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We recently sat down with Antony Vitillo also known as Skarredghost. Antony is one of the co-founders of New Technology Walkers a consultancy group in the field of virtual and augmented reality. Along with this he is also collaborating with VRrOOM in the field of virtual concerts and festivals, one such event was awarded the “Best XR Event” by XR Must.
Along with his business ventures, Skarredghost which he is often known as is widely regarded as one of the best bloggers and speakers in the field of Virtual and Augmented Reality. His blog website The Ghost Howls has been awarded and recognized as one of the top 50 VR websites multiple times.
During our conversation, we discussed his introduction to virtual reality, his current ventures as well as his predictions for virtual and augmented reality.
He went into depth on Meta and the possible issues that may arise by its dominance in the consumer market. Who he sees as a possible long term competitor for them. He talks about the possible Apple Headset, Samsungs low profile and Sony’s missed opportunity to challenge the Quest.
Antony also went into depth on the VR business market and the flourishing diversity of brands in all different categories like Varjo, Pico, XTAL, Lynx, HTC Vive and more.
Listen directly on the following platforms:
Mark C. [00:00:00]
Welcome to the VR Expert Podcast. I’m your host Mark Cowles, Marketing Manager for VR Expert. In this podcast, we’ll be sitting down with innovators, experts, and creators transforming the XR world.
In today’s episode, I’m delighted to be joined by Antony Vitillo. Antony Vitillo is an AR and VR developer, entrepreneur, consultant, and blogger. Since 2014, he’s been working with AR and VR technologies, and in that time, he has co-founded two ventures called Emotion AR and New Technology Walkers as well as collaborating with VRrOOm, or VR Room as he just told me, and the field of virtual concerts, a great success so far. Last but not least, he’s the person behind The Ghost Howls, one of the best VR and AR blogs in the industry. With that, welcome, Tony, and thank you for joining us.
Antony V. [00:00:58]
Hello everyone, hello Mark, and thanks for inviting me to this podcast. I’m quite excited to be here talking with you. Thanks also for the great introduction.
Mark C. [00:01:08]
My pleasure, I mean, you’ve earned it. So like we ask with all guests, I would like to start with how you got into virtual reality and this technology.
Antony V. [00:01:18]
Well, I would say that I’ve always been interested in computer games, and always have this kind of passion, and so that’s why I started computer science engineering, etc. So I don’t want to really tell everything about my life, it would be pretty boring for this podcast. But what happened is that basically during my thesis, I got started in computer vision and especially in those kinds of things that were mixing real and virtual objects.
Now I know that the term is augmented reality, but in the case of just computer visual algorithms to track the hands. So this kind of weird thing about image analysis. I got certainly interested in showing mixed realities, and so what happened in 2014 is that there was a previous classmate of mine that wanted to get a new venture, a startup about new technology, saying he knew that I was intrigued by this mixed reality stuff.
So he said, why don’t you join? Do you join me? We could do something with the Google Glasses that are amazing; your product is coming out now, the YouTube video was amazing. I was super stoked by this, and I accepted their proposal with portable glasses for a lot of money. We tried it. Let’s be honest, it was terrible. The promise would be fantastic; the first iteration of Google Glass was much less than what was promised; that was its big problem.
So it was a huge failure, we spent a lot of money for a useless schedule, basically it was only good to take photos, but pretty expensive as a photo camera. So it was $1500 plus shipping from the United States, so you can imagine that it was a mess. So while we were crying in a corner because of the disappointment, the other guy was called Gianni Rosa Gallina, he said yes, but I also have another device that I bought lately, it’s called Oculus Rift DK2. I said, I have what it is, I have no idea what this means, and he said; okay, tomorrow I’ll take it to the office.
So the day after, he made me put this black box on my face. I could see myself in this Tuscany aisle, it was the Tuscany demo who has ever tried the Oculus Rift just in case and I was kind of amazed. I was like, wow I’m in another place. I mean, there were the pixels that were super big, there were no controllers, no avatars, nothing, so for today’s standards, that was a super crappy experience.
But for that time, for me, it was like magic. I’m in the office, but I see myself in another place. So I said, wow I want to do this in my life; it’s so amazing; it was just love at first sight with virtual reality. Actually, this is what happened. I’m still here after more than seven years on that day, trying to pursue a career, hoping to do my best.
Mark C. [00:04:01]
So that time has gone by, and as I said in the intro, there’s actually a lot of things you’re still busy with, like I said. You’re a VR/AR developer, entrepreneur, consultant, and blogger. Where do you share your time, and where are you busy with at the moment?
Antony V. [00:04:14]
Well, that’s a complicated question. I mean, when I try to do too many things, I’m basically always busy. That’s one of the downsides of my life, is that the free time is really limited. I should improve on having more work-life balance. So, luckily, I have some friends that are outside of our community, so they remind me of the real world apart from the virtual world. So it is important to always spend some time for myself, or to stay with my family or my friends, even if it is a little time, at least, something, because it’s important.
And then, for the rest, it is really working a lot of hours and trying to mix the highs of one job to the lows of the other. So if you are a consultant, maybe there is one week of a month, you are super busy with the consultancy job, and then for four weeks nothing happens in the three weeks, nothing happens, instead of doing nothing.
Maybe I work on my own products; I make a super long blog article etc. Then there is another job incoming, so I try to mix the various ups and downs with the various jobs. Until now, it’s working, but it’s not always easy. When you have two apps at the same time, that’s the worst problem of my life at the moment.
Mark C. [00:05:35]
And you just finished off with apps, New Technology Walkers? Okay, tell me a bit about that, because that’s where you launched one of the games and applications that I see you talk about a lot, HitMotion, Reloaded. Can you tell me a bit about that?
Mark C. [00:05:46]
Yes. Basically, in 2017, me and Massimiliano Ariani founded an agency called New Technology Walkers with the idea of helping others in developing their applications, it was a consultancy agency basically, and that’s what we do. I mean, someone asks us to develop a training experience, entertainment experience, etc.
We use unity and develop it from the beginning to the end. So that’s our job. And my main job as a developer, tech leader, or however you want to call it, is providing experiences to others. And then, we decided also to do something of our own, because while it’s so great to do applications for others, but you want to do something that you really like, you really enjoy that you feel really young. So we have this game called HitMotion Reloaded, which has a very long story.
Basically, it’s a fitness game and a boxing game. Our motto is to make people stay fit while having fun. The idea is that you have targets around you; you have to punch them very fast. It’s a super intense training; after one minute, you are already sweating because it’s super intense. So without even noticing, you’re doing fitness and having fun at the same time.
So the game is now available on app lab; if someone wants to download it, it’s called HitMotion Reloaded; it’s also on HTC Vive Focus 3. Just to give a glimpse of the way the story goes, it started in 2016 as a game with Kinect and a VR headset full-body game. Then in 2019, it became a mixed reality game for the Vive Focus Plus launched in China; together with HTC China, I was in a stage in Shenzhen. I felt honored to announce our game because it’s very unreal for a small Italian team to announce it in Shenzhen in China. Then in this year, we posted it to Quest, because now the market is all Quest, and we are looking for support to port it for the demo, which is going pretty well. Apart from the full game that we want to release on our platform.
Mark C. [00:07:50]
So are you still working on that?
Antony V. [00:07:52]
Yes, I mean now, we are more in the phase of looking for a publisher of phones, etc. So for some weeks now, we are a bit less on the website, but still a bit on it, but a bit less than that. Because we want to understand how much support we can have, so I understand what can be the timeline for the future of the game.
So we have a lot of ideas, lots of game modes, and the web in our mind. I want to see how we can really do that, because when you are an indie team, I know that you only get visibility in magazines by getting millions in funding every day. But the reality of the team is that you’re always tight on budget, and so you have to be very careful. So we’ll try to look for some support. It’s not easy, I will say that, but we’ll do our best. So we want to keep working on it anyway. So we hope to have a full version incoming; let’s see what will be the timeline, the features, etc.
Mark C. [00:08:45]
Then recently, I’ve seen in the last couple months; you’ve been more involved with virtual concerts. Can you tell me about how you got into that?
Antony V. [00:08:52]
Well, that was interesting. Because it was at the end of 2019, and we were still, I guess, we were in the period that we have just launched the version for the Vive Focus Plus of HitMotion, or more or less the period it was maybe September 2019, something like that. And one of the WeChat groups I’m in, and I have WeChat just because I have a relationship with people in China because no one in Europe actually has WeChat.
In one of these groups; there was a guy that had another website about VR control, where he shared some news about VR. He was looking for a developer to experiment with VR events or something like that, because he has this great passion for art and culture and for VR. So he just wanted to hire a developer. And he put this on his website, and shared it with the group. So I read this and said, okay, I’m not interested in being hired by him because I have my own business. But then I said, let’s invite him, and say hey, are you available to assign a collaboration? He said yes, why not? But I have just this amount of money; I said, okay, I don’t want to become rich by doing this, let’s just start working together. And we started realism experimentation, like let’s find what is the best search of the airspace, etc.
So I started digging into various social environments, and I picked the VR chat because I think it was the best at the time to create an event of this kind, some artistic ones. Then basically, we embodied some artists that I knew, pretty good from a studio that is close to Tian Turing. But the story, in the beginning, is quite boring. It’s like guys experimenting, then Louis Cathuto contacted many people, but everyone was like I don’t know the events, maybe some schools are interested, but I don’t know, and then the pandemic arrived.
All the people I knew became really desperately in need of that event now, because I can’t have my physical event anymore. So around April, I would say we started really getting lots of requests for the elements, and so we went from 0 to 100 basically in a few weeks, and we had to do lots of events, some of them went really good, some of them a bit bad, but the best thing was that we were doing good and we were improving over time. It’s interesting because, long story short, in these more than three years, I thought that I’m happy that we started before the pandemic.
So when the guys jumped on the train just right before, and yes, we made incredible stuff working with the Venice festival, with Southwest in the United States, it is super famous, in Europe a bit less. We work with Jean-Michel, who is considered one of the legends of electronic music, we just did a concert with him, now this is not even a concert.
We did a concert for the New Year’s Eve of 2021, and that had lots of views, 75 million around all the world, considering all media TV, YouTube, VR, etc. And now we did something that’s a preview of an experience that is more inexperienced. You’re like in a city, there are these songs or jams and every song is associated with the environment of the city, so you all move around these environments while listening to the music, you can interact with them, you can speak with other people.
So it’s all about looking for when you know how to express the art in your channel, it’s a very interesting topic. I’m a developer, so for me, it’s a bit complicated to think about it, but luckily, there are artists working with us. I think it’s a very interesting sector.
I mean, it’s growing, and it has potential also for when the pandemic will be over because you can do things that are impossible in real life. So just to finish all this blubbering is that when we did the concert in 2021, there was a concert inside the Notre Dame cathedral. And Notre Dame, first of all, it is a church, and you will never have a concert in a church.
The second thing is that it has been burned down, so it’s impossible to enter now. But in VR, we were there, inside the church, enjoying the concert and enjoying lots of 3D animations appearing all around us, something impossible in real life, only possible thanks to the magic of this form of arts. So that’s why I’m amazed by this sector.
Mark C. [00:13:37.16]
So it’s quite amazing how it’s picked up so fast. And talking about how the industries are picking up or certain areas in the magic of VR, you recently did announce your latest, your yearly article on your predictions for virtual and augmented reality in 2022. How has it been received so far?
Antony V. [00:13:55.18]
Well, I would say that everyone is always interested in reading the predictions of others, even if some of them never prove to be true. But I think it’s more interesting to understand what can be sometimes to look and eye on. So the predictions are sometimes correct, sometimes not. But at least, you read by predictions of the others or by providing them myself.
It’s all about understanding what can be the things that can change this year. I think that this year can be one of the times, for instance, that I see that VR and AR are getting more blurred as a division between technology. So I wasn’t sure about them, the app predictions and VR predictions. Then I remember that, especially because of the mobile layer, there are still some things that are completely different between VR and AR.
But for instance, one of the biggest times for VR and this year, and I’m not the only one, the thing about this is that all VR headsets are getting passed away, most probably, if they’re released this year, will be color RGB plus two AR. And this means that when you define AR headset or VR headset, probably when also VR experts, we have to offer to people the links and on. What category are we going to put it in? It’s perfectly your headset; it’s a perfect VR headset.
So it’s kind of a hybrid. All the technologies are going to contaminate each other, VR and AR getting similar, 5G sometimes is integrated into headsets, sometimes not, mostly not at the moment. AI is being used everywhere inside the headset. So I see a lot of convergence starting to happen, this is totally amazing because it makes us see that the future is really building in front of our eyes every day, and that’s why it’s so exciting being in this field, in these years.
Mark C. [00:15:58.21]
Like you just said, it’s very exciting. In the article, you did mention that one of the first times virtual reality is in a very good healthy way at the moment, how it’s growing. Was there a reason? Why do you think it’s in a healthy way? Because you also mentioned Meta’s really dominating, and that’s without a competitor. Why do you think it’s growing in a healthy way at the moment?
Antony V. [00:16:18.26]
Well, let’s put it like this, I was there since 2014, and until 2016, there was a lot of hype. Everyone was talking about VR; everyone was saying, oh, you just mentioned VRT investors, and they give you money; it never happened to me. By the way, I mentioned VR in the United States, it happened. And this was not a true healthy ecosystem.
Well, too many expectations, no one was making the real assumption; someone was just streaming. It’s like what is happening now with the Metaverse. So dreaming, blubbering about the future will be this, the future will be that, and now what happened? See, we had the first consumer headset, they were okay, but they were expensive, etcetera. People realized that VR was not going to happen immediately, so people started panicking that VR is dead, etc. It was tormenting.
So the initial growth of VR was all fake; it was all made by hype. Since 2019, especially thanks to the Quest, but not only thanks to the Quest, we started having a real goal of VR. So people that really found the real use case for VR in enterprise, for instance, the quest for the value of VR in consumer, for gaming for instance, because it’s cheaper and it has great content, and the ecosystem started growing with real numbers, not inflated by hype, but because there was a hardware that was working because there were content that was making millions and dollars in revenues, there are now studios that are living out of their content. There’s something possible five years ago, just to make an example.
So that’s why I say that this is a healthy way because now there is an ecosystem that works, they’re really growing every month, every year with real numbers and people living out of the technology. Just a mention of what you said, I’m not saying that this ecosystem is without problems; the fact that Meta has almost all the market shares is a huge issue for all of us, I think. And I really hope this will change; I don’t think it will change this year, honestly. I think we will need a serious competitor to invest money, to invest time, to invest a lot in technology and content, to be serious against Meta. But we seriously need it, because otherwise we get into a monopoly and this is not healthy the same way.
Mark C. [00:18:52.14]
I completely agree, and there’s a lot that needs to be done; as you mentioned in the article which everyone should read, in the coming years, they’ll probably hire tens of thousands of the best developers and builders in Europe for that area. Then the chance of someone really coming in is gone. If there is to be someone, of course, 2022 like completely agree there’s no chance. Who do you think in the next five-six years will put up the biggest fight or want to put up a fight?
Antony V. [00:19:16.28]
Well, it’s interesting to understand if it will be a VR fight or AR fight, but just take the VR fight that is the closest one. So I think that among the brands that we have now, probably the one that I see it can be an outsider and have some chances may be Pico, because now it has lots of money and the Chinese government for the good, it’s a lot of money. Also, I don’t know; I wonder if Samsung will make a move sooner or later.
Because I remember for some years there was this roundabout hybrid, the YamaBia headsets, and the Samsung, and now everyone is releasing hybrid AR and VR headsets, so who knows. Instead, the name that everyone is waiting for is Apple, of course, because everyone is wondering if this year there will be at least the announcement of the Apple AR/VR hybrid headset. I don’t think even Apple’s device can sell more than the Oculus Quest, at least for this year, even if it was released this year. I think it could have a huge visibility. If it has the features that it does that has been promised, it could disrupt more of the high-end market of VR.
Because it could be 8k for a M1 processor, so it could really disrupt a sector of VR. And the Quest will be in a more difficult position because of the binding, because no one loves Meta. And that’s a huge problem, but I don’t think this will happen this year. So I think that the VR or VR hybrid AR headset will be big in the industry and the real battle down the line will be between Microsoft, Google, Snapchat, Niantic, it will be a new far west, because Meta, Apple and Samsung; everyone will be there to conquer their glasses, and it’s going to be very interesting tech war, because that will be probably what we define the next technological platform.
Mark C. [00:21:32.29]
Going on that, all of the companies you just named in the AR/VR or mixed reality or extended reality, whichever word we’re going to give it. Is there a European manufacturer or maker that we see could make an impact? Currently, Europe is sadly far behind or hasn’t got any real competitor there. Do you see a European competitor that might emerge?
Antony V. [00:21:53.03]
I will say I really hope so, but at least for the short term, I don’t think so. I think that we don’t have the right ecosystem. It’s something that I was speaking about in a panel, and we were all saying that someone must take action, first of all, the European Union, because we really need to create an ecosystem for this to happen.
There are some excellent companies, I would say for instance Lynx is a starter with 15 people, 15 that are trying to compete with 10,000 people at Meta basically. How do we think they can compete? I think it’s a miracle that with 15 people they built a headset, yes. And while it’s a cool headset; there’s no chance against 10,000 people. And there are other cool manufacturers; there is Mario. It’s a company that is doing very well on the marketing side; on the portal side, they have one of the best XR headsets on the market or the high-end ones. But again, it’s a niche product; I don’t see it become mainstream.
They say that okay, we released a headset for everyone, and it was two thousand dollars just for the headset. I think that they know that I have a lot of money because I guess no one or my friends is going to buy it for 2000. And another one that I’d like to mention is VR juniors that are in Prague, and also with this new partnership with Somnium space, I think that they’re creating an interesting partnership on the software-hardware side.
Now they want to release; Somnium wants to release a standalone headset probably made with the engineers; the engineer says the XR3 will cost ten thousand dollars. But there’s another VR headset that is probably the best VR headset they have tried until now. So I think we have some excellence, the whole small company is trying to really do their best, and if you want to be able to really succeed in Europe, we need another European company with at least one thousand people working in AR/VR. But we need, I think, a joint effort between really, we need some overview of the European Union or someone because otherwise alone is just completely pointless.
Mark C. [00:24:06.05]
Yeah we need everyone coming together to create something. I mean, back to just in general, I think when we last called, we discussed about Sony, will they be announcing anything?, and they did finally announce the Sony PS vr2. And what I found very interesting about the articles; was it a bit too late? That they had their chance two years ago I think was one of the most interesting moments. Have they missed the boat on it?
Antony V. [00:24:31.25]
I think that in part, yes. In the sense that I’m sure that the PSvr will sell some millions of units because it will be a great headset because of the PlayStation by hand. So it will come with great content. I’m sure Sony will work on some exclusive titles etc. So I’m sure it will be a good product with a good success, but I think they could have been like the new standard of VR or something like that, instead of being just good at lacking behind the Quest.
Because in 2019 the Quest was probably still beatable, so PSvr are true, with the features of these are true, probably couldn’t move the market because people say hey, this is a high graphic experience with all these exclusive titles with the Playstation that they already have, etc. Now, it’s okay, but there is an Oculus Quest that probably costs less, has amazing titles; I don’t need a console. It’s coming too late, and then there is this cable that, while I’m not the hater of cable.
I think that the games are good, the headset is comfortable, and the cable is not a huge problem. But it shows you that the headset is still a bit outdated because this really seemed like something that should have been released earlier, to be able to really compete with the Oculus Quest. Now, the road that the Quest is taking is skyrocketing, and it’s too difficult now for the PSvr to catch up with it.
Mark C. [00:26:12.00]
I understand that. Going further into the article, you discussed the new form factor, the pancake lenses, or all the newer Goggle headsets. Do you, besides the fact that the technology is really impressive and we finally got a breakthrough there.
Do you not think it might impact the development of VR applications and AR applications, because all these headsets, of course, are less powerful in some ways? So the very useful applications? So, for example, a very advanced flight simulator, those things will become less and less because the money is more in these lower capability applications.
Antony V. [00:26:47.15]
Yes, but I don’t think it’s a problem over the pancake headset; this is again the Quest, the problem. I mean, it’s not the problem. But for this team, in particular, it is a problem. And the reason is very simple, is that as a developer myself of a game, if I have to choose to release a game for 1 million people, 2 million people on steam or 7-10 million people on Quest, it’s, of course much more profitable to release on Quest. If four developers focus on the Quest, the Quest will be the platform with the most content, and then people will say yes, you can publish your game on Steam as well.
And here there are two scenarios; the first one is that consider an indie team, a little, medium team. They don’t have the resources to make a new version completely for Steamvr. So the options are either they don’t release this on Steam anymore, if they focus on optimizing everything from Quest, or just take the experience on Quest and publish it on Steam.
The result is that either on Steam that is not the content, or the content is so visually low of quality that it has no sense to spend one thousand dollars to buy about the index, then see a content made for mobile, because you don’t export your headset at this point, you buy another Quest, and you just use it with your PC.
So the PC ecosystem is becoming poorer, and this is one huge problem that people are complaining about. So this is a trend that we’re going to follow how it is going, because the PSvr can change the cards on the table again, because if this sells well, people will be more people interested in like high-quality graphical content, and so they will release on PSvr2 and PCvr, and pcvr can start again. Otherwise, PC VR is going to always have less content, and so for the general consumer, it won’t be interested as a VR ecosystem anymore.
For professionals instead, and for customers, the graphical power of a piece is always important. So I think that market is always going to be pretty strong. I got into the pancake lenses; I think that they’re probably going to add more, let’s say confusion is widespread in the ecosystem because they have a different factor, different field of view, different control scheme. And for developers again, now that you were all reaching to a quasi-standard of controllers that always look like the one of the Quests, the form factor all sensors, etc.
Means a new form factor to take into account while you develop something, so it can get you confused. But it’s also true that I really like this new form factor because it’s something that you could also wear outside like in a plane or in a bus, you don’t look like a total idiot. You are wearing these big sunglasses while with the Quest, you’ll feel really weird, let’s be honest.
Mark C. [00:29:43.18]
Yes. I think it will be very good, but I don’t personally see it for the enterprise market just yet. Talking about the enterprise markets, what do you see developing in it this year? You very well said that there are a lot of people who are doing very good things in specific areas, but there’s no real dominant force in the enterprise market just yet?
Antony V. [00:30:04.14]
The good thing is that since the consumer market has been won by Meta, everyone is going to enterprise. Varjo, VRgineers, HP, Microsoft, Pico, HTC, everyone is going to enterprise. No one has really dominant products so much better than the others; everyone has pros and cons.
You want super high resolution for your VRgineers, HTC Vive Pro 2 is the best. You want mixed reality, Varjo XR3, do you want a standalone with amazing features, buy Focus 3. One standalone, that’s expensive Pico Neo 3, so it depends. And so there is a lot of confusion, lots of competition also to stand out or sit down from this market. And it’s interesting that the market also has Meta, but it’s like yes, they’re there, they take some good work, some good customers, but they don’t push on the business side.
They don’t invest that much. So there is a lot of competition happening. But the good thing is that the market is getting bigger, because all the enterprises are on AR or VR because everyone has understood the potential of this technology. You know this better than me, Mark, and everyone wants to do some kind of training, marketing, or remote assistance.
There are lots of things that can be done with an MBR that can help a company having, spending money, saving money on the product make a safer environment for the workers or also help they may like sometimes in their relaxing time, so a little too many applications that there is a market is always growing, this is happening both here in the west and also in China for enterprise we already know.
Mark C. [00:31:55.05]
And as a developer, what do you think is going to be the most important thing that is going to happen in our industry this year?
Antony V. [00:32:02.03]
Well, as a developer, I would say that one thing that intrigues me that is going to happen is the, I would say, the hybridization of technology like I was saying before. But even more, going specifically, some technologies are going to be released.
So now, for instance, Meta for the Quest is releasing special outcomes, basically like to put an element in VR or AR in your space, and then even if you turn off your headset, and you change your home area et cetera, they remain there in a physical space. This opens up lots of new applications, especially because I’m pretty sure that this year we will see these anchors become shareable with other people.
So me and you can go in the same room, and I’ll put, I don’t know, let’s say something about training, I put some notes in industrial warehouses at some place, and you can come and see those notes exactly where I put them, and we can discuss them together in the physical space, but with our elements. Together, these in AR, maybe with the new pastel color, RGB that is going to come with project Cambria is amazing because it will have AR with the shared elements between people in the same room. And this can be great for industrial uses; also for entertainment, there are lots of things happening.
Also, there are some accessories that are coming; I know now that the Vive 3.0 now has a tracker. So for the first time, we’re having a tracker for standalone headsets, so you can track props with the standalone headset. You don’t really need the lighthouse boxes in your home anymore. I haven’t tried it yet; I don’t even have a decay; I hope to get one.
I really want to test it, and I think because this can be very interesting for LBVR, for instance, location-based VR, and training in other sectors, because you don’t need a station, you don’t need a PC. You have a focus, you have a tracker, and maybe you can do some cool training experience.
So there are these kinds of things that excite me for this coming year for VR, such as new accessories, new technologies embedded in VR, the mixture of AR and VR in the same device, so it’s going to be pretty exciting.
Mark C. [00:34:34.26]
I mean, to keep up with you and get all this information constantly, where can our listeners expect to find you? Or where can they find you?
Antony V. [00:34:44.15]
Well, I try to be mostly everywhere. To get the biggest visibility I can. So either you look for my name Antony Vitillo on LinkedIn, for instance, or you can look for SkarredGhost, and you can search me on Google; I have a website where you can find my articles, my long walls of text. Then I have Twitter and YouTube, so I really try to be connected with the community because it’s really made of amazing people. So it’s great to get in touch with everyone.
Mark C. [00:35:30.09]
And to finish off, like you said in your article, a lot, five to ten years, where can we expect Antony in the next five to ten years?
Antony V. [00:35:39.16]
Yes, it’s a common joke that since everyone started saying always five to ten years or whatever should happen, now I say that this, it’s a sin on him of all. I have no idea when it’s going to happen. So in five to ten years, it’s hard, because I really try to do too many things. I hope to still be there in what will be the Metaverse, this magical word that everyone is using.
Hoping that I will be there, and still working on the field, always trying to innovate, maybe with my own company or with a relevant role in another company. So I am trying to push the technology, and I hope that when we will meet again in five to ten years, probably something that has evolved in the virtual reality has been also thanks to me, this is something that will make me a bit happy. And that’s the magic of working in an emerging field, where everyone can really make things to become big maybe.
So you create a new idea that someone evolves and then becomes standard; this is something that is totally exciting. So I really hope to have a whole role and place in this industry in ten years. I am still trying to push the boundaries further; let’s see. I mean, it’s a hope, otherwise I will fry fries at McDonald’s.
Mark C. [00:37:02.04]
Well, thank you so much for your time, Antony, and I really appreciate it. I think our listeners really enjoyed it. In the description or wherever we post it, we’ll put links to you, so everyone can go find your great work, and keep in touch with you. From me today, that’s the end of the episode. Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time.
Antony V. [00:37:25.14]
Thank you. Bye-bye.
