It’s a sad fact that plastic debris in our oceans is killing marine wildlife at a staggering rate. With plastics pollution spiralling out of control, shops are under pressure to cut down on their use of unnecessary packaging. Some of the greatest culprits in generating harmful waste that often ends up in the oceans or landfill are cosmetics companies – just think about how many bottles and pots of shampoo, conditioner, moisturiser, shower gels and other grooming products the average person keeps in their bathroom and it’s easy to see how it very quickly adds up.

The increased awareness of the problem among consumers means that this is a commercial opportunity for those offering environmentally friendly alternatives, however. And this is what UK handmade cosmetics company Lush has been doing for many years, making many products such as shampoo in solid form (which according to the company saves nearly 6 million plastic bottles a year) where they require neither packaging nor preservatives and are offered in what the company refers to as “naked” form (where at most buyers have the option to slip it into a small paper bag or have it wrapped in some greaseproof paper).

Currently over 40% of Lush’s product range is completely free of packaging, but in early June the company went a step further and opened a shop in Milan, Italy which is 100% packaging free, relying on technology to keep customers informed instead. The trial is currently running exclusively on Fairphone, and customers visiting the Milan shop have access to four devices, yet they hope to roll it out to global customers in the near future.

Powered by Tensorflow from Google, the Lush Lens app uses AI and product recognition to eliminate the need for packaging. In its current beta version, the information comes up as a simple text pop-up, but there are plans to explore more possibilities around immersive technologies such as Augmented Reality to provide more information about the sourcing of ingredients, the process of making products, provenance about who actually made each batch, and suggestions on how to use it. For those familiar with the company’s rather eclectic and unusual offerings, those features would all make a lot of sense.

With this prototype mobile app we’ve put new technologies such as AI to a good use in our mission to eliminate more packaging and further educate our customers on our unique cosmetics,” Says Adam Goswell, Technology R&D at Lush. “We believe in the ethical use of data, so all the information Lush has is secure and used in a transparent way. We’re increasingly part of the tech community, providing open source solutions where before only monopolies existed. This is in line with a company ethos that aims to give more than it takes, act transparently, push innovation and raise industry standards.

Lush is well-known for its activism, and have – if you’ll excuse the pun – recently got into hot water for one of their more controversial campaigns which was meant to raise awareness against abusive surveillance practices carried out by certain police force branches in the UK. Having spoken to its founders (Lush is very much a family business at its core in spite of its multimillion-pound global turnover) it is clear that politics and product are very much intertwined in their strategy.

In the past few years Jack Constantine – the son of Lush’s Founders Mark and Mo Constantine – has focused on developing in-house technology under the Lush Digital umbrella, including building an in-house R&D team called Tech Warriors. When we last spoke they were enthusiastic about the possibility of using image recognition and AR functionality to allow people to find out about the products in a shop simply by pointing their smartphone camera at them.

The company sees technology as playing a vital role in achieving their commercial-political goals, which translates not only in advocating for digital rights, embracing open-source technologies and adopting ethical sourcing of hardware, but also in their investment in new technologies such as 3D printing, artificial intelligence, image recognition, and immersive tech such as augmented reality.

Technology doesn’t have to be unethical. We believe tech can be built for the greater good and impact positive social change,” Constantine agrees. “Just like its approach to sourcing ingredients and testing products, Lush believes in continuously challenging norms and driving best practice when it comes to business ethics. One of those key principles is the ethical use of data and technology.

On their blog they have recently explored a common enterprise use for AR that many of our enterprise members have been using for years.  Engineers often stumble across new problems and need the advice of specialists for further guidance, but can you imagine how difficult it can be to explain an issue and receive advice on how to resolve it over the phone?

It often means having to send the specialist out, wasting time and money. But what if engineers could share their challenges with others remotely? Augmented reality could hold the key.

BT’s researchers at Adastral Park have been exploring how engineers can live stream their work to their peers using Microsoft HoloLens. The remote engineer would not only be able to see what is going on but could also annotate what they see for the on-site engineer to view through the smart glass device.

The technique could prove particularly useful in training new engineers.  Full article here.

Conventional wisdom holds that technology makes medical care less human, less personal. But watching patient Wanda Touard with virtual reality goggles on her head and controllers in her hands, exploring the inside of her brain for the first time, gives one the distinct impression that nothing could be more personal than this high-tech tool. “Unreal! Amazing!” exclaimed Touard as she virtually traveled along the left side of the bulging aneurysm that required her to have brain surgery in November.

“This is absolutely weird, but absolutely wonderful. My aneurysm looks like a large sweet potato in the middle of my blood vessels. “If this technology had been around six months ago, would I have wanted to see this before my surgery? Absolutely!”

If doctors had heard 10 years ago that one day the very same techies who create video games would be changing the face of surgery, it’s doubtful they would have taken the prediction seriously. But these days, a traditional MRI or CT scan just doesn’t tell the whole story.

Brain aneurysms, which look like bulging balloons along the artery, are due to weak arterial walls and can be exceedingly dangerous. If they rupture, an internal brain bleed can be fatal. That’s why it’s imperative that a neurosurgeon who treats aneurysms has the most optimal view of it before deciding on a course of action. An MRI of patient Wanda Touard’s blood vessels and aneurysm are superimposed on a photo of Buy Now her face at Ochsner Medical Center, a method called ‘augmented reality.’ Touard was treated successfully for the aneurysm using high-tech imaging. Advocate photo by Shawn Fink “This is beyond 3-D printing of the blood vessels and the aneurysm, because with virtual reality, this technology allows me to go inside the blood vessels,” said Dr. Edison Valle, a cerebrovascular neurosurgeon at Ochsner Medical Center. “I can navigate through the patient’s brain just as I would in surgery,” he said.

Doing a “walk-through” ahead of time makes for safer surgery. Seeing the angles of the blood vessels and the depth of the aneurysm helps doctors plan the least invasive and most effective operation, Valle said.

Putting this technology in place at Ochsner was the idea of a neurologist who has a decided affinity for video game technology and the wherewithal to connect tech geeks and medical professionals in an unusual way. “When I moved to New Orleans, I found out that this place is one of the premiere video game development arenas,” said Dr. Korak Sarkar, an Ochsner neurologist. “Twitch is a startup by a founder in Kenner, which televises video games. Amazon just bought this company for slightly under a billion dollars.

“One of the biggest indigenous companies here is called TurboSquid, which is basically an online marketplace for 3-D assets, and one of their co-founders is also on the board of Ochsner,” he said. “Since I go to video game meetups, I acquired some contacts there for people in New Orleans who could do what I wanted them to do and make virtual reality a natural part of the clinical setting.”

Enter Mike Harris, the lead immersive technology developer in New Orleans at CrossComm, a North Carolina based consultancy which creates mobile applications.

It has become his job to turn Sarkar’s dream into a virtual and augmented reality. “If you can imagine an MRI as a stack of individual slices, you can take that stack and via software pull out all of the salient parts,” said Harris. “You now have a collection of data points that can be used to create a 3-D image, but instead of printing them, we’re bringing them into a virtual environment and allowing the physician to manipulate them any way he chooses.” That can mean virtual reality, with goggles, allowing the wearer to “walk” through his or her own anatomy.

Or it can mean augmented reality, in which virtual information is overlaid onto the real world. (Think Pokémon GO, the game everyone played on his phone in which the Pokémon character popped up as part of the real world environment.) “For medical purposes, we can now overlay digital renderings over the patient’s real anatomy,” Harris said. “We now even have augmented reality glasses which project images into your own field of view.”

It’s all a tremendous help in analyzing the individual cases of patients, the doctor said. Dr. James Kalyvas, an Ochsner neurosurgeon specializing in spines, foresees such augmented reality aiding spinal surgery in the near future. By rendering the patient’s spine in 3-D and then superimposing that image on the patient in the correct position on the operating table, surgeons can precisely spot the target area during the operation, Kalyvas said.

Ochsner Hospital is the only facility in the Gulf South using this particular technology, but it’s hoped it will soon become the standard of care. “Has all of this newfangled technology been useful?” asked Valle. “I’m now able to adjust what I thought I could do in a surgery to what I can really do, now that I can see absolutely. It has blown my mind.

Riaz writes LIVE FROM AR & VR WORLD, LONDON: Enterprises using augmented reality (AR) have improved their efficiency, but the industry is still new and has many teething problems, which is where AR for Enterprise Alliance (Area) wants to step in and help.

Mark Sage, executive director at Area (pictured), said AR can reduce resource costs, minimise human error and increase efficiency.

However, it is still a young industry, with companies often finding it hard to find potential customers. Plus, businesses don’t always understand how AR can help them as there are not enough real-world use cases.

This does not mean there aren’t any use cases, though. Sage said operator KPN reduced overall costs for service teams 11 per cent by using AR smart glasses, while Boeing found the time taken to train new staff was cut by 35 per cent using AR rather than traditional 2D drawings.

The challenge for businesses is they are often unable to find the right information, lack confidence in implementing new technology and don’t have insight to support return on investment (RoI) decisions.

To this end, the Alliance offers a tool which defines and answers common questions about how to measure RoI for enterprise AR projects.

Area also wants to provide a deep and open exchange of best practice, lessons learned and technology insights. It is looking to close the AR skills gap by working with universities.

Another of its aims is to reduce barriers to AR adoption by organising committees to focus on issues including research, security, safety and developing a standardised set of requirements.

Sage noted collaboration is key, as no single company can provide end-to-end AR solutions

Area states it is the only global non-profit, member-based organisation dedicated to widespread adoption of interoperable AR-enabled enterprise systems.

George Jewell, VP at eFlex shared, “Many of our manufacturing software modules have focused on lean manufacturing utilizing technology. While our JEM module provides detailed task and model-based work instructions, we understand the additional benefits that augmented reality brings. From this, eFlex and Light Guide Systems have partnered to add this to the eFlex Assembly framework.”

Paul Ryznar, founder, CEO and president of OPS Solutions, maker of Light Guide Systems noted, “Today’s technologies are having a dramatic impact on traditional manufacturing processes. By utilizing powerful AR technology in new ways, we are able to place the right information in the right place at the right time, which has an incredible impact on manufacturing operations, quality, efficiency, training, and inspection. When Light Guide is combined with eFlex Assembly framework, it exponentially accelerates the value for both products.”

About Light Guide Systems
Michigan-based OPS Solutions, maker of Light Guide Systems augmented reality software for assembly and manufacturing, is a leader in the next wave of manufacturing technology. Light Guide Systems reduces errors and radically improves manufacturing and assembly processes by projecting a digital operating canvas directly onto virtually any work surface, providing audio and visual prompts, guidance, pacing, and direction.

This is because the company is extending the field of activities used by the pick-by-vision solution in the past at its logistics centre in Kirchzarten. Up to now, the warehouse specialists have used ten pairs of the glasses for picking outgoing goods – now the glasses will be deployed for incoming goods too. The electronics wholesaler is hoping to achieve a significant reduction in the error rate when putting items into storage by using the Picavi products in this area.

Currently, ten pairs of smart glasses are in use from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. and enable the warehouse specialists to pick items like resistors, semiconductor diodes or capacitors for dispatch from the warehouse stocks that comprise 2.5 billion components. The recipients of the packages sent from the ECOMAL central warehouse, which is located in the southern Black Forest area, include companies in the automotive sector, the semiconductor industry or those assembling circuit boards.

“We’ve been able to achieve time savings of at least 20 percent by using the Picavi smart glasses for our multi-order picking system covering different products. As part of the ongoing digitalisation of our warehouse management procedures, we’ve purchased even more models to switch our incoming goods to the pick-by-vision technology too,” says Peter Kraus, Logistics manager at ECOMAL. “We’ve made one or two mistakes in the past and they’ve caused a fairly long search process. This will now be a thing of the past when we put items into storage with the Picavi smart glasses; they indicate where the correct warehouse position is on the display and the relevant information is then stored in the warehouse management system.”

“ECOMAL is a clear example of how we can continue developing a partnership, which started in one area of a warehouse, into a different one. The strictly visual process controls of the pick-by-vision solution can be used for many activities in internal logistics in order to increase the precision of the work and make time savings when picking items,” says Johanna Bellenberg, director of Marketing and Communications at Picavi, underlining the benefits.

Finity Journey is an innovative application of Virtual Reality (VR) concepts that enable a global audience to tour, explore, learn and experience a facility or product, 24/7. Virtual visitors can experience this journey in a PC or mobile browser, a custom-branded mobile app or even in true VR. With a mix of multi-lingual audio, 360 video and images, 3D models, live data and IoT, Finity Journey provides a compelling and impactful experience, enabling the virtual visitor to navigate the 360VR Tour through interactive hotspots, making their journey easy and memorable. The value created by Finity can be embraced by a broad range of industries and businesses.

“Virtual reality offers very exciting opportunities to improve our recruitment platform and better serve our customers in this marketplace. We see 3D Studio Blomberg’s technologies as a unique tool to help companies attract the best talent.”  Joonas Pihlajamaa, Director, Recruitment and eCom, Oikotie, Sanoma Digital, Oikotie

“In today’s competitive recruitment market, we constantly strive to hire the best people. Finity journey helps Elisa stand out by enabling potential candidates to make an informed workplace decision by taking a compelling virtual tour of our world-class working environment”. Juho Toivola, VP, Strategic Resourcing, Elisa Oyj, Elisa

Finity Vada meets the challenge for companies to adopt Augmented Reality (AR) in their operations head on, by addressing the lack of tools to automate the creation of AR experiences at enterprise scale. Finity Vada is designed to remove this barrier to AR adoption by offering an automation framework for publishing AR experiences. Vada uses powerful templates to machine-generate AR experiences that allow the re-use of enterprise assets such as 3D CAD data, attributes from PLM and ERP and IoT data streams.  Finity Vada’s high level of automation enables enterprise targets such as IP protection, cost and scalability to be met, without the risk of manual and error-prone mistakes. It essentially enables automation for industrial AR, at scale.

“Finity Vada represents a significant step forward in making AR ready for the enterprise. We see automation as a key enabler to meet the needs of scalability and cost in the adoption of AR” Taito llmonen, IlS Architect, ABB Oy, Drives

The official launch for both these products is 13^th June 2018 at AR&VR World in London, part of the well-established London Tech Week. This week-long festival of tech and innovation bringing together 55,000 attendees at the London ExCel venue. The unveiling will take place in the Immerse 360 theatre with Pontus Blomberg, Founder and VP Business Development at 3D Studio Blomberg.  Further promotion will use an extensive range of social and digital channels over the coming weeks in June.

Since 2001, 3D Studio Blomberg has grown and expanded to become a front-runner in industrial visualisation. Our core expertise and experience lies in holistic visual communications and we’re passionate about using this to develop innovative visual tools and solutions for a broad range of uses, incorporating the latest technology, including AR and VR.  Visual business is our vision that companies will become more effective and efficient by harnessing highly visual technologies such as AR and VR, to enable rapid understanding, streamline training, improve operations and accelerate decision-making.

Their AREA member profile can be viewed here.

The reports are as follows:

1. Executive Summary: Partners in Connection – The Digital Workforce Succession in Manufacturing” is available to orient you to the key narratives and content of the Digital Manufacturing & Design Job Roles Taxonomy and Success Profiles.
2. “Digital Manufacturing & Design Job Roles Taxonomy” provides a more detailed narrative on the full extent of the taxonomy structure, such as the technical domains, DM&D jobs roles, impacts, technical generations, drivers and more.
3. “Digital Manufacturing & Design Success Profiles” contains information on the first 20 Success Profiles covering their key responsibilities, competencies, experience, positioning, and outcomes.

Taken from the website of the DMDII and UILABS:

“The Digital Manufacturing and Design business ecosystem grows and evolves every day. For small companies and large enterprises, the digital transformation beckons brightly, capturing broad attention and commanding major initiatives. From the high school and community college “maker space classrooms” – the 21st century “shop class” – to the technology innovation labs of startups; from the C-suite of a global appliance maker to the crafter entrepreneur’s loft workshop; from the floor of the most advanced factory to the bullpen where a factory automation manager works to combine old and new, digital represents an opportunity, a requirement, an equalizer, and an accelerator all in one. Few will escape the challenge of digital transformation. Most hope to embrace it.

The Digital Manufacturing & Design Jobs Taxonomy and Success Profiles were developed by DMDII and ManpowerGroup to capture the Digital Workforce Succession in Manufacturing. By defining emerging roles and skills in the digital manufacturing and design space, we hope industry and academia will be able to better align for training and hiring. We welcome you to join in on this important conversation and take a closer look at what we have learned with our partners over the past year.”

The website can be accessed here.

Amid the whirring cacophony inside a coal-fired power plant, Eric Zakszewski peers into the side of a coal feeder to see that fuel is flowing properly on its way to a pulverizer. On this day, a flashlight isn’t his only tool. A small monocle hangs from his white hard hat in front of his right eye. On it, he can view a list of tasks and safety checks he is to perform without having to turn to a screen or clipboard.

“It’s like a powerpoint that is hovering in mid-air,” said Zakszewski, a 29-year-old power plant operator at We Energies’ Elm Road Generating Station near Milwaukee.

Zakszewski is among a group of utility workers who recently participated in an industry-backed study looking at the potential benefits and drawbacks of equipping employees with augmented reality (AR) devices, which layer virtual information into a user’s field of vision. A team from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) visited the We Energies coal plant last week to observe workers while they tried out various products.

“The potential uses of AR in the electric utility sphere are already in play,” Eric Bauman, a senior technical leader with EPRI, said. “It is being demonstrated for inspection tasks, performing work, training, and probably more. There is substantial interest amongst utilities in this technology.”

The technology is maturing and coming down in price as the utility industry faces a looming workforce challenge that will require it to hire and train thousands of workers in the coming years as aging workers retire. Still, more vetting is needed to make sure the devices actually help workers and also don’t create dangerous distractions.

AR: “It could be really useful”

Zakszewski performed a series of jobs inside and outside the We Energies plant last week while wearing two types of AR devices — RealWear, the monocle lens, and Microsoft’s HoloLens, a set of glasses.

“For the most part, my job is looking and observing,” Zakszewski said. “So, AR does obstruct it a little, but if you could have it off to the side it could be really useful.”

Besides scrolling through checklists, the devices will become more useful as more meters, poles, and other grid equipment is wired into the internet of things. With AR glasses, all that data streaming from these smart devices can be visualized, which is “absolutely part of the allure of AR,” Bauman said.

Brian Dixon, chief operating officer of Capital Innovators in St. Louis and head of the Ameren Accelerator, an energy technology startup accelerator, agreed. “Imagine somebody working for a utility in the field is able to look at the transmission wires or different types of large assets and get a perfect understanding through the data that’s being projected into their field of vision,” Dixon said.

Ameren, one of Illinois’ largest utilities, is among the companies exploring how AR gadgets can bring efficiency and safety to its operations.

“Ameren sees significant long-term potential in applying augmented reality technology to maintenance operations, as well as other aspects of our business,” said Steve Kidwell, Ameren’s vice president of corporate planning.

Over time, Kidwell predicts the devices will reduce costs and improve service while helping to train and keep workers safe in the field.

Products cost less, perform better

A 2016 EPRI report that reviewed existing research literature concluded that affordability is no longer an obstacle for utilities, as costs for the devices have come down. “More and more players are entering the marketplace. It is a vibrant area of technological development and experimentation,” Bauman said.

Vuzix, a developer based in Rochester, New York, is creator of the Blade, a $1,000 pair of AR glasses that work with Amazon’s voice-controlled Alexa platform. Designed to look like sunglasses, the Blade has received high praise from the technology press — The Verge called it the “next-gen Google Glass we’ve all been waiting for.”

But the company also produces the M-300, a sturdier device designed for industrial use that runs about $1,500. Instead of looking through glasses or a large pair of goggles, a user looks through a small monocle that mounts onto a hard hat. The company’s chief executive envisions a role for the product in the utility industry.

“You can literally just look at the meter, and have the meter reading captured on the device,” Paul Boris, Vuzix CEO, said. “You don’t get errors in transcription, you don’t have to tap the reader, you don’t even have to get close to it — you can literally be on the other side of the fence.”

Meanwhile, other utility hardware is getting smarter, expanding the potential uses of AR glasses to interact with equipment.

Ontario-based Hyperion Sensors, one of the first companies in Ameren’s startup incubator, developed fiber-optic sensors the size of human hair that can be strung into transformers and other high voltage equipment, making the “dumb” equipment smart and providing instant information about temperature and strain.

“Over the next 20 or 30 years, the idea is that this smart technology will be part and parcel of everything that gets connected to the grid,” Anselm Viswasam, CEO of Hyperion Sensors, said. “If you are going to use a solar panel and it’s going to supply power onto the grid. Then it will be necessary that it will have the smarts embedded into it.”

A tool for looming workforce challenge?

The utility industry faces some significant workforce challenges ahead as the baby boomers retire, which was highlighted by a 2017 Department of Energy utility workforce assessment. Few utility workers have the training or qualifications to move up the ranks as older workers retire, it concluded.

“Workforce retirements are a pressing challenge. Industry hiring managers often report that lack of candidate training, experience, or technical skills are major reasons why replacement personnel can be challenging to find—especially in electric power generation,” the Energy Department report said.

We Energies plant central scheduler Randy Sheck sees potential for using augmented reality to train and assist new workers. Utility workers routinely work 12-hour shifts, walk 5 or 6 miles and examine 300 pieces of equipment.

“You always have to be looking for new technology,” he said. “I think augmented reality may still be 5 or 10 years out, but it has a lot of potential. I see the value it can add for us in terms of daily maintenance.”

Nakazawa strives to illuminate how to drive leading experiences where the human, digital, and physical intersect, and how we can re-invent ways people come together to create, consume, and celebrate the digital experiences that constitute life as we know it, feel it, see it, and immerse in it.

In this interview Nakazawa talks about Atheer, their products, history and news, and goes on to discuss their working partnership with RealWear.

The full interview appears here.  See also the AREA profiles of Atheer and RealWear.