Category: Augmented World Expo 2017

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Holokit For Low-Cost Mixed Reality

Cheap virtual reality (VR) headsets like the Google Cardboard have become very popular. Cheap to buy and easy to set up, they are a simple option for people to test if VR is right for them, or to test and prototype VR apps and 360-degree videos. Augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) is a different proposition, with Microsoft’s Hololens running to over $3000, its hard to find a low-cost option. The Holokit is trying to change that with some lenses, mirrors and some cardboard.

The Holokit, as the names suggests, comes in kit form and acts as a DIY solution for creating an AR experience at low cost. Using a pair of mirrors, the display of a smartphone is reflected on to an angled, semi-transparent Fresnel lens, which allows the users to see both the image and the world behind it. Is essence, it works similarly to ‘smoke and mirrors’ illusionists tricks that have been used in film and theatre for half a century.

Though not quite as cheap as a Google Cardboard headset due to the presence of the mirrors and Fresnel lenses, the Holokit is still quite cost effective, if a bit more fragile than it’s VR cousin. The Holokit is currently compatible with iPhone 7 and 7+, Google Pixel smartphones and Google Tango hardware.

The people responsible for the Holokit are Amber Garage, whose founder, Botao Hu presented the kit at Augmented World Expo. The company plan to have code and documentation for the kit released soon on to Github, with ready-to-assemble kits planned to begin shipping in early July 2017. Further information is available on the official Holokit website.

A video demonstration of the Holokit’s capabilities is available to view below.

VRFocus will bring you further information on the Holokit as it becomes available.

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AR Workspace For Meta Introduced at AWE 2017

During a presentation at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara, the CEO of Augmented Reality (AR) content creators Meta, Meron Gribetz demonstrated a new AR operating environment called Meta Workspace.

On stage at AWE 2017 Gribetz demonstrated some of the features of the Meta Workspace, included a ‘Reach out and grab’ feature titled Airgrab, a user interface that follows the design of an office environment, with ‘shelves’ to store and retrieve content and the ability to place virtual ‘monitors’ wherever the user chooses.

“Our customers want to do more than chase digital critters and monsters: 80 percent of them are coming from industry, only 5 percent entertainment,” Gribetz elaborated. “They want to take their work to new heights. Design products in life-sized 3D, view holographic multiple monitors to free their traders and engineers from their screens, visualize data in ways that are far more relatable. To enable all of this, we decided our top priority was going to be creating the most intuitive AR experience possible, and gear it toward getting real world work done in ways never achievable before.”

The development of the Meta Workspace came partially as a result of feedback received from developers who worked with the Meta 2 Development Kit. Meta 2 was designed to create an immersive AR experience while allowing users to use their hands to interact with AR ‘hologram’ objects in order to make it easier to create and share digital content using the Meta 2 platform.

Gribetz and Meta say that the aim of the Meta Workspace is to allow users to take a 2D workflow and spacialise it in a way that suits them and takes advantage f the pace around them to allow greater flexibility and a more intuitive form of interaction.

The Meta Workspace is still in fairly early development. VRFocus will bring you further news on its progress is it becomes available.

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uSens Reveals American Winners Of uDev Challenge

The Augmented World Expo (AWE) played host to a number of announcements today including, amongst others the reveal by VR tracking specialists uSens of the winners uDev Challenge for America. This followed a sister competition in China.

The projects, which required use of uSens’ own Software Development Kit (SDK) for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) and could utilize either the Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard, HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift. And were initially narrowed down to a selection of semi-finalists by a judging panel consisting of members of the uSens, Samsung and the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Meetup group.

“We were impressed by the quality and creativity of the projects submitted by our semifinalists.” Explained uSens CTO and company co-founder Dr. Yue Fei . “Our winners integrated Fingo modules,” uSens’s tracking device, which recently received an upgrade, “in imaginative ways and demonstrated the ability to make engaging, exciting use of our tracking technology to benefit end-users. I’m very pleased about the promise of future applications of our tracking tech.”

$50,000 (USD) was won by the grand prize winner, Chris Wren who developed MonsterShop an application for VR retail.

Wallace Lages came in second for spellcasting mobile game Krinkle VR, netting the developer $25,000 (USD).

Third place was won by a medical related tool called Embodied Labs developed by Tom Leahy. Which shows the degeneration of the macular, a very small but important part of the retina. It’s a condition that results in people losing their central vision.

The US prizes bring the total amount awarded across both challenges to $200,000. VRFocus will bring you more news from AWE 2017 throughout the week.

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Epson Reveal Two New Products In Smart Glasses Line At Augmented World Expo

California is playing host to this year’s Augmented World Expo (AWE) and as you might expect there are a number of stories coming out of the event. New deals and new augmented reality (AR) products are being announced, including Epson. The Japanese technology company is best known for its printers and scanners. However it has also been developing its own line of smart glasses for sometime. These are the Moverio line of products, the last of which we reported on VRFocus was the Moverio BT-300, which marked the third generation of AR hardware and which was announced at the 2016 Mobile World Congress (MWC) held back in February last year.

Today sees the addition of the two devices to the Moverio family, the first being the BT-350 set of smart glasses which acts as an improved version of the BT-300. Powered by a quad core Intel® Atom™ X5 processor and by Android 5.1 ‘under the hood’, the BT-350 is set to retaining the benefits of its predecessors visual quality whilst increasing build durability and increasing flexibility with greater adjustment capabilities to have a more comfortable and secure fit. Such as the addition of adjustable nose pads to take in to consideration those who are already wearing glasses. The durability of the 350 is highlighted by the target market being use in high-use public arenas such as in museums as well as in professional sectors such as the medical, logistics and manufacturing industries. Lenovo also revealed that an array of accessories for the BT-350 will also be made available, listing the aforementioned nose pads, a customizable neck straps and, for when it gets a bit too bright, “flip-up style shades”.

The BT-350 is to be joined by the Moverio BT-2200, in similar form an upgrade to the existing BT-2000 series of industrial-focued smart headests. The BT-2200 takes into consideration feedback given, and is set to include the addition of a new hinge that is designed to go over the top of helmets with a front brim. Allowing users to flip the smart glasses up and down as needed and for the the glasses to remain securely fastened.

Epson also revealed that both sets of smart glasses are due to release at select retailers and will be orderable on the Epson website next month, June 2017 with a list price of $1,399 (USD) for the Moverio BT-350 and $2,999 (USD) for the BT-2200.

“Demonstrating Epson’s ongoing leadership and commitment to the market, the Epson Moverio BT-350 are the first production-volume smart glasses designed for a busy, commercial environment where the glasses are shared by users,” commented the Product Manager for Augmented Reality Solutions at Epson America, Michael Leyva on the news. “We are also the first to offer an innovative docking station for easy smart glasses management.”

Said dock, the Quint Controller Dock for the Moverio BT-350, will ship at the same time for $699 (USD). VRFocus will bring you more news from AWE as it is revealed.

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Deep Optics Displays First Demo of AR/VR Lenses

The technology that powers augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) is evolving all the time. Improvements are constantly being sought in many areas, including in the area of depth-of-field and focussing, where VR imaging has not yet caught up with the capabilities of the human eye. Deep Optics are trying to bring a more advanced view to VR and AR users with its new technology.

Deep Optics will be offering demonstrations of the new tunable lens technology, which enables any AR or VR lens to be turned into an auto-focussing system by enabling a real dynamic focal plane. This technology is said to significantly reduce the negative side effects experienced by some VR users such as nausea, dizziness and headaches. Deep Optics have identified the cause of those side effects as being the result of objects within the virtual world being at apparent distances from the viewer, but the optical systems in VR are not able to synchronise the optical signal to properly represent the variance is distance, resulting in a disconnect.

Yariv Haddad, Co-founder and CEO of Deep Optics, said, “We’re excited to demonstrate our AR/VR auto-focus solution at the show. Our tunable lenses dynamically change their focal power and position, allowing us to effectively cover a large field-of-view, a critical requirement from AR/VR HMDs. Visitors will be able to try out the superior augmented reality experience for themselves in different headsets,” Haddad continued, “Our aim is to continue our partnerships with tier-1 players in the AR/VR market and introduce products powered by our lenses in 2018.”

Haddad will be speaking at the Augmented World Expo on the topic of Foveal Adaptive Optics on Friday 2nd Jun. Deep Optics will also be demonstrating the tunable lens technology at AWE 2017.

VRFocus will continue to bring you news of developments in VR technology.

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Membit Announces First AR Hall of Fame at AWE 2017

Augmented reality (AR) app creators Membit have today announced that they are launching the first Augmented Reality Hall of Fame at Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara today. Those chosen to be inducted into the AR Hall of Fame will become part of the Membit AR experience for people visiting the hall at AWE and remain there for future visitors.

Some of the first inductees will be unveiled tomorrow at AWE 2017 by the CEO of Membit, Jay Van Buren. Attendees at AWE who have the Membit app will be able to search the app for the Hall of Fame hashtag to see the AR Hall of Fame across the front entrance of the convention centre.

The Membit app allows users to create an image to leave at a location for other Membit users to access and enjoy. The app uses a proprietary ‘Human Positioning System’ to allow users to create and share AR images without need for markers. The app can act as a kind of AR time capsule that allows users to revisit the past through Membit images that other users have left behind.

The creators of Membit believe that AR has become an important part of communication and are committed to developing the medium further, with the AR Hall of Fame being part of this aim.

“This is an open call to others who want to help, we are only aware of parts of the story. We propose that we induct 5-10 people each year into the Hall of Fame and we are forming a group to administer it, to take in nominations and have a vote each year.” said Membit CEO Jay Van Buren. “We are starting this Augmented Reality Hall of Fame but we need the entire technology and business community to participate!”

Jay Van Buren will be speaking on the Membit app and AR at his talk at Augmented World Expo on 2nd June, which is titled ‘Annotating the World with Human Positioning System’.

VRFocus will continue to bring you news on developments within the world of Augmented Reality.

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Basemark’s new Graphics Rendering System Rocksolid Could Improve VR Development

Developers and engineers working with high-end rendering and computer-aided design engines can often find that those tools can consume large portions of system resources and power. While less of a problem on desktop PCs, it can be a major issue when developing for mobile devices. As such, Basemark has launched a graphics rendering solution called Rocksolid that reduces resource consumption while increasing performance.

Basemark has said that the Rocksolid system stands to benefit developers who are working on virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) operating systems and hardware. Developers will be able to utilise higher frame rates, better response times and less power consumption on apps running with Rocksolid enabled. Basemark cite the example of a real-world CAD model that, when rendered using Rocksolid got double the FPS, one seventh the CPU utilisation and less than half the normal power consumption.

Crucially, Rocksolid does not require users to learn how to use another tool, as Rocksolid runs ‘underneath’ existing applications such as Unity 3D. Rocksolid reads existing content, such as a Unity 3D project and converts it into a format that is usable by the Rocksolid Engine all without any need for user intervention, so users can continue to use whichever tools they prefer.

Rocksolid is cross-platform and works on Windows, Linux, Android or MacOS. It is also graphics APU agnostic and works with Vulkan, OpenGL, DirectX and Metal, taking full advantage of the GPU capabilities present in Vulkan and DirectX12.

Basemark’s rendering solution is available now for certain commercial partners, with further information found on the Basemark website. The Rocksolid solution will also be demonstrated at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara later this week.

Earlier this year Basemark launched VR benchmarking software VRScore PC, so users could evaluate how their computer performs by measuring PC and head-mounted display (HMD) rendering performance and latency.

VRFocus will provide further information on Rocksolid and other industry tools as it becomes available.

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Augmented World Expo Press Conference Roster Confirmed

The Augmented World Expo (AWE) 2017 will be taking place this week at the Santa Clara Convention Centre, California. A big part of the event is the Thursday press conference, where several companies have chosen to make major announcements regarding virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). AWE 2017 organisers have now revealed the roster.

The press conference for this year has had many companies who are keen to make major announcements during the event. As such, the organisers of AWE 2017 struggled somewhat to fit all the company speakers into the hour-long slot. The event organisers say that attendees of the event should expect a rapid-fire delivery of several important announcements coming from some of the biggest names in the industry.

A full roster of companies who are set to participate in the press conference has been released and goes as follows:

Digibit
Epson
Kopin
Manomotion
Massless
Meta
Miralupa
Optinvent
Re’Flekt
Resonai
Shadow Creator
Sony
Tractica
Wikitude/Lenovo
Zappar

Of course there will be much more going on at the Augmented World Expo, including features keynote speeches from the likes of Microsoft’s Lorraine Bardeen, Jesse Schell of Schell Games, Rikard Steiber of HTC Vive and Achin Bhowmik from Intel. There will also be a range of workshops and roundtable discussions taking place during the event. There will also be the AWE Playground, where several VR and AR experiences will be set up for attendees to explore.

The Augmented World Expo is due to take place from 31st May – 2nd June 2017 in Santa Clara, California. Further information and tickets can be found at the official AWE 2017 website.

VRFocus will continue to keep you informed on upcoming VR-related events.

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AR and VR Playground to Debut at Augmented World Expo

The Augmented World Expo will be taking place soon in Santa Clara, California and the conference organisers have announced that the first AWE Playground full of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) experiences will debut at the event.

With the aim of eliminating barriers between consumers and experiences, the AWE Playground has almost two dozen of the VR/AR industries companies contributing experiences. The playground features a variety of experiences covering areas such as art, cinema, travel and videogames and allows attendees free access to experiences that might otherwise be unavailable to them.

The available experiences include:

  • Mixed Reality and 3D experiences from Microsoft
  • Globacore’s Free Roam VR “The Yolodeck”
  • meleap’s social AR and wearable tech enabled Techno Sport “HADO”
  • Epson + DJI + Edgybees new drone based AR gaming platform
  • Hayo’s Virtual Remote Controls for your Home
  • Zenka’s AR art, featuring fire breathing dragons
  • Quantum Capture’s Virtual Humans
  • PuttView’s AR Golf Practice
  • Skullmapping/TableMation’s “The Future of Dining – Le Petit Chef” Table animation
  • UC Davis’ Original AR Sandbox
  • Lowe’s Holoroom
  • Global Imagination’s VR 360 Sphere
  • Exit Reality’s Mobile VR Truck
  • Motive.io’s Mission to Mars Scavenger Hunt
  • HoloCap’s hologram-sharing kiosk
  • Rogue Reality’s mixed reality teleportation experience
  • Interaxon’s (makers of Muse) debut of brain platform and biosensing VR integration

“Since 2010, AWE’s mission has been to drive adoption of AR and VR, and the only way to learn about it is by experiencing it,” said Ori Inbar, co-founder and executive producer of AWE. “To help AR and VR penetrate the general market, we decided to put together a collection of experiences across different aspects of life, in a playful and accessible setting.”

The Augmented World Expo will take place from 31st May to 2nd June 2017 in Santa Clara, California and will feature speakers from Microsoft, DAQRI, IBM, Dell Oculus and Niantic. Further information and tickets are available at the AWE website.

VRFocus will continue to bring you news on upcoming VR-related events.

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AWE Issues Call for Nominations for Auggie Awards

Organisers of the Augmented World Expo has issued a call for nominations for the Auggie Awards, a prize awarded to those who contributed extraordinary innovation to the virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) industries.

The awards ceremony will be held at the Augmented World Expo, a conference for AR/VR technology. This year will be the eighth time the event has been held, and is set to feature over 250 speakers from well-known names such as NASA, Boeing, Epson, Sony, Google and Microsoft.

“AR and VR are officially on their way to going mainstream and are no longer only the domain of tech companies,” explains Ori Inbar, founder and producer of AWE. “This year organizations like the United States Olympic Committee, NASA, Wayfair, Technicolor, Bosch, Boeing, 3M and Lowe’s will showcase how AR & VR solutions are changing their business. AWE 2017 is the place to be to see it all!”

In addition there are more than 200 exhibitors scheduled to be there, ranging from famous brands such as Sony, Unity and Samsung to innovative start-ups. Not only technical companies are represented, since the aim of the conference is to show how VR/AR can improve lives, there will be companies from industries such as healthcare, transportation, retail and manufacturing.

The winners of the Auggie Awards will be presented with the award at AWE USA 2017, which will be held on 31st May until 2nd June at Santa Clara Convention Centre. Nominations for the Auggie Awards can be submitted through the official AWE website.

VRFocus will continue to bring you news on the Auggie Awards and the AWE.