As the author states, with any new technology, there are inherent risks we should acknowledge, anticipate, and deal with as soon as possible. If we do so, these technologies are likely to continue to thrive. Some industry watchers are forecasting a combined AR/VR market value of $108 billion by 2021, as businesses of all sizes take advantage of AR to change the way their customers interact with the world around them in ways previously only possible in science fiction.

The issues discussed as serious privacy and security pitfalls, including dangers to physical safety, that as an industry we need to collectively avoid.

There are also ongoing threats from cyber criminals and nation states bent on political chaos and worse — to say nothing of teenagers who can be easily distracted and fail to exercise judgement — all creating virtual landmines that could slow or even derail the success of AR. We love AR, and that’s why we’re calling out these issues now to raise awareness.

Without widespread familiarity with the potential pitfalls, as well as robust self-regulation, AR will not only suffer from systemic security issues, it may be subject to stringent government oversight, slowing innovation, or even threaten existing First Amendment rights. In a climate where technology has come under attack from many fronts for unintended consequences and vulnerabilities, we should work together to make sure this doesn’t happen.

Because AR by design blurs the divide between the digital and real worlds, threats to physical safety, job security, and digital identity can emerge in ways that were simply inconceivable in a world populated solely by traditional computers.

The full article can be read here.

Top competitors in the AR market mentioned in the report include:

• Microsoft Corporation
• PTC Inc (AREA member)
• DAQRI LLC
• Google Inc
• Meta Company
• Atheer Inc (AREA member)
• Blippar
• Osterhout Design Group
• Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

Major Product Types of the AR market stated in the report are:

• Marker-Less Augmented Reality
• Marker-Based Augmented Reality

Major end-user applications of the AR market mentioned in the report include:

• Aerospace & defense
• Consumer
• Medical
• Enterprise
• Commercial

Leading regions of the AR market listed in the report include:

• Asia-Pacific
• Europe (second after Asia-Pacific)
• Latin America
• The Middle East
• North America
• Africa

Information given in the AR market report includes:

• Major issues in the AR industry
• Constraining factors of AR
• Production process of AR
• Problem-fixing plans for the AR industry
• Different marketing strategies for uplifting AR market growth
• Upcoming attitudes, perspectives, and anticipations of the AR market
• Raw materials for AR
• End users, traders, dealers, distributors, and manufacturers of AR

Key points covered in the AR market report include:

• List of companies that are searching for inorganic extension
• Approaching relation and deep-rooted contracts between key AR manufacturers and raw material suppliers / distributors
• Success and improvement factors of the AR industry
• AR strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
• Political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal analysis of AR
• AR product capacity, import / export detail, supply-chain analysis, future plans / approaches, gross margin, and various technological developments of top leaders

The way in which AR fits into various markets is then described as follows:

• Real Estate = customers who are house-searching can see home interiors by pointing their phones at them. Construction workers can use AR to show clients what a house would look like with a different style of kitchen or bathroom. Shoppers can also see what items of furniture would look like in their homes.
• Retail = Virtual Reality mirrors allow customers to try on clothes virtually, and there are apps that allow people to try on nail polish. Other apps enable consumers to make purchases by pointing their phones at items in printed catalogues.
• Travel = VR allows people to ‘travel’ anywhere while remaining in one place, and AR helps to navigate places when travelling by overlaying directions on the street view in real time, and providing recommendations for places to visit.

An infographic is included at the end of the article, which has been previously summarised from an article on Hackernoon here (link to Predictions for the Future of AR).

The author shares what he learnt when he spent time with Wipro in its Silicon Valley technology center, taking 2 use cases as a base.

Use Case 1 talks about a heavy machine manufacturing customer, using Looking Glass augmented reality technology integrated with an IoT platform.  Use case 2 is about a retail customer. The author then explores learnings from the journey of implementing AI technology, stating that both use cases provide a better and complete customer experience. But it’s not due to one technology. It’s necessary to bring AI, IoT, cloud and analytics together into one comprehensive program that achieves business value. Furthermore, in deploying these technologies, a company must go through a large amount of change. Technology is just a small part of the transformation journey.

Finally the article concludes with tips for selecting a service partner for AI capabilities and for integrating and implementing the whole digital transformation journey.

What are the major issues with the current capabilities, and how can they improve for enterprise use?

Cospacing

The author states that perhaps the biggest shortcoming of AR and VR is the lack of cospacing functionality. Cospacing is the ability for multiple people to interact in the same experience and have real objects — like a mechanical wrench or a CPR dummy — be included, which is essential to making training experiences effective. Currently in the AR landscape, there is no single vendor product that allows for this, making the technology much harder for enterprises to adopt.

Why is cospacing essential for enterprises to get value from AR and VR? Consider the limitations of a training exercise that does not allow for multiple employees to participate at the same time, in the same place. Further, imagine that objects needed to make the training realistic — like a specific tool that will be used in the real life scenario — cannot be incorporated into the experience. This would severely limit the effectiveness of the training exercise, because it would not allow for the real-time collaboration or practice with the actual tools. It would be like a soccer team trying to practice with each player on a separate field and no balls or goals.

Another example of cospacing’s importance comes from product design teams using AR or VR. There are currently no solutions offered by any of the major vendors that allow people to collaborate in real time with a shared view. In other words, you can imagine two product designers working together in the same space collaborating on a design, but today this isn’t possible — they each have their own separate view making it hard to understand what the other designer might be doing and making collaboration extremely difficult.

Luckily, there is already a technology that solves these issues — here’s one example — and allows for collaborative experiences and the use of real-life tools. More platforms need to offer room-tracking systems with sensors placed on all involved people and objects, allowing them to be easily connected and included in the experience. New objects and people can be included and visualized in the experience by simply adding new sensors. This also gives the ability for motion capture that allows for custom scenarios to be pre-recorded and programmed without needing to wait for a studio to develop and release them — which is especially useful for specialized training scenarios.

Headsets and controllers

Another major issue with AR and VR technology is the hardware on the market. While major leaps have been made since the technology first conceived, they still fall woefully short of being able to provide a practical and useful application for enterprises.

A major issue with today’s AR and VR headsets the lack of eye tracking capabilities. This means users shift their view by moving their entire head rather than looking in a different direction as they would do in real life. In other words, to look up, one must tilt their entire head upwards rather than just looking up with their eyes. This creates a number of issues, the largest being the neck aches caused by moving around the sheer weight of the headset in order to change views, causing an unpleasant user experience and making more complex scenarios difficult to navigate.

The other downside to not tracking users’ eyes is that a treasure trove of potential data is lost. In a training scenario, if eyes are tracked then an employee could get more detailed and useful feedback on how to improve, and a company can find out what potential obstacles their employees do not see.

Another issue that plagues most headsets is their field of view (FOV), which is still quite limited. Ideally AR glasses would provide a minimum of 114 degree horizontal per eye, which covers human stereo vision (the remaining 40 degrees is monocular peripheral vision). To put the inadequacies of current options in perspective, the HoloLens is only 40 degrees, and the ODG R9 FOV is around 50 degrees. The Meta 2 is more respectable at around 90 degrees with the SmokeHMD VR/AR unit at around 100.  A limited FOV creates an issue because it limits the users immersion in the experience creating a keyhole or windowed effect.

Projection systems with a focal plane too close to the user, chromatic aberration and other visual distortion can cause eye strain and overall stress due to headaches and confusion.  Headsets which block the users downwards peripheral vision stop the user from seeing their feet making walking and moving around a space much more dangerous.

Hand controllers that pair with headsets provide further difficulties, because they require users to have their hands outstretched for long periods of time, causing discomfort. A solution to this issue, is building more content that uses voice controls — specifically when combined with eye tracking and with a visual prompt this will reduce the potential for misunderstandings.

Notes in conclusion are given in the full article as to the likely resolutions to these issues with information about the author.

Early adoption in the enterprise

Samsung NEXT Ventures director Ajay Singh believes there’s “good energy” in the AR ecosystem, with lots of traction among developers — many of whom are playing around with the latest dev kits and are excited by the potential of the technology. But he notes that energy and early developer traction has yet to translate into much of a market for AR applications, particularly in the consumer market.

Where early adoption is taking hold is in the enterprise, as large businesses are testing out ways they can drive efficiencies by providing workers with real-time information. The return of Google Glass in a special Enterprise Edition, along with the rise of smart glasses and wearable AR more generally, has been a boon for AR adoption as a business tool.

For applications such as manufacturing, warehousing, and field service in particular, wearable-based AR solutions can translate into double digit percentage productivity gains, according to Upskill chief strategy officer Jay Kim.

Upskill’s Skylight AR technology offers tools for providing contextually relevant real-time data and supplemental information in the wearer’s field of view, while users continue their work in a factory, warehouse, out in the field, or wherever they might be.

Kim, who sits on the board for the Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance (AREA), adds that companies like Boeing and General Electric — both clients of Upskill — pour enormous resources into chasing operational efficiency improvements of just a few percentage points, but at scale those improvements can result in game-changing numbers for them.

Talespin CEO Kyle Jackson says his immersive technology company has also been getting AR development work related to efficiency improvements. For example, one telecom company contracted with them to build an AR tool to support and reinforce technical knowledge in field workers.

The case against consumer AR

While some businesses are finding interesting use cases for the technology, the consumer side of the equation is a different story.

Singh, for instance, thinks too many developers are conducting their experiments in the entertainment space. He argues this is ill-advised because there’s not yet a way to effectively monetize consumer AR apps that haven’t reached massive popularity.

“There is no monetization unless there is an advertising model that comes in, because no consumer at the end of the day wants to pay for anything,” he said. But for advertising to work, you need millions or tens of millions of users, which is a tall order for AR developers in these early stages.

That said, some use cases are finding a bit of traction outside of the enterprise. Pokémon Go is the most obvious example, although it’s essentially a location-based game with some light AR elements.

Exercise game Zombies, Run! offers a more concrete use of AR, albeit solely in audio form, to motivate its many users to keep running. Meanwhile, Ikea has found success with an AR app that helps users visualize how furniture will look in their homes. And Google Translate has a real-time visual translation tool that can be a great help in translating between languages with different character sets — like Chinese to English, for instance.

Samsung NEXT business development and product strategy manager Jacob Loewenstein thinks the first big emerging success in consumer AR is personal cosmetic augmentation, such as Instagram or Snapchat filters. Users are adopting these filters to make themselves look different, share a laugh with friends, or visualize how new makeup and hair stylings affect their appearance.

Still, there are some barriers to consumer adoption. Unlike VR, mobile AR requires no additional hardware for use, but there’s an inherent friction keeping some from trying the latest mobile AR applications — namely, that they must open an app in AR mode, raise their hand, and keep holding the phone in front of them while using the software.

“It looks a little goofy,” says Singh, and it takes extra effort to do, “so unless there’s real usability it won’t really stick.”

And if the end-user doesn’t feel that they’re getting a worthwhile return on investment — whether that’s effort, time, or money — then the developer won’t get a return on their investment either.

Design limitations in AR

Everyone consulted for this article agreed that the bulk of AR software development is still in the experimental stage. Most developers are exploring the possibilities of this new medium rather than making polished products.

“There are no guidelines out there,” says John Buzzell, president of immersive experience lab You Are Here. “There are no accepted practices yet.”

All these bespoke, experimental designs add yet another hurdle for AR users to overcome. And they also make it harder for both developers and the businesses that hire them to scope out projects.

To date, most AR applications have required the use of markers to act as reference points and hooks for virtual objects and visualizations, although that’s beginning to change. Now multiple AR platforms have built-in capabilities to display virtual objects on horizontal, vertical, and sometimes uneven planes without meeting any markers.

Loewenstein believes that change could be huge for the AR ecosystem, because it opens new doors for developers to try new things. It also reduces friction for users who might otherwise get frustrated by the limitations of static marker-based AR.

AR today is largely used for visualization in various forms, including data and analytics, furniture placement, cosmetics, toys, building models, training materials, and so on. These use cases are valuable, especially in the enterprise, but they barely scratch the surface of the technology’s potential. Currently there’s no support for persistence or shared experiences, as objects are stored locally on the user’s device.

Loewenstein sees persistence as a challenge many in the industry are working on. “The core AR SDKs don’t necessarily enable people to experience the same thing,” he explains. “They both produce these point clouds and the devices don’t know because they’re looking from different angles — the point clouds have produced actually the same thing from different angles.”

Nor do they have a common point of reference, he continues. “It’s not like when I see the room and I put the ball on the chair, that’s basically largely being stored locally. So it’s my room in my chair, not our room.”

Limited budgets limit possibilities

There are certain limitations inherent in the platforms currently in use by AR developers, but they are also being stymied by early adopters not thinking big enough or being afraid of investing too much in this developing sector.

Buzzell says some of the complexities and uncertainties around AR have led to cautious, unimaginative project briefs from many of his enterprise clients.

“I think a lot of people are making these investments based on curiosity or kind of fear of being left behind,” he suggests. “We’re starting to see signs of improvement, but for businesses I think they have trouble figuring out how much it costs, how much to pay, whose budget does it come out of?”

Usually the answer comes from marketing departments, as they have the money and the pressure to try new things that could attract and engage customers. But the budgets themselves tend to only be five or six figures, according to Buzzell.

That puts pressure on AR developers to work magic with small teams and short development cycles, which limiting their possibilities. Projects are further held back by a lack of imagination or knowledge from enterprise clients regarding what AR can do or what it might be useful for.

Everyone we spoke with stressed that the pace of AR’s growth will be dictated not just by the level of investment from big tech companies driving new hardware and dev toolkits, but from businesses hiring AR developers to build actual, real-world applications based on the technology.

A market in transition

The AR sector today is seen by insiders as being in transition, both due to the myriad problems still yet to be solved and new technologies on the horizon.

In that way, the market is similar to what mainframes, mini-computers, and DIY kit computers were in the 1960s and 70s: a revolution in the making that could change how we interact with the world.

Jackson thinks we’re a year or two from having headsets on the market that offer the fidelity necessary to begin transforming how people work, think, and entertain, while others put large-scale transformation further out.

Developers are excited about mixed-reality headsets like the Microsoft HoloLens, which can offer immersion and shared experiences without making people feel isolated or inhibited in crowded public spaces like trade shows and retail centers.

Meanwhile, new use cases continue to emerge. Kim gives the example of a stripped-back form of smart glasses that conform to the style and profile of regular corrective lenses and frames, at the expense of things like display acuity.

He believes these could find adoption in services and retail industries, as well as other public-facing jobs where representatives might benefit from the extra information they could have available while talking to customers.

Whatever comes next, much of the attention of insiders and outsiders alike will be on advancing the technology and searching for a killer app that makes AR take off in a big way. For Buzzell, that killer app might not be just one thing.

“When the smartphone came out Steve Jobs famously said it’s an internet communications device, it’s a personal messaging device, it’s a phone, it’s a camera,” he explains. By the same token, perhaps, AR’s killer app could ultimately be its versatility and utility as a veritable Swiss army knife of productivity, learning, and entertainment.

The original article from Samsung NEXT can be seen here.

Read the member profile of our member Upskill quoted in the article.

PTC today announced its collaboration with Boston Children’s Hospital, the number one pediatric hospital in the United States, to explore the use of augmented reality (AR) to help children with autism and related disorders communicate and learn more effectively.

The intersection of healthcare and technology is only beginning, and we are excited that PTC, a global leader in IoT and AR technology, is working with us to explore different use cases. Augmented reality addresses two of the biggest challenges facing a child with autism: communication and attention,” said Dr. Howard Shane. “With AR, a child with autism could ‘see’ a cup become a spaceship and engage in pretend play, or ‘see’ the steps to brush their teeth right in the context of their own physical environment. Simple tasks that are challenging for those with ASD can be shown and communicated with AR in a way that is more meaningful to them.”

A team of PTC employees volunteered countless hours to research and understand autism and the requirements for an effective AR solution. Once the team understood how to best develop applications for an autistic child, they quickly reached a project milestone by completing a prototype solution. In the next phase, an app, created for children with autism and a developmental age of three to five years old, will be clinically tested and evaluated for continued improvement. Dr. Shane will discuss the project in more detail for media and analysts in a session at the upcoming LiveWorx conference held in Boston on June 17-20^th.

The full press release can be read here.

PTC’s AREA member profile can be read here.

Discovering Augmented Reality

Delivering information in more dynamic ways is one of the great challenges of the current tech revolution, and one solution that is rapidly rising to meet the call is augmented reality. AR systems overlay information on real-world scenes in real time. A fan at a sporting event can, for example, hold up their phone and see markers indicating where all the concession stands in view are located. This has massive potential across a variety of industries, and a statement from Gartner’s Research Vice-President indicated that one-fifth of all enterprise-level operations will be using AR technologies by 2019.

AR in Medicine, Architecture, and Sports

One of the most obvious applications for AR is in healthcare. It offers plenty of opportunities for improving treatment by making medical records readily available in a Glass-style interface while doctors are in the middle of procedures. Medical students will benefit immensely, thanks to the ability to train in AR environments that allow them to get in many more repetitions performing each procedure. Telemedicine options will even be expanded significantly, as doctors can use AR devices to remotely interact with patients.

Real estate, architecture and construction also offer many opportunities for AR applications. Customers in these industries already utilize 3D systems for visualizations and virtual tours, and translating this data to AR will be a straightforward process. Standing in a space and seeing an AR layout of what it will look like with furniture and people can motivate buyers.

AR can also yield benefits in the sports and fitness world. By using gamification, an AR system can quickly reward an exerciser for achieving a goal. Personalized workout videos can be accessed on site or even while out for a run, bringing instruction to entirely new settings.

Industrial Processes and AR

In a factory environment, AR offers the logical interface to bring together many emerging technologies, including the Internet of Things and robotics. Working in a mixed cyber-physical setting, a worker can obtain information quickly and translate it into needed action. Other industrial processes, such as prototyping and testing, can be sped up by using AR to quickly verify how a model of a new product would function in an actual environment. Human flexibility and decision-making skills can be combined utilizing AR to make the most of what robots and people have to offer.

App Development for AR

Development solutions for augmented reality systems have quickly become robust in order to meet rising demand. In the world of Apple’s iOS, ARKit became the dominant development tool. Similarly, ARCore merged for Android developers. By placing an emphasis on smartphone capabilities, AR app developers can rapidly tap into the worldwide existing mobile user base creating applications with augmented reality features to engage customers and increase their retention.

Microsoft HoloLens is one of the more renowned devices in this sector, popular for its practical application in medicine and manufacturing. It is billed as a mixed reality system that combines physical and digital elements for seamless interactions. Simply place a real-world object in a scene, and HoloLens will instantly add it to the list of items that can be inserted into the MR environment. It even handles a variety of ways to interact, including voice commands, gaze tracking and gestures.

MR headset technologies are expected to soon come into wider use. These units utilize spatial mapping to scan environments in real time and instantly translate them to X-Y-Z coordinates. They also can take advantage of high-end technologies, such as spatial sound, high-definition virtual content and facial recognition to provide a richer user experience.

In a nutshell, augmented reality acquired a number of viable business cases. Pioneering companies proceed with research and development of innovative products that will be actively emerging on the market over the next several years.

AR and VR will very soon become important tools of a number of different industry types that want to find new and innovative ways to make their products more desirable and build more future-oriented enterprises. An area where AR and VR will have the most impact will be healthcare. A higher success rate of surgeries and improvements in quality of care are just some of the advantages of using AR and VR in this industry. As precision is the most important thing when performing surgery, surgeons can be more precise with the help of 3D visualizations of the area of surgery in real-time, bolstering the rate of success. Construction is another area where AR is expected to have a big role to play in enhancing the workflows of businesses. Imagine construction companies that provide floor-by-floor 3D plans of buildings before construction is even started. This would give customers a sense of what the buildings will look like upon completion.

The inevitable linking of AI and AR/VR will open new doors for further innovation. This will help enterprises take advantage of new applications and enriched experiences to enhance their business processes beyond what was thought impossible only a few years prior.

Key points from the article:

• More industries are adopting AR – industries like telecommunication, manufacturing, energy where the workforce is scattered to remote areas are already using AR extensively for communication, training etc.
• Healthcare and teaching are also leveraging AR capabilities. Healthcare companies are developing AR tools that can be used in the operating room and on the other hand by bringing the virtual elements to the real world, teachers are making a more immersive experience for students a reality.
• Brands will go for AR- with IKEA cited as an example and mobile sales will become important
• Scale – AR is going mainstream with hosts of startups entering the field to make it affordable for the masses. uSens, a California based computer vision startup, showcased technology in CES 2018 that will allow AR apps to run on not only your Iphone X but also on a cheap $100 Android phone. It raised $26 million in funding from a group of investors to push AR to the general public.
• A recent report by Digi- Capital suggests that AR will be worth a staggering $108 billion by 2021. 2018 is a breakthrough year for AR. It has reached a tipping point where it is looking to explode into homes and the high street.

The full article and infographic can be seen here.