#TechMarch with Arman Atoyan

Itel.am continues #TechMonth series: at the end of each month, Armenian IT specialists will conclude the month, speaking about Armenian and international tech achievements, as well as gains of their own company.

We conclude technological March with Arloopa co-founder and CEO Arman Atoyan. Arloopa took part in two VR and AR international conferences this month, presenting its work there.

#TechMarch in Armenia

For me, this month was marked by Shadowmatic’s two wins in Best Technical Achievement and Audience Award categories at International Mobile Gaming Awards on March 16, 2016 in San Francisco. This is a significant and very serious achievement in the world of international gaming.



Another important event was HIVE Investment Fund’s announcement on the launch of their HIVE Seed Fund initiative, which will provide support for those new Armenian startups that create revolutionary technological solutions, aim to have a team in Armenia and solve global challenges.



Speaking in general, the rate of new products manufacture in Armenia has increased by several times compared to recent years. You hear about a new interesting product every day.

#TechMarch in Arloopa

We went to Moscow on March 10, where we took part in International Conference on Augmented and Virtual Reality. Its subject was the future of VR games. We had our own booth at Wearable Technology Show on March 15-16 in London, which is considered the largest Expo in Europe. We presented our AR and VR solutions there, including AR hockey.



Another project we showed allows to place in real world 3D objects you can touch and work with. I should note that people present were especially interested in our virtual Einstein and Mher Mkrtchyan.

One more important event of this month was that the first application we made for Samsung Gear VR got presented in Oculus Store. Sheriff VR costs USD 2.99 and is intended for Western genre lovers.



Being the sheriff, you have to stop the gang that plans to attack a train. By the way, representatives of Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology approached us on March 10 in Moscow and observed that we’re the first in CIS countries to be in Samsung Gear VR, as the confirmation process is rather difficult.
On March 24, I made a presentation on our projects in American University of Armenia.

#TechMarch in the world

It was announced this month that Oculus will create a VR social network together with Facebook and Gear VR. This will allow users to find friends on the platform, play social games, create rooms in Oculus Social, and watch videos. This is a very important step, as everybody understands that development of virtual reality depends on development of network abilities.



Another important event was Game Developers Conference (GDC) on March 14-18 in San Francisco. Plenty of various VR events took place within its framework. I want to single out the news that people who pre-order Samsung Galaxy S7 will get free use of Gear VR headset in Samsung Galaxy S7.

Thus, current global trends prove that although until now VR was considered “a toy for programmers”, today many people order Gear headset for everyday use, as they understand that it’s trendy, interesting and can be used daily. You could even say that this March VR entered the lives of non-IT people.

Narine Daneghyan