Moving outside the traditional cave, Kent State University’s Design Innovation (DI) department created the Blank_Lab, a makerspace which functions as a ‘black box’ environment for investigating collaborative experiences that bridge the scope of immersive technologies, including augmented, virtual and extended reality tools.

“It’s a makerspace with a range of AR, VR and XR technologies,” said J.R. Campbell, executive director, Design Innovation Initiative for Kent State University. “Rather than creating a dedicated cave or a static projection environment, we created a larger one with a hung grid ceiling to allow for a hung curtain wall and support reconfiguring of supporting cameras, projectors and other components. We integrated screen mounts that support 360-degree projection and a 15-channel audio system to support the ability to experiment with 3D spatial audio.”

The space is designed to be re-configurable to support both the development and demonstration of projects utilizing these technologies. In all cases, the aspiration is to support group experiences of up to 15 people, regardless of whether users are engaging with AR/VR headsets and/or experimenting with projections to create ‘cave-like’ experiences. The Blank_Lab’s main space has a hung grid ceiling allowing for a hung curtain wall and to support reconfiguration of supporting cameras, projectors, etc. The curtain wall allows for wiring, speakers, and other supporting technologies to be strung behind the wall without visibility to visitors.

Warping and Blending

Scalable Display Technologies software was chosen for the Blank_Lab to automatically warp and blend multiple projectors across the 360-degree projection to create a seamless display. Founded in 2004, Scalable is the original inventor and patent holder of camera-based automatic warp and blend technology.

“Scalable Display Technologies answered a unique challenge for the Blank_Lab,” Campbell noted. “The other vendors we were considering had completely fixed packages with controlled projectors and software. We are not a single-use case scenario. We required a solution that would flexibly support our maker environment. We wanted the ability to change components as needed. We purchased ten prosumer-level projectors and we needed a software solution that would allow us to effectively create a seamless image around a 360-degree environment.”

Campbell added, “Scalable has allowed us to easily showcase anything in a browser window or desktop without worrying about specific software to drive the system. Our goal is to have a solution that’s easy to use, meanwhile eliminating any barriers to entry for students, faculty, or staff. We’ve confidently accomplished our goal with Scalable’s software.”

Scalable provides industry-leading applications with a simple-to-use, cost-effective solution for warping and blending high-resolution displays on screens with unlimited geometry and size capabilities. With Scalable’s software, there are no limits to the display size or resolution, and images can be created using software tools.

[Scalable Display Technologies Brings American History to Life in Philadelphia]

Cross Discipline

The Blank_Lab, which opened its doors in 2021, has hosted a collection of projects, including three unique variations from the College of Architecture and Environmental Design, the School of Art and the Department of Computer Science.

“Students from the College of Architecture and Environmental Design have utilized the Blank_Lab to design conceptual communities and environments,” said Campbell. “The design was rendered in video format to create a visual flyover of the communities and environments. Additionally, the School of Art has utilized the Blank_Lab to conceptualize sculptures from AI environments to physical sculptures.”

Campbell added, “The Department of Computer Science is working on a compelling project, too. They’re collaborating with researchers in Holland to develop a digital nature experience for elderly individuals in care environments. They’re researching the impact of these environments on individuals’ health and well-being. The individuals are uncomfortable with a headset-based experience, so we’ve used the Blank_Lab to create an immersive projector-based experience.”

The Blank_Lab has a definite wow factor. “Everyone has been excited about the outcome. It’s not easy to get an opportunity to experiment with this technology,” said Campbell. “Part of it is the excitement of seeing it, and being plug-and-play without any technical experience required. We’re elated with the final result.”

The globally standardized video-over-IP technology, NDI, announced that its SDK plugin is now compatible with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) and is available for download now.

“As soon as Unreal Engine 5 was released by Epic, we were receiving requests for an NDI SDK plugin so more creatives can unite the powers of UE5, and NDI, to achieve more with video. NDI has a great relationship with Epic, and we’ve worked together for over 5 years to bring our joint users more value and are immensely excited to see how they harness the potential of our technologies together, to advance virtual storytelling,” said Tarif Sayed, President, and GM of NDI.

[ KILOVIEW Launches the NDI Recorder: Facts, Features, and What to Know ]

The NDI SDK enables systems like UE5 to find, send and receive video streams over IP, with an encoding algorithm independent of resolution and frame rate supporting up to 4K and beyond, along with 16 channels of floating-point audio. It also includes tools to implement video access and grouping, bi-directional metadata, IP commands, tally and more.

With the improved integration of NDI into Unreal, creators unlock full IP support for both inputs and outputs of audio and video – even with an alpha channel. The SDK allows creators to build commercial or free AR and VR without any royalties so both large, and small teams can push the boundaries of what is possible in creating visual content and experiences. Now, they can also leverage NDI’s revolutionary potential for sharing video-over-IP in the highest quality, with the lowest latency.

“We’re excited with the potential for creators to use the new SDK plugin for UE5 to make incredible real-time 3D content,” added Bernt Johannessen, Unreal Engine business director for Broadcast at Epic Games. 

“With NDI, teams have access to multiple live video sources and Unreal Engine tools all on a standard network, removing obstacles and lowering complexity of live content creation without compromising quality. Unreal Engine is the world’s most open and advanced 3D creation tool on the market, and together with the world’s most used and adopted video-over-IP technology, we’re removing obstacles and giving storytellers more freedom to create amazing content.”

For more information, and to download the NDI SDK plugin for Unreal Engine 5, visit: https://ndi.tv/sdk/  

There is a lot of hype around 3D, VR & AR, the Metaverse and how all of this will transpire into our daily lives. HYPERVSN is at the forefront of this technical innovation. The company is launching a new generation platform called HYPERVSN SmartV. 

The new HYPERVSN SmartV solutions feature significant advancements, including the ability to connect the HYPERVSN SmartV solutions via an on-board HDMI connection. This development allows HYPERVSN SmartV to connect with the wider ecosystem of products involved in the Pro-AV and digital signage markets.

The inclusion of the HDMI means that HYPERVSN SmartV can now be used to display both 2D and 3D content. Thanks to that, HYPERVSN SmartV can now be considered a genuine alternative to standard video wall or LED solutions.

A new larger, but lighter 3000 nit HYPERVSN SmartV high bright model is launching, alongside an ultra-fine pixel pitch (0.65mm) medium sized display. These new solutions will successfully complement HYPERVSN’s current range, whilst addressing a wider scope of customer needs.

The HYPERVSN SmartV Platform also opens the possibility of interactive holographic content, as the SmartV platform is built on Android, which enables customers to develop custom widgets for their brand—this means SmartV can be connected to camera, voice and tablet controls. Other external triggers, such as motion sensors or Internet data sources can be used to trigger the HYPERVSN SmartV display, providing the user with a completely interactive experience.

[ HYPERVSN – AN INTEGRATED 3D HOLOGRAPHIC SYSTEM ]

To support the new SmartV solutions, HYPERVSN are releasing a wide range of accessories. These include Perspex protection options, alongside a range of wall mounts and mobile stands. The HYPERVSN SmartV Wall now comes standard with a perfectly spaced frame, which allows for easy installation and maintenance.

Kiryl Chykeyuk, HYPERVSN Co-founder said “We’ve spent the last three years completely redesigning the previous generation of HYPERVSN technology. We have developed proprietary accessories to enable new, exciting interactive features and various installation options. HYPERVSN SmartV technology is available to order now via HYPERVSN and our Authorized Partners across the globe.”

Another key aspect of the HYPERVSN SmartV devices is their incredible power efficiency. HYPERVSN SmartV is a more sustainable, greener product when compared to most other LED-based displays. Less pixels are used to create the same high-resolution imaging, with the new HYPERVSN SmartV M devices having a power consumption rate below 50 watts on average. That’s half the consumption of most regular LED displays! HYPERVSN is committed to sustainability, making HYPERVSN SmartV solutions the displays of the future.

Discovery Education, the innovative edtech company that introduced the first digital service delivering educational content directly to classrooms twenty years ago, is opening a new chapter in its history by launching a cutting-edge iPad app that puts Augmented Reality (AR) at the fingertips of learners and educators worldwide.

AR technology has the potential to expand educators' ability to create immersive, interactive learning experiences that unlock students' natural curiosity. By superimposing virtual images and data on a user's view of the real world, AR supports visualization of complex topics, creates digital "hands-on" learning opportunities, and heightens student engagement with digital content, all while improving students' ability to retain knowledge longer by being a participant in the learning experience. To help educators leverage the power of AR wherever learning takes place, Discovery Education has made the Sandbox AR iPad app available now in the Apple App Store. 

[Moving to The Next Generation of Higher-Education Technology]

Discovery Education's Sandbox AR app empowers students and teachers to create, share, and even inhabit virtual environments. Within Sandbox AR, users can create virtual worlds and populate them with some of the hundreds of unique objects from history, the built world, science and nature, and more. Sandbox AR also gives students new ways to express themselves and demonstrate their learning through a feature that lets learners take photos or record a video walkthrough with their own voice over. Sandbox AR even offers a mode that allows users to scale up and inhabit their own life size virtual environments.

For those new to AR, Sandbox AR includes many pre-built sandboxes exploring diverse subjects such as ancient Egypt, space exploration, Mayan civilization, road construction, and more, with additional sandboxes coming soon. Discovery Education is also making available several free, pre-built lessons educators can use with the app to familiarize themselves with integrating AR into classroom instruction. Sandbox AR is available for download here.

Also New: DE Originals, A New Generation of Streaming Media

In addition to announcing the availability of the Sandbox AR app, Discovery Education is today introducing DE Originals. Produced by Discovery Education's expert curriculum team, DE Originals represent a new generation of streaming media and is exclusively available to subscribers of Discovery Education's K-12 learning platform.

The DE Originals content features many of the company's former educators presenting assorted topics to students in a fun and engaging fashion. Designed to ignite every student's spirit of inquiry, DE Originals spark a desire to solve real-world problems while offering all students a chance to be seen, heard, and valued by their peers.

The more than 100 new DE Originals now available to Discovery Education educators are headlined by the DEmystfied series. The first DE Originals series, DEmystfied, explains complex science concepts through fun, funny, short, digestible, and standards-aligned videos. Combining Discovery Education's signature storytelling style with creative graphics, DEmystfied helps students ask and answer questions about the world around them. Discovery Education users can access DEmystfied here.

Steinway & Sons might be in its 169th year of creating pianos with an uncompromising standard for sound, touch, and beauty, but they have also kept up with the times. 

Steinway & Sons Launches Room View App

Steinway & Sons, makers of the finest pianos in the world, announces the launch of a custom-designed augmented reality (AR) app that allows piano buyers to see what a new piano will look like in a home, studio, classroom, or performance space—completely virtually.

The Steinway Room View app was developed in response to the global trend toward remote access technologies and the increase in new Steinway grand piano sales that stemmed from the pandemic and people spending more time at home. The utility of the app, however, offers opportunities far beyond those related to Covid-related distancing. With a simple user interface, piano buyers and designers can work with Steinway sales representatives to “try out” different piano sizes and colors, ensuring the right fit and style for each space. The app supports Steinway’s full line of grand pianos and some unique finishes.  

Steinway Room View was created by Membit, developers of location-based augmented reality applications. The company has created a proprietary geolocative photo and AR content sharing technology that allows pictures and digital models to be placed and viewed in exact locations. Users of iPhone and iPad can connect virtually with a Steinway sales representative to either make an appointment for an in-home visit or to conduct an augmented reality visit within the app. 

[ LG's Transparent OLED and Augmented Reality Combine to Elevate the Retail Experience ]

“For the first time in our company’s long history, buyers can experiment with the placement of our beautiful pianos without ever leaving their comfort of their homes or having an in-person visit from a representative,” said Gavin English, president of Steinway & Sons Americas. “It is fascinating to see how today’s innovative technologies support the pianos that have been world icons since 1853. We’re very proud to launch Steinway Room View—there is nothing else like it in the piano world.”

[ Augmented Reality Market to Hit $175B by 2026: ABI Research ]

As the world finds ways to safely open up to concerts, sporting events and other live experiences, Samsung is marking the moment by debuting Dreamground, a live AR experience that fosters creativity and exploration.

Consumers want meaningful experiences that are tailored to them. Samsung, with the breadth and depth of its connected products and services working together, enables these experiences and much more to bring the magic of human connection to life.

Dreamground offers consumers both a physical and digital playground through a combination of physical structures, on-screen animation and custom AR functionality. The Dreamground experience is now accessible at Hollywood Park in Los Angeles and the company's flagship experiential store, Samsung 837, in New York City.

Visitors are invited to build an immersive digital world around them with persistent AR elements, all through their mobile phone.

Explore: At Hollywood Park and Samsung 837, there are sculptures and floating portals that allow visitors to explore immersive worlds around them via smartphone. Look for Bubbloonland, Fluttering Forest and Crystal Galaxy and see what other visitors have created in the space.

Create: Add your own virtual elements to the sculptures. Place and spawn interactive elements on any surface or draw midair to make custom floating creations.

Collaborate & Play: At both locations, visitors can place Dreamground AR elements around them, see creations left behind by others or collaborate together with other visitors in real time.

These elements live in the Dreamground experience for up to 24-hours so you can leave something beautiful behind for others, making each experience unique and building upon other visitor's creations.

Express & Share: The AR creations and interactive face filters become unique content (photo and video) opportunities for visitors to share across social channels.

Dreamground can also be accessed through 4K film projected on the Infinity Screen by Samsung. Built for the future, the videoboard has the largest LED content playback system ever deployed, according tot he company. With nearly 80 million pixels spaced eight millimeters from center to center, each panel can be uniquely or congruently programmed with statistics, live and/or animated content.

Further, the Dreamground experience features portals that are exclusive to Galaxy 5G device holders on Verizon. These Galaxy 5G Portals feature 4K, 360 streamed video and ultra-high fidelity AR. The ability to explore and interact in high resolution and in real-time showcases the power of the high bandwidth and low latency of 5G.

The experience is now available to both Android and iOS users. Go to Google Play store to download the Android version of Dreamground created by Samsung or visit www.samsung.com/dreamground.

We all think we know what a hologram is. After all, most of us have seen—or at least heard about—virtual objects floating in mid-air, whether it’s Tupac at Coachella or Princess Leia being projected by R2D2 in Star Wars. In fact, neither of these were holograms, and are just two examples of numerous technologies incorrectly marketed that way. 

“Real images” as defined by optical physics can be recreated by a holographic display with a massive number of viewing angles of the scene that change with the point of view and location. When a holographic display allows you to see around objects when you move your head in any direction, motion parallax is maintained—the ability to view objects closer to us as moving faster than objects that are further away. When reflections and refractions behave correctly, your brain says, “this is real.” But to achieve this holographic realism, a holographic display must provide high-resolution scene information that changes depending on the viewing angle and location mimicking the real world. 

The Eye-line Rule

The eye-line rule, states that true holographic objects can only been seen between the viewers eyes and a light emitting source. Or another way of putting it, everyone’s beloved Princess Leia could not have been seen via R2D2’s magical flashlight (from an optical physics standpoint that is). However, if the floor was a holographic display, the green areas show what would have been possible to see from the actors point of view. 

The dream of a real hologram has given rise to a plethora of “good tries but no cigar” technologies claiming to be holographic. A majority of all things you see represented as holographic are actually just variations of other flat 2D display technologies. 

A real holographic object can only be seen between the viewer’s eyes and a holographic light source, known as the “eye-line” rule. Science fiction can do the impossible but, unfortunately, physics cannot. All true holographic technologies require a display surface to project holographic light, otherwise the eye-line rule is violated. Anything that suggests otherwise...is just movie magic. 

Now to be clear, this is not a judgment against these technologies. Many 2D displays produce great images, and so are the derivatives that come from them. However, they are not holographic. So, how do you to tell a fake hologram from the real deal? If you think you see light magically freezing in mid-air—spoiler alert—it’s a forgery! Below are some of the more popular examples of technologies that, although may be interesting to watch, are not truly holographic. 

Pepper’s Ghost 

Pepper’s Ghost is an illusion that is popular in carnivals, museums, concerts and theater, which dates back to the mid-1800s when British scientist John Henry Pepper popularized it. Pepper’s Ghost is still going strong. It was used to “resurrect” Tupac at Coachella in 2012 and Michael Jackson at the Billboard Music Awards in 2014, as well as dozens of other posthumous celebrities. 

In the above examples, the Pepper’s Ghost technique works by reflecting a 2D image off of a piece of semi-transparent film or surface. It’s also one of the roots of the term “smoke and mirrors.” But don’t get taken in. It’s cool, but just as cool as looking at any 2D display...in a mirror...and if you reach out to grab it, you’ll break it. 

Example displays that fall into this category include: Vntana, Hologram USA, Musion 

Stereoscopic 3D Displays 

Stereoscopic 3D Displays are another illusion. 3D movies and 3D TVs rely on glasses to join together two flat images, one for each eye with slightly different viewpoints. There’s no motion parallax and you focus incorrectly on the screen because every pixel radiates the same left or right-eye image regardless of viewing angle. In other words, as you move about a stereoscopic display, the perceived geometry literally follows the viewer, resulting in distortions and painful disparities. As human beings, we are in constant motion, even when sitting still, and any lack of micro-parallax change tells the brain that what we are seeing is not real. 

Example displays that fall into this category include: RealD, IMAX 3D, many consumer 3D televisions 

Glasses-Free 3D Displays 

Glasses-Free 3D Displays are a stereoscopic technique otherwise known as horizontal multi-view, parallax-only, or autostereoscopic. These are often dubbed holograms but, at best, these are one-dimensional limited light fields with two or more viewpoints that deliver an illusion of parallax. But this technique doesn’t produce a true object in space nor allow the eye to focus on the image like you would in the real world. This is referred to as the vergence-accommodation conflict and a leading cause of headaches and nausea. 

Example displays that fall into this category include: RED’s Hydrogen One Phone, The Looking Glass, Leia (as included within the Hydrogen One) 

Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality 

Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality are head-mounted displays that can be quite immersive—but they don’t create holograms. AR/VR typically couple two flat images of the scene with motion tracking such that some range of motion parallax may be rendered. However, the limited resolutions, narrow field of view, poor optical quality, lack of opacity handling (for AR), problematic motion latency, and the inability for the eye to truly focus freely about the volume (regardless of marketing claims) detract from a realistic viewing experience. Bottom line: head mounted displays do not project real objects into space. 

Further, the separation of content source from display technology is extremely important. While both AR and VR may sample from a holographic dataset when coupled with motion tracking, the technology does not visually present a hologram to the user because they are still only seeing images on flat 2D displays. 

Example displays that fall into this category include: Magic Leap*, HoloLens*, Oculus 

The Future 

After CES 2019, Fortune magazine declared, “Holograms May Finally Be Coming Of Age.” Today, scientists, manufacturers and entertainment companies are already engaged in developing ways to use real holograms. 

The future is here, and Light Field Lab is beyond excited to help build this holographic future together. 

Note: *Some displays leverage technologies called Holographic Optical Elements (HOEs). Even though these elements are produced through holographic means, this does not classify them as a holographic display for all of the reasons stated throughout this article. 

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>> Frost & Sullivan Touts AR/VR as Future of User Interfaces

According to new research by global tech market advisory firm ABI Research, nearly 28 million augmented and mixed reality smart glasses will ship in 2026, while the total global AR/MR market will surpass $175 billion in the same year. This growth and demand are spread across both enterprise and consumer, with gradual but steady enterprise demand meeting with accelerating consumer activity in the next few years.

“Major tech players across hardware, software, and services look familiar in the consumer space, contributing to strong and consistent overall growth,” said Eric Abbruzzese, research director for ABI Research. Apple, Facebook, Google, Samsung, Huawei, Microsoft, and others are all already investing significantly in AR. “Those big tech names, with active investment and product ranging from already available, to announced, to all-but-announced, are creating a consumer AR market that will be dynamic and welcoming rather than struggling and immature.”

[Tech Trends That WON’T Happen in 2021]

Even though consumer hype dominates headlines, enterprise adoption of augmented reality continues at a respectable pace of 66 percent CAGR through 2026 (compared to 100 percent or greater CAGR for some consumer verticals). Early value shown in remote assistance, training, and knowledge capture skyrocketed alongside COVID, where remote worker enablement became a requirement rather than a value add. Not all that interest converted to adoption immediately, with some expected hesitancy around novel investment, but that interest is only strengthening even as the pandemic begins to wane. Enterprise AR platforms from the likes of PTC, Teamviewer, RE’FLEKT, and ScopeAR are both competing and cooperating with increased in-house efforts from companies entering the space with broader digitization efforts as well as more focused immersive goals.

No matter the market, binocular and mixed-reality HMDs will be the headline in terms of growth rate, with nearly 130 percent CAGR for mixed reality glasses compared to 60 percent for augmented reality glasses. Declining prices, strengthened by fresh consumer hardware competition that needs to be affordable, along with greater competitive choice and software opportunity, make mixed reality solutions the more desirable offering on average. Some targeted use cases, especially around industrial verticals and applications, will remain focused on monocular products thanks to well-developed sales and implementation channels, safety and certification needs, and often simpler implementation and usage requirements.

[Future Vision: Volvo Tests New Car Designs by Driving With an XR Headset]

“Augmented reality has seen its share of ups and downs, but the combination of enterprise and consumer uptake, along with hardware support across smart glasses and mobile devices from heavy tech hitters and platform enablers, creates a compelling market picture overall,” Abbruzzese said. “Challenges in price and implementation remain, as do questions around ultimate value for new use cases for consumers, but early and ongoing investment in the space is addressing these challenges. This early market maturity keeps consumer promising, high value worker enablement maintains enterprise value, and so the outlook for AR is robust.”

These findings are from ABI Research’s Augmented and Mixed Reality Market Data: Devices, Use Cases, Verticals, and Value Chain market data report. This is part of the company’s Augmented and Virtual Reality research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights. Market Data spreadsheets are composed of deep data, market share analysis, and highly segmented, service-specific forecasts to provide detailed insight where opportunities lie.

Creative firm XR Studios was among the first to incorporate disguise’s new xR workflow for an immersive performance by Katy Perry for Malay e-commerce platform Lazada’s annual Super Party. The new workflow, released to the general public in April 2021 through disguise’s new r18 software, includes a feature that extends the virtual scene to allow cameras to zoom in and out of each scene. 

With these capabilities, the community of disguise users can now build even more exciting and elaborate scenes that mix the physical and virtual worlds.

[Disguise Launches r18 Software with xR Capabilities]

“The virtual zoom allowed us to work outside the box because we can now simulate shooting in a space that is ten times larger than ours,” said J.T. Rooney, chief creative officer at XR Studios. 

Silent Partners Studios were the xR content designers on this project, and by partnering with XR Studios, they were able to create worlds that went beyond the limits of the physical screens. Perry performed against a giant Pierrot statue, Escher-inspired architecture, swan sculptures, and a fireworks display, with the camera zooming in and out on her in the virtual space—creating a huge sense of scale.

Of course, using this kind of technology for the first time isn’t without its challenges. Not only were there tight turnarounds and short deadlines, but there was the added challenge of incorporating a brand-new input into the workflow. 

“As always, creating worlds and content in xR is challenging, but it’s consistently a rewarding adventure to figure out the virtual space,” Rooney said. “This new workflow is something that has been discussed for a long time and the XR Studios team was excited to see how we could help push it further, give suggestions, and test and develop it in a live show environment.”

By using the new virtual zoom feature, XR Studios was able to achieve shots that were previously unattainable. “Adding the virtual zoom to the workflow meant we could creatively see more of the scene and build a more elaborate environment,” Rooney said. 

“Over the past 12 months, XR Studios has been trailblazing the use of our xR workflow,” said disguise CEO Fernando Kufer. “From their early days delivering Katy Perry’s first xR-powered performance on the American Idol season 18 finale, to, nearly a year later, pioneering our latest software features in their third collaboration with the artist. We love seeing them constantly break boundaries in xR production.”

Colleges and universities have been making use of augmented and virtual reality technologies for a while now. As the pandemic has forced institutions to reach more students remotely, AR and VR have the potential to contribute to a more engaging distance learning experience. Recently, AV Technology spoke with several leaders in the field to gain a better understanding of what this tech can do for higher ed.

Augmenting Anatomy

The Health Education Campus at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland officially opened its doors during the summer of 2019. Built in partnership with the Cleveland Clinic, the facility gathers students from Case Western’s medical, nursing, and dental programs under one roof. It also houses a number of spaces that were specifically designed to deliver anatomy education via augmented reality. 

Related: Volvo Tests New Car Designs by Driving With an XR Headset

Developed by what Case Western has dubbed the Interactive Commons—a group of anatomy faculty and software engineers—the university’s HoloAnatomy software in combination with Microsoft HoloLens AR headsets provides first- and second-year medical students with 3D perspectives of the human body, without the need for wet labs and cadavers. Miro Humer, associate vice president of client experience at Case Western, explained that his team is responsible for supporting the HoloLens devices as well as the technology that runs them. 

Humer said that during HoloAnatomy’s planning and design, there were some logistics to consider: how long would students need to wear these devices (and would they become too heavy to wear after a certain amount of time)? Would the devices cause headaches? And what about battery life? If a session was to last 45 minutes, and classes were scheduled back to back, would there be time to recharge the devices? “It drives how many devices you have to have on hand,” he said. “Our battery life is typically about two hours, but with age, that recedes.” He added that there was also significant discussion around how to apply the HoloLens to student testing: “When we have testing sessions and we’re using the HoloLens for the test, do we have enough devices? How do we proctor those tests? Some tests last an hour and a half, so the devices have to be fully charged and the batteries have to be in good condition to manage that.” And, if a device fails during the test, it’s necessary to have a backup on hand.

As of press time, only part of Case Western’s student body was back on campus, while the rest continued with remote learning. Humer relayed that when the university went fully remote in the spring of 2020, HoloLens devices were shipped to HoloAnatomy students and classes were able to continue. “Everybody saw how well this can work in a distributed world, where students can be anywhere and keep going with their education,” he said. During remote classes, students examining the same holographic image can also see avatars of each other, providing a level of interaction that Humer said is well beyond Zoom. “We’re going to continue our anatomy programs remotely. That would have been impossible in the old world, and that would have had significant financial impact to the university if we weren’t able to continue those classes.” 

Humer acknowledged that different people have different expectations of what AR and VR can deliver, and in order for an initiative like this to be successful, genuine collaboration between faculty and tech staff is a must. “There has to be a very strong partnership between the technology organization and the academic organization within the university to develop an effective solution—more so than, say, if you’re just deploying computers in a room,” he said. “It’s very closely aligned with the academic goals and students’ goals as well, [in terms of] what they can achieve in class. The technology organization has to be closely involved in the development of it.”

Professors Without Borders

In June of last year, Almo Professional A/V partnered with ARHT Media Inc., a holographic solutions developer based in Toronto.

Brian Rhatigan, director of business development at Almo, recounted that his colleague Sam Taylor, executive vice president and COO, was one of the driving forces behind the partnership. “Sam recognized this as a pioneering technology that he felt we wanted to be a part of, and that it could be a mutually beneficial relationship for both companies,” he said. “We’ve been working cohesively to raise awareness of ARHT Media, which is not necessarily a brand-new company, but new to our customer base. We’re getting the word out about the possibilities of the things you can do that, really, are outside of what the traditional pro AV integrator typically thinks of from a presentation and communications perspective.”

At the core of ARHT Media’s technology is the ARHT Engine, software that enables high-quality, low-latency AV streaming with end-to-end encryption. HoloPresence is a 3D display that doesn’t require viewers to wear 3D glasses, and which allows remote lecturers to appear in front of audiences as live holograms. Released in November 2020, HoloPod is a more portable version of HoloPresence (which does require an hour and a half to deploy). Designed for lecture halls, corporate training centers, and large corporate boardrooms, HoloPod is a plug-and-play cabinet on wheels that can be fully secured when not in use. Virtual Global Stage (VGS), the ARHT Media’s online, low-latency presentation platform, rounds out the company’s current lineup. 

ARHT Media CEO Larry O’Reilly explained that in using these solutions, universities become truly borderless. “What it allows higher education institutions to do is bring in core curriculum instructors or guest lecturers from anywhere in the world and have them present live or pre-recorded, lifelike, life-size, and fully interactive,” he said.

Last September, global healthcare company Novartis enlisted ARHT Media for a sponsored online presentation at the European Respiratory Society (ERS). Addressing the topic “Asthma Trends and Digital Health Solves,” three peer academic faculty based in Australia, Greece, and Germany were able to appear together, life-size, on the same Virtual Global Stage and interact with each other.  

“They wanted their presentation to look better than a Zoom call, which is what everybody else was doing … and we brought them together so that they could do their presentations individually, but more importantly, then have a panel discussion,” O’Reilly said. “It looked like they were all together in the exact same room because there was no latency. It was way more engaging.” According to ARHT Media, the presentation received over 2,000 views, and the company has continued to work with Novartis on other events since.

More Than Just a Laptop

The platform developed by zSpace Inc., an interactive technology company headquartered in San Jose, CA, integrates AR/VR technology into a laptop. The system also includes lightweight eyeglasses (enabling users to see each other while interacting with the technology), as well as a stylus. The laptop displays are equipped with tracking; as users tilt their heads to look around objects, the software automatically updates so that the image is presented in the correct perspective in full high definition. Users hold the stylus like they would a pen, with built-in buttons for additional functionality.

zSpace also offers a learning content catalog developed both in-house and by third-party providers. 

Michael Carbenia, executive director of career technical education (CTE) at zSpace, actually started out as a customer. Having grown up in the AV industry, Carbenia eventually pursued a career in education; prior to joining zSpace, he was the director of CTE for St. Lucie Public Schools in St. Lucie County, FL.

“The idea of AR and VR is that it allows somebody to experience something that they’ve never experienced before, or perhaps they’re scared to [experience],” Carbenia said. “It’s never going to replace actually working on a car, or actually welding. That’s not the intent, and I think that’s a misconception that people often think about. This is really about accelerating learning and getting someone to have the option to be exposed to something.”

Last fall, Renton Technical College in Renton, WA supplied students in the school’s automotive technology program with zSpace laptops pre-loaded with course curriculum to accommodate remote learning. According to Warren Takata, automotive technology instructor at the school, the technology actually improved student engagement. 

“Usually when you transition to remote learning, you worry about students completing their work,” Takata said in an announcement. “With zSpace, a lot of them went beyond the regular lessons. It’s really engaging content, and they dove in even further than their assignments called for, learning on their own about motors and transmissions.”

Takata believes that in order to maintain this level of engagement, schools need to be open to incorporating new technologies into their teaching methods. “We’ve taught automotive technology in the same way for decades,” he said. “Students gravitate toward learning with high-tech tools like zSpace. Programs that don’t adopt new technologies are going to be left behind.” 

Carolyn Heinze is a freelance writer/editor.

Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, Future of User Interfaces Shaping New Consumer Experiences, finds that user interface (UI) technologies have moved beyond the concept of simply representing machines to their users to enabling sophisticated and personalized interaction. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated their use in healthcare, manufacturing, education, retail, and banking to simplify interactivity and improve engagement. 

The global augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) market is expected to reach $661.40 billion by 2025, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 86.3 percent from 2019 to 2025, driven by contactless commerce. Beyond 2030, AR and VR will merge, allowing users access to the total reality-virtuality continuum. Meanwhile, the global biometrics market revenue is forecast to reach $54.97 billion in 2025, with next-generation identification, palm vein and behavioral biometrics experiencing significant demand.

Related: Future Vision: Volvo Tests New Car Designs by Driving With an XR Headset

“The need for adoption of new user interface (UI) technologies to alleviate challenges posed by the global pandemic is immediate but constrained by infrastructure issues such as a lack of 5G networks and capable devices,” said Murali Krishnan, visionary innovation group senior industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “For futuristic UIs to become ubiquitous, security and privacy will be critical. Organizations must prioritize cybersecurity, business continuity plans, and risk assessments. Further, the transition to the fifth generation of wireless technology will be critical to the success of UI devices. Its ability to connect 1 million devices for every square kilometer will make 5G the backbone for UI devices and overall connected ecosystems.”

Krishnan added: “UI technologies will be an important component in the shift from the office to a virtual workplace that is mobile and more flexible, while interactive interfaces have expanded the scope of businesses to engage with their customers and build deep relationships. Technological advances in mixed reality, holographic displays, computer vision, and wearables will create new application opportunities.”

New technologies will drive growth opportunities in the short term as the adoption rate for user interfaces rises and organizations realize the productivity gains created by UI technologies:

Biometric technologies: With vendors integrating biometric technologies with AI and machine learning, there is a strong market for high-end biometric interfaces in the public and commercial sectors. A combination of iris, vein, fingerprint, facial recognition, and voiceprint interfaces for verification will offer additional security without compromising the user experience.

Digital twins: An estimated four out of five IoT platforms will employ digital twins over the next five years, propelling the global digital twin market to expand at a strong CAGR of 47.0 percent between 2019 and 2025. Retail, automotive, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, and smart cities will benefit. Successful implementations will require high-speed communication networks and no service disruptions.

Brain-machine interface: Neural interfaces could have a significant impact on the restoration of vision and hearing, treatment of mental health disorders, and alleviating pain through electrical stimuli by focusing on the appropriate areas of the brain. In addition, the gaming community is pioneering new gaming control mechanisms based on brain signals utilizing electroencephalography (EEG) headsets.

AR/VR: By 2025, China is expected to lead the VR market, with investments pouring into patents, standards, and products. AR, VR, and robotics will merge to develop VR robots, which will have a huge impact on manufacturing, retail, security, healthcare, and defense. In particular, AR/VR market revenue for manufacturing, robotics, and the engineering supply chain is expected to reach $161.29 billion by 2025.

Future of User Interfaces Shaping New Consumer Experiences is the latest addition to Frost & Sullivan’s Visionary Innovation Group research and analyses available through the Frost & Sullivan Leadership Council, which helps organizations identify a continuous flow of growth opportunities to succeed in an unpredictable future.

Through deep analysis of both key players and technologies, IDTechEx’s most recent report—Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality 2020-2030: Forecasts, Markets and Technologies—can provide readers with the trends this market will face in the coming decade.

The report covers one of the key markets of the future: the AR/VR/MR market. VR, MR, and AR products are used in many different settings, for example, for day-to-day workflow management, and on production lines.  This market, which IDTechEx forecasts predict to be over $30Bn by 2030, will impact many different industries, and future innovations will continue its growth in the wearables market. 

The report reviews and analyses over 100 products and details of over 80 companies to create succinct and detailed conclusions about the future of this market. This market research report includes market forecasts, player profiles, investments, and comprehensive company lists are all provided.

The company has also created a second report—Optics and Displays in AR, VR, and MR 2020-2030: Technologies, Players and Market—that offers a concise overview of the markets of optics and displays in both the AR/MR and VR technologies. It includes the forecasts for both the optical and display markets in AR/MR and VR markets. The current state of these markets is discussed and analyzed with long-range forecasts from 2020-2030 for revenue and volume by technology in AR/MR Optics, VR Optics, AR/MR micro-displays, and VR micro-displays.

For more information on both these market research reports, email research@IDTechEx.com or visit IDTechEx.com/Research/WT.

The proof of concept is here: remote work works.

According to Gartner, 88 percent of global organizations made it mandatory or encouraged their employees to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some corporations welcomed teams back to reconfigured, socially distanced office spaces over the summer, while tech firms such as Facebook and Google are giving many employees the flexibility to work from home through 2021.

As more people return to offices part-time, full-time, or with hybrid arrangements, what tools and policies will prove to be essential? What lessons have we learned about UCC, AV, and visualization technologies and team morale during the pandemic? How can AV specialists add value on the corporate campus, even as videoconferencing platforms continue to be the default meeting method for geographically separated employees?

New Workflows

Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, Zoom, and soft codecs of their ilk had been deployed in the enterprise for many years before the pandemic, but the crisis hastened their proliferation. “There have been various players and peripherals” for some time, according to Akintayo Adewole, CTS, design engineer at Verrex.

The crucial difference in 2020: enterprise technology specialists have had to “stop prophesying and simply make it all work, make it secure, and focus on delivering a better experience,” Adewole said.

Paul Konikowski, CTS-D, agreed. Konikowski—who works for HB Communications, number 13 on SCN's 2020 Top 50 list, as a manager of AV contracting—is currently completing an online Master of Science degree program from the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). He has been tracking the rapid workplace migration to digital communications—and the speed and scope of the shift. He’s observed how the pandemic has spurred a “dramatic adoption of collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom,” which is notable “because it has changed our entire workflow,” Konikowski said.

“Persistent Chat Culture”

Videoconferencing soft codecs give employees the continuity of face-to-face meetings. Cloud-based solutions let people collaborate in sync on projects of all sizes. And for chatting, employees are leveraging Slack and tools like it. The result is an agile “persistent chat culture,” Konikowski noted, that keeps teams engaged, either asynchronously or synchronously.

AV specialists can help companies center the persistent chat culture as more workers return to the corporate campus. “People using Zoom and Slack are no longer ‘early adopters,’” Konikowski said, suggesting that workers will want to “seamlessly carry home office methods, tools, and workflows back into their [physical] offices.”

Konikowski pointed to products like large-format displays that will let employees socially distance without missing important information on the screen. Additional displays might be needed to showcase each element of the remote, on-site, and hybrid work ecosystem. Dashboard stats, access to camera feeds, webinars, live tweets, and chat streams are just a few of today’s standard work features. AV specialists can add value in an enterprise project by creatively merging these disparate but important elements.

To that end, Konikowski expects to see more interest in “voice control and solutions like confidence monitors and teleprompters in front of cameras that show the far end participant so more direct eye contact can be made.” These kinds of technologies and designs will meet the needs of today’s workforce and keep pace with changing behavior. Unified communications and collaboration (UCC) tools can create a bridge into hybrid or flex environments.

Prioritizing Health and Safety

Another enterprise trend is the visualization of health and safety information inside the office, according to Konikowski. He cited new protocols pertaining to COVID testing as an example. These measures can make corporate wellness policies more transparent while helping employees feel safe and valued. Open air and natural lighting are also encouraged.

Immersive and Experiential

On the corporate campus, in the home office, or in satellite branches, “people crave being more engaged and collaborative in meetings. Immersive applications can help with that,” said Adewole. Corporations and integrators need to better understand the immersive space, which includes VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality), and MR (mixed reality).

Adewole connected advancements in VR technologies to dropping price points for wearables such as headsets, and the implementation of more robust communications infrastructure such as 5G and Starlink. VR has been increasingly popular for gaming during the pandemic and is consequently enabling other emerging applications. Consumers can procure high-quality wireless VR headsets for $300 or less. “People now have more affordable access to this technology. Participation and the development of more immersive business applications is soon to follow,” Adewole predicted.

While some sectors have been slow to invest in XR/MR, a few companies have hit the ground running. Adewole noted that architectural engineering and construction firms (AEC), for instance, can leverage emerging technologies and see immediate benefits. Pair AR or VR with prototyping for a distributed team around the world and “you would be able to take an architectural model and turn it into a more immersive experience for clients. You could walk around in three-dimensional space, mark it up, and annotate, all within a virtual yet photorealistic experience.”

Now apply this creative paradigm to corporate communications and broadcast. High-quality cameras, spatial audio, and immersive storytelling technologies could add value to live events, Adewole suggested. Imagine more experiential shareholder presentations, all-hands meetings, and corporate Facebook Live streams. “It’s time to start thinking bigger and more creatively about this space,” he added.

Advanced Intelligence Built into Devices

Jason Jacoby, CTS, associate with Shen Milsom & Wilke, sees a similar trend with AI on the corporate campus. Indicated by the wider availability of AI-enhanced solutions, and by recent acquisitions, vendors see the value in incorporating AI into AV components. “It’s so exciting to see the industry really trying to expand, going beyond just putting a microphone on a table,” Jacoby said.

He highlighted AI’s benefits, particularly with enterprise audio: “You can define the area in which a specific microphone is listening. AI microphones can track a person around the room. You can put a great soundbar on a wall and stand 15 feet back in that room and the audio is still completely intelligible. This is a great step forward to requiring less physical control touchpoints in rooms.”

Less Equipment in Rooms

“As employees start filtering back into offices, and after the next cycle of refreshes, expect to see less physical equipment in rooms,” according to Jacoby. “We’ve gotten to the point where it is possible in all but the largest of rooms to move just about everything beyond the network and into the cloud, including DSP. You can have very advanced programs on the network without the need for a physical device, and have a mini PC mounted behind the monitor or in a rack down the hall. The foundation of the space is now beyond the local devices, including network switches and routers, and at the software level.”

Purpose-Driven Workspaces

The key in 2021 will be “leading with the use case,” said Frank Padikkala, CTS-D, AV design engineer with Diversified. Focus on creative solutions and “purpose-build rooms guided by the use case,” he stated.

“The design engineer in me appreciates a purpose-built room,” he said. Previously, there may have been an appetite for—or at least a high tolerance for—a generic conference room. Now, Padikkala said, “We are all asking what we’re trying to do in each space—recording, streaming, or remote work, for instance—and then leading with that use case and those user needs.”

AVoIP

IT’s relevance in the pro AV industry is writ large, but the pandemic has laid bare the critical importance of security, data, connectivity, remote access, and network reliability. “It is essential that AV firms continue to level up with IT skills training, cybersecurity, and network expertise,” Padikkala said. “There is still a skills divide.”

[The Integration Guide to AVoIP]

Opex

Another long-term benefit to investing in AV over IP and cloud-based applications is the ability to tap into the opex (operating expense) budget versus capex (capital expense). During cash-strapped times—pandemic and beyond—an opex approach makes logistical sense, Padikkala suggested.

Bringing the Office to You

Padikkala is grateful that the shift to remote working “bridged a gap,” he said. The new world of work relies on technology, but Padikkala also sees it as a “cultural evolution.”

“We all must take a more holistic approach to the idea of work and workspaces.”

Jacoby took that sentiment a step further: “The next level is really about bringing the office to the employees, rather than the other way around.”

For generations, NYC’s Times Square has been the heart of New Year’s Eve celebrations around the globe, with millions watching and counting down the seconds until the clock strikes midnight. However, this year’s celebrations, like many things, will look a little different. Events will be virtual and socially-distanced from home, putting Samsung’s LED displays at One Times Square on center stage as the world welcomes 2021.

To help everyone safely celebrate the new year, Jamestown—a global real estate firm and owner of One Times Square, home of the New Year’s Eve Ball Drop Celebration—is partnering with several high-profile brands, including Samsung, to create a memorable and immersive virtual experience.

“As a company, Samsung is proud that our company and display products are being used for such a creative and exciting experience,” said Mark Quiroz, vice president, marketing, Display Division, Samsung Electronics America. “To see Samsung’s signage front and center in bringing friends, family, and strangers together for a new virtual New Year’s Eve is something we are excited about.”

[Best Practices for Creating an Immersive Outdoor Holiday Spectacular]

To bring the historic celebration into homes around the globe, Times Square will host the first ever multi-media, experiential technology platform that incorporates and controls live broadcast, augmented reality, virtual reality, entertainment, and gaming experiences through a dedicated App, website, and streaming services.

“Samsung is an integral partner for One Times Square’s New Year’s Eve Ball Drop Celebration, providing the technology for the building’s iconic LED displays,” said Michael Phillips, president at Jamestown. “This year, our partnership extends to our new VNYE experience. Samsung Odyssey continues to help us share engaging content with our viewers not only in the physical world, but now in the virtual world of Times Square as well.”

The NYE App will allow holiday revelers to create a personalized avatar to enter and explore the virtual world of NYC’s Times Square in a year when guests cannot be there live. Guests can walk around the plaza before heading over to One Times Square to access game rooms, and to the observation deck where they can take in the sights of the city along with Times Square’s iconic billboards powered by Samsung LED technology.

Samsung will have a special featured game in the app. The virtual One Times Square building will invite Avatars in to take the elevator to the Samsung Zero G game where they can get lost in a virtual world and win points along the way.  Avatars can also use the Samsung Odyssey Speed Gate to jump through and travel at light speed to reach other locations and hidden spots.

Join in the virtual celebration at  VNYE.com or download the app NYE available in all app stores.

In the augmented reality (AR) enterprise market, AR remote applications such as AR remote expertise and AR remote training will continue to grow in 2021 and lead in terms of adoption rates. According to global tech market advisory firm ABI Research, consumer AR software and content is expected to grow at over 100 percent CAGR between 2021 and 2025, to reach $20 billion in total revenue in 2025. The total AR media and entertainment market will see similar growth at 90 percent.

In its new whitepaper, 68 Technology Trends That Will Shape 2021, ABI Research’s analysts identify 37 trends that will shape the technology market and 31 others that, although attracting huge amounts of speculation and commentary, are less likely to move the needle over the next 12 months. “For success in 2021, especially after a very challenging 2020, one must understand fundamental trends early, and take a view on those trends that are buoyed by hyperbole and those that are sure to be uncomfortable realities,” said Stuart Carlaw, chief research officer at ABI Research. “Now is the time to double down on the right technology investment.”

Related: What Won't Happen in 2020: 8K Adoption, Quantum Computing, and More

What Will Happen in 2021: Broad and Significant AR Market Growth

“The risk of traveling and the experience from the first months of the COVID-19 outbreak will drive demand in 2021 for proactive solutions that increase employee and business efficiency and ensure employee safety,” said Eric Abbruzzese, AR/VR research director at ABI Research. AR software/platform providers will continue to update and expand their offerings, including more features and new strategic collaborations to support, automate, and simplify large-scale deployments while providing more data and analytics tools for proactive decisions. Enterprise AR hardware will not shift dramatically, as current offerings well serve value use cases. 

However, the consumer hardware market will be more dynamic. “2021 will be an important one for AR consumer hardware,” Abbruzzese said. “nReal will ship its first headsets to consumers, while Mad Gaze will also look to expand. Also, Facebook is expected to roll out its AR smart glasses out of its Reality Labs initiative; Google may join as well after the acquisition of North, and with pressure from Facebook and others. The total AR market, including content and usage on mobile devices, will be strong. Media and entertainment and retail and commerce will lead in terms of growth and adoption rates due to the establishment of ‘at home entertainment’ and the rise of online shopping.”

What Won’t Happen in 2021: Mainstream Virtual Reality

According to Abbruzzese, “Market elements have not aligned to enable mainstream virtual reality (VR) adoption. Growth will be strong in 2021, but the user base will not reach levels once thought probable since VR competes for usage time with TVs, smartphones, and traditional displays. Price and availability of valuable content remain primary barriers. The Oculus Quest 2 is the best positioned VR device the market has seen so far, with a $300 starting price and no other hardware required to use it, such as a tether to a smartphone or PC. The cost of $300 is likely to be a sweet spot for standalone VR, but it can still be expensive for a limited use item that will be outdated by next year. While smartphone-like upgrade cycles are possible and would spur growth overall, the lack of necessity for VR will limit that possibility.”

Read the full whitepaper 68 Technology Trends that Will Shape 2021: Predictions for What Will and Will Not Happen in The Year Ahead.

As 2020 finally winds down, predictions abound on the technology advancements and innovations expected in the year ahead. However, several highly anticipated advancements, including environmentally friendly 5G, explainable artificial intelligence (AI), mainstream virtual reality (AR), and ubiquitous Wi-Fi 6E, will not happen in 2021, according to global tech market advisory firm ABI Research.

In its new whitepaper, 68 Technology Trends That Will Shape 2021: Predictions for What Will and Will Not Happen in The Year Ahead, ABI Research’s analysts identify 37 trends that will shape the technology market and 31 others that, although attracting huge amounts of speculation and commentary, are less likely to move the needle over the next 12 months. 

Related: Looking Ahead to 2021

“We are nearly finished with one of the most challenging years the world has ever seen,” said Stuart Carlaw, chief research officer at ABI Research. “We have had change thrust upon us all, and the fundamental machinations of standard business processes have been stressed to the point where change has manifested itself as an evolutionary necessity. For success in 2021, one must understand fundamental trends early, and take a view on those trends that are buoyed by hyperbole and those that are sure to be uncomfortable realities. Now is the time to double down on the right technology investment.”

What won’t happen in 2020?

Environmentally Friendly 5G: “Global 5G subscriptions are forecast to grow from 234 million in 2020 to 347 million in 2021 at a rate of 48.4 percent,” said Jun Wei Ee, 5G and mobile network infrastructure research analyst at ABI Research. “This accelerated growth in 5G adoption will strain the environment as a growing number of consumers will be switching over to 5G devices to take advantage of the high speeds and low latency. The transition will potentially create large amounts of electronic waste.” 

Explainable AI: “Deep learning-based AI remains a black box,” said Lian Jye Su, AI and machine learning principal analyst at ABI Research. “Although cloud AI players, such as Google, H2O, and Element AI, have offered development tools and frameworks around explainable AI, AI built based on these solutions is not mature enough for mass commercialization. Now, most AI models are not designed for transparency, let alone explain-ability. Hence, do not expect explainable AI to become mainstream in 2021.”

Mainstream Virtual Reality: “Market elements have not aligned to enable mainstream virtual reality (VR) adoption,” said Eleftheria Kouri, augmented and virtual reality research analyst at ABI Research. “Growth will be strong in 2021, but the user base will not reach levels once thought probable where VR competes for usage time with TVs, smartphones, and traditional displays. The enterprise sector remains the fastest growth opportunity for now. Consumers still present the largest potential user base and the most alignment with content in media and entertainment. However, content creators are mostly waiting for a more approachable user base, and that user base is waiting for content. This will not happen by 2021, but the momentum is indeed growing across both consumer and enterprise spaces.”

Ubiquitous Wi-Fi 6E: “The ever-increasing connected device density and increasing use of bandwidth-intensive applications are always driving the demand for high-efficiency Wi-Fi networks,” said Khin Sandi Lynn, video and cloud services analyst. “COVID-19 has further accelerated that demand. The latest solution is Wi-Fi 6E, an extended Wi-Fi 6 with 6GHz spectrum. But, Wi-Fi 6E adoption in residential broadband use cases will be minimal in 2021 since broadband service providers have only recently started upgrading their CPE with Wi-Fi 6.”

“In this period of uncertainty and change, there is one polestar of unflinching truth: technology will be the most powerful tool in ensuring corporate health,” Carlaw said. “Technology evolution, implementation, and enthusiasm must be embraced by all companies, no matter what tier of the corporate strata or end market in which they reside. A resilient company that is well set to grow once this pandemic ends will be characterized by its digital agility as much as anything else.”

For more trends that won’t happen in 2021, and the 37 trends that will download the whitepaper, 68 Technology Trends that Will Shape 2021: Predictions for What Will and Will Not Happen in The Year Ahead. 

The Audio Engineering Society has released preliminary details on the upcoming International Conference on Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality (AVAR), set to take place in its own online virtual venue, August 17–19. The event will serve as a hub of innovation for the latest research in the fields of spatial audio and technology for virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, with a focus on technical solutions and recommended practices in the field. 

Registration for this event, sponsored by Facebook Reality Labs and Valve, and hosted by DigiPen Institute of Technology, starts at just $25 for AES members ($150 for non-members) and will be using AltSpaceVR as the platform to share keynotes, panel discussions, workshops, and more. The use of AltSpaceVR offers the option of attending in standard 2D mode or as an immersive experience, utilizing AR/VR devices such as the HTC Vive, Oculus Quest, Oculus Go, Oculus Rift, Samsung GearVR, or Windows Mixed Reality.   

“The necessity to take AVAR 2020 fully online is ideally suited to the conference content,” said Matt Klassen, chair. “Our attendees can plug in entirely, create an avatar, and participate and interact inside a virtual environment. One of the primary advantages of holding the conference in VR is the very compelling nature of the 3D audio for small group conversations—a big step up from flat-screen teleconferencing!” 

“Not only will AVAR 2020 explore practical and effective production workflow for audio production for immersive experiences, it will itself be such an experience and demonstrate an application of the technology that couldn’t be more timely,” said co-chair and treasurer Lawrence Schwedler.    

The 2020 AES Conference on Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality builds upon the AES’s two previous AVAR conferences and will offer a fresh look at audio production for these rapidly growing market segments. This year’s topics will include spatial audio capture, rendering, synthesis over headphones and loudspeakers, binaural applications, Ambisonics, 3D audio mixing and content production, sound design for VR/AR, and more, plus a featured panel discussion with Emily Ridgway of the Valve audio team on August 18 titled “When Worlds Collide: Audio Development of the Valve Index and Half:Life Alyx.” Additionally, two keynote addresses will take place during the conference: “New Audio Realities at Scale” with Varun Nair of Facebook on August 17 and “Empathetic Technology and Embodied User Experience” with Poppy Crum of Dolby on August 19. 

The AES AVAR 2020 Conference is organized by committee members from a variety of disciplines and experiences in the industry, including Matt Klassen, chair; Lawrence Schwedler, co-chair, treasurer; Pablo F. Hoffmann, papers chair; Sally Kellaway, workshops chair; Greg Dixon, audiovisual coordinator; Randi Ganulin, graphic designer/photographer; Phillip Klassen, social media coordinator; Anna Lantz, webmaster; and Dustin Williams, volunteer coordinator.  

For further information and registration links, click here. 

The What: NDI, a Vizrt Group brand, has unveiled NDI version 4.5 of its video-over-IP technology, one of the most widely adopted in the world. The update, which the company says is the “most significant release update since NDI was introduced in 2015,” features improved compression, new mobile tools, support for Unreal Engine and more. 

[NewTek Showcases NDI at InfoComm]

The What Else: Advancements in version 4.5 include capabilities for transferring video, audio, and metadata in real time across standard and wireless Ethernet networks. New features include breakthroughs in mobile phone connectivity, wireless networking, augmented and virtual reality environments, and more. These advancements come at a time when making video accessible over IP matters more than ever.

As social distancing is being widely practiced around the globe, the only way content creators can work together is through IP networks and software-defined visual storytelling (#SDVS). As growth in esports accelerates and more than 50 percent of online gamers are now using mobile devices, the ability to bring the game from a smartphone into streaming software favored by gamers is crucial. NDI 4.5 adds support in iOS for real-time, full frame-rate, and resolution capture of the display on wireless with NDI|HX Capture for iOS. In addition, the NDI|HX Camera for iOS app turns any iPhone into a full 4K wireless camera, giving it the same capabilities as a high-end video camera. 

“No other IP technology for video production can translate to mobile phones because NDI is software-defined, not hardware-constrained,” said Dr. Andrew Cross, president of research and development for the Vizrt Group. “The NDI|HX mode for high-efficiency low bandwidth data transfer gives anyone with an iOS phone the ability to screen capture games and deliver it to any NDI-enabled multi camera live production system.”

Built into NDI 4.5 are extended capabilities for internet use and use on wireless networks. This version shows improvements to NDI|HX, with lower latency, full support for (multi) GPU decoding acceleration, and support for advanced compression formats.

Working with Epic Games, the NDI SDK for Unreal Engine adds full support for video inputs and outputs over IP, enabling a new generation of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) video products for integration into games and more. The NDI SDK for Unreal Engine is free to download and the source code is available so that developers can customize their content creations.

NDI 4.5 offers unlimited IP recording, with Adobe Premiere plugins both for real-time NDI and working with time-locked ISO recording across multiple streams. This takes NDI streams from the network and stores them on disk with no CPU usage, allowing users to record any number of streams to disk and extend this to multiple machines for almost infinite recording capabilities.

For use in embedded systems, NDI 4.5 now includes the latest version of the embedded NDI SDK that offers full FPGA support for both NDI encoding and decoding. In addition, there is support across almost all platforms for access to the compressed data streams, instant routing, and more. For advanced development, embedded platforms and custom hardware needs, NDI fully provides the ability for developers to create amazing products.

The Bottom Line: With version 4.5, NDI has been enhanced in a variety of ways while maintaining the same bitrate. Improved video quality, significantly faster decoding, faster discovery of sources, support for many more streams on a single PC than ever before, better discovery server, and new example code are some highlights of the many new improvements.

The NDI 4.5 SDK and NDI Tools are free downloads, available by the end of March 2020 here.

The What: Disguise has released r17.1 of its Designer software, adding new augmented reality (AR) capabilities and an enhanced user experience. The release coincides with the launch of a six-month free license for the software. 

[disguise and Evolve Media Group Announce New Partnership]

The What Else: The significant workflow improvements introduced in r17.1 enhance the ease of use for specialists delivering augmented reality (AR) experiences with disguise, making it a more compelling option for use in projects for broadcast, esports, and live contexts such as corporate, education, virtual environments and concert touring. As viewing figures surge, it becomes increasingly important to have the right tools available to create AR easily and efficiently and elevate at-home viewing with thrilling visuals.

The disguise solution provides full 3D simulation and camera planning tools that allow workflow specialists to pre-visualize and imagine every pixel of an AR experience ahead of time, communicate and collaborate with other teams, and respond to feedback at every stage of a production.

To date, disguise has already been used to power many major events, including the live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony of the Pakistan Super League, the longest ever accomplished duration of an AR-centered broadcast. AR was critical to the success of the broadcast and enhanced the experience for the 50 million viewers watching from home and around the world. With r17.1, disguise hopes to further enable its community to produce AR experiences.

As well as making it easier to create and deliver AR, the new disguise release also introduces a range of improvements to the software user experience.

With sequenced transitions, users can now transition to anywhere on a timeline using black and white content to define the transition. The feature opens new visual possibilities and saves time previously spent sequencing by simplifying the approach.

The new ability to generate test patterns within the software speeds up workflows by removing the need to leave the software to create test patterns in other tools. Test patterns in a pre-visualization give users confidence in their screen arrangement by letting them see precisely where the divides are between each screen. Test patterns are dynamically generated meaning users can react quickly to adapt a pre-visualization to feedback and on-site changes.

The launch of r17.1 comes in a week when disguise has offered a free six-month subscription promotion for its Designer software. This offer has been made to support the disguise and live events community at a time when it is key for creatives and designers to continue to create and prepare for live projects later in the year.

The Bottom Line: Built with disguise’s community of artists and technicians at its heart, r17.1 dramatically enhances the AR workflow so that its community can produce experiences with ease. With the release, disguise also hopes to help creative studios and production houses access the market opportunity presented by AR with the solution for delivering spectacular and immersive visuals.

For more information, and to download r17.1, click here.

You’re behind the wheel, cruising along at highway speed. But you’re not looking at the road—at least not directly. No, you’re piloting your car from behind a head-mounted display, and the world that meets your eyes is a curious mixture of the real and the virtual.

It sounds outrageous, but the practice of test driving vehicles while wearing a mixed reality headset has proven supremely practical for Volvo Cars, and the results have been nothing short of groundbreaking. Spearheaded by Casper Wickman, the company’s senior technical leader of human-centric methods and tools, these technological trials have dramatically simplified the Swedish marque’s process of evaluating new safety systems and design concepts. 

But what’s it like from the driver’s seat? 

“You would think that this would be a crazy experience, like you’re in a video game or something,” Wickman said. “But the thing is, as soon as you put the glasses on and you sit behind the steering wheel and start to drive, then your primary task is to drive the car, basically. Then you really forget that you’re inside a headset. It feels super natural to do it. It becomes your world, basically.”

Of course, you can’t do that with just any headset. To arrive at this destination required a tight-knit development partnership with Finnish XR innovator Varjo—and a whole lot of clever engineering.

Starting Up

Wickman has been helping Volvo improve its processes for two decades. He joined the company in 2000 as a student in its industrial PhD program, which employs a group of 50 to 70 students at its Gothenburg headquarters in tasks like variation simulation and visualization, and the analysis of quantitative data with the goal of eliminating manufacturing defects.

After five years in this capacity, he joined a new department formed to study “perceived quality”—to predict how things will look and feel in the completed vehicle. It’s within this general area that he has remained, working his way up through various leadership tiers to his current senior technical role focused on novel methodologies. 

“We want to develop tools with new emerging technologies to be able to put the user in the experience in the very early stages of design, in order to be able to evaluate whether we are doing the correct things before we do anything,” he said. “I’m working a lot within user experience, but really in any area where you need to put the user in the experience.” 

Getting in Gear

Wickman began considering the prospect of harnessing virtual and augmented reality in his work several years ago, but the technology wasn’t ready. “When it comes to detailing and understanding the look of things in a car context, you need to be able to see the stitching, see the textures, see how things are lined up against each other,” he said. “You need to see more than the complete design.”

Then, a couple years back, he participated in a project that involved using Microsoft HoloLens AR glasses for manufacturing and packaging activities. “But (in my view) they were using augmented reality as if it were an ordinary desktop application in some way,” Wickman said. “They were not utilizing the full capacity of AR.”

After some brainstorming over a better use for the technology, Wickman arrived at the wild idea of driving with the headset. “They answered ‘No, that wouldn’t be possible for several reasons: you wouldn’t be able to track stuff, you wouldn’t be safe,’” he said. 

It was around this time, however, that some other people at Volvo tipped him off to the work that Varjo was doing—specifically, the development of a head-worn display with a pixel density so high the company markets it as “human eye resolution.” Feeding this display with actual footage of the environment from cameras on the headset, Varjo’s XR-1 enables the merging of virtual and physical realities with a clarity never before possible. 

In January of 2018, Wickman set up a meeting with Varjo’s founder and chief product officer Urho Konttori and chief marketing officer Jussi Mäkinen to go over his vision. “We presented that in terms of different steps that we’d like to go through, with the first step just being able to drive with a pair of glasses, using the cameras with video pass-through, to evaluate just how you would manage motion sickness and whether it would be a safe thing to do,” he said.

If that worked, he wanted to begin overlaying data onto the real world; then, he wanted to be able to interact with the virtual content. He also proposed the desire to analyze “gaze data” to see exactly where people looked as they completed tasks. Lastly, if everything else was possible, he wanted to add interactive virtual objects outside of the car. 

“It was pretty cool,” Wickman said. “[Urho and Jussi] said directly, ‘This is the most challenging use case we’ve ever heard of in any industry. Let’s do this together. We’re in.’” 

Picking Up Speed

Over the next six months, as the details of the contract were being hammered out, both companies began preparing on their own: Varjo worked to boost the capabilities of its XR-1 headset, and Volvo went about formulating a way to extract all of the necessary signals from the car. They then established a schedule over the following eight months in which they would conduct their tests. “At each trial, Varjo came over to Volvo and they brought a prototype XR-1 headset, and at each drive they had enhanced a lot of things,” Wickman said.

The setup begins with a computer in the back seat running Unity, the software in which everything operates. A local area network is used to handle all of the signal and data transmission. Mounted in front of the driver is a tracking system called 5C, from German company ART, which follows a set of little spherical sensors on the driver’s headset for spatial positioning. Also running through the LAN to the computer are the signals extracted from the vehicle, which consist of the flex ray and local interconnect network (LIN). These communicate a whole host of information to the system in Unity. 

With this setup, Wickman and his team can then overlay a conceptual virtual cockpit over the actual one and interact with it. “You can read out signals like the steering wheel angle and connect that to the virtual model, so the physical steering wheel and virtual one are synchronized while driving,” Wickman said. Or, “if you press a switch in the car that’s usually used to activate the radio, we can use that signal instead to activate something else on the virtual model. So, maybe we’ve decided that in the next generation of the car to use a stalk or a switch for something else, then we can simulate that.”

Navigating Challenges

According to Wickman, the toughest challenge on Volvo’s end was getting the tracking system right. “A car is really a super complex environment,” he said. “You have magnetic fields, you have different light properties—sometimes it’s low sunshine, sometimes it’s bright, sometimes it’s dark—so it needs to be able to track in different light conditions.” On top of that, you have to deal with the vibrations and bumps from the road.

He said that Volvo and Varjo both tried out a number of tracking systems independently before arriving at the 5C system from ART, which is mounted very rigidly to the car. “That works super well,” he said. “Of course, some of the content might move a little bit, but it’s really impossible to realize that because you’re moving with the car yourself. So you will actually experience it like it’s super solid and fixed to the physical world.”

The other major challenge was latency. The earliest versions of the XR-1 headset had a latency of around 30 milliseconds—not great, but not terrible. “It was barely possible to drive a car with it, because it’s super sensitive,” Wickman said. “If you just look away to the side, then back to the road again, you might end up in the middle of the road.” Still, they managed to complete the test as scheduled, and eventually Varjo managed to shrink the response time down to just 12 milliseconds. 

Then, of course, there’s the occasional hiccup in the system. “We’ve had a number of blackouts,” he said with a chuckle. “Actually, one time on the test track, the computer stopped working, so the headset became black. But we have a procedure for that: the driver says ‘Can’t see anything, take over the steering wheel,’ and they take off the headset. There’s never been a dangerous situation at all.”

The Road Ahead

As of this writing, Volvo had just received its own production version Varjo XR-1 headset, allowing Wickman and his team to begin formulating workflows around it as a bona fide development tool for the company. “We’re setting up a plan for all the future evaluations we’re going to do throughout this year,” he said. “We have a whole stack of things we want to do.”

Before new Volvo models ever hit the road, the company will know exactly what the visual experience will be like for the driver. This starts with visibility, or “how much you see from the car to be able to maneuver it,” Wickman said. “That’s one big application: to be able to bring the new design proposal into the car and overlay that, and then you can drive with the car outside and evaluate visibility.”

Wickman also plans to use the XR-1 to evaluate active safety technologies. Currently, when Volvo wants to test, for example, an automatic braking feature, they have to drive a car toward a physical object. “And if the system fails, you will actually hit the thing you’re trying to avoid,” he said. “Although we’re using soft targets, it’s still damaging to the sensors on the car.” Instead, they can place a virtual obstacle up the road and experiment with new safety systems in the digital realm first.

The next step from there is the development of technology for automated vehicles, or AVs. Wickman said that Volvo is already working on research projects in this field with the help of funding from Swedish authorities. “We’re trying to understand things like how AV cars should behave in terms of overtaking bicycles, for example,” he said. In order to test this the traditional way, you’d need to actually put someone on a bike ahead of the car; now they can do that in Unity. “We just add a virtual object as a bicycle, and a virtual object as an approaching car,” he said. “And you can optimize the algorithms for how the AV car should move without taking any risks for other people while trying it.”

Ultimately, what makes the integration of the Varjo XR-1 into Wickman’s work so successful is that it so directly fulfils the mission of his department: understanding and improving upon the experience people have with Volvo cars. And there’s much more to come.

“We have the perspective of the human being as the starting point for everything we’re doing,” he said. “We also scout a lot of different new technologies. A lot of start-ups all over the world are doing amazing things that we might want to incorporate in our cars in the future. So, being able in a very early stage to evaluate things without the need of actually implementing them, that is a huge advantage.”

User interface is a critical component to designing a product that will exceed user expectations, achieve optimal user experience, and stand out from the competition. At the current stage of hardware maturity, augmented reality smart glasses and AR software development kits (SDKs) support a greater range of interaction methods than ever before. 

[ABI Research Releases Enterprise AR Platforms Competitive Assessment]

Now in the mix with traditional controllers and smartphones is quickly maturing voice control and novel HMD-based options like gesture recognition and eye tracking. Pairing the proper input method to a well-designed UI allows users to perform tasks more efficiently, intuitively, and swiftly, leading to enhanced user experience and ultimately more fully realized value. ABI Research, a global tech market advisory firm, examined the emerging interaction methods for AR smart glasses that maximize user flexibility and optimize UX in a market that promises value over US$100 billion by 2024.

“The decision around the most efficient input method and UI design strongly relies on the nature of the target task or content, the user’s potential environment, and the type of the AR device,” said Eleftheria Kouri, research analyst at ABI Research. For instance, traditional buttons and touchpads are not always suitable in scenarios where a user must wear safety gloves or handles tools/equipment. Hands-free voice control is considered the most optimal interaction method in these and similar scenarios. “In regard to AR device type, monocular devices, which are used in less-complex enterprise and consumer applications, can perform tasks efficiently with traditional user-friendly interaction methods via buttons or smartphones, with the option to add additional value and flexibility with more advanced input methods.”

Gaze and gesture control are considered among the most emerging interaction methods for AR smart glasses, which significantly enhances UX and immersion by allowing users to intuitively and swiftly perform hands-free tasks. While highly capable, gaze and gesture control are not suited for every user or use case because they require high accuracy and low latency to be efficient and meet user’s expectations. Advanced AR headsets such HoloLens 2 and Magic Leap 1 support a wider range of UI opportunities and input methods thanks to inclusion of things like eye tracking. While these are currently the most capable AR devices available, there is still significant value in simpler devices that maximize usability and streamline user experience with other input paradigms.

“Simple and intuitive UI and streamlined UX have mostly been ignored in the AR market thus far, but both are essential for enhancing and maximizing the value that will propel AR smart glasses growth toward the mainstream,” Kouri said. “Being able to remove the requirement for device training and keep users engaged with the device will maximize value for consumers and enterprises. At the same time, device features such as lower weight, capability for spatial mapping and sound, improved display quality, and better user feedback through UI and haptics also play an important role in maximizing this value.”  

These findings are from ABI Research’s User Interface and User Experience in AR technology analysis report. This report is part of the company’s Augmented and Virtual Reality research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights. Based on extensive primary interviews, Technology Analysis reports present in-depth analysis on key market trends and factors for a specific technology.

The door opened, and I ducked into the cockpit of an Airbus A350. Easing myself into the pilot’s seat, I studied the minute details in the controls and flight map. I reached for the throttle—but my hand passed through it like an apparition. 

Of course, I wasn’t at the helm of an aircraft, but rather in a hotel room in Midtown Manhattan, trying out what is perhaps the world’s most sophisticated VR/AR headset: the XR-1 Developer Edition from Finland-based Varjo Technologies. With a pixel density so high that Varjo calls it “human eye resolution,” it’s easy to get lost in virtual environments. And while you can tell that you’re looking at a digitized version of reality (a very fine graining of pixels is still perceptible), it doesn’t interfere with the sense of immersion or the ability to critically discern details like small print on virtual displays. 

[Varjo and Lenovo Partner on Advanced XR Computing for Enterprises]

All of what I’ve described so far, however, has been available since the company’s first product, the VR-1, was released early in 2019. Organizations around the world are employing it and its successors, the VR-2 and VR-2 Pro, for a variety of applications, including training for airline pilots.

What makes Varjo’s new XR-1 special is its augmented reality capabilities, which, when paired with the company’s just-launched 2D/3D immersive user interface called Varjo Workspace, open a plethora of opportunities for design-related fields. This “Dimensional Interface” is compatible with a number of Microsoft Windows applications and software tools, and enables designers to switch between real, virtual, and mixed-reality modes and modify their creations while experiencing them in 3D.

In my demonstration, the Varjo team of Urho Konttori, founder and chief product officer and Jussi Mäkinen, chief marketing officer, guided me through a few applications that are possible with the XR-1 and Varjo Workspace. At first, I was just sitting in a digitized version of the hotel room—reality captured through the XR-1’s imaging technology. Then, a giant floating screen appeared in front of the room’s actual TV, and Mäkinen played the trailer for the upcoming Star Wars movie on it, proving how smoothly the system is able to render content, even at such high resolutions. 

Next, Mäkinen—who was operating the PC that was driving my headset with a wireless keyboard and mouse—switched me into a virtual environment, an automotive showroom of one of Varjo’s customers, Volvo. At first, the room was empty except for a blue SUV. Then, he inserted a floating display above the vehicle, essentially a Windows computer screen running CAD software. Using the software, he gradually began adding different pieces of furniture to the room around a blue SUV—demonstrating the ease with which one can design an environment from within that environment. 

With Varjo’s video pass-through-based mixed reality, designers can just as easily implement virtual elements into an existing physical environment, greatly enhancing their creative potential. In fact, the XR-1 is so capable that engineers at Volvo are actually driving prototype vehicles while wearing it, to evaluate interior designs and active safety technologies.

According to Mäkinen and Konttori, the company’s software is compatible with CAD and visualization tools including Autodesk VRED, Unity, and Unreal, so designers can simply upgrade their current workflows into the realm of virtual and augmented reality.

“Varjo Workspace shows how professionals will use and interact with computers in the future,” Konttori said. “Varjo is unique in being the only product maker capable of photorealistic visual fidelity in both VR and XR, with perfect color accuracy and control. This is a key enabler for the next computing paradigm.” 

Varjo Workspace is currently shipping to customers and partners as part of the software delivered with the XR-1 Developer Edition. The XR-1 Developer Edition headset is available for purchase immediately at $9,995 and is sold together with Varjo’s Software and Support service at $1,995. Varjo plans to implement customer and partner feedback in 2020 to further deepen its integration with professional design, engineering, and simulation tools.

Retailers can still use visual displays to attract and engage shoppers, even when everyone else is doing it, too.

Many brands now have fewer shops than they did before the online shopping and e-commerce industry boomed. Despite a difficult economy, many retailers are choosing to invest in brick and mortar. Stores, after all, are not just about selling goods—these physical locations encourage customers to connect with the brand and build relationships. To make these shops viable, customers must be encouraged to visit and then also urged to stay and engage with the brand. And this is where visuals play an important role.

[Innisfree Implements Interactive Signage to Connect with Customers]

Attractive displays have long been important to retail. From painstakingly put together window arrangements to improve footfall, to simple yet effective price offer banners to boost conversions, catching customers’ attention has always been (and will always remain) essential for retailers.

With indoor and outdoor displays, video walls, and stretched panels to choose from, business owners have many options to captivate their customers and passersby digitally—all in stunning resolution.

8K UHD resolution is being adopted by the TV industry, and professional-grade digital signage is expected to soon follow. As 8K UHD displays are capable of producing extremely detailed imagery due to their resolution of 7,680 x 4,320 pixels (4,320p or 33.2 megapixels), they are ideal for creating impressive talking points in retail stores. They help bring to life the finer details of the product and technology.

[Shoppers' Paradise: Digital Signage Retail Analytics are Raising the Retail Experience Bar]

Screens of this quality can be used to form part of industry-leading retail experiences and memorable pop-ups, with the displays’ hyperrealism and vivid colors capturing and maintaining people’s attention. As well as bold brand-building advertisements, they can also showcase products in detail.

The quality and scale of good displays alone will capture attention. However, in a retail environment where every store is competing to offer strong visual experiences, you need to do more than just be aesthetically pleasing to truly stand out.

In recent years, digital signage and its complementary technologies have evolved to bring us the smartest screens we have ever seen. With integrated solutions available, retailers can move from a generic, mass-market approach to data-driven, real-time personalized promotions. This sophisticated level of customization ensures that visual displays remain attention-grabbing—even when they become the new normal for retailers.

Displays can be used to show personalized dynamic content that can change based on engagement level, the weather and even the demographics of the viewer(s). This tailoring can hugely improve the experience of customers which, in turn, will maximize ROI for retailers.

[Razzle Dazzle Retail]

The future offers many possibilities for optimizing this experience. For example, cameras in shopping centers may be able to see customers throughout a mall, note what they pay attention to, the routes they take and translate this into ‘likely behaviors’, presenting highly targeted content on digital screens in targeted stores. It may sound like sci-fi, but it’s a future that’s not far away.

Highly targeted messages and ads like this can certainly attract customers, but you can go one step beyond to encourage engagement—augmented reality (AR). Again, it may seem futuristic but it’s already being adopted. At the moment, the use of AR is commonly used in apps and headsets but this still requires the user to take a step to engage with it (i.e. put on a pair of goggles). By combining AR into displays, you make it even easier to engage—helping people get involved without any hesitation. This can be done on a small (and practical) scale, such as virtually trying on outfits in false ‘mirrors’, or large (and memorable), such as interactive, gamified billboards.

Encouraging relationship building with your brand is key for survival in today’s competitive landscape. Visual displays is one of the ways this can be achieved. Combined with amazing high-resolution displays and contextually relevant messages, retailers doing this right will continue to stand out when displays are a staple of every shop.

Varjo Technologies, provider of industrial-grade VR/XR headsets, has announced a cooperation agreement for technical and business collaboration with Lenovo. The new partnership will create Certified for Varjo pairings on Lenovo desktop and mobile workstations for all Varjo head-mounted displays (HMDs). This combines world-leading professional VR/XR products with powerful, high-end computers, enabling enterprise organizations to adopt and implement VR use cases more quickly. 

[Behind Varjo's ‘Human Eye Resolution’ VR Headset]

“Our partnership with Lenovo helps drive a monumental shift in enterprise usage of immersive technologies,” said Timo Toikkanen, president and COO at Varjo. “Combining our products with Lenovo’s pioneering enterprise portfolio products into readymade bundles eases adoption hurdles and quickly gives organizations the tools they need to start taking advantage of the many benefits of virtual reality.”

Professional VR applications including research, training and simulation, industrial design, and more require the most powerful and sophisticated technologies in order to create a valuable user experience. Varjo’s human-eye resolution VR devices, matched with the processing and compute power found in Lenovo’s workstation portfolio products, push the limits of spatial computing forward and deliver the most natural visual experience for exploring and interacting with high-resolution models and simulations.

“When you’re looking for the ultimate VR and XR viewing experience, you look for the only human-eye resolution display available,” said Rob Herman, general manager, Workstation and Client AI at Lenovo. “The technology Varjo brings to the table is extremely sophisticated and requires professional workstation power to bring that clarity to life. That’s why I’m excited to see the partnership between Varjo and Lenovo come to life after months of development and collaboration—certifying several desktop and mobile workstation configurations across our ThinkStation and ThinkPad P Series portfolio. This certification ensures the highest-quality experience for professional applications—spanning across automotive, simulation, training, architectural visualization, and more.”

This global partnership announcement comes on the heels of Varjo’s recent launch of two VR headsets: the VR-2 and the VR-2 Pro.

Over the past few years, the number of augmented reality (AR) software and platform competitors has grown, and these competitors have also grown in scale and capability. With an AR market expected to surpass $100 billion in total market revenues by 2024, the need for a comprehensive, flexible, and scalable platform to support augmented reality use cases is an increasingly critical component of implementation. 

In the new Enterprise Augmented Reality Platforms competitive assessment, global tech market advisory firm ABI Research finds that PTC is leading in present-day capabilities and forward-looking preparedness.

The Enterprise AR Platforms assessment analyzed eight AR platform players operating today: PTC, Ubimax, RE’FLEKT, Atheer, Upskill, ScopeAR, Librestream, and Fieldbit. Scoring criteria were split across present day (implementation) and forward looking (innovation) criteria. Implementation criteria included customers/partnerships/footprint, platform breadth, device support, user experience options, accessibility, and pricing. Innovation criteria included use-case applicability, IoT synergy, cloud connectivity, machine vision capabilities, data visualization capabilities, and transformative technology capabilities.

“The most competitive players in augmented reality platforms today are able to serve a few key use cases, while also allowing flexibility in offering throughout the lifetime of a customer engagement,” said Eric Abbruzzese, research director at ABI Research. “Over the past few years, showcasing value to a customer was limited to the pilot phase and small-scale engagements. Today, there is still the need to show upfront ROI potential at this scale, but equally important is an ability to scale up with the customer as they grow in number of users and types of use cases. The most competitive operators are able to span these needs while adding value through differentiated portfolio offerings.”

PTC takes the top spot for a couple primary reasons: broad and deep AR capabilities are backed up with value-add offerings and impactful enabling technologies. Augmented reality has seen a strong growth in industrial markets, where PTC is already strong and can leverage their existing products like Creo and Windchill to strengthen related aspects of an AR implementation. Ubimax and RE’FLEKT take the second and third spots; Ubimax is a leader in platform breadth and device support allowing for great flexibility and capability for growth, while RE’FLEKT offers a unique approach to content creation and distribution for customers.

This assessment is not inclusive of all AR competitors. There are numerous use-case focused players that purposefully limit platform breadth in order to maximize value around a specific use case or application. At the same time, there is increasing desire for AR platforms that can perform in multiple areas. This can include supporting numerous use cases with a single platform, such as remote expertise, training, and data logging, but can also include enabling technologies like machine vision and SLAM tracking, device management, and content creation. These technologies are often differentiators in this space, with companies expanding their portfolio reach and overall value through them.

There are nearly infinite variables involved in a proper augmented reality investment and implementation, all of which can prove to be a potential barrier. With the right enabling platform, these variables and barriers can be minimized, leading to faster and more complete ROI. “Not every customer needs a complete end-to-end solution, and certain aspects of a partner will be relevant based on a customer’s KPIs, examining target use cases, environment, and workflows,” Abbruzzese said. “A proper understanding of competitive strengths and weaknesses across key areas will help make partnership opportunities clearer and more effective.”

These findings are from ABI Research’s Enterprise Augmented Reality Platforms competitive assessment report. This report is part of the company’s Augmented and Virtual Reality research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights. Competitive Assessment reports offer comprehensive analysis of implementation strategies and innovation to offer unparalleled insight into a company’s performance and standing in comparison to its competitors.

Penn State will be equipped to meet the needs of students, faculty, and a society at large that is progressively more reliant on immersive technology with the opening of the Center for Immersive Experiences (CIE) on the University Park campus.

The center, with physical space in Pattee Library and collaborators in 11 different academic units at the University, will feature comprehensive services around teaching, learning, and research involving immersive technology by increasing access to virtual reality, augmented reality, 360-degree video, mixed reality, and more. 

The center—on schedule to open in mid-Nov. 2019—will serve as a conduit for immersive experiences at the University by championing interdepartmental projects, incorporating immersive tech into classrooms, and giving Penn Staters access to a “sandbox” of immersive technologies. The center’s physical space will feature virtual reality bays and a lab that can function as a theater, breakout room, or conference space. 

Administrators believe Penn State’s collaborative culture, institutional strengths, and research focus make it an ideal place to unlock immersive technology’s educational potential.

[Transforming Education With AR and VR]

“Immersive technology continues to grow as an expected part of life for current and future Penn Staters,” said Alex Klippel, professor of geography, Gosnell Senior Faculty Scholar and CIE director. "The center is a joint, University-wide effort that brings together students, faculty, and researchers to create a deeper understanding of how this technology influences life as we know it.” 

The Center for Immersive Experiences will help the University lead the way in discovering how the technology can provide learning experiences that will benefit students, Klippel said. 

Klippel’s work with immersive technology is extensive, and it puts him in a position to provide leadership and guidance regarding the center’s research and programming. Along with developing virtual reality experiences for place-based education, he has published extensive research with support from leading funding organizations about immersive technology’s impact on education, the workforce, and research on—for example—climate change communication.  

[VR is Still Emerging but Holds Serious Potential for AV Integrators Willing to Pivot]

At the center, Klippel leads an executive board comprised of deans from 11 academic programs across the University, and a working group made up of faculty from each of those units. Working group members were appointed by the board and are charged with tailoring the CIE’s strategic plan as it approaches its Fall 2019 opening. 

"The diversity in the units involved highlights the broad potential we all see for immersive technologies," said Marie Hardin, dean of the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, the organizational home of the center. “Alex and others across the University are working to engage these technologies in research and education. The research tells us that they can enhance learning.”  

Don Welch, acting vice president for information technology and chief information officer, said the center will encourage leadership and innovation. 

“By incorporating immersive practices across Penn State, we are opening doors to experiences beyond traditional learning by expanding opportunities for University-wide collaboration," he added. 

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According to a Forbes report, major employers are turning to immersive technology this year. Walmart has implemented VR technology to train and educate its employees, and the U.S. Army is researching AR’s capability to help with mission planning, target acquisition and evaluating soldier performance metrics. As more employers turn to this technology, the need for college graduates to excel with it will only grow.  

More information about the center’s offerings, mission and upcoming events may be found at the CIE website. 

Imagine yourself all alone, sitting in the cramped cockpit of a tiny aircraft. There’s no windshield to see what’s ahead of you, and the small side windows offer no points of reference amid the stifling fog. Chugging along somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean, your only means of navigation are a map, a handful of simple instruments, and a compass.

When Charles Lindberg made his incredible transatlantic flight in May of 1927, he did so with the crudest of technology. In the 33.5 hours spent aloft between New York and Paris, he found his way primarily on dead reckoning—plotting his course on the map based on simple calculations of speed and time—much like Christopher Columbus had done centuries before. In spite of this primitiveness, he piloted the Spirit of St. Louis with miraculous accuracy, only deviating a few miles from his planned route. 

It’s easy to marvel at the achievements of modern technology, especially when we reflect upon the kinds of tools of our forebears used to accomplish so much. Ninety-two years on from Lindbergh’s intrepid odyssey, we have indeed come a tremendous way. Hundreds of planes carry thousands of passengers across the Atlantic every day, steered along by way of conversations between computers and satellites. On the ground, we navigate the challenges of life with electronic devices that people in the 1920s would barely begin to comprehend.

But here’s the crazy thing: as technology continues to accelerate, the developments of the coming years will transform our lives to perhaps a greater degree than anything of the preceding decades. Sensors will be embedded in everything, and these devices will generate prodigious amounts of intelligence. The zettabytes of raw data that are presently just sitting around will be organized by AI into useful, readily accessible information. And we’ll devise fantastic new ways of wielding this data, like augmented reality-enabled contact lenses that overlay our vision of the world with all manner of insights. Someday, we will look back on 2019 and wonder how we flew so blind. 

In AV Technology, we explore some of the innovations that are starting us down this exciting path, from an examination of ways that AI and AR are enriching education—such as enabling medical students to see organs and diseases in three dimensions—to a look at microphones that are enhancing our ability to communicate with one another across the globe, to new VR technology that enables users to see things with the clarity of the naked eye. The world is changing fast, and the AV industry is an important agent of this extraordinary revolution. 

So, although we can’t see what lies before us, onward nevertheless we shall fly. One thing is for sure: it’s going to be a hell of a journey. 

Atlona unveiled an industry-first VR over IP innovation for the commercial AV industry at InfoComm 2019 show, with a focus on immersive AV for higher education applications. Ideal for university research labs and engineering programs, Atlona’s VR over IP breakthrough will enable student-researchers to visualize educational environments in ways not previously possible.

Powered by Atlona’s OmniStream AV over IP family, the dynamic demonstration delivered immersive VR experiences over1 Gbps Ethernet networks. Visitors to the stand experienced the demo through VR headsets and controllers, offering viewers a window into how VR can be applied in real-world AV applications.

According to Dr. Gregory Mirsky, Product Manager, Atlona, the demonstration was born from a customer request in the higher education market. While Atlona expects that market to capture the most initial interest, the company sees location-independent collaboration, training and simulation, and data visualization as potentially compelling VR over IP applications in corporate and scientific AV environments.

“Using our OmniStream AV encoders, decoders and USB over IP adapters, the demonstration proved how OmniStream can support VR-specific 2160 x 1200 resolutions, working at 233 million pixels per second and with a 90Hz refresh rate,” said Dr. Gregory Mirsky, Product Manager, Atlona. “The takeaway for integrators and tech managers is that OmniStream’s core benefits around bandwidth efficiency and low-latency distribution apply to the very advanced requirements of managing VR environments over IP networks.”

The complete Atlona VR over IP demonstration leveraged OmniStream AT-OMNI-111 single-channel encoders, AT-OMNI-121 single-channel decoders, and network-switchable USB over IP device adapters (AT-OMNI-311, AT-OMNI-324).

When it comes to cutting-edge video technology, there is perhaps no industry that demands the precision and detail of the medical field. From telemedicine to remote surgery, technology is transforming how healthcare is practiced like never before—and it’s also shaping the way it’s taught. In the past, medical students read about diseases in books; now, they can examine them inside virtual bodies with augmented reality. The sky is the limit.

And when it comes to teaching medicine, Columbia University has few peers. Ranked number six in the nation in the latest U.S. News and World Report list, Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) is home to a number of schools, including the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the oldest medical school in the U.S. and the first to award the M.D. degree. Located in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, the Ivy League institution is truly world class—and so is its AV, thanks in no small part to Jonathan Kornberg, its director of instructional technology.

“We are reaching new heights in classroom technologies, standards of practice, and learning platforms,” said Kornberg, who is in charge of designing and managing all of CUMC’s audiovisual systems. “With rapidly changing pedagogies, and active-and team-based learning, collaborative educational tools and methods are now a necessity in all universities and educational models.”

ROCK-SOLID BACKGROUND

Like many of us in the industry, Kornberg found his way to AV through music. “I was a big-time musician, signed to a label,” he said. “But then I went to the production side of things, and worked for some really big artists all over the world as a stage monitoring engineer.” During this time, he worked with one of the first artists to start doing device over IP in concert venues. “We were experimenting with switches, and bringing our own Cisco switches in behind the mixing rack. So I started learning from there.”

When his daughter was born, however, he decided he needed to call it quits from the rock ‘n’ roll way of life to be with his family. “I took all of that knowledge and moved it into the technology world,” he said. While working in New York City as an AV tech and production manager, a huge opportunity arose. “I was recruited to work [at Columbia]; someone found me and said ‘We need you to come here and change the entire face of the school, top to bottom. Everything is old, it’s all broken, nothing matches, we’ve got cables sticking out of the walls.’”

Kornberg said that this offer, which came in 2009, started off as two-year plan. “They gave me a budget and said ‘We want everything changed. What can you do for us?’”

LAYING THE GROUNDWORK

Korberg, like any good AV tech, knew where to start: standardize everything. Unlike many at the time, though, he was dead set on an end-to-end AV-over-IP system.

“We had to change switches, we had to change the whole shebang,” he said. Eventually, though, the campus was humming along on Crestron Digital Media (DM) switches. “Everything in the entire school is all networked, it’s fully enterprise wide,” Kornberg said. “We’ve been solidified for a while, as far as AV over IP. We have thousands of devices.”

When Crestron came out with Fusion, Kornberg and his team built these capabilities into the system. “Everything is managed; we have dashboards,” he said. “I’ve even gotten to the point where my guys can walk around with a [Microsoft] Surface and just control every single thing in the entire school. They can turn anything on, they can see anything, they can view anything.” There are eight technicians on his team, and three who float around to address issues as they arise.

“It’s a full team effort, and we’re really, really tight,” Kornberg said. “And it’s a lot of technology, the amount of devices we’ve put on this network.” Keeping things better organized and secure, the AV deployments now have their own subnets. “We created our own AV subnet and our own AV VLAN,” he said. “All of our devices are segregated onto their own separate VLAN, so there’s no crosstalk between a PC in an office.”

TEAMWORK

Facilitating the operation of the networked AV system requires a great deal of coordination, not just among the audiovisual team, but with the IT group. “It took a while for us to start getting along, and for them to understand really what AV over IP was, and what the protocols were going to be for this new world of what we were doing,” Kornberg said. “It took about a year for them to fully understand it.”

Luckily, being in New York City, there were plenty of resources Kornberg could draw upon to demonstrate his goals. “I actually started taking guys to Crestron to show them what I was doing,” he said. “I took them to the Javits Center to explain the partnerships between companies like Microsoft and Cisco.”

In addition to IT, he shared that having the facilities team on your side is important, as well, and said that treating these key people to a nice dinner can go a long way toward solidifying the relationship.

DOING THE JOB RIGHT

Kornberg recently had the opportunity to outfit the Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center—the newest building on the CUMC campus—with state-of-the-art technology. Though it was quite an undertaking, he and his team tackled all of the AV integration themselves.

“We do everything in house; no consultants, no outside companies at all,” he said. “Everything is designed by me through CAD. We do all of our own installs, all of our own purchasing, all of our POs.” He said that this approach saves money, time, and is simply more efficient. And when it comes to expertise, there’s certainly enough to go around: Kornberg said that he and another principle member of the AV team have about 90 certifications between them. “I’ve got Cisco, Crestron, Dante, Biamp… the list goes on and on and on,” he said.

NEW TECH

Kornberg said the university had specific requirements for instructional technology in the new building. They wanted a series of two-sided rooms with a projector in the front for traditional lectures, and a large touch-enabled display in the back for collaboration—and they wanted it all wireless and BYOD enabled.

When it came to the touchscreen side, the university was looking for a simple flat panel; he then informed them of the better solutions on the market. “Then my CIO called me and said ‘We want you to fly to the moon with touchpanels. We want you to go as far as you can possibly go.’ And I said, ‘This is not going to be cheap; this is going to be a huge project for me.’ And they said, ‘We don’t care about the money; do it.’”

So, Kornberg and his team equipped these rooms with MultiTaction video walls, which combine three proprietary, narrow-bezel, 55-inch flat panels in portrait orientation into a large, responsive video display. He met the Finnish company at InfoComm a few years back, and formed a partnership with them.

“We were the first major medical school to have this technology,” he said. “You have to think of [the displays] as a giant canvas—the software is called Canvus. Basically, you can create multiple screens and multiple canvases to pin everything to and present to. It’s a huge super-micro PC with all kinds of video outs.” It also has BYOD screen mirroring through Mersive, fulfilling the university’s connectivity requirements. “We can be collaborating side by side, and there’s almost no latency,” he said.

The system is also very simple for instructors to use. Each professor is given a wallet-sized card called a codice card. Each day, they load their lesson from their computer to a network shared drive, then when they arrive in the room, they simply press the card to the MultiTaction display, and near-field technology brings all of the content into the system. “You show up here with no USB, nothing; just bring your card, and your shared folder comes up,” he said. “Once I log in, I have all of the information on my shared folder. And it’s completely encrypted, because we have HIPAA here.”

NEXT TECH

To further the functionality of the new rooms, Kornberg partnered with several medical companies to build software for Columbia for the interactive displays. “The students can come here and use these as a reference,” he said. “Everything is virtual. You can go to any part of the body and start dissecting.” Some of these include augmented reality applications such as 3D4Medical and Visible Body, which places a virtual cadaver on a table in the room. “They’re putting them in ORs and going over to the virtual table and looking into the heart valve, and blowing it up to see details,” he said.

Kornberg is also experimenting with virtual reality. “We’re working on a VR project where we’re going to be putting [Microsoft] HoloLenses on students,” he said. “We’re going to start developing our own content for specific needs. You can also take scans from the operating room or emergency room and bring them into this scenario, and work on them virtually. And if you really want to go crazy with it, you could have a doctor in an OR in San Diego talking to this OR here, and saying ‘We have a problem with this vascular valve, I’ve got to go in and see what’s going on.’”

While there’s certainly potential with VR, Kornberg is approaching it with caution. “If you buy 30 HoloLenses, how do you manage them, where are they kept when the class is over, what if they break?” he said. “But AR is exploding because you can pop the images on top of a specific setting with no HoloLens, and you can work that way. Plus, the AR is accessible through the AR kit on a lot of iPads and iPad Minis and phones. So it’s blowing up.”

MAKING IT COUNT

When deploying technology at this scale, you had better be sure it’s going to get the maximum utilization. This was something Kornberg studied carefully before pulling any triggers.

“I bring the entire faculty in from an entire school,” he said. “For example, I brought the physical therapy (PT) group in for five different sessions and I actually got really stupid with it. I told them I want you to stand in the room and feel how you’re teaching; I want to understand what you feel when you’re teaching. Is this too bright for you? (We used to have professors complain that everything was too bright, that the light is blasting and they couldn’t teach). We placed people around the room and I brought them into multiple sessions and brought boxes as devices. ‘How do you feel? Can you see the students from here?’” This degree of in-depth analysis enabled Kornberg to create a custom solution tailored to their needs.

And, studies like this are ongoing. “I’ve been meeting once a month with different departments and going over constant pedagogical changes, constant curriculum changes, constant updates,” he said. He’s also on a number of committees, and regularly attends and speaks at medical and pharma conferences and formulates partnerships with people to see what else is available.

CUSTOMIZED CLASSROOMS

One recent integration Kornberg is particularly proud of is his team’s work with classrooms for the nursing, physical therapy, and occupational therapy schools, which occupy an old landmarked building on campus.

“This was a long, intricate project,” he said. It involves two rooms, with one as an overflow. “They needed so many different things. So what we’ve done is we have tons of sources.” The rooms have an exam camera, a room camera, multiple displays, and a wireless Mersive Solstice Pod, an iPad Pro, and a joystick system for controlling the cameras. “You can have control of both rooms with this one joystick,” he said. “You can see the cameras in both rooms. You can see the camera from this room on your touchpanel, and control the cameras from both rooms.

“Every aspect in this room is customized to the users’ needs, and they use all of it. It’s been an unbelievably successful project. The reviews have come in and it’s just a top-rated technology and PT department.”

TEACHING AND LEARNING

Kornberg’s core philosophy for deploying systems is simple: “My biggest thing is that technology should not get in the way of education,” he said. “If it does, you’ve got a problem.”

With this always in mind, he’s been working to enable two pedagogical innovations. The first he calls “360 learning.” “The students can learn in the classroom, in the dorm, in the common room, or in huddle spaces,” he said. “We always have the opportunity to discuss learning, and have access to everything at all times. Everything is recorded with lecture capture.”

And since recorded lectures can sometimes lead to students skipping class to simply watch the lessons on their own time, Kornberg advocates an approach he calls “flipped classrooms,” where the professors send the lecture materials the night before, and enforce attendance. “The students are up on this, they’re ready to rock and roll, and it’s exciting,” he said.

PRESCRIPTION FOR SUCCESS

What can other technology managers learn from Kornberg’s success? It’s starts with developing your team. “We’ve turned our techs into real techs, certified in everything,” he said. “The team we have here is incredible. The guys we have here, we’re like a ninja team. It’s unbelievable. We’re like the New England Patriots: we go out and kick ass and just level everybody.”

In addition to working closely with the end users to ensure you’re provisioning the right technology, it’s also key to be proactive in promoting its utilization once installed. “You’ve got to find your champions,” Kornberg said. “We have five or six big-time champions who are loving everything we’re doing. And then they start spreading the word, and then all of a sudden someone says ‘Wow, you’re having a lot of success with that class; how are you doing that?’ And now they’re developing and modeling that.”

Lastly, always be learning. “I’m constantly working to stay on top of technology; I’m borrowing stuff, people are sending me demos,” he said. “This is the most exciting time, right here and right now. This is the biggest jump that we’re going to have.”

Check out the highlights from Day 2 at ISE 2019.

The What: The Future Group—an international technology and creative services company headquartered in Oslo, Norway—has introduced Pixotope, a virtual production software suite running on commodity hardware.

The What Else: Pixotope brings Epic Games’ Unreal Engine to broadcasters and other businesses who use visual media with the aim of making it simpler to create real time, cinematic quality, cross-reality content. It harnesses the power and the granularity of data integration so that every element can become responsive or interactive. It is designed to take 3D, VR, AR, and data technology that’s emerging at an ever-increasing rate, and make it usable in nearly any production, at almost any budget. 

“This is what happens when you capture the best experience in the industry, expose it to the harsh environment of live TV productions, package it, and then virtualize it into an incredibly comprehensive software suite,” said Halvor Vislie, CEO of The Future Group. “It’s transformative for the industry. All the power, quality and stability demanded by broadcasters, without the need for expensive, proprietary hardware. And no massive capital outlay: just an easy monthly payment.”

With Pixotope, users can:

• Create virtual sets and AR experiences with cinema-quality, real-time graphics to make a visual experience.
• Work with a single- or multi camera productions: everything is synchronized and dynamically linked. 
• Make everything you do data driven, from personalized sets to whole content sequences.
• Use inexpensive, off-the-shelf hardware and GPUs.

The Bottom Line: Pixotope is built to withstand the stress test of a live production, and has a host of features that integrate with any modern broadcast pipeline, such as camera tracking support. It can accomplish advanced real-time graphical processing including reflections, distortion, shadows, lightwrap and virtual camera moves, all without compromising quality, performance, or stability.

 Pixotope is available now as a subscription, at a price of $2,500 per month, per camera channel. 

2018 was a significant year for augmented reality (AR) with new entrants in the market, new smart glasses launched, new and improved platforms and portfolios, and generally more enthusiasm and curiosity from the public to explore the technology. Despite that technical challenges and budget limitations remain an issue for near-future mass adoption, the total AR market will be worth US$116 billion by 2023, finds ABI Research, a market-foresight advisory firm providing strategic guidance on the most compelling transformative technologies. Technological advancements, the growth of mobile AR, more proof-of-concept use cases, and audience acceptance are the main factors that will lead to this booming growth.

“New entrances across hardware and software, along with expanding incumbents, are reshaping the AR landscape, providing more opportunities for customers and developers,” said Eleftheria Kouri, research analyst at ABI Research. “For example, Magic Leap’s initial hardware offering, as well as updated devices from Vuzix and others, are met with market conversations spanning outside of just hardware. Magic Leap is working with AT&T to trial 5G AR, connectivity players such as Huawei are pushing for cloud AR/VR, and development tools such as AWS Sumerian and Unity continue to grow in capability.”

These factors combine to spur the expected significant growth across the AR market. AR providers highlight the importance and numerous advantages of AR solutions in business strategy and employee’s efficiency while more and more focus on strong collaborations with other related technologies such as IoT data, 5G, and artificial intelligence. With 29 million AR smart glasses shipments in 2023, the ballooning install base of head-worn AR combined with hundreds of millions of AR-enabled mobile devices in the same timeframe will make these partnerships a requirement to maintain AR quality of experience while still providing the efficiency and safety increases promised with the technology.

“Allowing time for maturation, combined with ongoing audience education, is key to ensuring a successful AR business story,” said Eric Abbruzzese, principal analyst at ABI Research. “Proving value to potential customers in the enterprise with specific, targeted, and realistic metrics will win business over the next few years as the addressable market grows. While the consumer market is vastly different to the enterprise market, the basic approach of proving realistic value remains the same. After a few years in the hype cycle, a more grounded market outlook has taken hold. The fact that the potential value and usefulness of AR hasn’t changed as a result points to the revolutionary potential of AR.”

These findings are from ABI Research's Augmented Reality Market Update 2018. This report is part of the company’s AR and Mixed Reality research service, which includes research, data, and executive foresights.

Integrated Systems Europe has announced that Ambarish Mitra, the co-founder and CEO of augmented reality technology company Blippar, will present the ISE Opening Address on February 4, 2019.

Blippar’s mission is to enhance everyday life with AR and computer vision, a field of AI. Since 2011, Blippar has been pushing the boundaries of what is possible in AR. It has helped brands, retailers, and agencies use AR/AI across the consumer journey to deepen customer engagement, drive footfall, and increase sales. 

The company gives access to an AR ecosystem with products and professional services to meet specific business needs—from consultancy to AR creation tools that publish AR content within a client’s own app, or rich media banners with no app required.

Blippar’s technology has been used by leading brands such as PepsiCo, Porsche, Nestlé, L’Oréal, GSK, and Procter & Gamble to create exciting experiences.

Blippar has been ranked three years running within CNBC’s global Disruptor 50 list, alongside the likes of Uber, Airbnb, Snapchat, and Spotify in 2017. The company has also been named a Top Business Innovator by Bloomberg, Most Innovative AR/VR Company by FastCompany in February 2018, and won Best AR App at Mobile World Congress in 2017.

In the opening address at ISE 2019, Ambarish Mitra will discuss how AR and AI are disrupting key vertical sectors served by the professional AV industry, and what future developments are likely to bring.

“Augmented reality is a horizontal disruptor and will have a positive impact on every industry," Mitra said. "What we are seeing today is just a glimpse of the potential of this technology. Blippar is at the forefront of this and I look forward to sharing my vision with ISE attendees.”

Mitra is a serial entrepreneur who started his tech career in 1997 as a high school dropout, creating his first tech company around women’s empowerment in India. After moving to London a few years later, he is today an active private investor in the fields of AR, AI, food tech, and genomics.

His pioneering work in the field of AR has received wide acclaim. He was Ernst & Young UK Entrepreneur of the Year for 2016, and was appointed as an ambassador for the GREAT Britain campaign, which promotes British innovation around the world. He was also recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2017.

“We’re greatly looking forward to welcoming Ambarish Mitra to ISE 2019," said Mike Blackman, Integrated Systems Europe managing director. "Augmented reality and artificial intelligence are fast-growing areas with enormous potential. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say about the opportunities these technologies offer to the world of AV systems integration.” 

The opening address will take place in the forum of the RAI Amsterdam, shortly after the conclusion of the Smart Building Conference. It will be followed by the ISE opening reception. Both events are free to attend.

The Audio Engineering Society will hold the second International Conference on Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality on August 20–22, 2018, at the DigiPen Institute of Technology, Redmond, WA. The conference and exhibition will bring together a community of influential research scientists, engineers, VR and AR developers, and content creators.

The conference’s esteemed keynote presenters—Jean-Marc Jot, distinguished fellow, Magic Leap; Ivan Tashev, partner architect, Microsoft Research Labs Redmond; and Ravish Mehra, lead research scientist, Facebook Reality Labs—are at the forefront of innovation for VR and AR.

“Audio and video are integral components of AR/VR devices,” Tashev said. “Spatial audio is an area still under development; we need better capture, representation, and rendering technologies. To make it mainstream, we have to catch up with authoring and editing tools as well.”

The three-day conference and expo will focus on the dissemination of top-level research in the field of spatial audio for virtual and augmented reality, with demonstrations and discussions focused on technical solutions and recommended practices. Leading researchers, practitioners, and industry luminaries will offer panel discussions, tutorials, and workshops on new and forthcoming technologies.

The conference promises to be as interactive and cross-disciplinary as the field of VR and AR itself, and will include an exhibition of relevant software and product demos. The conference will bring together talented researchers and developers who are creating the next generation of audio tools for immersive content, with presentation topics including:

• The state of AR/VR audio content development tools and workflows, including personalized versus generic HRTFs
• Realistic sound propagation for immersing the user in virtual environments
• Auditory distance discrimination in cinematic virtual reality
• Spatial audio capture, rendering, and synthesis over headphones and speakers
• Binaural, ambisonics, and wave field synthesis techniques
• 3D sound field navigation
• HRTF modeling and derivation from optical and/or acoustic measurements
• Reverb and room acoustics synthesis
• 3D audio mixing and content production
• Music and sound design for VR/AR
• Higher education and immersive media
• Sound for 360 VR
• XR [extended reality] audio in diverse industries
• Dialogue for VR/AR and MPEG-H