Alvin Wang Graylin – Page 2 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

March 6, 2017

Wie verläuft die Entwicklung von VR in China?

Der Vorsitzende von HTC Vive in China Alvin Wang Graylin redete in einem Interview, auf der CES 2017 über die Entwicklung von VR-Produkten in seinem Land. Unter anderem erläutert er die Wichtigkeit des kulturellen Kontexts und die Unterstützung der chinesischen Regierung in der Entwicklung neuer Technologien im Bereich VR und künstlicher Intelligenz.

Die Entwicklung von VR in China

In China haben sich eine Menge Unternehmen auf die Herstellung von VR- und AR-Produkten spezialisiert. Die meisten kommen jedoch nicht an die Qualität der Marktführer wie HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Sony PSVR oder Samsung GearVR heran. Einige Ausreißer, die sich auf spezielle Nischen spezialisiert haben, gibt es jedoch. Ein Beispiel hierfür ist das Unternehmen Insta360, die zum derzeitigen Stand extrem günstige 360-Grad-Kameras mit guter Qualität anbieten.

Alvin-Wang-Graylin-Htc-Vive-President

Der Markt für VR wächst in China stetig. Die Entwickler sind enthusiastisch neue Technologien voranzutreiben und auch die Produktion von Arcadespielen steht im Fokus. Ebenfalls interessant ist die Auswirkung auf das Thema Bildung. Aufgrund der Ein-Kind-Politik im Land liegt ein großer Fokus auf die Ausbildung der Heranwachsenden. Durch die Einbindung von VR in den Klassenraum kann diese verbessert werden. Herr Graylin ist überzeugt, dass es nicht mehr lange dauert, bis die Regierung jedes Klassenzimmer mit einem VR-Headset ausstattet.

Entwicklung von VR durch staatliche Unterstützung

Generell wird China als das Land mit der größten Verbreitung von VR im Alltag betrachtet. Neben den unzähligen Hardware- und Softwareherstellern, Investments in Höhe von knapp 600 Millionen USD für die Fortentwicklung von Produkten und dem Einfluss der Medien zur ständigen Nachrichtenvermittlung über Neuigkeiten zum Thema, gehören VR-Kioske und VR-Arcadespiele zum festen Bestandteil eines jeden größeren Einkaufszentrums. Außerdem gibt es staatliche Initiativen, wie Internet Plus zur Unterstützung von Industrien mit Fokus auf neuen Technologien, wie VR und AR. Durch die Bereitstellung von u. a. mobilen Internets oder Cloudsystemen für Unternehmen soll das Wachstum im E-Commerce angetrieben werden.

Projekt: Donghu VR Town

Donghu-VR-Town-China

Zudem gibt es teils wahnwitzige Projekte, wie Donghu VR Town. Das Projekt umfasst eine komplette Stadt, verflochten mit VR, die im Süden des Landes erbaut werden soll. So soll eine Kombination aus VR mit dem täglichen Leben in sämtlichen Bereichen wie Gesundheitswesen, Bildung oder Unterhalt entstehen.

Das Land hat das Potenzial der Vorreiter im Bereich Virtual Reality und künstlicher Intelligenz zu werden. Durch die staatliche und finanzielle Unterstützung dürfen wir uns auf viele spannende Innovationen freuen.

(Quellen: VR Podcast)

Der Beitrag Wie verläuft die Entwicklung von VR in China? zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

February 20, 2017

HTC’s Alvin Graylin on What’s Happening in China & VR

Alvin Wang Graylin is the China President of Vive at HTC, and I had a chance to talk with him at CES this year about what’s happening in China. He provided me with a lot of cultural context, which includes support from the highest levels of Chinese Government to invest in companies working on emerging technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence. There were a flood of Chinese companies at CES showing VR headsets, peripherals, and 360 cameras. On average, the VR hardware from China tends to be no where near the quality of the major VR players of the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Sony PSVR, or Samsung GearVR, but there were some standout Chinese companies who are leading innovation in specific area. For example, some highlights from CES include TPCast’s wireless VR, Noitom’s hand-tracked gloves, and Insta360 with some of the cheapest 360 cameras with the best specs available right now.

After CES, I was convinced that if you want to understand what’s going to be happening in the overall VR ecosystem, then it’s worth looking to see what’s happening in China. The VR market in China is growing, and there is a lot more optimism for technological adoption and enthusiasm for having VR arcade experiences. Education in China is also very important with the one-child/two-child policy, and Graylin says that if VR can be proven to have a lot of educational impacts then the government will act to get VR headsets in every classroom. Once VR is in the classrooms, then it’ll help convince more parents to buy one for the home if they believe it’ll help their education.

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In an extensive round-up of Chinese-driven VR growth from Yoni Dayan, he mentions a moonshot project called Donghu VR Town, which is a proposed “city built in the south of the country, designed with virtual reality intertwined in every aspects from services, healthcare, education, to entertainment.” Here’s an untranslated promotional video that shows off what a VR-utopian city might look like:

It’s debatable as to whether Donghu VR Town would be a successful experiment if built, but it reflects a desire to innovate. Graylin said China doesn’t want to just be the manufacturing arm of the world, but that it wants to become a leader in virtual reality as well as in artificial intelligence, as can be seen in this Atlantic article detailing how Chinese universities and companies are starting to surpass American ones in researching and implementing AI.

China is a complicated topic and ecosystem, but after having a direct experience of the TPCast wireless VR, Noitom VR gloves, and the great-looking and high-res stereoscopy from a Insta360 camera at CES, then I think that it’s time to really look to China as a leader in innovation. If China really does go all-in on VR and AI and continues to investing large sums of money, then that type of institutional support is going to leap-frog China as one of the leading innovators in the world. I’ve already have started to see this at CES this year and at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence where there was a very healthy representation from China, and the thing to watch over the next couple of years is any big educational infrastucture investments by the Chinese government as well as the evolving digital out-of-home entertainment hardware ecosystem.

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February 4, 2017

Vive Consumer and Business Headsets Will Diverge into Increasingly Separate VR Systems, Vive President Says

After launching the consumer HTC Vive in early 2016, the company began offering a $1,200 ‘Business Edition’ version of the headset which is essentially the same system but with dedicated support, an enhanced warranty, and bulk buying options. Going forward, however, the consumer and Business Edition systems will become increasingly diffentiated products.

Speaking Alvin Wang Graylin, China Regional President of Vive, at CES last month, I asked if the company saw the need to create separate product lines to serve the needs of in-home VR use vs. out-of-home usage.

“We actually do, honestly. What we’re finding is that the business users are less price sensitive but they really care about other things like manageability, range of use, comfort for long term use, and other things” said Gaylin. “So the kind of things that I think that were just [announced, like the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap], that’ll probably be adopted initially moreso by the business market than by the consumer. Wireless upgrade from TPCAST—were getting a lot of business and out out-of-home entertainment users who want to use that.”

With VR picking up in China’s out-of-home market in a significant way, non-consumer of the Vive may presently be outpacing that of the consumer in-home sector. Last month, HTC announced touted two major Vive initiatives, Viewport Arcade and Viveport Enterprise.

Viveport Arcade is a dedicated app ecosystem and management platform that connects VR apps that are made for out-of-home play with VR arcade operators running pay-to-play HTC Vive setups. VR games made for out-of-home use are usually more ‘arcadey’, allowing quick pick-up-and play gameplay which is fun in short bursts, compared with in-home VR games where users may want a lengthy narrative, long play sessions, and persistent progression. Viveport Arcade also handles app purchasing/licensing in a way that’s built around the arcade business model.

Viveport Enterprise is a similar VR app ecosystem designed to bring VR productivity apps into businesses.

Between Viveport (the consumer version of their VR app store), Viveport Arcade, and Viveport Enterprise, HTC has identified and is beginning to serve these three segments in software, but when it comes to hardware, they’re all using the same headset, controllers, and tracking tech. But over time that will change.

“There will be increasingly more distinction between the Vive [consumer] and [business] versions over time and more manageability features in the software that’s needed by enterprise/business use,” Gaylin tells Road to VR.

And while out-of-home entertainment businesses are finding VR increasingly attractive, VR has huge potential in vertical markets but the complexity of today’s VR systems makes adoption harder in some verticals than others, an area that Graylin says HTC will focus on in 2017.

“The other thing that we’re gonna be working on this year is all about vertical industry stacks; essentially turnkey solutions that you can sell to medical, to education, to travel, or whatever. And I think that’s going to really open up and make it a lot easier for non-home users to adopt this technology.”

With that said, Graylin also suspects the industry will see next-gen VR headsets hitting the market every one to three years. So far the company has said very little about the next version of the Vive headset.

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January 26, 2017

Vive President Says Next-gen VR Headsets Likely to Come in 1 to 3 Year Cycles

Over the course of the last 50 years, capital markets have significantly codified a generational model approach consumer technology products. New “generations” of products are expected to come at a regular pace and provide increased features and reliability at the same prices. But depending upon the product type, the typical life cycle from one generation to the next can vary greatly. With the first wave of VR headsets now available to consumers, the time will come for the next generation to be announced and eventually launch. But when?

With no mention of next generation headsets from any of the major players at CES 2017, I put the question to HTC’s China Regional President of Vive, Alvin Wang Graylin. As the Vice-Chairman of Industry of VR Alliance and President of the VR Venture Capital Alliance, Graylin has a bird’s-eye view not only on the Vive hardware itself, but also on a wide range of VR hardware that’s in development from both startups and large scale business alike.

I asked Graylin how he thought about the VR headset upgrade cycle and its comparison to the early modern smartphone market, where the cadence of generational product improvements was on a nearly yearly cycle.

“Instead of looking at just the phone market—which is one type of very rapid consumer product—if you look at the other segment, which is the consoles, they’re about five or six year type of cycles,” he said. “What I would imagine is that the VR headsets are probably somewhere in between, probably tending closer toward the phone cycles than it is to the console cycles, but it’s definitely not as quick [as the early smartphone era] with the major updates.”

That puts the hardware refresh cycle of VR headsets, by Graylin’s estimate, somewhere between one and three years. Granted, the eventual cadence of next-generation products (in any industry) relies greatly on the pace of that industry’s R&D efforts.

And while the headset’s optics, display, and tracking might stay the same throughout a hardware generation, Graylin says there’s improvements to be made to the experience even within a generation, through accessories.

“But what we will do [between cycles] is accessories; the thing that you’re seeing is that we’ve created a good foundational platform for people to build things on. Changing it too quickly will actually make it very difficult for developers, make it difficult for accessory makers and for other types of systems that rely on it.”

vive-deluxe-audio-strap-ces-2017 — HTC’s Daniel O’Brien introduces new accessories at CES 2017

At CES, HTC introduced the much anticipated Vive Tracker and Deluxe Audio Strap. Competitor Oculus has released earphones for the Rift and launched Touch, their own set of VR controllers.

The three major headset makers—HTC, Sony, and Oculus—have said almost nothing about their plans for next generation versions of the headsets. Still, Graylin thinks there’s a lot of innovation quickly to come to the young VR industry.

“I think we will have a lot of innovation […] [the speed of innovation] will likely be much faster than what we see for the phone industry,” he said. “I think Ray Kurzweil said, ‘the first 20 years of the 21st century was as much progress overall as the last 100 years of the 20th century.’ I think that’s the kind of speed we’re going to see; everything accelerates. And VR is the latest, greatest, and probably will be the longest lasting wave of technological revolution.”

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January 19, 2017

HTC Plans to Certify Accessories Approved for Use with Vive Tracker

At CES earlier this month, HTC announced the Vive Tracker, a standalone tracking device which taps into the Vive’s Lighthouse tracking system, and which can be attached to objects to track them in VR, including purpose-built accessories. The company plans to have an official certification process for accessory makers.

vive-tracker-and-accessories-2 — The Vive Tracker is a standalone Lighthouse-tracked device, made to attach to other objects.

Yes, you can attach the Vive Tracker to pretty much anything to establish a tracking point inside the VR world, but for companies planning to make purpose-built VR accessories like guns, gloves, bats, and more which will make use of the Tracker, HTC will offer an official certification. The completion of the process, which the company plans to detail at a later date, is likely to result in something like a ‘Vive Ready’ badge that can be used on the accessories to show that HTC has verified compatibility with the Tracker, the company says.

“That’s why we’re going to be giving away a thousand of these [Trackers] around the world, and the ones who get them, we’re going to work with them and continue to make sure they’re compatible before they go out to market,” Alvin Wang Graylin, HTC’s China Regional President of Vive, told Road to VR at CES 2017.

vive-tracker-and-accessories-3 — Pin connections on the bottom of the Vive Tracker can be used to communicate with the accessory.

It isn’t clear yet exactly what the certification process will entail, or what benefits the grantees will be entitled to, but one obvious guess is that the company will check the accessory to make sure the Tracker mounting point is adequate in both rigidity and placement, and that the creator is properly using the input/output functionality afforded by the Tracker’s wireless connection to the host computer. That connection could be used to send information like trigger pulls and button presses through the Tracker so that the accessory can control the corresponding VR application.

One thing we’re certainly hoping for is that all officially approved Vive Tracker accessories would have a precise 3D model of the accessory available in an open repository, giving developers an easy way to integrate with any accessory brandishing HTC’s approval.

vive-tracker-and-accessories-11 — “Guns. Lots of guns.” – The Vive Tracker is likely to open to door to a range of third-party gun accessories for VR.

If the accessory plugs into the Tracker via the pin connections on the bottom, it could communicate model information to the host computer, which could be used to lookup the corresponding 3D model and bring that model quickly into the game. That might be a bit beyond the scope of HTC’s certification process for Vive Tracker accessories, but it would be especially ideal for handling what may turn into a broad range of gun choices, and other more niche use-cases too (like the crazy firehose simulator we saw at CES).

HTC says details of the certification program will be revealed when the company starts shipping the Tracker to developers, which will happen ahead of the device’s Q2 consumer launch. So far the Vive Tracker has not been priced, though Graylin says the company expects it to be attractive to end-users who want to buy one Tracker and use it across different accessories.

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