The equity award was granted pursuant to Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4) inducement grant exception as a component of Mr. Spiliotis’s employment compensation and was granted as an inducement material to his acceptance of employment with Vuzix. This grant was approved by Vuzix’ Board of Directors on July 22, 2021.

As Managing Director of the newly created Integrated Solutions Business Unit, Mr. Spiliotis will oversee the acceleration of Vuzix’ Smart Glasses in enterprise focused solutions including the company’s ongoing software and service subscriptions.

Mr. Spiliotis is a senior executive with strong experience in the high tech electro-optical field. His areas of expertise include business and software development and the development of strategic partnership alliances with Fortune 500 companies. From 2006 to March 2019, he served as the CEO and Co-Founder of FluxData, Inc, where he created and led a new factory automation business for inline color measurement services. His company was acquired in 2017 by Halma, a leading safety, health and environmental technology group based in Great Britain, after it had achieved $35M in sales with a 90% gross margin and 50% EBITDA margin in its last 4 years of operation before its acquisition.

Mr. Spiliotis’s inducement grant consists of a stock award of 300,000 shares subject to vesting, including 50,000 shares that may be earned over 3 years based on continued employment with the Company, and 250,000 shares that may be earned upon achievement of revenue and EBITDA operational milestones for the Integration Solutions Business Unit within specified periods of time over 5 years.

“Pano has a proven track record of building highly skilled, high value teams that are able to identify novel markets and quickly help deliver valuable solutions,” said Paul Travers, President and CEO of Vuzix. “Our new solutions group will develop additional tools and support for current and future partners while helping to explore and identify business opportunity in various verticals. The group will continue to support Vuzix’ digital solutions strategy for its Smart Glasses customers by helping to integrate the company’s products and services into the entire internet of things.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. today outlined its overarching vision of the wearables space while highlighting several significant Snapdragon Wear™ Platform milestones. In a press event, Qualcomm Technologies discussed its growing platform investments and announced the new Qualcomm® Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Program. The company also announced that more than 60 wearable industry leaders such as Arm, BBK, Fossil, Oppo, Verizon, Vodafone, and Zebra will participate in the program.

Rapid Wearables Growth as Industry Segments

The Wearables segment has been growing and segmenting at a rapid pace with products targeted for kids, teens, adults, and seniors across consumer and enterprise use cases.

“The wearables market grew 21% year-over-year and shows no signs of slowing down,” said Jitesh Ubrani, Research Manager, WW Mobile Device Trackers, IDC. “Innovative form factors continue to emerge as consumers demand new use cases in wearable devices. The smartwatch segment is going well beyond health and fitness tracking, expanding across consumer and enterprise segments, and further fueling growth of the category.”

Qualcomm Technologies’ Increasing Snapdragon Wear Investments

“Our Snapdragon Wear platforms are driving the industry, powering smartwatches for kids, seniors, and adults and smart trackers for pets and accessories,” said Pankaj Kedia, senior director & global head, smart wearables, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “We are significantly growing our investments in leading edge ground-up silicon, platforms, and technologies and plan to roll out new Snapdragon Wear platforms across segments over the next year to meet our long-term vision.”

Qualcomm Technologies is continuing to invest in new Snapdragon Wear platforms to meet the diverse needs of customers across a multitude of OSs with its unique hybrid architectural approach, range of software releases, and reference designs. “We envision a hyper segmented world of wearables,” Kedia continued, “we believe Qualcomm Technologies has an important role to play to accelerate this reality by bringing together our platforms and investments to the ecosystem.”

Over the last five years, the company has shipped 40+ million units across 100+ countries, collaborated with 75+ device manufacturers and 25+ service providers while shipping 250+ wearables products – that is one new product, on average, per week.

Announcing the Qualcomm Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Program

The wearables segment holds considerable promise but also presents daunting challenges to be addressed in the industry. To facilitate collaboration amongst companies and accelerate solutions to these challenges, Qualcomm Technologies launched the Qualcomm Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Program which is comprised of device manufacturers (ODMs), service providers, platform players, independent hardware and software vendors (IHVs and ISVs), and system integrators and will work together with OEMs to more easily develop and commercialize products and solutions.

The program brings together industry leaders to discuss industry trends, share new technology and product direction, hold training sessions, demonstrate concepts, launch products, and facilitate matchmaking sessions amongst the ecosystem players. The collective goal of the members is to accelerate the wearables segment by delivering differentiated experiences at lower development cost and faster production time.

“Qualcomm Technologies is actively collaborating with its customers and partners with the aim of meeting the ever-changing needs of the consumers,” added Kedia. “We are delighted to announce the Qualcomm Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Program today and have an ambitious set of activities planned. Our goal is to provide a vehicle in the industry where ecosystem members collaborate to deliver differentiated wearable experiences and inject new energy and innovation in this exciting space.”

“The wearables market continues to evolve across a range of form factors and use cases which require efficient performance for complex and immersive experiences,” said Ketan Shah, senior director of XR and wearables, Client Line of Business, Arm. “Arm is focused on providing the compute performance and security needed to enable next-generation wearable devices, and through the Qualcomm Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Program, we will work closely with the wider ecosystem to drive collaboration and change across the industry.”

“At Fossil Group, we are always striving for new innovation and increased performance in our products. Thanks to our continued partnership with Qualcomm and the launch of our upcoming smartwatches later this year, Fossil believes it’s bringing the best possible Wear OS smartwatch to the market this year,” said Chris Hartley, Director of Category Strategy – Wearables, Fossil Group, Inc.

“Verizon has been committed to growing the wearables industry, introduced various wearable products to help customers stay connected” said Farhana Chaudhry, Director of Product Management and Development at Verizon. “We are excited to see the launch of the Qualcomm Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Program, opportunity to collaborate with the broad ecosystem partners to continue to innovate and launch the diverse and innovative wearables products.”

“Vodafone is proud to participate in Qualcomm’s Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator programme, and its initiative to drive greater use and functionality of wearable consumer devices. Wearables are a part of the fabric of the next generation of telecommunications and will only be successful by combining the efforts of industry innovators in connectivity, semiconductors, hardware and user experience design. This combined effort will lead to innovations for consumers, such as Vodafone OneNumber, which enables wearable devices to connect without even needing a mobile phone,” said Phil Patel, Global Products & Services Director, Vodafone Group Services GmbH.

“Zebra Technologies has a long history of delivering innovative wearable solutions to meet the evolving needs of our Enterprise customers,” said Julie Johnson, vice president of product management, Zebra Technologies. “As we continue to work with our customers in established and emerging use cases, we look forward to working with Qualcomm Technologies.”

The Qualcomm Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Program is part of the Qualcomm® Advantage Network and is open to companies developing solutions based on the Snapdragon Wear platforms. The inaugural Qualcomm Wearables Ecosystem Summit will be held in Fall 2021.

Both machine operators and John Deere executive team members are smiling, as the wearable hands-free devices are poised to save the company a great deal of time and money in the long-term.

How Vuzix M400 Smart Glasses improve life for John Deere machine operators:

Hands-free communication

Construction sites aren’t ideal for talking on smartphones. Hands-free and voice-controlled, Smart Glasses allow users to conduct video calls without distraction. Conversation partners are displayed in the corner of a team member’s field-of-view meaning they can still monitor their surroundings while reporting to supervisors. This innovation will save lives.

Real-time reporting

Instead of describing mechanical problems to off-site colleagues, operators can broadcast their first-person view directly to supervisors. They can also report on the status of machinery in real-time with a simple tap of the device’s touchpad. Talk about making the entire process more seamless…

Next gen training

New operators will benefit from the ability to broadcast whatever they’re looking at to off-site supervisors. The next best thing to having an instructor over your shoulder, this development has proven a gamechanger for many Vuzix partners throughout the global pandemic.

Read the full article here.

As the world continues to adjust to more virtual ways of working, industrial organizations are turning to digital technologies to stay connected, productive, and resilient. With out-of-the box solutions that deliver rapid ROI, industrial augmented reality (AR) overcomes thorny workforce challenges, speeds up on-the-job learning, and creates opportunities for employees to collaborate—even at a distance.

This eBook gathers actionable tips from five experts who are using industrial AR to drive innovation and improve how frontline workforces get things done in today’s new normal. Each of these experts was asked to respond to the same question: In today’s climate, what is the most important consideration for somebody ready to empower their employees with Augmented Reality?

With expert opinions from

• Shawn Metivier, General Manager Reliability, BID Group
• AndrewE. Chrostowski, Chairman and CEO, RealWear
• Chrsitian Radillo, Global technical Consultant for extended reality, Rockwell Azutomation
• Matt Kwiatkowski, Global Learning Strategy & Technology Program Leader,, GE Healthcare

You can view all the advice and opinions from the experts on Industrial AR and XR in the PTC ebook.

Critical infrastructures (CRITIS) such as the chemical storage terminal of Attilio Carmagnani are of central importance to our modern society. Very high demands are placed on their operational security as failures or impairments of CRITIS can have serious consequences. For example, terrorist or drone attacks on assets of the chemical sector could pose severe risks to public health and safety.

However, maintaining the operational safety of these infrastructures presents a challenge. Due to cyber-physical threats critical infrastructures are exposed to an increasing potential of danger and keeping up with security issues has become more difficult in the last years.

About EU Horizon 2020: InfraStress

The Horizon 2020 project InfraStress has taken on this challenge and aims to create protection in the form of innovative technology. A consortium of 27 partners from 11 countries started to work on developed methods to improve the cyber-physical security and developed an open testbed stress-testing system. Augmented reality training is one part of InfraStress’ set of measures.

“By using augmented reality and smart glasses, we work on a better assessment of these critical and industrial environments. Via AR operators and workers can be trained, how to clamp down on cyber-physical threats and hazards,” states Alexander Werlberger, CTO at Holo-Light. “The collaboration with our partners Attilio Carmagnani and STAM was very enriching: we learned a lot from each other and created a very customized solution for industrial requirements.”

Emergency Training with Augmented Reality

Situational awareness is crucial in case of emergency. Every action must be right. With AR personnel can be trained through real-time simulations. It prepares team members to make critical decisions on the spot and to have realistic experiences without endangering anyone.

Irene Bonetti, Terminal Director of Attilio Carmagnani affirms: “During training we have to imagine fire or liquids. With the AR training solution on HoloLens 2 we can really see it and understand how the chemicals will behave. Also, the fact that AR trainings can be executed one-by-one multiple times helps us to prepare in a better way.”

Conclusion

As governments and enterprises see the potential of improving disaster response skills with augmented reality, analysts expect a rise of AR training solutions in the public sector. Also, the increased roll-out of 5G networks will have a positive influence on its further spread. Ultra-high bandwidths and low latency as well as the increasing deployment and acceptance of cloud and edge computing will power digital transformation through XR (an umbrella term for all immersive technologies).

Qualcomm has unveiled its latest research milestones and innovations for advancing the next chapter of 5G, and they looks likely to transform industries worldwide. The company’s new and updated R&D over-the-air (OTA) testbeds and system simulations are enhancing the 5G system foundation to bring even more capacity, wider coverage, and lower latency to mobile operators and devices on a global scale. The testbeds and system simulations also highlight 5G’s horizontal capabilities to transform a wide range of industries from industrial IoT, automotive, enterprise, and more.

“Qualcomm Technologies is committed to driving the mobile ecosystem forward by breaking technology barriers and bringing superior 5G system performance to new industries, use cases and experiences for the smartphone and beyond,” said John Smee, vice president, engineering, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Our new 5G R&D technology OTA testbeds and system simulations build on more than 30 years of deep wireless technology expertise, end-to-end system knowledge, global experience, and exemplify our leadership in advancing 5G for the next decade,” Smee continued.

Strengthening wide-area 5G system foundation

The latest wide-area 5G OTA test networks, prototypes, and system simulations announced by Qualcomm illustrate new capabilities and efficiencies of the 5G system. The latest demonstrations are focused across five key wide-area 5G research topics including subband half-duplex, wide-area 5G positioning, cross-node machine learning, 5G NR-Light evolution with sidelink, and 5G device disaggregation.

Expanding mobile mmWave deployments

New mmWave OTA prototypes and system simulations have been announced by Qualcomm, a pioneer in mmWave technology, and are exemplified in five key areas. These are smart mmWave repeaters, machine learning-based beam prediction, network topology optimisation, mmWave IoT expansion, and mmWave in smart factories.The company’s demos  showcase how 5G mmWave is evolving to support even better performance, deployment efficiency and expanded use.

Smarter transportation with 5G V2X sidelink

Qualcomm’s automotive vision for 5G V2X (vehicle-to-everything) is to bring increased road safety by connecting cars to other cars, pedestrians, bicyclists, road infrastructure and more. Their new 5G Rel-16 aligned R&D prototype further drives the 5G V2X sidelink evolution for delivering enhanced network capacity by offloading high-bandwidth data such as local high-res 3D maps from wide-area 5G networks, as well as bringing more robust communication with distributed time synchronisation to maintain communication even when GNSS is unavailable.

Enabling new Industry 4.0 efficiencies

The 5G over-the-air industrial test beds from Qualcomm illustrate key features pushing the boundaries of 5G technology, which sets the foundation for Industry 4.0. Advanced technologies showcased by Qualcomm are time sensitive networking (TSN) with micro-second level time synchronisation, ultra-high reliability with coordinated multi-point (CoMP), indoor precise positioning with centimetre level accuracy, and the novel introduction of sidelink to industrial IoT for more efficient device-to-device communication.

Boundless XR over 5G mobile mmWave

Using their optimised end-to-end 5G mmWave OTA system, Qualcomm showcases efficient simultaneous support of multiple virtual reality users across diverse applications, such as workplace collaboration and gaming. This will drive the convergence of physical, digital, and virtual worlds, boundless XR ushers in more immersive mobile virtual and augmented reality experiences through 5G and distributed computing.

Better system efficiencies for greener networks

With mobile networks growing to support wider bandwidths, denser deployments, and more users, Qualcomm’s researchers are also pursuing greener networks. This includes new advanced techniques, such as digital post distortion and high-efficiency modulation schemes that can greatly reduce the energy consumption of a mobile network system while sustaining high performance data links.

Qualcomm Technologies’ latest research shows the growth of new 5G phones, deployments, and applications across wireless technology, edge cloud processing, and AI. Indeed, the company’s new prototypes underscore Qualcomm’s commitment to ongoing research and development of future 5G technologies and beyond.

Read Qualcomm’s AREA

Topics included are:

• What is Augmented Reality?
• The scientific classification of Augmented Reality
• How does Augmented Reality work?
• Hardware
• Software toolkit
• Software application

The market is expected to reach US$  303,934.14 thousand by 2028 from US$ 145,287.76 thousand in 2020

It is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 9.9% from 2020 to 2028

The report highlights the trends prevailing in the market, along with market drivers and deterrents.

Surgical smart glasses provide a smarter way to perform surgeries across the globe. Surgeons wear these glasses while performing a surgery and expert professionals from outside can view the surgery through these smart glasses and give advice regarding the surgery.

Surgeon in Operation Theater can communicate with another surgeon with the help of microphones of the glasses and share the surgical view with the wide lens camera on the surgical smart glass.

A few prominent players operating in the surgical smart glasses market are

• MEDITHINQ CO., LTD
• Taiwan Main Orthopaedic Biotechnology
• IRISTICK (AREA member)
• DTU Srl
• Vuzix Corporation (AREA member)
• Pixee Medical
• RODS AND CONES
• AMA XpertEye
• ImmersiveTouch, Inc
• Microsoft Corporation (AREA member)

Market players are launching new and innovative products and services to sustain their position in the surgical smart glasses market. For instance, in Jun 2020, MediThinQ commercially launched wireless smart glasses GV-200C. These wireless smart glasses solutions provide surgical site vision to front of eyes regardless of surgeon’s position and orientation.

The COVID-19 pandemic is having the significant positive impact on the surgical smart glasses market. COVID-19 vaccine has been developed by several pharmaceutical companies and is vaccination has been started. Thus, the surgical smart glasses market is growing due to the increasing awareness about remote clinical support as an option for surgeons, which is also anticipated to have a positive impact on the other segments of the market in the coming months. On the other side, disruptions in the supply chain caused due to the halt in global operations are hindering the market growth.

Increasing Number of Surgical Procedures Contribute Significantly to Market Growth

The rising prevalence of chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), stroke, and kidney diseases is expected to have a positive impact on the number of surgical procedures across the globe.

As per the WHO, CVDs are the leading cause of mortality, and they result in the deaths of ~17.9 million people every year across the world. Moreover, as per the International Diabetes Federation’s Diabetes Atlas Ninth edition 2019, about 463 million adults (aged 20–79 years) had diabetes in 2019, and the number is expected to reach 700 million by 2045.

Such high prevalence of chronic conditions is expected to drive the number of surgical procedures, which will ultimately boost the growth of the surgical smart glasses market. For instance, according to the data published by the Obesity and Metabolic Surgery Society of India in 2020, the number of bariatric surgeries in India increased by around 86.7% during 2014–2018 in India.

This development is gaining traction as Vuzix hosts its first-ever demonstration in Mandarin – expanding its reach in the Asia-Pacific.

In partnership with SoftFoundry International and Porsche China, Vuzix brings its M-Series line to one of the world’s largest markets.

Why the demonstration is so monumental:

Remote Expertise

Available on the Vuzix M400 and M4000, the FacePro Xpert System ushers in the next-generation of remote support. Businesses can use the technology to train employees, giving instructors access to their student’s point-of-view. Equipped with 4K video, the technology has the potential to significantly reduce corporate expenses. Mass adoption could eliminate “traveling for work.”

Porsche-formance

The premium automaker already benefits from the technology – connecting US-based team members with colleagues in China. This has reduced operating costs for the Vuzix customer, as technical experts can walk trainees through even the most complex procedures. This is performed hands-free from over 7,000 miles away.

Innovative Heartland

China’s steadily-growing economy has an innovative reputation. From electric cars to contactless payment tech, the marketplace of over 1 billion doesn’t shy away from advanced devices that improve the average quality of life. Businesses are expected to embrace Smart Glasses first…but consumers shouldn’t be far behind.

A hands-free world

Supporting 14 different languages, FacePro on Vuzix Smart Glasses is primed to be used across the globe.

The software is making a name for itself in several industries, including healthcare, manufacturing and telecom.

Vuzix is engaged in the design, manufacture, marketing and sale of augmented reality wearable display and computing devices. These display devices are worn like eyeglasses and typically include cameras, sensors, and a computer that enable the user to view, record and interact with video and digital content, allowing their wearers to interact and perform work hands-free. The key growth areas for the Company and its products currently are in the enterprise, medical, consumer electronics, OEM, defense and security markets where we help our customers increase productivity; eliminate travel costs; lower carbon footprint; improves worker safety and protect worker health. With the industry’s broadest product line of smart glasses, Vuzix is now working on it next generation products which include its see-through waveguide optics while implementing the latest micro-LED display technology, as pictured below.

Annual Russell indexes reconstitution captures the 4,000 largest US stocks as of May 7, ranking them by total market capitalization. Membership in the US all-cap Russell 3000® Index, which remains in place for one year, means automatic inclusion in the large-cap Russell 1000® Index or small-cap Russell 2000® Index as well as the appropriate growth and value style indexes. FTSE Russell determines membership for its Russell indexes primarily by objective, market-capitalization rankings and style attributes.

“We are pleased to see our shares added to the Russell Indexes, one of the leading market performance benchmarks in North America,” said Paul Travers, Vuzix Chief Executive Officer. “We view this as an important milestone and one that demonstrates Vuzix’ growing market leadership and enterprise value.  At the same time, we feel this should help raise awareness and the appeal of Vuzix within the institutional investment community.”

Russell indexes are widely used by investment managers and institutional investors for index funds and as benchmarks for active investment strategies. Approximately $10.6 trillion in assets are benchmarked against Russell’s US indexes. Russell indexes are part of FTSE Russell, a leading global index provider.

For more information on the Russell 3000® Index and the Russell indexes reconstitution, go to the “Russell Reconstitution” section on the FTSE Russell website.