TECHNOLOGY

Sensing virtual goods in virtual stores

Viarium platform which creates items in a virtual reality, has got orders from Vnesheconombank, Federal Service for Environmental, Technological, and Nuclear Monitoring (Rostech), and State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom) to prepare presentations and virtual conferences. The amounts of the contracts are not disclosed. Invest Foresight discussed the subject with Alexei Mashkeev, Viarium founder and CEO.

Presentations and virtual realtors

Alexei Mashkeev is a 33-year-old entrepreneur from Kemerovo. He moved to Moscow three years ago. Viarium Limited was registered in Kemerovo in 2017. According to Kontur.Focus service, it is owned by Marina Titova

The company has an office at the premises of MISIS National University of Science and Technology, at the Blockchain Commune established by Vnesheconombank. Lots of various business events take place there and Blockchain Commune’s visitors like attending our VR presentations”, Gulnara Galeeva, Viarium marketing director, says.

Rostech and Rosatom placed an order with Viarium for designing a joint presentation of the most advanced technologies development up to 2025. Using Oculus Rift/Go all-in-one virtual reality headset and gloves, one can access any section of the presentation, such as Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Robotechnics, Industrial Internet, Quantum Technologies, Blockchain, Wireless Communication Technologies, etc. and to thus see what each technology is about – when represented as 3D images, graphs, statistics – both now and in 2025. Each item can be sensed. All items are VR-simulated. The Wireless Communication Technologies section, for instance, demonstrates that the new generation wireless communication (5G) will be the basis for the IoT and will provide Internet access for all inhabitants of the Earth.

That is not the first presentation prepared by Viarium. One of the team’s customers was Coinsbank which had to present to investors some startups at the Future of Innovation conference in Dubai.

The first VR program, Virtual Realtor, was designed by Viarium two years ago for Otkritie Bank. The bank’s FinTech team wanted to launch remote real estate sales by offering it clients an option of using VR headsets to remotely choose apartments in residential buildings erected by PIK Group. In case a client had no VR headset, he was invited to a bank branch. VR technology helped buyers in, say, Khanty-Mansiisk to buy apartments in Moscow without leaving their city of residence. By using VR glasses they could walk around the apartments, have looks from windows, check locations of kindergartens, schools, etc. The construction site was filmed by a quadrocopter and its images were used to reproduce the site in a virtual reality. The number of deals made through Viarium’s Virtual Realtor, is not disclosed. To develop the Virtual Realtor program, the team spent about RUR 4 mio ($ 65K), and the program is now widely used yet.

Virtual conference and virtual trader

In September, Viarium will arrange a VR conference for Vnesheconombank. All speakers and audience will communicate by using Oculus Go headset and clickers which do not require computers. The Viarium developed program allows addressing Vnesheconombank Chairman or any other speaker, from any point of the globe. For that, Oculus Go and Internet should be available. The real speakers will at first be represented by their avatars.

For Terminal company, Viarium designed a program which substitutes multiple screens used by the trader during online trade. A trader is to put on a VR headset and start trading in a virtual reality where all screens are in front of his eyes. VR glasses thus substitute a number of computers. The program for trading operations is so far distributed free of charge.

Viarium is now working for a major Russian online store (the name is not disclosed). An Oculus Rift/Go headset allows a customer to see a good, to touch it and to buy it at once.

Viarium platform

We want to get away from the design activities and launch a platform or a sort of a library of prototypes for various virtual reality sites and users”, Alexei Mashkeev says. “It will be a decentralized world which can be used for doing business, for communication, etc. It will be independent even from ourselves”.

A platform as an assembly of programs, prototypes, avatars, pieces of code will save developers’ time and money. For example, if a virtual shopping mall is being constructed, the walls, counters, etc. do not have to be designed all anew since they are already available at the platform. The library will have a free and a paid sections.

By the yearend, there will be 173 million VR users. By using Viarium products, anyone can construct one’s own VR. Yet to create something in a virtual reality (a shopping mall, a game area, a showroom, etc.) one needs some land, otherwise a virtual site can not be designed. The land can be purchased at the platform for tokens. Viarium has already created the first Genesis Land divided into multiple plots. The plots will be auctioned this autumn.

The Viarium platform employs Ethereum blockchain. Viarium permits entering VR worlds and VR properties in a virtual space distributed ledger, while blockchain will help protect the titles of the virtual plots and other virtual real estate owners.

This year Viarium plans to raise $20 mio from investors and venture funds. Viarium aims at Asian, primarily Chinese, investors. It may also move to Hong Kong to become a resident in Cyberport business park.

By Natalia Kuznetsova

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