February 25, 2025 • 45 mins
Virtual Reality (VR) is growing in popularity, and as the technology improves, so do the opportunities for use in real life. Michael has explored VR with his friends the past year and reports back on his experiences, the good, the bad, the... vertigo-inducing.
Michael later speaks with three of his best friends who are avid VR users on how they've used this technology to stay in touch and keep their friendship alive in 2025.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome to In the Loop so that you don't have to.
Virtual reality is something Ifind very interesting.
I'm also incrediblyapprehensive about it.
I work in user experience and Idefinitely have read Ready
Player One if you've read orwatched that movie and that's
all about virtual reality, and Ithink of it as a cautionary
(00:39):
tale and today I'm going to kindof set it up for you.
I understand how it might be.
You might get a different ideaof what virtual reality is, or
VR is based on what's in thenews and you know maybe you've
tried a demo before but I'mgoing to do is explain my
experiences with it, talk aboutwhat I like and don't like and
(00:59):
there's a lot of things I don'tlike about it.
And then I'm actually going tointerview my three best friends
who we actually stay in touch,now that we're all living in
different states and we'vestayed in touch through VR.
I definitely like the least outof the four of us, but I want
to use it as a cool opportunityto interview them and they're
(01:20):
going to talk about what theylike and dislike about VR.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
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Speaker 1 (02:26):
And now back to the show.
Okay, so let's talk aboutvirtual reality or VR.
So first things.
First, I want to set up what VRis.
In case you don't have any idea, I'm just going to assume that
you're coming into thiscompletely uneducated and new to
(02:48):
the idea of virtual reality.
Vr currently, as it stands in2025, is administered, kind of
accessed, through these headsetsthat you strap to your head.
They're kind of like gogglesand they have this computer
inside of them.
That is, I got to be honest.
They're kind of heavy.
They have straps that go aroundthe side of your head and then
(03:09):
one that goes on the top thatsort of pulls it back.
And then you also have thesetwo controllers.
That's true for the one that Iuse, which is an Oculus, and
Oculus is set up by, or is ownedby, meta, which is Facebook,
and it's different.
I know if you have one of theApple headsets, but I gotta be
(03:31):
honest, like those things are, Idon't even know if they're
still making them anymore, butand I've never used one of the
Apple ones, but I do hear somepretty good things about them I
bet you it'd be pretty cool, butthey are incredibly expensive.
So one thing I wanna get out ofthe way is virtual reality is
completely replacing yourexperience in real life with a
(03:52):
virtual one.
That is what kind of definesvirtual reality.
There's another thing calledaugmented reality, which I'm
much more of a fan of, sometimesreferred to as AR.
So the difference between VRversus AR AR augmented reality
is where there is a layer ofdata, a layer of information or
(04:15):
experience on top of your reallife experience, whereas virtual
reality completely replaces it.
Real life experience, whereasvirtual reality completely
replaces it.
So an example of like what anAR experience might be is maybe
you go and you strap this youknow glasses on which is what
Google Glasses was, is an ARexperience and it maybe will
(04:39):
allow you to see butterflies ora dragon in the sky, but you
still see kind of the sky andthe clouds and the buildings and
experiences around you, butit's layering these things on
top of it and maybe it mighteven play audio on top of it as
well.
So that's the differencebetween VR and AR.
For some reason, there is lessAR experience out there than I
(05:03):
would have expected.
I think that AR has thisincredible opportunity to kind
of enhance life and I find thattantalizing and interesting.
Vr, I think, is trying toreplace life and that is one of
the big reasons why I'm a bignaysayer on it.
I've read the book Ready PlayerOne and it had a pretty
(05:26):
profound impact on me.
For Ready Player One, itdepicts this like kind of almost
like post-apocalyptic sort ofworld where there's all of this,
you know, horrible, like lifeis so bad in real life that
people are trying to escapereality by going to this virtual
world called the Oasis.
And my friends hate when Ibring up Ready Player One
(05:48):
because I'm always like, yeah, Ihate wearing the headsets and
stuff.
But it's also owned by Meta andI have some gripes with Meta.
Again, I'm not starting thisepisode off in a very positive
note and I guess I kind of wantyou to understand the experience
and like kind of the holisticlook at it before we dive into
(06:12):
like the actual utility of it.
But by being owned by Meta, metahas kind of a history of
playing really fast and loosewith your data and your security
really fast and loose with yourdata and your security and what
that means is everything istied into your Facebook account
or, sorry, your meta account,and I find that kind of weird.
(06:36):
I made my Facebook account whenI was in seventh grade Wait,
yes, seventh grade and so thatwas, you know, like 15 years ago
or so, or maybe even 16 yearsago.
So I've had the same accountfor so long that I don't even
know if I really want to tiemore things into this legacy
(06:56):
login or this legacy account.
I'd rather have things tiedinto my Google account, which I
made a lot more recently and Ialso take a lot more steps to
secure.
So the one thing I will giveback to Meta is they make the
experience very straightforwardand seamless.
For a long time, meta was kindof touted as the pinnacle of
(07:20):
user experience.
I think now Apple and Googlesort of make a good strong run
at that.
I think that Apple especiallyman their onboarding systems for
, you know, different technologyis pretty flawless if we're
being honest.
You know, think about, likeApple packaging and like the
experience of unpacking a laptop.
(07:42):
It's just incredible.
But by being owned by Meta, Imust admit it's not exactly one
of my favorite companies outthere and it's one.
It's again another kind of tickin the box of things I don't
love about virtual reality, andso the way it's set up, again
it's.
I'm looking over at mine.
(08:02):
It's this headset that sort ofsits on your eyes but not on
your nose or mouth and it reallystraps in.
I don't super love it becauseof a couple of things.
It's sort of heavy.
At least my Oculus is heavy.
I know that.
I'll speak to him later, but myfriend Andy, who's a developer
(08:25):
at Punchmark, he has, I think, aQuest and I think that they're
lighter, but my current Oculusis kind of heavy and it really
sort of pushes down on my nose.
The other thing is I can't wearglasses when I have the headset
on, so I have to put my contactson, and sometimes that's like
(08:46):
an extra step of preparationwhich I'm not super keen on.
You know, if it's late at night, my friend's like, hey, let's
jump on virtual reality.
I'm like I gotta go put mycontacts on late at night and
then, you know, go put theheadset on.
The other thing is this headsetthey have to be charged all the
(09:08):
time.
If I don't use mine for twoweeks, there's a good chance it
has zero batteries right now andI think that that is like one
of those I don't know aspectsthat I really hate charging
stuff and I think thatapparently the Apple headsets
are good enough that they canrun off of like no charge for
(09:31):
you know a day or something likethat, or a really long time,
whereas with the headsets, Ithink, it kind of seemingly
doesn't hold a charge super long, I think, or maybe it runs at a
really high use rate.
But let's talk about theonboarding experience.
One thing that's kind ofinteresting is suddenly it's
like what does the experiencefeel like?
(09:52):
And I think that an interestingaspect is that, meta being
first to the game, they got todecide what the experience is
going to be and when you log inyou're kind of sitting in almost
like a viewing port.
So you're almost sitting in thetop of if you've ever been to a
(10:14):
lookout at the top of amountain that you've hiked, it
kind of feels like you're inthere and you're able to launch
different games and experiencesRight out of the box.
Different games and experiencesRight out of the box I must
admit not a lot of things comewith the Oculus.
You have to either purchase ordownload them, so right off the
rip, not like a ton, but thereare some fun games.
(10:36):
I'm not much of a gamer, but ifyou are, there's a whole suite
of video games you can play onit.
Some of my friends feel reallygood about a couple of them.
They think they're reallyimmersive and fun.
But as a non-gamer who kind ofenjoys watching people play
games more than actually playinggames, it definitely is not as
(11:00):
big of a win for me.
One game we play a lot isWalkabout Mini Golf.
Walkabout is it's, you know,it's like putt-putt golf and
it's kind of interesting it's.
You are floating a lot and youuse the controllers that are in
your hand.
You only use one controller ata time.
You use the controllers to kindof move your golf stick and it
(11:25):
is.
It's surprisingly accurate andI'm really bad at it.
My friend Knox is very good atit and it annoys me because for
me to get better at it so Icould compete, I would have to
practice a lot and I just am notready to dedicate that time.
But the other one that we use itfor a lot is the chatting room.
(11:47):
So what I find cool about thisis like you can go and enter
this room where you're basicallyin just a lobby with your other
members.
You go in and you can just chatand you can also on this big
screen that's in the room,because it gives you this kind
of different ambiances.
You can be in like a cozylittle fireplace room.
(12:09):
You can be in like a cool spacewhere it's like a like a
conference center, those kindsof things.
There's actually like asurprising.
It is kind of intimate intimate.
(12:29):
The thing is, though, is like isit better or worse than just
being in a group FaceTime call?
I'll ask the other guys if it'sbetter or worse For me.
I get just as much out of beingin a group FaceTime call,
because I can see their face andI can, you know, emote with my
hands, and I can see their faceand I can emote with my hands,
and I can kind of laugh, or Ican side-eye and roll my eyes,
and they'll get the subtletiesof my message.
(12:51):
As opposed to when you're inthis virtual reality, your
animated character doesn't havethose subtleties.
It's not mapping your face theway that it does in the movie
Ready Player One, and thingsaren't haptic in that your hands
(13:13):
can't, like, feel weight whenyou pick things up.
You know, you don't feel theweight of the golf club.
You still are feeling thecontroller in your hand, and to
me, I think that's one of myinitial issues with virtual
reality.
I think that the augmentedaspect sounds interesting to me,
(13:36):
but again, it is very different.
I think that there's a lot ofthings that virtual reality
could be used for, so a fewthings that I've heard are
trying to be developed around.
It is, for example, I thinkthat one of the interesting uses
could be exposure therapy orPTSD related to certain
(14:02):
environments or experiences.
One thing you could do is havethem use headsets and then
experience you know, or exposethemselves to these traumatic
events in very controlled andmore healthy ways that they
might be able to, you know, havea more positive relationship
(14:25):
with those experiences.
I've heard that that issomething that is being
developed.
Another one is definitely forlearning or situational learning
.
I guess one of those things islike can you train you know
first responders on you know,traumatic or emergency events, a
(14:48):
first responder medic, be ableto go in and knowing which
victim should you beprioritizing and are you
(15:18):
checking their pulse first andkind of going through those
reactionary steps and making itso when you actually do have
your first experience, maybe youare trained better than off of
a book or off of plain video.
I think that there is somethingof value there.
Another one could be thingsrelated to snap decisions,
(15:38):
training or firefighting, orfrom military members, or you
know, I think that pilots arealso supposedly experiencing
that with different types ofsimulators, not just, you know,
with headsets, but with, likethese, more state of the art
ones.
It's not something I've divedinto that deeply, but there is
(15:59):
probably value there.
Another one is potentiallyshopping, and I'm going to bring
the question up to my threefriends, but shopping is
definitely something that couldbe experienced, for example.
But I think that that would bea much better use case for
augmented reality.
For one of those examples, Ihad this episode planned out for
(16:22):
a long time and I didn't end upbuying the couch, so I didn't
do the episode, but I was goingto do VR shopping and I was
going to try to buy a couch formy house, completely through
virtual reality, and I thoughtthat that would be an
interesting experience.
(16:42):
Like how hard is it to actuallypay?
Will my credit card flag it asfraudulent?
The reason why augmentedreality would be cool for that
is you could like see what thecouch is going to look like in
your apartment before you put itthere.
Like is the colors going tolook right?
Is it the right size?
Is it going to?
(17:03):
How high up on the wall is itgoing to come?
I mean, theoretically, you canmake it so that you already have
, like, the posts in place sothat it'd be able to sit down
perfectly.
I think VR is not going to befor shopping.
Again, it's about replacingyour reality as opposed to
augmenting it.
I think that AR might be ofutility for that, but that is
(17:26):
something worth, you know,exploring or thinking about.
And the last thing I wanted tobring up and my friends hate
when I bring this up I getmotion sick with these headsets.
It gives me, makes me feeldizzy, it limits how much time I
can wear the headset, not thatI even enjoy it in the first
place, but I have a pretty hardstop at right around 45 minutes
(17:50):
to an hour where after that Ireally can't wear longer.
It makes me, yeah, kind of havelike an upset stomach and I
kind of feel off balance.
Especially when I take it rightoff, I do feel like I'm kind of
like falling over.
And you know, I guess that'snot uncommon.
I guess with some of the moreexpensive headsets, that is, you
(18:14):
know, diminished, but with thecurrent one that I have with
this Oculus.
It definitely makes me feel alittle bit motion sick, but
those are my initial experienceswith virtual reality man.
I would love to hear somefeedback from our listeners
about if you've ever tried outvirtual reality.
I find it to be one of thoseemerging technologies that
(18:36):
sometimes I feel like it got somuch oxygen probably three years
ago during COVID, and likethere was so much focus on
virtual reality that and theythought it was like the new
frontier, and then it kind ofdied out and people realized
that like technology hadn'tcaught up.
But, just like with anything, Ithink that it was maybe ahead
(18:59):
of its time and maybe there'llbe a rise from the ashes and
there'll be new stuff.
But all that to be said, that'smy initial experiences with it,
after having used it for abouta year and a half, and I think
we're going to take a quickbreak and when we come back
we're going to talk with myfriends Andy Knox and Joe Kay.
So everybody stay with us as wetalk about virtual reality.
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And now back to the show.
And we're back.
(20:43):
What is up, everybody?
I'm joined by three of my bestfriends we affectionately refer
to ourselves as the jabronis andI'm joined by Andy, who's a
developer at Punchmark, knox,who is our director of
technology at Punchmark, and Joe, kay used to be at Punchmark
and now is a director oftechnology elsewhere.
How you guys doing Doing good?
I'm Joe.
And Mike.
How you doing, joe?
You seem so so not amused.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Joe unresponsive on that one.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Actually, you can cut my whole part out of this
podcast, right?
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Oh no.
So we used to all live inCharlotte together and we played
a ton of disc golf and we werehanging out every weekend and
oftentimes during the week aswell.
Super common, we're hanging outevery weekend and, uh,
oftentimes during the week aswell.
Um, super common.
And then I, unfortunately oryou know, fortunately for some
of you guys uh moved away and Imoved north, and now andy uh
(21:34):
moved west and uh, crazy enough,knox and Joe K actually live on
other sides of a state border,so we're pretty far away and we
have a reunion every year andthat's the only time we're
really seeing each other alltogether.
But you guys are big fans of VR.
I want to start with Joe K.
(21:57):
You were kind of the one thatwere like, hey, you're gonna try
out vr.
Um, why do you like vr so much?
Speaker 4 (22:05):
um well, so I can't take full credit for the whole
gang getting into vr, becauseandy showed it to me first.
Uh, he had a earlier model anduh, he just showed me like some
like 3d music videos and stuffand I was like man, this is so
cool.
I didn't even imagine that thisexisted before and now that I
know it's a thing, I got to getinto it.
He also showed me Google EarthVR, which is just a crazy
(22:28):
experience where you're just onthe Earth, whatever size you
want to be, you see the land ina 3D model.
It's crazy.
It's a great time.
So I saw that very quickly, goton board and got myself one and
did my own thing with it andhad a great time.
I think I quickly found out thebest part about VR is the social
aspect.
If there's already people inyour life that have VR that you
(22:51):
get to hang out with in VR, thatmakes it just so much better.
I think that's why we're on itas much as we are.
The four of us have a VR, thethree of us play VR.
Because the three of us thefour of us have a VR, the three
of us play VR.
It's just a great way for us tostay in touch and also do
something that keeps ourinterest.
Even if we all don't feel liketalking, we can get on VR.
(23:12):
We're all just playing golf.
We're still hanging out in away.
I just really like the socialaspect and try to get anyone
that didn't already have one onboard.
That's why you got one, and Istill try to do the same thing
with other friends.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Knox and Andy, do you guys feel like it scratches the
same itch as, for example, likehanging out in a room, or is it
comparable, like is it closeenough?
Because to me I have had a hardtime with like that social
aspect.
But there have been momentswhen we're hanging out in the,
in the group room, where I'mlike, oh, this is kind of like
(23:50):
us hanging out in my living roomagain, but, um, what do you
think?
And yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
so I think it's kind of an interesting halfway point
between doing somethingcompletely virtually for all,
sitting down and, say, playing agame together, or for all like
sitting in the exact same roomin real life.
So for people out there whomight not know exactly what VR
is, it's a headset and you putit on and it looks like you're
(24:17):
in a different reality, like youlook around and you're in a
virtual environment.
Your friends are all there andthey are represented as avatars
and you can kind of see themwalking around, so you are kind
of in the same.
It kind of tricks your braininto actually feeling like
you're in the same room withyour friends because you say
something and you can see theother person throw their head
(24:38):
back and laugh.
And just being in that samespace I think offers something
over FaceTime which just feelslike you're staring at a screen
after a while.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
in my opinion, and Knox, I feel like you adapt
almost the best to VR.
It seems like you almost put iton like a glove whenever you
slip into VR.
For me, I definitely chafe atthat.
Is that something very fluentwith tech?
Is that something that you kindof feel like you naturally come
(25:08):
to, or what do you think?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Yeah, maybe.
So Maybe I have less of abarrier to intrigue just because
I've been so like enmeshed intech my entire life.
The first day I put on a VRheadset, I went out and bought
one that same night, so it'sjust a natural adaptation.
You were talking about peoplemoving away getting connected
with VR.
All of my friends who move awayI make sure they have a VR so
(25:30):
we can hang out.
It's like.
It is so like similar.
It's definitely the closest youcan get to hanging out in real
life.
It's like eerily similar.
You lose track sometimes thatyou're not in real life and
you'll try to lean on a tableand fall over or whatever.
I think that it's so close tohanging out in real life that
that's why you don't like it,because it's eerie.
(25:52):
You know how good it is.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
There is that what do they call that thing?
The gap, uncanny Valley,uncanny Valley, that's it.
It's close, but I've got anOculus, joe, you've got an
Oculus, I think.
What do the other two of youguys use?
Speaker 5 (26:09):
All of us are Oculus Quests.
I think those guys are OculusQuest 2 and I'm Quest 3.
You're Quest?
Speaker 1 (26:14):
3, gotcha.
So one of the points I bring upearlier in this episode I'll
send you guys that you guys makesure you listen to it Is I get
motion sick.
And I want to ask you guys doyou guys get motion sick or do
you guys just battle it, or isit something you get used to or
like, or am I just a baby?
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
A little bit of both, yeah, so like it definitely
depends on what game you'replaying.
The more you get used to it,the less you get nauseous.
But I've been playing a longtime and I still have to.
There are like comfort modesthat you can turn on in a lot of
games where it kind of givesyou like tunnel vision, so your
peripheral vision doesn't reallythrow you off as much.
That's helpful.
But yeah, it's about getting inthere more often helps you a
(26:58):
little bit.
But really it's more about yoursettings.
I just play the right games andyou'll.
You'll get some games.
You'll have to throw them awaybecause they make you nauseous
and move on to other ones.
But the ones that are good arereally good, so it's worth it,
yeah what about you guys?
Speaker 5 (27:10):
um, I agree, depending on the game, some
games you're like literallyflying through the air, so if
you're not prepared for that,that might not be a great time.
Um, you know, there's someexperiences, like I say, where
you're literally just kind ofwalking around in a virtual
environment.
Those aren't too bad, um.
So yeah, it kind of depends.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Yeah, I'll get it after a while.
Uh depends on the game.
If you're moving around a lotor if you don't like turn on the
comfort settings and like yourwhole vision is moving all the
time, then it's kind of easy toget it.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
But if you're not moving that much, you know, I'm
generally fine yeah, I think, uh, one thing that's really
interesting about it is it isthe immersive aspect of it.
Um, so, what we've been talkingabout primarily in this chat is
, uh, the social aspect of it,which I I am willing to.
To give you that it is.
It is great.
(27:57):
I really like, especially whatI'll do a lot is we've already
talked about this ad nauseum,but for the listeners, I just
have a hard time being dialedinto it.
I'm really bad at VR games, soI'm always the worst, which
we're all competitive with eachother, and it kills me being the
worst at something consistently, at something consistently.
(28:18):
But what we started doing iswhen we play Walkabout mini golf
, which I talked about earlierin this episode, these three
will play and I'll play as likea like an explorer kind of thing
.
I'll just go and fly around themap and I'll look at things.
It is really interesting, likeit's super immersive.
I kind of wish I could use itmore to explore like wonders of
(28:43):
the world, or go into SagradaFamilia, you know Basilica in
Barcelona, and like stand inthere and like look up.
Have you guys done anythingthat's like real life, immersive
exploration or anything alongthose lines?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, you can totally do that.
If you go on YouTube, there'slike a whole section of YouTube
that's just like 360 video andyou can go.
I think you can go to concerts.
You can totally do that.
If you go on YouTube, there'slike a whole section of YouTube
that's just like 360 video andyou can go.
I think you can go to concerts.
You can go to India, you can goto tops of mountains and like
it's just like you're standingthere and you get to look around
.
It's pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
National Geographic has a couple you can do Machu
Picchu and you can actually likewalk around through it.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
And then also what you mentioned earlier, joe, with
Google Earth.
So Google Earth has a VR appwhere you can load it and the
Google Earth cars that aredriving around getting pictures
of all those places.
You can go into any one ofthose and just look around in VR
so you can really feel likeyou're walking around the
streets in New York City orsomething.
So it's crazy, mike, you're theartist you should.
(29:38):
There's like art apps where youcan make like 3D structures,
just like fully creatively.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Like that would be the avenue for you.
I've seen that like it's likealmost kind of like having a 3D
printer where you can go andprint stuff and then shape it in
that space.
But dude, what's crazy.
It's just I think I justhaven't clicked in my brain what
that kind of experience is like.
So earlier on the episode I amtalking about uses for VR,
(30:09):
because I think gaming it's good, but there is 2D gaming and I
think that the gap is so farright now.
I think it's going to beseveral years until VR actually
catches up, especially with howmuch of a flop Apple was now.
I think it's going to beseveral years until VR actually
catches up, especially with howmuch of a flop Apple was
recently.
I was talking about what couldthe utilities of VR be?
(30:29):
Obviously, the people listening.
This is in the loop.
This is mainly about e-commerceand shopping and marketing for
the jewelry industry.
I wonder if have you guys?
I'm kind of surprised by howlittle augmented reality is
built into the Oculus.
Um, augmented reality, theyonly use it in very limited
(30:51):
instances, at least from whatI've seen.
Um, I like one of the exampleslike I could think of would be a
great use is like what if I wasto buy a or want to buy a couch
, and I would stand in my livingroom and then maybe be able to
try out different couches in thelocation that I want to put it
that way, I would know oh, thiscouch is way too big for the
(31:14):
space, or this couch is, youknow, it comes up too high on
the window pane and that's ano-go.
Have you guys seen any of thoseutility uses, especially around
AR, or is it mainly just gaming?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
for you guys.
Dude, I'm pretty sure thatexact app that you just
described exists.
I'm pretty sure you can shopfor designer furniture, put it
in AR space in your house andthen order it from the app.
It's pretty cool.
But I think you're right aboutthere's less AR than VR, because
I would say because untilrecently it's really just been
(31:50):
VR.
The MetaQuest 3 was the firstlike popularized VR headset that
I saw in like an affordablemarket where people can get
actual good cameras on their VRand just at home easily.
And other than that, theMetaQuest 2, it's like looking
through a $10 camera.
It's gray, it's pixely, youcan't really see anything.
(32:12):
So ARs, they have it on theQuest 2, but it's terrible to
use.
So no wonder nobody wasdeveloping for that until
recently.
Andy, what do you think aboutthat?
You just got the Quest 3.
Speaker 5 (32:23):
Yeah, so to your point, it's called pass-through
on the Oculus, the ability tojust look through the cameras
and look around your environmentwhile you have a headset on.
Pass-through is much better inQuest 3 than Quest 2, to the
point where Quest 2, you cankind of see where you are in the
room and everything's kind ofblack and white and grainy.
In Quest 2, you can kind of seewhere you are in the room and
everything's kind of black andwhite and grainy.
In Quest 3, you can read a bookin full color.
(32:46):
It's crazy the amount ofgenerational difference that's
just between one iteration.
So that is, to your point,hitting the market pretty
recently.
So these things are coming.
It's just how quickly do wewant to throw people at
developing up these apps?
Now that we have quest 3?
What does the market look like?
Speaker 3 (33:04):
so I think a lot of businesses are kind of going
through that right now that'sactually the reason why I don't
have a quest 3 is because it'sso good at that.
You know they have this thingcalled the spatial cloud where
it looks through your camera andmaps your house and everything
in your house as spatial datathat it sends back to them.
And that freaks me out, becausethe Quest 3 got really good at
(33:24):
analyzing your environment andhaving better cameras and stuff
and I'm like I'll stick with theQuest 2.
It pretty much does the VRthing that I want.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
No, I'm with you have you guys ever used any of the
AR tools, such as?
Do you guys ever try GoogleGlass?
It's crazy to think that thatwas like 15 years ago when that
came out, and I think thatthey're on to something.
It's just unfortunate that theymade you look like a real loser
when you wore them, man.
That's like the truth of thematter, like they had a
(33:53):
perception, kind of thing, butthe utility was, I still think,
really impressive.
Speaker 5 (33:59):
I remember there was a story back then where one of
the beta testers or somethingtried to take it into a
nightclub and just basicallylike wearing a camera on your
glasses while you're walkingaround the night.
He was like I think that waslike one of the first stories
out there about Google Glass andhonestly I think that partially
helped take that whole project.
It was just out of his time.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yeah, I don't know.
I think it's an interestingutility and, like another
example that I had talked aboutwas potentially using VR as a
training mechanism or trainingtool.
So, for example, maybe you havean EMT and EMTs are obviously
part of it is just trusting yourinstincts, flowing through
emergency situations and likeknowing I think it's called
(34:41):
triage or triage, where, likeyou know, like the hierarchy of
importance and things like that.
And could you strap a VR tosomeone who is either like a
rookie or like training tobecome an EMT and then present
them with certain situations,like a car crash or something
along those lines, and thenseeing how they triage through
(35:04):
these events.
I think that would be a reallyfascinating use.
Or, you know, things like notto go to a super extreme, but
like hostage situations, likehow would you handle like these
high pressure instances, whichhaving experience in them is
definitely going to help youhandle them a lot better.
So don't you think you shouldpresent them with more
(35:24):
opportunities to gain thatexperience in non-high stakes
experiences like that have?
you guys ever thought about anyof those kind of instances where
VR could be used as like atraining tool.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Your foresight's incredible.
Yeah, have you heard of the newmeta glasses that came out?
No, oh, yeah, I think Rossmight even have a set.
Yeah, he has a pair.
So they have cameras on them sothey can see what you see, and
they have speakers that directinto your ears so it can talk to
you.
And it's got AI on it so it cansee what you see, analyze the
(35:57):
situation and give youinstructions, if that's what you
want it to do, and so it cantotally be used in training
situations, and I'm sure it willbe very soon Like it can do all
that analysis and giveinstructions and kind of train
you just naturally while you'redoing the thing.
So that'll be cool to seehappen, yeah, what about you,
Joe.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
You think any future use cases out of VR?
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Yeah, I don't know if I could say about any in
particular, but I know there'slike they're getting there
pretty close, like I think theyhave like official flight
simulator programs in vr.
They use it as part of likeflight simulator training.
Uh, yeah, the whole thing yousaid about like hostage
situations are just like uhsituations that you can't really
replicate in training.
But you could do it in vr andmake it more lifelike, make it
(36:42):
experience stuff, all that forsure.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, All right, everybody.
We're going to take a quickbreak and hear a word from our
sponsor.
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Speaker 1 (37:49):
And now back to the show, and we're back.
So if someone was listening tothis and they were interested in
trying out VR, what one wouldyou recommend that they jump
into?
Is it the Quest 2, would yousay, or do you recommend that
(38:10):
they just get thestate-of-the-art one and kind of
go from there?
Speaker 5 (38:14):
3 is a pretty big jump and I believe price-wise
it's pretty close.
So if you can swing that one,I'd definitely recommend it.
If not, Quest 2 is still isstill excellent.
Again.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Two of these guys still have it, so actually, andy
, I'm worried about the, uh like, the screen door effect.
You know so for I guess peoplewho don't know screen door
effect is when you're looking atthe screen in your vr headset,
you know the view when you'relooking through a screen door,
how it has a grid around it.
Sometimes you can get that ifthe resolution isn't super good.
Um, and I feel like that addsto like how you feel when you
(38:47):
play it, whether you're nauseousor whatever.
How is the?
How is the resolution on thequest 3 compared to the quest 2?
Can you tell the difference?
Speaker 5 (38:53):
yeah, the resolution is definitely better.
I don't have the specs in frontof me but, uh, that screen door
effect where you can see theindividual pixels and you lose
that immersiveness.
It's definitely less in theQuest 3 than it is the Quest 2.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
You know.
So I guess I'd probablyrecommend, if you're diving in,
you might as well get thestate-of-the-art one the real
reason being or just get like aused one, if you can, from
someone.
If you can get it cheap, that'sprobably what I would recommend
.
But to bring this thing homeyou guys hate when I bring this
up, but it wouldn't be aconversation with my three best
friends about VR if I don'tbring up Ready Player One.
(39:28):
I am very loathe to get too intoVR because of the fact that I
think, at its core, vr is tryingto not trick us but like coerce
us into leaving reality behindfor a new reality, and I think
that there's, you know, there'ssome arguments to be made in
(39:50):
favor of that.
Maybe your reality is not onethat you want to be living in
and maybe this presents you withan escape.
That's all good things, but Ithink when we were trying to get
me into VR and you guys weretrying to get me, especially
when I had moved to Burlingtonat one point I was like I need
to be out at the bars and at thecoffee shops trying to make new
(40:11):
friends, because that's theonly way for me to better my
situation, which was living in acity where I had no friends,
friends and it's so tempting toslip into VR and have my three
best friends in the room with me, but I'm not bettering my hand,
if you know what I mean.
I know I've talked about itbefore and you guys always kind
(40:32):
of laugh, but I'm worried thatVR is going to be so good in
like five years or ten yearsthat we are going to have a
Ready Player One situation onour hands where people are less
likely to better theirsituations in favor of what I
see as a temporary fix, which isvirtual.
Have you guys thought aboutthis at all beyond?
(40:54):
Oh, yes, you have.
Have you guys thought aboutthis as much as I?
Speaker 3 (40:57):
have the reality.
I have has anti-gravity minigolf, so that seems better to me
.
I don't know about you.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
That's a pretty good point.
Pretty good point.
What about you guys?
Andy, Joe, I think this is animportant one.
I'd love to hear you guys'thoughts on it.
Speaker 5 (41:15):
My reality has anti-gravity mini golf.
Seriously, though.
So we've been been.
I mean, the whole world's kindof been moving more virtual for
a while, right.
First it was computers and thenphones, and now we have ai.
You can talk to a completelynon-existent person, like that's
just kind of the way things aregoing.
(41:35):
Uh, vr is one outreach of that,and it's definitely a big one,
because it's literally somethingyou put over your face and
you're in a new world, so ittakes you out in a very real
sense from the world.
I think we're going to get tothis point where people spend
time in both.
I don't think we're going toget to ready player one where
you only take off your headsetto eat and sleep or whatever.
(41:56):
I think people are still goingto engage in this world because
the you, you know you can goskiing in virtual reality or
something, but you know it's avery different experience than
getting up on a mountain andcoming down the slopes and
having the actual wind in yourface and all that.
They can simulate it, but it'llnever be the same thing.
I think that'll kind of stickout after a while.
Plus, the jabronis are coast tocoast, as you say, so we can
(42:20):
all get together in the sameroom and play.
That's a really good point itis.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
It's I don't want to call it a band-aid, it's more of
like it's just alternate.
I thought about it because justrecently, you guys came and
visited me for a week and it wasawesome and it's like, okay,
like can we replace this?
Like I want to do this more, Iwant to do this more, I want to
(42:43):
do this every week without meliving in the South, because I
want to live in the North.
It's snowy out, it's beautiful,and how can we replace that
without having boatloads of cashand flying you guys up every
time I want to hang out?
I think VR is some of that, butit's not all of that, if you
will.
So I don't know.
Just something I it's aquandary I don't think I have an
answer to, but definitelyreally interesting.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
I can give you my real answer on that.
Sure, yeah, so I think thattech is going to play a more and
more critical core role in ourlives going forward and we're
going to rely on it much more.
Like that's just going tohappen, right.
So, like, along the way, youcan pick up the good things and
you can play a board game withyour friends who live in a
different state when you want tolike take the good parts as
(43:26):
they come, because the onslaughtis coming.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
That's how I'm approaching it yeah, anything
else, guys, before we wrap thisthing up, I think that's pretty
much everything I wanted tocover.
It's very uh, it's veryinteresting.
I think that this episodenormally I'm teaching people
like have you guys ever listenedto my podcast before?
Yeah, who are you?
Wait, you're Mike Joe.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
No, you shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
These are supposed to be my best friends.
They haven't even listened tomy podcast once.
No, I think.
Normally I'm talking about likewhat is, what is the utility of
this and like how can we makemoney off of it, and for right
now, I don't really have theanswer.
I think it's more of just kindof like a something that is
happening and it is developing.
So it's worth keeping it onyour radar and thinking about it
(44:13):
, and I appreciate you guyssharing your insights.
I think this is really cool.
I wanted to have you guys on mypodcast for a really long time
and I appreciate you guys on mypodcast for a really long time
and, um, I appreciate you guystime.
I think that's where we'll endit.
Thanks guys.
(44:33):
Cool podcast everyone.
Amen, all right, thankseverybody.
We'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode.
Cheers, bye, all right.
Everybody that's in the showkind of a different one.
Uh, this episode my guests werewere Joe, kay, andy and Knox.
They're two of my best friends.
I think it was really cooltalking with them.
This episode was brought to youby Punchmark and produced and
hosted by me, michael Burpo.
This episode was edited by PaulSuarez with music by Ross
(44:56):
Cockrum.
Don't forget to rate thepodcast on Spotify and Apple
Podcasts and leave us feedbackon punchmarkcom slash loop.
That's L-O-U-P-E Thanks.
We'll be back next week Tuesdaywith another episode.
Cheers, bye.
Welcome to In the Loop so that you don't have to.
Virtual reality is something Ifind very interesting.
I'm also incrediblyapprehensive about it.
I work in user experience and Idefinitely have read Ready
Player One if you've read orwatched that movie and that's
all about virtual reality, and Ithink of it as a cautionary
(00:39):
tale and today I'm going to kindof set it up for you.
I understand how it might be.
You might get a different ideaof what virtual reality is, or
VR is based on what's in thenews and you know maybe you've
tried a demo before but I'mgoing to do is explain my
experiences with it, talk aboutwhat I like and don't like and
(00:59):
there's a lot of things I don'tlike about it.
And then I'm actually going tointerview my three best friends
who we actually stay in touch,now that we're all living in
different states and we'vestayed in touch through VR.
I definitely like the least outof the four of us, but I want
to use it as a cool opportunityto interview them and they're
(01:20):
going to talk about what theylike and dislike about VR.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
So everybody something kind of different, but
I hope you stick around andenjoy.
Our mission reaches way beyondtechnology.
With decades of experience andlong-lasting industry
(01:45):
relationships, Punchmark enablesjewelry businesses to flourish
in any marketplace.
We consider our clients ourfriends, as many of them have
been friends way before becomingclients.
To help our friends succeed,Whether you're looking for
better e-commerce performance,business growth or campaigns
(02:06):
that drive traffic and sales,Punchmark's website and
marketing services were madejust for you.
It's never too late totransform your business and
stitch together your digital andphysical worlds in a way that
achieves tremendous growth andresults.
Schedule a guided demo today atpunchmarkcom.
Slash go.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
And now back to the show.
Okay, so let's talk aboutvirtual reality or VR.
So first things.
First, I want to set up what VRis.
In case you don't have any idea, I'm just going to assume that
you're coming into thiscompletely uneducated and new to
(02:48):
the idea of virtual reality.
Vr currently, as it stands in2025, is administered, kind of
accessed, through these headsetsthat you strap to your head.
They're kind of like gogglesand they have this computer
inside of them.
That is, I got to be honest.
They're kind of heavy.
They have straps that go aroundthe side of your head and then
(03:09):
one that goes on the top thatsort of pulls it back.
And then you also have thesetwo controllers.
That's true for the one that Iuse, which is an Oculus, and
Oculus is set up by, or is ownedby, meta, which is Facebook,
and it's different.
I know if you have one of theApple headsets, but I gotta be
(03:31):
honest, like those things are, Idon't even know if they're
still making them anymore, butand I've never used one of the
Apple ones, but I do hear somepretty good things about them I
bet you it'd be pretty cool, butthey are incredibly expensive.
So one thing I wanna get out ofthe way is virtual reality is
completely replacing yourexperience in real life with a
(03:52):
virtual one.
That is what kind of definesvirtual reality.
There's another thing calledaugmented reality, which I'm
much more of a fan of, sometimesreferred to as AR.
So the difference between VRversus AR AR augmented reality
is where there is a layer ofdata, a layer of information or
(04:15):
experience on top of your reallife experience, whereas virtual
reality completely replaces it.
Real life experience, whereasvirtual reality completely
replaces it.
So an example of like what anAR experience might be is maybe
you go and you strap this youknow glasses on which is what
Google Glasses was, is an ARexperience and it maybe will
(04:39):
allow you to see butterflies ora dragon in the sky, but you
still see kind of the sky andthe clouds and the buildings and
experiences around you, butit's layering these things on
top of it and maybe it mighteven play audio on top of it as
well.
So that's the differencebetween VR and AR.
For some reason, there is lessAR experience out there than I
(05:03):
would have expected.
I think that AR has thisincredible opportunity to kind
of enhance life and I find thattantalizing and interesting.
Vr, I think, is trying toreplace life and that is one of
the big reasons why I'm a bignaysayer on it.
I've read the book Ready PlayerOne and it had a pretty
(05:26):
profound impact on me.
For Ready Player One, itdepicts this like kind of almost
like post-apocalyptic sort ofworld where there's all of this,
you know, horrible, like lifeis so bad in real life that
people are trying to escapereality by going to this virtual
world called the Oasis.
And my friends hate when Ibring up Ready Player One
(05:48):
because I'm always like, yeah, Ihate wearing the headsets and
stuff.
But it's also owned by Meta andI have some gripes with Meta.
Again, I'm not starting thisepisode off in a very positive
note and I guess I kind of wantyou to understand the experience
and like kind of the holisticlook at it before we dive into
(06:12):
like the actual utility of it.
But by being owned by Meta, metahas kind of a history of
playing really fast and loosewith your data and your security
really fast and loose with yourdata and your security and what
that means is everything istied into your Facebook account
or, sorry, your meta account,and I find that kind of weird.
(06:36):
I made my Facebook account whenI was in seventh grade Wait,
yes, seventh grade and so thatwas, you know, like 15 years ago
or so, or maybe even 16 yearsago.
So I've had the same accountfor so long that I don't even
know if I really want to tiemore things into this legacy
(06:56):
login or this legacy account.
I'd rather have things tiedinto my Google account, which I
made a lot more recently and Ialso take a lot more steps to
secure.
So the one thing I will giveback to Meta is they make the
experience very straightforwardand seamless.
For a long time, meta was kindof touted as the pinnacle of
(07:20):
user experience.
I think now Apple and Googlesort of make a good strong run
at that.
I think that Apple especiallyman their onboarding systems for
, you know, different technologyis pretty flawless if we're
being honest.
You know, think about, likeApple packaging and like the
experience of unpacking a laptop.
(07:42):
It's just incredible.
But by being owned by Meta, Imust admit it's not exactly one
of my favorite companies outthere and it's one.
It's again another kind of tickin the box of things I don't
love about virtual reality, andso the way it's set up, again
it's.
I'm looking over at mine.
(08:02):
It's this headset that sort ofsits on your eyes but not on
your nose or mouth and it reallystraps in.
I don't super love it becauseof a couple of things.
It's sort of heavy.
At least my Oculus is heavy.
I know that.
I'll speak to him later, but myfriend Andy, who's a developer
(08:25):
at Punchmark, he has, I think, aQuest and I think that they're
lighter, but my current Oculusis kind of heavy and it really
sort of pushes down on my nose.
The other thing is I can't wearglasses when I have the headset
on, so I have to put my contactson, and sometimes that's like
(08:46):
an extra step of preparationwhich I'm not super keen on.
You know, if it's late at night, my friend's like, hey, let's
jump on virtual reality.
I'm like I gotta go put mycontacts on late at night and
then, you know, go put theheadset on.
The other thing is this headsetthey have to be charged all the
(09:08):
time.
If I don't use mine for twoweeks, there's a good chance it
has zero batteries right now andI think that that is like one
of those I don't know aspectsthat I really hate charging
stuff and I think thatapparently the Apple headsets
are good enough that they canrun off of like no charge for
(09:31):
you know a day or something likethat, or a really long time,
whereas with the headsets, Ithink, it kind of seemingly
doesn't hold a charge super long, I think, or maybe it runs at a
really high use rate.
But let's talk about theonboarding experience.
One thing that's kind ofinteresting is suddenly it's
like what does the experiencefeel like?
(09:52):
And I think that an interestingaspect is that, meta being
first to the game, they got todecide what the experience is
going to be and when you log inyou're kind of sitting in almost
like a viewing port.
So you're almost sitting in thetop of if you've ever been to a
(10:14):
lookout at the top of amountain that you've hiked, it
kind of feels like you're inthere and you're able to launch
different games and experiencesRight out of the box.
Different games and experiencesRight out of the box I must
admit not a lot of things comewith the Oculus.
You have to either purchase ordownload them, so right off the
rip, not like a ton, but thereare some fun games.
(10:36):
I'm not much of a gamer, but ifyou are, there's a whole suite
of video games you can play onit.
Some of my friends feel reallygood about a couple of them.
They think they're reallyimmersive and fun.
But as a non-gamer who kind ofenjoys watching people play
games more than actually playinggames, it definitely is not as
(11:00):
big of a win for me.
One game we play a lot isWalkabout Mini Golf.
Walkabout is it's, you know,it's like putt-putt golf and
it's kind of interesting it's.
You are floating a lot and youuse the controllers that are in
your hand.
You only use one controller ata time.
You use the controllers to kindof move your golf stick and it
(11:25):
is.
It's surprisingly accurate andI'm really bad at it.
My friend Knox is very good atit and it annoys me because for
me to get better at it so Icould compete, I would have to
practice a lot and I just am notready to dedicate that time.
But the other one that we use itfor a lot is the chatting room.
(11:47):
So what I find cool about thisis like you can go and enter
this room where you're basicallyin just a lobby with your other
members.
You go in and you can just chatand you can also on this big
screen that's in the room,because it gives you this kind
of different ambiances.
You can be in like a cozylittle fireplace room.
(12:09):
You can be in like a cool spacewhere it's like a like a
conference center, those kindsof things.
There's actually like asurprising.
It is kind of intimate intimate.
(12:29):
The thing is, though, is like isit better or worse than just
being in a group FaceTime call?
I'll ask the other guys if it'sbetter or worse For me.
I get just as much out of beingin a group FaceTime call,
because I can see their face andI can, you know, emote with my
hands, and I can see their faceand I can emote with my hands,
and I can kind of laugh, or Ican side-eye and roll my eyes,
and they'll get the subtletiesof my message.
(12:51):
As opposed to when you're inthis virtual reality, your
animated character doesn't havethose subtleties.
It's not mapping your face theway that it does in the movie
Ready Player One, and thingsaren't haptic in that your hands
(13:13):
can't, like, feel weight whenyou pick things up.
You know, you don't feel theweight of the golf club.
You still are feeling thecontroller in your hand, and to
me, I think that's one of myinitial issues with virtual
reality.
I think that the augmentedaspect sounds interesting to me,
(13:36):
but again, it is very different.
I think that there's a lot ofthings that virtual reality
could be used for, so a fewthings that I've heard are
trying to be developed around.
It is, for example, I thinkthat one of the interesting uses
could be exposure therapy orPTSD related to certain
(14:02):
environments or experiences.
One thing you could do is havethem use headsets and then
experience you know, or exposethemselves to these traumatic
events in very controlled andmore healthy ways that they
might be able to, you know, havea more positive relationship
(14:25):
with those experiences.
I've heard that that issomething that is being
developed.
Another one is definitely forlearning or situational learning
.
I guess one of those things islike can you train you know
first responders on you know,traumatic or emergency events, a
(14:48):
first responder medic, be ableto go in and knowing which
victim should you beprioritizing and are you
(15:18):
checking their pulse first andkind of going through those
reactionary steps and making itso when you actually do have
your first experience, maybe youare trained better than off of
a book or off of plain video.
I think that there is somethingof value there.
Another one could be thingsrelated to snap decisions,
(15:38):
training or firefighting, orfrom military members, or you
know, I think that pilots arealso supposedly experiencing
that with different types ofsimulators, not just, you know,
with headsets, but with, likethese, more state of the art
ones.
It's not something I've divedinto that deeply, but there is
(15:59):
probably value there.
Another one is potentiallyshopping, and I'm going to bring
the question up to my threefriends, but shopping is
definitely something that couldbe experienced, for example.
But I think that that would bea much better use case for
augmented reality.
For one of those examples, Ihad this episode planned out for
(16:22):
a long time and I didn't end upbuying the couch, so I didn't
do the episode, but I was goingto do VR shopping and I was
going to try to buy a couch formy house, completely through
virtual reality, and I thoughtthat that would be an
interesting experience.
(16:42):
Like how hard is it to actuallypay?
Will my credit card flag it asfraudulent?
The reason why augmentedreality would be cool for that
is you could like see what thecouch is going to look like in
your apartment before you put itthere.
Like is the colors going tolook right?
Is it the right size?
Is it going to?
(17:03):
How high up on the wall is itgoing to come?
I mean, theoretically, you canmake it so that you already have
, like, the posts in place sothat it'd be able to sit down
perfectly.
I think VR is not going to befor shopping.
Again, it's about replacingyour reality as opposed to
augmenting it.
I think that AR might be ofutility for that, but that is
(17:26):
something worth, you know,exploring or thinking about.
And the last thing I wanted tobring up and my friends hate
when I bring this up I getmotion sick with these headsets.
It gives me, makes me feeldizzy, it limits how much time I
can wear the headset, not thatI even enjoy it in the first
place, but I have a pretty hardstop at right around 45 minutes
(17:50):
to an hour where after that Ireally can't wear longer.
It makes me, yeah, kind of havelike an upset stomach and I
kind of feel off balance.
Especially when I take it rightoff, I do feel like I'm kind of
like falling over.
And you know, I guess that'snot uncommon.
I guess with some of the moreexpensive headsets, that is, you
(18:14):
know, diminished, but with thecurrent one that I have with
this Oculus.
It definitely makes me feel alittle bit motion sick, but
those are my initial experienceswith virtual reality man.
I would love to hear somefeedback from our listeners
about if you've ever tried outvirtual reality.
I find it to be one of thoseemerging technologies that
(18:36):
sometimes I feel like it got somuch oxygen probably three years
ago during COVID, and likethere was so much focus on
virtual reality that and theythought it was like the new
frontier, and then it kind ofdied out and people realized
that like technology hadn'tcaught up.
But, just like with anything, Ithink that it was maybe ahead
(18:59):
of its time and maybe there'llbe a rise from the ashes and
there'll be new stuff.
But all that to be said, that'smy initial experiences with it,
after having used it for abouta year and a half, and I think
we're going to take a quickbreak and when we come back
we're going to talk with myfriends Andy Knox and Joe Kay.
So everybody stay with us as wetalk about virtual reality.
(19:35):
This episode is brought to youin part by National Rarities
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or reach out to Justin.
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Or reach out to Justin.
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At nationalraritiescom.
There'll be more information inthe show notes below.
And now back to the show.
And we're back.
(20:43):
What is up, everybody?
I'm joined by three of my bestfriends we affectionately refer
to ourselves as the jabronis andI'm joined by Andy, who's a
developer at Punchmark, knox,who is our director of
technology at Punchmark, and Joe, kay used to be at Punchmark
and now is a director oftechnology elsewhere.
How you guys doing Doing good?
I'm Joe.
And Mike.
How you doing, joe?
You seem so so not amused.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Joe unresponsive on that one.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Actually, you can cut my whole part out of this
podcast, right?
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Oh no.
So we used to all live inCharlotte together and we played
a ton of disc golf and we werehanging out every weekend and
oftentimes during the week aswell.
Super common, we're hanging outevery weekend and, uh,
oftentimes during the week aswell.
Um, super common.
And then I, unfortunately oryou know, fortunately for some
of you guys uh moved away and Imoved north, and now andy uh
(21:34):
moved west and uh, crazy enough,knox and Joe K actually live on
other sides of a state border,so we're pretty far away and we
have a reunion every year andthat's the only time we're
really seeing each other alltogether.
But you guys are big fans of VR.
I want to start with Joe K.
(21:57):
You were kind of the one thatwere like, hey, you're gonna try
out vr.
Um, why do you like vr so much?
Speaker 4 (22:05):
um well, so I can't take full credit for the whole
gang getting into vr, becauseandy showed it to me first.
Uh, he had a earlier model anduh, he just showed me like some
like 3d music videos and stuffand I was like man, this is so
cool.
I didn't even imagine that thisexisted before and now that I
know it's a thing, I got to getinto it.
He also showed me Google EarthVR, which is just a crazy
(22:28):
experience where you're just onthe Earth, whatever size you
want to be, you see the land ina 3D model.
It's crazy.
It's a great time.
So I saw that very quickly, goton board and got myself one and
did my own thing with it andhad a great time.
I think I quickly found out thebest part about VR is the social
aspect.
If there's already people inyour life that have VR that you
(22:51):
get to hang out with in VR, thatmakes it just so much better.
I think that's why we're on itas much as we are.
The four of us have a VR, thethree of us play VR.
Because the three of us thefour of us have a VR, the three
of us play VR.
It's just a great way for us tostay in touch and also do
something that keeps ourinterest.
Even if we all don't feel liketalking, we can get on VR.
(23:12):
We're all just playing golf.
We're still hanging out in away.
I just really like the socialaspect and try to get anyone
that didn't already have one onboard.
That's why you got one, and Istill try to do the same thing
with other friends.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Knox and Andy, do you guys feel like it scratches the
same itch as, for example, likehanging out in a room, or is it
comparable, like is it closeenough?
Because to me I have had a hardtime with like that social
aspect.
But there have been momentswhen we're hanging out in the,
in the group room, where I'mlike, oh, this is kind of like
(23:50):
us hanging out in my living roomagain, but, um, what do you
think?
And yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
so I think it's kind of an interesting halfway point
between doing somethingcompletely virtually for all,
sitting down and, say, playing agame together, or for all like
sitting in the exact same roomin real life.
So for people out there whomight not know exactly what VR
is, it's a headset and you putit on and it looks like you're
(24:17):
in a different reality, like youlook around and you're in a
virtual environment.
Your friends are all there andthey are represented as avatars
and you can kind of see themwalking around, so you are kind
of in the same.
It kind of tricks your braininto actually feeling like
you're in the same room withyour friends because you say
something and you can see theother person throw their head
(24:38):
back and laugh.
And just being in that samespace I think offers something
over FaceTime which just feelslike you're staring at a screen
after a while.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
in my opinion, and Knox, I feel like you adapt
almost the best to VR.
It seems like you almost put iton like a glove whenever you
slip into VR.
For me, I definitely chafe atthat.
Is that something very fluentwith tech?
Is that something that you kindof feel like you naturally come
(25:08):
to, or what do you think?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Yeah, maybe.
So Maybe I have less of abarrier to intrigue just because
I've been so like enmeshed intech my entire life.
The first day I put on a VRheadset, I went out and bought
one that same night, so it'sjust a natural adaptation.
You were talking about peoplemoving away getting connected
with VR.
All of my friends who move awayI make sure they have a VR so
(25:30):
we can hang out.
It's like.
It is so like similar.
It's definitely the closest youcan get to hanging out in real
life.
It's like eerily similar.
You lose track sometimes thatyou're not in real life and
you'll try to lean on a tableand fall over or whatever.
I think that it's so close tohanging out in real life that
that's why you don't like it,because it's eerie.
(25:52):
You know how good it is.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
There is that what do they call that thing?
The gap, uncanny Valley,uncanny Valley, that's it.
It's close, but I've got anOculus, joe, you've got an
Oculus, I think.
What do the other two of youguys use?
Speaker 5 (26:09):
All of us are Oculus Quests.
I think those guys are OculusQuest 2 and I'm Quest 3.
You're Quest?
Speaker 1 (26:14):
3, gotcha.
So one of the points I bring upearlier in this episode I'll
send you guys that you guys makesure you listen to it Is I get
motion sick.
And I want to ask you guys doyou guys get motion sick or do
you guys just battle it, or isit something you get used to or
like, or am I just a baby?
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
A little bit of both, yeah, so like it definitely
depends on what game you'replaying.
The more you get used to it,the less you get nauseous.
But I've been playing a longtime and I still have to.
There are like comfort modesthat you can turn on in a lot of
games where it kind of givesyou like tunnel vision, so your
peripheral vision doesn't reallythrow you off as much.
That's helpful.
But yeah, it's about getting inthere more often helps you a
(26:58):
little bit.
But really it's more about yoursettings.
I just play the right games andyou'll.
You'll get some games.
You'll have to throw them awaybecause they make you nauseous
and move on to other ones.
But the ones that are good arereally good, so it's worth it,
yeah what about you guys?
Speaker 5 (27:10):
um, I agree, depending on the game, some
games you're like literallyflying through the air, so if
you're not prepared for that,that might not be a great time.
Um, you know, there's someexperiences, like I say, where
you're literally just kind ofwalking around in a virtual
environment.
Those aren't too bad, um.
So yeah, it kind of depends.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Yeah, I'll get it after a while.
Uh depends on the game.
If you're moving around a lotor if you don't like turn on the
comfort settings and like yourwhole vision is moving all the
time, then it's kind of easy toget it.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
But if you're not moving that much, you know, I'm
generally fine yeah, I think, uh, one thing that's really
interesting about it is it isthe immersive aspect of it.
Um, so, what we've been talkingabout primarily in this chat is
, uh, the social aspect of it,which I I am willing to.
To give you that it is.
It is great.
(27:57):
I really like, especially whatI'll do a lot is we've already
talked about this ad nauseum,but for the listeners, I just
have a hard time being dialedinto it.
I'm really bad at VR games, soI'm always the worst, which
we're all competitive with eachother, and it kills me being the
worst at something consistently, at something consistently.
(28:18):
But what we started doing iswhen we play Walkabout mini golf
, which I talked about earlierin this episode, these three
will play and I'll play as likea like an explorer kind of thing
.
I'll just go and fly around themap and I'll look at things.
It is really interesting, likeit's super immersive.
I kind of wish I could use itmore to explore like wonders of
(28:43):
the world, or go into SagradaFamilia, you know Basilica in
Barcelona, and like stand inthere and like look up.
Have you guys done anythingthat's like real life, immersive
exploration or anything alongthose lines?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, you can totally do that.
If you go on YouTube, there'slike a whole section of YouTube
that's just like 360 video andyou can go.
I think you can go to concerts.
You can totally do that.
If you go on YouTube, there'slike a whole section of YouTube
that's just like 360 video andyou can go.
I think you can go to concerts.
You can go to India, you can goto tops of mountains and like
it's just like you're standingthere and you get to look around
.
It's pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
National Geographic has a couple you can do Machu
Picchu and you can actually likewalk around through it.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
And then also what you mentioned earlier, joe, with
Google Earth.
So Google Earth has a VR appwhere you can load it and the
Google Earth cars that aredriving around getting pictures
of all those places.
You can go into any one ofthose and just look around in VR
so you can really feel likeyou're walking around the
streets in New York City orsomething.
So it's crazy, mike, you're theartist you should.
(29:38):
There's like art apps where youcan make like 3D structures,
just like fully creatively.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Like that would be the avenue for you.
I've seen that like it's likealmost kind of like having a 3D
printer where you can go andprint stuff and then shape it in
that space.
But dude, what's crazy.
It's just I think I justhaven't clicked in my brain what
that kind of experience is like.
So earlier on the episode I amtalking about uses for VR,
(30:09):
because I think gaming it's good, but there is 2D gaming and I
think that the gap is so farright now.
I think it's going to beseveral years until VR actually
catches up, especially with howmuch of a flop Apple was now.
I think it's going to beseveral years until VR actually
catches up, especially with howmuch of a flop Apple was
recently.
I was talking about what couldthe utilities of VR be?
(30:29):
Obviously, the people listening.
This is in the loop.
This is mainly about e-commerceand shopping and marketing for
the jewelry industry.
I wonder if have you guys?
I'm kind of surprised by howlittle augmented reality is
built into the Oculus.
Um, augmented reality, theyonly use it in very limited
(30:51):
instances, at least from whatI've seen.
Um, I like one of the exampleslike I could think of would be a
great use is like what if I wasto buy a or want to buy a couch
, and I would stand in my livingroom and then maybe be able to
try out different couches in thelocation that I want to put it
that way, I would know oh, thiscouch is way too big for the
(31:14):
space, or this couch is, youknow, it comes up too high on
the window pane and that's ano-go.
Have you guys seen any of thoseutility uses, especially around
AR, or is it mainly just gaming?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
for you guys.
Dude, I'm pretty sure thatexact app that you just
described exists.
I'm pretty sure you can shopfor designer furniture, put it
in AR space in your house andthen order it from the app.
It's pretty cool.
But I think you're right aboutthere's less AR than VR, because
I would say because untilrecently it's really just been
(31:50):
VR.
The MetaQuest 3 was the firstlike popularized VR headset that
I saw in like an affordablemarket where people can get
actual good cameras on their VRand just at home easily.
And other than that, theMetaQuest 2, it's like looking
through a $10 camera.
It's gray, it's pixely, youcan't really see anything.
(32:12):
So ARs, they have it on theQuest 2, but it's terrible to
use.
So no wonder nobody wasdeveloping for that until
recently.
Andy, what do you think aboutthat?
You just got the Quest 3.
Speaker 5 (32:23):
Yeah, so to your point, it's called pass-through
on the Oculus, the ability tojust look through the cameras
and look around your environmentwhile you have a headset on.
Pass-through is much better inQuest 3 than Quest 2, to the
point where Quest 2, you cankind of see where you are in the
room and everything's kind ofblack and white and grainy.
In Quest 2, you can kind of seewhere you are in the room and
everything's kind of black andwhite and grainy.
In Quest 3, you can read a bookin full color.
(32:46):
It's crazy the amount ofgenerational difference that's
just between one iteration.
So that is, to your point,hitting the market pretty
recently.
So these things are coming.
It's just how quickly do wewant to throw people at
developing up these apps?
Now that we have quest 3?
What does the market look like?
Speaker 3 (33:04):
so I think a lot of businesses are kind of going
through that right now that'sactually the reason why I don't
have a quest 3 is because it'sso good at that.
You know they have this thingcalled the spatial cloud where
it looks through your camera andmaps your house and everything
in your house as spatial datathat it sends back to them.
And that freaks me out, becausethe Quest 3 got really good at
(33:24):
analyzing your environment andhaving better cameras and stuff
and I'm like I'll stick with theQuest 2.
It pretty much does the VRthing that I want.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
No, I'm with you have you guys ever used any of the
AR tools, such as?
Do you guys ever try GoogleGlass?
It's crazy to think that thatwas like 15 years ago when that
came out, and I think thatthey're on to something.
It's just unfortunate that theymade you look like a real loser
when you wore them, man.
That's like the truth of thematter, like they had a
(33:53):
perception, kind of thing, butthe utility was, I still think,
really impressive.
Speaker 5 (33:59):
I remember there was a story back then where one of
the beta testers or somethingtried to take it into a
nightclub and just basicallylike wearing a camera on your
glasses while you're walkingaround the night.
He was like I think that waslike one of the first stories
out there about Google Glass andhonestly I think that partially
helped take that whole project.
It was just out of his time.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yeah, I don't know.
I think it's an interestingutility and, like another
example that I had talked aboutwas potentially using VR as a
training mechanism or trainingtool.
So, for example, maybe you havean EMT and EMTs are obviously
part of it is just trusting yourinstincts, flowing through
emergency situations and likeknowing I think it's called
(34:41):
triage or triage, where, likeyou know, like the hierarchy of
importance and things like that.
And could you strap a VR tosomeone who is either like a
rookie or like training tobecome an EMT and then present
them with certain situations,like a car crash or something
along those lines, and thenseeing how they triage through
(35:04):
these events.
I think that would be a reallyfascinating use.
Or, you know, things like notto go to a super extreme, but
like hostage situations, likehow would you handle like these
high pressure instances, whichhaving experience in them is
definitely going to help youhandle them a lot better.
So don't you think you shouldpresent them with more
(35:24):
opportunities to gain thatexperience in non-high stakes
experiences like that have?
you guys ever thought about anyof those kind of instances where
VR could be used as like atraining tool.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Your foresight's incredible.
Yeah, have you heard of the newmeta glasses that came out?
No, oh, yeah, I think Rossmight even have a set.
Yeah, he has a pair.
So they have cameras on them sothey can see what you see, and
they have speakers that directinto your ears so it can talk to
you.
And it's got AI on it so it cansee what you see, analyze the
(35:57):
situation and give youinstructions, if that's what you
want it to do, and so it cantotally be used in training
situations, and I'm sure it willbe very soon Like it can do all
that analysis and giveinstructions and kind of train
you just naturally while you'redoing the thing.
So that'll be cool to seehappen, yeah, what about you,
Joe.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
You think any future use cases out of VR?
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Yeah, I don't know if I could say about any in
particular, but I know there'slike they're getting there
pretty close, like I think theyhave like official flight
simulator programs in vr.
They use it as part of likeflight simulator training.
Uh, yeah, the whole thing yousaid about like hostage
situations are just like uhsituations that you can't really
replicate in training.
But you could do it in vr andmake it more lifelike, make it
(36:42):
experience stuff, all that forsure.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, All right, everybody.
We're going to take a quickbreak and hear a word from our
sponsor.
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(37:14):
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Speaker 1 (37:49):
And now back to the show, and we're back.
So if someone was listening tothis and they were interested in
trying out VR, what one wouldyou recommend that they jump
into?
Is it the Quest 2, would yousay, or do you recommend that
(38:10):
they just get thestate-of-the-art one and kind of
go from there?
Speaker 5 (38:14):
3 is a pretty big jump and I believe price-wise
it's pretty close.
So if you can swing that one,I'd definitely recommend it.
If not, Quest 2 is still isstill excellent.
Again.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Two of these guys still have it, so actually, andy
, I'm worried about the, uh like, the screen door effect.
You know so for I guess peoplewho don't know screen door
effect is when you're looking atthe screen in your vr headset,
you know the view when you'relooking through a screen door,
how it has a grid around it.
Sometimes you can get that ifthe resolution isn't super good.
Um, and I feel like that addsto like how you feel when you
(38:47):
play it, whether you're nauseousor whatever.
How is the?
How is the resolution on thequest 3 compared to the quest 2?
Can you tell the difference?
Speaker 5 (38:53):
yeah, the resolution is definitely better.
I don't have the specs in frontof me but, uh, that screen door
effect where you can see theindividual pixels and you lose
that immersiveness.
It's definitely less in theQuest 3 than it is the Quest 2.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
You know.
So I guess I'd probablyrecommend, if you're diving in,
you might as well get thestate-of-the-art one the real
reason being or just get like aused one, if you can, from
someone.
If you can get it cheap, that'sprobably what I would recommend
.
But to bring this thing homeyou guys hate when I bring this
up, but it wouldn't be aconversation with my three best
friends about VR if I don'tbring up Ready Player One.
(39:28):
I am very loathe to get too intoVR because of the fact that I
think, at its core, vr is tryingto not trick us but like coerce
us into leaving reality behindfor a new reality, and I think
that there's, you know, there'ssome arguments to be made in
(39:50):
favor of that.
Maybe your reality is not onethat you want to be living in
and maybe this presents you withan escape.
That's all good things, but Ithink when we were trying to get
me into VR and you guys weretrying to get me, especially
when I had moved to Burlingtonat one point I was like I need
to be out at the bars and at thecoffee shops trying to make new
(40:11):
friends, because that's theonly way for me to better my
situation, which was living in acity where I had no friends,
friends and it's so tempting toslip into VR and have my three
best friends in the room with me, but I'm not bettering my hand,
if you know what I mean.
I know I've talked about itbefore and you guys always kind
(40:32):
of laugh, but I'm worried thatVR is going to be so good in
like five years or ten yearsthat we are going to have a
Ready Player One situation onour hands where people are less
likely to better theirsituations in favor of what I
see as a temporary fix, which isvirtual.
Have you guys thought aboutthis at all beyond?
(40:54):
Oh, yes, you have.
Have you guys thought aboutthis as much as I?
Speaker 3 (40:57):
have the reality.
I have has anti-gravity minigolf, so that seems better to me
.
I don't know about you.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
That's a pretty good point.
Pretty good point.
What about you guys?
Andy, Joe, I think this is animportant one.
I'd love to hear you guys'thoughts on it.
Speaker 5 (41:15):
My reality has anti-gravity mini golf.
Seriously, though.
So we've been been.
I mean, the whole world's kindof been moving more virtual for
a while, right.
First it was computers and thenphones, and now we have ai.
You can talk to a completelynon-existent person, like that's
just kind of the way things aregoing.
(41:35):
Uh, vr is one outreach of that,and it's definitely a big one,
because it's literally somethingyou put over your face and
you're in a new world, so ittakes you out in a very real
sense from the world.
I think we're going to get tothis point where people spend
time in both.
I don't think we're going toget to ready player one where
you only take off your headsetto eat and sleep or whatever.
(41:56):
I think people are still goingto engage in this world because
the you, you know you can goskiing in virtual reality or
something, but you know it's avery different experience than
getting up on a mountain andcoming down the slopes and
having the actual wind in yourface and all that.
They can simulate it, but it'llnever be the same thing.
I think that'll kind of stickout after a while.
Plus, the jabronis are coast tocoast, as you say, so we can
(42:20):
all get together in the sameroom and play.
That's a really good point itis.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
It's I don't want to call it a band-aid, it's more of
like it's just alternate.
I thought about it because justrecently, you guys came and
visited me for a week and it wasawesome and it's like, okay,
like can we replace this?
Like I want to do this more, Iwant to do this more, I want to
(42:43):
do this every week without meliving in the South, because I
want to live in the North.
It's snowy out, it's beautiful,and how can we replace that
without having boatloads of cashand flying you guys up every
time I want to hang out?
I think VR is some of that, butit's not all of that, if you
will.
So I don't know.
Just something I it's aquandary I don't think I have an
answer to, but definitelyreally interesting.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
I can give you my real answer on that.
Sure, yeah, so I think thattech is going to play a more and
more critical core role in ourlives going forward and we're
going to rely on it much more.
Like that's just going tohappen, right.
So, like, along the way, youcan pick up the good things and
you can play a board game withyour friends who live in a
different state when you want tolike take the good parts as
(43:26):
they come, because the onslaughtis coming.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
That's how I'm approaching it yeah, anything
else, guys, before we wrap thisthing up, I think that's pretty
much everything I wanted tocover.
It's very uh, it's veryinteresting.
I think that this episodenormally I'm teaching people
like have you guys ever listenedto my podcast before?
Yeah, who are you?
Wait, you're Mike Joe.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
No, you shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
These are supposed to be my best friends.
They haven't even listened tomy podcast once.
No, I think.
Normally I'm talking about likewhat is, what is the utility of
this and like how can we makemoney off of it, and for right
now, I don't really have theanswer.
I think it's more of just kindof like a something that is
happening and it is developing.
So it's worth keeping it onyour radar and thinking about it
(44:13):
, and I appreciate you guyssharing your insights.
I think this is really cool.
I wanted to have you guys on mypodcast for a really long time
and I appreciate you guys on mypodcast for a really long time
and, um, I appreciate you guystime.
I think that's where we'll endit.
Thanks guys.
(44:33):
Cool podcast everyone.
Amen, all right, thankseverybody.
We'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode.
Cheers, bye, all right.
Everybody that's in the showkind of a different one.
Uh, this episode my guests werewere Joe, kay, andy and Knox.
They're two of my best friends.
I think it was really cooltalking with them.
This episode was brought to youby Punchmark and produced and
hosted by me, michael Burpo.
This episode was edited by PaulSuarez with music by Ross
(44:56):
Cockrum.
Don't forget to rate thepodcast on Spotify and Apple
Podcasts and leave us feedbackon punchmarkcom slash loop.
That's L-O-U-P-E Thanks.
We'll be back next week Tuesdaywith another episode.
Cheers, bye.
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