The second-generation HoloLens, first unveiled at Mobile World Congress earlier this year in Barcelona, still doesn’t have a firm release date yet, although it appears that’s about to change pretty soon.
As reported by Reuters, Microsoft’s executive vice president Harry Shum took the stage at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai yesterday, saying that HoloLens 2 will go on sale sometime in September.
When asked to clarify Shum’s reported launch announce, Microsoft issued this statement to several outlets, including Engadget and Tech Radar:
“As we announced in February, Microsoft HoloLens 2 will begin shipping later this year. We have started collecting expressions of interest for HoloLens 2 preorders and, as part of our standard practice for gathering feedback, have shared near-final prototypes with some customers, but have not announced a date for general availability.”
Important to note is the company didn’t disavow the executive flub outright, which could mean Shum simply shared launch plans that weren’t cleared for a public audience. Considering Microsoft admits to having shared near-final versions of the headset with its earliest customers, at the very least it’s clear we’re getting very close to a general launch.
Image courtesy Microsoft
The company’s second standalone AR headset boasts a few important upgrades over the original, although it brings much more than just a bigger FOV. It has better ergonomics, better hand-tracking, better object interaction, and includes both eye-tracking and voice input. Check out our in-depth hands-on with HoloLens 2 for more.
Priced at $3,500, it’s doing all of that at a slightly higher price than the original, which launched in mid-2016 for $3,000. This of course puts both headsets well outside the reach of consumers, placing it squarely in the realm of the enterprise sector, although a general launch will undoubtedly bring HoloLens 2 into the hands of early developers eager to explore just what material benefits the company’s latest AR headset brings to the table.
Microsoft’s first-gen HoloLens, a device initially launched to developers in early 2016, has received its last major OS update, moving on to its Long Term Servicing (LTS) state.
The original HoloLens will continue to receive monthly servicing updates, although the company hasn’t detailed how long these will last.
At this point, if you’re looking for a growing feature set, the company’s upcoming $3,500 HoloLens 2 is your best bet, although it’s admittedly only available for pre-order at this time.
HoloLens (1st gen) is entering Long Term Servicing (LTS) state. Future updates will focus on issue and security fixes, while maintaining feature parity with the Windows 10 October 2018 release for HoloLens (also known as RS5).
Windows 10 October 2018 release brought a number of new features to HoloLens, including a quick actions menu, start/stop video capture, casting to Miracast-enabled devices, and a few more quality of life updates.
There’s still no broader launch date for its predecessor, HoloLens 2, although now with initial OpenXR support, it appears the new headset will be one of the first out the door to feature the new API, which boasts greater interoperability between VR and AR hardware, game engines, and content.
Microsoft is getting rid of its answer to Sketchfab and Google Poly early next year.
Remix 3D, the company’s online hub for storing 3D assets, will be ‘retiring’ on January 10, 2020. A message at the top of the site’s page confirms as much. In an FAQ, the company instead suggests users turn to its OneDrive platform as the “ideal platform for sharing your 3D models.” Microsoft hopes to “streamline our offerings in this space” with this move.
“Once the Remix3D.com site is no longer available, Microsoft will delete all user-generated 3D models and associated metadata from its systems,” the FAQ reads, “and users will no longer be able download it or request a copy of it from Microsoft.”
Microsoft launched Remix 3D as part of a Windows 10 update back in 2017. The platform allows users to store their own 3D assets online and have others download them via Paint 3D. The platform even featured a basic form of integration with Microsoft’s ‘Mixed Reality’ offerings. It let you project them into the real world using a camera connected to your PC.
Crucially, you could also take saved files and open them in Microsoft’s 3D Viewer app for its HoloLens augmented reality headset.
Microsoft encourages anyone still using Remix 3D to download models before the service closes. Uploads to the platform will come to a close on August 7, 2019.
There are, however, other 3D content libraries available online. Google’s Poly features creations made inside its Tilt Brush and Blocks VR software and Sketchfab features millions of creations viewable in VR and AR. Platforms like these will likely play an important role in the rise of spatial computing in the years to come. How Microsoft moves forward without its own take remains to be seen.
Auf Basis der Microsoft HoloLens hat das Nürnberger Unternehmen INCLUSIFY ein innovatives Wegeleitsystem für Museen und andere kulturelle Einrichtungen entwickelt, welches nun in der neuen Ausstellung “KIEZBEBEN” zum Einsatz kommt. Am 1. Juli fällt der Startschuss und wir konnten uns bereits heute einen Eindruck von dem Konzept verschaffen.
FC St. Pauli-Museum nutzt HoloLens als Inklusions-Technologie für Menschen mit Sehbehinderung
Foto: Sabrina Adeline Nagel
Die HoloLens von Microsoft kann nicht nur reale Räume mit virtuellen Objekten erweitern, sondern die Technologie kann auch eingesetzt werden, um Menschen eine Orientierung zu geben, welche unter einer Sehbehinderung leiden. Beim Wegeleitsystem wird dem Nutzer oder der Nutzerin durch dreidimensionalen Sound ein sicherer Weg durch die Ausstellung ermöglicht, ohne das zusätzliche Hilfsmittel nötig sind. Dazu werden zuvor die Räume des Museums gescannt und anschließend kann der Nutzer sich auf die Suche nach spannenden Inhalten begeben. Da jedoch viele Bilder und weitere Inhalte für Menschen mit Sehbehinderung nicht erfassbar sind, können an unterschiedlichen Punkten Beschreibungen der Inhalte abgerufen werden, welche die HoloLens akustisch ausgibt. Als Sprecher für die Inhalte konnte das Team Ex-Stadionsprecher Rainer Wulff gewinnen.
Die Idee klingt vielleicht relativ simpel, aber der Einsatzzweck ist extrem spannend, denn er inkludiert Menschen, welche ohne diese Technologie weitestgehend ausgeschlossen bzw. auf externe Hilfe angewiesen wären. Mit der HoloLens und der BLINDSPOTTER MR Anwendung von INCLUSIFY können auch blinde Menschen selbstständig die Ausstellung erkunden, ohne auf sehende Menschen angewiesen zu sein.
Aktion Mensch, FC St. Pauli AFM, KIEZHELDEN und die Beratungsstelle KickIn! haben die Entwicklung ermöglicht und ab dem 1. Juli kann unter blindspotter.kiezbeben.de gebucht werden.
Serdal Çelebi, Foto: Sabrina Adeline Nagel
Zwar können wir, da wir keine Sehbehinderung haben, uns schwer in die Situation eines Menschen versetzen, welcher unter dieser Einschränkung leidet, jedoch sagt Serdal Çelebi, Blindenfußballer und Tor-des-Monats-Schütze vom FC St. Pauli:
„Eine sinnvolle Technik und ein vielversprechender Anfang. Ich war überrascht, was das Gerät alles kann. Es reagiert sehr sensibel und erkennt auch kleine Bewegungen. Die 3D-Technologie in Verbindung mit der Stimme von Rainer Wulff kann ein echtes Highlight des Museums werden!“
Bleibt zu hoffen, dass sich auch andere Einrichtungen ein Beispiel am FC St. Pauli nehmen und ähnliche Investitionen wagen, um bestimmte Gruppen noch stärker zu inkludieren.
Yesterday at Mobile World Congress, Microsoft unveiled HoloLens 2, the company’s next iteration of its enterprise-focused standalone AR headset. Microsoft is coming strong out of the gate with its fleet of partners as well as a number of in-house developed apps that they say will make it easier for companies to connect, collaborate, and do things like learn on-the-job skills and troubleshoot work-related tasks. That’s all well and good, but is the HoloLens 2 hardware truly a ‘2.0’ step forward? That’s the question that ran through my mind for my half-hour session strapped into the AR headset. The short answer: yes.
Stepping into the closed off demo space at Microsoft’s MWC booth, I was greeted by a pretty familiar mock-up of a few tables and some art on the wall to make it feel like a tastefully decorated home office. Lighting in the room was pretty muted, but was bright enough to feel like a natural indoor setting.
Image by Road to VR
I actually got the chance to run through two HoloLens demos back-to-back; one in the home office, and another in a much brighter space with more direct lighting dedicated to showcasing a patently enterprise-focused demo built by Bentley, a company that deals in construction and infrastructure solutions. The bulk of my impressions come from my first demo where I got to run through a number of the basic interactions introduced at the HoloLens 2 reveal here at MWC.
Fit & Comfort
Putting the headset on like a baseball cap, I tightened it snug to my skull with the ratcheting knob in the back. Overtightening it slightly, I moved the knob in the opposite direction, eliciting a different click.
Although I’m not sure precisely how Microsoft arrived at the claim that it’s “three times more comfortable” than the original HoloLens (they say comfort has been “measured statistically over population”), it presents a remarkably good fit, sporting a low density replaceable foam cushion that comfortably rests the front weight on the top of the forehead. The strap, which is a firm but flexible material, wraps around to fit snugly under what Wikipedia scholars refer to as the occipital bone. Giving it a few good shakes, I was confident that it was firmly stuck to my head even without the need of the optional top strap. In the 30-odd minutes wearing HoloLens 2 over the course of two demos, it seemed to be a comfortable fit that could probably be worn for the advertised two to three hour active-use battery life without issue.
Once the device was on and comfy, I was prompted with a quick eye-tracking calibration scene that displayed a number of pinkish-purple gems that popped in and out of the scene when I looked at them, then I was set and ready to start HoloLensing.
Hand-tracking & Interactions
To my left sitting on the table was a little 3D model of a cartoony miniature city with a weather information display. Like at the on-stage reveal, moving my hand closer to the virtual object showed a white wire frame that offered a few convenient hand holds to grab so I could reposition, turn, and resize the virtual object. HoloLens 2 tracks your hands and individual fingers, so I tried to throw it for a loop with a few different hand holds like an a index finger & thumb grip and a full-handed claw, but the headset was unphased by the attempt; however I found more exaggerated grasping poses (more clearly discernible to the tracking) to be the easiest way to manipulate the room’s various objects.
Brightness
Suffice it to say that HoloLens 2’s optics work best when a room isn’t flooded with light; the better lit space predictably washed out some of the image’s detail and solidity, but it’s clear that the headset has bright enough optics to be acceptably usable in a variety of indoor environments. Of course, I never got the chance to step outside in the Barcelona sun to see how it worked in the worst possible condition—the true test of any AR display system.
Both demos had the headset at max brightness, which can be changed via a rocker switch on the left side. A similar rocker on the right side let me change the audio volume.
Image by Road to VR
A Fitting Hummingbird
With my object interaction handling skills in check, I then got a chance to meet the little hummingbird prominently featured in yesterday’s unveiling. Materializing out of the wall, the intricate little bird twittered about until I was told to put out my open hand, beckoning it to fly over and hover just above my palm. While the demo was created with the primary purpose of showing off the robustness of HoloLens 2’s hand tracking, I couldn’t help but feel that the little bird brought more to the table. As it flew to my open palm, I found myself paying closer attention to the way my hand felt as it hovered over it, subconsciously expecting to feel the wind coming off its tiny wings. For a split second my attention drew to a slight breeze in the room.
Microsoft’s Julia Schwarz demoing on-stage, Image courtesy Microsoft
It wasn’t a staged ‘4D’ effect either. I later noticed that the whole convention floor had a soft breeze from the building’s HVAC system tasked with slowly fighting against thousands of human-shaped heaters milling about the show floor. For the briefest of moments that little hummingbird lit up whatever part of my brain is tasked with categorizing objects as a potentially physical thing.
Haptics aren’t something HoloLens 2 can do; there isn’t a controller, or included haptic glove, so immersion is driven entirely by the headset’s visuals and positional audio. Talking to Microsoft senior researcher Julia Schwarz, I learned the designers behind the hummingbird portion of the demo loaded it with everything they had in the immersion department, making it arguably a more potent demonstration than the vibration of a haptic motor could produce (or ruin) on its own. It was a perfect storm of positional audio from a moving object, visually captivating movements from an articulated asset, and the prior expectation that a hummingbird wouldn’t actually land on my hand like it would with a Disney princess (revealing it for the digital object that it was). Needless to say, the bird was small enough—and commanded enough attention—to stay entirely in my field of view (FOV) the whole time, which helped drive home the idea that it was really there above my hand. More on FOV in a bit.
Both the hummingbird and general object interaction demos show that HoloLens 2 has made definite strides in delivering a more natural input system that’s looking to shed the coarse ‘bloom’ and ‘pinch’ gestures developed for the original HoloLens. What I saw today still relies on some bits that need tutorializing to fully grasp, but being able to physically click a button, or manipulate a switch like you think you should is moving the interaction-design to where it needs to be—the ultimate ‘anyone can do it’ phase in the future when the hardware will eventually step out of the way.
Eye-tracking & Voice Input
With my bird buddy eventually dematerialized, I then went onto a short demo created specifically to show that the headset can marry eye-tracking and voice recognition into a singular task.
I was told to look at a group of rotating gems that popped after I looked directly at one and said the word “pop!” My brief time with the eye-tracking in HoloLens 2 left me with a good impression; though I didn’t have a way to measure it, I’ve tried nearly every in-headset eye-tracking implementation spanning the 2015-era Fove headset up to Tobii’s new integration with HTC Vive Pro Eye).
Image courtesy Microsoft
The last portion of the demo had one of the most plainly practical uses I’ve seen for eye-tracking thus far: reactive text scrolling. A window appeared containing some basic informational text, and as I naturally got to the bottom of the window it slowly started to scroll to reveal more. The faster I read, the faster it would scroll. Looking to the top of the window, I automatically scrolled back up. It was simple, but extremely effective.
Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused articles series published every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate.
Earlier today, Jamie Feltham from UploadVR got the chance to go hands-on with the device and called it the first AR headset that he could actually see himself using, realistically. There are lots of contenders in the AR space now from Magic Leap to nReal, so it will be interesting to see how these devices grow and expand alongside one another.
I also find it interesting that Microsoft decided to go with the traditional “2” in the name rather than employing some other naming scheme such as they’ve done with Xbox (Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One) and especially since the original HoloLens never really evolved beyond just being a developer kit.
Now that we know a bit more about the headset and have seen it in action, what do you think? What are your thoughts on the HoloLens 2? Are you impressed with the design of it visually, with its specs, or something else? Or are you mostly disappointed? Do you plan on getting one as a developer, business owner, or even consumer?
Whatever you’re thinking, let us know down in the comments below!
At Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona today Microsoft unveiled HoloLens 2, the next iteration of the company’s standalone AR headset. While HoloLens 2 purportedly boasts a 2-3 our battery life and a 70 degree field of view—two times larger than the previous HoloLens—Microsoft’s onstage demo revealed a few more improved capabilities attested to the device, namely its hand-tracking, voice input, and eye-tracking.
Julia Schwarz, a senior researcher at the company’s Mixed Reality division, took the stage to show off some prototype software built to take advantage of HoloLens 2’s hardware capabilities. As with on-stage HoloLens demos past, footage was captured with an external camera which included mixed reality & depth-sensing hardware to better visually demonstrate how a user can interact with virtual objects in their physical environment.
First showing off its improved hand-tracking with a number of interactive virtual objects, Schwarz demonstrated HoloLens 2’s full hand models by ‘touching’ windows and objects to resize them, and turning them with a simple grabbing motion. Tickling the ivories of virtual piano and playing with a number of prototype selector switches and buttons, Schwarz underlined that HoloLens 2 is made for more physical interactions than its predecessor despite the notable lack of haptic feedback or motion controllers.
Ordering a far off browser window to “follow me,” Schwarz then showed how you could keep important windows close to you as you move about the room to do other tasks. Telling the headset to “show surprise,” a humming-bird appeared, darting around to then land on her open palm when prompted.
Finally, the AR headset’s eye-tracking had its time to shine as Schwarz scrolled through a browser window by simply looking at and then dictated a message using the command “start dictation,” and following with a string of text “the humming-bird looks great – exclamation point.”
We’re here at MWC 2019 and will be going hands-on with HoloLens 2 soon, so check back for more breaking news, previews and all things AR/VR.
Microsoft’s Mixed Reality ecosystem is soon to expand to another platform – smartphones.
The company announced this week that it’s bringing apps previously designed for HoloLens to iOS and Android. HoloLens is Microsoft’s AR headset. You slip on a pair of glasses that project virtual objects into the real world. The tech uses positional tracking to allow you to walk around and view virtual images as if they were physical objects. When the tech was first revealed in 2015 it was pretty revolutionary.
But, as time has moved on, everyday smartphones have become increasingly capable of doing what HoloLens does through their screens. Android’s ARCore and iOS’ ARKit both bring convincing AR to phones. To that end, Microsoft will soon publish Dynamics 365 Product Visualize as an iOS preview and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist as an Android preview.
Product Visualize is essentially a 3D model viewer. It lets sellers project their products into real-world spaces. It’s like that classic AR use case of projecting a virtual couch into the corner of your room before you buy the real one.
Remote Assist, meanwhile, is another much-touted use case. It allows people to call remote experts when using complex machinery. The expert is able to give on-screen instructions and walk you through the process.
Microsoft didn’t provide release dates for either app. Both are designed for professional use.
And, no, you shouldn’t take this is a sign that HoloLens itself is in trouble. In fact, we’re expecting Microsoft to announce HoloLens 2 at MWC in Barcelona next week. We’ll be there to check it out.
Object Theory is one of the oldest Mixed Reality companies around, having launched in June 2015, before the HoloLens had even started shipping. In many ways they’re your typical tech company – my demos are delivered in the familiar blueprint of a trendy open-plan office with exposed brick walls, which sits above a sushi restaurant – but it’s got a different vibe from a lot of similar start-ups.
For starters, they’re based in Oregon as opposed to Silicon Valley. And while Portland is by no means a backwater, it’s still not a major tech or immersive content hub like LA or San Francisco either. For another, its founders Raven Zachary and Michael Hoffman (who left Microsoft to start the company) operate a very profitable business (employing about a dozen people between full timers and contractors) with no investment capital. In spite of the fact we’re joking around and playing Angry Birds on Magic Leap, the whole thing feels very grown up, in the sense that these guys are in this for the long haul, and so, they reckon, is the business of making Mixed Reality.
A key enabler for Object Theory’s success has been Microsoft’s strategy for marketing, supporting, and developing Mixed Reality content for the HoloLens, which is why Zachary and Hoffman are enthusiastic in their praise for the company, and in particular of the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella. By pivoting toward the enterprise market early on, Microsoft managed to create strong and sustained demand for Mixed Reality tools among companies looking to solve real business needs. That, in turn, allowed their partner developers to secure key contracts as they figured their way around the new technology.
“It’s curious how the HoloLens originated with the Xbox team (its inventor Alex Kipman was also responsible for the Kinect) so there was this idea that it would be mainly a consumer product,” recalls Hoffman. “It was really interesting to see them pivot in that way and go mainstream towards enterprise and I think it was absolutely the right move for them to make.”
The other significant pivot Microsoft made in recent years, adds Zachary, was to move away from being hardware-centered to focusing on the cloud, marketing Azure’s ability to enable what they call ‘The Intelligent Edge’: “Microsoft is the only one of the large players that has actively decided to be a multi-platform company. They are actively embracing everything that’s relevant out there, and that makes sense, because they’re making cloud consumption more valuable if it works with everything that’s out there. Because of that we hope – and it would make sense – if they adopt an OEM for their Mixed Reality technology. Microsoft has this great patent portfolio and it would be great to take that amazing secret sauce of the HoloLens and license it out to their existing OEM partners like Dell or Samsung.”
Since the launch of Magic Leap One earlier this year, Object Theory has also started exploring the possibilities that the other platform brings, such as better eye tracking and support for finer and more nuanced gestural controls as well as the much-talked-about additional field of view:
“People tend to focus on the extra field of view, but part of it is just an illusion, because they just don’t let you see what is not there, it’s really a trick because the edges of your vision are restricted by the design of the Magic Leap One HMD,” explains Hoffman. “With that restriction, you never get that cognitive dissonance of having an open FOV and a restrained one at the same time, which is what you get with the HoloLens. But that said, everyone says that after a day or so of using the HoloLens your brain adapts to it and you just don’t notice it any more, so for me this is really not a major issue.”
They muse that Magic Leap probably waited too long to launch, so that by the time they did, people were both less awed by the technology, and had unrealistic expectations fueled by the company’s infamous cinematic concept videos.
“We in the industry knew that’s what we were going to get, but consumers felt let down because they didn’t realize the whale jumping in the school auditorium was a concept video, so for us the troll throwing a boulder was fine, but consumers – who weren’t going to buy the device anyway – felt let down,” says Zachary.
If we do get a sneak peek at the HoloLens 2.0 in Barcelona on the 24th, it will be over three years after it was first launched, so developers like Object Theory are keen to see an acceleration of that innovation cycle. Zachary and Hoffman believe that bringing competition is one way to achieve this, and that is where the real value of having Magic Leap enter the arena lies.
Although they haven’t deployed on Magic Leap yet, they’re hopeful that because every platform out there is investing in enabling Unity compatibility that enables them to develop cross-platform more easily. The challenge going forward, they anticipate, is that major tech companies are very used to owning their developer ecosystems outright.
“The challenge for Microsoft, Apple and Google is that they’re used to owning their developer ecosystems outright,” says Zachary, “so this is the sort of abstraction that I’m not particularly sure Apple and Google will buy into – but Microsoft might because they care about the cloud more than control over the developer ecosystem. I think ultimately for us, when an enterprise customer asks us if we can deploy on Magic Leap – which hasn’t happened so far – we’re ready and open to having that conversation. We’ve been saying all along we want more players, more competition. The more success we have in making this solve real challenges or even desires such as entertainment, the more it becomes meaningful, the pie gets bigger and there’s more opportunities for companies like us.”
The main question they’re asking themselves now is whether CIOs at Fortune 100 companies will want to invest in a start-up’s hardware solution or whether they’re by default going to go with a major player such as Apple or Microsoft.
“I don’t know the answer to that, we’re still leading with the HoloLens, it’s still our platform of choice, but we don’t know where that market is,” Zachary says, but Hoffman goes a bit further, outlining how Microsoft’s targeting of enterprise proved to be a smart move in rallying developers to the platform in spite of its relatively small install base.
“No matter how much money the investment in Magic Leap sounds, it’s still small compared to a company like Microsoft. They are a start-up,” says Hoffman, “And if I’m an enterprise I definitely want to take the Microsoft solution because even if they’re not perfect, they’ve been solving my business needs for a very long time,” he says, adding that while Microsoft might not be perfect, they’ve become very good at providing the services their enterprise customers want, and it was unlikely those customers would look elsewhere for them. In other words, Microsoft really isn’t going anywhere, where even a very well-funded start-up like Magic Leap could eventually run out of money and disappear without a trace. Given how risk-averse large corporations tend to be, it’s clear what an advantage Microsoft has here in continuing to develop that market.
Even after three years, a lot of the R&D behind the HoloLens still stands up well, such as the fact that the HMD allows users to wear their prescription glasses is a huge plus (Magic Leap’s design requires you to order and purchase a special insert for around $200) as is heat dissipation; “Magic Leap makes me sweat within minutes of putting it on,” Zachary says. Another feature where the HoloLens technology scores highly with the developer community is spatial audio, which is something that Microsoft invested heavily in getting just right.
“What I love about the spatial audio feature as a developer is that you literally just have to push a button and it works. The Algorithms fill in all the blanks for you,” Zachary enthuses. “The sense of presence with Prism (the Mixed Reality collaboration and productivity platform that Object Theory developed for the HoloLens) because of the spatial audio is amazing. I want to talk to the silly cartoon avatar because the sound makes it really feel like that person is in the room with me, it’s unbelievable.”
“So overall – and we asked a lot of other people about this too – the sense is that Magic Leap outperforms the HoloLens in a couple of areas, and does worse in others, but there isn’t this sense that the needle has been moved dramatically,” Hoffman adds. “We’re very curious to see how they position Mixed Reality in 2019 and to what extent HoloLens will be a core or ancillary part of that story, and whether we’re going to see OEM devices. The more partners out there building devices, the more this market is going to move forward. We were a bit early, but we’re true believers.”
We are pleased to announce that Zugara has been awarded a patent for Augmented Reality Collaboration. Earlier today, the USTPO issued patent #10,200,654 for Systems and Methods for Real Time Manipulation and Interaction With Multiple Dynamic and Synchronized Video Streams in An Augmented Or Multi-Dimensional Space. This patent is related to the method of sharing, collaborating and interacting with virtual objects through a synchronized chat or video conference experience.
“This patent outlines the technology and vision Zugara has had over the last 11 years in Augmented Reality development. When we first started in AR, we wanted to develop transformative AR technology that could evolve a solitary AR experience into a more collaborative and interactive experience” said Matthew Szymczyk, CEO of Zugara. “As technologies such as Skype, FaceTime and WebEx have made videoconferencing an everyday collaboration tool for businesses and consumers alike, this patented technology is the next evolution for how connected AR experiences become more social, interactive and collaborative.”
A few of the claims outlined in the ‘654 patent are related to:
Initiating a video chat or conference though an audio device, depth sensing camera, laser-based equipment, or a wave emitter and/or transmitter
Connecting multiple video chat or conference participants and multiplexing an augmented video stream within the connected chat or conference
Synchronizing virtual objects in a multiplexed video stream which allows participants to interact with the virtual objects
Synchronizing the interactions with the virtual objects between participants
Participants can interact with the synchronized virtual objects using gestures, voice commands or through tracked eye movement
For licensing inquires, you can Contact Us or email us at info(at)zugara(dot)com. You can also visit our IP section on Zugara.com for more information related to this patent and other Zugara IP.
About Zugara
Zugara is an Augmented Reality company based in Los Angeles, California. We create Augmented Reality and Computer Vision software that is focused on solving user interaction or industry specific problems. Zugara also has a growing patent portfolio specific to Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality and Computer Vision ecosystems.
