Status Quo of VR — part 2. Training and Productivity
By: James Zhang
Tags: Facebook, Virtual Reality, Training, Medical, Productivity

Training and Productivity

Infinite Office by Facebook

VR immerses us in an environment excluding outside, which makes us concentrated and enhances performance on tasks. Based on this rationale, the earliest VR emerged among the military for night vision enhancement and airforce training in the 1960s, and they subsequently inspired Ivan Sutherland to invent The Sword of Damocles, an influencer on contemporary VR.

The Sword of Damocles

The idea to use VR for training and human enhancement was important then, but how about today’s counterparts?

Versions nowadays are applied in broader domains, including training on various jobs and virtual office.

Companies like TransfrVR and Virti succeed in raising millions of funds, which justifies the feasibility of this concept.

Training

TransfrVR

Due to the layoffs during the Covid-19 pandemic, reskilling is demanding for both the unemployed and companies wishing to recruit. TransfrVR, based on this purpose, specializes in developing job training software in VR ranging from manufacturing to bartending.

Transfr VR bartending

But why VR helps in job training?

Unlike other media such as video and books, VR provides spatial information. For example, in the above bartending scenario, if the trainee wants to get some ice cubes, he must turn his head and stretch out his right hands. Both physical and spatial interactions are unavailable on a computer screen by clicking on a mouse.

Besides, learning by doing is evidenced by psychologists to be helpful for learning. Yet in the traditional job training scheme, trainees need to attend to a specific place where is equipped with professional facilities. The VR solution both alleviates the burdens of trainee and trainer.

Virti

Elected as the 2020 best invention of VR, Virti provides a platform for virtual medical training. Currently, they held a preliminary test in Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world with a severe doctor shortage. They not only provide realistic virtual surgical environments fostering understand but also record 360 videos of surgery footage. Also, data-driven methods are employed to objectively evaluate learning performance. Their testing results in hospitals in Ethiopia is quite promising.

“Virti is going to take the education process to a whole new level” Dawit Degarege, MD, Bahir Dar University at

Productivity

Nanome

Aside from training, which supports novice, if you are already an expert, VR actually can still help you.

The name helps chemists and pharmacists develop cures for Covid-19 by visualizing the chemical particle in an immersive environment. As in the below video, the particle model assists scientists present by highlighting the region of interest. By manipulating particles spatially, they can more easily discover potential solutions.

You may not feel relevant to previous examples because VR training only supports a niche of jobs.

Nevertheless, you may interest in the virtual office.

Top: Infinite Office, Bottom: keyboard tracking (both from Facebook Connect 2020)

Infinite Office

Facebook recently demonstrate their Inifinite Office for the work-from-home crowd at Facebook Connect 2020.

In Infinite Office, you can have virtually endless monitors without costing any money. Collaborating with Logitech, their system enables keyboard tracking by the camera on the headset so that you can still see your keyboard even when in the virtual environment. What’s even better, Infinite Office will be soon accessible on a consumer-level headset — Oculus Quest 2.

Ctrl-Lab

Furthermore, Ctrl-lab, acquired by Facebook, showcased an innovative human-computer interface based on EMG technology. EMG stands for electromyography, a technique for interpreting electrical signals from motor neurons within muscles. By wearing a bracelet, the sensor can precisely read the movement of your hand, which is so intuitive that you can type on an imagined keyboard, or even the intent to move that enables people born without a hand to control a virtual one. This tech can even integrate with Infinite Office to achieve performance beyond imagination.

Summary

Originated from military departments, VR evolves to immerse people for both job training and productive purposes. VR job training companies scale rapidly in this turbulent time, so does technology inventions for increasing productivity. Nevertheless, whether they are beneficial in the long run without issues is still a trial for innovators.