A good friend\nof Alan\u2019s, publisher of the online XR news publication, VR Voice,\ndrops by the show for a general chat about the future of the space,\nincluding the potential for XR to help train workers in a future\nwhere retirement is less common, saving money by designing hospitals\nin VR before brick meets mortar, the video game crash of 1983, and a\nlittle Fruit Ninja.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAlan: Today\u2019s guest is a good\nfriend of mine, Bob Fine. In 2011, Bob launched the only printed\nmagazine covering social media, The Social Media Monthly. In January\n2014, he launched his second print titled The Startup Monthly in May\n2016, he launched \u2014 what I love \u2014 VRVoice.co, a content vertical on\nall things virtual reality. In addition to his publishing endeavors,\nBob continues to provide I.T. strategic planning consulting services\nto both private sector and non-profit communities. Bob has over 10\nyears of additional work experience as a systems and sales engineer\nwith various companies, including CMGi, Hughes Network, IOWave and\nRaytheon, as well as two of his own consulting companies, Geoplan and\nthe Cool Blue Company. I want to have a warm welcome; thank you, Bob,\nfor joining us on the show today.\n\n\n\nBob: Alan, thanks very much for\nhaving me. I\u2019m honored to be one of your guests.\n\n\n\nAlan: It\u2019s my absolute pleasure\nand honor to have you on the show. I\u2019ve met with you many times.\nYou\u2019ve actually shared some CES stories, and we\u2019ve been in a little\nglass booth in CES together. That was wonderful. You have your own\npodcast and news outlet, talking about all things virtual reality,\nVRVoice. That is been amazing, and you\u2019ve been a great influencer in\nthe space, so thank you.\n\n\n\nBob: Well, I appreciate that.\n\n\n\nAlan: So the first question I\nlove to ask everybody is, what is the best VR/AR/XR experiences \u2014 or\nwhat are some of the best experiences \u2014 that you\u2019ve had so far?\n\n\n\nBob: You know, I guess from my\nperspective; I\u2019m a longtime video gamer. I just went to PAX East on\nFriday, up in Boston. I was my first PAX event. And if you\u2019re not\nfamiliar, that\u2019s the Penny Arcade conference. Huge, huge gaming\nconference. It makes E3 look minuscule. And I\u2019m old enough where I\nstarted with an Atari 2600. One my the reasons I started looking at\nVR again in 2016 was because of that video gaming interest. When you\nask me my best experiences right now, I\u2019m going to kind of\u2026 I\u2019m\nthinking about some of the early games that that I played, that gave\nme that \u201cwoah\u201d moment. As I\u2019m thinking back to it now, this\nwas actually on HTC VIVE \u2014 first gen, which was only maybe 3, 4\nyears ago now \u2014 and I was so impressed with the first generation of\nhardware that I was like, \u201cwell, this is ready for prime time.\u201d\nThe prices might still be a little bit high, but the quality of the\ngaming was there already. Just two off top my head is the VR version\nof Fruit Ninja, which I\u2019ve personally put about 400-500 people\nthrough, because it\u2019s one of the best and fastest experiences I think\nyou can give somebody that\u2019s never tried VR, but you can give to\nanybody whether they\u2019re five years old or ninety five years old.\n\n\n\nAlan: Slicing fruit in VR is\nmagical, and the fact that they have the haptic feedback to the\ncontroller is just\u2026 [implied Chef Kiss]. You\u2019re right, it is a\nmagical experience.\n\n\n\nBob: The other game that I was\nreally getting addicted to was Space Pirates, which I think is still\njust a brilliant early video game that demonstrates the quick and\neasy access to VR. It\u2019s kind of like the space invaders of AR, I\nthink, in terms of what those early games that caught fire and was\neasy to pick