When it comes to jobs in the virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) industries there’s one position you’ll see repeated over and over again, Engineer. There are a multitude of different engineering roles depending on your experience and what you enjoy and the availability of these vacancies is growing. As you’ll see from the jobs below.
Don’t forget, if there wasn’t anything that took your fancy this week there’s always last week’s listings on The VR Job Hubto check as well.
If you are an employer looking for someone to fill an immersive technology related role – regardless of the industry – don’t forget you can send us the lowdown on the position and we’ll be sure to feature it in that following week’s feature. Details should be sent to Peter Graham (pgraham@vrfocus.com).
We’ll see you next week on VRFocus at the usual time of 3PM (UK) for another selection of jobs from around the world.
Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2, the company’s most recent smartglasses (or rather smartglass), was only available to partner companies when it launched in May 2019. Now Google is allowing its third-party hardware vendors to sell the headset direct to developers.
Glass had a rocky start in the world when it was first introduced in its 2013 Explorer Edition targeting early adopters and developers. Resultant ‘glasshole’ neologism notwithstanding, Google went on to revive Glass back in 2017 in its first Enterprise Edition headset, which targets a multitude of businesses including logistics, manufacturing, and field services. Now it seems the most recent version of Glass has fared well enough in the enterprise market that Google is now opening up sales to anyone with around $1,000.
Image courtesy Google
According to a Google blog post, the company has seen “strong demand from developers and businesses,” so it’s making Glass 2 available through their hardware resellers, which includes CDW, Mobile Advance or SHI.
Glass Project Lead Jay Kothari says that with the new availability of Glass 2, the company is also sharing new open source applications and code samples, which includes sample layouts and UI components so developers can independently start creating for Glass.
Unlike AR headsets such as Microsoft HoloLens, HoloLens 2, or Magic Leap 1, Glass can only track the users head movement via its 6-axis accelerometer/gyroscope, making it useful for tasks that can comfortably fit in its single-eye display, putting the smart glasses in stark contrast to more immersive, stereoscopic AR headsets that can track positional movement.
Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 includes a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 chipset running Android Oreo and 3GB of LPDDR4 RAM. Its single 8MP camera boasts an 80° field of view. Since its made for industry, its both water and dust resistant, and can clip onto a variety of frames, including an optional titanium band.
Out-of-Home entertainment, and Immersive Technology industry specialist Kevin Williams reports in his latest Virtual Arena column on the further growth in recognition that virtual reality VR is receiving from the Enterprise sector. Moving from entertainment, he now covers the major developments VR is having in shaping the future Education Technology scene.
The British Educational Training and Technology Show (BETT) was held last week at London’s ExCel exhibition convention centre – representing the leading trade event representing the Education Technology (EdTech) and training scene – drawing some 800 corporations to the event, that covered multiple halls of the London venue and attracted some 34,000 industry professionals. The latest trends including touchscreen, tablets, 3D Printing, programmable robotics and smart learning technology were presented.
Image credit: KWP
This column previously covered the 2018 BETT show and how VR was immerging as a possible EdTech trend – but with BETT 2020 the event cemented this movement, with a vast array of new developments and applications for this technology, and growth of previous early adopters.
Yet again, the biggest presence of VR at the show was from Avantis – the company had powered into VR and was one of the first to offer educators a dedicated package. Proving successful with its ‘ClassVR’, comprising a 3DoF mobileVR headset, combined with its software package – Avantis was celebrating over 1 million students having used the company’s ClassVR platform to-date – with over 30,000 classrooms operating the system across some 60 countries. A system that took much of what had been achieved with mobileVR in 2016 and packaged it into a reliable and compelling solution for the education sector, becoming a world leader deserving much more recognition.
Another exhibitor that has grown its investment into VR since our 2018 coverage was Redbox VR – providing a versatile and robust solution for schools to be able to field VR for education. Redbox VR has also partnered with the leading providers of VR based educational content. Fielding not only its own mobileVR powered headset but also working with the latest developments including from Pico.
The Redbox VR platform supports content such as the 360’ educational virtual trips using the Richo Theta camera. And part of the RiVR Link (“classroom in a Box”) offering a turnkey VR solution, and Google Expeditions platforms. But also revealing its partnering with MEL Science, provider of the ‘MEL Chemistry VR’ educational experiences; the group proudly promoting winning the prestigious BETT Award for 2020 – “innovator of the year”, for their work in this field.
Image credit: KWP
Some aspects of VR promotion had changes since our previous feature – Google though still heavily committed to the education sector had dropped its investment in VR headsets to focus on the content. As with the suspension of the Google Daydream VR system, no VR was represented on the corporations’ vast booth at BETT 2020, but the company was still fully committed to immersive education through their Google Expeditions platform – offering virtual field trips to students.
Likewise, the VR presentation on the Microsoft booth at the education show was muted – rather than the bewildering array of Windows MR headsets seen two years ago, the company promoted the virtual learning systems on only one provider, with the Samsung Odyssey on display giving an example of the education content. Along with seeing VR as a major educational tool, the corporation was also promoting the use of its videogame content as a teaching tool with ‘Minecraft Education Edition’ being played avidly on the stand. (“edutainment” a factor in the deployment of virtual education).
Image credit: KWP
There was no visible presence from Acer, Asus or Dell VR headset at BETT this year – but there was still much interest in VR as an educational platform. Lenovo has a major presence at the EdTech event, promoting its computer and tablet technology in schools – but along with this the corporation as grown its VR education operation, announcing recently a significant investment with their ‘Lenovo VR Classroom’ kit that supports the Lenovo Mirage Solo headset (schools having access to plug-n-play VR setup). Lenovo was presenting its technology on the booth with the Oculus Rift S (developed in partnership with Oculus), the system running educational content using CAD designs. The VR Classroom 2 platform looking beyond just mobileVR towards the high end of PC VR.
Image credit: KWP
Lenovo was also represented on other booths through the show, with Oculus Rift S headsets being put through their paces – these exhibitors chose to promote the application of VR through entertainment. The Unity booth showcased their educational content development – but also hoped to educate the educators towards what VR has to offer the future classroom, running on its booth an Oculus Rift S and Beat Saber. Another exhibitor using Beat Saber and the Oculus Rift S was Nutanix.
Image credit: KWP
No official Oculus presence was at the education showcase – but the corporation has been increasing its investment in Enterprise, and education and scientific development is a major part of this new interest. Only one Oculus Quest was seen in operation at BETT, on the Konica Minolta booth, the education service provider running the Quest as an example of how virtual lessons could reshape education.
Image credit: KWP
Another VR headset developer represented at BETT 2020 was HTC – residing on the Korean Pavilion at the show, the exhibitor VRANI promoted its ‘Kooring XR Coding Adventure’, a virtual experience created to help students in programming. The company brought examples of the virtual lesson running on the HTC Vive Cosmos, and the standalone HTC Vive Focus Pro headsets. The ‘Kooring XR Coding Camp’ offers innovative education through multiple users, employing “virtual textbooks”.
Image credit: KWP
On the HP booth, working in partnership with Intel, the company brought examples of its new HP Reverb headset as well as its new backpack PC – offering a new and immersive education platform for schools and colleges. The ability to utilize this platform to navigate the virtual environment in free-roam a growing application in design as well as education (not to mention also in location-based entertainment (LBE)).
HP also partnered on their booth with Springboard VR – a specialist in VR content distribution and commercial licensing that also provides a ubiquitous content management platform for commercial deployment. The company may be more familiar to readers for their presence in the VR arcade scene – but recently has promoted investment in VR education content, offering a VR content and management platform for schools, museums and libraries, offering the latest licensed virtual educational content. The company showing its latest virtual lessons on the HP platform during BETT.
Image credit: KWP
BETT 2020 had a much more international reach, and with that, the impact of VR from an international standpoint in EdTech was revealed. One such example was on The Norwegian Classroom booth at BETT which along with the promotion of advancements in the Norwegian education system, they were running demonstrations on the Lenovo headset – running the vreducation.no. This represented work by Norway University into utilizing VR to support mathematical assignments and offer a unique and compelling education tool.
The Sultanate of Oman – Ministry of Education was one of many that ran mobileVR headsets demonstrating the deployment in schools utilizing this innovative technology. Even the UK government represented VR in their marketing promotion for the hard work that the Department of Trade and Industries (DTI) did towards promoting the leading role that British developers have had in expanding this new area of EdTech.
Image credit: KWP
Exhibitors from across the UK and the globe all included VR applications hoping to find homes in the education system, with companies such as Entab InfoTech, Apelab, and Medicus XR. The ability to create compelling and immersive content was demonstrated by Flyover Zone Productions, using a mixture of drone footage and 360’ immersion had created ‘Rome Reborn’ – “a virtual field trip to Ancient Rome”. Created as mobileVR content offered to schools as a virtual field trip to a historic landmark, it offers an experience for the students that brings their history books to life.
Image credit: KWP
One of the many interesting exhibitors at BETT was a Chinese developer of a simple and effective Eyesight and Colour Blindness testing system. The company selling their units to be used in schools and hospitals, the simple test allows for the sight of both eyes to be tested in a quick and easy examination that supplies at the end a printed receipt, able to detect issues at a young age, quickly and effectively. With the deployment of so much virtual display technology, this kind of system seems a very sensible precaution.
Image credit: KWP
And finally, following on from our 2018 coverage, another speculation that immersive projected environments (representing another aspect of the virtual reality scene) would become a growing aspect of the education sector was proven by a plethora of new systems. Examples included several surface and floor projection system – as well as the use of motion-tracked projection walls for digital sports.
Image credit: KWP
In conclusion, it’s only the beginning of the year and already we have seen at CES, EAG and now BETT – enterprise applications of VR are at the forefront of sold investment. The direction of the virtual reality community has migrated from the niche of the consumer PC hyperbole and has started the long and productive lifecycle of achieving its true potential. Regarding its deployment in EdTech, the 2020 education sector seems to be working hard to find the best way to deploy this new tool in educating the future workforce.
Google revealed that its Stadia game streaming service will get at least 10 timed exclusives through the first half of 2020, with more than 120 games releasing on the platform this year.
Job Simulator originally launched for HTC Vive back in the first half of 2016, nearly four years ago, and is a great example of a game that’s easy to pick up and endlessly fun to play repeatedly. It has universal appeal with a sense of humor for all ages and requires very little in the way of tutorialization. In a lot of ways, it was VR’s truly first big hit back before headsets had even officially launched.
Since release it has also made its way to the Oculus Rift when Touch controllers released, the PSVR, and the Oculus Quest putting it on every major VR platform. Owlchemy Labs is also the developer of Rick and Morty: Virtual-Rickality and Vacation Simulator, two follow-ups that build upon the foundation laid in Job Simulator.
This is a massive sales milestone to reach. When compared to traditional non-VR video games, one million units is still seen as a huge success for non-AAA products, especially in the indie space. Few VR games have reached this point. Beat Saber revealed the number back in March of 2019 after its viral success and Sean Murray from Hello Games estimated that at least one million of his players had VR headsets already before No Man’s Sky got its VR update — counting the new copies that were sold it could likely be over that figure as well. Estimates also put around one million have played Resident Evil 7 in VR on PSVR, but it has sold far more copies overall as part of a massive Capcom AAA franchise that’s also playable outside of VR.
“We first developed Job Simulator as something that could only exist in VR. It was built for hardware that wasn’t yet available to consumers and was a very risky product.” says Owlchemy Labs CEOwl Devin Reimer in the company blog post. “Job Simulator going platinum shows that the consumer VR market is capable of generating huge hits. We’re delighted that Job Simulator has found a diverse audience that enjoys our game.“
Regardless of how you look at it, this is a big milestone. As VR continues to grow and reach mainstream adoption, expect to see more breakout success stories like this.
Facebook’s chief VR researcher revealed his belief that the tech giant will be the company to deliver next generation VR. In an interview with The Information he also warned that AR glasses could be as much as 10 years away from wide appeal.
Michael Abrash leads Facebook Reality Labs, the division of Facebook researching and developing future VR & AR technologies for use in next generation Oculus products.
AR Glasses: Still 5-10 Years Away
Most of the interview focused around the prospect of consumer augmented reality glasses, which some expect to arrive in the next few years. Abrash warned that compelling AR glasses are approximately five years out, and doesn’t expect the technology to reach even the “Blackberry stage” until 2030.
This is due to the difficulty of fitting a new display technology, as well as a tracking system and processing, into a lightweight pair of glasses — and somehow having an all day battery life. Such a new display technology will need to show near-opaque artificial imagery while still letting most real light through.
But “the hardest part”, according to Abrash, is developing an appropriate input system. Carrying a controller would be impractical and clunky for complex input, and it is unlikely that people will want to use voice commands in public or wave their hands around. From The Information article:
“In the long run, what you really want is your interface to work the way that your brain works with your perceptions now. Rather than you having to say, “OK, I want to hear this person,” imagine that when you’re in a noisy environment, your glasses detect that it’s noisy, they infer who are the people you’re talking to, and they pick that signal out. You don’t even know that it’s happened any more than I think about the fact that my glasses gather light rays in a way that lets me see better.“
Ultimately, however, when these technological barriers are solved, Abrash expects AR glasses to replace smartphones. But based on Abrash’s statements, this can’t happen until well into the 2030’s or perhaps even 2040.
Abrash acknowledged that other companies have the same understanding of the potential of AR glasses: “Everybody sees that AR will replace the phone someday.”
VR Headsets: High Confidence
When asked about the competition in the VR space, however, Abrash took a different tone, expressing a belief that Facebook invested significantly more than any other company, and that he can see “no other way” for true next generation VR to arrive than via his team’s research:
“No company has invested at anywhere near the level we have. When the next generation of VR shows up, it will be because we did it. I see no other way it’ll happen.
I actually am remarkably impressed with [Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg] and Facebook’s strong commitment to and belief in VR. Everybody sees that AR will replace the phone someday. That seems like a given. But I think that VR will be as important as AR. AR can replace the phone, but VR can replace the personal computer.”
Publicly available data indicates that Facebook currently controls around 50% of the PC VR market and the company currently faces no serious competition in the standalone VR space. According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company is selling Oculus Quests as fast as it can manufacture them.
Massive Investment In VR Research
This is, of course, a bold claim. Over the past few years, Facebook revealed deep research into the technologies required to advance virtual reality to a true next generation.
The only other company with a public showing of VR research anywhere near this scale is Microsoft. The company’s Windows MR virtual reality platform failed to gain traction with consumers and there is no indication of a second revision of the tracking platform or controllers. The head of the company’s gaming brand, Xbox, recently described VR as “not where our focus is.”
Valve and HTC provide competition to Facebook on PC. Valve’s hardware appeals to a smaller audience due to its $1000 price and HTC’s new $700 headset is stuck in a middle ground of having neither the affordability of the Rift S nor the innovation of the Index. The Steam Hardware Survey indicates that HTC’s headset failed to gain any traction at all.
So if Abrash is right and Facebook is the company which delivers true next generation VR, when will this be? To directly quote Abrash himself just four months ago: “not any time soon”.
At Oculus Connect 5 in 2018, however, he revised his timeframe. He stated that he expected some specifications to be higher than his predictions, but that it would arrive a year later than predicted.
“The honest truth is, I don’t know when you’re going to be able to buy the magical headset I described last year. VR will continue to evolve nicely, but my full vision for next generation VR is going to take longer. How much longer? I don’t know. Let’s just say not any time soon. Turning breakthrough technology into products is just hard.”
So while Abrash seems confident Facebook will be the company to deliver true next generation VR, if he’s right it may not be happen for another three years at least.
Another exhibitor that has grown its investment into VR since our 2018 coverage was Redbox VR – providing a versatile and robust solution for schools to be able to field VR for education. Redbox VR has also partnered with the leading providers of VR based educational content. Fielding not only its own mobileVR powered headset but also working with the latest developments including from Pico.
