Here’s Another Sign That Snapchat Is Building a Physical Device

We all now know that augmented reality has spread its wings everywhere in every field and industry. Snapchat is no exception from it as speculations have started on Snapchat getting itself into augmented reality and is building up wearable technology.Vergence-LabsSnapchat has bought a Google Glass-esque startup,  known as Vergence Labs. It is also hiring wearable technology and eyewear experts who are working in this direction with augmented reality. Further, Snapchat has joined the Bluetooth special interest group (BSIG) which develops the ubiquitous wireless communications technology. BSIG looks over the Bluetooth standards and the licensing of the Bluetooth technologies and SIG is a non-profit stock corporation that was founded in September 1998 and its head office is located in Kirkland, Washington. Snapchat will yield the benefits of being a member of BSIG as BSIG will soon be launching its next generation of its transmission standard which will be known as Bluetooth 5.

The move Snapchat will follow a new string of recruits and acquisitions from the world of customer electronics and will also fuel the speculations about the photo-sharing start-up by building a pair of augmented reality (AR) goggles.

Snapchat is currently into making an app for ephemeral, in-the-movement communications which is already popular. This app has nutty filters and are already playing in the field of augmented reality combined with the mixture of elements of virtual and the real world along with the special AR glasses.snapchats-appThe users will be able to have Snapchat’s app on their mobile phones connecting with the headsets or glasses. The success of this app into the augmented reality will help Snapchat regain its popularity in parallel with Facebook which is popular among the youngsters. Facebook is considered as a big name in the world of virtual reality with the owning of Oculus Rift. There are others in the same field like Samsung, Google, and HTC has stepped into the field of Glass.

Though Snapchat has not revealed its exact plans in relevance to augmented reality, its wearable glass technology is getting popular day by day along with its app. Also, other tech giants like Facebook, Google, Samsung, and HTC also have been stepping their interest into augmented reality. The noticeable thing is that the use of Bluetooth will have an important connection in this direction while connecting the app with the headsets and glasses.

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Intel to Acquire Computer Vision Company Movidius

Intel recently announced the planned acquisition of Movidius Technologies, a company specializing in on-device vision processing units (VPUs) and algorithms involved in a number of areas such as deep learning, depth processing, navigation/mapping, and natural interactions.

Movidius will be providing Intel with their low-power, high-performance system on a chip (SoC) platforms, including their dedicated Myriad 2 VPU we saw earlier this year—the big brother to Myriad 1, otherwise known as the vision processing chip at the heart of Google Project Tango first generation of AR tablets.

According to an Intel blogpost announcing the acquisition, the company “will look to deploy the technology across our efforts in augmented, virtual and merged reality (AR/VR/MR), drones, robotics, digital security cameras and beyond.”

1453909853-Myriad2_neural_net_med_res_1425_830_s_c1 (1)
See Also: Movidius’ Dedicated Vision Processing Chip is Coming Soon to AR and VR Headsets

Intel says Movidius’ technology “optimizes, enhances and brings RealSense capabilities to fruition,” the company’s depth-sensing camera array that incorporates a 1080p HD camera, an infrared camera, and an infrared laser projector.

At CES 2016 Intel highlighted the Daqri “smart helmet”, an augmented reality hardhat developed by Daqri that uses Intel’s RealSense 3D camera. The CES demo included an augmented view of a mock industrial setting which used a thermal imaging AR overlay to pinpoint heat-venting pipes.

Daqri "Smart Helmet" Movidius prototype
intel-project-alloy-vr-headset-3
See Also: Intel Reveals Project Alloy, an All-in-one VR Headset With Mobile Positional Tracking

In an interview with Movidius’s Marketing Communications Director Jack Dashwood at MWC 2016 earlier this year, he told us that the company was then engaged with multiple VR and AR headset manufacturers (exactly which ones he couldn’t say), and that we could expect something tangible in late 2016 or early 2017 using their VPU.

It’s unsure how the acquisition will effect these deals, or if Movidius will be providing their VPU exclusively for Intel-related projects, but one thing is for sure—Intel wants into the AR and VR game and now has the dedicated hardware to make it a reality.

The post Intel to Acquire Computer Vision Company Movidius appeared first on Road to VR.

DHL Successfully Tests Augmented Reality Application In Warehouse

Augmented reality has taken fast pace development in every field today and is consistently stepping forward in every sector possible.

DHL is a big name in the field of logistics and is the leading company in the field. It is stepping in the field of Augmented Reality with its upcoming project of testing smart glasses in its warehouses in the Netherlands.

DHL has implemented the technology as “vision picking” in warehouse operations by collaborating with DHL customer Ricoh and wearable computing solutions expert Ubimax. The graphics displayed on the smartglasses guide the staff through the warehouse to gear up the picking process thereby reducing errors. This project is known as the pilot project and it proved that augmented reality adds value to the warehousing operations and has increased the efficiency by 25%  during the picking process.

DHL's-vision-picking

Vision picking enables to increase the productivity with hands-free order picking. Jan-William De Jong, Business Unit Director Technology, DHL Supply Chain Benelux says that their staff is greatly supported by the technology and thereby they can bring value to their customers.

Benefits and Drawbacks of the Technology

The pilot project was basically implemented to monitor the benefits and limitations of the technology and for this purpose, the warehouse staff in Bergen opZoom was provided with head-mounted displays such as Google Glass and VuzixM100. The displays on the glasses showed the respective task information during the picking process that included aisle, product location, and quantity. It was observed that overall, 10 order pickers used the equipment and picked more than 20000 items, to fulfill 9000 orders within the given time frame. Due to this, the performance of the staff became more efficient and speedy without any errors. At present, DHL and Rioch are jointly evaluating the roll-out of the solution.

The company said that new sites will roll out the technology in the US and the UK across other sectors which will include retail, consumer, and automotive industries. John Gilbert, DHL Supply Chain chief executive said that they will further test the technology and make the picking vision readily available to their customers thereby stepping one step closer towards Industry 4.0.  He further added that they will continue testing technologies like augmented reality, robotics, and Internet Of Things. Ricoh says that with the implementation of the technology, the picking up errors rates has reduced up to 0.35%.

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Pokémon Go Players Want More Augmented Reality (SURVEY)

Pokemon Go Augmented Reality

In a previous blog post, we looked at the different areas that contributed to the success of Pokémon Go including the Pokémon brand, geolocation and Augmented Reality. Now a recent survey by Vasona Networks shows that most Pokémon Go players want more Augmented Reality.

According to the survey of Pokémon Go players:

  • 23% say the most exciting part of the game is playing outside, while an additional 17% cite the AR aspect as most exciting;
  • 69% plan to play future versions of the game, while 24% are unsure of future usage; and
  • 67% play at least a few times per week, of which more than 33% play daily.

The future Pokémon Go features that survey respondents said they were most hopeful for would cause the app to have a more significant data impact. When asked which one feature they most look forward to:

  • 39% said map overlays;
  • 26% said real-time syncing to see location and progress of friends;
  • 21% said characters that can react to player actions;
  • 9% said in-game video chat; and
  • 6% said to be able to live stream game commentary.

There are other interesting responses from the survey that can be found here.

The post Pokémon Go Players Want More Augmented Reality (SURVEY) appeared first on Zugara.

uSens Announces SDK and Hardware Series for Virtual and AR Tracking

uSens is a Silicon Valley start-up which was founded in San Jose, California in 2013. It has a team of researchers and developers of advanced user interaction technologies who aim at finding better and more efficient ways for people to interact with an ever-changing, rapid-paced global community.

Now, uSens is taking a step forward in developing natural hand-and-head tracking technologies for Augmented and Virtual Realities and for this purpose it has announced the open beta of its software developer kit (SDK) and pre-order availability for its new Fingo hardware series at a launch event in San Francisco.

uSens has launched its uDev network for the developer community to help them integrate the company’s industry-leading, industry-out 26DOF hand tracking and 6DOF head tracking technology in their ARVR projects. uDev offers the developer kits that are fully stacked and support the popular integrated development environments (IDEs) and the work flows. At the present, uSens supports technologies like Unity 3D, Java, C++, and C# for mobile and PC developers.

uSens  empowers the developers to create the most naturally interactive 3D experiences by integrating the hardware and software with the content makers and the platform. The company will go online to showcase the demonstrations of new content and technology along with the developers.

Fingo

uSens-Fingo

uSens consists of a Fingo series that offers an advanced 3D human-computer interaction capability for the mobile as well as tethered systems that includes Samsung Gear VR, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Google Cardboard. The users can enjoy their favorite apps without much of the power consumption or dull performance on their mobile devices by attaching this module to the front of an HMD.

There are three kinds of Fingo- entry Fingo, Color Fingo, and Power Fingo which enable the developers to integrate their developments with the technologies mentioned in the above paragraphs with different DOFs according to the Fingo used by them.

uSens CTO and co-founder, Dr. Yue Fei says that they are mainly focused on the inside-out hand and position tracking tools that offer flexibility and ease of use. With this, the developers can easily customize and support the craft of the most realistic and immersive experiences in ARVR.

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Augmented Reality Makes Prototyping Easy On Shaper’s Origin CNC Machine

Augmented Reality has taken its steps forward in almost every field of technology and has given the outstanding final products. Now, it is stepping in the field of 3D printing, coming up with a newly invented CNC machine or Computer Numerical Control that prototypes easily compared to 3D printers.

This machine does much more than just printing drones, human organs, or medications. This machine comes up in the credits of Shaper who is based in San Francisco. For bringing this machine into an experience, Shaper team had to work hard and far efficiently putting technologies into practice that were far from the practical experience of a majority of mechanical engineers.

AR-CNC-MachineThe CNC machine initially leverages laptop or computer and uses augmented reality in discovering the curve shape. CEO of Shaper, Joe Hebenstreit explains the ways of constructing anything with the help of CNC machine. He further explains that you can draw different shapes on the tool/machine itself without accessing a laptop or a computer. You can carve any product into a new construction with the help of this machine. Unlike a 3D printer that will go on printing until it arrives at making an item, a CNC machine will slice down the item to the desired or the determined shape just like an aluminum fabrication.

To perform the operation of slicing an item with a CNC machine, you need to operate the machine within the determined workspace with the provided resources just like a standard printer.  The first product of Shaper “Origin” can operate easily on wood, carbon fiber, and vinyl. “Origin” consists of a camera at its back that constantly searches for a specialty Shaper Tape. This tape enables the operation of cutting. With this gathered information about the machine, along with some visualization and a little of math, you can create a visualization of different cuts and shapes in augmented reality.

With this, you are required to drag “Origin” along the virtual lines and you will be able to replicate the CNC parts that are made by traditional machines that can cost thousands of millions of dollars. With Origin, you can go for the perfection you want to have in the cuts and the final construction in the augmented reality. With this venture, Shape is able to raise a $3 million dollar fund that included participation from ENIAC Ventures, SOSV, Founders Guild, Comet Labs, and Root Ventures.

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Smart glasses in enterprise? It all depends on what you’re looking for.

Smart Eyewear Taxonomy.

In a first article “Smart Glasses? It’s all about perspective.” we proposed a taxonomy to segment the emerging market of smart eyewear. In this sequel we will contemplate somewhat deeper on the opportunities for smart eyewear in an enterprise context. Before opening the debate, we recommend you to quickly glance back at the taxonomy table profiling the five segments of the smart eyewear market.

Table VP4

Guiding framework for smart eyewear in enterprise.

To structure the discussion on the opportunities of smart glasses in the enterprise world, we searched for a guiding framework based on a neutral observation. The graph below reflects such generic truth.

On the vertical ax we position the focus and field of view of the wearer on the surrounding reality. We call it vigilance by the natural view of the wearer’s eyes. On the horizontal ax of the graph we position the level of enrichment of that natural view by a device on the wearer’s nose. We call this the feed of the wearer’s mind by the pair of glasses. Obviously the horizontal and vertical ax reflect opposite forces or call it conflicting interests in seizing the wearer’s attention.

graph1 VP4

At one end of the spectrum we encounter the Glass-Cam. In order to prevail a hundred percent focus of the wearer on the action he’s executing, no display or information feedback whatsoever is generated by the glasses. At the other end the spectrum we find the immersive eyewear goggles. This non- transparent diving mask fully shuts off the wearers eyes from the surrounding reality in order to fully plunge him in a virtual world. As a consequence the natural view is zero and the mind is entirely mastered by the device.

The display of the smart rear mirror glasses is positioned at the edge of the wearer’s field of view in order to minimize distraction. The mind of the wearer is somewhat enriched by extra information in the corner of one eye. The focus of the wearer is on the informed reality, with the emphasis still on reality. The drawback of this technology is the limitation of information that gets adequately transmitted this way to the wearer’s mind.

A smart monocular and a smart binocular project in varying degrees digital information straight into the wearer’s field of view. These technologies truly enrich the mind with an augmented view. The flip side of the coin is the fact that the intrusive injection of extra information into the natural view  also increases the level of distraction and therefore lowers the vigilance on the surrounding reality. Inattentional blindness is a concern for smart rear mirror glasses, but a clear and present danger for smart binoculars. Hence the debates and lawsuits to come on wearing these devices while driving on public roads.

Opportunity assessment.

As the guiding framework has been established and explained, we are ready to initiate the discussion on the opportunities of smart glasses in enterprise.

The Glass-Cam allows to capture the wearer’s perspective on the action and stream it to colleagues without any danger of disturbing the actor on stage. Though it does not provide any added value to the wearer himself, the streaming of what his eyes are seeing can be valuable for education and training of colleagues. Think of a surgeon performing a surgical action and hundreds of students at distant locations witnessing the intervention from a virtual front row.

As they discretely allow for some “information snacking”, smart rear view glasses are perfectly suited to provide hands-free support during instruction and procedure execution. There is a broad range of use cases that fall into this category of mobilizing business processes in a hands-free mode. Think of quality control, logistics, operations, field services to name a few.

A smart monocular and binocular augments the wearer’s field of view with an overlay of digital information. This allows to guide the wearer in a particular place and time. Whether it is the exact positioning of an implant or the replacement of a spare in a large installation, both the surgeon and the engineer might require temporary support of these glasses. But mind that in order to avoid a work accident, both will only wear the devices for a very short moment.

Virtual reality glasses have more potential than immersing consumers in a game. We’re all familiar with the expensive flight simulators used to train pilots in handling complex and exceptional situations. Immersive eyewear offers a disruptive low cost simulation technology to train operators in a virtual enterprise. Though the hardware of the goggles themselves might be disruptively cheap, the scenarios of each peculiar training situation still need to be programmed and graphically animated. The cost of the latter might limit the use cases to a few high risk situations that are hard to mimic in the real world.

graph 2 VP4

As with many other situations in life and business, Pareto seems to be embedded in the above graph to. Hands-free information snacking might require only 20% of the complexity and power of the smart eyewear, yet they cover 80% of the economically justified use cases in business. This assumption is at least confirmed by the observed success of Google’s glass@work program. Whether it will be the future version of Google Glass that will conquer the enterprise space depends on the agenda of Google. Only time will tell. But if I had to put my money on a horse called smart eyewear on an enterprise racetrack, I would definitely sniff in the category of rear view mirrors.

I would like to conclude this article with one more take away insight that puts all things in perspective. The smart rear view mirror might well be the nominee for best selling smart eyewear device in the category of enterprise. Yet that Oscar in the enterprise category completely pales in comparison with the volume of his big brother in the category of consumer devices. The winner of the Oscar for best selling consumer smart glasses will have to hold totally different trumps though.

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Pokémon No: game’s daily active users, downloads and engagement are down

Just weeks after the augmented reality game Pokémon Go shot to the top of the app charts, millions of people are no longer using it, according to a report

Just weeks after the augmented reality game Pokémon Go shot to the top of the app charts, millions of people are saying “Pokémon No”, according to an analysis from Axion Capital Management published by Bloomberg News.

The game’s daily active users, downloads, and engagement are all on the decline, according to the charts published by Bloomberg.

Related: Niantic cracks down on Pokémon Go cheats with lifetime bans

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VR Could Become Mass Market In China Faster Than Anywhere In The World – Xiaomi

If you’re a regular visitor to VRFocus, or indeed to any of the other virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) specialist websites that are out there you will have noticed three topics that have very noticeably increased in frequency in recent months. The first is PlayStation VR – understandable as we move closer and closer to the global launch of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE’s) own head-mounted display (HMD), for the PlayStation 4 entertainment system. The second topic would be Pokemon GO, something that arguably requires no further explanation at this point. The third however would be China. VR’s push into China and into the Asian region as a whole is increasingly well documented; be it the established names seeking new territory or new companies seeking their own slice of the pie that makes up the VR industry.

xiaomi

In the last few weeks alone we’ve reported on the launch of a VR travel experience space, and the launch of Nokia’s OVO in the region as well as the Halo VR/AR headset revealed at China’s CCG Expo back in July. Companies like Tencent are looking to invest, big businesses were already getting excited by sales figures last year before the big names truly stepped forward into the world consumer versions. So how big could VR be for the world’s second biggest economy? According to Xiaomi Vice President Hugo Barra you could well see China out do everyone when it comes to VR adoption.

Speaking in an interview with America’s CNBC Barra cited China’s buoyant smartphone market as the key to a prosperous future for VR in the region.

“The Chinese market is at around 400 million to 500 million smartphones sold every year.” Barra explained, “Every single one of these phones, in theory, is VR-capable, so our thinking is VR could actually become mass market in China, faster than any other market in the world.”

Promoting the Mi VR Play, a zip-up smartphone-based HMD made from textiles including lycra, Barra also confirmed that Xiaomi would be bringing “much more sophisticated VR products into the Chinese market”.

“The Chinese market is today, without a doubt, the fastest adopter of new trends. The speed with which video, online video- live video is astounding.” He also added when discussing China’s initial slow adoption of smartphones. “I predict, just based on what I see the same here, that the same will happen with VR. We’ll see a faster explosion in both content creation, experience creation but also adoption in China than in any other market. Which is why we’re obviously so excited to be here and a player in this space.”

VRFocus will continue to bring you news and updates on the VR market in Europe, America and further afield.