At Slush 2017, Helsinki-based Varjo Technologies today announced an additional investment of $6.7 million from the Finnish business development group Tekes to continue development on their “human eye-resolution” display for VR headsets. The company also announced they’ll be shipping their first Alpha Prototype to a number of development partners before the end of year.
Update (11/30/17): It was stated in a previous version of this article that the Varjo Bionic display was composed of a 1920×1080 display per eye when in fact there are two displays per eye – a single 1080×1200 ‘context’ display that sits in the background and a much smaller 1920×1080 microdisplay that is tracked to your eye. We’ve corrected the article to reflect this.
The $6.7 million from Tekes adds to their recent $8.2m Series A round led by EQT Ventures Fund, announced back in September.
Varjo’s newly announced development partners include 20th Century Fox, Airbus, Audi, BMW and Technicolor, and will help the company optimize their “human eye-resolution” display for further development. The company says its Beta Prototypes will be shipping to new and existing partners during Q1 2018.
image courtesy Varjo
Urho Konttori, CEO and founder of Varjo Technologies says the company plans on launching “a profoundly revolutionary VR/XR headset by the end of 2018.”
The announcement coincides with the company’s first public technology demonstration which happened this week at Slush 2017, the annual Helsinki-based startup conference. Notably, Varjo’s booth got an important visitor as well; Prince William, Duke of Cambridge.
image courtesy Varjo
What makes the company’s ‘Bionic’ display so special is a unique implementation of two displays per eye; a 1080×1200 resolution ‘context’ display that sits in the background, and a much smaller 1920×1080 resolution microdisplay. Since the headset features eye-tracking, the image from smaller display is designed to move in tandem with the eyes natural saccades. This, in effect, makes the perceived resolution much higher than a standard fixed display like those found in Oculus Rift or HTC Vive.
As for positional tracking, Varjo’s Alpha Prototype is tracked by the SteamVR Lighthouse tracking standard.
Varjo is working closely with NVIDIA and AMD “to provide the best possible VR/XR experience for its partners.” Varjo prototypes are also being shipped with both Unreal and Unity plugins to enable content creation.
“I’m incredibly proud of the team that took a proof of concept into a custom-built technology prototype in just a few short months,” said Konttor. “Together with our world-leading partners, we are now perfecting the technology and plan to launch a profoundly revolutionary VR/XR headset by the end of 2018.”
We’ll be following Varjo as it makes inroads to the enterprise sector with its VR headset.
A new commercial-focused hardware bundle including Rift headset, Touch controllers, three Sensors, and three facial interfaces was revealed at Oculus Connect 4 this week. The bundle, which can be ordered in bulk, for the first time offers a commercial license, enterprise-grade warranty, and dedicated customer support.
Hugo Barra, VP of Virtual Reality at Facebook, announced the Oculus for Business program on stage during the event’s opening keynote, highlighting two examples of existing commercial partnerships, one with Audi who have Rift experiences for viewing custom car configurations installed in hundreds of showrooms worldwide, and Cisco, who created a VR collaboration environment on top of their Spark platform:
Oculus have been slow to entice the enterprise & commercial sector, perhaps because their room-scale solution took far longer to reach a high standard compared to the HTC Vive, which offered a near-flawless room-scale VR package since its launch in April 2016. HTC introduced a $1,200 Vive ‘Business Edition’ in June 2016, dominating the enterprise sector for well over a year.
The new Oculus Rift Business Bundle, which starts at $900, has been detailed on the official Oculus Blog, stating that the Rift can be used to “boost productivity, accelerate trainings, and present the otherwise impossible to their employees and customers—across industries like tourism, education, medical, construction, manufacturing, automotive, and retail.”
Oculus still doesn’t doesn’t offer a commercial/enterprise app platform, something that Valve and HTC have been focusing on lately through Steam and Viveport. Interestingly, Oculus is shipping to 17 counties, none of which are China, a country where VR adoption is relatively high but largely dominated by HTC’s Vive headset.
German car maker Audi have long been regarded as one of the companies on the forefront of technological development. The Audi brand is associated with luxury, quality and business, so fitting it alongside Oculus for Business seems to be a natural fit for both companies.
Audi have previously used virtual reality (VR) technologies for technical development, design and training, but now the company is going further and offering a customer-facing experience that will soon be rolled out to various dealerships.
As demonstrated in the below video, by donning the Oculus Rift headset, customers can view their dream car sitting on an idyllic beach at sunset, the sound of waves crashing in the distance. The user can then use the controls to customise every aspect of the car. Change the paint colour from blue to red, alter the interior from black to red to match the exterior. Add a body kit, pop the top down on a convertible, change your engine preferences, add or remove options and even sit inside the virtual recreation to drink it all in.
The VR experience was created for Audi by Oculus and ZeroLight with collaborations from Intel. The carefully crafted VR recreation of the Audi reacts to the user’s position and lighting, granting it an impressive amount of realism.
It is expected that the VR experience will soon be rolling out to Audi dealerships in Europe, though an exact date has not been set and it is unknown if and when it will appear at Audi dealerships in North America.
VRFocus will continue to bring you news on Oculus for Business.
The concept of virtual reality is increasingly making its presence felt across numerous industries, not least motoring. A few years ago, virtual reality (VR) would have been the sole preserve of research and development teams in the process of designing new vehicles. Now, it has made its way into the customer experience, with many showrooms offering virtual test drives to motorists who can get a true sense of how a car feels to drive without having to set foot outside the showroom. Indeed, motorists can now take virtual test drives from the comfort of their own homes.
Even mixed reality is interesting the automotive industry
The infographic below, which was created by Woodstock Motors, explores how VR is changing the game not just for drivers and motor companies, but also car dealerships, motoring circuits and satellite industries such as tire manufacturers. Aside from the virtual test drive experience which we mentioned earlier, VR has been put to very good use by several leading car brands. Ford and Audi have both utilized the technology to create virtual impressions of their vehicles which allow customers to obtain a sensual experience of the inside and outside of a car simply by wearing an Oculus Rift headset. Toyota has used VR for a different reason, namely to emphasize the importance of road safety by simulating a driving experience where motorists’ responses to numerous distractions are tested. If motorists could see the devastation that unsafe road habits could cause without actually putting themselves at risk, they may well be prompted to rethink their driving once they’ve seen a vivid depiction of just what could happen.
For showroom operators, VR opens some very enticing new doors. The provision of a virtual test drive will no doubt pique the interests of customers, who even if they don’t like the technology could still take the time to tour the showroom and perhaps be wooed by some of the cars on offer. There’s also the practical benefit of precious showroom real estate being liberated by VR test drives, with this free space potentially being used to showcase more cars.
Another intriguing aspect of VR is the potential for drivers to create their own custom ‘dream car’ and add or remove specific features as they please. For example, they can see a virtual display of how cup holders would be presented within the vehicle and tailor any such features to their own specifications. Essentially, you can create a car that’s unique to you – how cool is that!
It seems that it won’t be too much longer before using VR to build your customized ‘dream car’ in the morning and having it delivered to your door by evening is a common occurrence. The possibilities of VR are almost frightening to think about, even though the concept is still in its infancy. Whether or not it proves a lasting success, it’s hard to dispute the sense that VR will make us reconsider the way we look at the motoring industry.
Volkswagen Group, the multi-brand automotive company, has developed VR apps to make long-distance collaboration in production and logistics an easier task. Using the HTC Vive, the company has created what it calls the Volkswagen Digital Reality Hub Group, a VR platform that will help the company’s employees collaborate across the Audi, SEAT, ŠKODA and Volkswagen brands.
The company has used its suite of VR apps to allow multiple users to simultaneously collaborate while physically located between Volkswagen logistics office in the Czech Republic and the company’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany. Apps in the platform already include VR logistics training, realistic workshop environments created using photogrammetry, and VR spaces for exchanging best practices—all of course with avatars so employees can talk face-to-face.
Developed with VR production studio Innoactive, the Volkswagen Digital Reality Hub made its public debut at the Digility conference and exhibition in Cologne this week.
image courtesy Volkswagen Group
Mathias Synowski, a VR user from Group Logistics, says the company’s VR app will “make our daily teamwork much easier and save a great deal of time.”
“Virtual reality creates the ideal conditions for cross-brand and cross-site collaboration,” Jasmin Müller from Audi Brand Logistics explains.
“[E]xchanging knowledge is just as important as bundling knowledge. That’s why we came up with the Volkswagen Digital Reality Hub central platform in collaboration with Innoactive. All employees have access to all existing VR elements as well as existing knowledge via the platform. That way, we enable individual units to implement new use cases quickly and jointly move in VR applications so they can plan new workflows interactively,” says Dennis Abmeier from Group IT.
The Volkswagen Digital Realities Team is currently developing more apps for production and logistics intended for the company’s fleet of HTC Vive Business Edition headsets.
Today, I’m happy to publish my interview I had with Audi. I was interested in learning more about their current AR/VR activities and their plans for the Digility conference next week. Since they have a talk there and organize the before-mentioned hackathon, I wanted to give my readers some insights ahead of time. Find out about their mixed reality plans today.
Jan Pflüger, Audi
I had the chance to talk to Jan Pflüger (pictured aside) and Jens Angerer (pictured in the featured image). Jan is coordinator of the “Center of Competence” at Audi to control the activities and roll-outs of AR/VR solutions. He is long-term involved in this field and was lecturer at the Universities of Applied Sciences Pforzheim and Northwestern Switzerland before he switched to the industry. I know him since his days at RTT AG / Dassault Systemes / 3DExcite, before he switched to Audi. Jens Angerer is Project Lead for Human Machine Interfaces at the Audi Production Lab, which he co-founded in 2012. He specialized in VR User Interfaces longer ago. Currently, Jens is also teaching VR/AR to UX Design and Computer Science students as an adjunct professor at the University of Applied Sciences Ingolstadt. The interview became a little larger, but I didn’t want to cut down on it. So, let’s jump right into it!
Let’s talk about AR/VR
augmented.org: Hi Jens, thanks for taking your time. This year’s Digility conference is right around the corner and you will be talking about “The true meaning of Mixed Reality”. Can you explain what you mean by that?
Jens: Sure! Essentially Augmented and Virtual Reality are just different forms of Mixed Reality, which I conveniently abbreviate with xR. But if you ask someone else he might use different terms and abbreviations for the same things. How can that be? I think we are missing a common understanding as well as common terminology and standards for these technologies. Even more, the xR community – especially in Europe – is missing a joint effort to advance this field together. There won’t come a better time to collaborate and create meaningful xR experiences – both in B2B and B2C. At Digility I will talk about my approach to this and show some examples how Audi is using xR today. And thanks to Jan, Audi is also shaping the future of xR by sponsoring the Digility Hackathon.
Hi Jan, great to chat again! I’m looking forward to meet up in person soon again. Typically, we meet at conferences, where Audi is present with an R&D booth or a center stage demo. How come that you organize and support a hackathon at this year’s Digility conference?
Jan: It is always exciting to see the outcome and what is happening during the limited time of a hackathon. We take this as an opportunity to support and establish the European xR scene. Digility provides an excellent framework for this and we look forward to come in touch with the creative minds to advance topics such as virtual collaboration, universal interaction and intuitive UI / UX designs.
Hackathon tasks are often revealed only shortly before the event. Can you already give an idea what the developers can expect? What do you expect as Audi, as a take-away or result for you?
Jan: I do not want to spoil anything just yet, but the participants can expect some exciting use cases that are relevant not only from an automotive perspective. Since we have a wide range of application areas, there will surely be something for everyone. Working in interdisciplinary teams together with the mentors of the Hackathon will be a unique experience for every participant. Not to mention the very cool prizes for the winners! Of course, we are also interested in talents and hope for some new approaches, which we will pursue together in the future.
Cool. Before we check the future, let´s talk a little bit about the beginning. VW/Audi has been long-time involved in AR/VR activities, I’m thinking of research projects like ARVIDA, ARVIKA, etc. Can you give us an idea when and why research started in this field?
Jan: Personally, I had the first contacts to the big research projects in my role as Research Associate at the Institute for Interface Design in Switzerland. The foundation for research was laid way before I started working for Audi. As far as I know they are carrying out research in this field for almost 20 years. We saw the potential of Augmented and Virtual Reality at an early stage and worked hard to bring those research projects into application at brands like Audi and VW. But the results and insights of this work have spread far beyond this. Think for example of metaio, close partner of us for years, whose technology still today at Apple drives the industry.
Example for AR at Audi for the consumer: eKurzinfo from 2014; More going on behind closed doors…
So, how do you currently support this field today?
Jan: Virtual techniques have been established as an important part of the digital transformation. This was obvious for us long time ago and as one of the outcomes we founded the Center of Competence AR&VR. This serves as a central network node for xR and provides advice for our internal customers regarding the use of AR/VR technologies. At the same time, we are collecting requirements and discuss them with our external partners to improve the solutions in this field continuously. This is where Jens and I are closely collaborating.
Jens: Absolutely. Jan and I are both driven to bring new technologies into application. I’m often describing my work at the Audi Production Lab as “Science Fiction”. I am inspired by the Fiction part about xR and use Science to make it come to life. The prototypes that we build in our lab then come into application at our production sites and logistics at Audi worldwide.
Can you give us an example of where AR is being used in a productive or pilot environment today at Audi? What technology are you using? Where is the biggest practical advantage in an industrial environment?
Jens: There is a broad range of use cases we explore today. In logistics for example we train people with VR. In production, we use wearables like Google Glass to guide our employees in very complex engine assemblies. Our studies have shown that this reduces assembly time and improves Human Machine Interaction as well as flexibility. AR however is still very challenging to implement, but training is definitely a promising area.
Jan: AR has a great potential. For the launch of HoloLens we developed a service and aftersales scenario together with Microsoft, which we are now implementing successively into our productive processes. The biggest advantage, of course, is that you can use AR to set information into a real context. Our teams and specialists are spread all over the world – working collaboratively together on projects is a key factor to enhance the product process and solve issues when they appear. Using technology helps us to connect the right people with the correspondent information – additional preparation work and specialization on every side can thus be reduced. In general, I see the advantages of AR across all areas – some can be realized in a timely manner, for others processes must be adjusted appropriately.
Talking about adjustments… 3D-Rendering gets better and more performant, tracking quality rises and practical AR glasses are (hopefully) close to release. Still, hardware and software is sometimes a bit complicated to use or error-prone. What do you see as the remaining main challenges?
Jan: In my eyes the most important question is: What is the main part? I do not want to wear AR hardware for the sake of wearing strange goggles. I saw a lot of demos and “use cases”, but to be honest – most of them are manually generated demonstrators without connection to the “real” environment. The challenge will be to deliver the right information in the right context. If this could be fulfilled in an automated manner the future of AR will be ready.
OK, tech is one thing. The other are the users and the integration into their workflow. People are used to their IT landscape and day job routine. Did you already solve to integrate these technologies into productive workflows, from a technical standpoint but also from a user perspective? Is to say: is it mature? What’s missing?
Jens: As a User Interface guy, I still see huge challenges before we have ubiquitous AR. Just as an example: I am avoiding to wear my prescription glasses whenever I can. The weight of this relatively light frame is unacceptable for me, although it gives me eyesight. That’s a high barrier for AR glasses to take.
Jan: We are working on the solutions to ensure the integration into our future IT landscape and process chains. We also help to reduce the barriers to the use of technology by showing the advantage of such technologies in various events.
As a company, you have to take responsibility for the upcoming changes. This leads to many questions. How does the solution affect the daily work of the employees? What qualifications will be required in the future? Also, new technologies do not usually have robust studies on health aspects and work safety. There must be appropriate answers for topics such as hygiene and so on… With this not yet complete list, I would like to point out that behind a truly productive integration into the corporate context lies much more than to implement technological solutions. For us, therefore, hardware or technological issues are not in the main focus. The solution lies rather in the integration into processes or rather – how must the processes be designed to take advantage of the technology! We have evolved suitable fields of application to take advantage of AR, but I still see a way ahead of us, until it will naturally be part of the workplace and our daily environment.
Thanks for the insights, maybe let’s take a step back and check the current AR/VR landscape in general. You do AR/VR for a long time now and we see the advantages in specific industrial scenarios. Now, in 2016 and 2017 AR has gained a bigger popularity outside of research labs. Everybody talks about it and recently Apple released their ARKit. How do you recognize the current hype around AR? Is it justified? A bubble or for real?
Jan: For me it is for real – I always believed in the power of AR! ;-) By now we have the first time an easy access to the technology. Platforms enabling artists and developers to create stunning content and pushing the technology to its limits. AR can be experienced by everyone. The hype around Pokemon was a precursor. It’s a question of expectation – in my opinion, it is unrealistic to wait for the one killer app that carries AR at once in all households. This will be done successively and along with platforms that provide the relevant content. At some point, AR technology will be integrated into our everyday life as naturally as the use of the smartphone is now.
Jens: I agree. Smartphone based AR will be the main platform for the years to come. Everything after that will need to make the smartphone obsolete.
Comparing your industrial view and specific AR there. The industry has other requirements and more money to set up big tracking volumes or render farms. John Doe on the street might not have all this available, but is willing to use AR, too. How do you see the maturity level of AR for consumers today? As you say, will it be the smartphone for consumer AR for a longer period? Will e.g. ARKit cause a big bang? Or what is missing?
Jan: With regard to operability and scaling, we must also take other paths and challenge classical infrastructures. Solutions we want to bring to the customer must ultimately also work on a generally accessible basis. Everything that helps to simplify the access to and the use of AR content will promote the penetration into our everyday life. ARKit makes the platform discussion exciting again and, of course, also the field of applications we can expect in near future. If we talk about AR HMDs, which in our context are usually more interesting, the consumer market is much more limited.
Jens: I believe that without John Doe using AR, it will also stay to a niche for the industry. So I’m hoping for a big bang in AR – regardless of what causes it.
Speaking about missing pieces. What are you hoping for to come next in this field of tech? What do you wish for? Or maybe, … you can even give us a short sneak peek into Audi’s activities here? What can the consumer expect in the future?
Jan: For me it would be great to overcome some limitations such as low field of view, bad tracking experience and especially latency of the system to speak about tech. But the challenge is another one: we need to transform our processes to be ready for the future. Only then can we not only support our current development in a better way, but also enter new areas of product development and product experience. We are combining areas such as machine learning and AI with current data analytics and sensor / IoT topics and are trying to make the findings come true in reality. Audi is working in a lot of areas today to push not only technology, but also customer experience to a new level. So I am confident that you will see more and more in the future.
Jens: I will show some of our activities in my presentation and talk about THE Killer App for xR: being together. I believe there is nothing more important for the future of xR than the possibility to communicate and collaborate over great distances. And of course, Audi will have a booth at the Expo and the Hackathon. So really good reasons to attend Digility 2017 I believe.
augmented.org: Well, thank you so much. Very glad for the insights you shared. Looking forward to your presentation then for more to be revealed! Good luck with the Hackathon during Digility!
Conclusion
So, there you have it. Another voice supporting the smartphone access next to AR. For me, it’s a tough call to hear from Jens that regular glasses already annoy him during work – even if they are superslim (without AR). But let’s see how things turn out, I’d be happy to put on slim AR glasses if they helped me with my task. No, I’m not willing to put in AR contact lenses – ever! Anyway, a good chat and happy to share some opion from industry perspective. There are still some hackathon spots left, so feel free to jump over to Digility page and sign up.
Many concept vehicles over the years have teased the idea of utilizing augmented reality in the windshields, glass dashboard panels, and even side windows. When it comes to VR, Faraday Future is one of the most recent that have flirted with the technology by using the platform to design their connected car.
Audi wants to use VR to give us a chance to make our childhood dreams a reality by allowing customers to test drive the new Audi Q5 on a virtual track they design in a sandbox.
Partnering with production group MediaMonks, Audi Norway is tapping into the spirit of our inner child by allowing us to bring our creations within a real life sandbox into a virtual space. The sandy track is then your playground as you drive their new car over the hills and pits you shaped with a collection of children’s tools.
“For many of us, playing with cars in the sandpit is a distant memory,” says Audi Norway’s manager of marketing Tommy Jensen, in a prepared statement “Let’s face it, the opportunity rarely presents itself once you pass a certain age. The Sandbox 2.0 is a state-of-the-art toy for kids and adults…for the Audi brand, this is a new way to demonstrate our products.”
Once you shape your sandbox however you want, cameras hit it with bursts of infrared light to measure 200,000 points so that it can accurately map every bump and dip in the box. The area is then recreated virtually and customers hop into a chair with steering wheel and pedals before they’re fitted with a VR headset and allowed to whip around the map.
“When you put on the headset you don’t just see the inside of an Audi Q5. This virtual world has real depth,” says MediaMonks’s creative director Tom Eriksen. “You can look around and explore behind stuff. It’s really exciting to watch as people experience this for the first time. To create a VR experience that is totally believable, it’s important that the driving environment also feels real. Not only the visual part but also the feel of the steering wheel and its feedback when you hit the sand.”
This is a pretty unique way to harness the power of VR to sell a product. The marriage of hands-on creativity and virtual space is a smart one that should get customers engaged, but it remains to be seen if it’ll be beneficial to Audi over time. It’s surely beneficial for the VR industry, however, showing another one of the many ways it can be used outside of the gaming ecosystem.
2016 is over. That in and of itself is a relief, and hot on the heels of the new year was the Consumer Electronic’s Show in Las Vegas. At CES, entrepreneurs, innovators and brilliant minds from around the world invade the Nevada desert, bringing their best and brightest inventions along for the ride. It’s a time where we celebrate new ideas, and no industry is more receptive to fresh thinking than virtual and augmented reality.
2016 was a big year for the world of immersive tech, but for things to really take off 2017 needs to be even bigger. To celebrate a year of advancement, and to usher in a brand new era of progress, Upload and Audi partnered together to throw a VR party in the sky.
The extravaganza was held on the top two floors of the Palms Resort and Casino and each floor had its own unique energy. The View featured a custom designed stylish lounge (pictured below). Guests were able to enjoy a cocktail while listening to eclectic & relaxing DJs – including live-violinist Lapa and Emancipator. Both floors had killer musical performers and virtual reality demos from some of the industry’s hottest creators.
These demos included an HTC Vive machine gun, the Audi Car Configurator, the Audi Le Mois Mixed Reality Experience and a winner from MSI’s recent VR Jam Contest. The top floor also had…well just take a look for yourself:
Yes, that is a human woman that has somehow come to the decision that gravity no longer applies to her. Through a combination of gymnastic excellence, and perhaps witchcraft, this professional aerialist was able to perform high above the crowds, all while wearing an HTC Vive VR headset.
The night also included heartfelt remarks from Upload’s co-founders, Will Mason and Taylor Freeman, and Audi’s Marcus Kuhne.
Last year during CES, Freeman and Mason announced the launch of the Upload Collective — a San Francisco coworking office that now houses over 40 VR/AR companies. At this year’s event the pair had another bit of significant news to share.
“We are thrilled to announce our second coworking location is opening in Los Angeles this spring! The 20,000 square-foot space in Marina Del Rey will serve as an immersive reality hub in the heart of the entertainment industry’s backyard. Partnering with a variety of entertainment, tech and media companies, Upload LA is on track to serve the community in a big way – offering resources and education in this technology like never before.” Freeman said.
Marcus Kuhne spoke about Audi’s commitment to equip dealerships with complex and ambitious VR applications, including the Audi Car Configurator. Audi is acting as an accelerator for the establishment of industrial VR.
Altogether it was a night to remember and one that represented the commitment of companies, both old and new, to the exciting world of virtual reality. Upload would like to thank our presenting sponsor, Audi and Partner Sponsors, Technicolor and NextVR for all of their support on this project.
We can’t wait to see what new things we have to celebrate next year!
2016 was rough. A gorilla died, trolls ruled the earth, and we lost more than our fair share of icons and legends. But, thankfully, every year eventually comes to a close and now we turn to the promise of 2017 — and it’s kicking off with a bang for VR.
CES is upon us and as long as you’re not a journalist like me preparing to cover it, this gargantuan show should be a non-stop thrill ride. To celebrate the huge VR milestones of 2016, and to usher in what looks to be an even biggest year for our industry coming up next, Upload is throwing our best party yet this Friday, January 6th.
We’ll be taking over the two top floors of the world famous Palms Resort. The main event kicks off on Friday, January 6th at 10PM PST. Our headlining musical performance will be EMANCIPATOR featuring a live violinist in The View. We will also have Walrus & Kane (SUBPAC) performing in The Moon with a surprise special guest.
We are thrilled to have Audi as our Presenting Sponsor. Audi is coming out ahead as a leading innovator in immersive technology for the automotive industry. Audi will be demoing 2 different VR experiences on the HTC Vive at our party, one of which will be featured in our on-site Mixed Reality Studio. The custom VR experiences underscore a unique VR-driven sales and marketing application that combine a powerful product configuration tool with VR sequences designed to make the sales experience more intimate and exciting.
“In general Audi is convinced by the potential of VR for a great customer experience but also a more effective development process and started the development of this application 4 years ago with the result that we will introduce VR setups at hundreds dealerships this year,” said Marcus Kuehne, Strategy Lead for Immersive Tech at Audi.
We’d also like to give special thanks to our Partner Sponsors: NextVR and Technicolor:
NextVR, the world’s leading virtual reality broadcast platform for delivering live sports and entertainment, is now offering video-on-demand NBA games and highlights in virtual reality internationally. Additionally, NextVR will reach even more fans around the world by offering its virtual reality content on Daydream by Google.
Technicolor and Upload are working together on some big plans for 2017 as well, but we can’t give it all away just yet. Stay tuned for some exciting announcements around the Technicolor Experience Center. The center develops high-end content, platforms, and technology for virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and other immersive media applications.
Finally, here are some of the key event features:
Over 20 VR demo experiences across the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, PS VR, Samsung Gear VR, and Daydream by Google,
2 Floors at the top of The Palms Fantasy Tower: The View and The Moon,
Network with VR/AR Industry Influencers, Executives, and Investors,
Interactive Art Installations,
Opening Live Musical Performance by Lapa (Ilya Goldberg) followed by Emancipator in The View,
House DJ Set by Walrus & Kane (SUBPAC) in The Moon,
There will also be an early-bird VIP mixer from 8PM-10PM. Attendees there will get to enjoy:
Early access to event to mingle with VR/AR Executives, Influencers, and Investors,
Open Bar,
Exclusive first look at VR demos and activations,
Presentation by Upload and Audi at 9PM,
In addition to all of this, we’re also going to be giving away some of the hottest VR gear in the world to a few lucky participants. Guests who tweet #UploadParty during the event, or share a photo from the photo booth, will be entered for a chance to win: Helix Cuff Wireless Headphones, a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Graphics Card and an HTC Vive VR System.
Tickets are on sale now for both the VIP mixer and the main event! So stop on by, enjoy an amazing evening and let’s make 2017 a year to remember!
Disclaimer: This event and this article are sponsored by Audi.
After appearing in the promotional 'Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV' feature-length movie, Square Enix and Audi Japan are raffling off a real-life R8 car. But you will need to come up with quite a bit of money first.
