By Matteo Valles at Grove VR

3 years ago, our good friend Alex passed away suddenly from drowning due to a shallow water blackout. While the loss was unexpected and painful for us, it was even more so for Alex’s twin brother, Leo. After seeing how it affected Leo, we were inspired to start Grove.

Mental health is only one area that we think VR can play a big role in and we are excited to see what may come in the future
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When Alex passed away, Leo had now lost his best friend and there was nobody around him that could fully relate to that situation. While his friends were there to support him in any way they could, he never got much out of it because they couldn’t possibly understand what he was going through. A few months later though, he found a group called The Twinless Twins Support Group. It was an organization brought together by the experience of losing a twin sibling. Naturally, Leo wanted to meet with the other group members and did so at one of the regional meetings. Needless to say, being around others that had lost their own twin and understood his pain was a profound experience for Leo. He continued to go to meetings whenever he could, whether they were smaller regional meetups in Florida or the large national annual meetup. All of them being just as helpful as the last.

When Alex passed away, Leo had now lost his best friend and there was nobody around him that could fully relate to that situation
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The only problem was that losing a twin is not a common occurrence and thus The Twinless Twins meetings are typically held infrequently and far away from many of its members. For example, the regional meetings are only held once every few months and are usually in a different state than many of its members. While members stay in contact with other support group members between meetings, it is typically just through text or group messages which are helpful but perils compared to meeting in person. That led my brother and me to start toying with the idea of creating something that lets people meet in virtual reality to overcome these issues. Thus Grove was born.

Now over a year since the inception of our idea, the platform is almost complete. Grove allows people to make support groups in virtual reality based around any topic they would like. Issues from depression, anxiety, addiction, loss of a loved one, and much more can all have support groups held within Grove. While the initial idea started by focusing on connecting people across wide distances, we soon discovered many other benefits that the platform provides.

Grove allows people to make support groups in virtual reality based around any topic they would like
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When attending a support group there are often many barriers, like distance in the case of Twinless Twins Support Groups. Other barriers though might be the fear of being known, transportation or membership costs, or not knowing where to find a group. Fortunately, using VR helps overcome the fear of being known due to the use of avatars. While avatars provide a feeling of truly being present with each other, you are able to control what your avatar looks like and thus, what others see of you. You can choose different genders, hairstyles, eye colors, or anything else. Your name is also never given out because Grove only requires an email address to sign up.

Another crucial benefit is that there is no cost associated with attending meetings, whether in transportation cost or membership costs. The platform is offered entirely free to ensure that there is no cost barrier for someone seeking a support group. As long as a user has internet and a headset they can attend from anywhere including their home.

There is no cost associated with attending meetings
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As long as a user has internet and a headset they can attend from anywhere including their home
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Lastly, Grove makes it simple to find the support group you need. By bringing a variety of support groups and topics to a central location, it is easy to type in the topic you are looking for (ex. depression, addiction, etc.) and find all the groups related to that topic and when they meet.

Benefits like these and many more have driven us to continue creating Grove so that people like Leo and many others can have consistent and easy access to the best support groups possible. And now with a year of development complete and only a couple months until launching the platform on Oculus headsets, we are launching a Kickstarter campaign to push Grove across the finish line. While Grove is offered entirely free, some money is needed to launch the platform including development, headsets, marketing, and legal fees. Once the Kickstarter is complete, we will be able to finish testing the platform, gathering feedback from early users, and launch in February 2020.

Benefits like these and many more have driven us to continue creating Grove so that people like Leo and many others can have consistent and easy access to the best support groups possible
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By bringing a variety of support groups and topics to a central location, it is easy to type in the topic you are looking for
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Once launched, Grove will be one of the few apps on the Oculus store that are not game- or entertainment-focused. However, we hope that as VR improves and it becomes more widespread, that more and more companies will begin creating more real-world applications for VR. Mental health is only one area that we think VR can play a big role in and we are excited to see what may come in the future.

Once launched, Grove will be one of the few apps on the Oculus store that are not game- or entertainment-focused
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If you have struggled with mental health in the past or know someone who has and would like to support Grove’s Kickstarter campaign, you can do so here.

The post Supporting Mental Health Through VR appeared first on Tech Trends.

By Brian Thomas at Enlightened Digital

The gaming market has been on the rise for a long time now. The industry as a whole is projected to hit over 90 billion dollars by 2020. That will be 12 billion dollars in growth since 2017.

Strategy and war games, which have historically been more popular in Europe, have been gaining serious ground in the US
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It would seem that this rising tide is lifting all ships, including the TableTop industry. Strategy and war games specifically, which have historically been more popular in Europe, have been gaining serious ground in the US. Simultaneously, AR has been coming on strong since the launch of PokemonGo. Visual technology has advanced so much since then, that it was only a matter of time before designers from both worlds started coming together to try and create the most epic gaming experiences possible.

At some point in time, needing to be in the same space to play games may be a thing of the past
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Easier scheduling

One of the biggest struggles most gaming groups have is scheduling. For those groups (like mine) that consist of players in their 30s and 40s this little thing called “life” can get in the way of regular gaming sessions. Babysitters can cancel. Spouses can “correct” your understanding of the schedule for that week. There are many things that keep gaming groups apart for weeks or months at a time, which is a shame.

With some of the capabilities AR literally “brings to the table”, groups can play together online, and see the same game “board”. Check out this video from TiltFive, which, at the time of writing, has raised over $1Million on Kickstarter with over 21 days left on its campaign that had an original target of $450,000. The pad that players connect on can sync up so everyone can still see and interact with the same board wherever they are playing from. At some point in time, needing to be in the same space to play games may be a thing of the past.

With the capabilities AR literally brings to the table, groups can play together online and see the same game board
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@tiltfive has so far raised over $1Million on Kickstarter
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Increased Design Space

Along with an increase in connectivity, game developers will see a massive increase in design capabilities with the implementation of AR. Since the advent of board games, they have for the most part been stuck in two dimensions. The pieces and “meeples” are of course 3 dimensional but the board itself is typically flat. With AR, the design space goes from a sheet to a cube in front of the players, so even if the physical components of the game stay flat, UI elements like points and progress trackers can now be displayed in a 3rd dimension. We’ve all played games that end up needing way too much space on the table. With AR, UI and gameplay elements can start going up rather than out, saving lots of space and providing developers with new spaces to explore when building their games.

Along with an increase in connectivity, game developers will see a massive increase in design capabilities with the implementation of AR
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Cross-Functionality

New games will have a field day with these new designs, but don’t be surprised if some of your current favorites also get re-released with AR functionality. One of the major areas of focus is wargaming, and Dungeons and Dragons in particular. Any game that utilizes some sort of grid-based environment with combat mechanics would work beautifully with AR. DMs can conjure up their nightmare environments that are hard to replicate without incredibly expensive add-ons. They can even control fog of war for their players!

With AR, UI and gameplay elements can start going up rather than out, saving lots of space and providing developers with new spaces to explore when building their games
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Potential Problems?

Even with all the great things AR can bring to the table, there still could be some downsides to it. We talked about how awesome it would be to not have to miss sessions due to scheduling conflicts. But being connected online should never replace those face-to-face moments with friends and family. If your group finds itself getting together in the same room less and less for “convenience”, you may need to pump the breaks and realize one of the things you loved most about gaming in the first place was being together. So watch out for that.

Another thing we could lose is the tactile feel of manipulating pieces. There is a tangible difference between video and board games and that is the physical manipulation of pieces around a board. You pick things up and put them down, it feels good. With AR, those pieces can be represented digitally and moved through wands, joysticks, or hand motions.

Jeri Ellsworth, CEO of TiltFive told Engaget.com that “The things that people like about board games are connecting with people, storytelling, and working with physical objects. The thing that people love about video games is that you can jump in really quick, you can save your games, and you can play with people over a long distance. We’re kind of somewhere in between.”

So admittedly some of that tactile feeling will go away, and if we start to lose the “togetherness” of being at the same table, tabletop gaming may start feeling a lot more like just, well, video gaming.

I think that overall, AR will be amazing for tabletop gaming, the pros will far outweigh the cons. I for one can’t wait to try to DM for my D&D group and really show them the horrors I have planned! Mwahahaha!

Brian Thomas is a contributor to Enlightened Digital, long-distance cyclist, and lifelong advocate for women in business from Philadelphia.

The post Playing With XR appeared first on Tech Trends.

VR didn't do as well in 2018 as many hoped - or expected
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Back in 2012, a starry-eyed young entrepreneur called Palmer Luckey announced a new and improved head-mounted display that would be better than pretty much everything on the market at the time, and affordable for gamers to boot.

For the first time since the early 1990s, virtual reality headsets had sparked the interest of gamers
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He built the first prototype of his VR headset in 2011 and announced it on Kickstarter in 2012. His prototype sparked the interest of ID Software game developer John Carmack who announced that his company’s upcoming game Doom 3 BFG Edition would support the emerging product. For the first time since the early 1990s, virtual reality headsets had sparked the interest of gamers.

We've seen Tupac Shakur and Amy Winehouse take the stage as a hologram at live events after their passing
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Putting a digital layer in front of our eyes is possible in many ways – virtual reality is just one of them. We’ve seen games like Pokémon GO send players hunting virtual monsters in the wild, and we’ve seen Tupac Shakur and Amy Winehouse take the stage as a hologram at live events after their passing. We’ve seen new technologies merging real life with the digital realm… but virtual reality hasn’t taken off as many would have expected it – at least not in the entertainment industry.

Back in 2012, a starry-eyed young entrepreneur called Palmer Luckey announced a new and improved head-mounted display that would be better than pretty much everything on the market
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VR didn’t do as well in 2018 as many hoped – or expected. The two most successful VR headsets – from a sales point of view – were Sony’s PlayStation VR and Oculus Go – these two, together, sold around 1.2 million units last year, with significant growth shown in the fourth quarter of the year. The sales of the other players on the VR market were pretty much flat across the year – the Oculus Rift (the PC tethered version), the Samsung Gear VR, the HTC Vive, and the Vive Focus showed limited sales growth. Gaming continues to be the main driver in VR software sales with sales of around $1.2 billion, while enterprise VR hardware and software have generated sales of around $800 million. According to Nielsen’s SuperData report, VR’s total revenues have grown by 30% compared to 2017, reaching $3.6 billion.

2019 is expected to be an important year for virtual reality due to the introduction of the Oculus Quest
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According to VR/AR boss Stephanie Llamas, 2019 is expected to be an important year for virtual reality due to the introduction of the Oculus Quest. The Android-powered device is one of the first fully standalone VR gaming devices, sporting a Snapdragon 835 SoC, 4GB of RAM, and 64 or 128 GB of internal storage. Its price point is pretty attractive – it costs $399 (the 64GB version) and $499 (the 128GB version). Without the wires physically tethering the gamer to a computer, virtual reality may finally offer the freedom to explore the digital world. And the standalone device without the cost of a high-end gaming PC or a gaming console will make it accessible to a much larger pool of users. This may turn VR from a fad into a growing market segment for the future.

Without the wires physically tethering the gamer to a computer, virtual reality may finally offer the freedom to explore the digital world
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The post VR: Fad or Fiction? appeared first on Tech Trends.

Microsoft’s new piece of kit doesn’t disappoint, but the real excitement of its MWC announcement goes well beyond the hardware.

After unveiling the device at MWC, Microsoft then went on to demo it to a select group of invited media (myself included) and that’s where I finally got the chance to play with what has to be one of the world’s most sophisticated toys, certainly for that price range.

Microsoft is in this for the long haul and will continue cashing in just fine without even touching the consumer market
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I won’t go over the basic specs here. After tons of excited reporting, the device itself – and Microsoft’s strategy for it – have been thoroughly analyzed from every angle. From in-depth technical reviews to accounts of testing the prototype in Redmond prior to the launch, all the way to the nay-sayers who still insist that the whole thing is doomed to fail, take your pick. What I’m interested in, however, is what this means for the broader immersive tech ecosystem.

The HoloLens and I go way back. Ever since I demoed the device in London for the first time back in 2016 I was convinced this was going to be something truly transformational. I went on to report on many different use cases that demonstrated just how much value the Mixed Reality proposition could bring to all sorts of industries.

The HoloLens and I go way back
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While others griped endlessly about the field of view and somewhat stilted gestural interface, I always preferred to focus on the bigger picture. The HoloLens was essentially an excellent proof of concept, and much of its technology was still amazingly ahead of its time even four years after launching. I had the opportunity to deep-dive into how the Microsoft team painstakingly developed the awesome spatial audio feature to heighten immersion, and interview its creator Alex Kipman on his vision for the future of both the device and the tech.

So after hearing all about it at the launch in Barcelona, I was keen to see it with my own eyes. Would it actually deliver on the promises Kipman had made on stage the night before?

While others griped endlessly about the HoloLens field of view and somewhat stilted gestural interface, I'd rather focus on the big picture
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When I first put the headset on, we were off to a good start: Promise number was kept right off the bat. This was vastly more comfortable (I’m not sure if it was exactly “three times more comfortable” like Kipman claimed but it was, well, comfortable!). Whereas I usually came away from HoloLens demos with big red marks on the bridge of my nose, the weight of this new device was elegantly distributed and the center of gravity much further towards the back. Combined with lighter carbon fiber construction, this is something I could happily wear for a while without thinking anything of it.

The second big promise Kipman had made was that this device was much more immersive. The fact the Field of View (FOV) is twice the size of the old HoloLens certainly helps towards that. Although I maintain that even with the original FOV your brain adjusted pretty quickly to it so that you still got an immersive experience, it was nice not to have to adjust. The FOV on the HoloLens 2 does not quite cover your entire line of sight, but it really does come close enough so that it doesn’t interfere with the experience. I spoke to Mark Christian, Global Director of Immersive Learning at Pearson – one of Microsoft’s HoloLens Partners – who told me that after delivering over 200 demos on the first day at MWC (conference attendees were waiting over 3 hours in line for the chance to try the device) not one of them mentioned feeling limited by the FOV.

So now that we got that out of the way, here’s what got me most excited about my own demos: The first couple of minutes in each one, where you’re essentially calibrating the device.

The second big promise Alex Kipman had made was that the HoloLens 2 was much more immersive
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By the third and fourth time I was doing that, I knew what to expect, but it was still magic, and to me it really sums up why this is an awesome leap forward for Microsoft and for Mixed Reality. It works very nicely across the board, but where it comes to eye tracking and voice recognition (and the combination of the two) it delivers in spades. And then some.

The first calibration exercise (after you do the familiar lining up of a holographic box onto the middle of your display so you can see all four edges) has a series of bright spinning jewels pop up in different places in your field of view. I’m instructed to just look at them, without moving my head. As my eyes rest briefly on each jewel, it disappears in turn. The HoloLens 2 knows exactly where I’m looking. After that’s done, a colorful hummingbird materializes in front of me. The device scans my hands (automatically adjusting to their shape and size) and when I move them the tiny bird flies over to hover above it. I change hands and move them around, feeling like Snow White in a Disney film as I make friends with this little guy, who I really feel like naming. By the time we finish calibrating the device, I regretfully watch him disappear.

But the idea behind having me play with this hummingbird is, of course, for the HoloLens to be able to scan your hands and their movement patterns to allow you to interact with the holograms. And that interaction happens in a much more intuitive flow now. Gone are the “pinch” and “bloom” gestures you had to learn and instead you can pretty much grab, stretch, toss and turn your holograms any way you please. You can push buttons, slide sliders, and tell stuff to do things. And because the device always knows where I’m looking, I can often do what I want just by directing my gaze somewhere. The prime use case of that is incredibly simple, and beautiful in its simplicity – reading. Text information was set next to a Hologram, and as my eyes finished reading the last line, that text automatically scrolled up. Not only that, but it did so faster or more slowly depending on my reading speed. It was absolutely seamless, and one example of what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella referred to in his speech on Sunday at MWC, that the best technology eventually becomes invisible.

The idea behind having me play with this holographic hummingbird was to have the HoLens 2 scan my hands
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And as for value, the price of the HoloLens 2 is actually incredibly cheap for most the large enterprises that have been using it so far. The cost and efficiency savings that introducing Mixed Reality have already brought to companies like Thyssenkrupp and Trimble are nothing short of remarkable, and the possibilities for increasing those returns even further are practically endless. That’s the low-hanging fruit as far as Microsoft is concerned. I have a feeling the only question those companies will be asking themselves is “how many of these will we be allowed to order, and how quickly can you deliver?”

But Microsoft also wants to create this “open ecosystem” around Mixed Reality and expand its appeal to small and medium-sized businesses. And for SMEs, the fact that the HoloLens 2 will also be offered on a lease basis for a few hundred dollars a month is a big attraction. The key, however, is going to be the out-of-the-box content that they will be able to offer those companies. And this is again where Microsoft’s strategy really comes together. For the past four years they have worked with these big corporations and their R&D departments to create valuable use cases, platforms and applications for Mixed Reality. If they’re now able to package that as part of a subscription offering for SMEs it could prompt a lot of smaller business owners to try it out.

Microsoft wants to create an open ecosystem around Mixed Reality
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So from a business perspective, there were very few surprises to come out of these announcements and the launch at MWC. Microsoft has proven itself to be steadfast and consistent in its strategy for the HoloLens and Mixed Reality, sticking to its original pivot towards enterprise.

But at the same time, there is no doubt that this technology will not be pigeonholed in such a way forever. It will evolve, become lighter, cheaper, and ever more intuitive and transparent. And when the time, price, and most importantly, the content ecosystem is right, it will reach that sweet spot where consumers will also embrace it. The HoloLens 2 brings us a big step closer to that, but there’s no rush as far as Microsoft is concerned. They’re in it for the long haul, and in the meantime I have a feeling they will start cashing in just fine without even touching the consumer market, thank you very much.

This article was originally published on VRScout

Hands-On With The HoloLens 2 via @alicebonasio https://t.co/GuvVS1iTvG pic.twitter.com/xpqRWxo6TF

— VRScout (@VRScout) March 3, 2019

Tech Trends’  Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. You can follow @alicebonasio on Twitter, connect with her on LinkedIn or subscribe to her Inside VR/AR Newletter for all the latest curated immersive news.  

The post Getting Hands-On with the New HoloLens appeared first on Tech Trends.

Object Theory are pretty much the oldest Mixed Reality company around, having launched in June 2015, before the HoloLens had even started shipping. In many ways they’re your typical tech company – my demos are delivered in the familiar blueprint of a trendy open-plan office with exposed brick walls, which sits above a sushi restaurant – but it’s got a different vibe from a lot of similar start-ups.

It was really interesting to see Microsoft pivot towards enterprise with the HoloLens and I think it was absolutely the right move for them to make
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For starters, they’re based in Oregon as opposed to Silicon Valley. And while Portland is by no means a backwater, it’s still not a major tech or immersive content hub like LA or San Francisco either. For another, its founders Raven Zachary and Michael Hoffman (who left Microsoft to start the company) operate a very profitable business (employing about a dozen people between full timers and contractors) with no investment capital. In spite of the fact we’re joking around and playing Angry Birds on Magic Leap, the whole thing feels very grown up, in the sense that these guys are in this for the long haul, and so, they reckon, is the business of making Mixed Reality.

You haven’t really experienced how much fun @AngryBirds is until you tried it in #mixedreality. Thanks @ObjectTheory for letting me play with your @magicleap! pic.twitter.com/UMhQbxgH1g

— Alice Bonasio (@alicebonasio) February 2, 2019

A key enabler for Object Theory’s success has been Microsoft’s strategy for marketing, supporting, and developing Mixed Reality content for the HoloLens, which is why Zachary and Hoffman are enthusiastic in their praise for the company, and in particular of the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella. By pivoting towards the enterprise market early on, Microsoft managed to create strong and sustained demand for Mixed Reality tools among companies looking to solve real business needs. That, in turn, allowed their partner developers to secure key contracts as they figured their way around the new technology.

“It’s curious how the HoloLens originated with the Xbox team (its inventor Alex Kipman was also responsible for the Kinect) so there was this idea that it would be mainly a consumer product,” recalls Hoffman. “It was really interesting to see them pivot in that way and go mainstream towards enterprise and I think it was absolutely the right move for them to make.”

The other significant pivot Microsoft made in recent years, adds Zachary, was to move away from being hardware-centered to focusing on the cloud, marketing Azure’s ability to enable what they call ‘The Intelligent Edge’: “Microsoft is the only one of the large players that has actively decided to be a multi-platform company. They are actively embracing everything that’s relevant out there, and that makes sense, because they’re making cloud consumption more valuable if it works with everything that’s out there. Because of that we hope – and it would make sense – if they adopt an OEM for their Mixed Reality technology. Microsoft has this great patent portfolio and it would be great to take that amazing secret sauce of the HoloLens and license it out to their existing OEM partners like Dell or Samsung.”

Object Theory are the oldest Mixed Reality company around, having launched in June 2015, before the HoloLens had even started shipping
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Since the launch of Magic Leap One earlier this year, Object Theory has also started exploring the possibilities that the other platform brings, such as better eye tracking and support for finer and more nuanced gestural controls as well as the much-talked-about additional field of view:

“People tend to focus on the extra field of view, but part of it is just an illusion, because they just don’t let you see what is not there, it’s really a trick because the edges of your vision are restricted by the design of the Magic Leap One HMD,” explains Hoffman. “With that restriction, you never get that cognitive dissonance of having an open FOV and a restrained one at the same time, which is what you get with the HoloLens. But that said, everyone says that after a day or so of using the HoloLens your brain adapts to it and you just don’t notice it any more, so for me this is really not a major issue.”

They muse that Magic Leap probably waited too long to launch, so that by the time they did, people were both less awed by the technology, and had unrealistic expectations fuelled by the company’s infamous cinematic concept videos.

“We in the industry knew that’s what we were going to get, but consumers felt let down because they didn’t realize the whale jumping in the school auditorium was a concept video, so for us the troll throwing a boulder was fine, but consumers – who weren’t going to buy the device anyway – felt let down,” says Zachary.

If we do get a sneak peek at the HoloLens 2.0 in Barcelona on the 24^th, it will be over three years after it was first launched, so developers like Object Theory are keen to see an acceleration of that innovation cycle. Zachary and Hoffman believe that bringing competition is one way to achieve this, and that, in a way is where the real value of having Magic Leap enter the arena lies.

People tend to focus on the extra field of view for Magic Leap, but part of it is an illusion, because they just don’t let you see what is not there, it’s restricted by the design of the HMD
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Although they haven’t deployed on Magic Leap yet, they’re hopeful that because every platform out there is investing in enabling Unity compatibility which enables them to develop cross-platform more easily. The challenge going forward, they anticipate, is that major tech companies are very used to owning their developer ecosystems outright,

“The challenge for Microsoft, Apple and Google is that they’re used to owning their developer ecosystems outright,” says Zachary, “so this is the sort of abstraction that I’m not particularly sure Apple and Google will buy into – but Microsoft might because they care about the cloud more than control over the developer ecosystem. I think ultimately for us, when an enterprise customer asks us if we can deploy on Magic Leap – which hasn’t happened so far – we’re ready and open to having that conversation. We’ve been saying all along we want more players, more competition. The more success we have in making this solve real challenges or even desires such as entertainment, the more it becomes meaningful, the pie gets bigger and there’s more opportunities for companies like us.”

The main question they’re asking themselves now is whether CIOs at Fortune 100 companies will want to invest in a start-up’s hardware solution or whether they’re by default going to go with a major player such as Apple or Microsoft.

“I don’t know the answer to that, we’re still leading with the HoloLens, it’s still our platform of choice, but we don’t know where that market is, Zachary says, but Hoffman goes a bit further, outlining how Microsoft’s targeting of enterprise proved to be a genius move in rallying developers like them to the platform in spite of its relatively small install base.”

The main question they’re asking themselves now is whether CIOs at Fortune 100 companies will want to invest in a start-up’s hardware solution
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“No matter how much money the investment in Magic Leap sounds, it’s still small compared to a company like Microsoft. They are a start-up,” says Hoffman, “And if I’m an enterprise I definitely want to take the Microsoft solution because even if they’re not perfect, they’ve been solving my business needs for a very long time,” he says, adding that while Microsoft might not be perfect, they’ve become very good at providing the services their enterprise customers want, and it was unlikely those customers would look elsewhere for them. In other words, Microsoft really isn’t going anywhere, where even a very well-funded start-up like Magic Leap could eventually run out of money and disappear without a trace. Given how risk-adverse large corporations tend to be, it’s clear what an advantage Microsoft has here in continuing to develop that market.

Even after three years, a lot of the R&D behind the HoloLens still stands up well, such as the fact that the HMD allows users to wear their prescription glasses is a huge plus (Magic Leap’s design requires you to order and purchase a special insert for around $200) as is heat dissipation; “Magic Leap makes me sweat within minutes of putting it on,” Zachary says. Another feature where the HoloLens technology scores highly with the developer community is spatial audio, which is something that Microsoft invested heavily in getting just right.

“What I love about the spatial audio feature as a developer is that you literally just have to push a button and it works. The Algorithms fill in all the blanks for you,” Zachary enthuses. “The sense of presence with Prism (the Mixed Reality collaboration and productivity platform that Object Theory developed for the HoloLens) because of the spatial audio is amazing. I want to talk to the silly cartoon avatar because the sound makes it really feel like that person is in the room with me, it’s unbelievable.”

“So overall – and we asked a lot of other people about this too – the sense is that Magic Leap outperforms the HoloLens in a couple of areas, and does worse in others, but there isn’t this sense that the needle has been moved dramatically,” Hoffman adds. “We’re very curious to see how they position Mixed Reality in 2019 and to what extent HoloLens will be a core or ancillary part of that story, and whether we’re going to see OEM devices. The more partners out there building devices, the more this market is going to move forward. We were a bit early, but we’re true believers.”

This article was originally published on UploadVR

Between Magic Leap and HoloLens, which is going to win over developers?https://t.co/X6QOjv8BGe pic.twitter.com/R5EyHZQLby

— UploadVR (@UploadVR) February 20, 2019

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies our VR Consultancy service offers comprehensive support in strategic deployment of Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Developing the Future of Mixed Reality appeared first on Tech Trends.

There are many tantalizing possibilities around immersive technologies, but where they usually hit a snag is the fact that most cool experiences require complicated equipment. Stuff that you have to wear, setup, and ultimately think about.

So the holy grail for achieving a truly immersive experience is, of course, for it to just happen all around you – just like real life. There are many companies working on various visions of that Holodeck-like future, including Light Field Lab which we covered recently, but mostly they’re at an early conceptual stage.

Yet advances in existing projection technology have made it possible for new kinds of immersive movie theaters to be built, such as Space 360 in South Korea, opened last year.

There are many tantalizing possibilities around immersive technologies, but where they usually hit a snag is the fact that most cool experiences require complicated equipment.
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We wanted to make a true VR theater that would give visitors a breathtaking 360 immersive experience
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The setup inside this sphere, which is 12 meters in diameter, consists of a transparent glass observation bridge which spans the interior space, with high-resolution projection enveloping users above, below, and all around in 360 degrees, bypassing the need to wear VR headsets altogether.

The project was financed by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. (the country’s national operator of power plants) which then proceeded to donate the entire thing to the National Science Museum as part of its corporate social responsibility program.

The holy grail for achieving a truly immersive experience is, of course, for it to just happen all around you
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The first show created exclusively for the sphere told the story of the Big Bang and the beginnings of human civilization, but it is capable of playing any fulldome or VR content.

Ukrainian creative studio Front Pictures was responsible for engineering and installing the projection system and software. They had extensive experience in engineering fulldome theaters and planetariums, having delivered over 150 such installations around the world. The concept of a fully immersive installation, however, was more challenging. For starters, placing the projectors in such a way that they would not shine directly in the viewer’s eyes was difficult.

“We wanted to make a true VR theater that would give visitors a breathtaking 360 immersive experience. But to meet our idea of the future, the system also needed to have the highest possible resolution and brightness of projection, high energy efficiency and cost effectiveness,” they recounted in a blog post on their website. “Unlike in a conventional digital planetarium, where projectors are located along the dome’s perimeter, the options for placing them in a full sphere are substantially limited. One of the challenges was to devise a layout that would avoid shadows being cast by the observation bridge, minimize openings for the projectors, while, at the same time, maximizing the resolution and brightness of the projection.”

In the end, they chose to use 12 projectors, located around two entrance doors, with their engineers exhaustively testing different layouts that would allow for rotation at extreme angles, as well as equipment configuration offered by various vendors (noise was also a big factor considering the number of projectors in an enclosed space.)

“The spherical screen creates significant geometrical distortions of the projected image. The distortions become even larger due to the fact that in a full projection sphere, it is impossible to place projectors along the perimeter, as a sphere has no edge. They need to be located around the entrance doors on the opposite sides of the sphere.”

A conventional fulldome experience is only half a sphere, so one can get away with deploying one fisheye lens. This is not enough to completely cover the spherical screen with a bridge in the center, however. In this situation, manual calibration – i.e. stitching the images together isn’t the best option, so they adopted an automated calibration system, based on powerful computer vision and image analysis algorithms combined with a 360 degree multiple camera rig. Front Pictures has been developing auto-calibration technology since 2012 which analyses patterns to seamlessly blend projectors together into a unified coordinated space.

Ukrainian creative studio Front Pictures was responsible for engineering and installing the projection system and software
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To overcome that, Front Pictures used four cameras with fisheye lenses mounted around the glass bridge, customizing their software to enable the multi-camera calibration. As they further explain:

“The previous generation of multi-projector systems were built around the “one computer per one projector” paradigm. But this approach has significant drawbacks such as a relatively big budget for computer hardware, more possible points of failure, difficulties with implementing proper failover solution, as well as higher electricity consumption. Another downside of the cluster systems is a discrepancy in video playback speed on different computers, which can result in rough, jerky video playback.”

They developed a technology called Screenberry to address that particular problem. This is a hybrid video processing engine which uses both the GPU and CPU in a much more efficient way and can smoothly playback 8x8K video on up to 72 output devices, all the while connected to just one computer.

The bar is set very high for immersive experiences that manage to capture our imagination and get punters actually paying to try them out
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It all highlights how incredibly difficult, laborious and time-consuming a process it is to get this stuff right. The bar is set very high for immersive experiences that manage to capture our imagination and get punters actually paying to try them out, and that sweet spot is mighty hard to hit. But the continued market growth shows that there is also an appetite for these experiences, it’s just a matter of finding the best way to deliver them. Whether or not that will involve any sort of wearable device in the future remains an open question.

This article was originally published on VRScout

Inside Space 360 – South Korea’s Amazing Fulldome Theater via @alicebonasio https://t.co/EOhLyUXnOS pic.twitter.com/0FkDf3kS2e

— VRScout (@VRScout) October 30, 2018

For companies looking to leverage Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR Tech Trends offers a comprehensive range of Virtual Reality Consultancy Services.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Diving Into VR Without a Headset appeared first on Tech Trends.

The new HoloLens subscription service could prove a catalyst for SMEs to embrace immersive technology.

Since the HoloLens was first released almost three years ago, Microsoft has steadily been building partnerships and demonstrating an array of industry use cases across manufacturing, engineering, healthcare, education and many others.

The Mixed Reality as a Service packages start at £260 per month and include a device, delivery, swap warranty, collection and recycling
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Rather than place users in a fully computer-generated world, as virtual reality does, HoloLens allows users to put 3D digital models in the room alongside them. As the Windows-10-based product does not have wires or external cameras, or require a phone or PC connection, users can walk around the objects they create and interact with them using gestures, gaze and voice. This tends to make it well suited for onsite industrial applications.

Of the 39 markets where the HoloLens is available 29 are in Europe
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Yet while many large companies have adopted mixed reality and enthusiastically evangelized about the efficiency gains that they achieved with HoloLens applications, the $3,000 price tag of the device has been perceived as a barrier for adoption among smaller players, who understandably aren’t sure that the ROI would be justified in onboarding the technology at this relatively early stage.

This is why it’s significant to see the Microsoft partnering with JTRS and its parent firm Econocom to rollout a new mixed reality as a Service offering which will allow customers to get a HoloLens on a subscription basis across Europe. The packages start at £260 per month and include device, delivery, a swap warranty, and collection and recycling at the end of the term.

“This technology and solutions are now becoming accessible to all companies,” adds Marc Bringuier, Strategic and International Partnership Manager at Econocom. “With the HoloLens partnership, we’ve brought together a community of companies, all of whom are leaders in their markets and are committed to facilitating companies’ access to mixed reality.”

Since the HoloLens was first released almost three years ago, Microsoft and their partners have demonstrated an array of industry use cases across manufacturing, engineering, healthcare and education
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Out of the 39 markets where the HoloLens is available globally, 29 are in Europe, so it makes sense that Microsoft has chosen to pilot this new model in the region. According to Leila Martine, Director of Product Marketing at Microsoft, “Europe is the first market in which we’re working with authorized resellers to offer HoloLens as part of a subscription model to help support the depth of customer and Mixed Reality Partner Program partners’ needs we’ve seen in this market.”

In a world where ownership is outdated and where technology is used over time, it makes more sense for institutions to use an as-a-service subscription to access Microsoft HoloLens
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The VR and AR device global market is predicted to reach circa $1.8 billion this year, and according to market intelligence firm IDC, the sector as a whole will see revenues of more than $162 billion in 2020 – up from $5.2 billion in 2016. Yet within Microsoft’s mixed reality strategy, hardware is only one piece of the puzzle. At last year’s Build conference they outlined their ambition to become the go-to platform for immersive experiences across all devices, and recent moves seem to back this up, opting for an open and collaborative approach rather than the “walled garden” strategy favored by companies such as Apple.

“Since we live in a world where ownership is outdated and where technology is used over time, it makes more sense for institutions to use an as-a-service subscription to access Microsoft HoloLens. Customers can now get up and running much quicker, with HoloLens and apps, whether it be for space planning, industrial or educational training, use within design, maintenance or operations. This time to market advantage can be material to how companies save time and money, today.”

Microsoft has also been developing an array of first party collaborative apps such as Remote Assistance (which enables hands-free video calling, image sharing and mixed reality annotations to share what they see with an expert to solve problems and complete tasks) and Microsoft Layouts (which lets users import 3D models to create and visualize room layouts and edits with multiple stakeholders in real time.

“Working on HoloLens over the past three years, we have learnt just how important it is to increase the number of “out of the box” solutions we have on offer to equip customers with the tools and technology they need to accelerate innovation. In this way, customers can pick up their HoloLens device, install the application they need and begin getting value straight away,” says Martine. “Alongside this, we’ve partnered with a range of software companies from start-ups to large enterprises to create extensible solutions that are easy for our customers to get started with.”

One example that Martine gives of this sort of successful partnership is UK startup Kazendi which allows co-workers to remotely meet, collaborate and connect with 3D models and 2D documents via HoloLens. Meanwhile, PTC’s Vuforia Studio offers business native support for building and rapidly creating scalable experiences without the need for skills programming or designers. This sort of out-of-the-box functionality, together with the support and affordability offered in the subscription model, is likely to entice many SMEs into dipping their toes into the immersive tech market, and that in turn could cement Microsoft’s dominance in that space.

Mixed Reality solutions are now becoming accessible to all companies
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This article was originally published on Forbes

Microsoft introduces mixed reality as a servicehttps://t.co/zKIM5yRWWO

— Forbes Tech News (@ForbesTech) June 16, 2018

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Will Mixed Reality as a Service be a Game Changer for Microsoft? appeared first on Tech Trends.

The Brazilian-born inventor gets recognition for his groundbreaking work with the Microsoft Hololens.

The European Patent Office (EPO) announced that it has nominated U.S.-based inventor Alex Kipman as a finalist for the European Inventor Award 2018.

“Alex Kipman’s invention is a vision for the future of computing with the potential to change how we connect and collaborate,” said EPO President Benoît Battistelli. “His ideas are enhancing the real world with digital information that helps people achieve higher levels of efficiency, and creating new opportunities in fields such as engineering, communications, and healthcare.”

Kipman started his professional career at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, right after graduating from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2001. In a career spanning more than 15 years as a developer for the company, he has been named as the primary inventor on more than 150 U.S. and Asian patents, as well as two granted European patents and more than a dozen European patent applications. His current position as Technical Fellow of the Windows and Devices Group enables him to maintain a hands-on approach to building the HoloLens and related Windows Mixed Reality software platform.

Built-in machine learning and AI-algorithms enable the HoloLens to be contextually aware of its surroundings and interpret user commands
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The HoloLens incorporates several patent-protected Microsoft inventions, including Kipman’s motion sensors initially brought to market for the Xbox Kinect video game controller. The software for the HoloLens is developed in the Windows 10 operating system in the Windows Mixed Reality software environment. Current applications of the device include telecommunications (e.g. for enhanced video calls), a 3D virtual tourism application, and a suite of mixed-reality games, as well as industrial uses for metering and quality control, and interactive digital human anatomy. A host of promising new applications are being developed. In 2017, a Spanish team of surgeons used the mixed-reality headset successfully while operating on a patient with a malignant muscular tumour. During the procedure, the surgeons were able to view live diagnostic imaging from MRI and radiography data feeds, without taking their eyes off the patient.

The HoloLens is a stand-alone device, independent from external PCs, tablets or smartphones
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Thanks to built-in machine learning and AI-algorithms, the HoloLens is contextually aware of its surroundings and able to interpret user commands such as “move that chair.” It observes its surroundings via an inertial measurement unit (a device that measures linear and angular motion), a depth-sensing camera, a 2.4-megapixel video camera, four microphones and an ambient light sensor – so it “knows” which chair the wearer is currently seeing. It collects several terabytes of data every second, piped in via sensors and then computed.

Alex Kipman's invention is a vision for the future of computing with the potential to change how we connect and collaborate
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“Current-generation mixed-reality glasses include “smart” ski goggles that project data such as altitude, temperature and pulse into the wearer’s field of vision. But these devices display only two-dimensional text and graphics, while requiring a connection to a smartphone for computing power,” explains Battistelli. “The HoloLens is a stand-alone device, independent from external PCs, tablets or smartphones. It contains all necessary computing power in its custom-built processors. These include a CPU (central processing unit), GPU (graphics processing unit) and custom HPU (holographic processing unit), an industry first.”

These processors collect several terabytes of data every second as the HoloLens reads its environment. Data arrives through an inertial measurement unit (IMU), a depth-sensing camera, a 2.4-megapixel video camera, four microphones and an ambient light sensor.

HoloLens owes its innovative edge to the waveguide lenses that trick the human brain into interpreting photons as solid, three-dimensional things
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As the name suggests, the HoloLens owes its innovative edge to the waveguide lenses that “trick” the human brain into interpreting photons as solid, three-dimensional things – hence holograms. They are computed on the GPU and displayed through the device’s “light engines”, two tiny liquid-crystal-on-silicon projectors which beam light onto the two lenses.

Processors collect several terabytes of data every second as the HoloLens reads its environment
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The image is adjusted between the two lenses for clarity and depth, then blended with the real world. As a result, holographic images appear to exist in front of the wearer – from a few centimeters to many meters away – with true depth of field.

Once ready for mass adoption, the HoloLens could lead to a fundamental shift, as mixed-reality devices replace today’s smartphones as the main communications devices. According to experts at market researcher Gartner, 30% of web browsing sessions could be done without a screen by 2020. At that point, 50% of all search queries could originate, not from keyboards or touchscreens, but voice commands as computing moves into an era beyond screens.

Once Microsoft has built an attractive mixed-reality library, products such as the three-dimensional teleconferencing app Holoportation could well join bestsellers like Office 365
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Consulting firm Digi-Capital estimated the world market for augmented- and virtual-reality devices at EUR 3.3 billion in 2016. The firm projects that, driven by next-generation mobile augmented-reality hardware, the market will reach EUR 85 billion by 2021. Once Microsoft has built an attractive mixed-reality library, products such as the three-dimensional teleconferencing app Holoportation could well join bestsellers like the Office 365 commercial suite with over 100 million users.

“Kipman’s HoloLens can make holographic likenesses appear in thin air with new levels of sophistication – for instance in teleconferencing calls. Because the mixed-reality headset requires no computer screen or keyboard, it could be part of a revolution that would replace smartphones as the main communications devices,” adds Battistelli.

Once ready for mass adoption, the HoloLens could lead to a fundamental shift, as mixed-reality devices replace today's smartphones as the main communications devices
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“It’s an experience where content is no longer tied to a screen but exists in both time and space laid over the real world,” says Kipman, who has predicted the “death” of the smartphone and a new revolution in personal computing build around the concept of Mixed Reality. Current industry trends appear to support his statement – such as the shift towards voice search with digital assistants like Cortana from Microsoft, Siri from Apple and Alexa from Amazon. Consumers may one day be talking and gesturing to holographic “ghosts”, while the smartphone becomes a spectre of the past.

Kipman has been awarded the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award (2009), Microsoft Outstanding Technical Achievement Award (2012), and IPO Education Foundation’s Inventor of the Year Award (2012). He also received the honor of being named one of TIME magazine’s Top 25 “Nerds of the Year” (2010), an epithet he wears proudly.

To find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers bespoke Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The sexily named patent is viewable in full here: EP3028121

The post Alex Kipman Nominated for Inventor’s Award appeared first on Tech Trends.

Revolutionary tech industry concepts such as Lean Startup and Agile Software development are underpinned by the age-old scientific methodology.

I spent 25 years in the “Ivory Towers” of academia leading my own brain science of human learning and performance laboratory. I am a scientist by trade, and when I first started working in the private sector, a colleague suggested that I read The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, saying that the “build-measure-learn” approach advocated in this book was revolutionizing product development.

The idea is that you build a minimum viable product (MVP), release it to users, measure their interactions and perceptions, and learn from the data. Once this cycle is complete you use what you have learned to improve the product and repeat the process. Ultimately, a high-quality product emerges. This is very similar to the equally revolutionary agile approach to software development that emphasizes interaction, collaboration and responding to change.

The idea behind the Lean Startup concept is that you build a minimum viable product (MVP), release it to users, measure their interactions and perceptions, and learn from the data
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After reading about these approaches, I immediately saw that they both derived directly from the scientific method that has been in existence for thousands of years and which I had always applied in my own work.

As a cognitive neuroscientist with an emphasis on training, I was drawn immediately to xR (Cross Reality) technologies. As I have written in other articles, I believe that these technologies have the potential to revolutionize training. They reduce the cognitive load associated with the problem of mental visualization and representation, and can facilitate extensive behavioral skills practice, such as soft skills in situations when this might be difficult outside of a simulated environment.

As a cognitive neuroscientist with an emphasis on training, I was drawn immediately to xR (Cross Reality) technologies
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Although there are clear examples of xR entrepreneurs who embrace build-measure-learn and are developing high-quality products, my experience is that the more common situation is one in which entrepreneurs are excellent at building the product, but fall short on the measure and learn components. What are usually lacking are high-quality measurement tools that provide actionable insights. With poor measures, learning will be poor as well, and the build-measure learn cycle will therefore be broken.

It is the beliefs, preferences, and – more importantly – the interactions, of the relevant customer base with the product that matters. Unfortunately, however, instead of implementing objective measures, all too often the product is a reflection of the subjective beliefs and preferences of the builders.

Without implementing a rigorous, scientifically-grounded approach to development, product iterations are random, subjective and could make a product worse, not better
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As scientists-in-training learn on Day 1, subjective beliefs are limited by an individual’s experiences and preferences, and are therefore ineffective at driving product development. Because the measure and learn phases of build-measure-learn are broken, the result is often an underwhelming and underachieving product.

This does a disservice to the emerging technology sector, as it is difficult for high-quality offerings to break through when so many low-quality offerings exist. I have seen this first-hand in my role as an industry analyst in the Learning & Development sector.

I have spoken with numerous thought leaders and product development experts in the corporate training sector who focus exclusively on computer-based training. Some of the more forward-thinking of these individual are intrigued by the potential of xR technologies in corporate training, yet the majority of them are underwhelmed. This is worrisome because corporate training platforms represent a huge potential market for xR technologies to train important skills.

When I talk to xR companies about implementing objective measures of preference and interaction a common response is that there is no money in the development budget for this
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When I talk to xR companies about implementing objective measures of preference and interaction in the service of learning more about their product, however, a common response is that “there is no money in the development budget for this.” The implication being that measuring and learning are not necessary to success. My response is simple: “You can’t afford NOT to have money in the development budget for this.” Without implementing a rigorous, scientifically-grounded approach to development, product iterations are random, subjective and could make a product worse, not better.

The xR technologies have the potential to disrupt a number of commercial sectors, and new xR startups are being created on a daily basis. Some will succeed and most will fail, and although I can’t predict the future, the odds of success will be significantly increased for those companies who embrace build-measure-learn and agile—that is, who fully embrace the age-old method called science.

Todd Maddox is Science, Sports and Training Correspondent at Tech Trends, and the CEO of Cognitive Design and Statistical Consulting. Follow him on Twitter @wtoddmaddox

The post How Science Can Help Build Immersive Products appeared first on Tech Trends.

On-site workers can now safely wear the HoloLens to project Mixed Reality visualizations onto real-world environments.

Industrial collaboration tools are one of the fastest-developing areas for the Microsoft HoloLens, with many companies such as Object Theory looking for ways to diversify and broaden the market for Mixed Reality. On the other hand, selling this technology as an everyday working tool in places like construction sites, offshore facilities and mining projects means making it robust enough to be used as such, which means it has to comply with very specific and stringent safety and environmental standards.

Industrial collaboration tools are one of the fastest-developing areas for the Microsoft HoloLens
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Which is how Microsoft finds itself in the somewhat unlikely position of endorsing a hard hat. They have been working with Trimble to come up with a design – complete with MSA V-Gard hard hat, suspension system and quick-release accessory clips – which allows workers to wear the HoloLens comfortably without voiding the warranty of the $3000 device.

Microsoft finds itself in the somewhat unlikely position of endorsing a hard hat
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It also meets basic impact protection requirements of ANSI Z87.1, CSA Z94.3 and EN 166 (the most common protective glass certification standards) and IP50 rated testing, meaning the device will be able to perform as dust protected. And while that might not sound like the sexiest list of features, it seems to have got this construction crew excited enough:

As they point out in the video, these workers already routinely use technology such as tablets to access plans and data on site, but going from 2D to 3D at scale brings that to a whole new level. “Superimposing the digital model on the physical environment provides a clear understanding of the relations between the 3D design model and the actual work on a jobsite,” explained Olivier Pellegrin, BIM manager, GA Smart Building.

The application they are using is called Trimble Connect. It turns data into 3D holograms, which are then mapped out to scale onto the real-world environment. It gives workers an instant sense of where and how various elements will fit in best, and exposes mistakes early on in the process.

Trimble Connect turns data into 3D holograms, which are then mapped out to scale onto the real-world environment
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It does that by combining multiple models – structural, mechanical, electrical – and aligning each one precisely on a 1:1 scale onto the job site structures. This means workers can review and make changes to the models in context with the physical environment they’ll be applied to. It can be used not only to plan work more efficiently, but to train workers and compare plans against tasks completed. Other features enable users to view and capture data with onsite measuring tools, make annotations, and assign tasks.

Features enable users to view and capture data with onsite measuring tools, make annotations, and assign tasks
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With Trimble Connect users will be able to visualize and share holographic data to collaborate in projects and manage quality control and progress monitoring
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Trimble – a California-based company that specializes in advanced location-based technology – was one of the first HoloLens partners that Microsoft onboarded back in 2015. Later that year, Trimble company launched its Mixed Reality program and released the first commercially available enterprise-level product for the device – called SketchUp Viewer – in partnership with multinational engineering firm AECOM.

Microsoft’s HoloLens strategy has been to focus on enabling Industry 4.0 efficiencies and capturing the lion’s share of the enterprise market
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With Trimble Connect – which is available now on the Microsoft Windows App Store with a free trial option – users will be able to not only use the functionality in training scenarios, but also visualize and share holographic data to collaborate in projects and manage tasks such as quality control and progress monitoring.

“We are expanding the opportunities for implementation of Mixed Reality in a broad range of industries,” says Aviad Almagor, director of Trimble’s Mixed-Reality Program. “With the rise in acceptance for mixed-reality solutions in business, the need for 3D visualization outside the office is driving this next wave of innovation.”

The Hard Hat Solution, which is expected to be released later in the first quarter of 2018, will – excuse the pun – build upon what has been Microsoft’s HoloLens strategy from the very start, which has been to focus on enabling Industry 4.0 efficiencies and capturing the lion’s share of the enterprise market.

Which is not to say that they are ignoring the average user, however, as the new wave of Windows Mixed Reality headsets proves. These HMDs incorporate many of the features the company developed for the HoloLens, such as inside-out tracking capabilities, which make them a lot more comfortable to wear and brings the tech a step closer to looking like a viable consumer proposition. It does mean, however, that Microsoft can afford to play the long game as far as mass-market adoption goes, and that’s a pretty nice place for it to be, specially as we start to anticipate what the next generation of the HoloLens will look like, and how it will compare with other newcomers in that space like Magic Leap.

This article was originally published on VRScout

This is what a #MixedReality hard hat looks like https://t.co/CaF1rE6SwQ

— Alex Kipman (@akipman) January 31, 2018

Tech Trends’  Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to get a foothold in the growing Mixed Reality spectrum and enhance their brand strategy with immersive technologies. 

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post #BuildTheFuture > Constructing the Future With Mixed Reality appeared first on Tech Trends.