David Burden CRe-AM Interview

Name : David Burden

Job Title : CEO and Founder

Organisation : Daden Ltd

Sector : Immersive Virtual Environments, Virtual Reality, Serious Games

Web Link : http://www.daden.co.uk/

Interview Date : 16/11/2015

Location : Skype

Short Biography

David is a Chartered and European Engineer who started his career in army communications managing a range of mobile and wireless systems in a variety of challenging situations, including second- in-command of an airmobile Signal Squadron. After being "demobbed" in 1990, David joined Ascom, the Swiss telecoms company, and then Aseriti, the £70m turnover IT arm of Severn Trent plc.

David has been involved in virtual worlds and immersive spaces since the mid 1990s, having created early spaces using VRML and played in several early 3D communal worlds. David also has a keen interest in artificial intelligence and Daden have an AI platform for use both in virtual worlds and on the web. David set up Daden Limited in 2004 to help businesses and organisations explore and exploit the social and commercial potential of using 3D environments and chatbots for immersive learning and data visualization, first in Second Life and OpenSim, and now in Unity and WebGL. Daden have won awards for their work in the UK and USA, and have written many articles and academic papers on immersive worlds and AI, and have contributed to several books on these topics. Daden are focussed on creating compelling 3D immersive learning and visualisation experiences and applications, primarily through their Trainingscape and Datascape offerings.

 

CURRENT INTERESTS:

1. What current technologies and tools fulfill your needs in your practice?

PC Platform, Unity 3D, WebGL, DirectX, VR Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard, LEAP Motion

2. What technologies do you see emerging in the next 5-10 years?

WebGL, 3D Browser capability, VR Headsets, Interface control devices, Webcams to drive avatars, High Fidelity

3. Could you identify any strengths and weaknesses with these technologies?

Strengths – Cross platform capabilities

Weaknesses – Finding one technology to fit all requirements, relatively low level abstraction

FUTURE INTERESTS:

4. Do you think there are additional technologies or tools needed, or that you would wish for?

Higher level abstraction technologies which reduce development complexity (Like PIVOTE) Improved VR headsets, smaller form factors, Hololens,

 

5. If these were available what would you be creating?

User authoring tools with higher level abstractions, mixed reality applications

6. Can you see any strengths and weakness involved?

Strengths – user empowerment, exploit imagination of subject matter experts and domain expertise

Weakness – having infrastructure to support these applications, potential social issues relating to interacting in virtual worlds

7. What do you recommend to fill the gap between creators and technology providers?

There is a gap – we need tools such as AI and virtual – human interface technologies to remove the technological barriers to creative people.