Despite the growth of technology over the recent years, many of us still consider things like virtual reality and artificial intelligence to be science-fiction concepts. They’re captivating ideas – but something we couldn’t imagine existing in our own world – until now. Although a lot of VR development has been done in the sphere of gaming, companies are beginning to recognise virtual reality for the difference it could make to the professional environment too.
Virtual reality is a way to bring professionals together in the same “space” while they’re still thousands of miles apart. It’s the next stage in communication and collaboration, and something that Cisco has actively begun to experiment with, following their collaboration with Oculus Rift. With the new Cisco Spark in VR app, office workers can begin to play around with the potential of a virtual world for collaboration.
Introducing the Cisco Spark VR App
Finally, we’re starting to see the true potential of collaboration. Now, Cisco Spark customers can download the experimental app from the Oculus store for free. So long as you have touch controllers with your Oculus Rift machine, a computer, and the Cisco Spark app, you can meet and interact with other professionals in your very own VR environment. Additionally, Cisco can natively integrate with the Cisco Spark platform endpoints, for a more seamless connectivity experience.
Cisco has suggested that they wanted to move beyond the “fluffy” concepts of virtual reality, where the technology was just used in immersive gaming. Instead, they wanted to jump straight into the practical applications of VR, and think about how they could transform the meeting room through the Cisco Spark platform. According to the collaboration brand, Cisco Spark is already built around the idea of virtual spaces, because it was designed to provide a platform for all the different components of work life, including messaging, whiteboards, files, and so on.
It’s easy to see how the use of VR headsets could take collaboration to the next level for modern businesses. With one simple device, you can be immediately transported into the offices and networks of your co-workers, wherever they are in the world.
A New Way to Interact with Cisco Spark Content
Essentially, the Oculus and Cisco connection will give office rooms a new way to interact with Cisco Spark content, making the virtual meeting room into a more immersive, and naturally collaborative space. You can actively reach out and grab hold of files in your system, presenting them to other people in the same space.
Depending on the work environment, the possibilities could be endless. For instance, imagine being able to pull apart the components of a new product, or interact with the elements of an engine you were designing for a new car. You could even walk through the halls of a new building before the bricks are ever laid.
Cisco Spark has already proven itself as an exceptional tool for collaboration between workers in real time. However, they’re taking their innovation further than ever before with the Oculus connection, to allow people to do so much more than message and video conference with each other. Cisco is actually giving their customers the option to step inside of their own world, creating content together, and making notes on the same virtual board, officially bridging the gaps of geography in synchronised real time.
The Cisco VR Experiment
Right now, the Cisco Spark VR experience isn’t exactly a “finished” product. Instead, it’s a concept launch designed to test the possibilities of the application for the future. So far, the company has already conducted a few tests designed to see whether people actually liked using VR in the business space, with positive results. Now, the experiment continues to discover more about how virtual reality can tap into new solutions for allowing teams to work together in harmony.
It’s easy to see just how important this experimentation could be to the future of virtual reality in the office space. Cisco has a huge reach across the globe, including over 95% of the Fortune 500, and 200,000 customers worldwide. This could be our first step into a future where virtual and augmented reality is natural parts of the work environment.
Cisco is currently reaching out to the initial adopters to ask them to share their ideas about how the Cisco Spark in VR experience can be improved, and what collaboration experiences they have discovered with the new system.
