philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

AltspaceVR Opens Its Virtual Reality Chat Room

Cameras on our computers and Leap motion trackers affixed to our headsets translate our mannerisms and gesticulations into the virtual world. 

Backed by Google Ventures, the VR communication platform lets dozens of people from anywhere in the world share a virtual space.

After several weekend-long experiments, Altspace is permanently thrusting open the doors of its VR chat room. 

“People cluster together,” Romo says. “If you design the physics of the interaction correctly, people follow the patterns they do in real life.” Binaural, directional audio means you can tell if someone behind you is talking, and you’ll hear their voice fade if you wander away. And through a new partnership with SensoMotoric Instruments, AltspaceVR will soon be able to track your eye movements so you can squint at someone when you’re skeptical, or look up at someone with puppy-dog eyes inside VR.

Led by Romo, a former SpaceX propulsion lead analyst, its 15-person team is trying to build a social software bridge between the fragmented VR headset makers. AltspaceVR runs on a MacBook Pro with a suped-up graphic chip, meaning you won’t need a hard-core gaming PC to run it.

Despite some rough edges and a limited set of things to do, beta users have shown a remarkable willingness to stay in AltspaceVR. At one point, a group watched all of Terminator 2. The average usage over a weekend-long chat room test has been 25 minutes, “which is just crazy, crazy good,” says Romo, noting Netflix’s average session is around 20 minutes. Twenty percent of users in the last test spent over two hours inside the land of make-believe.

Watching eSports and other video content has been popular, but Romo imagines intellectual symposiums and celebrity meet-and-greets. AltspaceVR sticks you in a robot avatar for now, but could one day let you walk around in your own skin if you’ve been VR-scanned by a booth like the xxArray.

See the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/12/vr-chat/