On 3rd October, 2016, our own Daniel Cheetham, Chief Interactive Officer at Happy Finish, will be speaking alongside the likes of Sir Richard Branson and many other innovative leaders in various creative fields, at the inspiring Virgin Disruptors conference held in London. The event focuses on creating tangible change across businesses and the world through a full schedule of stimulating speakers and interactive installations shared by like-minded changemakers. Tickets are on sale here; grab yours quick so you don't miss out on this extraordinary event! 

Leading up to the event, Daniel spoke with Virgin Content Executive, Natalie Clarkson, to discuss how virtual reality is quickly reaching a point where it will change the way we live our lives.  

Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality technologies are all things that until very recently existed only in sci-fi movies. We caught up with Daniel Cheetham, Chief Interactive Officer at Happy Finish, ahead of his appearance at Virgin Disruptors to find out more.

“In my relative short time that I've been working in this industry, I guess maybe 15 or so years, I've seen a lot of very quick changes in terms of how people engage with content,” he says. “And I think this stuff that we're doing now with Virtual and Augmented Reality is the next big thing in terms of how people will be interacting with content and also interacting with the world around them - the physical space in which they exist. And also with other people in that physical space as well.”

But what does that actually mean in people’s everyday lives? How will these technologies actually change the way that we live?

Daniel has a few examples of exciting ways these technologies can be used: “we’re working on this concept at the moment, but let’s say you walk into a store and there is a mirror in that store and it's an interactive mirror. Behind that mirror is a camera, that camera (and software) can determine approximately your age, your gender,” he explains. “And it also, after training with Artificial Intelligence, can recognise items of clothing that you're wearing as well. So based on you as an individual that mirror can start to display back recommendations on products that the Artificial Intelligence engine believe that you're going to be interested in. And it can even start potentially even overlaying those products, or related content on your body in real time. For me, I think it's really interesting and exciting because it's not just Augmented reality, it's very relevant, personalised Augmented Reality that is being prompted by an Artificial Intelligence engine that we're creating.”

Daniel says that this is one of the most exciting things he’s worked on in this space, explaining that it’s the way that they have used multiple different technologies to “start developing stuff that has never really been thought about before”.

Of course, to pull something like this off, it takes a number of people with a wide range of skillsets. Daniel says that their team involves everyone from CG artists to PhD level developers, who all work together to build the end product. He also notes that these teams are often much younger than people might expect. “We're looking at young people who are really engaged with the technology and are also courageous enough to take risks and not afraid to fail. It's a bit of a Silicon Valley mentality - fail fast, learn fast. That's the sort of innovation we're involved in, we have to be willing to take risks and we have to be willing to create stuff sometimes that doesn't work in order to get something that does.”

Virgin Disruptors returns for 2016

This technology isn’t just going to disrupt our social lives though, Daniel says that it will change the workplace too.

“Let’s look at the automotive industry, where traditionally, and still until very recently, most automotive manufacturers start the design of a vehicle using clay models, which is pretty old school. You'd have vehicle designers in a room literally crafting the potential shape of the vehicle out of clay,” he says. “It's a pretty laborious process to change that and tweak that. But using a headset like the HoloLens, multiple people can view the same holographic image at the same time. So you can have five people in a room - they don't even need to be in the same room actually, they could be at different sides of the planet - they can in real time interact with the holographic model and tweaking and changing it.

“Allowing people to collaboratively work remotely on a physical 3D object is just one way in which this is clearly going to change the way things are done in the automotive industry in future.”

However, it’s not the developments in the office that Daniel’s most looking forward to – or in fact any commercial aspect of the technology. The one thing he’d like to see happen with AR, VR and MR is that it will “help connect more people at a deeper level”. He adds: “Mark Zuckerberg said that Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality will be the most social medium that has ever existed. I guess my hope, from a slightly altruistic perspective, is that that is true. How that happens I’m as yet to know but I hope that it becomes a collaborative tool rather than an isolating tool.”

See the original story posted on Virgin.com

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