Category: Touch Surgery

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The VR Job Hub: Oculus, Facebook, Touch Surgery & More

Another Sunday and another edition of The VR Job Hub – and it seems I’m on for a hat trick with my third week in a row. As usual a return to The VR Job Hub means yet another selection of employment opportunities for you to peruse. All of which relate, in some way at least, to the fields of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and/or mixed reality (MR). After last week’s round the world trip we’re keeping things simple today with whatever the fates throw at us. Including roles at Oculus, Facebook and three recent roles from AR start-up Touch Surgery, which featured on VRFocus earlier this week.

Check out the list below to see if there’s something that sparks your interest.

Location Company Role Link
Lake Forest, CA, US Turtle Rock Studios Gameplay Programmer for VR Click here to apply
Raleigh, NC, US Downpour Interactive Game Designer Click here to apply
London, UK Touch Surgery QA Engineer (Platform) Click here to apply
London, UK Touch Surgery Senior QA Engineer (Mobile)  Click here to apply
London, UK Touch Surgery Senior QA Engineer with Performance Testing Experience (Platform)  Click here to apply
Gothenburg, Sweden EON Reality Software Engineer – Augmented and Virtual Reality  Click here to apply
Taipei, Taiwan HP Virtual Reality Solution Program Manager Click here to apply
Greater Memphis Area, TN, US St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – ALSAC Virtual Reality GUI Development & Design Click here to apply
Menlo Park, CA, US Oculus VR Automation Engineering Manager Click here to apply
Amsterdam, Netherlands Qualcomm Senior Computer Vision Engineer Click here to apply
Menlo Park, CA, US Facebook Data Scientist Intern, Oculus Click here to apply

 

If the above didn’t tickle your fancy remember you can always check out last week’s edition of The VR Job Hub which last week featured ten different jobs from ten different countries. Showing that no matter where you live there’s something in VR, AR or MR just around the corner. Likewise, don’t forget that if you are an employer looking for someone to fill an immersive technology related role – regardless of the industry – and you want that position to be featured on next week’s VR Job Hub, then please send details to myself via keva@vrfocus.com and also pgraham@vrfocus.com.

Check back with VRFocus next Sunday at 3PM GMT and every Sunday for the latest roles in the immersive technology industry.

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Touch Surgery Doubles Its Funding As It Looks To 2018

There have been many ongoing stories throughout the year for both augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), we mentioned just some of these earlier this week in a news post relating to how VR and AR are gaining momentum in academic circles, and how companies are using these new courses as a way to help gauge their own future on the platforms.
Another common thread throughout 2017 has been the continued development of VR, AR and mixed reality (MR) within the world of healthcare. As well as seeing how things continue to develop thanks to Dr. Raphael Olaiya’s ongoing feature series The VR Doctor on VRFocus, late last month we featured a story about how surgeons from three different continents had combined on a procedure using Microsoft’s Hololens headset.

Now another company developing a similar technology has revealed a new influx of funding as they look to take the next step in bringing the two fields mentioned above, healthcare and education, together.

At the beginning of the year London based start-up Touch Surgery, which also operated out of New York, revealed they were working on a new AR platform in partnership with smart glasses manufacturer DAQRI. (DAQRI itself recently revealed its latest line of smart glasses were shipping to customers.) Now they have revealed a new line in funding in part from 8VC, an American venture capital company whose founders also invested in Oculus before it was bought by Facebook back in 2014. The investment of £15 Million (GBP) doubles its funding to date and sees it well placed going into 2018 which will also see it launch a new training app called Go Surgery which will give medical trainees a step-by-step guide to various procedures using AR.The app is set to undergo trials in facilities on either side of the Atlantic next year.

“We found that tens of thousands of people were downloading the app. We started out trying to build a technology that we would use. We wanted to know how we could train and perform surgery better.” Explained Dr. Jean Nehme, the co-founder of Touch Surgery to the UK’s The Telegraph newspaper. “It is early days for this technology but we are very bullish on how augmented reality and virtual reality are going to be key technologies in the operating room of the future.”

Touch Surgery was recently announced as one of LinkedIn’s top UK start-up companies for 2017 and was also named by FirstCapital’s Hazel Moore as one of the UK’s top five British VR/AR companies in an article on VRFocus earlier this year. VRFocus will have more news on the developments in the medtech space very soon.

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Hazel Moore: Top 5 British VR/AR Companies

The UK, historically strong in the gaming and creative industries, has a leading role to play in the VR landscape in Europe, and has the largest number of up and coming VR companies of any European country, as featured in the recently launched European VR Landscape (available on www.thevrfund.com) published by the VR Fund and LucidWeb.

Here is my take on 5 of the most interesting companies in the UK in VR/AR:

Improbable:

In 2015 Andreessen Horowitz, an A-lister in Silicon Valley venture capital terms, invested $20mn in a little known UK firm called Improbable, only the second deal the firm had ever done in the UK. Improbable was developed by two computer scientists from Cambridge University, and has developed SpatialOS, which is a platform for third parties to build massive virtual and simulated worlds. The alpha version of the platform was launched in late 2016, and we expect a beta version in 2017.

Improbable

Ultrahaptics:

Ultrahaptics is a Bristol based company that is making waves, literally. It uses ultrasound technology to project sensations through the air, enabling the user to “feel” virtual objects without needing to wear or touch anything. The company is a spin out from Bristol University, and raised £10mn from Woodfood funds in 2015. Applications include things like changing the in car infotainment system with just a press of a virtual button in the air.

Ultrahaptics

Touch Surgery:

Touch Surgery, backed by Balderton Capital, was founded by surgeons to help provide surgical training via powerful software applications. With more than 200 apps and more than one million users worldwide, it provides medical students with a cost effective and safe practice environment BEFORE they start practising on people and wielding a sharp knife. In 2017 at CES Touch Surgery announced that it has made this content available for augmented reality platforms such as Hololens and Daqri.

Touch Surgery

Blippar:

Blippar is certainly the most high profile of the UK’s VR/AR start-ups. In 2016 it raised $54mn, reportedly at a valuation of $1.5bn, taking the total raised to almost $100mn. Founder Ambarish Mitra is on a high, having won the EY UK Entrepreneur of the Year in 2016. Recent signs are less positive, with the company cutting staff as losses widen, but the roster of clients who advertise through the platform includes some stellar global names.

Blippar-Header

Curiscope:

Curiscope has raised just $120k through crowdfunding, yet its VR film Great White Shark on YouTube has racked up an astonishing 16mn views. It has also developed the Virtuali-Tee, a £24 t-shirt available from the company’s website (currently out of stock), which, in combination with a smartphone, allows you to see “through” the t-shirt and view the wearer’s guts, heart, lungs and kidneys in graphic pulsating 3D. Biology lessons will never be the same again! Founder Ed Barton was named one of Forbes’s 30 under 30 in Europe for 2017.

Curiscope

There are undoubtedly many more great VR/AR companies in the UK, and the outlook is bright. The UK is fertile ground for large corporates looking to acquire talent in the VR/AR space. Facebook has made a number of acquisitions of UK companies, including Surreal Vision and Two Big Ears, while Snapchat snapped up Seene/Obvious Engineering, and Two Trees Photonics was sold to Daqri. Success breeds success, and Facebook has been expanding its UK team with further investment. In addition the pipeline of future talent is being nurtured more formally through two new accelerator programmes which have been launched in recent weeks to work with AR and VR start-ups:

* In February 2017 the Digital Catapult, which is funded by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency launched an accelerator programme called Augmentor for VR, AR and mixed reality start-ups in the UK, in partnership with Seedcamp (augmentor.co.uk). Successful companies will have access to an enviable list of mentors to provide advice and experience to help companies become successful.

* Meanwhile Barclays has teamed up with Creative England to create Barclays Eagle Flight Lab (https://labs.uk.barclays/flight), a 12 week accelerator programme in Brighton to work with start-ups in the creative industries, including VR and AR, which will run from March –May 2017.

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Google Daydream Keynote Announced for Wearable Technology Show

This year’s Wearable Technology Show, London, will be lead by a keynote from Google’s Greg Ivanov, Business Head for Google Daydream, it has been revealed today. Taking place 7th – 8th March 2017, at London ExCel, the event will focus on digital health with 200 speakers and over 100 exhibitors showcasing the latest innovations in smart technology.

Daydream-View-Colours

The fourth Wearable Technology Show, the event is co-located with the AR, VR & MXR Show, IOT Connect and the brand new Digital Health Technology Show, making it Europe’s biggest event for wearables, AR & VR, IOT and connected technology.

Speakers already confirmed for 2017 include Vincent Nida, Global Brand President at L’Oreal, Rachel Murphy, Digital Delivery Director at NHS Digital, Steve Moore, Director of Connected Home for Dixons Carphone and as stated above, Greg Ivanov, Business Head, Google Daydream.

100 exhibitors from more than 20 countries will be on the show floor, many of which will never have been seen before in Europe. With regards to virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), these include the VR-ready MyndBand EEG Brainwave headset which allows users to control, influence and interact with videogames, apps and movies using their mind and emotions, the Navdy AR HUD, GlassUp AR smartglasses, Touch Surgery’s haptic surgery simulation devices, and Proximie, an AR platform designed to give support to surgeons from anywhere in the world.

Touch Surgery image

“The Wearable Technology Show continues to grow from strength to strength, breaking new boundaries in terms of our global audience, reach and content each year,” commented COO John Weir. “The launch of the Digital Health Technology Show for 2017 is particularly exciting for visitors: digital health is one of the most innovative, ground-breaking and, literally, life-changing areas of smart technology.”

Registration for this year’s Wearable Technology Show is now open on the event’s official website, http://www.wearabletechnologyshow.net/home. VRFocus will keep you updated with any further VR and AR additions to the line-up.

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Touch Surgery Launches AR Platform in Partnership with DAQRI

When advancing medical science researchers utilise the very latest technology, that includes virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Recently Touch Surgery, a specialist in mobile surgical simulation platforms, has partnered with AR specialist DAQRI, to launch a new immersive surgical training app.

Aimed at providing users with the means to perform next to ‘real life’ surgical procedures, the development brings AR into the operating room allowing surgeons to practice surgery in a virtual operating room on a virtual patient, with the aim of improving access to high quality surgical care globally.

Touch Surgery image

“Our mission is to power the educational platform that trains surgeons and enables greater global access for safe surgery,” said Touch Surgery co-founder and CEO Jean Nehme, M.D. “To date, we have delivered our content to surgeons via mobile devices in preparation for entering the OR. Our latest developments in augmented reality platforms allows us to extend our support to the surgeons across the world.

“Our ability to deliver procedural content to wearable devices is a major step in fulfilling our mission to be a key resource for surgeons along the pathway from resident to attending.”

While Brian Mullins, founder and CEO at DAQRI commented: “There’s no denying that with the help of technology like DAQRI Smart Glasses, medical training globally is vastly improving. No longer do surgeons need to refer to outdated books or medical journals – they can learn the process of a surgical procedure in an almost ‘real life’ scenario, and then receive feedback. By partnering with Touch Surgery, we are able to help surgeons practice their skills, learn new ones and ultimately enhance the worldwide access patients have to quality medical care.

“We believe that DAQRI Smart Glasses are the ideal device for the surgical theatre and are excited about the possibilities that AR and VR bring to the healthcare industry in providing an interactive training platform for the medical professionals of tomorrow, but also the opportunity to refresh the knowledge of those working in the industry today.”

To date Touch Surgery has digitized over 225 surgical procedures, and made them available to a community of over 1.5 million users. Additionally, the Touch Surgery Virtual Residency Program (VRP) is now being used in over 25 training programs to support formal training globally.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of AR and VR advancements in medicine, reporting back with any further announcements.