Alex Meland Coffey & Code Podcast Interview

    8:24PM Oct 12, 2022

    Speakers:

    Ashley Coffey

    Alex Meland

    Keywords:

    vr

    haptics

    alex

    realities

    experience

    gloves

    immersive experience

    hand

    creates

    feel

    real

    bit

    fun

    thinking

    pandemic

    conversation

    simulations

    world

    literally

    xr

    Hello, and welcome to another episode of Coffey and a code. I'm excited to have Alex Meland on the show today. It's awesome because Alex and I actually met in real life at the AW E conference this past May in California. But a little bit about Alex he is an American Virtual Reality industry professional and content creator. Alex Co founded the between realities VR podcast, which is a talk show with weekly guests from within the world of virtual reality with partner Harry Skiba ski guests in 2020. But since then, the program has become a hub for the VR community and was nominated for social VR influencer of the year and the 2021 VR awards, and the VR content creator of the year and the 2022 VR awards. Well, Alex is a strategic partnership manager for contact CI working in business development for their high end haptic glove used in training with the US Air Force. He is also an official correspondent for upload VR, and a writer for VR trend that magazine. Wow, so many hats here, Alex, I'm so excited for you to be here. Welcome to the show.

    Hello, Ashley Coffey. Thank you for having me. It is a pleasure to be here.

    I feel like I need like a gong or something. Yeah. And here, it'd be an air horn would be appropriate. Right? Exactly.

    Thank you for that very long winded and thorough introduction. I appreciate that. And yeah, it's, it's, it's crazy, you know, just start getting after stuff. And then before you know it, you've gotten yourself involved in all kinds of different stuff. I know, you know what that's like, actually,

    yeah. But it's kind of cool to stop every now and then, and then take a beat and then realize, oh, this is awesome. And I am excited to have that kind of realization, you know, 20 years from now?

    Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, doing stuff with my partner, Skiba. I mean, we, you know, we just started a podcast so we could get involved in the industry and, you know, start to meet people and make connections and have a reason to talk about the thing that we love. And all of a sudden, like, you know, two years go by, and we're being nominated for VR awards and stuff. And we're like, just looking at each other being like, dude, is this for real? Like, how, how did this happen? Exactly? How did we get here? So, yeah, I definitely have plenty of those moments of reflection and deep gratitude and kind of pinching myself, because I haven't always been in the tech industry, but I've always loved tech. So finding an opportunity to get in somewhere, has definitely been a little bit of a dream come true. So it's fun. Honestly, I will say hats off to you for that's a lot of hard work and a short amount of time to really get integrated into this community and the way that you have, so bravo to you for that hard work.

    But Alex, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself? I gave a bit of a long winded intro, but give us your version?

    Sure. So I go by Alex VR in the community, co hosted the between realities VR podcast with with Skeeva. And, you know, that's definitely, you know, like one of my primaries, you know, that's, I guess that's why I said at first, you know, it's kind of like our baby, it's our little, little, little hub for the community, like you mentioned earlier, and it has been so awesome, to every week, have someone amazing from within the VR community come and join us as a guest on the show, you know, keeps things fresh, and it brings in a perspective of someone who knows what they're talking about. And, you know, I would say, if anything, one of the things that really separates kind of what we're doing with between realities from other stuff, is the fact that we really try to peel away some layers and like, get into some, like, deeper conversations, if we're, if we're capable of doing so. I mean, it kind of depends on who we have on the show. And we know what they're trying to talk about, and all that. But, you know, this, this, this immersive technology space is, in my opinion, something of like mysticism, you know, like, I find it insanely magical. And I think that there's a very, there's a philosophical perspective to view a lot of this technology from so whenever I had the opportunity, I really tried to get into those conversations, you know, like, talk about the nature of what it is that we're doing and why it's so profound, and why so many people kind of have their lives changed just after putting a headset on, you know, so whenever we have the chance, like I said, I've really tried to get into that kind of stuff. But I have, I found myself a as a as a haptics industry professional in the VR space, which is not a plan that I had. But, you know, after studying to go to trade shows and expos and conferences and all of that I met with the B haptics B

    Both Jennifer Lee from B haptics, who I love dearly. She like kind of gave me an opportunity to become, you know, Community Manager for B haptics and crank out a bunch of promotional videos and help them design haptic patterns for their games and get involved in the haptic space, which is kind of a niche within a niche. And most, most recent development being the job with contacts ei with their high end haptic glove as a strategic partnership manager for them during the business development side of things. And you know, representing them at these conferences and trade shows that I like to frequent so often. So that's kind of the the main gist of it. You know, I'm an avid gamer. I've always been a gamer. I grew up playing video games, I play video games now. VR games, five games, and card games, board games doesn't matter. I just absolutely love games. And I live in Phoenix, Arizona. I've been married for a little over a year to my wife, Brittany. And life is good.

    Oh, yes. Yes, I love it. i You have such a well rounded background that I think fits in so well and to what you do. And you mentioned that you love having you know the philosophical conversations at the intersection of, you know, AR VR, Mr. XR, and Metaverse collectively. But this is a good segue because when we were having a conversation at Ewe, you mentioned something that really caught my attention, which is really the center of today's episode. And you said,the AR, and AR and VR shouldn't be taken lightly. So let's dive in a little bit more to that. And I want you to expand on why you think that's important, because I love your philosophy on it, but I want the audience to hear it.

    Nice. Yeah, I'm glad glad you brought that up. It's, I find all of this stuff insanely fascinating, you know, if if you're, if your listeners are anything like me, they put a headset on and in an instant, saw the future unfold, you know, like, it's, it's amazing, the, the power that this technology has to just completely immerse us into an experience and transport us just basically ignoring space and time entirely. Teleporting us into you know, digital spaces where we really feel presence with other people and multiplayer experiences and stuff like that. So it's really really powerful stuff. And they I think often about what it is that kind of separates something like a VR headset from watching a TV show or playing a flat screen game or watching a movie or, or some other form of non immersive media. And it's really the fact that we are like hijacking our senses and pretending that they're, you know, the there's like the removing all other stimulus of the real world and replacing it replacing our sensory perception entirely. So it really starts to get me to think about like, the nature of reality a little bit, you know, and like, I often think about the nature of reality being someone who's a huge fan of philosophy. And you know, I think often about this like shared experience that we're all having this sensory perception experience reality that's built up out of our five sensory perception organs, you know, what our eyes are telling us what our ears are telling us, our our nerves are our smell and our tastes. And just by hijacking our eyes and ears, we're able to make someone believe like a shark is flying at their face, you know, or a zombie is about to bite them or something that's just eyes and ears alone. being hijacked in the way we hijack. It is so funny. It's like literally a flashing light over your eyeballs. It's like a flashing light, making you hallucinate thinking that there is a shark in front of you. But there is no shark there, of course, as we all know, or is that right? I guess that kind of starts to get to a little bit. But so when when, when people refer to AR and VR, I really don't think that that AR is to be taken lightly. Because already with a flashing light, and a sound wave being tossed around in a speaker in your ear, creating this effective of 3d space and 3d audio.

    We're able to deliver these really, really profound and convincing experiences just today in 2022, you can go out and buy a quest to come home and scream your face off playing a horror game, you know, like it is no joke how immersive these experiences are. And we're just in the very, very beginning of this. So as these experiences start to become more and more true to life, they'll become more and more profound, and we're going to start to have serious

    it's gonna that's gonna have implications that current experiences don't you know, like, we're going to have to start to think about you know, stuff like we're going They've kind of go back to the drawing board, I think with a lot of our definitions of, of these, like human experiences, you know, like something like intimacy, for example, you know, like, what does it mean to be intimate? You know, do you really need to be? Do you need to share space with someone like true, like physical space to be intimate with someone? Or are you able to experience intimacy using this technology? Today? Or tomorrow, the next iterations of it, you know, and what does that mean for your other relationships in your life? You know, and what lens can you cross and what lens Can't you cross and it just starts to pick up all of these like moral, ethical and philosophical questions that I think are a super, super interesting and fun to talk about, and be super, super important to kind of get ahead of because as we start to embark in this new digital frontier, we're gonna start to run headfirst into some of these problems and issues that could arise from having these experiences that aren't just silly simulations. Now, you're really experiencing stuff, you know, or are you? And I guess we could argue that?

    Yeah, absolutely. And I think we're already seeing that actually, the excitement is outpacing the policy. And the so to speak, bumpers on the bowling alley. Yeah, so it's really important to bring that up, especially taking ethical considerations when people are building for AR VR or AR Mr. You mentioned something previously that I wanted to go back to, on on this like concept of, of intimacy and technology that is so fascinating. And I've thought about this before as well, because there are more and more experiences that are being developed now that kind of push the envelope of intimacy. And when I say intimacy, I mean intimacy and experience of being close to the content itself. Like, for example, sound self, I would consider that to be an intimate experience, because it's something that shifts based off of your input your your vocal reverberations, and really what you put into the experience, you get out of it. So I think there's definitely a broad range there. But I'm glad that you brought that up, because it's very interesting. Yeah, sounds

    self made me feel vulnerable. Because I'm, like, moaning out loud through all of the rooms of my house, you know, like, I'm like, I was just happy. Nobody else was home while I was doing that. Yeah, there's a certain amount of vulnerability that comes with using these kinds of, like, I don't know more meditative and experimental or psychedelic experiences. And it's kind of it's interesting, though, because we like as far as gaming and stuff in VR is concerned, we see a lot of a lot of a lot of stuff that you wouldn't do in real life. You know what I mean? Like, I would say, a good 75 to 80% of VR experiences that currently exist are VR murder simulators. You know, like you're elegantly and beautifully murdering people or brutally and viscerally murdering people or strategically and carefully murdering, or there's just all these different ways to murder people. And I appreciate like what the zombie genre does, right? Because John, John, I think this is why zombies are so important. A the cross culturally accepted, like it doesn't matter where you are in the world, you can get behind the idea of the rat the living dead. Be they are humanoid. So there's like this familiarity to killing a creature that looks like a person, but it isn't a person, is it? No, it's not. It's a it's like raising corpse and it wants to eat your brain. So you don't really feel bad when you pull the trigger and watch its head disappear from its shoulders, you know? So it's not, you don't really have the same empathy for a zombie as you do an actual human figure. So I think that that's another reason why we see a lot of zombie stuff. Because it's fun to pull the trigger for whatever reason, it is fun. But especially with those haptics, she Amen. Yeah, haptics kit is awesome. It feels like a machine guns just like rattling in your arms. It's great. It's incredible. If this starts to beg, like a question, you know, like, for me, and it's in really what it is, it's like, this is kind of like the ethical and moral moral aspect of this whole thing. It's like, so it's okay for us to murder people in VR, we've established that that like, society is cool with it, right? Like, we've all done it already. And we didn't lose any sleep over it, you know, but eventually, that's going to get challenged, people are going to make stuff that really pushes the limits of what people are comfortable with. And we need to start asking ourselves, what kinds of simulations and experiences are okay? And what what isn't? Okay, and how do you draw that line? You know, and that starts to end up becoming this question of universal morality. Is it relative or is it universal? Can we define what's morally okay? Or or can't we and if we can, how do we get there? And if we can't, then does that mean we just let Everything just go off the rails and people start making all kinds of terrible and horrific, immersive simulations that, for all intents and purposes should probably never exist. Do you see where I'm going with this?

    I do I do. And I'd honestly alarms me, because like, right now, if someone wanted to take a photogrammetric, or 3d scan or model of you, your body into a 3d environment and VR, and simulate, like shooting you and torturing you, and doing all these things, like, that's wrong, obviously. But how do you how do you talk that through? That's just so riled,

    what makes it wrong? Yeah, exactly. What makes it wrong, you know, and to be honest, like, I often when I start to think about it, it's like, kind of scary, but I start to lean into this, this camp of like, well, you know, it's a victimless situation. Right? There's no real victim here. I mean, if they take a 3d scan of you, though, specifically, that could have real world effects that you are a victim in this scenario, I would say, right, but let's say it's not any specific person, you know, it's, it's just a generic animation, or, you know, a model that someone created or whatever, whatever it has. But, you know, I imagine that anything that's victimless, and private, should probably be okay, right? Because no one's getting hurt. And you're not exposing anyone else to it that doesn't want to be exposed to something horrific. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, do you share that? But also, is it possible that we can make a program that's so horrific that it should for all intents and purposes never exist? You know, what I'm saying? You're trying to say things without saying things? Ah,

    okay. I get it. So I think my, my train of thought was going towards the area of like, lightness using digital likeness. Like when we die, right.

    Which is, which is another very interesting conversation that is directly feeds into the idea of like, needing to have some kind of like, ethical or moral guidelines, I guess, or, or foundation or, or whatever, whatever word you want to use, or just approach to figuring out like, what's, what's good? And what's Okay, and what's not good and what's not. Okay, and are we able to have that conversation or not? And if we're not, then does it all just run rapid? And like I said, it's just, it's difficult, it's a crazy thing to think about.

    I think the closest thing that I've seen to a good set of principles, and when I say principles, I mean, kind of a universal set of rules that people should follow. Honestly, the best one I've seen in VR is the Burning Man principles. For alt space. Whenever they did Burning Man in VR, they made sure everyone was aware of the 10 principles that you needed to acknowledge in, you know, follow, if you're gonna participate in the event, and it was they're very human centered, very respect centered. And, yeah, I'm curious, who like, who creates those standards, right, we're in this new Wild Wild West of, it's more of a we're just gonna do it and see what happens next, versus ask ourselves, should I be doing this?

    I think it's the philosophers and like, the thinkers, you know, and like the people that are not as like, directly logical, you know, and like not just weighing pros and cons, like there's a lot of depth to this. And this is the reason why I use the word philosophers mainly because I want to refer to Kent by who does amazing work. He has the voices of VR podcast, which he's interviewed literally 1000s of people on. And he has also been working towards this framework for XR ethics, you know, like, XR ethics manifesto. And he's like really putting in a lot of the thought and like really trying to figure out the best way that we can kind of approach some of this stuff. Because to cut by, you know, this whole virtual reality thing is the beginning of something much, much bigger, you know, and I'm right there with him. I really do feel like this is something huge. And how does he refer to it? He says, it's a beginning of a paradigm shift.

    Well, sad. Well said, and yes, I 100% agree, can't buy this is incredible. He's like a supernova. And for those of you listening if you're not following Him, definitely go follow him. He has the the podcast, as Alex mentioned, voices of VR. Seriously, every time I listen or see that guy speak, I learned something new, like not just one like a million things. Yeah.

    Starting with words, because his vocabulary is ridiculous. Like, you've literally have to pay really close attention when he starts going off because he gives you the benefit of the doubt, which I appreciate. Because, you know, if you want to have that conversation, you should probably know the vocabulary to do so. But yeah, you really like there. There's been times where I've had to like, really just feel

    It's so hard to make sure that I'm following his train of thought because he is just super smart. He's like a brainiac, and he's just going off on it. So he's really great. And we've had him on between realities multiple times. And every, every one of those episodes that we've had him on, have been amazing. Awesome, I bet. Those have been some really great conversations, I need to go back and rewatch some of those.

    Wow. So I'm curious, on you mentioned, how you got involved in the world of XR. But I want to hear a little bit more of like, just really, what was your first experience of having that moment where you have the aha, this is gonna be awesome. This is gonna be the future this, there's so much potential between science philosophy. Tell us more about that moment for you, Alex. Sure. So, you know, I would say that I've been I've been

    I have been thinking about stuff from a philosophical perspective for quite a while, like, before Virtual Reality ever came along. You know, I did some spiritual practice of martial arts, you know, over the years, and, you know, I've been down the rabbit hole through different experiences, and had some really profound moments in my life, that kind of, you know, lifted the veil for me, so to speak, and helped me kind of understand a little bit more about the nature of the world. And even as a young young kid, I remember understanding my, that my inevitable death was coming, you know, like, knowing that it was coming as a young at a young age, like thinking about how I could, what that experience could possibly feel like what it could, what that even means, you know, and, frankly, having it cripple me with fear, for most of my life, probably and until I got older, and I think that that was something that I've realized, on general if I realized it, but subliminally I started doing work on because it, the more I can understand about the nature of reality, the more it alleviates my fear of my inevitable death, you know, so that's really been always been like, the, the goal is to not be afraid to die. And, you know, before I got involved in any of the, you know, like, working in the VR space, I was a server at restaurants, you know, I worked at nice restaurants and, you know, made a decent living doing it and didn't hate the lifestyle or anything, anybody who's served tables knows that there's a certain lifestyle that goes with it. And it's not a bad one. But, you know, the pandemic happened, and everybody got sent home. And I had already started a channel about VR, I should probably pull it back a little bit. I had a Nintendo Wii back in the day that I really enjoyed doing like soft mod hacking to where you could just like pop the SD card in, run some programs, do some cool fun stuff, install games on it, you know, I did all kinds of stuff. And I was always watching videos. And I saw someone that did some like reverse engineering with the Wii Mote and the sensor bar to make like head tracking happen on their TV screen. They were like moving their head left and right. And these targets on the TV screen were were shifting in the distance, and like really created this awesome 3d effect. And it was at that moment that I realized that a head mounted display, separate from your hands in the future is going to be absolutely amazing. Like, that's when I started waiting for VR is when I saw that head tracking stuff, and realize that an HMD with my hands separately is going to absolutely revolutionize all of my gaming experiences. Because if you've ever played a first person shooter on a flat screen game, you know that to peek to peek around a corner, you for all intents and purposes have to stick your entire head around the corner, because the weapon is for all intents and purposes attached to your chin. Right? Like wherever you look is where the center of the reticle goes. But in VR, I can stick my hands out around the corner and leave my head safely behind it. You know, I can blind fire around corners, I can peek just a little tiny bit and pull my head back and you know shoot in a different direction while looking to the left. And so anyway, I've been waiting for VR for a while. I had a PlayStation VR demo at Best Buy that got me halfway there. It was the PlayStation worlds demo. And it was like the shark cage and the tanks won and the London heist and like all this stuff, and I was like wow, this is amazing. But I've always been a multiplayer game. And I've always loved online multiplayer experiences. I've always used games to connect with people. I've always used the Internet to connect with people. And it wasn't until I paid for some time at a VR arcade. And I played rec room and I High Five someone in rec room that it was all over. That was oh, I have and frankly and this is kind of fun, but it was actually the haptic experience that really sold it for me because I'm you know this someone puts their hands up for high five and I reached out and high fived them with this controller in my hand and high five someone across space and time and felt the vibration of their hand in

    The palm of mine when I went for the high five, and that was it, I was like, Oh, my God, like hole and my brain melted. And I realized that I was gonna get involved. So, started to channel, started making videos. And then realized that I needed to start going to events and went to VRLA went to OC six, went to CES started meeting people shaking hands, making doing interviews, you know, I went to OC six with a selfie stick, and a microphone in the other hand, so I was just like, solo, interviewing selfie stick with the mic. And yeah, that kind of just became my approach. You know, I figured I can just go and talk to everybody and make a video. And that gives me a reason to be there. You know?

    Wow, this is amazing. Alex, I'm just I already had an appreciation for you, you know this. But just like hearing, this is a newfound appreciation. Thank you for sharing this. There's just so much goodness in what you said, particularly around the fear of death. I think everyone has that. But let's back up a little bit. I want to applaud you for pivoting. I talked to a lot of people that had to pivot during the pandemic, and ended up get finding themselves in the world of XR, whether that's on a development side, or a BD side, or you name it. And I love hearing these stories, because they're real. And it's just a really good example of doing it. Just doing it. Don't overthink it, just do it. So I applaud you for that.

    Thank you, you know, I mean, the situation, it was almost like it almost just just worked out, you know, like, all of a sudden, hey, guess what, you can't go to work anymore. You know, like, you can't go spend your time in a restaurant anymore. You get all your time to yourself. Oh, and you know what, since this is like a horrific situation, we're going to give everybody unemployment. So here I am getting unemployment which by the way, I became a patriot during Coronavirus. I've never exactly been a patriot, you know, like, been a little bit more of a conspiracy theorist, I guess if you wanted to just like belong to a crowd, you know, like, just not thinking that, you know, the powers that be always have humanity's best interests in mind. And holy crap, we could be living in so much better harmony, you know, kind of like a hippie, I guess. But, so I've never really been like a huge like pro government Pro, the man, dude. But, man, I felt really grateful to be American during the pandemic, like, you know, I got kicked out of my job, and all of a sudden, they like, okay, don't worry about it. Like, here's your unemployment, you're good. You know, like, we're gonna make sure you have food, like, here's the, here's the bonus money or whatever. And yeah, a lot of people got screwed by that. And I feel bad for them. But not me. I was one of the people who did nothing but benefit from all of like the government assistance during the pandemic. So I got all my time, I got my bills paid. And I just put my head down and just ran into the to the VR XR thing and started getting involved.

    Wow. Well, it's good that you make good use of that time. And yes, you're right. I think we, we all are still kind of recalibrating from that those two years of like, what is happening. And it's nice to have that safety net of, you know, it's not the end of the world if it happens, and not for me. Yeah, we ended but for some people did did to have like, a lot of hard times, you're getting unemployment, and they're finding out their identities were stolen, yada, yada. But yeah, it's an incredible time. And I'm glad that you made you maybe you made a good situation out of a terrible situation.

    I did. I'm very grateful for the way things worked out.

    Yes, yes. Well, this is a good segue. Alex, can you talk about what you're currently working on? That's like not top secret?

    Sure. So, you know, and we're in season six of between realities right now. We we do our thing, seasonally, now gives us an opportunity. Thank you, thank you, gives us an opportunity to step away for a little bit, take a break, you know, implement any kind of like, aesthetic changes, or like timezone changes or, you know, format changes, what have you, you know, gives us time to book guests and get things up and running like that. So we'll usually do like, I don't know, like 15 to 25 episodes for a season, you know, weekly episodes. And then take a break for a month or so. Maybe Maybe month and a half and then come back. But anyway, yeah. Season Six between realities is happening. We do we do our show on YouTube. It's a live like live stream style show. You know, like I said earlier, it's a video podcast. So yeah, you can watch a live video broadcasts of that, which is really cool. It's a lot of fun. It's super, like conversational, you know, very, like, we try to have as authentic of conversations as possible. So we just kind of pull People on and we don't prepare them so well like you do like I gotta say, Actually your preparations for the show are just immaculate. Thank you all the invites, like everything's covered the questions are there like questionnaire? Yeah, you're on it. We don't do all that we're like, Hey, show up show up at two and we're gonna grill you

    that approach though.

    Yes, fun. So I do between realities. And I just this week announced my role with contacts CI, like I said, I've been working with them for a minute, but it wasn't really time to make an announcement or make it like publicly known or anything. So yep, I've been working with context CI now as a strategic strategic partnership manager. And you know, we are, we have some exciting new stuff coming up for CES. So there's a lot of that happening, like behind the scenes at context, the AI, which makes a very high end and really, really cool haptic glove. This is a glove that features what we call multi force ergonomic haptics. And it, yes, it's a very awesome and fun and fancy word. And that basically means that the glove has the vibration in the fingers. So when you interact with objects, you feel vibrations in VR with hand tracking, of course, right? This is all a hand tracking haptics solution, but it also features force feedback restriction, and like impact haptics. So, you know, if you start to grip on something, it'll prevent your fingers from moving and kind of create the sensation of there being a physical object in your hand in the space. And the ergonomic part comes from the gloves form factor being super, super sleek, and like really dexterous, you know, you have full control of all of your fingers in the maestro DK three. And a lot of gloves that provide force feedback kind of have this like exoskeleton kind of thing going on, where there's like these like, almost like robot fingers that arch up on top of your fingers to like, lock them in. But the maestro DK three is, like I said, it's a very sleek form factor. And it uses kind of like a pulley system with like, wires that it will like really real and unreal, super, super fast that allow you to either move your fingers or restrict the movement. So those gloves are awesome. And I'm doing everything that I can to make sure that like the demo experience is like really sound. And make sure that that like when we put somebody in the gloves for the first time that they have a profound haptic experience right away, as opposed to like something like a sandbox demo where you kind of have to like fumble with some objects for a while before you land on something that you really like. And that feels good, feels good. I am I'm trying to make a situation happen for us that is a little bit more gamified in a way that just kind of controls the user experience to the point where they can really feel in a good interaction immediately, you know, and then start to explore the limits or the you know, the different limits of what the glove can do. So that's kind of some of the stuff that I've been working on behind the scenes with contact CI, and we are planning on showing some stuff off. We are planning a lot of trips right now. We are going to be going to multiple conferences. There's a smoother smart haptic conference in December in Seattle, and we're going to it sec, which is like a training and simulation conference in Orlando, at the end of November. And then we're going to be bouncing over to Rotterdam to attend the VR award ceremony. Because not only did between realities get nominated for VR content creator of the Year at the VR awards, but contest CI got nominated for VR hardware of the year. Yeah, pretty amazing.

    That's amazing. Yeah. Wow. We're all around.

    Yeah, pretty, pretty cool. Yeah, it's, I don't know. Like, I have to like remind myself sometimes that that's a reality. But it's like, oh, yeah, I guess I work for VR nominee VR Awards Nominated company and my podcast is and I guess we're doing something right, which is kind of cool. You know, it's fun, fun to have those realizations from time to time.

    It's a journey, not a destination. Yeah. Just a joy. You know, I wanted a backdrop on the maestro DK one gloves that you mentioned, because when I saw that photo of you and them, that's what really stood out to me. Is this the form factor? Super Slim, super slim. And I know the mechanics that go into creating a glove. So I'm, like, really blown away by it. But also, since it's using being used for the Air Force, I see a lot of practical application for that. Especially for processes and training and retraining. I'm curious how, how do you like I've talked to Ashley Hoffman about haptics. Designing. But when you get that granular on having multiple, like different inputs for different sections of your finger and hand, how do you develop for that on the back end for to go with the experience the way that it should?

    You know, I, I should preface what I'm about to say with that the fact that I'm not a developer. So I can't speak from a developer's perspective when it comes to the the approach. But I have designed using hardware and software that was already created by someone smarter than me how things should feel and kind of taking an approach to where haptics should land on certain devices and how intense they should be. And you know, how long it should be and you know, all that kind of stuff. So I do have some perspective to answer this question from but not the developer's perspective. So I'm going to start by saying that, but I think the with because with the current state of haptics, there's only there's only so many different ways that are currently kind of like industry standard that we can approach a haptic experience, you know, because at the end of the day, it needs to, well, it needs to, it needs to bring value to the experience, for sure. But it has to do so in a way that doesn't cost like $50 million. You know, it has to it has to be small, and it has to fit in your hand and has to do a lot of stuff. So, you know, the primary way that haptics are being used, I guess, is through vibration motors, whether they're etrm motors or different kinds, but there's like something spinning that creates a vibration, and you feel it. That's the big one. That's where we see most but there's also other kinds of haptics out there like, you know, like force feedback, right, with like, the pulley system with like the Mr. DK three years of like one of the exoskeletons that you'll see on something like the HAP Dex or the Tesla suit, force, feedback, love. And then there's other stuff where we, I mean, this is even fringe for right now. But we are starting to see stuff like thermal haptics, you know, hot and cold, you know, or electrical haptics, like the Tehsil suit, haptic suit, which like literally shocks you or the O vests, which literally shocks you, which is a crazy thing. itself. Yeah. So that's why, but so what i with the current tools that we have, you know, primarily being vibrational, or the force feedback stuff, a lot of the interactions are, they kind of imply things right? Like you, you have to imagine that, it's basically going to be impossible to actually emulate what it feels like to pick up a Nana, using some vibrations. But what can we do to imply this bananas existence, using these subtle cues, you know, like, what I've kind of found in a lot of instances is that less, really is more, you know, like, a lot of times people see a haptic device, and they want to start having fun with it. So they just pick it up, and just like crank everything to 500, and see what it feels like when it shakes, superhard, and all of that stuff, which is, you know, all fun and good. But for an immersive haptic experience, it should almost be like really subtle, you know, like subtle to the point where maybe you aren't really even thinking about it, you know, you're just doing your thing. And you're having this more immersive experience through having, you know, your, your sense of touch be activated, while you're embodied in this immersive experience. Because like I was saying earlier, you know, your eyes and your ears, they're doing pretty good already, right? Like, we're covering your whole eye with that light and flashing it at the speed at which your eyes see stuff. And we are covering your whole year with these cup, headphones, and throwing sounds all over the place and making you feel like there's something 10 feet behind you, you know, like both of those are nailed pretty well right now. And it's only gonna get better for the record, but it's already convincing, I guess, is what I mean to say. And the haptic experiences kind of have a long way to go as far as like, really creating these like totally convincing experiences that really make you feel like that thing is happening. Of course, it matters what the experience is. But, you know, like, most people aren't trying to feel pain when they are in an immersive experience, like a VR game. You know, like you get shot in a VR game, you probably don't want to actually feel what it feels like to be able to get hit by a bullet. So what can we do to imply that you got hit by a bullet in a way that maybe creates the same level of urgency that you might experience in? I don't know I've never been hit by real bullets. So I guess I don't know how urgent that is. But you know, I think I think you might hopefully are picking up when I'm laying down here.

    Oh, yeah. And that's how we designed Westworld. Welcome.

    I'm just kidding. I was like wait a second you designed wasn't

    I printed it out, um, just the whole like concept of that fidelity and breaking that. Wow, this is this is gone and a lot of really good directions. But I, on the form factor, I want to go back to the gloves real quick. Yeah. Because in a previous life, I did work on a project with the Air Force. And it was basically taking instructions on how to change the outboard tire of a CB 22 Osprey, which is a really expensive plane. And during that process of like translating the instructions, which you know, are dry, and very err, foresee. And I say that with all respect, it's difficult to translate that into an immersive experience where it's engaging, right. So I think the missing link here is definitely the haptic So to put it into practicality a little bit more specific than a banana, of let's think of a torque wrench be something that you actually legitimately need to feel a little bit of how to haptic feedback there. Or if you work in high growth, high demand jobs, like manufacturing or out in working in the field where you have to work with big machinery, and you're literally feeling the earth to determine what your next button push is going to be. I think there's so much practical application there. And I'm glad that you'll have figured it out, because that's really the missing link.

    Yeah, you know, it, then really the two, the two main ones, really, in my opinion, are expensive, or dangerous. Like those two things are the reason why you might want to start using haptics and VR and immersive experiences to do like training simulations and stuff. And the value of haptics in these kinds of experiences is, is a lot, it's very valuable. I'm so eloquent tonight.

    What are words? Yeah,

    but it's, there's a huge, huge value in in haptics, when it comes to creating consequences for your actions, this is kind of where I maybe see the value in having something like a Tesla suit, you know, because if we're doing a training simulation on like, an oil rig, and the next wrong move, like blows it up, and like kills me, it kills me and everybody around me, because it's like a huge explosion or whatever, we want to train you in an in a, in an immersive experience, before we put you on that machine, you know, because the more familiar you can be with that space, with what this stuff looks like, with the location of these buttons, with the size of that wrench, you know, all of that stuff, the better it's like about making you familiar with that scene, not so much, what does it feel like to hold the wrench in my hand, you know what I mean? So, making you familiar with that oil thing, and making sure that you are as well prepared as possible before, that saves us a lot of time and money. And, you know, because oil rigs are way more expensive than virtual oil rigs. You know, so it for you to train on something of that size, you know, they'd have to like either make a mock version of it, or put you up on an actual one where it's dangerous and scary, and all of that. And then where I see something like a painful haptic experience really being valuable here is that if you do something, like blow up the oil rig, and you actually have a painful experience, as a result, not not an actual explosion and your death, but actually just like a negative negative reinforcement, you know, like, I there's huge value there, like pain is an insanely valuable teacher, and it will stick with you. If it hurt when you put in the wrong combination. You know, you won't want to put in the wrong combination again. And I think it ups the stakes, and it creates a lot of urgency. You know what I mean?

    Yeah, yeah, you're right. And we're in talking about replicating things, digital twins, right? Being able to replicate something IRL. It's interesting that you mentioned that there was an experience that I was on a team for. And we actually did this for a company that did a simulation for loading up these tanker trucks full of, of, of oil, petroleum oil, gasoline, and there's like a safety station, right? And if you don't follow the steps, like the whole thing explodes, but it's really just like, you lost and everything turns red, and it resets.

    Okay, whatever, who cares? Yeah, absolutely. Imagining

    like, Oh, if you did the wrong thing, or you get shocked, whoa, what, what kind of liability form do what I need to sign before I get into that experience?

    And that's what I was alluding to when I said that that's a whole nother conversation because there are risks with using technology like that. That isn't exactly present in a lot of other tech. You know, you're not putting something on that you know, is gonna shock you that's gonna like restrict your movement like could potentially lock your muscles like if somebody hacked the suit and just started jolting you with it. They could just fry you with something like that, you know? whole, like, kind of sketchy. So, you know, there's definitely some weirdness entering that territory. But the other aspect of it, you know, to make it a little less doom and gloom is the expensiveness of stuff. You know, like, for the Air Force, for example, to put someone in a real cockpit is way more expensive than to put them in a VR headset with a pair of gloves, you know, to rebuild a cockpit costs like, I don't know, 10 million, I'm just guessing a lot, you know, millions, hundreds of 1000s big numbers. Instead of like grabbing, I don't know, a huge pile of quests, putting the same program on all of them, putting gloves on everybody, having everybody there together, like becoming familiar with the space of the cockpit learning where all the buttons are learning which sequence they need to execute the buttons. So by the time they actually sit into that real cockpit, they got to figure it out. They already know what they're doing, you know, and you didn't have to give them a real cockpit to accomplish that. So there's a lot of money to be saved, depending on the kind of training that people are doing.

    Yes, yes. And yes. And for those that are listening, that might be skeptical. The data shows the data backs this up, actually, research is showing that there's more content engagement in learning, retention, and learning in an immersive environment. I mean, these fortune 500 companies like Accenture, is using AR or VR to onboard their new employees. And it's just going to continue to expand.

    Yep. Especially as the tech keeps getting better. You know, like, right now we still kind of what's the word like? We? I don't know. We take a few. We do we deal with it a little bit. You know what I mean? Like the quest two is a brick thing is huge and heavy. And if you don't spend $100 on third party comfort accessories, it's going to hurt you. You know, so

    great points. Really

    not comfortable, and it's only going to get better. It's only going to look better, sound better, lighter, easier to use. It's yeah,

    we're also inclusive design will also make things more comfortable. So cough cough, man, if you're listening can cough cough cheese. Hey, I love it. That's so good. That's so good. Well, Alex, I could I could have a multi hour long conversation with you. And I do want to have another like part two of this at some point. Yes, I'm going to be on the show. I'm so excited about that. I think that's happening November 18.

    Thank you, dad. That sounds right.

    It's live. It's gonna be on our Fridays. So if y'all are listening, tune in to Alex's podcast.

    Live unscripted. Ashley Coffey with all the hard questions.

    Locked up. All right, Alex. So as we're wrapping up and rounding out this fabulous conversation that I'm definitely going to be thinking about for the next 48 hours. What kind of resources would you have for those who are listening that want to learn more about what you're up to? You well,

    oh, boy, I got some resources for you. I've got a Twitter that I post to pretty often with anything. That's a noteworthy you know any, between reality's episode going live any event that I'm going to any other podcast appearance, right like this one, you will be able to see me announce my appearance on this podcast from my twitter if always second. No, you're just hearing this now. Nevermind. Go follow me on Twitter. It's Alex underscore underscore var, because Alex var is taken by an inactive account and Twitter will not give it to me. It's very sad. Yeah, like, come on. This guy's not even logging in. Give it to me. I'll get it one day. It's gonna become a bigger deal than I already am. I guess. I'm also between realities on YouTube, right? youtube.com/between realities. Yeah, that's it. You know, like, unsubscribe. I'm on everything else too. But Twitter and YouTube are the ones that I will say you should probably come to Oh, and discord. Also, there's a between realities, Discord, which is linked in places, and

    I will link all of that in the show notes. Yeah, run one that works. Yes. Great. Yeah, yeah. You're just all over the place. I love it. And yeah, if people are listening, that are going to be at some of those conferences and trade shows that Alex mentioned, definitely go find Alex Introduce yourself. Check out those cool gloves. But, Alex, this has been a fabulous conversation. Thank you so so much for taking the time to come on the show. And, you know, share your knowledge and expertise and time with us. This is really literally why I started the podcast is to have awesome conversations with awesome people like you. So thank you for all that you do. Alex.

    Thank you so much Ashley Coffey for your kind words for holding this space and For everything that you are doing, for for the good of virtual reality and immersive media, I really appreciate you. This was a definitely a lot of fun. And like you said we could keep going for hours, I think. But I think the time has come to not keep going for hours to call it.

    That time has come. Time has come. We'll thank you so much, and we'll catch you again next time.

    Thank you so much, Ashley.