MEDIA EYE SPEAKS EP.11 with Avatar SDK

Recorded: Oct. 20, 2022 Duration: 1:24:51

Player

Snippets

having a bit of a signal issue, give me one second guys.
I'll be right with you.
All right, icons. Good morning. Today we have a special guest.
joining us today from S.E.K. Avatar or Avatar SDK. I apologize. I said it backwards. That's how you know it's the morning of
Hope all of you guys are doing wonderful and ready for a spectacular episode of Media I Speak. I am. I want to hear all about it. So let's jump right into it. I'm going to bring you to the stage, Victor.
Hey there Victor, how you doing? Pretty good, how are you? I'm doing good, my friend. I can't complain at all. Another wonderful day of life. Yeah, yeah. So how things?
I think they're going wonderful, you know, typical building in a web 3, revenue space, you know, how that goes. Another day in and another day out, you know, as long as you're putting in the work and understanding and learning. So I saw we could hope work, right? Yeah, yeah, I definitely do.
So we're looking forward to hear all about Avatar SDK. We want to know exactly what you guys are building and how the journey started for you. Yeah, it's been a long journey actually.
I started as a computer vision engineer and I was a part of the team that created open-savial computer vision library that became the fact a standard in the world of computer vision was incredibly lucky to work with people who made open
you what it is right now and it shaped the whole computer vision world and it played its role in enabling the AI revolution that's kind of everybody knows about this days.
I, with my previous company, I was there CEO and it happened that I was the main salesman. So I traveled a lot around the world. We were built, I was motivated safety systems like pedestrian detection, forwards calculation, lane departure warning,
I flew a lot. I made my first gold card or non-Lifthansa. You have to fly 100,000 miles in economy class and I'm a pretty tall guy.
So it was kind of challenging and I want to notice is you go around Atlantic and you shake a person's hand and then you end up sitting across the table from that person. So everything except for the hench
could be done in VR. And so this was kind of the idea that wasn't the back of my head for a while, then we sold this company to Intel in 2016. And by the time we spent a small project that
was working on 3D scanning. I was running it so I was allowed not to join Intel as a part of the acquisition. So that became with C3D, that created the author as the king. The author as the king was created specifically for this purpose to enable people in
interacting with each other long distance. And this was the time when virtual reality was on the rise, Oculus got acquired by Facebook and a bunch of companies raised, printing it, and rounds. And so, and we were very excited. We built the first
realistic guitars, we put them in virtual reality scene based on unity with some basic physical modeling so that two people could join and then interact with each other and lift objects and
draw objects and we showed that at game developer conference. I think it was 2017 and we had at that point we had this very basic avatar but still it could be generated from a selfie and so if your friend created an avatar
You would recognize that avatar if you saw that in that virtual reality and and reaction was incredible like people were lining up to our demo. I had trouble you know I had to kick people in. I'm sorry kick kick people out of them.

FAQ on MEDIA EYE SPEAKS EP.11 with Avatar SDK | Twitter Space Recording

Who is the special guest on the podcast today?
The special guest on the podcast today is Victor from Avatar SDK.
What is Avatar SDK?
Avatar SDK is a project focused on enabling people to interact with each other virtually using realistic avatars that can be generated from a selfie.
What was Victor's previous role before working on Avatar SDK?
Victor was the CEO of a company focused on building safety systems using computer vision technology.
What was the main purpose of the Avatar as a King project?
The main purpose of the Avatar as a King project was to enable people to interact with each other long distance using realistic avatars.
When was virtual reality on the rise according to Victor?
According to Victor, virtual reality was on the rise around the time when Oculus got acquired by Facebook and a bunch of companies raised funding rounds, which was around 2017.
What was the reaction to Avatar SDK's demo at the game developer conference?
The reaction to Avatar SDK's demo at the game developer conference was incredible, with people lining up to try it out.
How did Avatar SDK's avatars differ from basic avatars?
Avatar SDK's avatars were more realistic, and could be generated from a selfie so that a user would recognize their friend's avatar if they saw it in virtual reality.
What motivated Victor to work on Avatar SDK?
Victor's motivation to work on Avatar SDK was his experience traveling as a salesman and his desire for an alternative to long flights and in-person meetings, which he believed could be replaced with virtual reality interactions.
What was Victor's previous company's focus before it was sold to Intel?
Victor's previous company was focused on building safety systems using computer vision technology, such as pedestrian detection and lane departure warning.
What was Victor's previous company's contribution to the world of computer vision?
Victor's previous company was a part of the team that created the OpenCV computer vision library, which became a standard in the world of computer vision and played a role in enabling the AI revolution.