Republished with permission by StoryTerrace.
StoryTerrace – the leading international biographer – has launched the world’s first virtual reality (VR) innovation which allows users to carve out their space in the metaverse. The biographer is the first to welcome VR into the art of memoirs and life stories, using your digital twin to narrate your story for centuries to come. The launch of its new service – through a simple to use headset experience – will allow users to come face-to-face with their loved ones in the digital realm, as they listen and watch what could be ancestors from generations past, describe personal histories. Now evolving the traditional methods of legacy preservation from hardback books, we are now witnessing the first significant development in the publishing arena.
How Virtual Reality (VR) Works
StoryTerrace’s launch video demonstrates how the company has championed virtual reality (VR) technology through an immersive experience created for Jerry Terrence, who originally had his memoirs written by the company. In a virtual space, he retells four of his favourite stories through the medium of VR, preserving the mark he made on the world for future generations. In their high-tech screening, Jerry was captured by 8i in their volumetric capture studios surrounded by 30 cameras, to create a 3D video asset that can be viewed in a VR headset. What viewers can then see is the storyteller situated in a simulated 3D environment relative to the context of the story. Jerry’s own home videos and images were incorporated into this series reinforcing the authenticity of the life story, making it the best, most realistic experience possible.
Leveraging proprietary machine learning algorithms, 8i’s technology fuses footage captured from an array of cameras into a single 3D twin of the subject, enabling participants to literally choose their viewpoint and even walk around their loved one. Traditionally, VR experiences, which harness holographic technologies, have been used to re-live iconic musical figures such as Tupac Shakur, who was exhibited on day 3 of the 2012 Coachella Festival and seemingly ‘brought back to life’. Individuals simply put on the VR headset and are equipped with a handset which allows them to navigate through the series of stories narrated by the digital version of the narrator, so it’s as if your loved one is standing right in front of you.
With AI markets projected to grow to nearly $600 billion by 2025, society is gradually acclimatising to a world experienced through immersive mediums, many of which will be showcased at South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) this month. Alongside the next generation of Apple and Sony VR devices, StoryTerrace will unveil its pioneering take on memory preservation, which bears a significant impact on the way future generations will engage with their loved ones from the past, present, and future. The award-winning memoir-writing service has partnered with volumetric video company, 8i, to create the world’s first immersive VR life story viewable through a headset creating a powerful and holistic experience. The partnership aims to make this technology more accessible to a wider audience. StoryTerrace are now promoting this service for the next batch of 10 customers to create their VR experience for future generations starting at $7,500.
Rutger Bruining, co-founder of StoryTerrace discusses How Virtual Reality (VR) will revolutionise the future of storytelling:
“The book is a unique medium to tell someone’s life stories because you can really reflect on life, look at turning points and go incredibly deep into that story. What makes VR so unique is that you can immerse yourself in someone else’s life who you are close to and actually hear their voice. We believe that combining these two mediums will be extremely powerful.
“We are partnering with 8i, who we have known for a few years. They have built an innovative technology to make it more and more accessible for people to create a 3D immersive experience. They also share our ethos in the importance of telling stories. So, together our experience of telling people’s life stories and their technology, offers a whole range of new opportunities.”
About StoryTerrace
StoryTerrace’s mission is to ensure that every life story is captured and passed on in a meaningful way. Its award-winning memoir writing service takes care of the whole process – matching clients with one of over 750 professional writers, interviewing, photo gathering, editing, designing, and printing their very own book. Books are on average 100 pages long, meaning that everyone can have their life story – or those of their loved ones – documented in a professionally curated biography or series of memoirs.
Powered by its proprietary technology platform, StoryTerrace continues to scale globally and has sold over 3,000 packages to date since it was founded in 2014. The company was a winner on BBC Dragons’ Den in 2020 and has gained traction in the likes of Sky News, The Wall Street Journal, The Times, Forbes, and CBS News.
About 8i
Founded in 2014, 8i is an industry leading hologram technology (aka volumetric video / 3D video) company on a mission to bring authenticity to the digital world. We provide an end-to-end solution to capture, transform and stream holograms that can be experienced through any device, browser, or virtual reality (VR) headset. We put real people — not avatars — inside of immersive 3D experiences, either pre-recorded or in real-time, leading to more authentic human connection in digital worlds and the metaverse. 8i empowers new dimensions of experiencing content, with profound use cases, including immersive presentations and events, education and training, sports and entertainment, e-commerce, healthcare, and more. Our customers span forward-thinking organizations across technology, media and entertainment, retail and government, including Softbank, the U.S. Army, Google, Verizon and Walmart.
8i is a privately held company based in Venice, California, with offices in Chicago and Wellington, New Zealand, and is backed by VCs and strategic investors, including One Ventures, Verizon, RRE, LG Tech Ventures, Founder’s Fund and Hearst. Learn more at https://8i.com.