Laval is a small city of 50 000 inhabitants in France, known for its milk and its artists. But during five days every year since 1999, it becomes a VR/AR Davos, hosting the most important actors of professional VR in what may be the biggest VR-focused event in the world : Laval Virtual.
We were there last year as a start-up, showing demos of our reconstruction technology, and we were there this year to show our product, Mimesys Connect, the first holographic meeting solution. We were really enthusiastic to finally show what we had been working on for more than a year now, and the response from the hundred or so people who could test it was amazing.
We had two booths holographically connected with Mimesys Connect, and the visitors could engage in a holographic session with either one of us or some other visitor (we should totally trademark ChatVRoulette). Visitors were never alone in their headsets, and that’s where the magic kicked in : smiles, laughs, wows were exchanged on Mimesys Connect under our proud supervision. Once again, we could see how Holographic communication will be a game changer in communication and interaction.
And… we got the prize. Yeah, THE prize, the Grand Prix, the most prestigious award of the show. And from the hands of the world famous pioneer of the graphics industry, Jon Peddie. After assessing how bad the video above looked, he explained how great the experience was. And he had this awesome word for us :
“One of the benefits of my job is that I travel around the world, I go to lots of companies, lots of conferences, I’ve seen this stuff for many years attempted… these guys did it”
We are proud and honored to have received this prize. We haven’t in any way the feeling that we “did it” yet, and we won’t before holomeetings and holocommunication become broadly adopted.
