Virtual meetings so real you won’t be able to escape
You sit down at your computer, or maybe blink into your goggles, open up your video- conferencing software, and instead of the now- ubiquitous screen of faces in poorly- lit squares, you’re inside a virtual conference room.
Someone across the room moves a whiteboard into place. You toss a squishy ball to a colleague.
We know more people will rely on video- and tele- conferencing to work remotely, with or without the coronavirus. That’s the easy forecast. But what will it look like?
Augmented reality and virtual reality deliver a glimpse at what’s coming.
“I would expect in the future the experience would be far more robust and rewarding than it is today,” said John Emra, president of AT& T Connecticut, a longtime telecom executive in the state.
That starts with better video quality and less dropped calls, he said. Beyond that, improvements to networks lay the groundwork for more immersive approaches that place virtual objects into the real world — like the popular Pokemon Go game — or use virtual reality, to simulate a scenario completely.
People working in a manufacturing business could not only meet remotely, but look at and manipulate the same virtual objects.
Until recently, that’s been a work in progress for the industry, more of an “ethereal concept” for the general public, Emra said. It would call for more and higher- quality cameras, and could also use headsets.
But before avatar meetups replace board meetings, some of the visuals need to be improved, said Adam Reiser, municipal business development manager for Finalsite, a Glastonbury company that includes augmented reality consulting.
“A lot of business leaders aren’t going to want to show up in a meeting room as a 3- D avatar of themselves that looks like a cartoon,” he said. That technology is probably five to 10 years away, when it “can provide a much greater benefit than just having a conversation.”
In the meantime, things like virtual whiteboards or objects are more likely than fully- animated gatherings, he said.
“If you had a meting and could pull up a hologram on that board, see emails and screens on the wall in front of you and move things around, I think I could see more of that in the corporate world,” Finalsite founder Jon Moser said.
Emra said the improvements to wireless networks and adoption of 5G internet will help with lagging and latency in virtual reality, which can create feelings of seasickness if it’s too slow.
Telemedicine, in use in many health insurance networks and recently approved for Medicaid visits in Connecticut, will drvie advancements. Education also invites hybrid in- person and virtual settings, Moser said.
Whizbang communication may have its limits, though. “In many cases, adding more technology actually impedes our ability to connect,” said Marissa King, a professor of organizational behavior at Yale School of Management.
Some research has shown that communicating only by voice, rather than video, “increases empathy and connection,” she said. “Many of the problems that arise in video meetings aren’t technology problems, they are human problems that require human solutions.”
She said companies are more likely to blend remote working with in- person spaces, because some human interactions and communication can’t be replaced, even in the most impressive virtual reality settings.