A 2017 market research report gives insights on the Global Augmented Reality and Digital Exhibitions Market. This report is an in-depth study and analysis that has been put together by a group known as the Key Market Insights.

The report, according to WhatTech, covers a vast expanse of information including an overview, comprehensive analysis, definitions and classifications, applications and expert opinions.

Major players mentioned in the market report include:

• Microsoft
• Google
• Facebook
• Carl Zeiss
• Baofeng Sony
• Razer
• HTC
• DAQRI
• Atheer
• Mata
• CastAR and many more

This report studies the Augmented Reality and Digital Exhibitions market status and outlook of global and major regions, from angles of manufacturers, regions, product types and end industries; this report analyzes the top manufacturers in global and major regions, and splits the Augmented Reality and Digital Exhibitions market by product type and applications/end industries.

Please note that the AREA is not affiliated with the producers of the report. To download sample pages click here.

AREA members Lockheed Martin and Boeing have been mentioned in an article on Business Insider. At the recent VR & AR World event in London, the companies revealed details of how their implementation of AR and VR technologies is helping reduce error rates and reducing engineer training time.

Two main points from the article:

• Lockheed Martin is using VR and AR to significantly decrease the error rate of integrating radar systems for navy ships, a process that’s complex and requires precision; if the integration is off by one-hundredth of an inch, the system won’t work, and correcting these errors is expensive. AR and VR help Lockheed Martin to identify errors early on.

• Boeing plans to cut engineer training time by 75% by using the Microsoft HoloLens to train engineers in recognizing and combining different pieces of equipment, aided by digital text pop-ups and a voiceover providing guidance. Boeing is also using AR and VR for other purposes, including development of space transportation and to speed up maintenance processes.

Both VR and AR engineering markets are worth around $4.7 billion in 2025 and have 3.2 million users, heavily disrupting the CAD software market according to Goldman Sachs. To read the full article on Business Insider click here.

Michael Thompson’s article for UploadVR this week provides a “cautionary tale of early innovation that failed to keep up with industry momentum.” Thompson reviews the current state of the AR smartglasses market, thriving in industry, and suggests that early innovators may not make it in the long haul. Are they dinosaurs and will they go the same way as other early innovators?

At AR in Action in New York City last week, it was observed that today’s AR is already very good. When discussing AR, most commentators opt to lower expectations by emphasizing the “early” nature of this technology. However, Thompson points out that there are a wide variety of compelling AR applications available today, and this “early” tech is already in school, hospitals, factory floors, real estate agencies, marketing campaigns and many other industries across the world.

The author asks, “Why is AR still a mere footnote to industry, an unknown concept in the collective minds of American businesses and consumers?”

ODG markets the devices for light enterprise use cases. They’ve announced a series of partnerships addressing logistics, maintenance, and health and safety functions for numerous industries including energy, heavy machinery, complex manufacturing, and medical devices.  Thompson draws parallels between the current AR smartglasses market, noting: “all this early success is commendable and would be cause for unbridled optimism, except that Palm and RIM were in the same position for many years until the introduction of the iPhone.”

He goes on to describe how he believes the enterprise-focused hardware strategy may be wrong for AR glasses because this industry will not be segmented by user types. The vast majority of use cases do not require specialized hardware. One form factor and one set of standards can serve the needs of professionals and casual users alike.

Following Apple’s ARKit announced last week, “speculation is rife that AR will be a core feature of the tenth anniversary iPhone coming this fall. Some observers maintain that a snazzy pair of glasses will debut simultaneously.”

From holograms to positional tracking to environment mapping and computer vision, so many of the right factors are in place for a tipping point. “A tremendous prize is ripe for the picking, but no one has maneuvered aggressively to claim it.”

Following the Augmented World Expo event that took place at the end of May 2017, AREA member Appearition has written a blog about their experience at the event AWE.

Notes and thoughts from various event talks are mentioned including those on Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality and X-Reality.

• AREA’s Executive Director, Mark Sage talks about Augmented Reality in the Enterprise Ecosystem and how this can be improved.
• Juergen Lumera spoke about how Bosch is taking up single pain points and improving the entire process to provide a great customer experience.
• Vivek Aiyer of Appearition spoke about Designer Enterprises and real world experiences.

Other points mentioned in the blog are:

• AR / VR / MR from a technology perspective has improved immensely over the last year
• A step-by-step approach to use existing content and slowly create change rather than the big bang approach will go a long way to improve usage
• The devices we use to bring the benefits and seamlessly integrate its usefulness into our lives is still at its infancy
• An end to end seamless solution is what is lacking and can be brought together by collaboration across solution providers, partners, vendors, customers and end users.
• The importance of being end user empathy-focused

To read the full blog click here.

This is an urgent Call for Tech Talent for the Fashathon event in partnership with London College of Fashion. This event is on 30th June and 1st July 2017 in London.

“SETsquared ‘Fashathon’ partnership with the London College of Fashion, where Fashion meets Tech, for a two-day hackathon, is now massively over-subscribed, with lots of new entrepreneurial fashion talent.  However, we could now do with a bit more tech talent – developers, AI and/or robotics experts”, says Emilie King

Additional information on the Fashathon is available here.

If you’d like to introduce any talented techs to the Programme please contact Emilie King and provide a brief description of your expertise.

​If you’re interested, you do not need to apply as you’ll be participating under the techie group as we have sufficient fashion people coming along. For those interested to join please just send an email to Emilie King and a short description of your expertise.

A recent article by Interesting Engineering discusses Augmented Reality in the manufacturing sector: leading manufacturers such as Thyssenkrupp, Boeing, Caterpillar, Range Rover and Porsche are all applying AR at different levels and are all witnessing tremendous benefits across multiple production stages.

Thyssenkrupp, use AR for design. They use the Microsoft HoloLens which helps them design bespoke home mobility solutions. A salesperson now measures clients’ staircases through HoloLens and the measured 3D point cloud data is then sent to their manufacturing team automatically. This helps them make quick decisions and near real-time design approval for manufacturing.

AREA member Boeing is mentioned for using AR to assemble their products. Augmented Reality helps ease their complex tasks of wiring that goes into all their Fighters. Boeing using Google Glass and Skylight which is a software platform from Upskill, another one of AREA’s members.

The next 3 points that are stated in the article are personnel training, quality control and maintenance. Interesting Engineering also state that as the hardware and software for AR improve, this embryonic technology will gain more potential to disrupt the traditional industrial environment.

To read the full article click here.

An opinion piece on TechCrunch offers a perspective on how Augmented Reality can save the problems caused by technology in the first place.  The author discusses the current economic and political climate with reference to jobs being lost due to technological changes – the skills needed for the jobs are lacking.  The nature of work is simply changing – how we respond to that must change too.

Since the next generation of employment will likely require much higher-level skills, we are going to need retraining continually over our entire working lives.  Perhaps technology, which is at least partly responsible for the problem, could help us out of this quagmire.

The article goes on to suggest that augmented and mixed reality could provide the answer.  AR could be part of an overall solution to help prepare and train workers for the next generation of jobs.  Examples are given in the article.

Research by Tractica is mentioned and the practical use of Augmented and Mixed Reality headsets in an enterprise or industrial setting.  The report stated: “AR headsets provide an ideal UI for hands-free operation, with the device at eye level, presenting information when needed. AR headsets can also bring powerful first-person views, which are valuable hands-free resources for field force automation, training, or maintenance jobs.”

Tech Crunch also mentions vendors who are looking at use cases. From Microsoft HoloLens to Osterhout Design Group, DAQRI and Meta.

Many points are covered in this report which include:

• The new Reality
• Scaling for the Enterprise
• Putting AR to work
• Teaching Tool

Other companies that are mentioned in this report include

• DAQRI
• Dell
• Walmart
• Boeing
• GE
• Upskill
• Samsung
• Facebook
• Amber Garage
• Google
• Apple

To read the full article click here

Office Genie, an office search engine organisation, surveyed 1000 UK employees and found that 36% of employee respondents cite increased productivity as a benefit of using wearable technology in the workplace. This survey also found that 42% of respondents believe that stress monitoring is an appropriate use for wearable technology in the workplace.

Head of strategy at Office Genie, Peter Ames, said: “If employers are planning to introduce workplace wearables, these concerns have to be considered. First and foremost, employees need to be clear as to the legitimate reasons behind their introduction. Creating a document informing staff of the data sets that will be employer-accessible can help reduce fears of snooping bosses. These concerns aside, workplace wearables have been linked to improved productivity and job satisfaction, as well as health benefits. So it definitely isn’t worth writing them off, particularly with the majority of employees in favour of them.”

Other survey findings include:

• 41% feel supporting employees’ physical health would be an appropriate use for workplace wearables.
• 43% of respondents cite employee wellness as a benefit of using wearable technology in the workplace, and 41% cite health benefits.
• 51% of respondents believe wearable technology is beneficial in the workplace
• 33% of respondents would prefer to use employer-provided wearable technology for professional use only, and 21% would use it for both professional and personal purposes.

On the downside:

• 49% are worried about the negative effect wearable technology could have on employees’ stress levels
• 58% are concerned that their employer could look at data recorded by the devices outside of the workplace
• 67% worry that the use of wearable technology in the workplace could result in a big-brother-style surveillance culture

Apple’s involvement with AR has been in the news again this week.  At the end of May 2017 Apple announced a new Augmented Reality platform ARKit.  According to various sources, this has the capability to reach out to hundreds of millions of devices.

One such article appears on ViewAR.com.

ViewAR did the first tests for this new ARKit and checked out the tracking capabilities and stability. ViewAR said they are ‘pretty amazed about the stability and the tracking capabilities. They claimed it was a huge step forward for the industry, stating that further tests are being conducted.

“It’s great for companies like us to see, that Apple sees AR as we do,” states Phillip Fumolo, CEO at ViewAR.

Apple are planning more than the ARKit.  If rumours are to be believed, they have plans to build a new generation of iPhones mainly on AR features, strengthening its market position the near future.

A Hong Kong Innovation Consulting Firm, CyberKnight, has created a new AR technology platform that uses ‘patterns, pulses and colours of light’ to active, trigger and control AR applications. This information comes from their press release dated June 7 2017.

CyberKnight recently filed U.S. Utility Patents on an Augmented Reality Platform which has numerous applications in computer gaming, advertising, marketing, education, customer assistance and several unique personal uses. This new AR system known as AR Vision Tech ™ is based on variable ‘Patterns, Pulses and Colours of Light.’ It utilizes a two-part system with a light emission unit and freely distributes light interpretation software known as ALIS ™ which utilize a proprietary “handshake” in all commercial applications allowing for secure two-way communications transmissions.

To read the full press release click here.