The Immersive Wire - 26 September 2021 (Sunday edition)

By Tom FfiskeCurated VR/AR analysis every Wednesday and Sunday 

// 26 September 2021

Yeah, Deathloop is absolutely worth a buy if you have a PS5; think of it as classic James Bond with time travel. Also, doing the opening keynote for VR/AR Global Summit on Monday if you want to tag along.

A

nimation, video production, and interactive services

MAIN FEATUREEnterprise VR/AR and the military

The profitability of enterprise-level work showcases why HTC, Facebook, and Microsoft all supply enterprise variations of their immersive offerings. The companies have expansive teams that service the needs of their clients – few more profitably than the military, in particular Microsoft working closely with the US army. Their innovative approach is striking; Microsoft engineers and army personnel are working together to build and develop the product, so it is fit for purpose when deployed. As one piece noted, 'The tech giant’s engineers are in the field with soldiers, listening to their criticisms and suggestions, and sometimes rewriting software on the spot. “It’s cold, it’s raining, and you see these young people from Microsoft … they’re out there at 2:00 in the morning. They got their headphones on, they’re under their blankets with their hoodie, and they’re coding,” Potts said. “They’re having an absolute blast.”'Then, having worked together several years ago with a smaller contract, the U.S. Army announced that their entire Close Combat Force will be outfitted with HoloLens devices.

• Think of it as commanders feeding information to soldiers while they are deployed on the field. While the three Bethesdas worth of cash grabbed headlines, the deal also showed a high level of trust.

• The agreement will last for five years, with a possibility to extend another five. The deal also includes some Azure cloud services; remember that Azure is a core revenue driver for the company, so we may see more immersive-related content as part of it in the future as it integrates further with Microsoft's cloud services. 

It's highly probable that its interconnected web of services and hardware - HoloLens, Azure, expertise - helped it win the contract, compared to other competitors who might only fill one area sufficiently. It's also why companies like Microsoft are so important to follow within the immersive space. While Apple is a hardware company attempting to diversify towards services, and VR/AR-specific platforms provide the tools of creation, it's the synthesis of all parts that puts Microsoft in a strong position.Not everyone is comfortable with military applications of emerging technologies - see any history book. But history has also shown us that military or government investment accelerates research and work into the area, identifying new ways in which it could seep down into society as well. More will appear in the Immersive Reality Revelation (book title pending), coming later this year. Keep an eye on this newsletter for more updates. 

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INTERVIEWEmotions and joy as KPIs

Thomas Johann, CEO and co-founder of JOURNEE

What is your background? I've been an entrepreneur since I was 10 and launched a paid magazine for our family (my aunts stopped me after issue 4 when I wanted to turn it into a subscription model because they said it was getting too commercial). Since then, I've done a lot of things, always with the goal of bringing people and issues together - whether offline in building great exhibition companies or digitally with the founding of the digital platform Veee.com, which was acquired by Joor.com in 2019. In 2020, together with my partner Christian Mio Loclair, we launched JOURNEE - The Metaverse Company, a revolutionary new internet technology.

What are you working on, and what’s a key learning that you’ve had from it?We are running JOURNEE - The Metaverse Company, which offers advanced, stylised solutions that connect people within virtual space in a revolutionary way. Key learning: emotions and joy are a real KPI on the web - and until now, taking these human aspects into account was not the focus of the internet.

If you had to give one piece of advice, what would you give?Mankind has not done the best job so far of shaping new Internet communication forms into something truly purely positive (such as Hate Speech or Content Bubbles). With the Metaverse, we have a new chance to redefine how humans are reconnecting in virtual spaces. We better make the most of it!

Jobs boardSENIOR WEBXR ENGINEER, US. Build a human-centric metaverse with a stellar team at www.urnowhere.com. Full-Time Position, Fully Remote Team, Core hours (10AM-5PM EST). NOWHERE aims to revolutionize gathering with patent-pending video presence technology that allows serendipitous social mingling between conversations with friends or colleagues at conferences, meetings, or parties all within dynamic web environments. Nowhere combines expertise from veteran founders, experience experts, engineers, game designers, theatre-makers, VFX artists from Windmill Factory to build a healthier digital future. Please share with anyone you think might be interested. JOIN NOWHERE.CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIST - AUGMENTED REALITY, UK. Poplar.Studio is a leading AR and 3D platform for marketing and e-commerce. Join our growing team based in London (remote for the time being), and work closely with the Business Development, Production and Product teams, in order to assess the feasibility of AR client and internal projects, both from a creative and technical point of view. Develop creatives and proof of concepts across social media AR (Spark AR, Lens Studio, Effects Creator, etc.), web-browser based (8th Wall, Zappar, etc.) or app-based (Unity, ARCore, ARKit, etc.). Work alongside our amazing global AR creator community as they develop experiences for our brand and retail clients. Click here for more. VR 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!