I’m a little bullsh*t about virtual reality.  Seriously.  I mean, come on, it’s been like 20 years.  Where is my VR mansion?  My virtual trip in an X-Wing?  Why aren’t I sleeping with virtual people that are way out of my virtual league?

Yeah, I’m bullsh*t about VR.

Technology moves too slowly; Who’d have thought the most exciting development in the last five years would basically be a stylish pocket protector that makes phone calls and tells you which Britney Spears song you’re listening to on the radio.

PS, I don’t know what it says about modern-day songwriting that you need a decoder device to figure out the name of the song you’re listening.

Anyway, that’s why I got so excited when I found out the next BIG step in virtual reality is happening right here in Bingo.

And it’s not the giant hamster ball it looks like.

It’s a helluvalot more.

The VirtuSphere, or as I prefer to think of it, your next birthday gift to me, is a Virtual Reality interface that can allow you to immerse yourself in just about any environment you can think of.

It’s a bit like Star Trek’s Holodeck.  Only significantly less likely to malfunction, develop an artificial intelligence, and try and kill you.

What makes VirtuSphere DIFFERENT from the VR tech you’ve already seen is that you can actually walk in the thing.  Like, put one foot in front of the other.  You know, like people in big cities used to do before they had Segways.

OK, that may not SEEM like that big a deal, but when Nintendo Wii’s single-biggest selling point has become that it’ll make your kids be a little less fat and lazy, a VR environment that requires honest-to-God locomotion seems like a good idea.

And it IS exercise.  Or at least, it can be if you try hard enough.  Jim DiMascio, Virtusphere’s COO, demonstrated that with a little practice, you can run your ass off in the thing.  After 2 or 3 minutes, he had to stop, a bit breathless, and grab a glass of water.

The applications are pretty much limitless.  Jim and his partners see a military use; Units could be trained in a virtual Afghanistan so they have a sense of what it’s like to move around a real Middle Eastern city before they head overseas.  Army doctors could use a virtual re-enactment of psychologically scaring events to treat Post Traumatic Stress.  The VirtuSphere folks are teaming up with third-party software developers to make all that happen.  It’s pretty fantastic that the effort is being led right here in Binghamton.

Plus, I got to use it to play a Russian video game that involved blowing up killer pumpkins from outer space.  Or they might have been mutant radioactive pumpkins from a nuclear waste site.  Or they might have been killer mutant radioactive pumpkins from a nuclear waste site in outer space.

I’m not entirely certain.  But pumpkins were involved.

And there’s something that’s just more exciting about being able to use your entire body to move around in a game.  For the first few moments, I stood in place blasting pumpkins.  But after a little while, I started running after them.  And the game was somehow immediately more… fun.  Can’t explain why; it just was.
 
That’s not to say moving inside VirtuSphere isn’t a bit disconcerting in the beginning—like the first time you pick up a 37-button PlayStation controller.  There’s an adjustment period.  Just to practice, Jim asked me to walk in the sphere without the headset.  It’s pretty weird to be walking and not actually moving anyplace.  It got better when I put the head gear on.  As I took steps inside the sphere, it rotated around me, moving me through the virtual world in my headset.  Very cool.

Stopping took some getting used to as well.  When I stop in real life, the ground tends to stop at pretty much the same time.  But the momentum of the sphere creates a delay when you stop moving in VirtuSphere—the ball continues for a second on its own.  You learn to slow down first.

So after getting my first little taste of Binghamton-born Virtual Reality, I wanted to know when the masses would get a shot.  Jim DiMascio and I sat down for a serious chat about exploding radioactive pumpkins…

We’ve been promised cool virtual reality tech for soooooooooooo long; why isn’t it really here yet and when will we all have it in our houses?

Virtual Reality simulation is here and Virtusphere is a locomotion interface that allows users to become an avatar and play INSIDE a video game. One of the renown professors of Virtual Reality, Dr. Thomas Furness of the University of Washington was quoted, “Virtusphere comes closer than most to the Holodeck of Star Trek fame”. We are currently marketing Virtusphere to the entertainment market which include major theme parks, Las Vegas hotels & resorts, malls and other related entertainment centers globally.  Virtusphere can also provide combat simulation training for the US Army and Marines infantry soldiers, we would never send a pilot into combat without simulation training and we now have the first locomotion simulator for the soldiers on the ground. It will be a few more years but it our goal to eventually make Virtusphere affordable for home use.

There’s obviously some other techs that do stuff similar to Virtusphere; what’s unique about the system?

Virtusphere is unique that we have a patented system that allows people to move freely inside a virtual environment and this is how are system works; Our hardware set consists of a hollow sphere, which is placed on a special platform that allows the sphere to rotate freely in any direction according to the user’s steps. Transmitting a virtual environment to our wireless head mounted display, users can move freely 360 degrees creating the most immersive virtual experience. Our innovation will change how we entertain and train people.
 
Virtusphere played a part in Moscow’s pitch to be a host for the Olympics; talk about how all that happened…

The city of Moscow was in the running for 2012 summer Olympics. They took a very innovative approach to promoting their city and potential Olympic venues. They created 3D models of their proposed venues and purchased a Virtusphere and were able to give Olympic committee members virtual tours of what their venues would like which was very innovative and cost effective approach. As an additional benefit, utilizing Virtusphere they were also able to demonstrate how they would have trained security for the safety of the athletes and attendees. Unfortunately for Moscow, they lost to London for the 2012 Olympics but Virtusphere was given very positive reviews.
 
You’ve talked a lot about the military applications for VirtuSphere, but I’m really curious about the fun and games part; do you see it in arcades?  People’s homes?

Virtusphere is the future virtual reality entertainment. We are marketing Virtusphere aggressively to arcade and entertainment centers globally, 50% of our customer inquiry’s come from outside the US. It is our long term goal to bring Virtusphere to the home market but realistically we are probably 3 to 5 years away.
 
How’d you guys all end up setting up shop in Binghamton?

Our founders, Ray and Nurulla Latypov are Russian scientists who emigrated to the US in 2003 and 2006 respectively. They landed in Binghamton based on references from friends who had already emigrated to Binghamton promoting our quality of life, low cost of housing and the quality of primary and secondary education. Ray and Nurulla have children attending Binghamton School district and Binghamton University. I joined the company in November 2008 and suggested we established our company with the assistance of Broome County economic development in the new Greater Binghamton Innovation Center which is providing a cost effective start up for our company.
 
"Getting used" to Virtusphere is a bit of a process.  To people… well, do they fall down a lot?

Admittedly 1 out of 10 people stumble inside Virtusphere but that is part of the experience. Since the creation of first proto type Virtusphere in 2003, thousands of users have demonstrated Virtusphere and were proud that we have had zero safety incidents. 
 
So these things can be networked together, right?  To create, I dunno, a GIANT Quake tournament?

We believe Virtusphere has the opportunity to revolutionize virtual entertainment and multiple spheres can be networked together allowing people to interact together inside virtual environments like Second Life or play against each other inside first person shooter games like Quake allowing each person to become a character inside the game. Not only will players need to be good playing the game but playing inside Virtusphere. What’s more is that everyone gets exercise in Virtusphere. Today, most people navigate virtual environments or play video games in a seated position, the Nintendo Wii showed that we can play games in a more interactive state and Virtusphere is the next advancement to create a fully interactive virtual experience allowing people to walk or run inside the virtual environment.
 
What does VirtuSphere Version 2.0 look like?  If you could take it to the next level, what would you change?

Like any new technology, Virtusphere will continue to perform research and development to improve our technology. Examples of future next steps will be to include haptic gloves to provide the view and motion of the users hands, force feedback vests to feel the impact of being hit and adding other sensory perceptions like smell to provide the most realistic virtual experience. The future development and applications of Virtusphere are only limited by our imagination.