InformationWeek IT Life Radio: Where Virtual Reality Falls Short

Oculus Rift and other virtual reality helmets are seen by many as potential game changers in gaming, retail, entertainment and other industries. But VR has significant weaknesses. You're stuck inside the helmet. It locks your experience and makes it difficult to share with co-workers or friends.

John Underkoffler thinks there is a better way. He's been called "the real-life Tony Stark." Underkoffler the computer scientist and award-winning user-interface designer behind the films "Minority Report" and "Iron Man," believes the future isn't locked in these headsets, it's in shareable experiences and workspaces. Collaboration is not about creating virtual walls, but working with one another on actual walls. People need space for their ideas to spread as they flow in real time. VR users need a whole new UI to really interact properly.

We'll talk to Underkoffler about the future of collaboration and shared visuals in the workspace. We'll see what might be beyond virtual reality. 

John Underkoffler is CEO of Oblong Industries, developer of the g-speak Spatial Operating Environment and the Mezzanine conferencing and collaboration system in use at firms from Boeing to Beats Music. Oblong's technological trajectories build on fifteen years of foundational work at the MIT Media Laboratory, where John was responsible for innovations in real-time computer graphics, large-scale visualization techniques, and the I/O Bulb and Luminous Room systems. He has been science advisor to films including Minority Report, The Hulk (A.Lee), Aeon Flux, Stranger Than Fiction, and Iron Man. John also serves as adjunct professor in the USC School of Cinematic Arts; on the boards of the 5D Conference, the University Art Museum board at CSULB, Sequoyah School, and the E14 Fund; and on MIT's Visiting Committee. He is the 2015 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award winner for Interaction Design.