Virtual Reality Industry wouldn't exist without these smart men. Get to know them, their work and follow their lead. From the inventor of Oculus to filmmaking creatives - these are the people at the front of VR/AR.
3. Sony Playstation
VR just opened up
for pre-orders… and
sold-out...
and Google with
their 5 million+
cardboards already
in the market.
and then there’s
Samsung Gear VR...
5. It’s undeniable that VR has made a huge
statement. It is here to stay. It’s already being
used in more than 20 different application.
Here’s a list of 10 Pioneers you should keep
close attention to. They’re the ones that are
pushing the envelope and making things
happen.
6. Palmer Luckey |
Founder of Oculus VR
The guy with strong enough
vision that kept the VR in the
news for the last 4 years.
Luckey is gamer and tinkerer
who asked $300 for a
prototype headset on
Kickstarter. The campaign
raised $250,000 in less than
two hours and $2.4 million
within a month. Oculus Rift
was under way, and in 2014
obtained by Facebook for a
whopping $2bns. At the
moment, the first Oculus Rift
just shipped.
7. John Carmack | ex-ID
Software, CTO at
Oculus VR
There’s no doubt that John
Carmack is a technological
wizard. When he was in the
game industry, Carmack made
some evolutionary
breakthroughs in computer
graphics. There’s too many to
count all of them here. One of
his hobbies also includes
rocketry.
8. There’s no doubt that John
Carmack is a technological
wizard. When he was in the
game industry, Carmack made
some evolutionary
breakthroughs in computer
graphics. There’s too many to
count all of them here. One of
his hobbies also includes
rocketry. He founded VRSE — a
virtual reality company which
focuses on innovative human
stories in VR. If you have a
smartphone and a VR head-
set (simple Google Cardboard
would do), VRSE is the first
app you should download.
Chris Milk |
Filmmaker and
founder of Vrse.inc
9. Ken Birdwell | Valve
VR Engineer
Ken hated VR. He thought it
was a was a waste of time — a
passing fluke. Valve famous
working philosophy doesn’t
have requirements on what
exactly you should be work-
ing on. So when a VR headset
came around to his desk, he
put it on. He wasn’t impressed
about what he saw, so he
forgot about it. Eventually, he
was pulled in and today it is his
fault that HTC Vive is a leading
VR headset.
10. Jens Christensen |
Founder and CEO of
Jaunt
Jauntineer, as he calls
himself on LinkedIN, Jens and
his co-founders Tom and
Arthur weren’t impressed by
mediocre photos from Zion
National Park. That small,
bleak and flat images on the
phone just didn’t capture the
overwhelming beauty of the
place. So they asked himself
how to project the beauty of
the place in a better way while
being truly immersed in it.
11. Alex Kipman |
Microsoft HoloLens
Guilty for having a bad haircut,
Alex is also guilty of Microsoft
weird AR headset HoloLens — a
headset that displays 3-D
“holograms” in real life.
HoloLens will bring the
futuristic Minority Report
panels closer and according
to the first reviews, the critics
seem to have a positive
opinion about it. If you waited
for conjuring up digital images
in front of your eyes, now it’s
time to try.
12. Tony Parisi | Software
Programmer and
Author
VR is still a relatively new
concept and the development
is happening on real world
experiences. Tony Parisi name
usually pops up among
O’Reilly educational books.
Parisi is old school and one of
the early pioneers in Virtual
Reality. He’s the promoter of
WebGL — a standardized way
of rendering 2D in 3D graphics
within a browser — something
our startup is using as well.
13. Kent Bye | Host of
Voices of VR podcast
When VR industry and
technology is moving on in a
rapid speed like today, it’s easy
to lose pace and miss out on
the latest news. Kent is here to
fix that problem. Voices of VR
is a daily podcast that covers
latest breakthroughs, advances
and musings in VR.
14. Clay Bavor | VP of
Virtual Reality team
at Google
Google has a invested in AR
and put nearly $800 million
into Magic Leap, an
augmented reality company
based in Florida. Well, $800
is not that much for Google
however, the company has and
always will have the spotlight
for any kind of tech stuff. In
February 2016, rumors
started to spread out about a
new smartphone VR headset.
15. Alex Schwartz |
Owlchemy Labs
Game developer and Virtual
Reality Specialist at
Owlchemy Labs has a VR
obsession. His studio’s mobile
game Caaaaardboard! is one of
top-selling mobile VR
titles on Google Play. By being
one of the first game
developers in VR he has a
substantial lead in the VR
game industry. Having a
distinct style is just
another ace up their sleeve. If
you own one of the “big three”
VR headsets definitely try Job
Simulator.
16. Honorable Mentions
Saschka Unseld (@saschkaunseld) — Creative Director
of Oculus Story Studio Saschka Unseld is dedicated Storyteller
and a master of cinematography. He’s well aware of benefits of
Virtual Reality. The one thing he is focusing on is the emotional
connection of the audience to the viewer. VR is allowing him
just that because the 4th wall (between the screen characters
and you as viewer) doesn’t exist.
Karl Krantz (@karlkrantz) — an organizer of SVVR and VR
LaunchPad, Karl has almost single-handedly built a VR
community in Silicon Valley. He made a strategic move to
California, just to spread his passion about VR. His first VR
conference (SVVRCon) in 2013 had 400 people attending.
SVVRCon 2016 is projecting more than 3000.
17. Alan Smithson (@ShokKreative) — Ever since Alan
successfully launched Emulator Elite — a DJ digital dashboard,
he’s been on the run of creating technological breakthroughs. In
2016, he went all in with Virtual Reality with his new found
company ShokKreative. He aims to deliver stories and
experiences like no other.
Aaron Hilton (@otri)— Aaron is a spearhead of Vancouver VR
community and a Co-Founder of Conquer Mobile. Conquer
Mobile might be a Startup but the team consists of the smartest
individuals that came from different blue-chip companies such
as EA, SAP, RBC and Nokia. Aaron is currently focusing on some
seriously cool medical technology that brings together VR, 3D
scanning and gamification.
18. Cosmo Scharf (@cosmoscharf) — Cosmo is a founder of
VR Los Angeles (@vrlosangeles) — world’s largest VR & AR expo
Stretched between NY and LA, he’s always well informed of the
next big thing. He’s obsessed with technology which leads him
to a startup Visionary, which received $6 Million funding capital
in the first round.
Jernej Mirt (@viarbox)— A shameless plug incoming. Jernej
is the CEO of a small central European Startup with big goals to
alleviate VR storytellers. The platform in the works has a big
potential to become the next Wordpress for VR content.
19. Dan Pacheco (@pachecod) — Chair & Professor of
Journalism Innovation at S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse
University is dedicating his 20+ something years of digital
publishing and media experience to VR journalism. Who better
to learn from about VR storytelling than him. Take a class.
Taylor Freeman (@taylorpfreeman)— CEO of
UploadVR, a news portal that each and every one of you
already have it bookmarked. UploadVR firmly believes that
Virtual Reality is the future. They share exciting new ideas and
supporting the game-changers in the VR industry.