Ep. 46: VR Voice Interaction and Developer Advocacy with Michael Ludden of IBM Watso

What if you could talk directly to a VR experience, accessing the menu or a particular tool simply by asking for it? Michael Ludden argues that voice interaction makes sense for every virtual reality application as a method of control, and in his role as Director of Product with IBM Watson, he is committed to building a toolkit for developers that allows them to incorporate services like Speech to Text and Watson Conversation into their own products.

Michael began working with the developer community as a tech evangelist for HTC before getting into developer marketing in his roles with Samsung and Google. He shifted to building products for developers when he moved to IBM Watson in 2015, and his team there functions to solve problems for developers with initiatives in Developer Incentivization, Developer Marketplaces and VR/AR Labs.

Today Michael joins us to share IBM Watson’s utility as an AI platform, explaining how its VR Speech Sandbox provides a toolkit for developers to build products that incorporate Watson’s services. We discuss the best methods to incentivize developers, and Michael offers insight around converting developers into advocates. Listen in to understand how IBM Watson plays into the rise of digital assistants like Alexa and Siri, and learn how you might use its services to build your own custom VR and AR experiences.