A good friend

of Alan's, publisher of the online XR news publication, VR Voice,

drops by the show for a general chat about the future of the space,

including the potential for XR to help train workers in a future

where retirement is less common, saving money by designing hospitals

in VR before brick meets mortar, the video game crash of 1983, and a

little Fruit Ninja.

Alan: Today's guest is a good

friend of mine, Bob Fine. In 2011, Bob launched the only printed

magazine covering social media, The Social Media Monthly. In January

2014, he launched his second print titled The Startup Monthly in May

2016, he launched -- what I love -- VRVoice.co, a content vertical on

all things virtual reality. In addition to his publishing endeavors,

Bob continues to provide I.T. strategic planning consulting services

to both private sector and non-profit communities. Bob has over 10

years of additional work experience as a systems and sales engineer

with various companies, including CMGi, Hughes Network, IOWave and

Raytheon, as well as two of his own consulting companies, Geoplan and

the Cool Blue Company. I want to have a warm welcome; thank you, Bob,

for joining us on the show today.

Bob: Alan, thanks very much for

having me. I'm honored to be one of your guests.

Alan: It's my absolute pleasure

and honor to have you on the show. I've met with you many times.

You've actually shared some CES stories, and we've been in a little

glass booth in CES together. That was wonderful. You have your own

podcast and news outlet, talking about all things virtual reality,

VRVoice. That is been amazing, and you've been a great influencer in

the space, so thank you.

Bob: Well, I appreciate that.

Alan: So the first question I

love to ask everybody is, what is the best VR/AR/XR experiences -- or

what are some of the best experiences -- that you've had so far?

Bob: You know, I guess from my

perspective; I'm a longtime video gamer. I just went to PAX East on

Friday, up in Boston. I was my first PAX event. And if you're not

familiar, that's the Penny Arcade conference. Huge, huge gaming

conference. It makes E3 look minuscule. And I'm old enough where I

started with an Atari 2600. One my the reasons I started looking at

VR again in 2016 was because of that video gaming interest. When you

ask me my best experiences right now, I'm going to kind of... I'm

thinking about some of the early games that that I played, that gave

me that "woah" moment. As I'm thinking back to it now, this

was actually on HTC VIVE -- first gen, which was only maybe 3, 4

years ago now -- and I was so impressed with the first generation of

hardware that I was like, "well, this is ready for prime time."

The prices might still be a little bit high, but the quality of the

gaming was there already. Just two off top my head is the VR version

of Fruit Ninja, which I've personally put about 400-500 people

through, because it's one of the best and fastest experiences I think

you can give somebody that's never tried VR, but you can give to

anybody whether they're five years old or ninety five years old.

Alan: Slicing fruit in VR is

magical, and the fact that they have the haptic feedback to the

controller is just... [implied Chef Kiss]. You're right, it is a

magical experience.

Bob: The other game that I was

really getting addicted to was Space Pirates, which I think is still

just a brilliant early video game that demonstrates the quick and

easy access to VR. It's kind of like the space invaders of AR, I

think, in terms of what those early games that caught fire and was

easy to pick up and everybody loved.

Alan: "Space Pirate

Trainer." Is that what it is?

Bob: I think, yeah, that's

right. That's right. I've been travelin