorm and look at presentations
or even manipulate objects
like 3d dogs you can virtually pet them
browser where are you browser you're
going to get a 3d avatar
i have a real dog that's much cuter than
all of these right now
for real though the chief technology
officer at mattel told me employees use
spatial to meet up and review 3d models
of toys and store displays
of course spatial isn't perfect and
certainly misses a lot of things about a
true person-to-person
office conversation or elevator ride for
instance
facial cues and even body language like
when i asked
you've built something pretty cool here
has any big company tried to come and
buy spatial you know i mean it depends
you know what
what is what is by you know what is what
is it i've asked that question a lot of
times in this elevator and i can usually
read the facial expressions
but i i'm having a hard time reading
right now i'm blushing in real life
and sweating and squirming but you know
i just seem like cool calm and collected
then the tech can sometimes get in the
way
buy me a drink first joanna come on plus
you'll really want to buy a headset
spatial does have a web app and its
coming iphone and android apps let you
join in
augmented reality that is where digital
objects are overlaid in your real world
but vr is far more immersive spatial
isn't the only virtual meeting platform
another option mozilla hubs has
conference room-like spaces
though the avatars look pretty
cartoonish alt space vr
owned by microsoft is used by companies
like accenture to hold all hands
meetings
facebook which owns oculus has recently
launched its own social virtual reality
space called horizon
though it's focused on more playful
interactions
one day and i really hope one day soon
we'll go back to a real office
spatial which was originally designed to
bring colleagues together from various
different offices
isn't worried about that though do you
ever think spatial and vr meetings will
be as ubiquitous
as as video calling 100 i mean it's not
a question of
if it's more question of when um you
know there's a near future where your
next
phone or computer is going to be glasses
and in that future
your face time becomes 3d and you know
when you're facetiming your mom she can
actually be on your couch with you
that seems a ways off for now though
connecting with colleagues this way
really is worth a try it isn't real life
but it brings back some of the
serendipity of the office
and goes deeper than just another
impersonal 2d video call
and i promise you can totally get real
work done in there
oh no i don't have legs i don't have a
butt or legs