Why would we want to build a parallel reality populated by digital twins?

Sure, it sounds cool, yet this “virtual twinning” effectively extends the possibilities of both the “world of atoms and the world of bits“ as HoloLens inventor Alex Kipman eloquently put it in a TED talk which has been viewed over 3.5 million times.

There is already an entire ecosystem emerging around the challenges of sensing, mapping, and replicating objects from the real world into the digital – and vice-versa
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This is not some distant blue-sky thinking. There is already an entire ecosystem emerging around the challenges of sensing, mapping, and replicating objects from the real world into the digital – and vice-versa. In fact, one of the main applications of the 5G connectivity infrastructure rollout will be to mirror physical objects and environments digitally in real-time. That, in turn, would enable XR (extended reality) applications to be built which bring quantifiable value to users.

5G applications that consumers will “get”

“I don’t think the average person really comes close to realizing just how much of a quantum leap we’re talking about,” says Deeyook CEO Gideon Rottem. “They think it will be faster, but literally it will enable things that will make what we have now pale in comparison,” he adds.

Rottem’s Israel-based company has developed a self-learning tracking solution that measures the angles of wireless transmissions – tapping into the existing 1.7 billion wireless access points that already exist globally – to determine positioning of employees, items and assets (within 10 cm) without tapping into a company’s IT network and without invasive personal tracking or data capturing.

These mapping technologies are going to interact with the cloud differently, as it no longer becomes necessary to upload images in order to understand what the user is standing in front of. According to Rottem, once we achieve accurate positioning, we can also create accurate virtual worlds (largely automatically) so the integration between the physical and the digital can become seamless.

These mapping technologies are going to interact with the cloud differently, as it no longer becomes necessary to upload images in order to understand what the user is standing in front of
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A newly released report by research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics revealed that although consumers are intrigued by 5G, speed on its own is not enough to sell them on the idea of upgrading. This is partly because it is difficult to grasp what it will enable them to do. CSPs will need to solve existing pain-points and entice customers with new experiences.

In practical terms, spatial mapping technologies are crucial in enabling the type of integrated applications that not only address practical customer needs but also create these “wow” factors that will prompt mass adoption of 5G. The above research found that what got consumers most excited about the prospect were immersive experiences such as holographic conversations and XR field training.

A newly released report by research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics revealed that although consumers are intrigued by 5G, speed on its own is not enough to sell them on the idea of upgrading
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It’s not a surprise, therefore, to see many companies in the connectivity space embracing immersive technology and content as they seek to bridge this “imagination gap”.

An example of a CSP doing just that is UK mobile giant Three, which recently released a highly produced tongue-in-cheek advert which shows us what a 5G-enabled holographic future could look like.

“Hold on to your crumpets,” says Three in their recent 5G ads.

Many companies in the connectivity space embracing immersive technology and content as they seek to bridge the consumer imagination gap
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Moetsi is a company working to build the spatial mapping infrastructure to make that future happen by offering “sensor stream processing on the edge.” This effectively boils down to processing vast amounts of data in real-time and delivering it in a format that makes sense and is relevant to the context of where it is being applied.

We will see an explosion of XR applications that provide immense value industry and enterprise, as well as mind-blowing experiences for individual consumers
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To illustrate how an application could leverage this, Moetsi co-founder Adam Polak gives an example of someone about to cross a street getting alerted that the car moving towards them isn’t slowing down for the red light. At that point, all our decisions would potentially become augmented and informed by tapping into these edge-processed datastreams, fundamentally changing our relationship with technology, the world around us, and one another.

3D mapping in arts and entertainment

There are use cases already emerging of spatial mapping being applied to create, transform, and augment art. Award-winning immersive content studio HEAVY has partnered with the Marriott hotel group to build a “secret digital garden” at the JW Marriott Anaheim Resort which was  due to open in April. The project leveraged mapping technology from 6D.ai, a company that set out to build  “a 3D map of the world” and has since been acquired by Niantic, the makers of Pokémon GO.

This feature of persistence is key to understanding the value these real-time mapping technologies bring to such experiences. In this case, HEAVY produced a fine art installation blending physical, custom-made sculptures with augmented reality elements to create a serene space where resort guests and visitors can plant their own fantastical trees while enjoying playing among digital caterpillars and butterflies.

There are use cases already emerging of spatial mapping being applied to create, transform, and augment art
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What makes the zen-like experience more than a bit of fun, however, is the narrative backdrop for the magical plant’s evolution from sapling to tree. By performing the digital meditations, each guest will figuratively transform into a different kind of tree, personalized around their choices, which can then be further nurtured over time like a flora version of Tamagotchi. This means that the way users interact with and nurture their trees will affect how it develops, and consequently what type of experience each person generates and enjoys.

How will this technology come to life?

Improving the speed at which connected devices can stream information to an authoritative server will be a crucial piece of that puzzle according to Polak, as improvements in networking such as 5G will help reduce the latency and increase the amount of sensors that can communicate in a local area, something that the current generation of networking infrastructure simply cannot cope with.

“The engineering challenge is enormous: being able to interpret any sensor data correctly in a manner that can be used by application developers to provide value to end-users, basically not only seeing, but understanding anything a device can sense in the world,” Polak adds.”

So, are we there yet? Well, yes and no. A lot of this technology already exists but it is hampered by the fact that nearly every XR developer has to roll out their own solutions to build cross-platform applications that can be shared with all users.

According to Polak, initiatives like OpenXR are addressing the problem of having to build separate implementations for ARKit, ARCore, and MRTK (Microsoft’s Mixed Reality Toolkit) by enabling developers to access XR device data through a single interface.

A lot of this technology already exists but it is hampered by the fact that nearly every XR developer has to roll out their own solutions to build cross-platform applications that can be shared with all users
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Once we arrive at that convergence of 5G connectivity and the ability to interact with digitized objects in platform-agnostic experiences that are embedded in our own physical reality, our world as we know it will never be the same. We will see an explosion of XR applications that provide immense value industry and enterprise, as well as mind-blowing experiences for individual consumers.

So while wrapping your head around the concept of building a “Mirror World” might be difficult at first, once it clicks into place we’re likely to wonder how we ever settled for such an ordinary reality in the first place.

This article was originally published on Futurithmic

#SpatialMapping technologies are crucial in enabling the type of integrated applications that not only address practical customer needs but also create these WOW factors that will prompt mass adoption of #5G. https://t.co/2wC9FhIFdq pic.twitter.com/vnsLln2VPY

— Futurithmic (@futurithmic) May 1, 2020

Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals, and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a XR 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 Digitizing our Existence appeared first on Tech Trends.

There is an unprecedented demand for ventilators due to the coronavirus pandemic, yet the physical machines are really only part of the equation.

There is an unprecedented demand for ventilators due to the coronavirus pandemic
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In the United Kingdom, the country’s National Health Service (NHS) is having to quickly redeploy doctors and nurses from other disciplines as well as those coming out of retirement to provide support in the Intensive Care Units.

In the UK, the country’s National Health Service is having to quickly redeploy doctors and nurses from other disciplines
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To help medical staff (re)acquire the necessary skills to do that, FundamentalVR, a start-up that develops immersive simulations to train surgeons, has worked with Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust to develop an online tool that allows medical professionals, to gain the key knowledge they need for ventilating patients in around 30 minutes.

The program which consists of short how-to videos and educational graphics is being rolled out at Imperial College London prior to its deployment nationally and internationally to help combat Covid-19.

“It takes years to specialise a clinician in intensive care; while this new training course is not designed to replace this expertise, it will enable health systems across the world to act now and provide the care that their patients desperately need,” says project lead Professor Ara Darzi, co-director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. “With greater capacity, we can help more people survive this illness, and prevent health systems from becoming overwhelmed during this crisis,” he added.

FundamentalVR is also helping hospitals with another impact of the COVID-19 situation, as student surgeons are seeing their studies interrupted as hospitals are reserved for essential care. With non-urgent surgeries cancelled, the company, based out of London and Boston, recently made its Fundamental Surgery platform multiuser. This allows students to exercise their skills at home while in isolation using the company’s @HomeVR system which was launched two weeks ago for standalone VR headsets such as Oculus Quest and HTC Vive Focus Plus.

Student surgeons are seeing their studies interrupted as hospitals are reserved for essential care
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Every user interaction is measured and recorded, such as surgical gaze, respect for tissue and efficiency of movement
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It allows students and teachers to join each other in the virtual OR, where they can interact, ask questions, view each other’s procedures and get feedback all done remotely and safely. This remote system is also currently live at Imperial College London and a dozen @HomeVR headsets have been sent at the request of a New York teaching hospital. The procedures available are being phased in for existing customers starting with Total Hip Arthroplasty (Anterior Approach).

Fundamental Surgery has been deployed with medical institutions around the world, including Mayo Clinic and UCLA in the U.S., UCLH in the U.K. and Sana in Germany. Their hardware-agnostic software solution fuses Cutaneous (tactile vibration) and Kinesthetics (force feedback & position) haptic technologies. The platform, which can be optimized for different stages of the learning process, mimics the physical cues of surgical actions, medical tools, and tissue variations.

Studies have shown that this aids learning in helping trainees develop the muscle memory essential for surgical skills. The platform utilizes off-the-shelf hardware (PCs/laptops, VR headset and haptic arms), making it less than a tenth of the cost of current learning practices.

Fundamental Surgery has been deployed with medical institutions around the world
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The platform’s data dashboard tracks hundreds of data points to provide a high level of analysis to course directors or trainees
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Every user interaction is measured and recorded, such as surgical gaze, respect for tissue and efficiency of movement, widely connected with surgical proficiency, to provide accurate real-time feedback all within a single display that can be accessed anywhere by any device, which again lends itself nicely to the new normal of remote learning and working which is likely to persist in the coming months.

When COVID-19 struck we were delighted to work with the team at Imperial College London on the rapid development of this important Ventilator Trainer
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“When COVID-19 struck we were delighted to work with the team at Imperial College London on the rapid development of this important Ventilator Trainer and are pleased to see it roll out to help build confidence and competence with Healthcare professionals at this challenging time,” concludes Richard Vincent, CEO and Co-Founder of Fundamental VR, saying this is a good example of how technology companies are coming together to support the work of healthcare professionals and work through the many challenges presented by the pandemic.

Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a XR 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 Training Healthcare Workers With XR appeared first on Tech Trends.

Anyone who manages to walk away from that without feeling a little bit like a Harry Potter wizard (or witch) casting a successful spell, is likely leading a fairly jaded and joyless existence. There is something fundamentally satisfying, almost primal, to the empowerment of watching the world change as you command it to.

Yet even the naysayers can probably agree that voice-based technologies driven by artificial intelligence represent a huge market opportunity. Millions of us now own some sort of room-based voice device such as Google Home or Amazon Echo and the global voice and speech recognition market size is estimated to reach USD 31.82 billion by 2025. We are now witnessing a convergence of various emerging technologies in that space – such as voice recognition, natural language processing, and machine learning-powered by 5G connectivity and the AR cloud.

Millions of us now own some sort of room-based voice device such as Google Home or Amazon Echo
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In this screenless world of spatial computing, interfaces will need to become more intuitive, efficient, and empathic
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Immersive experiences like those afforded by the HoloLens offer a tantalizing glimpse of where this is all headed: a screenless world where our natural human interactions plug into the digital realm, creating an entirely new form of hybrid reality. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2020, 30 percent of web browsing will be done without a screen. The next technology revolution will usher in the era of spatial computing, where multisensory experiences allow us to interact with both the real and digital worlds through natural, intuitive interfaces such as haptics, limb and eye-tracking, and even elements such as taste and scent.

In this screenless world of spatial computing, interfaces will need to become more intuitive, efficient, and empathic. Let’s take a look at three ways in which voice technologies are already enabling this.

1 – Intuitive UX

Spatial audio and AI-driven voice technologies are crucial elements for creating compelling immersive experiences. As Kai Havukainen, Head of Product at Nokia Technologies explained in an interview for Scientific American, “building a dynamic soundscape is essential for virtual experiences to really engender a sense of presence.” Humans, he added, are simply hardwired to pay attention to sound and instinctively use it to map their surroundings, find points of interest and assess potential danger.

There are, however, design considerations that must be taken into account when tackling the challenges of an entirely new medium together with these fast-evolving technologies.

Tim Stutts, Interaction Design Lead at Magic Leap, highlights the sheer complexity of these UX challenges, “A level of complexity is added with voice commands, as the notion of directionality becomes abstract—the cursor for voice is effectively the underlying AI used to determine the intent of a statement, then relate it back to objects, apps and system functions.”

“For voice experiences, you need to have a natural language interface that performs well enough to understand different accents, dialects, and languages,” adds Mark Asher, director of corporate strategy at Adobe, who believes the advancement of voice technologies will serve to “bring the humanity back to computing,”

There are still many hurdles to overcome before we reach that utopian vision, however. As we move towards more pervasive and complex experiences where users have multiple applications open at the same time, they will need to circumvent problems such as unintentionally commanding a hologram when you’re actually talking to the person next to you.

Spatial audio and AI-driven voice technologies are crucial elements for creating compelling immersive experiences
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Yet looking at the exponential way AI technologies have developed over the past decade, it isn’t unreasonable to extrapolate that the next few years we will usher in real-time contextual applications that accurately identify and action commands based on accurate assessments of your surroundings (both real and virtual) your personal preferences, and even your biofeedback.

2 – Voice Biofeedback

XR technologies already deploy a multitude of sensors that enable collection of biofeedback, yet voice provides a rich vein of data which can be collected in a non-invasive way without the need for cumbersome wearables.

Apart from deliberately using commands to interact with the world around us, our voices provide the scope for AI to contextualize our XR experiences based on subconscious factors such as our mood and physical health. Cymatics – the name given to the process of visualizing soundwaves – gives us some insight into the depth and complexity of the unique patterns projected by our voice.

XR technologies already deploy a multitude of sensors that enable collection of biofeedback
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To produce speech, the brain communicates with the Vagus Nerve and sends a signal to the larynx, which vibrates out stored information through the vocal cords. Since vocalization is entirely integrated within both our central (CNS) and autonomic nervous system (ANS), there is an established correlation between voice output and the impact of stress.

Researchers have been developing methods for voice stress analysis (VSA) and computerized stress detection and body scanning devices for many years. Companies such as Insight Health Apps already leverage this rich data to feed corrective waveforms and patterns back into the body in the form of “Quantum Biofeedback”.

3 – Bridging the Uncanny Valley

When I was first invited to test social VR platform Sansar, I was shown around some of its virtual worlds by Linden Lab’s CEO Ebbe Altberg. To this day, my lasting impression of that demo was how our interaction felt very natural in spite of us being 5,000 miles and several time zones apart (I was in London and he in San Francisco) and the fact that his avatar looked nothing like his real-world persona.

Not only did Ebbe’s digital self have the face of a woman, but that face was attached to a cartoony blimp-like dinosaur bodysuit. Still, when he spoke, the avatar’s lips, teeth and facial muscles synchronized to the sounds in a way that my brain registered as true. It demonstrated one of the peculiar things about designing virtual experiences: the malleability of “reality,” and the fact we are more willing to suspend our disbelief for some aspects of it than others. Hence an avatar’s appearance doesn’t matter nearly as much as these subconscious prompts that form the core of human interaction.

It was an interesting way of avoiding the pervasive problem known as the “uncanny valley” which describes that awkward sense of unease you feel when a character or avatar appears human-like yet “not quite there.” Speech Graphics developed the technology that creates this notoriously difficult-to-achieve illusion that an animated face is the source of the sound you hear. Their pipeline merges powerful speech analysis with procedural animation techniques. To achieve this, the algorithm replicates not only the movement of the lips, but also decodes from that speech the energy and emotion of the speaker.

“In the sound of speech there is a wealth of information about what the speaker was doing when he or she made the sound—including the movements of the mouth as it produced the sound, and the energetic state of the speaker, from which we can deduce facial expression. From syllables to scowls,” its website reads. And because it is a universal physical model, it works for any language and any type of character, from realistic humans to cartoonlike avatars.

The Future

As digital experiences move beyond the familiar constraints of screens, our modes of interaction with the digital world are also evolving. Paradoxically, that evolution is taking us back to basic and instinctual forms of natural human interaction, hence the enduring relevance of Clarke’s law. Technology will soon be sufficiently advanced so that it will become an invisible layer of our reality rather than a separate realm requiring special skills to access. And in that hybrid reality we will experience an entirely new type of magic.

In the sound of speech there is a wealth of information about what the speaker was doing when he or she made the sound
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This article was originally published on Futurithmic

Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a XR 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 Unlocking the Magic of XR With Your Voice appeared first on Tech Trends.

By Gabe Paez Founder & CEO of The Wild

Image by Nyssa Oru

With social distancing now in effect, the barrier between our professional and personal worlds is breaking down before our eyes. This week, I had Zoom calls with a product manager in Israel, a CEO in New York, and a designer in Chicago, and we all took those calls from our houses. By necessity, the world is opening up to the idea of what working from home really means. We’re learning to collaborate over cloud-enabled platforms—like Slack, Zoom, and Google Docs—to do our work together without traveling or transporting ourselves to be “together.”

By necessity, the world is opening up to the idea of what working from home really means
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On the flip side, the collaboration tools we use for work are starting to pervade our personal lives. People are having group FaceTime chats and Zoom calls with friends and family, and they’re asking, “Why haven’t we tried this before?” We’ve always put a premium on physical connection, the ability to sit in a restaurant with someone or across the table in a conference room. But now that these interactions are no longer available to us, we’re starting to consider the question: what does it mean to connect with other people?

All of this holds a lot of promise for XR to play a starring role in the future of collaboration, in a way that people might not have considered before
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What we’ve found over these past few weeks of social distancing is that it is possible to have meaningful interactions with others through the cloud. I’ve connected with some people this week that I hadn’t spoken with in a long time. Technical and non-technical people alike are discovering how to engage with each other in new ways, and it’s surprising. Suddenly, we’re realizing we don’t have to fly to New York to see our friends in order to connect with them.

Now that these interactions are no longer available to us, we’re starting to consider the question: what does it mean to connect with other people?
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But we also have to examine the quality of these virtual interactions. This weekend, we had a dinner party with four different families over Zoom, and it was very cool that we could do that. But the social dynamic is inherently changed in a flat Zoom call, where there’s just one tier of communication. Whether you’re at a virtual dinner party or on a conference call, you can’t lean over and whisper something to the person sitting next to you, then come back to the conversation like you would when you’re in the same physical space.

What we’ve found over these past few weeks of social distancing is that it is possible to have meaningful interactions with others through the cloud
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That’s one area where XR can fill the gap, by offering us the physicalization of these virtual experiences. With XR, you’re no longer just a face on a video call. Instead, your whole body is activated into the discussion. Take The Wild, for example, an immersive collaboration workspace for teams. You can communicate between spaces or within one space, move around, and work with your colleagues, not just by sitting in front of a computer, but by being the physical and social person you’re meant to be—all without having to leave your current location.

With XR, you’re no longer just a face on a video call. Instead, your whole body is activated into the discussion
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I wrote an article about a year and a half ago around the concept that XR is here to save us. XR encompasses the full spectrum of virtualization and realities; it’s not about creating a separate virtual world. Rather, it’s about creating a new reality that is both virtualized and physical in nature. I’ve heard about group yoga classes taking place over Zoom. What if, in those classes, we were connected to each other as well as a physical environment? We’re seeing this with platforms like Spatial, through their use of mixed reality, how you can use physical whiteboards to virtualize content and send it back and forth between people. That’s a great example of what XR can offer: effective and meaningful interactions, without having to hop in a car or on a plane to get them.

Whether you’re at a virtual dinner party or on a conference call, you can't lean over and whisper something to the person sitting next to you, then come back to the conversation like you would when you’re in the same physical space
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The other benefit of the virtualization of transportation is the impact it can have on the environment. Sometimes, it takes a catalyst like the COVID-19 pandemic to enact massive transformation. When you’re not trucking people around the world (or even locally), you start to see the dolphins in Venice, the rivers clean up, and the pollution change in Asia and Los Angeles. If we want to have a meaningful impact on climate change, we have to stop burning fossil fuels to move people around, and to see this become a possibility is amazing. There is a beauty to the earth not being swarmed by humans.

XR encompasses the full spectrum of virtualization and realities
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All of this holds a lot of promise for XR to play a starring role in the future of collaboration, in a way that people might not have considered before. Right now, XR is at that awkward place where the guy with the hands-free phone headset was in the early 2000s. He was walking down the street talking to himself, and everyone made fun of him. Now, VR headsets are the embarrassing gadgets.

While we need to be physically separated right now, that doesn’t mean we have to be socially separated
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They’re so big! And we haven’t seen a lot of people wearing them. But just like the hands-free headsets, we have to go through that awkward period to get to the other side—meaning, there is something better sitting inside and beyond those headsets, and we have to help people become aware of that. That’s why platforms like The Wild are working to make XR experiences more palatable and accessible.

Another benefit of the virtualization of transportation is the impact it can have on the environment
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In this unique and scary time we’re in, the standards are shifting. We have the opportunity to ask, what’s the good that can come of this, when we redefine what virtual connection can look like? Suddenly, we have access to people and experiences that we didn’t have access to before. While we need to be physically separated right now, that doesn’t mean we have to be socially separated. People are seeking to stay connected with others in the midst of physical isolation, and we’re learning that XR and the virtualization of transportation can bring the world right to us.

Sometimes, it takes a catalyst like the COVID-19 pandemic to enact massive transformation
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The post Expert View: The Virtualization of Transportation appeared first on Tech Trends.

The BIFF is widely recognized as one of the world’s coolest film festivals, and this year is the first time the event is dedicating an entire pavilion to XR experiences, a move that celebrates the evolution of storytelling and recognizes the integral role technology plays in filmmaking. It will feature curated VR films and AR art from around the world, an opening kick-off party, industry meetups, interactive workshops, and the Boulder XR Science Fair highlighting VR and AR innovations from local university labs, tech teams, and professionals.

The BIFF is widely recognized as one of the world’s coolest film festivals,
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BIFF attracts more than 25,000 film enthusiasts, media and industry every year
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BIFF attracts more than 25,000 film enthusiasts, media and industry every year. Now in its 16^th edition and celebrating 100 years of cinema to boot, they are still keen to look to the future as much as celebrating the past. Featured films will include Disney’s “Cycles” and “Myth: A Frozen Tale” as well as keynotes and events where you’ll get to hear from Disney Animation creatives such as Jose Luis Gomez Dias and Jeff Gipson.

“The future of storytelling will be an amazingly new and exciting experience that we can’t even imagine today,” said Kevin Smith, executive producer for BIFF. “The XR Experience provides a glimpse into this ground-breaking new medium while providing a great community event to mix, learn and experience.”

The pavilion space will also prominently feature a retrospective of large-format Augmented Reality artworks from 2011-2018 by HEAVY, a multiple award-winning creative studio that specializes in using immersive technology to reclaim public spaces for civic engagement, enlightened interactivity, and fun & thoughtful experiences. The HEAVY team manages to do this mostly through large-scale art installations that utilize XR technologies to explore the intersections between philosophy, art, and design, utilizing the talents of a mixed group of developers, artists, and academics.

The future of storytelling will be a new and exciting experience that we can’t even imagine today
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Our own personal data has become a digital avatar that often carries a higher degree of perceived value than our physical presence
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Since 2011, the company has pioneered the use of Augmented Reality to engage audiences with fine art installations that explore the building tensions created by a historically analog world quickly transitioning to digital life. Their installations have not only graced events such as SXSW and Google i/o, but also taken over Times Square, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Brussels to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Wynwood Walls in Miami, and the iconic Bowery Wall in New York.

“It’s really nice to get this recognition for our traditional body of work from over the years, but it’s also a reminder of how far XR has come, both in terms of the tech itself and also as a compelling storytelling and artistic medium in its own right,” says Chris Nunes, Head of Studio at HEAVY.

The high demand for truly innovative experiential art is illustrated by the fact that the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam recently lost its top place as the most popular single-artist museum to Tokyo’s MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: teamLab Borderless (or “Borderless” for short).

Since 2011 HEAVY has pioneered the use of Augmented Reality to engage audiences with fine art installations
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And this is a trend that Nunes believes will start gathering significant momentum over the coming months and years as technologies and creative approaches to using them evolve and become more ubiquitous.

“I was at the Tate Modern gallery in London recently and I got really excited imagining the possibilities of making a dedicated art installation for such an amazing, forward-thinking cultural institution. We’ve been engaging with people in urban environments for years as they go about their daily lives, and that’s fantastic, but I think we [in the XR industries] have reached a real tipping point where artists and art fans are actually purposefully seeking out these experiences because of what they add to our understanding of reality and each other’s perspectives. These technologies live with us -in our pockets, under our pillows- and rightfully, are becoming an integral part of the artistic spark and expression, as opposed to something simply added onto the underlying art,” he concludes.

At the BIFF retrospective for HEAVY, visitors will get to experience a range of the studios’ most popular installations, such as “More Human Than Human” [MHTH]. It’s a fascinating use of data visualization and Augmented Reality that debuted in 2018 in Moscow’s Zaryadye Park. The team took datasets from the City of Moscow’s Open Data Portal – specifically, the latitude and longitude of all of the theaters, exhibition halls, and museums in Moscow – and digitally interconnected those waypoints with a 3D lattice that was meshed over a skull model. The idea they wanted to represent through the artwork was that our society’s sense of “self” has become increasingly defined by the accumulation, aggregation, and interpretation of massive amounts of personal data.

“With the rise of ever-present high-powered mobile devices, social media, and artificial intelligence, our own personal data has become a digital avatar that often carries a higher degree of perceived value than our physical presence,” HEAVY Creative Director BC Biermann explains.

Also featured in the exhibit is “Digital Neuron,” which was originally commissioned by the University of Geneva in Switzerland in 2016, and has since won an Auggie at the Augmented World Expo (AWE), was a 2019 Merit winner in education and was named a Top 100 Artistic Destination award by CodaWorx. The piece depicts the neuron’s central importance in human cognition and as the deeper engine of medical research, also using neurons as a visual metaphor for how ideas are spread between people.

These technologies live with us - in our pockets, under our pillows - and rightfully, are becoming an integral part of the artistic spark and expression
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Digital Neuron – augmented reality from Heavy.io on Vimeo.

“Parabola,” is yet another interesting interactive mural included in the retrospective, which featured in San Francisco’s Design Week 2017. It depicts a fractal background with a digital sculpture of a chair in the foreground built by impossibly interlocking and twisted parabolas (the parabola is a foundational design form found in everything from natural forms to product design and DaVinci sketches). Using AR, you can change the scene by moving the chair to different parts of the virtual room, its colors and the design and lighting of the room, and even exploding the entire suite as a form of design protest.

The BIFF XR Experience will be free to attend and runs from March 5th to the 7th at tech co-working space Galvanize
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In the meantime, the HEAVY team continues to push the envelope creatively, and they’re just putting the final touches on a 3 sculpture installation for the newest JW Marriott 5-star hotel in Anaheim which marks the first time they have integrated custom-made 3D sculptures with an AR experience. As far as Nunes and Biermann know, this installation will be the first time anyone has done that, so these are heady times indeed.

The BIFF XR Experience will be free to attend and runs from March 5th to the 7th at tech co-working space Galvanize with the VR Theater moving to the main Festival Tent for a few hours on Sunday, March 8.

Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a XR 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 Experiencing Immersive Art in Colorado appeared first on Tech Trends.

This looks to be the year where we move beyond tentative experimentation into scalable deployment of immersive tech in the workplace. That’s the consensus that seems to emerge from “Top 2020 Trends: Enterprise AR & VR” a report published today by Unity Technologies, where 15 industry experts (yours truly among them) outlined how Mixed Reality (or XR depending on what flavor acronym you favor) will supercharge and transform the world of work.

XR has proven to be a paradigm shift for enterprise in terms of boosting productivity, cost-savings, and learning and development
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According to the report, we can expect even cautious companies to finally follow in the footsteps of their pioneering counterparts as XR becomes more accessible and mainstream, driven by a wave of new and improved HMDs, mobile AR and standalone VR, and the onset of 5G networks.

This looks to be the year where we move beyond tentative experimentation into scalable deployment of immersive tech in the workplace
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XR has proven to be a paradigm shift for enterprise in terms of boosting productivity, cost-savings, and learning and development, particularly in relation to highly skilled and specialized areas ranging from surgery to spacecraft engineering. Yet where so far we have seen pioneering companies work largely on an experimental trial-and-error basis, this next decade will see research catching up to meaningfully support this deployment on the ground.

We can expect even cautious companies to finally follow in the footsteps of their pioneering counterparts as XR becomes more accessible and mainstream
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Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, enterprise stakeholders will increasingly have the information and expert guidance at their disposal to tailor and customize solutions optimized for their specific industry, goals, and needs.

A recent Harvard Business Review Analytic Services study found that 87% of large companies are currently exploring, piloting, or deploying Mixed Reality, but the vast majority of those are still in the exploratory or proof-of-concept stages.

Academic research is now being conducted all over the world to investigate not if XR works but how it works and what considerations must be taken into account when designing content. One recent example is this article published on Frontiers in Psychology, which identifies significant differences in how people retain information in the short and long term depending on whether content is delivered in “active” or “passive” VR modes.

In the last couple of years, major companies everywhere ran proof-of-concept XR projects with uniformly positive results
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As more such studies are conducted, and more use cases are shared among enterprise stakeholders across an expanding ecosystem of different industries, we will move on from the heady days of experimental exploration and marveling at the power of immersive technologies towards more targeted, considered, evidence-based and industry-specific approaches. In other words, enterprise XR is about to enter its grown-up phase.

A Harvard Business Review Analytic Services study found that 87% of large companies are currently exploring, piloting, or deploying Mixed Reality
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“After a few years of testing applications, many verticals and use cases have proven ROI. The perception of gimmickry has given way to real business value,” says Maria Fernandez Guajardo, Facebook’s Director of Enterprise AR/VR, adding that 2020 is going to be a critical, if not glamorous, time for enterprise VR. “The industry will need to put in the arduous work of scale: establishing infrastructure, integrating workflows and connecting a comprehensive ecosystem,” she says.

With its effectiveness well established, the time has come for XR to move beyond “fancy demos, proof-of-concepts and pilots” to become “an indispensable digital productivity tool” used across the entire product lifecycle, from R&D to marketing to maintenance the report reads.

Academic research is now being conducted all over the world to investigate not if XR works but how it works and what considerations must be taken into account when designing content
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Yet these new opportunities also bring new challenges. Timoni West, Director of XR Research Unity Labs says UX designers will have to adjust in order to meet the demand for these new kinds of experiences. “Instead of making responsive design just for different devices, they’ll have to start thinking about responsive design as computers react to everything in the real world. Gestures, voice, gaze, time of day, how many people are in the room, and where you are: all of these variables are now new user inputs that have to be taken into account,” she explains.

According to Vinay Narayan VP, Platform Strategy and Developer Community HTC VIVE, this upcoming year will present the most robust ecosystem of innovations yet. “Technological innovations will make XR experiences a widely accessible tool for industrial enterprises of any scope and size,” he says.

There is also a lot of hard work to be done on the infrastructure and connectivity side for this promise to be delivered: “We can expect that enterprises will be spending less time on UX experiments and more time on designing a solid infrastructure around the data,” says Andreea Raducan, Head of Marketing at Innoactive, adding that whether we’re looking at 3D assets, VR apps, internal processes information, or lines of code, data needs to flow across platforms and reach various locations in real-time.

“As 5G networks come online, graphics and compute will increasingly be served from the network edge,” adds NVIDIA’s Director of Virtual Reality David Weinstein. “In the last couple of years, major companies everywhere ran proof-of-concept XR projects. The results were uniformly positive: faster time to market, lower total costs, better trained employees, happier customers, healthier patients. These early results will drive a virtuous cycle of growth and innovation,” he concludes.

Enterprise XR is about to enter its grown-up phase
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You can download the full report for free here

Want the latest insights from industry experts in enterprise AR & VR? Look no further!

Read our blog to see how 2020 will be a defining year https://t.co/zyibVIsMR8

— Unity (@unity3d) February 12, 2020

Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a XR 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 Enterprise XR is Coming of Age appeared first on Tech Trends.

By Margaret Heffernan

The hard truth is that much in life is, and always will be, unpredictable – and we’re better off accepting that than falling for propaganda
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“We can win a complete victory over this virus,” Zhang Hanhui, the Chinese ambassador to Russia, recently declared, adding that in Hubei, “the disease will be liquidated next month”. This is propaganda masquerading as prediction, as it often does. People fall for it because predictions like this are comforting, even when they’re wrong. But it’s fear, not his knowledge, that makes anyone believe him. The hard truth is that much in life is, and always will be, unpredictable – and we’re better off accepting that than falling for propaganda, however optimistic it might be.

They might all look the same , but there is no predictive profile of an epidemic
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Epidemics are scary because they don’t follow predictable patterns. They might look the same but there is no predictive profile of an epidemic. There is just one certainty: that they will break out. After that, uncertainty rules: we don’t know what disease, in what country or when. New strains of diseases appear constantly; since the 1970s, new pathogens have been emerging at an unprecedented rate of more than one per year, and in a world of global travel, they move fast. Different geographies need different kinds of response. What works in one place, with one disease, might not work somewhere else. So these crises take us by surprise, even when we know something is coming.

What works in one place, with one disease, might not work somewhere else. So these crises take us by surprise, even when we know something is coming
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Technology can help, of course – not in predicting epidemics but in identifying them fast when they start. Artificial intelligence created by the Canadian firm, Blue Dot, analyzed masses of data on animal and plant disease outbreaks, together with global news reports, and was able to identify the outbreak of what has become known as COVID-19 a full week before the Center for Disease Control announced the appearance of a new flu-like disease.

Applying AI to global flight data generated accurate predictions about where and how the disease would spread
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Applying AI to global flight data also generated generally accurate predictions about where and how the disease would spread. Because treating epidemics is always a race against time, this represents a meaningful improvement in speed once an infectious disease has emerged. Like all applications of AI, it is only as good as the data on which it is based, which in epidemics can be tricky because each one is unique. Scientists and health care workers are still needed to analyze findings and diagnose patients. And AI doesn’t change our inability to predict epidemics before the pathogen shows up.

Technology can help, not so much in predicting epidemics but in identifying them fast when they start
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Spotting the outbreak is just the beginning. The holy grail in every epidemic is a vaccine to stop a disease from spreading. The development of vaccine candidates is time and labour-intensive and also unpredictable; many fail. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness began work on new vaccines for beta coronaviruses in 2016, so they aren’t now starting from scratch. The speed of genome mapping has hugely accelerated vaccine development so that researchers already know the genes and the molecular structure of the protein that gets the virus into human cells. Sharing that information with research teams around the world accelerates discovery.

AI doesn’t change our inability to predict epidemics before the pathogen shows up
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But it’s still slower than anyone would like because each new vaccine has to be tested, injected into animals to see if they develop any immune response. Some won’t work, some may cause side effects worse than the disease. Paradoxically, epidemics sometimes die out before the vaccine is ready for testing; that means the drug has to wait until the next epidemic – if it happens to be exactly the same disease – before it can be tested and evaluated on humans. That’s one reason it took so many years to produce a successful Ebola vaccine.

Scientists and health care workers are still needed to analyze findings and diagnose patients
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Technology has now accustomed human beings to expect accurate prediction of just about everything: when the Uber arrives, how long the journey takes, whether you’ll like a book, or movie or meal. So the idea that some things in life can’t be predicted feels counter-intuitive. For decades, tech innovation has relied on the belief that, with massive amounts of data, together with the tools to interrogate it, everything ultimately proves predictable. Real-life proves otherwise.

Focus efficiently only on what you can predict and you risk managing the flukes out of the system
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Terrorism isn’t always defined by profiles or patterns; terrorists know that randomness protects them. Surveillance produces more data than ever before, but it’s hard to find what you don’t know to look for until it’s too late. As head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller was aghast when, under President Clinton, the Americans abandoned human intel, thinking that technology would give them all the information they needed. After 9/11, that strategy changed, an acknowledgment that human intelligence was still crucial in finding new patterns in new places, previously never considered meaningful.

Technology has accustomed human beings to expect accurate prediction of just about everything, so the idea that some things in life can’t be predicted feels counter-intuitive
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Similarly in pure science, it’s been routine for politicians to call for greater efficiency to produce strategically desirable breakthroughs. But attempts to use data mining, to identify the hot spots from which such triumphs emerge, identified little more than scientists themselves already knew; it’s their job and passion to stay alert to developments in their field. Trying to build the perfect profile of the superstar scientist failed too. Scientific discoveries exist across a spectrum, from the predictable (when it became technically feasible to decode the human genome) to flukes (like microwave radiation.) Focus efficiently only on what you can predict and you risk managing the flukes out of the system.

The company that continues to recommend to me the books I’ve already written is so confident of its data analysis that it wants to send me what it predicts
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But ultimate predictability is the holy grail of much technology. It’s the faith implicit in Amazon’s anticipatory shipping patent. The company that continues to recommend to me the books I’ve already written is so confident of its data analysis that it wants to send me what it predicts I will be aching to read. Closer examination reveals seeds of doubt; I won’t have to return the first few they get wrong. But the only really predictable aspect of the offering is that I’ll forget, or be too lazy, to return the ones I never wanted. This isn’t prediction; it is forcing customers to do what the business plan requires.

Uncertainty is endemic to life
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Uncertainty is endemic to life. Will the COVID-19 epidemic be over by March? The best models of disease will only provide probabilities, not absolutes. Soothsayers always have their own agendas, so we would do better to prepare

The post Expert View: Dealing with the Coronavirus in an Uncertain Future appeared first on Tech Trends.

If it’s true what they say that time flies when you’re having fun, then 2019 must have been a really good year for immersive tech, because here we are gearing up for the holidays and I haven’t sent a single Christmas card. Literally, where has this year gone? Still, it has been such fun looking back at all the milestones we’ve experienced in immersive computing over the past 12 months, and I actually had a hard time picking out just 25 of them to share again with you.

A pretty compelling picture is starting to emerge of the paradigm shift towards spatial computing
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These stories are ranked in no particular order, and are a mixture of some pretty momentous stuff that has happened in the industry and a sprinkling of use cases that illustrate how these technologies are already impacting every aspect of our lives. When taken together, a pretty compelling picture starts to emerge of the paradigm shift towards spatial computing, and as we look back at the last year and wrap up another decade, it’s a reminder of how far we’ve come, and what’s in store for the future. Will the 2020’s finally hail the age of XR? I think they very well might, and hopefully, we’ll stick together on that journey.

The Oculus Quest saw console-like engagement from users as well as strong sales
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The Oculus Quest was a hit

At this year’s year’s E3 conference, Facebook’s Vice President of Special Gaming Strategies Jason Rubin told audiences that the Oculus Quest was seeing “console-like” engagement from users, selling $5 million worth of content in first 2 weeks since the device started shipping back in May. In fact, the device sold out at retailers such as Amazon, Walmart and Newegg. Since then, Facebook has continued to roll out new features such as native hand tracking and Oculus Link, which allows users to experience PC VR HMD quality on the standalone headset. By October, it was reported that Oculus Quest sales were responsible for significantly boosting the company’s non-advertising sales, which jumped to $269 million during the third quarter, a 43% year-over-year increase. “Quest is growing and doing quite well. We’re selling them as fast as we can make them, the demand has been strong and the content is starting to pick up,” Mark Zuckerberg said at the time.

The HTC Vive was phased out in October
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HTC Vive Retires

2019 said good-bye to the headset which was largely responsible for enthusing people about the possibilities of VR in recent years. The HTC Vive was phased out in October, replaced by the Vive Cosmos, which was priced at $699. But although industry pundits such as Venturebeat’s Dean Takahash called the new HMD an “engineering marvel” it came with a number of difficult trade-offs in terms of cost, visual quality, accessibility, and mobility.

There could be challenging times ahead for Magic Leap, and this could have a negative knock-on effect for the AR industry as a whole
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Bumpy Road For Magic Leap

As the year draws to a close, things are looking rather worrisome for what is arguably immersive tech’s most hyped-up company. First came the news that the company had signed control of its patents to JPMorgan Chase as collateral, closely followed by announcement of a new funding round, culminating with key resignations from high-profile executives including CFO Scott Henry and Senior VP of Creative Strategy John Gaeta (a special effects industry veteran who has worked on movies such as The Matrix). Magic Leap then announced it was pivoting towards enterprise customers following damning reports of extremely weak sales. Taken together, this could signal challenging times ahead for the start-up and possibly have a negative knock-on effect for the AR industry as a whole.

Cows Like VR Too

Dairy farmers in Russia started testing Virtual Reality on their dairy cows. According to Sarah Webber, a Research Fellow in Human-Computer (and Animal-Computer) interaction at the University of Melbourne, there is little evidence that the cows appreciated the content on the same level as we might, but argued that seeing animals interacting with technology could positively impact their lives by changing our persceptions and creating an empathetic bond between people and animals.

Dairy farmers in Russia started testing Virtual Reality on their dairy cows
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Google Ends the Daydream

The key message to come out of Google I/O this year was that the company largely abandoned its plans to push forward the development of headsets and content for VR effectively retiring the Daydream and focusing on Augmented Reality features for the Google Lens instead.

Trippy VR

The ‘Cyberdelic Incubator’ in Melbourne, Australia, is promoting a more conscious approach to technology through immersive media. The group’s lead Carl H Smith told the Guardian that XR’s power to instigate empathy can help us create more meaningful human connections, allowing us to experience what it’s like to be another gender, or to have a mental health condition such as schizophrenia. One of the incubator’s projects “Death is Only the Beginning” even went as far as simulating a near-death experience, and was subsequently adapted for use with palliative care patients.

Immersive Masterpiece

Visitors to the Mauritshuis museum in Holland were able to use AR to step into Rembrandt’s haunting painting “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp” which was painstakingly recreated – with actors standing in for each character in full period costume and makeup – and captured with 600 reflex cameras to produce 3D scans. The intention, says Dutch design agency CapitolaVR, was to ‘create a portal to the past, to the moment the painting was created.”

Visitors to the Mauritshuis museum in Holland were able to use AR to step into one of Rembrandt’s most haunting paintings
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#MeToo

The words of sexual assault survivor Chanel Miller were brought to life with an AR project undertaken by her fellow students at Stanford following a dispute with the university about how her ordeal should be memorialized. The “Dear Visitor” guided AR exhibit placed her own words, spoken in court, on the spot of the attack she suffered. “It goes beyond what a physical plaque could do,” says Hope Schroeder, a graduate who was part of Stanford’s augmented reality club, 4 AR/VR that developed the project.

Sony’s Next Move

Although the PSVR has proven to be the most commercially successful VR hardware to date – selling over 4.2 million units so far – there are high expectations that its next generation headset will bring significant improvements including wireless connectivity. At the same time, the company has also signaled that it is not ignoring the Augmented Reality market, launching a frankly awesome AR location-based Ghostbusters experience back in October.

The words of sexual assault survivor Chanel Miller were brought to life with an AR project
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Valve’s Long Game

In June Valve released its Index headset priced at a hefty $999, which got mixed reviews for providing a good experience, but only under very controlled circumstances. In short, the headset was hard work to setup properly and not very user-friendly. But the company’s ace in the pack was yet to be revealed in November, when it announced that its new Half-Life game would be released as a VR exclusive in 2020.

In June Valve released its Index headset priced at a hefty $999
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Nintendo Dips it Toes Into VR 

Arguably the best-loved company in gaming, there is always excitement whenever Nintendo starts to dabble with VR, and the success of the Labo kits was proof that the company could actually have a better chance of enticing the average consumer to engage with immersive tech than some other bigger players in the space, not least because they still hold the IP for some of the world’s all-time most popular games such as Super Mario and Zelda, both of which were supported in VR.

Arguably the best-loved company in gaming, there is always excitement whenever Nintendo starts to dabble with VR
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Virtual Immortality 

A $2.5 million project funded by the Dallas museum and created by Steven Spielberg’s USC Shoah Foundation immortalized holocaust survivor Max Glauben as a hologram able to share his WW2 experience with future generations. The project involved a week of filming, during which Glauben was captured answering over 1,000 questions by 18 cameras placed at 9 different angles.

A $2.5 million project funded by the Dallas museum and created by Steven Spielberg's USC Shoah Foundation immortalized holocaust survivor Max Glauben as a hologram
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Rising From The Ashes

Following the devastating fire at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, visitors turned to VR to experience the magnificent building and its destroyed iconic spire. Several virtual tours remain available, highlighting the potential of such immersive technology to help preserve at least the essence and significance of historical monuments for future generations.

Talk Show Fun

Jimmy Fallon has proven to be a bit of a VR champion, showcasing it in fun ways on mainstream media. In April the Tonight Show host played Beat Saber against Captain Marvel star Brie Larson, followed by a hilarious game of Virtual Reality Pictionary with Kristen Stewart, Gaten Matarazzo of Stranger Things

Jimmy Fallon has proven to be a bit of a VR champion
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Holographic performances

Artists have embraced immersive tech with gusto in 2019. Bjork launched her Vulnicura VR album, David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” character was brought to life with real-time motion capture technology and Madonna performed at the Billboard Music awards alongside no fewer than five of her Augmented Reality personas. Meanwhile, Facebook hosted a concert by GRAMMY award-winning singer/songwriter H.E.R. and Dean Takahashi tested an app that let him remix AR audio at a live Elton John concert.

Artists have embraced immersive tech with gusto in 2019
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Virtual Worship

Churches across the US are embracing technology, including conducting whole services in Virtual Reality.  “We are leaving the information age and entering the experience age of VR and AR,” said D.J. Soto, pastor of VR Church, where roughly 150 avatars regularly attend services in AltspaceVR. Soto believes these virtual churches are much more inclusive, allowing for conversations to happen which would be difficult in physical places of worship.

150 avatars regularly attend church services in AltspaceVR
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Snapchat

Snap has emerged as a major player in the AR space thanks to its popular filters and lenses, even releasing a Gucci-themed version of its proprietary spectacles hardware. Most significantly, however, 2019 has seen a creative community start to grow and earn substantial revenues around the format. AR lenses were used to promote blockbusters such as “X-Men: Dark Phoenix” and “Joker” or the new latest adaptation of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” as well as indie films such as Borley Rectory which turned users into a character from a classic ghost tale for Halloween.

Snap has emerged as a major player in the AR space
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Training for Just About Anything

By far the most compelling use case for immersive tech at the moment is in training and simulation, and those applications are virtually endless. From teaching firearms safety to Kentucky gun owners to helping train police in identifying cases of human trafficking or teaching veterans how to cope with hostile job interviews, all the way through to a “Thief Simulator” (which does exactly what it says on the tin) and even an active shooter training which was deployed in the Walmart Academy experience to help its employees prepare for such scenarios following recent shootings.

Losing One’s VRginity

No technology can be considered successful if it doesn’t attract use cases in the adult industry, so it is actually encouraging to see stories emerging such as that of porn company VRBangers charging couples around $15,000 to make their own naughty VR movie, or of Anna Petukhova, a Russian fashion model and entrepreneur who launched a global franchise of VR sex clubs called VRayu, which caters equally for men and women looking to explore their sexual fantasies in a safe virtual environment.

Anna Petukhova, a Russian fashion model and entrepreneur, launched a global franchise of VR sex clubs called VRayu
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Shut-Downs and Acquisitions

One notable casualty in the AR ecosystem this year was Daqri, which shut down in September in spite of raising $275 million in overall funding. There were also some significant acquisitions in the space, such as Jaunt XR being bought by Verizon, and Apple acquiring UK start-up Ikinema.

VR Therapy

A University of Barcelona study documented the therapeutic effects of virtual body swapping. Results showed that subjects holding conversations with themselves – while inhabiting an avatar of Dr. Sigmund Freud – showed improved mood compared to talking about problems in a virtual conversation with pre-scripted comments. Researchers believe that this method could be a useful tool for clinicians in the future.

A University of Barcelona study documented the therapeutic effects of virtual body swapping
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MacGyver Escape room

MacGyver creator Lee David Zlotoff teamed up with “Lawnmower Man” director Brett Leonard to create a VR escape room experience called MacGyverWorld slotted for release in 2020. The experience will use 3D capture technology, which scans participants as they enter a location-based VR venue so that friends can see each other as holograms and work collaboratively.

MacGyverWorld is slotted for release in 2020
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HoloLens Army

A version of the HoloLens designed for military use has been tested by the US Army earlier this year, following an announcement that Microsoft accepted a $480 million deal to supply thousands of HoloLens units to the army, in spite of strong objections from many of its employees. The system – which is still in the prototype phase and is not expected to deploy until 2022 at the earliest – also collects data to highlight areas that need improvement and further training.

A version of the HoloLens designed for military use has been tested by the US Army
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Minecraft

After releasing a teaser trailer in May and unveiling the first gameplay footage of “Minecraft Earth” at Apple’s conference in June, Microsoft proceeded with gradually rolling out what was arguably the most anticipated AR title of 2019 with a Beta version released in several cities including London and Seattle in July, followed by broader public releases in the following months. As of the end of November, the game had reportedly surpassed 2.5 million downloads.

As of the end of November, Minecraft Earth had reportedly surpassed 2.5 million downloads
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Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a XR 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 Top XR Stories of 2019 appeared first on Tech Trends.

I spent many years working with start-ups and large corporations, and invariably they all spent a large proportion of their budgets getting their message across to consumers and other businesses.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) has advanced significantly in recent years, becoming much more sophisticated
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Yet while there is no doubt that external communications are important, I found that the most successful companies were, in fact, the ones which dedicated just as much time, effort, and resources (if not more) to get their internal communications right.

Because it’s all well and good projecting the right image to the outside world, but if your messaging is not consistent internally, in other words, if your mission is not clear to your own team, you have very little chance of it ringing true to those outside it.

One of my favorite quotes from Richard Branson really sums it up:

“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”

Building a cohesive and inclusive corporate culture is challenging for any company, but those challenges are exacerbated even further in an age where many employees work remotely, often in different time zones.

With the right NPL tools, interactions can be turned into meaningful engagement at scale
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It might seem counter-intuitive, but where it comes to fostering better communication channels amongst humans, machines can be our most powerful allies. With technologies such as Artificial Intelligence – in particular, Natural Language Processing (NLP) – it is possible to enable better communication without having to over-stretch resources by dedicating people to maintaining those channels manually.

It’s all well and good projecting the right image to the outside world, but if your mission is not clear to your own team, you have very little chance of it ringing true to those outside it
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NLP has advanced significantly in recent years, becoming an increasingly sophisticated tool in discerning syntax (the arrangement of words in a logical manner) and semantics (referring to the contextual meaning of words), able to more accurately gauge human sentiment and leverage it appropriately. It can be used to bridge Top-Down Communication in Organizations and foster a better employee-employer relationship by ensuring that the employees receive all the relevant messages that they require, whether it is through regular email messaging or through highlighting their accomplishments.

“ It is a well-known fact that many companies fail to pass down relevant messages to their employees making them feel unwanted and disengaged,” said Gaurav Bhattacharya and Saumya Bhatnagar Co-founders of Involvesoft, a platform that enables companies to improve employee engagement through the use of NLP. He stresses that nowadays it is possible for chatbots to be highly effective in establishing a meaningful connection with an employee, understanding their strengths and weaknesses and helping them where needed.

Involvesoft provides its users with an Instagram-like feed that allows employees to read the latest news and announcements, spotlight stories, and take surveys and communicate with members of their community, which in turn improves top-down communication as the messages reach all the employees through the platform.

“Whereas an employee might be reluctant to ask a colleague or supervisor about something for which they feel they might get judged, a chatbot could help bridge that gap,” says Bhattacharya, adding that many times an employee will refrain from asking an important question because they are worried about how friends or colleagues might judge them, and this has a significantly negative impact on productivity levels, not least because failing to ask a question might mean a mistake is repeated without that person even realizing it.

As the CEO of the company, Bhattacharya very much practices what he preaches, since his own company also leverages NLP to make employees happy and successful by helping others. The Involvesoft platform helps companies and their employees to give back to the community by creating personalized giving and volunteering opportunities.

Involvesoft leverages NLP to make employees happy and successful by helping others
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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a hugely successful tool in building a cohesive company culture, often much more so than perks and personal rewards. In fact, Bhattacharya explains that such initiatives have been shown to improve company culture and team collaboration by up to 81% reducing turnover by as much as 30%.

NLP can thus create a self-learning virtuous circle, whereby every conversation, every interaction, and every good deed helps to evolve both humans and algorithms into a better platform. The information and insights gathered through this constant feedback loop are constantly deployed in optimization across the board within an organization: From user experience to consumer outreach, advertising and HR.

Whereas an employee might be reluctant to ask a colleague or supervisor about something for which they feel they might get judged, a chatbot could help bridge that gap
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With the right NPL tools, interactions can, therefore, be turned into meaningful engagement at scale, and provide a veritable goldmine of information for human resources and marketing teams alike, improving not only the work environment but also the product. It’s a win-win!

Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a XR 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 Communicating In the Age of Artificial Intelligence appeared first on Tech Trends.