We attended Laval Virtual 2023 this year and want to share a few thoughts with our readers now that we’ve had time to digest.
Every conference has its ups and downs but we’ll start with a major ‘up’ - the quality of professionals we met there was really top-notch. There are brilliant, passionate people working in all avenues of extended reality (XR) these days, and by getting them together in a conference environment, you got to immerse yourself in the nuanced differences between similar platforms. It is one thing to contemplate the paths in a decision tree between one headset or approach to technology; it is quite another to be able to test technologies that have made this choice already, and to do so virtually side-by-side.
Of course, we did not catch every technology at its best. For a virtual conference, the WiFi was unforgivably bad, and many vendors complained to us that this limited their ability to show themselves at their best. Hopefully this will be amended for next year, since no one wants to attend a conference about tomorrow’s technology only to be hampered by yesterday’s.
But perhaps that metaphor is not one we should give up on easily, because one thing that made Laval stand out for us was the number of people and firms exploring genuinely new and interesting applications of XR. Time and time again, we can run into someone who wants to use XR to accomplish something that an old piece of technology can do, if for no other reason than to benefit from the ‘flash of an XR experience. As consultants, we have to advise that this is not always the best idea. You want to spend your XR dollars as meaningfully as any others, and there is a real danger that misspent money can fall especially flat in such a volatile world as XR.
But at Laval, we got to see folks pushing boundaries on the one hand, and bringing up the rear with better platforms to support them on the other hand. For example, we were really impressed with teams putting out no-code platforms to help any company create and maintain new virtual solutions (for example, France’s WondaVR.)
And we loved the premise of the XR for a Cause winner Meta Table β, which allows people in remote locations to share their atmosphere with one another. It is exactly this kind of premise that keeps us going as XR enthusiasts - technology that can let people go to new places, experience new things, and participate in the joys of human life and work in a meaningful way, despite limitations that would have once rendered this impossible.
And as game lovers, we had a special place in our heart for the experience hall that let you meet students creating amazing games and experiences in XR. One game in particular used GPT 3.5 to drive a unique experience for every player - and after experiencing it for a brief time, we can honestly say we got ideas about how our future games may be driven by generative AI and other great new technologies.
So what would a few of our take-aways from the conference be? Here’s five of them, but feel free to reach out for a more sophisticated discussion.
No-code platforms are one of the biggest difference-makers for XR’s future ubiquity. They have come so far, so quickly, that it really gives us optimism about the place of XR in everyday workplaces, schools, and organizations. It removes two major barriers to adoption: the need to develop your own expensive infrastructure, and the need for a complex team of developers to maintain your solution.
Generative AI is an immediate difference-maker in XR. One of the biggest issues with XR technology has been the lack of content available. Throw on a headset, play a couple of games or paint a 3D picture, and then…crickets. But you should see what a couple students were able to whip together over a few weeks, powered by a generative AI base. It’s really exciting (and a bit intimidating…get ready for a wild ride.)
Touch and feel experiences are getting very real. With the motion capture suits, XR gloves, and other options for real-world feedback, we had amazing experiences with virtual objects that felt as light or heavy as they would in real life. Very cool.
If you aren’t reading academic papers, you are missing out on the future. One of the most interesting presentations in Hall C had to do with the link between memory and imagination - more to come on that in the future.
It’s fun to see folks out there on the edge. From a team trying to nail down smells as a factor of XR, to a boxing simulator, to the ability to experience topography, there was something for everyone at Laval Virtual.
We are just now getting in touch with all the great people we met, so here’s hoping that future partnerships and adventures come out of it all. Either way, Laval Virtual is on our short list of conferences to return to next year, and if you have any interest in the space - especially in Europe - we think it should be on yours, too. See you there!