The Immersive Wire - 22 August 2021 (Sunday edition)

SUNDAY READ EDITIONCurated VR/AR analysis every Wednesday and Sunday 

// 22 August 2021

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Let's talk about Horizon Workrooms. After launching to a sizzle of social media responses and buoyed by the muggy air of hot takes,

Horizon Workrooms

launched to provide an in-work way of people to collaborate together. Similar competitors like Spatial, MeetinVR, VIVE Sync and ENGAGE (to an extent) have provided competitor offerings for some time; though as Facebook is a monolithic company that can sway industries, it received an exclusive splash across the media. With this launch, a few questions come to mind: 

• How many people will use Horizon Workrooms? Not everyone, and it doesn't need to be; the convenience of team messaging apps is sufficient for most companies, so it is for those who want a more visual way to work together. It is inherently a niche application.

• How many people will use Horizon Workrooms consistently? The kicker here is that not everyone plugs into VR every day. Even I, who specialises in the sector, get burnout from time to time. The key stats won't be who signs up on the first day; it's who are using the software consistently. 

• Will physical presence trump team apps? Having a physicality to meetings is a great motivator in meetings, which the clunkyness of other apps lack. But the benefit needs to be greater than the friction of downloading and loading into a VR app for work meetings. 

I sound like I am cynical, but I am not; I am excited to see more meeting apps enter the marketplace and vie for success. Whenever I join meeting apps in VR, I loved it (so long as its kept to under half an hour). But I want more and more people to use the software, and I want to see if it continues its progress over time.

"And here is the flow chart showing how we can return the silicone replacement covers to Oculus Quest 2 owners." Photo credit: Facebook. 

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Deirdre V. Lyons, VR Producer and Performer, co-founder of Ferryman Collective

What is your background?I live in Los Angeles, and I am an actor. I have done a smattering of film projects as an actor and independently, we have produced and performed in our own theatre production and several short films that went to festivals around the world as well as a reality show and web series. Since 2016, I’ve been working a lot in immersive theatre in Los Angeles. Right before the pandemic hit, I started working as a cast member of The Under Presents, that led to The Under Presents: Tempest, then Finding Pandora X, to producing and performing in our own shows, PARA, Krampusnacht (finalist for the PGA Innovation Award) and The Severance Theory: Welcome to Respite which world premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and will have its international premier at the prestigious Venice International Film Festival. What are you working on, and what’s a key learning that you’ve had from it? We are currently working on The Severance Theory series, while Welcome to Respite tours at festivals, we are in production on the second chapter, Cognizance. I used to struggle with trying to be perfect. Wanting everything to go right. Wanting everything to be in place before I show anyone else my work, to a point that some of that work was never shown. And working in VR has allowed me to give myself the gift of imperfection. Because this is a new technology and we are all at the tip of the spear, I’ve come to expect issues and mishaps and embrace them, along with the realization that perfection is an unrealistic and boring goal, built on a foundation of fear, and it is especially true in VR. If you had to give one piece of advice, what would you give? Dive in. Sometimes its more about doing something than thinking about it, particularly in the face of fear and apprehension.  

If you like to learn more about the team's work, check them out here. 

Jobs boardVR SOFTWARE DEVELOPER (Unity3D, C#), London. Valkyrie Industries, an early stage haptics start-up, is looking for a talented and experienced Unity3D developer with a passion for VR to join the R&D team. You'll be involved throughout the development cycle and must be able to evaluate new technologies, develop new experiences from scratch and optimise existing projects. Click here for more. FULL STACK DEVELOPER, remote position. Looking for a competent Software Engineer with 4+ years of industry experience to join our dedicated Web development team. This talented individual must have a vision and drive and must not be afraid to back big ideas. Click here for more. SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER (Node.js), remote position. Looking for a competent Senior Software Engineer with 5+ years of industry experience to join our dedicated Web development team.  This talented individual must have a vision and drive and must not be afraid to back big ideas. Click here for more. SENIOR DEVELOPER (VUE.JS), remote Position. Looking for an experienced JavaScript developer who is highly skilled with Vue.js. You will be joining our Web development team to develop and enhance customer facing Web Applications, where you will be responsible for following best practices to produce modular and maintainable code. Click here for more. QA LEAD, remote positions available. Looking for a competent QA Lead with 2+ years of industry experience to join our dedicated QA Team in Waterford.  This talented individual must have a vision and drive and must not be afraid to back big ideas. Click here for more. SENIOR UNITY GAME DEVELOPER, remote position. Looking for a competent Senior Unity Developer to join our team with 5+ years industry experience.  The talented individual must have vision and drive and must not be afraid to back big ideas. Click here for more.  SENIOR PRODUCT OWNER, remote position. Looking for a competent Product Owner. This talented individual must have a vision and drive and must not be afraid to back big ideas. Click here for more. UI DESIGNER, remote position. Looking for a competent UI Designer. This talented individual must have a vision and drive and must not be afraid to back big ideas. Click here for more. UX DESIGNER, remote position. Are you looking for a unique challenge working in virtual & augmented reality with a bleeding-edge technology company? Then read on. Click here for more.ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN DIGITAL MEDIA, UK. We are looking to appoint a dynamic and adaptable course director for our BA (Hons) in Digital Media to lead and deliver teaching, learning and assessment on the BA Digital Media and steer  its next phase of growth.  As well as a track record of academic leadership you will have extensive practical experience in digital media such as immersive storytelling (AR/VR/XR), modelling and animation, creative media design / production, or web / mobile app design and development. Click here for more.SENIOR IMMERSIVE LEARNING DESIGNER, UK. Make Real is looking to expand our digital learning team with a Senior Immersive Learning Designer. Your role will be to consult with clients in order to create exciting and imaginative design solutions. Your designs will affect behaviour change in order to deliver on specific learning outcomes, while being achievable within a set budget and timeline. Click here for more. SENIOR UNITY DEVELOPER, UK. As a growing and exciting business, we are looking for full-time talented multi-disciplinary Unity developers to join our expert team in central Brighton. Our ideal candidates will have a broad range of technical experience with a proven track record of delivering interactive Virtual & Augmented Reality projects across a range of HMD & mobile hardware. Working as part of our existing team of designers and artists, the roles will primarily involve the delivery of VR/AR projects for our global clients. Click here for more. EU ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE. Avatour is the remote collaboration platform for site meetings. Our cloud service enables full-motion 360° real-time communication, experienced via a web browser or optional VR headset. We are looking for an Account Executive to expand the Avatour business in the European Union. You’ll be initially our only salesperson in the EU, and directly responsible for the expansion and preservation of our customer base in the region. The ideal candidate will have a track record of success selling an Enterprise SaaS product, and experience in customer success as well. Click here for more.BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGERS, UK. VRTUOSO, a rapidly growing and multi-award winning company, is looking for three full-time B2B Sales Managers who are excited about technology advancements, and able to sell to CxO/Director level within enterprise accounts. Click here for more. HEAD OF MARKETING, UK. VRTUOSO, a rapidly growing and multi-award winning company, is looking for a Head of Marketing capable of taking VRtuoso to the next level. We’re looking to make the leap to working with enterprise level companies at scale and we hope you’re the one to help us accomplish this. Click here for more. CHANNEL SALES MANAGER, UK. VRTUOSO, a rapidly growing and multi-award winning company, is looking for a Channel Sales Manager to lead the channel and reseller programmes. The role is primarily responsible for onboarding new partners, serving as the primary liaison for new partners, growing the sales of existing partners, and assisting with sales/marketing initiatives for our reseller channel as a whole. Click here for more. DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING, UK. VRTUOSO, a rapidly growing and multi-award winning company, is looking for a Director of Engineering to lead our engineering department and help us build, deliver, and maintain the leading VRtuoso Virtual Reality products for the enterprise market. Click here for more. Display your vacancy in front of thousands of talented VR/AR professionals in just a few clicks. Click here for more info.

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That's all for this week! Want to have a chat, let me know about a news story, or talk business? Either reply to this email, or contact tom (at) virtualperceptions (dot) com. Have an excellent day!