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.

In the aftermath of Upskill’s acquisition of Pristine, the AREA caught up with Upskill’s Chief Strategy Officer, Jay Kim, to get his perspective on the deal and what it means for AR.

AREA: What were the motivating factors behind this acquisition?

Kim: Both companies saw capabilities in each other that would be a force multiplier, especially at this stage in the AR market. The early AR adopters are piloting solutions and starting to figure out how to scale enterprise-wide, but for every early adopter, there are probably a dozen companies that are still experimenting with a variety of different projects and providers, trying to understand where smart glasses can provide the highest level of economic impact today.

What we saw in Pristine was a best-in-class video remote collaboration solution called EyeSight, which offers a number of unique qualities. It’s robust against some challenging environments with connectivity and bandwidth issues. It is a 100-percent cloud-delivered solution. It supports a number of different smart glasses devices to enable HD-grade video streaming. It is also easy to deliver and there is elegance in its simplicity.

Ultimately, we see this acquisition as a strategic advantage for a couple of reasons. First, it enables Upskill to engage the broader market with a lighter touch solution, using their portfolio of apps, to drive exposure to AR technology across a number of industries. That means we’ll be able to accelerate customers’ exposure to smart glasses and the benefits of our technology. Second, it provides us with an even stronger remote assistance and knowledge capture solutions than what we had previously available, which can be integrated into our core product, Skylight. And finally, with the acquisition, we have brought on more than a dozen new staff to our team in key areas where we needed to add talent. Culturally it was a good match and it also deepened our bench of industry experts.

AREA: So, you’re giving enterprises an easier entry point and a clear migration path to taking on more AR capabilities over time?

Kim:  Upskill has built a very powerful industrial AR platform – Skylight – that integrates quite nicely into large enterprise IT environments. Of course, Skylight is cloud capable, but can be delivered in any enterprise IT environment, which for most of the customers we work with, means it needs to be on premise. Pristine saw our platform as an opportunity to take some of the product capabilities that they had built, and now gain a logical growth path that enables them to scale AR enterprise-wide and deliver far more than just remote collaboration, assistance and capture capabilities. That’s what the acquisition means for both of us – the ability to have a much larger addressability of the market, as well as a greater range of use cases we can support.

AREA: Tell us about the use cases.

Kim: With EyeSight, we now have a product that is tailor-made to address field service applications in industries where cloud delivery of software is relatively common. There is a huge need for remote assistance and collaboration solutions. It’s done in a way where different users can almost perform self-service. They can just turn on the system, launch EyeSight and get going. That’s very, very impactful. And there are several examples of where this type of application is best utilized, some that we recently covered in an Upskill webinar.

We’re working with Coca-Cola, for instance, to provide remote support for technicians in one of their bottling facilities. The issue they face is that the suppliers for much of the equipment in the plant are based in Europe. So when troubleshooting or repairs are needed to fix machines on the line, previously the only way to solve them was to fly a technician in from Europe, which was costly in and of itself. However it only paled in comparison to the cost in downtime, which can equate to thousands of dollars for every second the line is not operating. Now with EyeSight deployed, when issues arise staff onsite can immediately initiate calls with their supplier counterparts in Europe. The remote experts can accept the call either from a browser or a mobile device and instantaneously see the equipment, diagnose the issue, and walk the Coca-Cola technicians through the process of repairing it without ever having to step into the path.

AREA: Can you give us some idea of potential new AR capabilities that will be enabled by this acquisition?

Kim: Pristine’s people are among the world leaders in engineering product design and UX design in this industry. We’re extremely excited about that. With those sharp minds on the team, it will enable us to accelerate some of the thinking around our next-generation product. That includes our ability to get into more complex augmented reality scenarios as we cement our leadership in the assisted reality category and look to a more immersive augmented reality world.

AREA: What does this acquisition say about the state of AR adoption in the enterprise?

Kim: There are two key points. One is the growing enterprise awareness around having solutions that span the entire value chain, from point solutions, such as EyeSight, to more holistic platforms like Skylight. A lot of the folks that have experimented with different point solutions are starting to evolve their line of thinking to say, “Okay. We’ve got it, it’s good. What’s next?” There is a greater need to understand how large enterprises are going to deploy their AR strategies to impact the greatest number of people in the organization. Skylight is an excellent fit for what they are trying to do. I think this acquisition signals that we’re looking at an era where point solution providers will need to understand how their solutions will scale across businesses and that is quickly becoming table stakes for providers.

AREA: Do you think this acquisition provides any clues about the future direction of the AR industry?

Kim: We see people taking multiple parallel converging paths in their approach to AR. You have a number of vendors that focus on handheld devices – the smart phone and tablet form factors – and delivering compelling, camera-based registered experiences. Then you have folks like Upskill that are entrenched in the assisted reality domain. This acquisition does signal the fact that the assisted reality domain is going to mature quickly. It centers on the fact that the fundamental value proposition of assisted reality is around delivering a hands-free user interface to the data and assets already available to industrial workers.

The third path is the hands-free immersive AR solutions. You’ve got companies that are trying to do that based on projection-based systems and devices like HoloLens that deliver that fully immersive registered experience. I don’t think there’s any question that eventually the world is heading towards this – immersive augmented reality solutions everywhere. We’re taking it another step towards making that vision a reality. Of course, I represent the software side, so there have to be corresponding hardware advances that enable us to get there, but it is clear that the augmented reality is quickly maturing to a solution that is scalable and impactful today, while laying down a foundation to allow even further advances in technology.

According to the latest study by ABI Research, revenue from Enterprise Wearable devices is said to hit $55 billion by 2022. This figure has risen significantly according to appstechnews.comas it was predicted to reach $10.5bn by the end of 2017 with a CAGR of 39%.

Stephanie Lawrence, research analyst at ABI Research in a statement said “Wearables have much less in-built security and authentication protocols than other devices and so require robust security platforms to ensure data safety. Supporting platforms allow managers and IT teams to determine what information the wearables have access to, monitor their usage, create customised applications, and remotely control the devices. This ultimately safeguards the data from being compromised.”

According to the article, Wearable platforms require specific applications that can support a wide variety of devices  ABI Research believe ‘most’  wearable platforms can be supported by enterprise mobility management (EMM). To read the rest of the article and read the full report, click here.