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From www.eurekalert.org - August 16, 2016 11:31 AM

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From www.wired.it - January 25, 2016 3:15 AM

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La quotidianità sarà sempre più pervasa da contenuti alternativi o integrati di qualsiasi tipo, ma comunque immateriali. Si tratti di un altrove – VR –, o di qualcosa sovrapposto al circostante – AR -, pensare a un mondo in cui materico e digitale siano separati sarà retaggio d’altri tempi. Non è un caso aumentino gli psicologi che, come Matteo Lancini nel suo Adolescenti navigati (Erickson), fanno notare quanto i più giovani percepiscano le propaggini digitali come un continuum con la propria identità, meglio un evidente “prolungamento del sé”.

Lungi dalle premonizioni, la cosa appare una logica conseguenza di quanto testato negli ultimi 2 anni. E soprattutto di quanto fatto intravedere da aggeggi ancora acerbi e dall’appeal massivo tutto da dimostrare.

Vero, Oculus potrebbe non essere il nostro Virgilio fra le lande virtuali, ma Caronte lo è di sicuro. Senza gli occhialoni concepiti dal 23enne in infradito di Long Beach, lungi dal tornare fra i trend tecnologici più chiacchierati del mondo, realtà virtuale e aumentata sarebbero rimaste quella chimera pseudo-scientifica di mezzo secolo fa, tradotta in hardware da esperimenti grotteschi. O un’oscura tecnologia maneggiata tuttalpiù dall’esercito e, ça va sans dire, dall’industria del porno.

Ecco perché qui di seguito raggruppiamo le 5 esperienze virtuali più interessanti al momento. Non tanto le più belle e meglio realizzate, sia chiaro: piuttosto, quelle che anche in fieri dimostrano come potranno trasformarsi alcune nostre certezze.

Che i videogiochi predicano il futuro si è ribadito più volte. È dunque opportuno partire da loro per immaginare l’impatto delle nuove tecnologie visive, soprattutto perché proprio dall’ambito ludico queste hanno mosso i loro nuovi passi verso la conquista del mondo. Nondimeno, perché proprio a una frazione di giocatori Luckey si è detto interessato almeno nella prima fase di diffusione dei suoi occhiali.

Se e quando quella porzione possa diventare la totalità per poi estendersi a tutti è il dilemma dell’industria. E i pareri sono antitetici, come dimostrano da un lato gli entusiasmi di Sony, Valve, Microsoft e pure Google, e di contro la reticenza di colossi come Electronic Arts, che per almeno 2 anni, ha dichiarato, non crederà ad alcun miraggio virtuale.

Tant’è, già oggi titoli come l’italiano Assetto corsa, o la simulazione spaziale di Frontier Developments, Elite: Dangerous – attualmente la miglior esperienza fruibile via Oculus –, sono la prova di come generi classici possano rinascere grazie a un visore VR, e offrire esperienze senza precedenti né paragoni in quanto a immersività, divertimento e percezione.

Sembra allora già doveroso criticizzare l’impatto percettivo di “videogame a 360 gradi”, soprattutto se – come per esempio dimostrato da Star Citizen – i giochi promettono di riscrivere le dinamiche di community online, o di generare transazioni reali e mercati grigi mai così verosimili, insomma di avere conseguenze più umane dell’umano: a un anno dalla sua pubblicazione, l’universo spaziale creato da Cloud Imperium già alimenta compravendite di mezzi digitali a tiratura limitata, contrattazioni su servizi in game, o forme di associazionismo sintetico “in anticipo”, delineando orizzonti relazionali tutti da scoprire. E di cui sarà necessario valutare l’impatto soprattutto sul pubblico più giovane.

Che cosa accomuna i Dallas Cowboys, i San Jose Sharks e un pilota di mech corazzati? Tutti e tre rivelano quanto domani sport e universi sintetici saranno non solo contigui, ma sempre più sovrapposti. Talvolta indistinguibili.

L’anno scorso, i mastini di Dallas sono stati la prima squadra professionistica a utilizzare caschetti virtuali per allenarsi. Merito di StriVRLabs, compagnia fondata dagli ex giocatori Nlf Derek Belch e Trent Edwards insieme con Jeremy Bailenson, attuale direttore del Virtual Human Interaction Lab della Stanford University, con lo scopo di affinare la pratica sportiva tutelando l’incolumità degli atleti. In altri termini permettendo il perfezionamento degli schemi di gioco senza che i campioni ci rimettano l’osso del collo.

Di più hanno fatto Otoy, New Deal Studios e Immersive Media, che ad aprile 2014 avevano permesso per la prima volta ai possessori di Oculus o Gear VR di vedere in diretta i San Jose Sharks contro i Los Angeles Kings da qualsiasi posto in arena preferissero, linea di porta e panchina delle riserve comprese. Il tutto rimanendo comodamente seduti in poltrona, a casa propria. Un’anteprima di come, presto, anche il ruolo dello spettatore potrebbe rinnovarsi.

A tal proposito, Rigs – Mechanized Combat League promette di essere la sintesi fra nuovi modi di praticare lo sport e tifarlo. Il tripla A in produzione per Guerrilla Cambridge non solo consentirà di vivere in prima persona e attraverso PlayStation VR una nuova disciplina in grado di mescolare calcio, pallacanestro e tiro al bersaglio corazzato – i giocatori competono pilotando robot di 3 metri super armati; a detta del suo game director, Piers Jackson, sarà uno spettacolo coinvolgente come pochi, qualcosa di divertente anche solo da guardare. Come i migliori sport “tradizionali”. Un cocktail futuribile – e buonissimo – di agonismo, tecnologia e spettacolo. La fusione definitiva di eSport ed esperienza in prima persona, si sia atleti in campo o tifosi sul divano.

Per non dire dell’intrattenimento audiovisivo

Non che per cinema o musica la voglia di essere dentro l’esperienza sia da meno. Lo suggeriscono gli accordi di Facebook con 20th Century Fox, che al lancio del visore renderanno disponibile su Oculus Store un centinaio di titoli della major (fra cui Alien, Die Hard o Cast Away), così come la volontà di produrre – si vedano il recente The Walk di Robert Zemeckis, ma anche un progetto simile dedicato a The Martian di Ridley Scott – intere sequenze fruibili a 360 gradi.

In ambito musicale, le riprese dei concerti di Paul McCartney o dei Coldplay realizzate da JauntVr o NextVr sono il corrispettivo della pulsione al protagonismo celebrata da Guitar Hero Live, ultimo nato in casa FreeStyleGames. Il titolo rinvigorisce la serie di Harmonix Music Systems titillando, attraverso l’esperienza in soggettiva e la condivisione in rete, le più intime fantasie da rockstar dell’utente. Non è un caso se lo sviluppatore si sia detto molto interessato ai futuri orizzonti della realtà virtuale.

Non solo; progetti come The Nepal Quake Project, una testimonianza da dentro la tragedia commentata da Susan Sarandon e realizzata dalla media company Ryot, dimostrano come anche il giornalismo potrebbe ricalibrarsi sul desiderio condiviso di vivere i fatti più che di sentirseli raccontare. Il “New York Times” ha già spedito ai suoi lettori un Google Card Board.

A scuola, dal medico al museo. Non che sia obbligatorio divertirsi

L’intrattenimento, in effetti, sembra solo un ambito di un futuro fatto di virtualità stereoscopica. E, a dirla tutta, nemmeno quello principale. Lo scorso settembre nientemeno che la Sorbonne ha ospitato il gotha mondiale della realtà aumentata e virtuale: studiosi, filosofi, sviluppatori, inventori. La quattro giorni, ribattezzata Immersion 2015, itinerante e da anni organizzata dal movimento internazionale immersiveeducation.org, è l’apice di una sensibilità sempre più spiccata nei confronti di quanto ar, vr, intelligenza artificiale e robotica possano produrre se integrate.

Senza toccare vette accademiche, progetti come Relive – Future of Health Award 2012, oggi gratuito su Steam -, The Apollo 11 Experience, ma anche la collaborazione fra il duo di artisti digitali Streamcolors e il museo milanese Poldi Pezzoli – che inventa un nuovo modo di visitare spazi e collezioni e che ha a che fare con la virtualità tridimensionale solo in nuce – lo ribadiscono: lungi dal farci giocare a Farmville o Minecraft in 3d, o dal trasformarci in piloti galattici con Eve: Valkyrie – il gioco compreso bel bundle iniziale di Oculus -, ci ritroveremo realtà virtuale e aumentata in ogni ambito del nostro tran tran quotidiano.

Dalla guerra al porno: con tutta la tua vita in mezzo.

E a chi, ancora scettico, non credesse allo Smart Helmet per operai del futuro presentato due settimane fa al CES da Daqri – 9 telecamere incorporate e un chip Intel per elaborare informazioni sovrapposte alla realtà lavorativa di ogni giorno – non rimarrebbe che consigliare una panoramica sulle due industrie più all’avanguardia di tutte: quella militare e il porno.

Circa la prima si rimanda a un reportage che ben più di anno fa raccontava novità da lasciare attoniti. Ai profeti del porno di certo sarà dedicata più di qualche riga prossimamente.

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From www.marketingmag.ca - January 24, 2016 2:18 PM

Mirko Compagno's insight:

Retailers like Kroger and Macy’s presented sessions titled “Getting personal through customer science” and “Delivering personalized shopper journeys.” On the show floor, about 34,000 attendees experienced the latest and greatest in technology designed to help engage customers throughout the purchasing process.

Big data, which has been a strong theme at the show for the last few years, was less prevalent. Hershey’s and American grocer wholesaler Supervalu shared an interesting business case on micro-insights that allow retailers and suppliers to grow business by better understanding shopper motivations.

On the other hand, mobile technology and the concept of the connected consumer was a hot topic. Payment is increasingly added to the mobile conversation, as applications that make transactions easier are being developed and offered to consumer.

Retailers are also seeing benefits from providing unique experiences for their customers, even if those experiences don’t directly lead to a sale. Outreach effort is a critical way to stay relevant to the consumer.

For instance, it may seem counter-intuitive for a supermarket retailer to offer free yoga classes when they don’t typically sell mats or apparel, but these kinds of experiences are becoming all the more important as millennials choose to forgo traditional shopping trips in favour of shopping online.

One session at the conference gave the example of Target’s Cartwheel app, with which shoppers receive personalized deals based on their shopping history and can scan products while in store to see if there are deals available. The presenter, Google’s retail industry director Julie Krueger, said it was a “wonderful way to reward customers and add a little thing to the shopping experience.”

As always, there were a few real innovations presented. Augmented reality, for one, can be best described as incorporating stock images into an actual view on a digital device. For example, adding stock decorations from a catalog to a dinner table for a consumer or enhancing a store aisle set with images of new products or signage. IBM has an app that uses augmented reality technology to provide shoppers with personalized information while browsing the shelves.

Gamification is used by retailers to make otherwise onerous tasks like training and labour scheduling fun. LevelsPro, a start-up from Brooklyn, provides technology that helps retailers engage their employees through the playing of games that provide incentives to work smarter.

One interesting no-show at NRF this year was enterprise security. Last year, after a series of spectacular data breaches, dozens of vendors were promoting the safety of their systems and several more were presenting specific applications that addressed issues like payment fraud and cyber attacks. This year, the issue was barely discussed in the sessions and only a few exhibiters had signage on their booths around the issue, even as cloud solutions that have long worried retailers and other in terms of security have proliferated.

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From time.com - January 24, 2016 1:52 PM

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The Cupertino, Calif.-based company recently hired VR expert Doug Bowman from Virginia Tech, The Financial Times reported, which TIME has confirmed. Bowman worked at the university as a computer science professor, also serving as director of the institute’s Center for Human-Computer Interaction.

Bowman is an accomplished researcher in the virtual reality space, having received the 2014 Visualization and Graphics Technical Committee technical achievement award from the Institute of of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.

The hire is Apple’s latest move signaling it’s exploring possibilities around virtual reality. Apple last year poached a key audio engineer from Microsoft’s HoloLens team, which Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster first pointed out in a research note from August. In May of last year, Apple acquired augmented reality startup Metaio, and in November it purchased motion-capture firm Faceshift.

Industry watchers speculate that the technologies developed by both of these companies could give Apple the assets necessary to create some type of augmented or virtual reality device.

Augmented reality gadgets, such as Microsoft HoloLens or Google Glass, overlay virtual images on top of the real world. Virtual reality differs from augmented reality in that it takes the viewer into a completely virtual environment.

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From www.telegraph.co.uk - January 24, 2016 1:06 PM

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Doppler Labs CEO Noah Kraft describes his Here earbuds as the first “augmented audio” – or, in Kraft’s own phrase – “bionic hearing” . The computerised headset listens for certain frequencies so that you can, for instance, “turn up” someone’s voice if you’re talking in a loud environment. You can also add an echo or enhance the sound of the bass if you are listening to music.

“Reality isn’t half bad,” says Kraft. “If we can enhance it and optimise it a little bit, that could be a really cool thing.” The current version, which was funded via crowdfunding – with backers paying $180 (£120) each – is aimed at musicians and high-end audio fans. Using external microphones, and an app to “tune” the audio, the Here works like a hi-tech version of the earbuds many music fans wear to concerts. It’s designed to add subtle “tweaks” to what people hear, altering reality in real-time, using an app.

Other start-ups, such as Nuheara, aim to do the same, but for phone calls and conversations with computers, using computer processing to tweak sound in real time. Their creators are keen to emphasise that these are no mere speakers. Nuheara founder David Cannington says: “The new crop of ear-oriented devices boast advancements such as sensors, intelligent use of microphones, audio-digital signal processing and smart battery miniaturisation – technologies more commonly associated with computers, not headsets.”

Information-projecting specs could catch on in the workplace, with Gartner predicting a tenfold growth over the next five years
But such audio augmented-reality devices are just the tip of the iceberg, with companies hoping to expand to glasses and headsets. Such visual augmented-reality systems are a staple of science fiction – think Geordi La Forge’s headset in Star Trek: The Next Generation, or the text scrolling before the Terminator’s eyes. But the technology has been slower to take off than, say, virtual reality headsets. Why?

Augmented reality is simply harder and more expensive to pull off, requiring cameras and microphones working in sync with computers to alter your reality second by second. But that does not mean the technology is going away. Microsoft’s HoloLens is built for what the Windows giant calls “mixed reality” and is shipping to developers early this year.

Early demos showed off a man building a Minecraft world with his hands, as if it was Lego. In Microsoft’s HoloStudio demo, people can “redecorate” their front rooms by inserting objects virtually without doing any heavy lifting.

And in education, it could be a genuine revolution. Microsoft showed off a demo where students could look inside the human body without dissecting corpses. Mark Griswold of Case Western Reserve University said: “The mixed reality of the HoloLens has the potential to revolutionise [medical] education by bringing 3D content into the real world. Using holograms, we can easily separate and focus in on individual systems.”

Even Google’s Glass is making a comeback, despite having fizzled out on its launch in the UK in 2013. This time, Google appears to be aiming at the workplace, with a new model titled “Enterprise Edition”. It’s understood that Google will target workplaces with the gadget – something that several other wearable technology companies are aiming at, with head-mounted displays showing warehouse workers, for instance, where to go next. Such information-projecting specs could catch on in the workplace, with market researchers Gartner predicting a tenfold growth over the next five years.

Professor Bob Stone, of the University of Birmingham, says: “Being able to physically manipulate virtual objects in the real world has been challenging scientists for 40 years. Since my first virtual reality experience at Nasa nearly 30 years ago, the technology has evolved from the primitive head-mounted displays and computers to today's world, where we can interact with complex virtual objects, integrated in real-time, with real-world scenarios.”

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From it.blastingnews.com - November 30, 2015 3:06 AM

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A big “G” è stato concesso un brevetto per un indossabile che potrebbero essere una versione 2.0 dei Google Glass.

Per chi non conoscesse Alphabet inc. è una holding di proprietà di Google dedita alla ricerca e sviluppo, investimento, in settori ben diversi dal core business di big “G”: il web. In questa azienda confluiscono vari progetti e aziende acquisite col tempo: dall'azienda di termostati Nest acquisita l’anno scorso, al progetto Calico che ha come obiettivo quello di migliorare la nostra salute, la start-up Sidewalk Labs con cui Google mira a ridisegnare e a migliorare la vita urbana tramite le ultime tecnologie, ai laboratori Google X in cui si cerca di realizzare importanti innovazioni tecnologiche per il prossimo futuro, il progetto Fiber che mira ad un ambizioso obiettivo, sviluppare una connessione ultra veloce per arrivare infine alle società di investimento Google Ventures e Google Capital.

Verso una seconda generazione di Google Glass ?

Le diverse voci in merito ad un presunto ritorno sul mercato degli occhiali a realtà aumentata di Google, sembrano ora essere confermate da quest'ultimo brevetto depositato presso l'Ufficio Brevetti degli Stati Uniti: US Patent. No. 9.195.067 B1 sotto il nome di “Wearale Device with input and output structures”.

Come si può vedere nei disegni che accompagnano questo brevetto sembra che la nuova idea della società di Mountain View per il suo Glass 2 conserva parte della filosofia del progetto precedente, con la differenza che questa volta il dispositivo possiede un solo monitor per la realtà aumentata indossabile su un unico occhio che è posto sul lato sinistro della faccia, sorretto dall'orecchio tramite un perno situato sulla nuca e lo blocca per evitare che il dispositivo cada. La cintura è regolabile, in modo che possa essere configurato dall'utente in tre punti o posizioni differenti: vicino alla tempia, lungo l'asta e lungo la parte posteriore della testa, a quanto scritto sui documenti del brevetto.

Non si sa con certezza se Google rilascerà mai questo wearable. Non ci sono piani di rilascio o di presentazione di questo nuovo modello di Glass nel medio periodo. Dispositivo che utilizza la stessa tecnologia della precedente versione, senza stravolgere completamente il progetto e la sua filosofia di sviluppo. Questa volta mette da parte il concetto di occhiali e sperimenta un nuovo design che dite avrà successo?

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From www.information-age.com - November 11, 2015 4:45 PM

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Few organisations are likely to discover a local news team roaming through their building, but they are quite likely this year or next to have individuals capable of recording video and audio and taking pictures with wearable technology, such as the Google Glass.

And from a data security and governance point of view, the risk posed by these devices is just as great as that posed by an invasive TV crew.

In a typical office, healthcare facility, or manufacturing plant, confidential information is everywhere. It’s on desks. It’s on screens. It’s drawn out in bright colours on whiteboards in conference rooms.

True, someone could record this information with a smartphone camera, but in most offices taking pictures, especially of other people’s workspaces, is conspicuous. The unnerving element about wearables like Google Glass - the thing that earned the wearers of the consumer version of this product the sobriquet 'glassholes' - is that no one other than the wearer knows what is being recorded. The Glass wearer can trigger recordings with a simple glance, twitch, or remark.

Google has pulled its consumer version of Google Glass from the market. It is now releasing an enterprise version, and the product has genuine promise in fields such as healthcare and technical support.

Surgeons can wear Google Glass while receiving instructions and guidance in real time from medical device makers. Technicians can repair equipment in the field, consulting diagrams and documentation visible on their lenses while keeping their hands free.

The potential for wearables to improve patient care, reduce Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) for equipment providers and utility companies, and facilitate a range of other manual tasks all but guarantee that wearables will become more common in the enterprise.

But enterprises need to exercise caution in adopting these devices. They should establish security policies before putting wearable devices in use. And these policies should address at least four aspects of wearable technology.

First, enterprises should remind wearable users that the security and compliance rules already in force apply to wearables and their data. Recorded or transmitted data should therefore be managed with the same diligence and control as other sensitive data.

In addition, archives of recordings should be secured and audited. Also, to mitigate security risks, some locations and events may be ruled off-limits for wearables.

Second, enterprises should recognise that wearables are almost always networked devices capable of sending and receiving data over internal networks. Accordingly, wearables should be managed like other mobile devices gaining access to the network. As a result, network access should be tracked and suspicious network activities investigated.

Third, enterprises should be aware that many wearables can run third-party apps. Some of these apps might not be secure. Some might contain malware or harbour vulnerabilities that could give hackers access to internal networks and data.

Just as enterprise IT organisations vet the security of apps for smartphones and tablets, so should they vet the security of apps for wearables. They may even want to establish formal white lists and black lists for approved and disapproved apps.

Fourth, enterprises should consider establishing social protocols for the use of these devices. Employees may want to be notified before recording begins. Simple courtesy here might remove some of the discomfort that the consumer version of Google Glass engendered, when people in public places were not sure whether they were being recorded.

By thinking about security and compliance upfront, enterprises can ensure that wearables behave like a good pair of sunglasses: protecting what’s sensitive from exposure, while making it easier to act with discernment, even in adverse conditions.

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From techcrunch.com - September 29, 2015 3:48 AM

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Augmented Reality Has An Image Problem

Largely misconceived as an absolute technology that only lends itself to advertising and marketing opportunities, the real potential of AR is just emerging. AR is not a linear technology — it is macro. It will help objects think; it will help objects talk.

The Internet has powered remarkable new ways for us to achieve just about everything — learn, buy, book travel, connect with each other — and AR, in all its many forms, will be at the forefront of the next revolution in the way we connect with the world around us.

Even better, this future is not very far away. Already, new use cases of AR technology are disrupting the industries in most dire need of evolution, and as our mobile devices become smarter and work in harmony with increasingly sophisticated wearable devices, the power of augmented reality technology will truly reveal itself to the masses.

So, where are we today? Where are we going?

The advertising industry was a natural starting point for the value and possibility of augmented reality. From a Pepsi can to a cereal box to the promotional materials for the next big Hollywood blockbuster,

AR is already making packaging and products come alive and “talk” to consumers. Products themselves are beginning to answer the how, what, why, where. Image recognition technology coupled with artificial intelligence has begun to revitalize the marketing industry, providing just a small glimpse into the true potential of AR.

But advertising is just the beginning. Here are the four industries that AR will impact next.

Education

Education provides perhaps the most tangible example of the power of AR. Augmented Reality technology in the classrooms — from today’s tablet- and mobile device-based approach to tomorrow’s heads up displays — empower the sort of visual and contextual learning proven to improve information retention to the extent that an estimated 80 percent of visual content is retained by short-term memory compared to an estimated 25 percent for spoken content.

Our brains are image processors, not word processors.
Imagine a classroom where a teacher can push lessons directly to students through a mobile device, where a student can use a tablet to access a multi-dimensional rendering of a mountain to learn the phenomena of a volcano, one step at a time. For early childhood education, apps like Quiver Education bring a child’s drawing to life, allowing the child to not only engage with their own creations, but to also learn myriad topics.

And for high school students, apps like Anatomy 4D create 3D renderings of the human body to give students a hands-on anatomy lesson directly from a tablet. Our brains are image processors, not word processors, and AR technology has the potential to bring a lesson plan to life and create digital, visual representations of the staid texts on which we’ve come to rely.

Industrial

Let’s think beyond the classroom, and look to the industrial workforce. Design, construction, manufacturing, medicine — specialized careers require employees to visualize in 3D. The practical implications of allowing workers to use tablets and wearables on-site to see how a blueprint will come to life as a building or how a prosthetic arm can improve a patient’s life speak for themselves.

Take for example APX’s Skylight that offers a hands-free, AR-powered solution to empower workers across various fields to directly connect with each other and their environments to create a more efficient workforce. Companies like Daqri and WaveOptics are creating devices to enhance visual knowledge of the work environment while keeping both hands free.

The potential to solve the problem of knowledge transfer is quite literally at our fingertips.

Even in an office setting, Augmented Reality and image recognition technology will transform the way we transfer information. What if a holographic rendering could allow a new hire to see and learn the ins and outs of their new position, as opposed to spending tens of millions of dollars to train new employees? The potential to solve the problem of knowledge transfer, while being remarkably cost-efficient, is quite literally at our fingertips.

Retail

Every year, especially around the holidays, online and brick and mortar retailers record billions of dollars in merchandise returns. Oftentimes, those returned items cannot be resold — from being pre-worn to out of season. What if all shoppers had easy access to 3D renderings of their bodies powered by Augmented Reality to see the fit of an item, without needing to actually be in-store to try on?

It’s inevitable that being able to virtually try on 20 items in three minutes will increase sales and reduce return rates. Companies like Me-ality are already powering this shift. As the technology is streamlined and mainstreamed, we’ll see AR enabling real problem solving, amounting to higher profits and overall stronger margins for the retailer.

Food and Health

Apps like Vivino are enabling customers to use their mobile devices and AR to learn more about a bottle of wine directly from the label itself, and we’ll only see more powerful ways AR can impact our relationship with food in stores and in the kitchen. We’re just around the corner from the ability to use your device to scan a food item and immediately visually learn how the product was sourced, where it came from, best recipes and nutritional information.

Beyond that, soon we’ll see kitchen appliances outfitted with cameras to alert cooks when a food’s optimum nutrition point is reached during the cooking process (or when the chef may have accidentally overcooked a product!).

AR will be at the forefront of the next revolution in the way we connect with the world around us.
Ultimately, the present and future of AR quite literally means the ability to receive the right information at the right place directly from the objects we need to know more about. As devices get smarter — from cars to washing machines to microwaves — machine-based learning systems will have ambient omnipresence and will help humans get smarter and more aware of the world around us.

Deep learning systems as they stand today are a new phenomena, but as devices and technology evolve in parallel, we’ll see AR driving new behaviors and new learnings across the industries that impact our lives the most. We are teetering on the edge of a new way to interact with the world, and becoming more informed consumers than ever before.

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From www.techtimes.com - July 7, 2015 4:49 AM

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"Normally when we want to see things from our phones or our computers, we need a screen to look at. But this way, we could do away with a screen and just have the image projected directly into our glasses and into our eye," said John Nunn, a research scientist at the National Physical Laboratory in the U.K., in an interview with Motherboard.

There are a number of differences between this device and Google Glass, one of the main ones being that users don't need to look up to see images like they do with Glass. Instead, this device overlays transparent images over what the wearer is already seeing.

The device consists of a small display, a lens, glass plate and holographic glass splitters.

Once the device is put on, a hologram bends the red, green and blue parts of light by 90 degrees, causing the light to reflect inside the glass, traveling over the eye of the wearer. Another hologram then bends the light again so that it is visible to the human eye.

Of course, this technology could be eventually used for much more than entertainment or day-to-day use.

"Say you have people with problems with their eyesight who can see colours and shapes, but who can't see edges very clearly. You could incorporate a camera on top of their glasses that scans the area ahead, finds the sharp edges then projects them through the glasses with red lines, so that the user is aware of any obstacles ahead," continued Nunn.

Augmented reality itself is a concept that is still very much in its early stages. Devices like Google Glass have been released to the public, but only for limited amounts of time and at very high prices.

Virtual reality, by comparison, is moving along rather quickly, with a number of consumer devices on the market, and the highly anticipated Oculus Rift headset scheduled to be released next year. Most virtual reality devices, however, are currently geared toward gaming.

Augmented reality devices, however, could be used for a range of things, from navigating the streets with a maps application to getting a second opinion during surgery.

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From www.fastcocreate.com - July 6, 2015 6:32 AM

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In 2002, New York-based Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG) launched its Dance for Parkinson’s Disease program, based on the concept that the movement and training used by professional dancers to build balance, power and coordination could also help Parkinson’s sufferers.

Last year, seeing the potential of wearable technology, program director David Leventhal applied for and was awarded one of Google's five Explorer grants for non-profit organizations to develop applications for the Glass platform.

The group teamed up with ad agency ad SS+K to help design, develop, and launch Moving Through Glass, an augmented reality app created to provide 24/7 aid for people with Parkinson's that's now available to the public.

Kevin Skobac, SVP, digital strategy and innovation at SS+K says people living with Parkinson's were invited to review and test the project at various development stages, while researchers from New York Presbyterian/Weill-Cornell Medical Center, and Stanford University's Movement Disorders Center are advising on, and testing the app.

Parkinson’s Disease is a movement disorder affecting nerve cells and one of the most common symptoms is having difficulty initiating movement. The app features warm-up routines to get people get moving.

A walking guide uses video and music to set a pace, to help with the tremors and jerky movements common with Parkinson’s that can make walking difficult. Parkinson’s sufferers can also become "stuck" in the middle of a movement and have difficulty re-initiating movement, so the app provides standing routines that gradually get users out of a freeze and back to walking.

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From www.fastcompany.com - January 12, 2015 6:30 AM

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The U.S.-based chip-builder has shelled out $24.8 million in an attempt to position itself on the cutting edge of the wearables industry.

The cash injection was announced this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Vuzix is exhibiting new products, including a pair of video glasses designed to ship with the Nvidia Shield handheld gaming device.

In addition to stock in the company, Intel’s investment allows it to appoint two added members to the company’s board of five directors. According to Vuzix, the money will allow it to "accelerate the introduction of next generation fashion-based wearable display products into the consumer market."

Intel has been interested in wearables for a while. In addition to incorporating its processors into Google Glass, and partnering with Luxottica to build high-tech glasses, this 30% stake in Vuzix gives Intel an added foothold in the nascent—but very exciting—smart-glasses industry.

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From gigaom.com - January 12, 2015 4:57 AM

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It’s a futuristic version of augmented reality, one where your headset interacts with the real world as it changes around you and (supposedly) improves your productivity and well-being through information and companionship. Researchers are certainly working toward that goal. But, for today, we have the BT-200s.

They are are the subtlest, most polished AR option yet, but they still look straight out of a bad 1980s movie. If you think Google Glass makes people look like a dork, keep away from augmented reality.

The entire industry is in a sort of stepping-stone phase right now. It’s evident in every piece of the BT-200s’ design, from its handheld trackpad to its icon- and cursor-based menu. It feels very familiar, but at the expense of totally diving into the future of augmented reality.

Like most of the rest of the augmented reality industry, Epson is focused on the enterprise. The BT-200 was designed for people who need to call up information in the field; places where a laptop or tablet would be too cumbersome or fragile to take along.

The glasses feel relatively light and comfortable. Without any kind of fine tuning for my vision, I quickly felt my eyes grow strained each time I wore them.

No one can provide true augmented reality at the moment, which would be capable of placing virtual images anywhere in your field of view. Instead, Epson hovers a rectangular screen over your vision. From 10 feet away, it was almost exactly the same size as my 42-inch television.

Booting up the glasses brings you to a menu filled with icons. You drag your finger over the handheld trackpad to move a cursor, and a tap generates a click. The trackpad was responsive, and I didn’t have any problem scrolling and clicking. I actually preferred it to the less-than-mature hand tracking other augmented reality companies are using.

Current apps range from virtual reality games where you shoot robots to guides for putting together Legos. A big test in the augmented reality world right now is the lag in an image. If a virtual version of a clock I am fixing is plastered over the real clock, does it stay in place on top of the real clock when I quickly move my head? Epson’s glasses had a slight lag before the virtual image popped back into place.

Augmented reality is not ready for consumers yet. But for enterprise and industrial applications, the BT-200 is a solid choice. Its screen looks nice, it pulls up information in a timely manner and in your free time you have your pick of killer robot games.

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From www.heraldonline.com - December 3, 2014 8:44 AM

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Early reports with quality assurance employees using Google Glass at the BMW plant has officials identifying other opportunities for them in the manufacturing process.Quality assurance testers have participated in a pilot program using the eyewear when evaluating software in new and existing vehicle models.

“It has the ability to document with pictures and video,” said Jörg Schulte, a project coordinator and mechanical engineering expert at BMW Spartanburg.

The high-tech eyewear uses augmented reality technology to add navigation systems, videos, photos and other materials to what the tester sees. Retail cost for the glasses is in the $1,500 range.

Instead of filing reports by typing, BMW testers communicate findings through Glass’ voice-recognition system.

Another time saver, development engineers in another location previously read the written reports, sometimes containing vague descriptions of malfunctions or concerns. This led to lengthy back-and-forth discussions.

Google Glass eliminates that step by recording video of what the tester sees while completing the 10 to 25 inspections, which vary in amount depending on the make and model of the vehicle. Every two minutes, video capturing the field of vision seen by the quality assurance tester uploads to a temporary digital location. Video showing stubborn problems can transfer to BMW Group plant servers for engineers to review.

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From www.techrepublic.com - March 28, 2016 3:27 PM

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From www.fudzilla.com - January 24, 2016 2:44 PM

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“Google Glass is in the game only for real-time communication,” the report concludes. “Google Glass is a truly viable option only in real-time communication applications such as online sales support. Even there it faces competitors like Vuzix, which is the best fit in this segment -- light enough to be worn all day and meeting the need for live video streaming.”

We agree with the Lux Research report on a number of counts. Back in summer 2013, we were fortunate enough to be invited into Google’s Glass Explorer program, where we received a first-generation Glass unit with 1GB of RAM and running XE1 firmware. We tried out the device for the next couple months, working all the way up to the XE5 firmware, and couldn’t help but conclude that development progress for many critical features was taking way too long. Core functionality was also very “experimental” to say the least. In one example, sending a text message or tweet using voice recognition was risky because the API would not always predict correctly and there is no “backspace” button, thus requiring several voice attempts to finally send a correct message.

Before ending its Explorer Program in January 2015, the company ended its consumer development with XE22 firmware (released October 2014). Nearly twenty-two updates later, the latest release finally allowed Android users see their notifications on the Glass interface.

"As next-generation glasses such as Epson's Moverio BT-2000 and Meta Pro emerge, the field will become even more competitive, ending a period of high premiums for hardware. Software and service will become the primary way to maintain margins," said Tony Sun, Lux Research Analyst and lead author of the report titled, "Better Than Google Glass: Finding the Right Smart Glasses for Enterprise."
the inevitability of augmented reality slide

While most of the 70 smart glasses evaluated by Lux Research are still in pilot programs, many of them are expected to be deployed for the needs of factory workers, distribution centers, oil fields, field services, aerospace, construction, healthcare, and other industries. In fact, Garner estimates that smart glasses may begin to save the field service industry $1 billion per year in 2017.

During its CES 2016 keynote, Intel unveiled a pair of smart glasses that can help wearers see inside objects, for example. The X-ray like glasses were co-developed by virtual reality firm Daqri and aim to increase safety, productivity and well-being of workers in a variety of industrial settings.

"Smartglasses with augmented reality (AR) and head-mounted cameras can increase the efficiency of technicians, engineers and other workers in field service, maintenance, healthcare and manufacturing roles," said Angela McIntyre, research director at Gartner. "In the next three to five years, the industry that is likely to experience the greatest benefit from smartglasses is field service, potentially increasing profits by $1 billion annually. The greatest savings in field service will come from diagnosing and fixing problems more quickly and without needing to bring additional experts to remote sites."
Other examples of smart glasses for enterprise use include video collaboration with experts in remote locations for faster repairs. Gartner says employees at remote sites can communicate and share video with experienced workers to obtain advice on diagnosing and fixing local problems. In healthcare industries, the glasses can be used for telemedicine and expert consultations with doctors in remote areas for guidance on how to perform medical procedures.

Lux’s analysis concludes that ODG’s R-7 is the “best all-around device” because it is only one of few on the market that does not need a wired controller and meets industrial standards for hazardous environments. The report also concludes that Sony’s SmartEyeglass “stands out for customer service and quality control” because it is light, small and competitively priced. The device also comes in a close second place behind the Meta-1 for warehousing, assembly and installation work.

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From fortune.com - January 24, 2016 2:01 PM

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To deal with the likely influx of huge video files, Facebook has built its own streaming technology that it says will work quickly and without straining its data centers. The social network discussed some of that innovation at its video technology conference on Thursday, joined by prominent streaming services like Netflix NFLX -1.59% and YouTube.

Facebook executives spent a significant amount of time discussing 360 video, which lets viewers put themselves into the scene and gives them a view in any direction they choose. This 3-D view is considered to be an improvement over the two-dimensional video widely used today.

Three-D videos are closely related to virtual reality, albeit with slight differences, explained Jay Parikh in an interview with Fortune. Virtual reality is more immersive than 360 video in that people can interact with the content itself, he said. For example, in a virtual reality game like the upcoming Minecraft VR game, users can pick up objects and build towers in a virtual environment that seems to surround them.

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In anticipation of its users uploading 360 video to its servers, Facebook FB 4.01% has developed video processing and encoding techniques to help efficiently deliver the images. Because 360 video files are much bigger than for regular video, Facebook had to figure out a way to shrink them to reduce the load on its servers, said Facebook software engineer David Pio.

Part of the reason the files are so big is because of the way the 360 videos are formatted to accommodate the screens of computers and mobile devices. Think of 360 video as being a traditional rectangular image that is stretched and wrapped around an imaginary sphere, so that people can view it at different angles, Pio explained.

However, this creates some problems with how the video looks because some parts appear distorted as the image stretches to accommodate the sphere. Pio likened this to how land near the North and South Poles appears stretched on a globe and doesn’t accurately reflect its true size.

Additionally, stretching makes file sizes larger than they need to be. An excess of pixels end up having to be streamed.

To shave them off, Facebook instead decided to wrap the video around an imaginary square rather than a sphere. Essentially, each side of the square displays a portion of the 360 video and represents a different viewing perspective. Facebook’s video system then stitches the chunks back together and streams it without the distortion and excess imagery.

Facebook has worked on similar techniques to reduce the size of 360 videos when displayed through virtual reality devices like the Oculus. In this case, the 360 video files must be even bigger because the devices require files to be displayed at higher resolutions than traditional flat screens. This bulk results in file sizes that can lead to buffering, or long loading times, for people with slow Internet connections.

To solve this problem, Facebook developed a way to stream the 360 videos to VR devices that involves cutting the video into chunks. Only images in the viewer’s line of sight are streamed.

While gawking at a 360 video of the Eiffel Tower, for example, you’d want the monument to appear clearly while you may not care about how the buildings to the left look because they only appear in your peripheral vision. However, when you move your head, those buildings would appear sharper.

Facebook essentially cuts the video into 30 sections that represent different viewing perspectives of the scene. Additionally, each section has five different resolutions that Facebook’s servers can stream to viewers depending on their Internet connection.

In effect, Facebook’s system automatically streams the right viewing perspective of the video at its highest quality each time a person turns his or her head with the rest of the video streaming in chunks at lower qualities.

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From www.ft.com - January 24, 2016 1:34 PM

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According to his academic profile, Mr Bowman focused his research on “three-dimensional user interface design and the benefits of immersion in virtual environments”.

His experience spans both fully immersive VR, as used in Facebook’s Oculus Rift and HTC’s Vive headsets, as well as augmented reality, where transparent visors such as Microsoft’s Hololens, Google Glass and secretive start-up Magic Leap mingle digital images with the real world still visible.

Apple has filed patents for smartphone-based VR headsets and made several acquisitions that seem to point to a growing interest in the technology, including emotion-recognition software Emotient, which emerged earlier this month, as well as Metaio and Faceshift last year.
While no product has yet emerged from those deals, people in the industry say that Apple has shown growing interest in VR research over the past six months. Its latest hire is the strongest sign yet of the iPhone maker’s intent, which analysts speculate could range from building a headset of its own to new kinds of automotive controls and displays.

Apple declined to comment.
Mr Bowman is highly regarded by his peers in academia and has won several industry prizes for his work in VR and 3D interfaces in the last few years.

In November, he and a Virginia Tech colleague were also among the first recipients of a $100,000 research grant from Microsoft for using its Hololens headset, for a study on “collaborative analysis of large-scale mixed reality data”. He has also consulted for Walt Disney’s Imagineering unit, which develops its theme parks and resorts.
While relatively few headsets are in widespread use today, ahead of the launch of Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR and HTC Vive in the next few months, tech companies are already jostling for position in a market that Goldman Sachs predicts could be worth $80bn by 2025.
Unlike Google, Samsung and Oculus, who have been very public about their VR works-in-progress, Apple’s secrecy means it is unclear how far along any product development in this area might be.

Google recently appointed Clay Bavor, former head of its apps unit, as vice-president of virtual reality, as it steps up its investment in smartphone-based VR products such as Cardboard.

“We believe VR/AR has the potential to spawn a multibillion-dollar industry, and possibly be as game changing as the advent of the PC,” Goldman analysts wrote in a note to clients last week. If VR headsets saw “accelerated uptake”, sales of $110bn by 2025 would outstrip television sets, tablets and desktop PCs, Goldman added.

The analysts said that they did expect Apple to participate in the market, despite the lack of public initiatives from the company.
“As the use cases of VR/AR are still in very early stages of development, we suspect that Apple is trying to gain a greater understanding of how consumers want to interact with the technology and the associated challenges before making its first move,” Goldman said.

Ben Wood, analyst at CCS Insight, said it was “unthinkable” that Apple has not been “quietly exploring this area” given the “red hot” technology and its broad application, from entertainment to education and travel.

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From techcrunch.com - December 13, 2015 2:25 PM

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Seen from that perspective, it’s entirely unsurprisingly how multi-pronged a push Google is making to stoke the VR market right now. I’m bundling virtual reality and augmented reality together here, into one general ‘sight-disrupting’ package. Sure there are differences in immersion level between AR and VR but in general the two technologies are about injecting something digital into a user’s field of view. And Google plays in both areas, skewing more towards the AR side right now.

Firstly there’s Google’s unloved face wearable, Glass. Publicly confirmed in April 2012, and made available to developers the following year. It’s stalled as a product right now but is still apparently under development. A patent emerged recently showing a glasses-less version of Glass, still with a tiny screen positioned above the wearer’s left eye (as my TC colleague Romain Dillet pointed out, this version of Glass resembles a monocle.)

Whatever the next incarnation of Glass, it looks pretty clear there will be one. And that’s rather surprising given how little general consumer interest Google managed to drive for the first wave of Glass. Indeed, it managed to inspire the polar opposite sentiment among non-nerds — generating a pejorative descriptor (‘Glassholes’) to describe wearers of the gizmo. Not a great start then.

Next, at a cheaper price-point, and generally designed as more of a crowd-pleaser, there’s Google Cardboard. Announced in June 2014, this is Google’s budget VR headset. It’s literally made from cardboard and a couple of lenses — just pop in your smartphone, fire up the Google cardboard app and experience a degree of immersion within various digital arenas, including Google’s StreetView virtual world tour and 360 degree YouTube videos.

Google has also worked with GoPro on a VR rig to encourage the capture of 360 degree content exclusively for “high profile YouTube celebrities” who maintain a large number of followers.

Cardboard is a low risk bet for Google to try to drum up mass market interest in VR, and an equal and opposite push to try to get more people making content for VR by building a market for such content. Content, like cardboard, is cheap yet critical if VR is to become anything close to mainstream.

And then there’s Google’s moonshot bet in the category: Magic Leap. Google is an investor in the AR company that has yet to release any products but continues to attract vast amounts of VC funding. Just this week it emerged Magic Leap is raising an $827 million Series C funding round — which brings the total raised since it was founded back in 2010 to around $1.4 billion. Sure it’s not Uber levels of funding. But for a company not yet really explaining its product — let alone selling anything — it’s pretty stand out.

Mountain View is one of multiple investors here, but Google’s Sundar Pichai also sits on the Magic Leap board. And Google led a $542 million investment round in the company last year. So it’s actively spearheading the funding drive. Discussing Magic Leap this March, Pichai said Google sees broad use-cases for the augmented reality tech, stressing it sees much wider applications than mere gaming. The tech itself remains under wraps but will reportedly rely on some kind of lightweight wearable, and — unlike Glass or Cardboard — won’t involve looking through or at a screen.

The founder of Magic Leap, Rony Abovitz, has talked about a “dynamic digital light field signal” which apparently tricks your brain into thinking whatever digital object it’s seeing is actually embedded into — not pasted onto — the real world. He’s also talked about Magic Leap turning the world into “your new desktop” or “your new silver screen”. And creating a kind of “cinematic reality“.

The latter’s motivation to invest in VR is clear. Web advertising is embroiled in a tricky transition to mobile devices where ads on small screens are always an unwelcome irritant for device users. Add to that, more of people’s attention is being siloed into apps anyway, rather than directed at general web browsing. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, the specter of ad blocking is rearing its head on mobile too. Google is staring at a seismic shift in digital consumption that threatens to undermine its core business model.

As connected mobile devices continue pulling people’s attention away from the search-driven web, Google really needs a way to bring a wider web back into the frame — and an ability to insert artificial content into a real-world view is a tantalizing prospect for the company. One which envisages an opening up of the digital display canvas again, with space for marketing messages to stretch their legs again. Hence Google betting on VR from all angles: big (Magic Leap), budget (Cardboard) and business-oriented (Glass).

From a consumer point of view, if you thought virtual reality was going to be all flying whales, adorable robots and slayable zombies magically manifesting in your living room, think again. The big entity driving developments here is a company whose overriding interest is finding new ways to insert adverts into your field of view. So Magic Leap’s greatest trick might actually turn out to be an ability to camouflage advertising as something that engages the eye for long enough to disgorge a marketing message. At least that’s what Google will be hoping.

But if consumers hate adverts interrupting their web browsing or mobile usage, it seems unlikely they’re going to be delighted by ads jumping directly into their eyeballs. Web users reserve a special kind of hatred for pop-ups. So even 3D lifelike pop-ups aren’t about to get a pass. Especially as the VR user will undoubtedly be hoping to see something a lot more entertaining than an artificial polar bear that pops open a Coca Cola. Or a virtual clown pointing across the street at an actual McDonalds.

All three of Google’s ‘disruptive’ VR bets will only be as effective as the length of time they remain wrapped around wearers’ eyeballs. So if advertisers have their wicked way with this tech, any ‘honeymoon period’ for the kind of hyper immersive augmented reality Magic Leap is apparently cooking up could turn out to be very brief indeed.

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From thearea.org - November 23, 2015 4:15 AM

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According to a Gartner Group report shared at the Enterprise Wearable Technology Summit (EWTS), sales of head-mounted displays will be greater in enterprise than consumers until at least 2020.

Unfortunately, the interest in enterprise wearable computing is not currently being addressed by consumer technology providers.

Connecting Those with Questions to Those with Experience

What are current enterprise customer requirements? What have enterprise wearable pioneers learned? What are enterprise customers’ best options today?

These were among the questions that the EWTS organizer, BrainXchange, set out to answer.

BrainXchange chose Houston for its inaugural event on October 20-21, 2015. The city is a business center for the oil and gas industry and is reachable from an international airport as well as from both coasts of the US.

Over 150 delegates from at least six countries gathered to hear from 60 speakers, including many veterans of the Google Glass Explorer program and vendors looking for new customers. The format offered plenty of networking in a convivial and relaxed atmosphere.

Criteria for Enterprise Wearable Success

There is wide agreement with the simple guidance that Joe White, VP and GM Enterprise Mobile Computing at Zebra Technologies offered during his opening remarks. White recommends that enterprises focus on systems that are:

- Technically sound

- Socially acceptable
- Solve a problem

These criteria sound simple, but adhering to them requires careful research and planning. Many delegates at the summit who are shopping for wearable technologies don’t feel that the current commercial technology options are sufficiently mature for most of their use cases. One person confided that everything his team has evaluated to date “feels like a science project.”

Weight, balance and resolution remain significant technical obstacles but short battery life as a result of high power consumption continues to be high on the list of technology barriers.

One test of wearable display technology reliability is how well it performs in a live demo on stage. There were more videos than live demos, but Rafael Grossman, a highly promoted surgeon in the Google Glass Explorer program successfully demonstrated Atheer Labs’ AiR platform for the audience.

Another criteria added to White’s list over the course of the first day was cost. If devices are expensive to purchase and to operate or maintain, adoption and use will remain limited.

Regardless of the criteria and how firmly an organization wants to adhere to them, customers remain divided about what’s truly going to solve their problems. Some feel that their use cases require true Augmented Reality in enterprise. Others are, at least for the present, finding the “simple” delivery of live information or images to a wearable display (as currently done by Google Glass or Vuzix M-100) sufficient. In the opinion of those who use information “snacking” devices, real time registration and tracking of data in the real world are still expensive and technically difficult.

Connecting Remote Experts with those in the Field

Real time consultation between a remote expert and a person wearing a camera and display while performing difficult tasks is a highly compelling use case for most of the EWTS speakers. Although a few speakers mentioned their experience with AR-assisted remote assistance, the majority shared numerous and immediate benefits of having another “set of eyes” focused on a particular procedure.

For example, emergency medical technicians working on MedEx ambulances as part of the Google Glass Explorer program can transmit more information about injuries or patient conditions to emergency room staff ahead of their arrival at the hospital.

In another case study, a tradesperson working on a Rogers-O’Brien Construction job site can see and transmit the details of the job site and get guidance or feedback from an architect or supervisor in real time.

Some Industries Are Further Along

While the medical and construction industries were highly represented among the Enterprise Wearable Technology Summit speakers in Houston, some case studies and presentations highlighted the promise of wearable technology in the logistics industry. DHL and Ubimax described how they are working together to put their warehouse picking solution into production and conducting research on their next generation systems for pallet packing.

Energy production and distribution were also frequently mentioned. John Simmins of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), an AREA member, spoke of projects underway in some power generating facilities. Speakers from CenterPoint Energy and Sullivan Solar Power also attested they are actively exploring the use of wearables in their businesses.

Many Challenges Remain

An entire event could focus exclusively on expected and promised technology improvements. For example, uneven network coverage and issues preventing secure access to off-device content came up frequently. But, EWTS did not limit its scope to technology barriers.

Getting wearables into production requires companies in highly regulated industries such as healthcare and construction to educate decision makers and executives and to negotiate creation of many new policies. Those are both very lengthy and costly processes.

Complex regulatory environments are but one item in the list of business challenges.

Lack of trust is another significant obstacle to adoption. Large enterprises are looking for vendors that are on the one hand nimble and responsive to special requirements while on the other endowed with the financial resources to quickly ramp up production for large orders.

Despite these and other challenges, wearables continue to hold enormous promise and will increasingly demand the attention of enterprise technology buyers and users. We can expect these to be on the agenda at future BrainXchange summits. The company announced that it will produce its next event in June 2016 on the East Coast, although details were not provided.

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From thearea.org - November 6, 2015 5:40 AM

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A Rapidly Changing Provider Landscape

In early 2015, Metaio’s ecosystem ranged from dedicated individuals producing one or two experiences, to Fortune 100 companies. Some were researchers designing prototypes; others were automotive industry giants like BMW and Audi who used Metaio’s robust tracking algorithms for precision engineering and design.

Then, in mid-May 2015, a message appeared on Metaio’s website saying that it would stop selling licenses immediately, and that support for its Augmented Reality services and software technologies would end on December 15 of the same year. The mysterious announcement took the company’s global developer ecosystem by surprise.

Many, if not most, of those developers’ authoring experiences for enterprise and industrial projects were using Metaio’s software tools. Metaio’s change in direction put developers in an uncomfortable position. Many were furious. Others expressed frustration. To this day there remain many questions about the circumstances that led to the announcement. Regardless of the changes to a company that the developer ecosystem had grown to trust, serious business issues remain:

What will happen to the channels published in a platform operated by Metaio?What will developers use in the place of Metaio’s tools?

Many developers are now doing what more could have done consistently over the previous years: investing their resources to evaluate other potential tools and technologies. The best developers will resume proposing projects to their customers once they have thoroughly tested the alternatives.

Gaps for Enterprise Augmented Reality

While there are alternate enterprise Augmented Reality technology providers with solutions and services worthy of evaluation (see table below), none offer the breadth and maturity, the professional documentation and support that Metaio provided for its SDK, Creator, Suite, Cloud and Continuous Visual Search matching system.

Enterprise AR authoring providers and products
Source: © 2014 – 2015CompanyPlatformDAQRI4D Studio and AR ToolkitWikitudeWikitude SDKInglobe TechnologiesAR Media (and other)BuildARBuildARCatchoomCatchAR (and other)NGRAINVergence (and other)DiotaDiotaPlayer, DiotaConnectEON RealityEON Studio (and other)BitstarsHolobuilderFraunhofer IGDInstant RealityKudanKudan SDK

Metaio’s dominance wasn’t limited to breadth of offering and AR developer mind share. Among its peers, it probably also generated the greatest revenue from licensing its software tools and providing services. To deliver value to customers and drive development of its technology suite, Metaio employed over 75 of the world’s most qualified and experienced enterprise AR engineers.Table 1. Enterprise AR authoring providers and their products

Those that can have been furiously hiring engineers to write code and build out their teams and offerings but breadth and depth like what Metaio offered doesn’t happen in a matter of months.

Vuforia’s Focus on Consumer Use Cases

No one knows precisely how much of the Metaio developer ecosystem overlapped that of Qualcomm Vuforia, but anecdotal evidence suggests that developers who had use for both, leveraged their qualities for entirely different projects.

Vuforia is strongly optimized for delivery to consumers on smartphones: entertainment, cultural heritage, education and marketing use cases. For this reason, developers who explored its use for their enterprise or industrial projects did not place Vuforia’s current offerings at the top of their list of preferred enterprise-ready AR tools.

In an October 12 press release, PTC, a global provider of enterprise platforms and solutions for creating, operating, and servicing connected objects, announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire the Vuforia technology, and its developer ecosystem, from Qualcomm Connected Experiences, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated.

The acquisition of Vuforia by PTC suggests that while Metaio technology is probably being integrated into a platform and tools for consumer-facing solutions, the tools most popular for consumer-facing AR experiences (i.e., the Vuforia SDK) will evolve to better meet the needs of developers seeking to address enterprise use cases.

The Landscape Continues to Evolve

The reversal of relative positions of the two popular Augmented Reality SDKs with respect to their target markets and one another is one of several trends.

First, the list of developer options is expanding. Firms that were previously quiet have the opportunity to engage with developers who are more interested in learning of their offers. Google is getting closer to its Glass at Work 2.0 release. Microsoft is showing HoloLens and the tools it has designed for authoring (aka “Holo Lens Studio”) to more developers.

Some firms with significant experience and investments in enterprise Augmented Reality are becoming more attractive, or at least more visible. For example, Diotasoft, a French technology provider with loyal enterprise customers including Renault, PSA Peugot Citroen, Total and Dassault Aviation announced a rebranding (the company is now called “Diota”) and launched a new platform for enterprise Augmented Reality.

Another trend is a shift in positioning. PTC and Vuforia’s statements in their October 12 press release emphasize where they see the greatest potential for impact. They draw a line between Augmented Reality and the need for people to visualize data stored in and managed by PTC’s Internet of Things-oriented systems. This echoes the suggestion made by Gerry Kim, professor at Korea University, in a meeting of the AR Community on October 6: Augmented Reality is the human interface for IoT.

As the number of options increases, so does the potential cost of integration. In a highly fragmented market one large enterprise could easily end up with solutions addressing different use cases based on multiple different and incompatible SDKs.

An Opportunity to Mandate Open Solutions

A unique opportunity lies in the middle of the increasing fragmentation and investment in new technology providers.

What if, instead of accepting the status quo of many competing and incompatible AR platforms, large enterprise customers and their developers were to clearly demonstrate their need for open systems?

Developers can seize the next few weeks and months to prepare a campaign describing new or existing systems with which they would prefer to create and manage enterprise content. They can document the barriers to interoperability and mount pressure on enabling technology providers. What if, prior to a purchase or licensing decision, the provider of an AR authoring platform were required to demonstrate interoperability with content generated from Metaio’s SDK?

Openness does not mean Open Source. Openness is a condition that is based on explicit or implied agreements between vendors. Providers of technologies must agree upon common data formats, and provide interfaces and APIs that are well documented and designed for interoperability with solutions of potential competitors.

Without issuing a clear mandate for AR technology providers to support a greater level of integration and interoperability with enterprise IT systems, developers should not be surprised if their options remain highly rigid and difficult to integrate. Unless some forward thinking people don’t take action, developers and their large enterprise customers must be prepared to face many more years investing in brittle transcoding systems or other approaches to “work around” the lack of openness and interoperability.

How are you going to respond to this rapidly shifting AR technology provider landscape? Are you taking this opportunity to share your requirements with new vendors?

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From www.hi-techitaly.com - July 8, 2015 4:13 AM

Mirko Compagno's insight:

I nuovi Google Glass sono quindi in lavorazione presso un team dedicato nei laboratori Google X, guidato da Tony Fadell. E in attesa di conferme ufficiali, alcune interessanti indiscrezioni sembrano confermare dettagli sul futuro del progetto che avrebbe preso una strada diversa.

Le indiscrezioni arrivano da un documento che mostrerebbe un prodotto misterioso, identificato con il codice FCC ID A4R-GG1, presentato da Google alla Federal Communications Commission, che identificherebbe proprio il prossimo modello di Google Glass.

Tra le caratteristiche citate il supporto alle reti Wi-fi, Bluetooth Le, presa USB, batteria ricaricabile e supporto allo streaming video.

In tal senso, la Enterprise Edition dei Google Glass, potrebbe riferirsi ad un modello degli occhiali destinato al mercato aziendale, confermando quindi le voci che vedrebbero Google impegnata a realizzare un prodotto non più pensato per il mercato di massa, ma esclusivamente per aziende e professionisti.

Non è una possibilità remota se si considera che i risultati migliori ottenuti dai Google Glass nel corso del programma Explorer sono arrivati proprio dall'adozione nel settore medico, ad esempio durante operazioni chirurgiche e non solo.

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From www.webnews.it - July 7, 2015 4:43 AM

Mirko Compagno's insight:

Dopo una lunga e intensa fase di test che ha coinvolto migliaia di sviluppatori con il programma Explorer, gli occhiali di bigG - google glass - per la realtà aumentata potrebbero finalmente essere più vicini al mercato.

Un’ipotesi formulata anche il mese scorso, quando Google ha pubblicato un annuncio di lavoro alla ricerca di un Advanced Technology Manufacturing Engineer che possa occuparsi della fase FATP (Final Assembly, Test and Pack). In altre parole, un ingegnere in grado di fornire il proprio contributo per quanto riguarda assemblaggio, test e confezionamento di un prodotto al momento non meglio specificato.

La nuova edizione degli occhiali, oltre ad offrire funzionalità AR, potrebbe essere in qualche modo ispirata alla tecnologia inclusa da Microsoft in HoloLens, visore che proietta ologrammi interattivi nel campo visivo dell’utente.

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From www.webnews.it - January 26, 2015 7:14 AM

Mirko Compagno's insight:

Si tratta quasi certamente di un dispositivo indossabile dedicato alle tecnologie di realtà virtuale e di realtà aumentata. Dalle immagini allegate di seguito si intravedono delle lenti che, una volta posizionate di fronte agli occhi, permettono di immergersi in un mondo alternativo, che alle immagini dell’ambiente circostante ne sovrappone altre 3D calcolate in tempo reale, tenendo conto di ciò che l’utente osserva per visualizzarle con la giusta profondità. e prospettiva.

Ad esempio, si vede una sorta di mostro prendere vita tra gli scaffali di un negozio o ancora una serie di schermate scorrere di fronte ad una persona comodamente seduta sul divano, che vi interagisce con intuitivi movimenti delle mani.

Per descrivere Magic Leap in modo pratico, si potrebbe paragonarlo ad una sorta di incrocio tra Google Glass, il visore Oculus Rift e il sistema ARI (Added Reality Interface) ben noto a chi ha avuto modo di provare il videogame Heavy Rain, una tecnologia che consente al detective del gioco di analizzare gli indizi di un crimine ricreando intorno a sé un ambiente completamente virtuale a 360 gradi, passando da un informazione all’altra con l’ausilio di uno speciale guanto.

Curiosamente, nei brevetti depositati si fa riferimento proprio ad un “tactile glove” (“guanto tattile”), che una volta indossato dovrebbe permettere l’interazione con i menu e con le immagini visualizzate. Trattandosi al momento di ipotesi, non è dato a sapere se e quando il progetto arriverà a concretizzarsi sotto forma di un vero e proprio dispositivo destinato al mercato. Le premesse sono comunque decisamente interessanti e potenzialmente rivoluzionarie. Di seguito l’unica dichiarazione ufficiale rilasciata dal team e un breve filmato dimostrativo.

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From www.forbes.com - January 12, 2015 5:09 AM

Mirko Compagno's insight:

For less than $1,000, ODG plans on releasing a more consumer-friendly version of its glasses in 2015. The glasses can do everything its military-grade specs can do—display high-definition video, record video, lay visuals over the real world—but will be 30 percent smaller and 20 percent lighter, and they’ll look a little less awkward. The most recent version of ODG’s smart glasses, released last year, are bulkier and more rugged to fit with military equipment specification, and cost around $5,000 a piece.

ODG’s augmented reality glasses come packed with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor; Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a global navigation satellite system; and sensors for figuring out where you’re looking. The operating system ODG uses is a modified version of Android to make sure, for example, an Android update button doesn’t pop up while you’re driving down a freeway with the glasses on. Battery life is variable depending on how they’re being used but can range from an hour or two to nearly all day on a single charge.

The glasses can do pretty much anything a tablet can do. Watching a movie on the glasses is something akin to watching a high-def movie on a 65-inch TV from across the room. The glasses also track your head movement, so you can be placed into a 3D picture or video feed like you would with a pair of virtual reality goggles. When I tried out a pair of ODG’s glasses in its South of Market office, the virtual reality felt less disorienting than the Oculus Rift, which detached me too much from my surroundings–you can still see your surroundings on ODG’s glasses.

ODG thinks its glasses fall somewhere in between Google Glass and Oculus’ virtual reality headset. Said ODG vice president Nima Shams: “You can’t watch a movie or browse the Internet on Google Glass. Even developing for it, it’s not standard Android, you have to do pages methodology. And on the other end of the spectrum is Oculus. It’s immersive, you get lost, but you’re not able to see through and it’s not mobile. You need a hefty PC. ODG falls in the middle.”

ODG will be releasing its own developer kit for third-party players to start building applications for the glasses. Although ODG is expecting a developer community interested in augmented reality to start building software for it, ODG already has some experience in that area. One of its first apps was a piece of facial recognition software for military forces to scan a crowd and get alerts if there’s anyone they might interested in.

In the industrial and military space, the biggest competitor to ODG’s glasses so far has been Epson Moverio smart glasses. Epson’s glasses are designed for industrial usage and are certainly bulky enough to keep them from being used by most consumers–though the Japanese company claims it’s been getting some traction with everyday consumers.

Although the market for gadgets for your eyes is still clearly early, ODG thinks there’ll be plenty of opportunity with consumers that it will far exceed its current military contract business.

“The adoption of technology is faster in the consumer world,” said ODG executive vice president Pete Jameson. “When I sell a tool to an enterprise, it has to have a proven return on investment. The adoption is longer. With consumers, it’s about if this is cool. Investment decisions take 30 seconds.”

Gadgets for your eyes for both augmented reality and virtual reality have been getting a lot of attention the past year. Google Glass and the Oculus Rift have been on the forefront of all of this. Google Glass garnered plenty of attention, but as a consumer item, it’s fallen flat as worries about privacy and surreptitious surveillance prevailed. Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion on the pretense that virtual reality is the next big platform after mobile. Then there’s the stealth startup Magic Leap, which received $542 million from Google and Qualcomm, and looks like it includes some sort of headworn device for augmented reality.

Still, it’s hard to imagine people casually wearing these computers attached to your head around in the world. Google Glass and other augmented reality glasses seem more destined for enterprise at this point. Big companies like Boeing have already begun adopting this technology for their workforce. There’s plenty of ways this technology could used for building or fixing complex machinery. Manuals can be pulled up in front of your eyes without you having to look away and use your hands. ODG has started selling its glasses into these kinds of industrial settings recently.

“Today, we’re very focused, and have been focused, on government applications and are now expanding into enterprise and industry,” said Jameson. “This is a tool that helps change workflows and keep people safe.”

Since its founding in 1999, ODG hasn’t been a very public-facing company. ODG is primarily a technology incubation company that has managed to get by with no external funding. Up to this point, the company has relied almost entirely on military contracts, building everything from augmented reality glasses to high-tech scuba gear—the kind of gadgetry you might find in a James Bond flick.

And Microsoft paid up to $150 million for some of ODG’s wearable computing patents, TechCrunch reported earlier this year. Its eponymous founder, Ralph Osterhout, has founded 14 other companies and has even built equipment that’s appeared in at least two James Bond films.

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From www.ansa.it - January 7, 2015 11:25 AM

Mirko Compagno's insight:

Sul fronte degli smartwatch molte proposte sono già state lanciate sul mercato - Il Gear S di Samsung, lo ZenWatch di Asus, il Moto 360 di Motorola, il G Watch R di Lg, lo Smartwatch 3 di Sony e il Pebble - ma per alcuni analisti a far da volano al settore potrebbe essere il debutto nei primi mesi del 2015 dell'Apple Watch, un po' come accaduto agli smartphone e ai tablet con l'avvento di iPhone e iPad.

Proprio l'iPad potrebbe riservare una sorpresa: da mesi ormai si vocifera di un modello Pro, più grande, con schermo da 12,2 pollici, che potrebbe arrivare sugli scaffali entro il prossimo giugno. Sempre sul fronte dei tablet il 2015 sarà l'anno della rinascita del marchio Nokia, che farà debuttare l'N1 in Cina a febbraio e, secondo indiscrezioni, lancerà lo smartphone C1 nel primo trimestre.

E a rilanciarsi sarà anche l'ex colosso della fotografia Kodak, che presenterà uno smartphone al Ces. A Las Vegas potrebbe arrivare anche il Samsung Galaxy S6, nome in codice 'Project Zero' per sottolineare la discontinuità con i predecessori, che sarà diretto rivale dell'iPhone 6. Da Samsung, come da LG, sono poi attesi nella seconda metà dell'anno gli smartphone con diplay curvo e flessibile.

Sul fronte della realtà virtuale il 2015 segnerà il debutto dell'Oculus Rift, il visore per la realtà virtuale di Facebook che fornirà un'esperienza 3D e immersiva così come il 'Progetto Morpheus' di Sony, altro caschetto dedicato ai videogiochi per la PlayStation 4. In questo quadro si inseriscono anche il Samsung Gear VR, che si abbina agli ultimi phablet dell'azienda sudcoreana, e Cardboard, il visore low cost di Google, fatto di cartone, che funziona con app ad hoc inserendo dentro lo smartphone e di cui sono già stati venduti 500mila esemplari.

La scommessa di Big G sono però i Google Glass, gli occhialini hi-tech che dovrebbero finalmente approdare nei negozi insieme ad alcuni prodotti rivali tra cui 'SmartEyeglass Attach!', il sistema di Sony che si monta su un qualsiasi paio di occhiali e che sarà in scena al Ces.

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