Lab by Transport for Wales, a scheme developed by TfW and Alt Labs, sees business innovators from across the Wales and Borders region develop their ideas to improve safety, performance, and customers’ experiences on the railway.

Taking place at 1.30pm on Friday 3 September, the virtual demo day gives the businesses from across Wales and the UK the opportunity to showcase their ideas directly to senior TfW innovation managers and industry leaders. The event is also streamed live on YouTube.

It follows a period of dedicated mentoring by business experts both remotely and at TfW’s state-of-the art facility in Newport.

The five companies pitching to TfW on September 3 are:

Jnction – developing Aubin, a new multi-modal journey planner and passenger assistant app which aims to minimise stress for passengers with autism and hidden disabilities when using public transport.

Quinean – developing a low-code machine learning platform that allows domain experts to deploy digital twins, test hypotheses and optimise outcomes at speed.

RoboK – developing efficient AI-based computer vision solutions to democratise safety in transportation.

Stofl – developing infrastructure and solutions that combine Blockchain and Low-Power-WAN technologies, allowing machines to communicate and solve some of the world’s most pressing problems more efficiently, securely and in locations further afield.

Utility AR – work with innovators in industrial sectors to unlock the potential of Augmented Reality applications which allow the user to interact with the real world while accessing existing databases and software systems.

Find out more information here https://businessnewswales.com/tech-talent-set-to-showcase-innovative-ideas-at-lab-by-tfw/

In connection with this agreement, the companies will jointly pursue customer opportunities aimed at launching new augmented reality (AR) enabled solutions incorporating Ostendo’s AR smart glasses and Inpixon’s award-winning location, computer vision and AR technologies. These solutions will seek to surpass competitors’ benchmarks in terms of size, weight, resolution, cost effectiveness and mobile app integration in order to bring the immersive experiences and extraordinary value of AR to a multitude of industries and use cases.

Read more in the press release

.  The foodservice industry is navigating an unprecedented wave of change in the wake of COVID-19, pushing quality assurance front and center. A recent survey of more than 600 foodservice professionals revealed that nearly 90% of food safety managers, operations managers and franchise managers say COVID-19 has made it harder to recruit and retain employees, with almost 40% of respondents unsure if food in their restaurants consistently meets corporate standards1. NSF EyeSucceed is a transformational training modality that uses augmented reality (AR) paired with wearable smartglasses to improve employee training, consistency and operational efficiency, contributing to better experiences for employees and consumers.

NSF EyeSucceed co-founders Tom Chestnut and Jennifer Tong applied their more than 40 years of collective foodservice experience to develop a solution that addresses the growing demand for AR capabilities in the restaurant industry.

“The need for cost-effective smart solutions has been growing for years. Through the pandemic, the food industry is seeking even more ways to leverage new technologies to improve training and efficiency while maintaining quality and consistency,” said Chestnut. “NSF EyeSucceed provides foodservice businesses with a customized suite of applications, helping to keep pace with the rapid hiring and increased consumer demand that has resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The survey also revealed that 51% of quick service restaurant (QSR) brands say AR could make training faster, and 40% say AR could reduce human error.

“Our proof-of-concept testing and implementation in five global markets has proven that NSF EyeSucceed delivers transformational solutions,” said Tong. “We are encouraged by the wide use of applications for this technology to truly transform the foodservice industry–from decreasing the need for in-person visits to vastly improving employee training. For foodservice managers, this means reduced costs while also enhancing food quality and safety for both employees and consumers.”

Wendy’s® is a long-time leader in quality assurance and is focused on continuously evolving its programs to drive industry innovation. The company was among the first to investigate AR and pilot smartglasses using NSF EyeSucceed, initially piloting the technology in 2020.

“Since introducing NSF EyeSucceed to our suite of quality assurance tools, our team at Wendy’s has experienced greater efficiency in our food safety and supplier oversight practices, from product evaluations to audit improvements,” said Jorge Hernandez, Vice President of Quality Assurance at Wendy’s. “This hands-free solution has been especially useful throughout the pandemic, as it’s provided connectivity between sites and deepened supplier relationships, despite travel restrictions around the world. As a result, we’ve seen time and cost savings and positive feedback from our employees and supplier partners. We look forward to completing the pilot program, including testing the smartglasses for employee training and scaling up key learnings.”

Read more here.

The aviation division of bp, Air bp is one of the world’s leading suppliers of aviation fuel products and services. The company is known for its innovative approach and sought an engineering solution to protect its operators against making mistakes. After many years of search, the company seems to have found a solution in AR technology.

The Misfuelling Challenge

When ground crew operators are fueling a small aircraft, they are constantly facing a menacing risk of putting in the wrong grade of fuel. While using the wrong fuel grade for the car is quite common, in aviation misfuelling can potentially bring catastrophic consequences and cost human lives.

The misfuelling challenge thus stays one of the most crucial for the entire industry.

For many years Air bp was reliant on ground workers following the operational procedure. Still, despite the best training for operators, the human error factor is always present and poses a significant risk. The company’s goal has been to find an automatic way to help operators.

AR Technology Enables the Solution

As the handheld device became less expensive and widespread, the team behind the Airfield Automation safe2go solution tried to find a way to use computer vision to recognize fuel-grade labels (decals) placed next to the aircraft fuel tank orifice.

Their goal was to get technology to work with something the aircraft already has without modifying its construction. The team has identified two success factors: the AR technology must never give the wrong fuel grade and have a high success rate of recognizing a decal.

The prototype was rolled out and tested in over 40 airports around the world. To find a reliable solution, Air bp has worked together with AR technology provider Wikitude. The success of the prototype has allowed the whole project to proceed as a safety-critical application.

Good For Safety, Good For Processes

Airfield Automation safe2go is a cloud-based safety-critical application that relies on Image Tracking AR technology to help operators recognize decals representing various types of fuels and help the ground crew avoid making grave mistakes.

Four hundred and ninety-six vehicles at 126 airports are equipped with the AA safe2go app (powered with AR), completing over 12,500 fuellings per week (more than 1 aircraft per minute).

The team soon found out there is a considerable benefit in capturing data in real-time through augmented reality. Previously, the data transmission from the airport to Air bp’s invoicing system was taking almost two days. Now, it is coming through in real-time.

Using the versatile functionality of image tracking, the airline can now send an order electronically, notifying the operators in advance which fuel they need to deliver. Additional benefits allowed Air bp to expand its digital offering.

Award-Winning AR Solution

Manifesting the product’s maturity for market deployment, Air bp’s Airfield Automation has been recognized by the prestigious bp Helios Safety Award and won the UK Real IT Award (including Excellence in Application Modernisation and the Product Innovation awards). The solution has also had its first granted patent.

But most importantly, this use case shows how the long-debated utility of AR technology turns into reality and serves to automate processes and establish a new standard in safety.

University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) engineers worked with officers at RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire to demonstrate how augmented reality (AR) headsets could revolutionise day-to-day MRO by streamlining inspections, providing access to remote expert assistance and rapidly upskilling the workforce.

“This could completely change the way we work,” said Squadron Leader Marcus Ramsden, Engineer Officer (AeroSystems) at RAF Leeming. “Because of its use in gaming, this is technology that new RAF recruits are completely familiar with; we need to grasp it and embody it in our operations.”

Since 2015, Microsoft HoloLens’ have been employed by astronauts on the International Space Station when they need hands-free, remote assistance from NASA scientists on Earth, who are able to see precisely what the astronaut is seeing and advise accordingly.

After identifying mixed reality, specifically the Microsoft HoloLens 2 AR headset, as having the potential to streamline inspections within the RAF, by replacing traditional pen-and-paper checklist work instructions with simple, step-by step holographic instructions displayed in an engineer’s field of view, a team from RAF Leeming visited the AMRC’s Factory 2050 in Sheffield.

Sqn Ldr Ramsden said: “At Factory 2050 we saw mixed reality devices being used to do MRO on a kit car and it set my mind into overload – if it could work on a car, why couldn’t it work on an aircraft?

“The University of Sheffield has a Hawk T Mk 1 on its campus, the AMRC has the expertise, and a relationship with Microsoft was already there. It was all perfectly aligned so we commissioned the AMRC to turn one of our paper-based systems into a mixed reality solution, to see what it could do.”

To demonstrate the technology, the AMRC chose to create a mixed reality solution for a wheel change and brake pack assembly on the Hawk T Mk 1, a two-seat training aircraft familiar to many as the aircraft of choice for the RAF’s aerobatic team, the Red Arrows. Developing the mixed reality solution involved learning the current manual method for the wheel change and brake pack assembly, reverse engineering the paper-based instructions and then measuring the individual components to create computer-aided design (CAD) assets.  Work instructions were created from those assets and generated in AR on the HoloLens 2 headset using the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides application.

Mike Lewis, Digital Theme Lead at the University of Sheffield AMRC, said: “The major element of the solution we demonstrated is the overlaying of the 3D CAD assets onto the aircraft to provide holographic instructions to the operator. On the headset, an engineer can see components superimposed in 3D on the workpiece and, using spatial perception on the HoloLens 2, be told exactly where they need to be working.

“An AR headset can store far more information than a paper instruction document and it reduces the margin for error considerably because there is a 3D representation of the instruction.”

Sqn Ldr Ramsden says the AMRC, part of the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult, has demonstrated how the technology could be integral in three core areas of the RAF’s operations: remote assist, understanding data and training.

“Right now, when an aircraft is moved to the front line, a team of engineers with individual expertise and their many 400-page manuals move with it. Those paper-based systems not only use up valuable space and weight, they are susceptible to wear-and-tear and can be very cumbersome in the environments we work,” said Sqn Ldr Ramsden.

“Added to that, most of our processes were written down in the 1970s, which means they have been updated inconsistently, can be tough to understand and are hard to translate from the page into the real world.

“Mixed reality would completely change the way we work; one engineer can have the entire up-to-date dataset right in front of them and can be supervised remotely by subject matter experts potentially located on the other side of the world.

“Then, when we consider training, not only can our engineers learn in a safe environment where maintenance notes are flagged up in front of their eyes, they can be guided through simulations of different tasks before physically performing that process – all entirely hands-free. This technology has the potential to streamline our processes, boost our efficiency and improve our safety.”

In a competitive assessment of enterprise augmented reality platforms, ABI Research identifies which current AR vendors can deliver the most business value – now and in the future – using criteria such as:

• Customers, partnerships, and footprint
• Platform breadth
• Use case applicability
• Internet of Things synergy
• Machine vision capabilities
• Pricing and business models

Readers may download the full report and discover why ABI Research ranks PTC Vuforia as the “leader among AR platforms” with “high customer value” and “more capability than most competitors on offer.”

See here 

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.

The topics included in this interview are:

1. About Aggreko
2. Current role at Aggreko
3. AR pilot
4. Pre-pandemic challenges to adopting AR
5. Change management
6. Creating digital content
7. How COVID-19 impacted Aggreko’s operations
8. XR replacing what needs to get certified
9. The role AR played in Aggreko’s going remote during the pandemic
10. How AR enabled certain remote tasks and activities

You can access the full interview here. 

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.