AltspaceVR is next step in shrinking our world via social media

Welcome to an extension of reality, where people from anywhere can meet, hang out, and even go to concerts.

There is an emerging branch of virtual reality that I find fascinating. Known as social VR, it brings groups of people from across the world into a single room where they can interact as they might at a cocktail party, attend a play or a music concert.

So I interviewed one of the prime movers of this technology in one of his virtual rooms, in virtual space. Using the platform ­AltspaceVR, I created a room that did not exist in our real world, ­invited my interviewee by giving him its virtual address and waited.

Views are mixed on the likely success of virtual reality. Some say that with the backing of industry leaders such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, VR holds the future of communication. Others see it as a niche technology suitable for little more than gaming, while others predict it will go the way of 3-D, which is in death throes.

With AltspaceVR you get the fully immersive effect of being in a room with someone, somewhere, when you put on a VR headset: an Oculus Rift, HTC Vive or Samsung Gear VR. You can also enjoy a standard 2-D solution by visiting AltspaceVR on a computer.

So I waited for my virtual buddy to arrive. Sure enough, after a few minutes, a second icon pops up in the room. It is Eric Romo, the founder of AltspaceVR, from Redwood City, California. We are on opposite sides of the world but in our virtual world we can walk around together and chat. We even could watch a movie together in virtual space.

In AltspaceVR, you can be in a room with dozens of avatars representing real people, at a beach concert or in an English class, or mingling together at a party. Two of you can go off to a quiet part of the space and have a private tete-a-tete or get up in front of a crowd of iconed people and give a speech, as you would in real life.

On a computer you navigate around the virtual space with arrow keys. If you use a headset you move the focus with your eyes to where you want to go.

Attendees at the Reggie Watts concert in virtual reality. Each avatar is a person at the event.

AltspaceVR offers a variety of room types. There are exhibition areas, boardrooms, home theatres, offices, high-rise foyers and jungle mazes. You choose a public space and mingle with whoever is there or create your own private space and invite your friends.

Already I’ve attended a virtual Purple Rain tribute concert on an island beach with Prince clips on a big screen. I moved around and chatted to people who were from all parts. All that was missing was the Malibu. In a medieval tavern I saw a man from Slovenia have a sword fight with another in Britain, even though they were thousands of kilometres apart.

What people saw at the concert in VR.

Here, events are a big deal. Last week Alt­spaceVR engaged American musician and comedian Reggie Watts to perform inside a VR room. Like real-life events it happens at a nominated time and place. Bestselling US author Julie Kagawa ­recently was booked to read an ­extract from her latest book, Talon, to an international audience mingling in virtual space. It was the site’s first author reading

The interview with Romo ­begins with a coincidence. We discover we are using the same human-like icon with the same hair colouring, skin colour and even clothing. We look at each other and we are identical. “I’m just going to change my clothes,” Romo says to resolve the situation.

How Reggie Watts performed in virtual reality on AltspaceVR.

He explains it is his interest in neuroscience that led him into virtual reality. “I got interested in how our brains process information and how we take information from our senses and turn that into where we are,” he says.

His past includes building and designing rocket engines for ­SpaceX, a firm founded by Tesla’s Elon Musk. He also ran a now-­defunct solar energy company, GreenVolts.

Romo researched VR at a time the now Facebook-owned Oculus VR was developing its Rift headset and he concluded the most powerful form of VR he could create ­involved communication. Hence the concept of social VR, where you put on a headset and meet up with your friends in a virtual space.

AltspaceVR, he says, is different from Second Life, which is about creating new identities under the culture of anonymity. Second Life has its own currency, Linden dollars, and people trade assets and own property in the second world. AltspaceVR, in contrast, is an extension of the present world into a new environment.

“We see ourselves more as a communications tool than a virtual world. The goal of what we’re building is to make it as easy as possible for you and I to get ­together in this private space and have a conversation.”

He says AltspaceVR offers virtual experiences people already savour in real life. “You can go to a comedy club and see a comedian, or you can watch a comedian on YouTube or Netflix.

You can enjoy games with any number of people with social virtual reality site AltspaceVR.

“If you compare those two ­experiences you would never say being in a comedy club is remotely similar as the ­experience of sitting and watching a YouTube video. But in Altspace, because you’re around a crowd and there’s people there and you feel like you’re in the same room as the comedian, it’s closer to being in the audience than to watching it on YouTube.”

To bring the point home, ­AltspaceVR has been gearing to host a party for the SpaceX Thaicom telecommunications rocket launch. Instead of watching it ­online, virtual reality users go into a room and watch it while mingling with dozens of other rocket launch enthusiasts.

Other shared activities include playing Frisbee golf with friends, drawing games and card games. AltspaceVR also conducts classes where you practise English and Spanish.

I ask Romo whether I can get my relatives spread around the world together in one place, get upfront and address them, swap stories and even sing Happy Birthday. He says latency will defeat a Happy Birthday chorus. “If you’ve ever tried to sing with someone on the phone it’s actually quite challenging because there’s just enough latency it’s perceptible. It’s hard to stay in beat with people,” he says.

But that won’t stop us getting together and doing everything else. The rooms include virtual displays where you can type in URLs of YouTube clips and have them run in the background. We could have Happy Birthday playing on the big screen.

“But for a single performer or where all the performers are in the same place, music works great,” Romo says.

You can be with anyone, anywhere, with social virtual reality site AltspaceVR.

Recently the site ­hosted an open night where people with guitars and a piano played to a virtual audience, he says.

Longer term, Romo sees social VR as an alternative to calling, ­texting, chat, using Skype and video chat. “Our goal is to be one of those options. We can do things ­together. We could play a card game if we wanted to. If there were five of us in this room, you and I could have a conversation while the other three people watch a video.”

In the real world, AltspaceVR is located at Redwood City, outside San Francisco, and employs 35 people. It started in January 2013 and has offered alternative reality experiences for some time. But it’s only now, with the availability of VR headsets, that it is ­really getting going.

And the potential audience is increasing. Last month Oculus VR said a million people had used Samsung Gear VR headsets to ­access virtual reality in April. While it is small beer in terms of a global reach, it was an encou­raging start in six months. And there are more than 250 apps for the ­device.

The use of Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR headsets and Leap Motion controllers and their ability to track movement means you can show people turning, crouching, nodding and using their hands in AltspaceVR.

In the end, this form of VR isn’t the same as being together but it dramatically increases the inter­actions you can share with people far away, and you can mingle in crowds with like-minded people from across the world.

Chris Griffith interviews Eric Romo (left), founder, AltspaceVR from inside virtual reality.