🔍
The Future of Your Office Is in a VR Headset | WSJ - YouTube
Channel: unknown
[0]
(elevator dings)
[0]
(doors scraping)
[1]
- Hey, it's me, yeah, Joanna Stern!
[5]
You didn't recognize me?
[7]
You don't like my new look?
[9]
But really, that's me!
[11]
Well, this is me, this is real-life me,
[13]
and that's avatar, virtual-reality me,
[16]
but actually, I'm getting a little tired
[17]
from working from home in the same space,
[19]
so I'm gonna go back in here.
[21]
(playful music)
[23]
I think I'll also go here, and here.
[26]
Yes, the office.
[28]
Sure, when COVID-19 first hit
and we all went into lockdown,
[31]
video calling brought us together.
[33]
It was even fun.
[35]
But now, the Zoom fatigue is real.
[37]
I rarely even look at
my colleagues anymore.
[40]
So I've turned to virtual
reality, and as it turns out,
[44]
an increasing number of
Fortune 500 companies
[46]
are embracing this technology, too.
[48]
It makes sense, as companies have extended
[51]
work-from-home policies until late 2021,
[54]
or even indefinitely,
[55]
they're looking at ways to bring
[56]
individuals and teams together.
[58]
Plus, even before the pandemic,
[60]
virtual reality used within businesses
[62]
was forecasted to grow
from 829 million in 2018
[66]
to 4.26 billion in 2023.
[70]
So, a few months ago,
when it became apparent
[72]
we weren't going back to
the office anytime soon,
[75]
I started trying it out for myself.
[77]
I had a lot of questions.
[78]
Can virtual interaction
really mimic the real world?
[81]
What do you need to make it all work?
[83]
Can you really be productive in there?
[86]
Will I feel like I need
to barf all the time?
[87]
(groans) Oh boy.
[89]
To test it all out, I
worked with a startup
[90]
out of New York City called Spatial,
[92]
to recreate one of my
favorite places in the office.
[96]
Yes, the elevator.
[99]
(elevator dings)
♪ Dance, dance, dance ♪
[100]
(fingers snapping)
Okay, it's like this?
[101]
- Don't you really wanna turn
around and face backwards?
[103]
- Yes.
[104]
I spend a lot of time in
the elevator in the office.
[107]
I have a whole video
interview series in there.
[109]
It is an elevator.
- Yeah.
[111]
- [Joanna] Okay, fine, spoiler,
it's not a real elevator.
[114]
It's a three-wall set.
[115]
- Marking.
(board clacks)
[116]
- Are you Sebastian Thrun?
[117]
Are you Vijaya from Twitter?
[119]
Are you, wait, what are you?
[122]
- I'm a holographic
avatar of Anand Agarawala,
[125]
the CEO of Spatial.
[127]
- Well, nice to meet
you. Can we shake hands?
[130]
- Yeah!
(elevator music)
[132]
- Wow, wow, look at that!
[134]
We don't even need six feet.
[136]
- We can even high-five.
[139]
- Wow, so where are we?
[143]
- Spatial is basically a
holographic collaboration platform.
[146]
Imagine if Zoom had teleportation.
[149]
So you just put on a headset,
[150]
and with a realistic avatar generated
[152]
from a simple 2D photo,
[154]
you can feel like you're in
the same room with someone.
[156]
(playful music)
- Whoo!
[158]
It's actually kind of crazy
how real it feels in there.
[161]
I mean, he does not look
[164]
like him as like a real person,
[167]
but his presence feels very real.
[171]
But of course, Anand is in
his office in New York City,
[174]
and I'm in my childhood
basement in New Jersey.
[177]
My producer, also in a headset
in his home in Brooklyn.
[180]
Connecting in Spatial
was really quite easy,
[182]
and anyone can do it.
[184]
I signed up for a Spatial
account on the company's website
[186]
and uploaded a photo of myself.
[188]
Using some machine learning,
it turned that into my avatar.
[191]
Then I downloaded the Spatial app
[193]
on this new $299 Oculus Quest 2.
[197]
It works on the older one, too.
[199]
It also works on a Microsoft HoloLens
[201]
augmented reality headset,
[202]
oh, which, you know, just costs $3,500.
[205]
All right, let's do it.
[206]
You don't need any extra
hardware with those headsets.
[209]
All the head and hand tracking just works.
[211]
When I move my head, so does my avatar's.
[214]
When I move my hands, so does my avatar's.
[216]
Then you can join one of
the spaces Spatial makes.
[220]
The company made this
custom elevator for me,
[222]
but the preset Spatial meeting rooms
[224]
are being used by all sorts of companies.
[227]
Do you have a sense of
who's using Spatial,
[229]
what types of companies?
[230]
- Anywhere from 40% of the Fortune 1000
[233]
to just regular small teams
[235]
and people trying to stay connected.
[236]
So some of the customers are like Pfizer,
[239]
Mattel, the manufacturing company,
[241]
also companies in fashion,
[244]
government agencies,
intelligence agencies.
[246]
- What about the spaces themselves?
[248]
Are people customizing them to look
[250]
like their real office spaces?
[252]
- Yeah, so that's been
a huge feature request.
[254]
We've added a couple more environments
[255]
like a board room and even an abstract one
[257]
where you can overlay your own,
[258]
but we are gonna add support for that.
[261]
- [Joanna] Within the
spaces, you can talk,
[262]
but you can also use 3D tools
[264]
to brainstorm and look at presentations,
[267]
or even manipulate objects, like 3D dogs.
[271]
- You can virtually pet 'em.
[272]
- Browser? Where are you?
[273]
Browser? You're gonna get a 3D avatar.
[276]
I have a real dog that's much cuter
[277]
than all of these right now.
[279]
For real, though, the chief
technology officer at Mattel
[281]
told me employees use Spatial to meet up
[283]
and review 3D models of
toys and store displays.
[286]
(playful music)
[287]
Of course, Spatial isn't perfect,
[289]
and certainly misses a
lot of things about a true
[292]
person-to-person office
conversation or elevator ride.
[295]
For instance, facial cues
and even body language.
[299]
Like when I asked,
[300]
you've built something pretty cool here.
[302]
Has any big company tried
to come and buy Spatial?
[304]
- You know, I mean, it depends,
[305]
you know, what is buy, what is it?
[308]
- I've asked that question a
lot of times in this elevator
[310]
and I can usually read
the facial expressions.
[313]
But I'm having a hard
time reading right now.
[316]
- I'm blushing in real life
and sweating and squirming,
[319]
but you know, I just seem
like cool, calm and collected.
[321]
- [Joanna] Then, the tech can sometimes
[323]
get in the way.
(Anand laughing)
[325]
- Buy me a drink first, Joanna, come on.
[327]
- Plus, you'll really wanna buy a headset.
[329]
Spatial does have a web app,
[331]
and its coming iPhone and Android apps
[333]
let you join in augmented reality.
[335]
That is where digital
objects are overlayed
[337]
in your real world.
[338]
But VR is far more immersive.
[341]
Spatial isn't the only
virtual meeting platform.
[344]
Another option, Mozilla Hubs,
[346]
has conference-room-like spaces,
[348]
though the avatars look pretty cartoonish.
[350]
AltspaceVR, owned by Microsoft,
[353]
is used by companies like Accenture
[355]
to hold all-hands meetings.
[356]
Facebook, which owns Oculus,
[358]
has recently launched its own social
[360]
virtual reality space called Horizon,
[362]
though it's focused on
more playful interactions.
[365]
(quirky music)
[367]
One day, and I really hope one day soon,
[370]
we'll go back to a real office.
[372]
Spatial, which was originally designed
[374]
to bring colleagues together
from various different offices,
[377]
isn't worried about that, though.
[378]
Do you ever think Spatial and VR meetings
[380]
will be as ubiquitous as video calling?
[383]
- 100%, I mean, it's not a question of if,
[386]
it's more a question of when.
[388]
There's a near-future where your next
[389]
phone or computer is gonna be glasses,
[392]
and in that future, your
FaceTime becomes 3D,
[394]
and you know, when you're
FaceTiming your mom,
[396]
she can actually be on
your couch with you.
[399]
- That seems a ways off.
[401]
For now, though, connecting
with colleagues this way
[403]
really is worth a try.
(Joanna chattering)
[405]
It isn't real life,
but it brings back some
[407]
of the serendipity of the office,
[410]
and goes deeper than just another
[412]
impersonal 2D video call.
[414]
And I promise, you can totally
get real work done in there.
[418]
(Anand humming)
[423]
(Anand laughing)
[425]
Oh no, I don't have legs!
[426]
I don't have a butt or legs!
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage