Virtual reality and augmented reality. It’s been on the forefront of many minds the last two years. With advancements in hardware and software, VR can now help replicate even the most intricate environments—real or imaginary— and create sensory experiences far beyond the basic audio/visual realm it has previously been confined within. Smell, touch, and in some cases taste are all being compounded and turned into tech savvy and sensational experiences.

Recent mass productions of VR and AI tech have been mainly for entertainment applications but some have been successfully used in combat training or flight simulations by the military and healthcare applications are not far behind.

Samsung Gear, Oculus Rift, HoloLens, Google Cardboard—the market is flooding with virtual reality related tech and companies across all industries will soon have to make some decisions; adopt or neglect. In 2016 alone, there were more than 43 million active virtual reality users worldwide and the number is only growing. Early adopters might have the right idea of it; the virtual reality software market is expected to reach upwards of $24.5 billion by the year 2020, according to Statista.  

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Blackstone Podcast 2.0 | VR & AR: A Conversation With Taylor Trusty
 

Chris Flynn: Alright, welcome to the Blackstone Media Podcast. My name is Chris Flynn, I'm the host, but today, Leslie Radcliff will be moderating our discussion and we have a pretty fun and interesting talk lined up.  If you are just tuning in for the first time you’ll notice these shows do kind of have a structure, but sometimes we kind of veer away from the topic, but we always get back on track later. So, Leslie is going to kick this off and go forward.

Leslie Radcliff: Today we have Blackstone CEO, Taylor Trusty. With us to talk about augmented reality and virtual reality. Taylor and Chris are kind of our go-to thought leaders when it comes to AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality). They're very passionate about it and they are very knowledgeable about the history: where it’s at, where it’s been, where it’s going, and how far it’s come in last year. That’s what we're going to talk about today. We are going to do a lightning round of AR & VR and this is going to be our first installment. I say that because this is an area that’s growing and changing constantly, so we will be updating this segment quarterly. Taylor, do you want to get us going?