Interview with Arthur van Hoff, Founder and CTO, Jaunt
Arthur van Hoff, Founder and CTO of Jaunt (Photo: Moneycab)
Interview by Helmuth Fuchs
Arthur van Hoff, Founder and CTO of Juant, on the following topics in the interview:
- On the currently most compelling and difficult developments
«Building a Virtual Reality camera that can see in 360 degrees, high resolution, stereoscopic, is very difficult.»
- On the most promising applications for Virtual Reality
«Google cardboard opened up the market for us, it made Virtual Reality accessible for anyone.»
- On the biggest obstacles for Augmented Reality
«You need very different display devices, smaller headsets, different optics, and different content.»
- On the start and financing of Jaunt
«Our timing was very good. Virtual Reality is still gaining a lot of momentum and we are one of the best funded VR companies.»
- On what he would like to invent if he would have limitless resources
«I am very excited about personal transportation, like self driving cars. That’s going to revolutionize society.»
- On the chances of Zurich being the next Silicon Valley
«You need to focus on the things you are good at. So Zurich could be the Silicon Valley of Finance.»
- On which technical development currently excites him the most
«One of the things I am very excited about is custom manufacturing, like 3D printing. It’s going to change the way we do manufacturing.»
Arthur van Hoff
After studying computer science at the University of Strathclyde and Hogere Informatica Opleiding, Van Hoff joined Sun Microsystems as an engineer with the Distributed Objects Everywhere team. In 1993 he joined the Java development team, writing the language’s compiler and taking responsibility for its first release to Netscape in August 1995. In 1996 he left Sun, feeling that the options to develop Java outside of the organisation were «too tempting», and established the startup Marimba, serving as its Chief Technology Officer. At Marimba, Van Hoff led the engineering team in developing a push technology-based software distribution system, Castanet.
In 2002, Van Hoff left Marimba, which was acquired by BMC Software for $240 million. He started Strangeberry, a startup that developed software to play computer-stored content on televisions. It was acquired by TiVo, Inc. in January 2004 and he joined TiVo as Principal Engineer. He resigned from TiVo in 2005 and later joined Flipboard as their Chief Technology Officer. He left Flipboard in November 2012, and currently serves as Chief Technology Officer of both Jaunt, Inc. and Zing Systems, Inc., as well as the Entrepreneur-in-Residence of Redpoint Ventures. (Wikipedia)
Jaunt
The idea for Jaunt originated in early 2013 when one of our founders returned from an amazing experience at Zion National Park. What if he could go back there for a brief jaunt, at any time, from any place? The emerging consumer VR industry provides the mechanism to travel to virtual worlds. We aim to put realism back into the virtual reality experience, lending an uncanny sense of presence never before possible with any other technology. www.jauntvr.com
The interview took place at the WorldWebForum 2016
