Extended Reality (XR) - Page 75

Virtual reality and augmented reality hardware and software products are changing the way users interact in the living room and at the PC. The Oculus Rift, Avegant Glyph, and smart glasses might get a lot of the attention from gamers, but VR and AR create potential for so many business and enterprise apps.

Smart glasses are being used as training tools for industry decision makers trying to embrace new technologies and cut prices, as the military, medical, and biotech companies show interest in VR.

As VR hardware continues to evolve, the bundled software also provides great opportunities for consumers and business users. Sixense's MakeVR 3D modeling software, which needs a 3D multi-touch interface, pushes the boundaries of the type of software that can be developed in the future. The MakeVR Kickstarter reached $56,000 of its $250,000 goal just three days after launch.

There will be 28 3D movie releases in 2014, which is a continued slide in overall releases with consumers showing less interest in the pricier movie experience. A recent industry analyst believes 3D movies will capture just 39 percent of box office revenue in 2014, which would be the lowest ratio sales comparison in more than five years.

A recent Harris Poll study found that 69 percent of American movie goers believe 3D is only so movie studios and theaters can charge more for movie tickets.

For the past few years, there was interest from movie theaters want more expensive 2D films, with 3D movie prices lowering slightly, to generate new interest. However, that technique wisely wasn't rolled out, though 3D movie box office sales figures still disappoint.

Paramount Pictures will release a 3D version of "Noah," but it will not be available in the United States, as the studio hopes to generate added revenue in 65 foreign markets.

"Noah" won't be available in 3D for U.S., U.K., Australian and French markets, with the audience expected to embrace "the combination of the pedigree of the director and the cast and the dramatic elements of the story," The Hollywood Reporter learned.

Although 3D technology has piqued interest in movie goers and consumers, they are still rather unwilling to pay even more for 3D in the theater - and don't trust 3D HDTVs at home quite yet. It will be revealing to see which movies are released in 3D while at the theater and which geographic markets are targeted.

Annual revenues from mobile augmented reality technology will eclipse $1.2 billion by 2015, according to Juniper Research, as the market continues to evolve at a rapid pace.

The mobile AR market reached just $180 million in 2013, as consumers and businesses become more familiar with mobile applications and services available. Specifically, video games, which accounted for 40 percent of AR downloads last year will help drive the industry in 2014 and 2015, respectively, though entertainment, lifestyle, and enterprise AR also is slated to increase.

As more companies appreciate the importance of mobile technologies, brands such as Nestle, Heinz, Uniliver, and other major corporations want to use AR to engage customers.

By now most of you know that I live, eat, breath and sleep 3D printing, and its a hobby that I have enjoyed for the better part of a decade now. A few months ago during an interview with Sixense CEO, Amir Rubin, I was let in on a little project they were working on called MakeVR. Then just a few weeks ago at CES 2014 I had the chance to take a private demo of this software, and it turned my idea of 3D modeling for 3D printing upside down. Today Sixense launched the crowdfunding campaign for MakeVR on Kickstarter.

If Sixense's STEM system revolutionized the way we play games in Virtual Reality, then MakeVR will forever change the way we model 3D objects using VR. MakeVR is being billed as the worlds first immersive 3D modeling application that makes content creation for 3D printing natural, intuitive, and most importantly, fun! Over my years in the hobby, I have used or tried to use just about every 3D modeling program out there, and what I found is that many programs require a degree from a university just to be able to create anything more complex than a cube or sphere. With MakeVR things are so simple and natural that a kid can use the program to create very complex objects with little instruction.

With traditional 3D modeling programs, users have to deal with a mouse and keyboard interface. While this is OK for typical computing and gaming, when it comes to manipulating designs in 3 dimensional space a mouse and keyboard become a hindrance on fluid and dynamic creation. When talking to people about MakeVR I like to compare it to the way Tony Stark manipulates his designs and models in the Iron Man movies. You really do get to just grab the model out of thin air, and mold it into anything you imagination can come up with. In the image below, you will see a sort of cartoonish fire hydrant. In a normal modeling program this would take hours to build, but I watched the model for that hydrant built-in literally less than 20 minutes.

During an interview with USA Today, John Carmack said that before he joined virtual reality outfit Oculus, he proposed a deal to both Oculus and ZeniMax Media - the parent company of id Software.

Carmack said that he would've joined the worlds of of ZeniMax's games, like the upcoming Wolfenstein: The New Order and Doom 4 to the Oculus Rift. Carmack said: "It would have been a huge win. It seemed like a sensible plan for me". The companies couldn't make an agreement though, which left Carmack "really sad," to which he added: "When it became clear that I wasn't going to have the opportunity to do any work on VR while at id Software, I decided to not renew my contract".

Since November last year Carmack has been working full-time at Oculus VR, where he developing games for the Rift.

During an AMA (Ask Me Anything) post on Reddit, President of Sony Online Entertainment, John Smedley, all but confirmed the existence of a Sony-made virtual reality headset. During the AMA, Smedley was asked about possible future support for the Oculus Rift pertaining to the upcoming Everquest Next game, and his reply more than hinted at the existence of a Sony-branded VR Headset competitor to the Rift.

"Hearing good things about 2 competitors... one of which actually comes from Sony. So I'm thinking this is real and we may have our Snowcrash (a book about a VR based internet by Neal Stephenson) after all." was Smedley's reply. While rumors of a Sony VR Headset have been circling for months now, this is the first word on the matter from someone high up in Sony's management. Since Smedley runs SOE, he would be the person to know if such a headset exist, and exactly how much he could divulge on the matter.

With Oculus making huge leaps forward with its Rift headset, Sony has some tough shoes to fill in making a VR headset that people will actually use. Lets hope they listen to the wealth of feedback available online about the Oculus Rift Developers Kit, and include at minimum; 1440P resolution, and wireless operation. If Sony is going to enter this market, then they need to step out of the dugout with their best foot forward and swing for the fences on the first pitch, otherwise, a VR Headset from Sony will not survive the game Oculus is already dominating.

Automaker Ford is using the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset to aid in development of new cars, including vehicle color, materials, design, and possible modifications. Ford reportedly is using three systems in Detroit, and plans to expand the next-generation engineering platform to new facilities in the near future.

Working inside a 3D program, engineers are able to visualize vehicles while manipulating the environment to make improvements. Ford worked with Vicon, a company specializing in motion-capture technology, which captures engineer position and orientation from installed motion-capture video recorders.

Each system has an estimated cost of about $30,000, making it a fairly affordable design platform that has great potential for Ford - and other automakers will certainly follow Ford's progress.

Companies are testing the potential of 3D printed food in what could evolve into one of the biggest 3D market segments moving forward. During the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, a number of different companies showed off 3D printing technology, including several food-based products.

There are a number of different types of 3D-printed foods currently in various phases of development, and it will be an industry to watch in the future.

Chocolate maker Hershey's also teamed up with a 3D company to produce 3D printed chocolate, which will be a major draw for the company's gift shop. Cornell Creative Machines Lab has developed printers that can dough-based corn chips, while sugar candies also are available courtesy of 3D Systems' Chefjet.

The United States market for augmented reality is expected to grow by 30 percent per year until 2018, as more users become familiar with AR products, according to TechSci Research. Moving forward, the video game industry will push AR forward and will usher in a new era of consumer AR product development.

Although relatively new to the consumer market, government defense contractors have the largest market share - and continue to push forward with the demand of new head-mounted displays (HMD) HUDs. In 2012, California, Colorado, Oregon, Texas, Massachusetts, Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois dominated the market by pushing demand.

In United States HMDs and HUDs market, Delphi Automotive, Denso Corp., Johnson and Controls, BAE Systems and Rockwell Collins are currently the leading market players,"said Karan Chechi, TechSci Research's Director, in a statement. Google, Vuzix, Ad-Dispatch and Layar are the major players in AR smart glasses and apps market, however, with the growing shipments of smartphones and tablet PCs, other players such as Sony, Microsoft and Oakley are expected to make significant contributions over the next five years."

We've learnt quite a lot from Valve's developer-only Steam Dev Days conference, with VR being the focus of the second, and last day of the event. Oculus VR's founder, Palmer Luckey, was a key guest for its VR discussions, where he teased the future of VR.

Luckey said: "Valve's VR tech is the best virtual reality demo in the world right now". This is quite a statement from Luckey, considering his company just received $75 million in Series B funding for Oculus Rift. The specifications of what Valve and Oculus expect from a consumer VR headset for 2015 are very, very promising:

Feasible 2015 consumer HDM

Valve pushed an updated version of Steam into the warm hands of gamers across the world yesterday, but most don't realize that this is actually quite a milestone for the world of virtual reality, or VR.

The latest version of Steam allows you to use a VR headset, such as the Oculus Rift, with Steam's Big Picture interface. Big Picture was originally made for the living room, but with a VR headset on, the interface has a curved screen which hovers in front of your viewpoint, where you can see all of it between games.

This is an interesting development, considering Steam Dev Days starts today. Steam Dev Days will see Valve embrace the world of VR, with rumors of the company unveiling its own VR headset. I don't think we'll see that, but more of a close embrace of all companies working on VR, such as Oculus VR. We should also see Oculus VR's Palmer Luckey on-hand at the event, but unfortunately, no press are invited to the event.

The fascination surrounding augmented reality will yield countless potential users in the consumer and enterprise markets, with AR adoption on the rise, businesses can use the budding technology to complement and enhance internal business processes, according to the Gartner research group.

Using AR to help identify potential workplace hazards, for example, could lead to a safer and more productive office or production facility. Location-based and computer aided vision is still developing, and it will take time for business to jump onboard, but there is great potential in the years to come.

"AR is most useful as a tool in industries where workers are either in the field, do not have immediate access to information, or jobs that require one or both hands and the operator's attention," said Tuong Huy Nguyen, Gartner principal research analyst, in a media statement. "As such, the impact on weightless industries is lower because these employees often have constant and direct access to the information they need (such as knowledge workers)."

Smart glass manufacturer Vuzix has entered a manufacturing partnership with a tier 1 partner to develop a new generation of see-through smart glasses. The undisclosed partner hasn't been announced, but the prototypes will use the Vuzix see-through optics engine, with the first phase to be completed in 2015.

Manufacturers are trying to develop new smart glasses that closely resemble designer eyewear, but additional research and development time is necessary.

"Many analysts and industry executives are expecting this space to exhibit continued rapid growth," said Paul Travers, Vuzix President, in a press statement. "This was evident at CES last week. With the anticipated growth in this sector, those wearable products that address the real needs of the customer stand to garner the largest market share."

Television manufacturer IZON quietly showed off its own 3D high-definition TV capability during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), preparing consumers for glasses-free 3DTVs. The company unveiled 32-inch, 47-inch, and 55-inch 3DTVs that won't require glasses, which will be available to consumers sometime in the first half of 2014.

"IZON 3D TVs without glasses received an unprecedented response to its product line," said Joseph DiFrancesco, CEO of 3D Future Vision, which develops IZON TVs, in a press statement. "We experienced nothing but praise for the unparalleled picture quality of our products and look forward to executing our plans for a global roll-out during the coming year and beyond."

IZON used its HyperMix3D rendering technology to enjoy the hardware benefits of multi-core GPUs, and made sure to include a full 3D experience with minimal eyestrain.

CES 2014 - Oculus VR unveiled its latest prototype Rift headset at the Consumer Electronics Show 2014 a few days ago, with a new 1920x1080-resolution, AMOLED-based display on-board. Not only that, but it had positional tracking abilities, which lifts it to an entire new category.

The new codenamed Crystal Cove headset took out the 2014 Best of CES prize, and rightly so, it sounds like a kick-ass upgrade to the already awesome product. It should only be success for Oculus from here on out, which has secured Doom and Quake god John Carmack, nearly $100 million in funding, with its latest funding round securing $75 million.

CES 2014 - Tom Forsyth, ex-Valve software engineer, joined Oculus VR in May last year, where he is now working as a software architect for Oculus VR's virtual reality headset, Rift.

Forsyth has just announced via Twitter that "we're showing the latest Rift kit at CES. Should be pretty interesting. I'm looking forward to the feedback". We should expect the new HD Prototype, which includes a 1920x1080-pixel display inside the Rift. The new Rift prototype should have its latency reduced, down from 60-70ms to just 10-20ms.

We know that there's a new Rift prototype to be unveiled at CES 2014 in just a few weeks, with the new VR headset having a reduced latency of between 10-20ms, down from the original developer kit, which has a latency of 60-70ms.

Better yet, is that Oculus CEO, Brendan Iribe, spoke with VentureBeat, where he talked about the latency: "When you put it on - the latest internal prototype, which is what Marc Andreessen and his team saw - it's a completely different experience from the previous versions. The latest one finally ties it all together. There's this switch in your head. Your brain, instead of feeling like you're looking through a VR headset, suddenly feels like you're just looking through a pair of glasses into another reality. It's much more comfortable."

He added: "We got our developer kits - the prototype that you saw way back when, at the last CES - running at about 60 to 70 milliseconds. Our most recent internal prototype is now between 10 and 20 milliseconds. Less than 20 [milliseconds] flips the switch and you cross that threshold where the brain feels comfortable with it. You're not reminded you're looking at a computer device."

Oculus VR has just secured itself $75 million in Series B funding, with a new lead investor: Andreessen Horowitz. Marc Andreessen is now stepping up to the Oculus board, as well as his partner, Chris Dixon.

What coerced them into investing into virtual reality? Well, Oculus has shown off a new Rift headset, which is said to have solved a lot of the problems that the original Rift headset included. What Andreeseen and Dixon saw, is what the world will see at CES 2014 in just a few weeks time: a brand-new Rift headset, which has a higher resolution, lower latency, and takes away the motion blue of the original Developer Kit.

Over the past year, Oculus has seen John Carmack of id Software, Doom and Quake fame join the team as its Chief Technology Officer, and now this additional funding, virtual reality is ready to be propelled into the hands of consumers across the world in 2014.

One of the more interesting companies working with Oculus VR's Rift headset, is Autodesk. The developer has held its Autodesk University in Vegas, where it showed off some impressive Rift projects to the crowd.

Autodesk noticed one thing about Rift: it "generates buzz, draws crowds around your booth, with people waiting in line just for the chance to look at your product or service. If your business does trade shows, Arch Virtual can definitely help build a Rift app for your next show." Better yet, when you actually want to show someone your product within Rift, it gets even better.

Autodesk teases: "We could even place the viewer on an animated path that shrinks them down to travel directly inside a massive version of your product. The opportunity to tell a story and show off the best features your product or service has to offer is a tremendous, unprecedented opportunity." This is a big selling point of the Rift, is that it creates the world for you - something you simply cannot do on a computer screen, or a TV.