My dentist is a tech aficionado. He has a pair of Google Glass and he is also the proud owner of a drone — which he uses for aerial photography to capture images of him playing with his daughter. During a recent visit to his clinic, I found him engaged in animated discussion on another new thing– virtual reality (VR).
Well, I was not really surprised about his latest fascination, given the buzz surrounding VR in recent months. Almost all the top consumer electronics firms in the world have said that VR could be the next big thing for the industry. With a new growth segment opening up, Hong Kong is also seeing some initiatives.
A local startup room3 recently jumped on the bandwagon and developed a VR-based technology that allows people to view property units through smartphones, making them feel as if they were really walking through the homes. The device will be targeted at real-estate developers and agents, which can use it as an additional tool to draw customers and promote sales.
The company deploys 14 cameras to take 360 degree pictures in apartments and stitch the images together to create a virtual experience, an executive told StartupBeat. Certain interactive functions are also included. We can expect that more companies will discover fresh applications for VR in their businesses. It’s not difficult to see the gaming, entertainment and business potential of VR in the near future. But what really convinced me about the huge possibilities of the new technology is a presentation I witnessed from tech entrepreneur Michael Bodekaer on the knowledge sharing platform TED. Boedeker first talked about a real-life problem facing science education: that is, students are often bored and disengaged in class. Read More…
