How Technology is helping us cope with the global coronavirus fallout.
As COVID-19 sweeps through nations, quickly making established ways of working, studying, socializing, and conducting business impractical or even impossible, people turned to technological innovation for alternatives.
Here we look at three key areas that have been brought to the forefront during the pandemic but are likely to stay with us for the long-term.
Immersive Technology/ XR post-pandemic
Alan Smithson, CEO of MetaVRse, says that XR is specifically pivotal because of its potential to replicate the physical dynamics of collaboration in a virtual environment, enabling you to be fully present and engaged with others as you would in real life.
As most of us struggle with the challenge of adapting to this ‘new normal’ where much of the world’s population finds itself unable to safely hold face-to-face meetings, Smithson explains that XR Collaboration tools are emerging as viable alternatives — not to replace current video conferencing, but to augment them through spatial understanding. “By sharing fully immersive spaces with others, we begin to bridge the physical gap between us — opening up a whole new world of communication possibilities. With XR conferencing, people may not be able to see your face, but they can certainly see your body language, and that is really powerful.”
This power, however, is only properly leveraged where creators are mindful of the unique properties of immersive technology, rather than trying to retrofit it to existing tools and procedures.
“The biggest question we should ask is can we or even should we try and replicate the presence of live events via digital means (be it digital video conferencing, AR and VR)? If we merely try to ‘copy and paste’ one experience into the other, we are doomed to fail,” says Galit Ariel, founder and Creative Director of WondARlands Spatial Innovation Lab.
Ariel says that in her view, simply having embodied avatars standing in a virtual conference room and watching a virtual slide show does not make the infinite possibilities virtual platforms have to offer.
