#YoungTalent: Where are they now? Manus VR

Interview with Stephan van den Brink from Manus VR

The motion sensors in the Manus VR gloves register all finger and hand movements highly accurately. Connect the Manus VR glove to a virtual reality headset and you’ll see your hands in a virtual world and be able to use them intuitively to move around in that world.

“Originally we were totally focused on the market for virtual reality (VR) games, but the various technical restrictions still surrounding VR meant the consumer market isn’t going to start growing until much later than previously expected. Luckily we were quick to see that, at this stage, it’s mainly customers in industry who are willing to pay for virtual and augmented reality and the input systems required. So we made sure we really listened to what industry wants and then went on to develop our gloves along those lines. And we’re shortly going to be launching the commercial version in the market. We’ve also set up various joint ventures with parties who already provide VR solutions for training courses and for visualising projects and designs and so on. Although these markets are still small, they’re growing really fast. And, by working with our partners, we can now offer comprehensive solutions. Another attractive market for us is motion capture, which involves digitally capturing movement for films, games and ergonomic studies and for analysing top athletes’ performance, for instance. There’s also a wide range of other ways to use our products. Skoda, for example, used the gloves to enable visitors to the Frankfurt car fair to test-drive the group’s virtual concept car. And, in the medical world, our gloves are being used to diagnose and provide rehabilitation therapies for certain hand conditions. You can use them to interact with robots, which then become an extension of yourself. And even NASA orders a few pairs of gloves every so often, though we don’t know what they’re being used for.”