A recent article shows how a company called Finger Food Studios is helping enterprises with design by using holograms.

They began as a game design company and are currently partnered with Microsoft, developing for their HoloLens hardware.

Finger Food Studios recently did a lot of work with a semi-truck company, helping them to redesign their vehicles. Ryan Peterson their CEO, is quoted as saying “When trucks normally go through that restyling—making them look more modern, or changing the aerodynamics—engineers work with a huge, life-size clay model, which takes about six months to create. Instead, we made a life-sized hologram, and built it so you could manipulate the truck design while wearing the headset. It cut the process down to three days.”

They recently acquired and opened a 25,000 square foot warehouse. The warehouse is called the “Holodeck” and is the first in the world dedicated to developing large-scale industrial holographic projects. Currently in the process of hiring around 100 new staff members to help program and imaginatively style the Holodeck’s ventures, Finger Food is hoping to attract some of the city’s top engineering talent and visual designers.

“We work on three levels,” Peterson says. “There’s a part of our business that we call the Internet of Things, where we produce data through things like 3D printing and electrical fabrication. The next part is VR, or virtual reality, and the last is AR, or augmented reality—both of which help people visualize data in a digestible format. When we take all these technologies together, it’s possible to make exponential transformations to the current way that we do things.

A post on Nanalyze this week reveals facts about Lumus, their partners in the AR Ecosystem.  There is an emphasis on the rapidly growing AR headset market and Lumus’ possible place within that market.

• The DK-50 is their standalone kit available to developers
• Israeli startup Lumus was founded in 2000 and has recently raised$56 million in funding to develop their “wearable displays”, smart glasses.
• The actual technology is called “Light-guide Optical Element technology” and it’s a small engine which projects the digital image onto the glass in front of your eyes.
• Lumus supplies heads-up displays for f-16 fighter jet helmets. They have already sold 10,000 of their product. Their actual product is the hardware engine that powers the glasses. The biggest customer to date is the U.S. military.
• In their latest funding round, the two lead investors were Quanta and HTC.
• Lumus paired with Infinity and AREA member DAQRI in developing their headsets.
• Lumus has also partnered up with French companies Thales Group, a company that builds electronic devices for aerospace defence and transportation, and Essilor Group, a world leader in visual health with over 60,000 employees.

A recent post on nanalyze.com completed a list of 13 smart eye wear companies they believe are set to proliferate in 2017.

• Atheer (AREA member) are focused on making enterprise-ready wearable technology for field engineers and deskless workers
• Optinvent, with a focus on enterprise solutions, targeting the logistics and manufacturing industries with their Ora-2 Professional Smart Glasses.

• Osterhout Design Group: Targeting the enterprise market, ODG are taking their glasses to the transportation, medical, manufacturing and logistics industries.

• Microsoft HoloLens which incorporates waveguides and infrared technology in order to track eye movement.

• Sony released the Developer Edition of the Sony SmartEyeGlass, which includes a gyroscope, ambient light sensor and built in camera.

• Epson, who are developing a line of 3 models of AR smart glasses, intended for both commercial and enterprise applications.

• Vuzix M300 will target enterprise applications, yet doesn’t rule out a consumer-centric version.

• GlassUp: The UNO and Factory 4.0 are GlassUp’s two lines of smart glasses in development for commercial and enterprise applications.

• Jins Meme: This Tokyo based company intended to keep functionality and fashion in mind for their smart glasses, while still delivering advanced features as an academic resource.

• Recon Instruments: The Recon Jet provides smart glasses for athletic performance tracking and training, designed to fit securely on the face while biking, walking or running.

• CastAR is focused on commercial applications, with intentions to bring complete, 3D holographic worlds to life and is designed for the gaming market.

• Meta’s smart glasses will allow users to see, create, interact with and move virtual objects and apps. The company is focusing on enterprise applications.

• LaForge Optical, the article claims there is a focus on aesthetics over functionality, with The LaForge Shima.

The 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas saw Osterhout Design Group (ODG) unveil their new R-8 and R-9 glasses (source post on techrepublic.com.) Acting as a complement to user’s mobile devices, the R-8 glasses are intended as a consumer device, whereas the R-9 glasses target prosumer and light enterprise AR users. A press release from ODG states that existing customers belong to the logistics, medicine, energy and aerospace industries.

Described by COO of Osterhout Design Group, Pete Jameson, as “slightly oversized sunglasses that you wear” with “two stereoscopics HD displays”, the glasses are intended to be used as needed for specific experiences, as opposed to long periods of time.  

Jameson states that he expects the R-9 glasses (built on ODG’s Project Horizon platform, winner of three CES 2017 Innovation awards) to bridge the commercial and consumer markets. In terms of enterprise use cases, the largest opportunity for ODG is healthcare, but their smart glasses may also be used for assisted-reality, maintenance and repair, surgery, remote help, telepresence and training, according to the company’s COO.

The reveal of the new smart glasses comes after ODG’S recent announcement of its $58 million Series A round of venture capital funding; the largest in history of both Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality.

The R-8 and R-9 glasses boast equally impressive features, details of which can be found in the original article. 

Augmented Reality Headsets seemed to be a running theme at CES Las Vegas this year with many companies introducing headsets, designed for business and industrial use, reports PC Mag.

Firstly the Lenovo New Glass C200, available in June, which combines AR and artificial intelligence for enterprise, while Vuzix added a new item, M3000 Smart Glasses, adding to their enterprise headset line.

Osterhout Design Group had paired up with Vuforia  to develop 2 new products: the R-8 which is consumer based and the R-9 Glasses which are enterprise focused. They are both set to support other creations of augmented reality applications with the R-9 already running Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 835 processor.

Augmented reality is being explored through a number of enterprises already from Smartphone and tablet-based AR apps to head-mounted experiences. ODG, Vuzix and Lenovo are only a small section of businesses developing business-focused AR glasses. In the larger hardware industry, many are focusing on the enterprise of AR with companies developing 2 types of headsets:the binocular and the monocular.

Binocular Smart Glasses allow users to see 3D content aligned with the physical world, displaying in both eyes. However these type of smart glasses, allowing AR experiences, are known to be very difficult to create.

Monocular glasses, like the Lenovo and Vuzix headsets mentioned earlier, allow users to view content just outside of your field of view. This allows you to see information on objects you are looking at however they are not aligned with the underlying world. 

A report found on M Health Intelligence dated January 12 2017 states that hospitals and health systems are finding value in smart glasses.  Digital health companies such as Augmedix and Pristine are noted.  The article features quotes by Augmedix CEO Ian Shakil.  Augmedix recently closed a $23 million round of funding, 6 months after a capital injection of $17m and partnering with four national health systems.

Benefits brought to the healthcare industry by smart glasses include:

• Time saved in admin work (2-3 hours per day)
• Gives physicians hands-free access to information while they’re in front of the patient.
• “Dramatically more humane conversation with patients”
• The article states that tech-enhanced glasses are found everywhere from operating rooms to patients’ bedsides to offices and clinics.
• Technological advancements are in areas like battery power, CPU performance, Wi-Fi capability and software upgrades
• The simplicity of smartglasses may give the product an advantage over bulkier and more expensive VR and AR headsets which could affect vision and interfere with patient conversations.
• Doctors and patients seem to like smartglasses and value them

The future could focus on functionality beyond scribing and data retrieval and develop functions like care assistance reminders, content delivery and tasks and analytics.

An article on Shacknews provides information on the debut of the HoloLamp at CES this week.

Instead of using a headset to produce Augmented Reality, the HoloLamp uses a projector to project holographic images in a small area like a table.

The demos shown of HoloLamp reveal that the device scans a designated area and finds any objects it can interact with. It then can add a host of holographic Augmented Reality effects to those objects. HoloLamp can project an entirely holographic playing field without the need for additional objects.

The idea is to provide a more immersive experience by allowing users to engage their surroundings without the need for headsets or special controllers.

An article on Nanalyze discusses Osterhout Design Group’s (ODG) recent investment in Augmented Reality. Following last year’s release of their R-7 AR headset, this month they closed a Series A funding round of $58 million. ODG’s R-7 features a HD 3D screen and has a lighter design than previous versions; it also provides sufficient power for complete integration without requiring an outside source.

The article lists areas in which ODG’s R-7 is already being utilised:

• Deskless field workers: AREA member Atheer partnered with ODG earlier this year, combining their Augmented Interactive Reality platform with the R-7 to provide cloud-based management, collaboration, and data-sharing to deskless workers.
• Vision impairment: NuEyes partnered with ODG, and provided features such as text-to-speech and media streaming to the R-7 smart glasses to help those who suffer from visual conditions like macular degeneration.
• Military and police: Ried System Electronic partnered with ODG to provide essential applications to the police and military such as remote viewing of thermal imaging cameras.
• Manufacturing: Vital Enterprises partnered with ODG in January to help manufacturing organisations with quality assurance by bringing data visualisation and remote consultations to field service workers. This reduces risk to employees as well as improving quality and productivity.
• Medical training: Advanced Medical Applications partnered with ODG to improve healthcare by enabling medical workers to share video streams and communicate with experts.

Other potential uses of the R-7 mentioned in the article are:

• Consumer entertainment
• Industrial applications

Energy and utilities

An article on PR Newswire reported on the $2 million seed round which developer of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology, Neurable, has raised for its software platform. The round was led by Brian Shin from Accomplice’s Boston Syndicate, and other investors include Kraft Group, Loup Ventures, and NXT Ventures.

The new tech measures and interprets brain activity to allow real-time control of connected devices. A software development kit is also being developed by Neurable, which is to be integrated with Augmented and Virtual Reality devices.

Ramses Alcaide, the co-founder and CEO of Neurable, is quoted to have said that the company’s aim is to create a new platform for interaction between humans and computers. Neurable analyses complex data with machine learning and gives an important advantage in terms of accuracy and speed for determining the intent of the user.

The final section of the article discusses Neaurable’s role in Augmented and Virtual Reality applications. The company offers a hands-free, wireless, non-invasive method for interacting with devices, and avoids the restrictions of eye-tracking or voice control. Its software development kit is also compatible with various headsets such as Microsoft Hololens, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive.

A press release dated December 21 2016 revealed that Meta has begun shipping its Meta 2 Development Kit, the first augmented reality (AR) product that delivers a totally immersive experience.

Meta 2 enables people to use their hands to interact with holograms so they can touch, grab, create and share digital content. Customers receiving Meta 2 units in this first shipment include select individual and enterprise developers.  They will develop compelling market-specific applications across a number of use cases, including product and building design, education, manufacturing and medicine.

Meta looks forward to working closely with developers to create compelling market-specific applications for Meta 2 across a range of industries, including medicine, education and manufacturing.

The Meta 2 Development Kit is the company’s second-generation AR technology and was designed with input from nearly 1,000 users of the Meta 1 product. This included developers, early adopters and academics.

Details revealed in the press release about the Meta 2 Development Kit are as follows:

Meta 2 offers numerous capabilities for AR that are only available with the Meta platform: including the widest field of view of any augmented reality product on the market, the most intuitive access to digital information, and support for direct hand interaction with digital content and holograms.

Field of View (FOV)

Meta 2 has the largest FOV of any product on the market, making it the most immersive AR experience available today. The 90-degree (diagonal) FOV and high-resolution display eliminate the limitations of screen size, making it easier for users to work, collaborate, and create or design.

Intuitive Access to Digital Information 

Meta 2 has been developed to work in the most intuitive way for the brain. While allowing people to use the traditional means of interacting with technology through keyboards and other devices, Meta 2 enables people to easily access, manipulate and share digital information in ways that are natural and enhance productivity and collaboration. Examples of AR applications built on interfaces designed to work like the human brain include 3D modelling and multi-monitor viewing.

Technical details are included in the press release, which can be read in full here.