This evening the students in my graduate computer graphics class showed their final projects. It was quite unlike anything I have ever seen.
The projects were group experiences, with every participant wearing an Oculus Quest VR headset. With the help of WebVR software our research team had provided, the students created shared amazing interactive shared worlds, in which people could see each other as avatars in a parallel virtual universe.
Because the VR experiences were all running on the Web, there were no annoying downloads. Everyone just put on their headset and was instantly connected to the Web. But this was a version of the Web that you could walk around in together with your friends.
I could tell that the students were very excited, and justifiably proud of the amazing work they had produced. I suspect a lot of those students are going to join us in our research this coming Spring.
And I have a feeling that I just saw the future of the Future Reality Lab.