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Die US-Arzneimittelbehörde FDA hat eine Zulassung für eine VR Therapie erteilt, mit der sich der häufigste Grund für Sehschwäche bei Kindern kurieren lässt.
Virtual Reality wird in verschiedenen Therapien bereits eingesetzt. Neu hat die US-Arzneimittelbehörde FDA eine Zulassung für eine VR Anwendung erteilt, welche Schwachsichtigkeit bei Kindern (Amblyopie) mittels VR therapieren kann. Amblyopie heisst das Phänomen, das bei fünf bis sechs Prozent aller Menschen auftritt, auf einer unzureichenden Entwicklung des visuellen Systems während der frühen Kindheit beruht und im schlimmsten Fall zu Blindheit führen kann.
Die Sehschwäche entwickelt sich, wenn das Hirn und die Augen nicht wie vorgesehen zusammenarbeiten: Das Hirn beginnt, eines der beiden Augen vorzuziehen, wodurch das andere Auge dauerhaft eine schwächere Sicht entwickelt. Die Ursache der Amblyopie ist folglich neuronaler Natur und es liegt keinerlei organischer Schaden vor.
Bisherige Therapieansätze setzen auf spezielle Brillen, Augenklappen oder Augentropfen, die ein Sehen mit dem stärkeren Auge verhindern, sodass das Hirn lernt, beide Augen einzusetzen. Wegen sozialer Stigmatisierung und Nichteinhaltung der Therapie ist diese Methode allerdings häufig ineffektiv.
VR Brille statt Augenklappe
Das 2015 gegründete Unternehmen Luminopia hat eine Therapie entwickelt, die auf mehr Akzeptanz seitens betroffener Kinder stossen dürfte: Die kleinen Patienten setzen sich eine VR Brille auf und schauen Fernsehsendungen und Filme. Ein Algorithmus passt die Bilder der beiden Linsen optisch so an, dass das schwächere Auge mehr gefordert wird.
Die Therapie sieht eine einstündige Nutzung pro Tag, an sechs Wochentagen und während zwölf Wochen vor. Genügend Videomaterial ist vorhanden: Kinder können aus über 700 Stunden unterhaltsamer und lehrreicher Inhalte wählen.
Diese Woche gab Luminopia bekannt, dass die VR Therapie von der US-Arzneimittelbehörde FDA zugelassen wurde und damit Kindern zwischen vier und sieben Jahren verschrieben werden darf. Es ist laut Luminopia die erste digitale Therapie für eine neuro-visuelle Störung und Kinder mit Amblyopie.
Klinische Studien zeigen Wirksamkeit
Entwickelt wurde die VR-Therapie gemeinsam mit Ärzten und Ärztinnen sowie Forschenden des Boston Children's Hospital und des Picower Institute for Learning and Memory am MIT. Für die Inhalte hat Luminopia Verträge mit Sesame Workshop, Nelvana und Millimages geschlossen.
Der Zulassung sind mehrere klinische Studien mit positiven Ergebnissen vorausgegangen, wobei die Phase-3-Studie in der Fachzeitschrift Ophthalmology erschienen ist. «Diese Studie ist die erste erfolgreiche randomisierte kontrollierte Studie einer neuen Amblyopie-Therapie seit mehr als zehn Jahren und die erste, die die Wirksamkeit eines neuartigen binokularen Ansatzes belegt», schreibt Luminopia.
An der Studie nahmen 105 Kinder mit Amblyopie teil. Eine Hälfte der Kinder nahmen eine Brille mit nach Hause, die das Auge abdeckte, die andere Hälfte Luminopias VR Brille. Bei letzterer Gruppe waren schon nach vier Wochen Verbesserungen in der Sehfähigkeit festzustellen. Nach dem Ende der zwölfwöchigen Therapie zeigte sich ein signifikanter Unterschied beim Sehvermögen zwischen den beiden Gruppen.
Die VR Therapie soll 2022 starten. Erste Pilotstudien des Unternehmens haben gezeigt, dass die Behandlung auch bei Erwachsenen anschlägt. Luminopia will nun auch VR-Therapien für andere neuro-visuelle Störungen entwickeln.
Quelle:
XR Today explores three simple methods for firms to benefit the most from Meta's VR hardware
Oculus parent company Meta is the market leader in virtual reality (VR) solutions due partly to the massively-popular Quest lineup of standalone headsets.
Meta shook up the VR landscape after it acquired Oculus in 2016 and once again by rebranding itself as 'Meta' in late October this year.
The change reflects the firm's new vision towards developing the unified and shared global platform for 3D immersive experiences known as the Metaverse.
At this year's Connect event, Meta revealed many new technology plans and teased several platforms aimed at improving VR communication in the near future.
The Menlo Park-based firm also remains committed to providing enterprise-grade collaboration software via its umbrella of social applications and immersive products.
For example, a recent partnership between Meta and Microsoft boosted worker engagement by integrating Teams into Meta Workplace, the latter's 2D collaboration platform for businesses.
XR Today takes a closer look at the three key steps needed to utilise Meta's VR enterprise solution.
Choosing the Right Application
For enterprises, there are a range of applications available on the Quest storefront to provide VR immersive environments for remote working.
The first, Horizon: Workrooms, is Meta's collaboration application purpose built for the Oculus Quest 2 and containing integral features for enterprise-grade VR communications.
Horizon: Workrooms avatar system also enables smooth animations with high-resolution textures and many handy tools such as hand tracking, remote desktop streaming, and videoconferencing integration.
Additionally, cross-platform options are available to enable users to collaborate via headsets, smartphones, or desktop computers.
Workrooms also supports several 2D applications like Microsoft Outlook and Zoom, and users will soon be able to sign into their Meta business account without requiring a Facebook account.
Conversely, there are many brilliant third-party collaboration applications available on the Quest storefront, including:
- Spatial, a leading cross-platform experience that connects individuals across a range of different hardware. The platform's advanced avatar system uses AI technology to turn 2D facial photos into 3D renderings, and allows AR users to see a coworker's VR avatar as a visualisation.
- MeetinVR empowers enterprises with a powerful collaboration space using photorealistic avatars and advanced 3D user interfaces, and allows individuals to host meetings with up to 32 attendees.
- Engage provides advanced tools to create stunning presentations and host virtual events, where people can join with highly customisable avatars. The Irish VR firm seamlessly incorporates several applications into its VR workflow such as Google Drive, One Drive, Dropbox, or YouTube.
- Glue is an easy to use, affordable solution employing realistic avatars with detailed animations for virtual meetings. Users are provided with a massive selection of tools to encourage virtual collaboration, 3D whiteboards, as well as browser-based apps such as Dropbox and YouTube.
Furthermore, VR firm Tvori recently debuted ShapesXR, an immersive environment for developers to collaborate on augmented reality (AR) and VR applications while using Quest headsets.
Using 2D Applications in VR
Currently, Meta is distributing beta VR versions of Facebook and Instagram on the Quest storefront, and both apps still have enterprise capabilities to manage eCommerce opportunities, social media presence and consumer engagement.
Alternatively, the Quest storefront offers 'Spike Email,' a unified communications app containing essential work tools such as email, file management, video meetings, and a chat system.
In addition, the Spike VR platform combines third party email accounts under one VR roof.
Incorporating Airlink
Meta, formerly Facebook/Oculus, introduced Quest v30 in June this year, which greatly improved accessibility features for the headset.
Meta's AirLink feature allows users to stream PC-VR applications wirelessly to portable headsets, removing the need to purchase expensive PC-VR headsets such as the Valve Index and PC-VR hardware, which usually requires setting up additional bulky equipment or extensive wiring.
AirLink also allows others to watch a user's point of view from an external PC monitor, where mentors to track employee's performance during VR training modules and other use cases.
By using AirLink, companies can choose from countless applications from digital PC-VR storefronts such as VIVEPORT, HTC's app distribution platform for VR content to optimise workflows, without facing latency problems, on SteamVR's most popular headset.
Quelle:
More Infos:
https://www.workplace.com/workplace-microsoft?ref=AVsGHadOFm6tGzPmOE-KXF1SVwwEsnevGWMX8KlqgvlvNDUECNLn3CdPKlm8SYcDnzd0S6U12C293_HACtqfgsSnCJMnhDoR2_zi63wpMHlAVPwg726M-natCnZzOyNmwSmtFE6aczXdAlfvAOcIM8WzZq68uV6YnMP7fzZ35lpzP782vtZaPZpGoxdnsatNd3dsxHpZo7ljyxy_8-0SZ6OLlKKHeHByCi_YkYllYSkxmMHXiZ_f-X3ovCAHfwkjNRb46RNh3k_fiDcGW-iLBOkQrD-F-lqoRzDeiJGtTzEEfKBW-WXhyUxkBudm38RWAhYTK_uv6owlwPBSVy1lvHbBaNBprEnTELGHb-mbhVVyIuwVAO7EyBYdArUog2zvSkFXT0GEChJETGGS4KgvK6DJyt2xpyU6DFVwqnt-t60xog
Gesteigerte Produktion, schnellere Wartung. Es gibt viele Bereiche, in denen AR-Brillen Anwendung finden könnten. Was spricht für und was gegen die Wearables?
Klobige auffällige Brillen, die die Realität um uns herum verändern – AR-Wearables schreien geradezu Zukunft. Trotzdem sind sie in der Industrie noch nicht ganz angekommen. Das liegt besonders an hohen Entwicklungskosten, Hürden im Datenschutz, sowie Kinderkrankheiten wie niedrigen Akkulaufzeiten.
Doch Potentiale gibt es einige. „Vielleicht werden wir nicht den Tag erleben, an dem jeder in einer Fabrik eine Datenbrille trägt", sagt Helmut Krämer von TietoEvry. Das finnische IT-Unternehmen erstellt und integriert unter anderem AR-Software. „Dass aber in wenigen Jahren 3D-Kameras die Prozesse in Produktionshallen überwachen und optimieren, halte ich für sehr wahrscheinlich." Stellt sich die Frage: Was kann und könnte man mit den Brillen in der Industrie konkret anfangen?
1. Zeigen, was man hat
Augmented Reality hat eine unbestrittene Qualität: Vorgänge innerhalb von Maschinen, die sonst schwer einsehbar sind, können plötzlich sichtbar gemacht werden. Das ist etwa nützlich um bei einer Messe eine Apparatur vorzustellen. Der Waffelhersteller Bühler Food Equipment hat zusammen mit der TU Wien den Innenraum einer 20 Meter langen Backmaschine digitalisiert. TU-Professor Hannes Kaufmann vom Institute of Visual Computing and Human-Centered Technology: „Es ist ein virtueller Schauraum entstanden, der es den Zuschauern ermöglicht hat, den Kopf – wenn man so will – in einen laufenden Mixer zu stecken und verschiedene Produktvarianten auszuprobieren." Und der Salzburger Kran-Hersteller Palfinger setzt AR-Brillen unter anderem ein, um in Simulatoren die Wirkungsweise und Möglichkeiten verschiedener Kräne zu demonstrieren.
2. Learning by seeing
Zweiter wichtiger Anwendungsbereich von Wearables: die Ausbildung neuer Mitarbeiter. „Wenn Arbeiter seit Jahren tagein tagaus an einer Maschine stehen, brauchen sie dafür keine AR-Brille. Sie kennen ohnehin jeden Handgriff", meint TU-Professor Kaufmann. „Für neue Mitarbeiter aber kann so eine Brille den Lernprozess enorm beschleunigen."
Der oberösterreichische Kunststoffproduzent Greiner setzt eine HoloLens in der Lehrlingsausbildung ein, um die Funktionsweise komplexer Spritzgussanlagen zu demonstrieren. „Ich kann mir das lebende Objekt anschauen und mir dazu Bauzeichnungen, Videos und Erklärungen einblenden", so Philipp Kirchmeir, IT-Manager bei Greiner. Die Maschine kann dabei in Echtzeit kalibriert werden.
Und auch WienIT, Partner der Wiener Stadtwerke, setzt AR bei Schulungen ein. „Explosionszeichnungen von schwer zugänglichen Maschinen werden digitalisiert und für die HoloLens nutzbar gemacht", erklärt Helmut Schneider, Chef der Entwicklungsabteilung und zeigt, wie eine Anlage von allen Seiten betrachtet werden kann.
3. Wartung aus der Ferne
Wartung und Service können durch Augmented Reality erleichtert und verbessert werden – besonders hilfreich, wenn Maschine und Experte räumlich voneinander getrennt sind. Deswegen zählen Handlungsanleitungen, Checklisten für Wartungen und Live-Unterstützung zu den Hauptanwendung für AR-Geräte.
Zu den Vorreitern auf diesem Gebiet gehört Thyssenkrupp Aufzüge. Bereits 2016 zeigte das Unternehmen in einem Video, wie sich Aufzugstechniker zukünftig mithilfe einer Datenbrille vor der Anfahrt zum Kunden über einen Auftrag informieren und dann am Einsatzort ihre Aufträge schneller und kompetenter durchführen können. „Beim Support über das Telefon kommt es regelmäßig zu Problemen. Wenn allerdings der Techniker eine AR-Brille trägt, können aus der Zentrale Manuale eingespielt werden, es kann konkret am Objekt gezeigt werden, was zu tun ist", so TU-Professor Kaufmann. Gerade beim Remote Service würden auch die Kosten einer Brille kaum eine Rolle spielen. „Wenn eine Fabrik um mehrere Millionen Euro errichtet wird, kommt es auf die 5.000 Euro für die AR-Brille nicht mehr an."
4. Und in der Produktion?
Hier kommt Augmented Reality tatsächlich noch nicht so häufig zum Einsatz. Dabei sind die Möglichkeiten beeindruckend, wie etwa die Visualisierung von Lagerhallen samt Heat Map mit Ablaufdaten der gelagerten Produkte.
Auch schon angewendet werden AR-Brillen zur Erkennung von Altpapierballen in der Papierherstellung, für die automatisierte Qualitätsbewertung von Baumstämmen in der Holzindustrie oder für BIM in der Baubranche, um Pläne und Baufortschritt abzugleichen. „Ein Architekt mit AR-Brille kann durch den Rohbau gehen und mögliche Abweichungen bemerken", erklärt Kaufmann. Und mittels 3D-Visualisierungen können Entscheidungsträger bei Bauvorhaben eine bessere Vorstellung von etwa Größe eines Objektes oder Lichteinfall erhalten.
In der Theorie könnten Wearables die Produktion steigern, schon allein dadurch, dass der Anwender beide Hände zum Arbeiten frei hat. In der Praxis allerdings bestehen viele Herausforderungen – unter anderem einen hohen Zeitaufwand und massive Kosten in der Entwicklung. Die Visualisierung von Informationen auf AR-Geräte erfordert die Konvertierung von CAD-Daten – bei der Umwandlung können Informationen verloren gehen, was wiederum manuelle Kontrolle unabdingbar macht. „Der Schlüssel ist das Aufbereiten der Informationen", so Philipp Kirchmeir von Greiner. „Das war auch der zweitaufwendigste Teil in unserem Projekt."
Quelle:
https://industriemagazin.at/a/augmented-reality-in-der-industrie-was-bringen-die-brillen
]]>Work from home and Online classes were our best friends during the pandemic. They probably saved corporations and educational institutes. People from every age group were sitting on the couch and 'waiting for the host to join the meeting'.
You probably know the drill but you don't know the outcomes of it if we talk about education. Just imagine yourself sitting in a chair for 2–3 hours in front of a screen, listening to your teacher, trying to pay attention to a lesson. Sounds boring right?!
Online was and is surely the safest way possible to study and It's still required considering the current situation in mind. But the method needs to be updated. That's where Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality come into the picture.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are the new generations of technology that bring inanimate things to life. It lets you interact with 3D models, objects, places, animals, humans, everything in real life.
Like If you are teaching the Solar system to your students, they probably have to imagine the universe, planets, and the placements of Planets but with Augmented Reality, they can simply experience this:
Via udyog.melzo.com
Not only the solar system but also human anatomy, science experiments, history, mathematics, anything, and everything can be visualized.
Via udyog.melzo.com
History still sounds boring? Maybe not, right!
History is all about studying things from the past. And it's so exciting to learn how people and their lifestyles were back then. But only reading stories and staring at 2D edited photographs will make it boring. If you are teaching or studying 7 Wonders of World, instead of reading theories and imagining things, you can create a VR Tour of a place — let's say the colosseum. You can educate students by adding text-based information, videos, GIFs, 3D models, and more to attract them.
It'll engage your prospects, they will take interest in the place and will never forget the experience. Learning that your students will never forget! What more do you want?
Well those were the use cases of AR and VR in education and they must have left an impact on you but these are some more reasons to use AR and VR in education:
Easy and fun learning
Children are getting smarter and smarter every day. The biggest problem for tutors and parents is to force their children to study and to bribe them to study but now the tables have changed. Learning with AR and VR is so addictive even parents are enjoying it. The more students learn and interact with the subject or tutor the more they'll comprehend the topic. And the best part is they'll never forget the experience. Did you know a regular student can remember 30% of what they hear and 20% of what they see, but AR and VR stats confirm that students remember 90% of the material if it is learned through experiences? (Source)
Disaster management
We can't prevent natural disasters but we surely can reduce the outcomes by preparing ourselves. Just reading stories from newspapers and watching edited videos over the internet will not connect us with the people living in disaster-prone areas. And it'll not teach us the precautions that they took or they should have taken too. That's why VR experiences of disaster-prone areas are necessary especially for children. They can actually feel what it looks like to be in those situations and they'll also learn the necessary steps and precautions. It'll make the learning process more engaging and effective.
In Japan, a primary school created a VR experience of flash floods for children to teach them the danger of flash floods. Take a look!
Not only floods but earthquakes, forest fires, and many more disasters can be experienced In VR to teach the necessary steps and things that should have been avoided during that time.
Virtual Dissection
To study human anatomy and animal anatomy, people used to do body dissection and study the different structures and elements. In science, there are still some schools forcing students to dissect frogs to study them thoroughly.
With VR and AR, students can study every single detail of Human anatomy as well as animal anatomy without doing any harm to either of them. They will get an immersive learning experience that will last for a long time.
Ease of Creation
After reading all these you will be wondering how kids are going to create VR/AR experiences themselves and it must be difficult to generate AR/VR experiences.
But creating VR and AR experiences is as easy as breathing. Anyone who knows how to use a keyboard and mouse can use Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality for their purposes.
With WebVR platforms, one doesn't need a headset to experience VR, yes you read it right. With an easy-to-use interface and full automation, they just have to use a mouse and keyboard to create content from any device and browser.
And these are all just examples of how far VR/AR can do for remote learning. Knowing such diverse use cases, you can see how Virtual & Augmented reality is helping Educators Design a Whole New Learning Landscape to Deliver a more personalized, engaging, interactive, and adaptive learning experience Online.
Quelle:
https://arvrjourney.com/heres-how-virtual-augmented-reality-is-shaping-the-future-of-online-education-4c34929a8c60
]]>The social networking company has discussed opening physical stores to showcase its virtual reality and augmented reality devices
One of Mark Zuckerberg's first steps toward building the metaverse may be physical instead of virtual.
Meta, the social media company formerly known as Facebook, has discussed opening retail stores that will eventually span the world, said people with knowledge of the project and company documents viewed by The New York Times. The stores would be used to introduce people to devices made by the company's Reality Labs division, such as virtual reality headsets and, eventually, augmented reality glasses, they said.
These devices are gateways to the metaverse, a futuristic digital world where people move from virtual to augmented versions of reality almost seamlessly. Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and chief executive, last week renamed his company Meta and laid out a vision for pursuing the metaverse as the next social platform. The stores would help show people that virtual reality and augmented reality can be fun and exciting, exactly the way Mr. Zuckerberg sees it.
The aim of the stores is to make the world "more open and connected," according to the company documents viewed by The Times. They are also intended to spark emotions like "curiosity, closeness," as well as a sense of feeling "welcomed" while experimenting with headsets in a "judgment free journey," according to the documents.
Discussions about physical stores predated Facebook's rebranding by many months, with serious work on the initiative having started last year, the people said. And the project, which is still in development, may not proceed, they said. But if Meta moves forward with stores, it would be a first for a tech giant that has existed largely digitally, with more than 3.5 billion people using its apps such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
A Meta spokeswoman said the company couldn't confirm plans for stores but said its latest virtual reality headset was "in high demand" and that its hardware was available at partner retailers.
Mr. Zuckerberg has talked up the metaverse as his company grapples with regulatory and societal challenges. Frances Haugen, a former employee turned whistle-blower, amassed thousands of pages of internal documents and recently shared them with lawmakers and the news media. She has said that Facebook was not doing enough to protect society from the harms it causes. Her disclosures have drawn scrutiny from legislators and regulators, though it is unclear how strong her case is.
Skepticism about the metaverse also abounds. While Meta's Reality Labs division has had modest past success with the Oculus Quest 2, a low-priced headset that was popular last year, virtual reality remains a niche market for hobbyists and enthusiasts. The hardware is often costly and can be difficult to use. Some people have reported that the headsets nauseate them.
"We are, at best guess, at least five to 10 years out from a fully fleshed out Meta product or service," said Tim Derdenger, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business. He said what Meta was working on was akin to the computer game Second Life from the early 2000s, calling it "a second shot at a Second Life-like service, but that is hopefully more immersive."
Still, Mr. Zuckerberg has said he sees the moment to build what he believes will be the next major shift in computing platforms since the smartphone era. In that future, Mr. Zuckerberg's apps would no longer be beholden to the rules dictated by Apple and Google, which own the app stores that distribute Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
Technology companies opening their own stores is not new. Gateway, a personal-computer maker, had its own stores in the 1990s. Apple has retail stores so people can test out devices and get their questions answered. Microsoft, Amazon and others have followed with their own stores as well.
In recent years, Meta had experimented with some physical retail efforts. It opened "pop-up" kiosks at airports and a pop-up store in Manhattan's SoHo district to show its Oculus hardware products. It also had a pop-up location with Macy's in 2018, with the aim of bringing more small business onto the platform.
Should Meta's new stores proceed, they would feature products such as Portal devices — teleconferencing gadgets that let people video chat over Facebook — as well as the Oculus headsets, the company documents said. The stores could also include voice-activated sunglasses that Meta developed with Ray-Ban, which people can use to take photos and video.
Early designs for Meta's stores appeared modern, with a flat, minimalist aesthetic to the building exteriors and subtle placement of the Facebook brand, according to the documents. The company considered naming its stores Facebook Hub, Facebook Commons, Facebook Innovations, Facebook Reality Store and From Facebook, before eventually settling on the Facebook Store as a leading candidate, the documents said.
It was unclear how the Meta rebranding would affect the naming of the stores. Andrew Bosworth, a longtime Facebook executive who will become Meta's chief technology officer, said last week that the Oculus brand would be discontinued and replaced by the Meta name. The Oculus Quest will become the Meta Quest, while the Facebook Portal will be rebranded the Meta Portal, he said.
The flagship Facebook Store had been planned for Burlingame, Calif., where Meta has an office for its Reality Labs employees. It was also unclear whether those plans would continue.
Quelle:
Foto: An attendee at Facebook's developer conference in 2018 using an Oculus Quest VR headset.Credit…Tony Avelar/Associated Press
https://www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/11/05/technology/facebook-stores-meta-metaverse.amp.html
]]>DPVR, a Shanghai-based company specializing in virtual reality (VR) device design and manufacturing, has recently announced a partnership with Travel Africa Network (TAN), a South African international satellite travel TV channel. As part of the partnership, DPVR will serve as a VR technology provider to offer its customized VR hardware and software services to TAN.
TAN provides tourism multi-media services dedicated to promoting African travel experiences to the world. The network became the first African travel channel to broadcast its dedicated travel content to 135 million homes and luxury hotels in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa on EUTELSAT's HOTBIRD 13° East, which forms one of the largest satellite broadcasting systems in the EMEA region.
TAN recently released a tourism business project called 'TribeVR'. The project establishes a B2B tourism community and intends to foster relationships between all stakeholders in the tourism supply chain. Through TribeVR, African suppliers such as hotels, tour operators, and sightseeing companies can showcase their products, hotel lodges, and destinations. Users are then able to explore these via immersive experiences using VR headsets that show them interactive product images or videos.
Currently, the project is only open to suppliers in Africa, as it is intended to promote the development of tourism in Africa. However, for buyers, in addition to local travel agencies in Africa, European travel agencies can also offer TAN's TribeVR experiences to their customers in order to promote African tourism.
DPVR is currently the only VR hardware provider for TAN and the company provides a series of customization services as part of the partnership. These services include the customization of the VR headset's appearance and adapting software in order to better help TAN to promote its brand awareness and provide a better user experience.
DPVR added that TAN is incorporating various technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality (AR) to provide more unique interactive experiences that drive consumer engagement both regionally and internationally.
Derek Liu, VP of DPVR, said: "Our partnership with Travel Africa Network is extremely important to us as this project helps people from all over the world to better understand and learn about the experiences that Africa has to offer. At the same time, it can also contribute to the economic development of the continent by helping TAN to boost tourism opportunities."
For more information on DPVR and its virtual reality hardware and software solutions for businesses, please visit the company's website.
Quelle:
https://www.auganix.org/dpvr-announces-partnership-with-travel-africa-network-to-provide-virtual-reality-solutions-to-help-promote-tourism-in-africa/
Image credit: DPVR
]]>The science behind your 3D alter-ego
Avatars aren't new in the world of social media, but Facebook's metaverse adds to it a wholly different dimension. Alongside its rebranding to Meta at Connect 2021, Facebook made a slew of announcements around VR technology, future directions, and research in this space.
Facebook's metaverse is likely to feature hyper-realistic 3D avatars that use artificial intelligence, sophisticated modelling techniques, and electromyography to render human features and movements accurately in a virtual space.
Note that these avatars are still in the research phase and are likely to debut several years down the line.
Meanwhile, other companies like Microsoft are unveiling their take on user avatars for the metaverse, and the future looks promising.
What Is an Avatar?
Etymologically, the word avatar is derived from the Sanskrit word for "descent," specifically referring to deities descending to the earth and taking on a humanlike form.
In computing, avatars were popularised in the '80s as an on-screen representation of internet users and gamers in particular. The 1985 game called Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar firmly established the need for on-screen representation of users that would bring a degree of verisimilitude.
The idea was that if the user saw themselves accurately presented on-screen, with a first-person view, they would be more conscious of the game's ethical questions and experience the content in an immersive way.
The same principle now applies to social media as our avatars are – quite literally – who we are in a virtual space or gaming world and the avatar's actions/decisions are identical to our own. This approach was first presented in the 1992 science fiction novel, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson – which, incidentally, was also the first debut of the metaverse concept.
Fast forward three decades and tech companies like Facebook (now Meta) and Microsoft are looking to realise the vision of a rich metaverse, populated by lifelike avatars.
Are Avatars Hyper-Realistic by Definition?
Not necessarily. Avatars are on-screen or virtual manifestations of the user, and technically, they can take on any shape or form as long as they have humanoid features such as moveable limbs, upper and lower torsos, and a face capable of expression.
With these prerequisites, your avatar may look as similar to or as different from your appearance in the real world. VR applications across the industry have their own take on avatars, which are rendered as per the needs of a specific use case.
For example, in a sports VR game, it may be sufficient to have floating heads and bodies without too many details, as long as the movements are rendered with accuracy and without lag. In a collaborative VR set-up for work, computing resources may be diverted to rendering facial expressions and body language for effective communication.
Facebook's metaverse is likely to feature customisable hyper-realistic avatars that closely resemble your facial and physical features, but support customisation for add-ons like your hair, outfit, and glasses.
Types of Avatars
There are several ways software systems can create avatars for a virtual environment, and these could be 3D or 2D as well.
However, in recent years, 3D avatars have become the dominant form with the rise of virtual reality and hardware and software systems that can replicate real-world movements using sensors. Typically, you can have one of two types:
- VR avatars – A VR avatar is typically a first-person rendition where the user sees the world from the avatar's point of view. Other participants of the world can see the upper torso part of the avatar, along with arms, but without the lower limbs. You'll find this type in most rudimentary VR apps, which do not require complex leg movements or in-world mobility.
- Full body avatars – In a full-body avatar, sensors are used to replicate and recreate the full body's movements through a kinematics system. As a result, the user has greater freedom of mobility inside the virtual world and can use all limbs to interact with digital assets. Sophisticated VR games typically use this type, and Facebook's metaverse will likely choose this route as well.
Why is the Avatar Central to the Metaverse?
Simply put, the metaverse cannot exist without avatars – i.e., manifestations of people using and inhabiting the metaverse's virtual space. Also, the avatars enable necessary interoperability between the metaverse's many features.
For example, the user may complete a gaming challenge, earn tokens that are saved in a wallet service, visit a virtual marketplace, and purchase assets to be stored via a vault – and the avatar is the one constant element used across these services.
In the context of the metaverse, avatars play a role similar to that of SSO credentials online (without the security aspect), providing users access to all that the world has to offer.
Recent Moves Towards Metaverse-Ready Avatars
Facebook (now Meta) is currently experimenting with codex avatars that reconstruct human appearance in the virtual world with incredible accuracy. At the backend, live sensor data is driving a neural network, which recreates itself in real-time in the context of the world surrounding it.
Simultaneously, Meta is working on physics-based avatars that are likely to use wearables to capture and utilise data on the human anatomy. Versions of these approaches debuted at Connect 2021, but there's no consumer-facing launch as yet.
On the other hand, Microsoft is slightly ahead in the avatar game, launching its 3D avatar service in the first week of November. Microsoft Teams users can now create personalised avatars of themselves that will be visible to meeting participants, even when the webcam is switched off.
Importantly, these are stylistic renditions of the human-anatomy and facial structure, with an almost Disneyesque aesthetic – very different from Facebook. Microsoft's avatars will also be accessible via Mesh, the company's metaverse offering.
Finally, there are companies like Ready Player Me specialising in building cross-platform avatars for the metaverse. As the metaverse brings together thousands of apps and multiple virtual worlds, the avatar can act as your single point of entry and persistent identity, while you explore, interact, and engage.
Quelle:
ArborXR, the leading enterprise AR/VR device management and content distribution platform, is teaming up with Axon, the global leader in connected public safety technologies, to deploy VR training technology. This partnership will enable Axon to remotely deploy software updates and add new public safety training content to agencies' HTC VIVE Focus 3 headsets powered by ArborXR across North America.
"VR is rapidly growing, and this announcement is big news for the entire AR/VR industry. We're excited to partner with Axon to build a comprehensive solution for VR on a large scale, in what is anticipated to be one of the largest VR deployments to date," says ArborXR CEO and Co-Founder Brad Scoggin. "ArborXR will serve as the backbone for Axon's virtual reality-based public safety training across North America. We are honored to help Axon provide a best-in-class VR experience."
ArborXR's software enables Axon to deploy training content, support and troubleshoot customer deployments to ensure a consistent user experience. Additionally, ArborXR provides an array of user experiences and highly sought after features for deploying and managing a fleet of headsets. By boosting the capability to scale the solution, ArborXR's involvement helps Axon fulfill its mission to protect life.
"Axon's VR Simulator provides officers with more access to what they need most: training on how to best interact with the community, de-escalate effectively, and support individuals in crisis. To scale this effort, we needed to simplify how customers receive and access content, helping reduce obstacles for agencies adopting VR," says Robert Murphy, Axon's Senior Director of VR. "Our partnership with ArborXR will ensure a secure and seamless deployment of training content to our customers across the globe."
When combined with a secure, powerful VR headset like the VIVE Focus 3, agencies are able to experience immersive, world-class training at scale, quickly and effectively.
"We're honored to support Axon's mission to protect life with our newest and most powerful all-in-one headset, the VIVE Focus 3. Thanks to Axon's impressive content and ArborXR's seamless deployment, more agencies nationwide will be able to benefit from the highly immersive training experience that only cutting-edge VR can offer," said Amir Khorram, AVP of Enterprise Sales at HTC VIVE.
https://vimeo.com/?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=14167195
Quelle:
https://trainingindustry.com/press-release/learning-technologies/arborxr-partners-with-axon-in-major-deployment-of-vr-for-public-safety-training/?fr=operanews
]]>Well, maybe not a pro…
Over the past several years we've seen various sports organizations begin to employ immersive technology as part of their player training regiments, whether it be the Los Angeles Dodgers employing VR technology as part of its batting practice regiment or an Australian skeleton racer using VR simulators to prepare for the Winter Olympics.
Sense Arena, a VR sports training provider based out of the Czech Republic, is one such company working to modernize the world of sports training through the use of immersive technology. The company works directly with major sports organizations to provide its players with an easy-to-use, but effective, subscription-based VR hockey training program. Using a combination of VR and haptic feedback technology, the program immerses players, both amateur and pro, in a virtual environment where they can participate in a variety of realistic drills and challenges designed to improve their "read and react" capabilities.
This week Sense Arena launched a partnership with live sports company AEG and professional NHL franchise the LA Kings to bring the VR training platform to both junior and professional Kings' players at the LA Kings Training Center in El Segundo, California, marking the company's first LA-based partnership.
"We are excited to welcome a category leader like Sense Arena into the LA Kings family," said Kelly Cheeseman, chief operating officer, AEG Sports. "Whether it's on or off the ice, we are always looking for innovative new ways to enhance our players' training, development, and rehabilitation and this partnership helps us to follow through on this important commitment in the best way possible. Being able to leverage their cutting-edge technology has been a game-changer when it comes to giving our players a winning competitive edge."
Sense Arena is less about improving your skills and more about sharpening your cognitive abilities. The program is designed to challenge your decision-making skills in both offensive and defensive positions. The idea is that by improving your multitasking and "Multiple Object Tracking skills," you'll perform better in important scenarios such as face-offs and transitions.
That said, there's definitely a fair amount of stickwork involved. Sense Arena features its own 3D printed mount for the Touch controller, allowing players to use their actual hockey stick in VR. These mounts also feature their own dedicated motors, resulting in realistic haptic feedback every time you make contact with the puck. Sense Arena can be used in a professional training environment with a stick or on the go using the standard Touch controllers.Throughout the roughly 20-minute demo, I was coached on how to properly hold my stick and pass the puck to my AI teammates. These adjustments, while subtle, made all the difference in my performance.
I was taken through a variety of drills designed to test my skills on the ice. This included everything from playing keep-away with the AI to shooting on a guarded net. At the end of each round, Sense Arena analyzed my performance and provided me with a detailed breakdown highlighting important metrics such as my reaction time and accuracy. While I don't see myself making a professional debut any time soon, I did see a noticeable improvement in my score after several drills.
"Athletic training in virtual reality has become a reality in many sports – hockey, baseball, football, soccer, cricket, tennis, and table tennis to name a few. The speed of development of XR and related technologies is so fast, that we only see the tip of a huge iceberg of innovations that is yet to come. The Kings took an active role in this, not only by using it but also by advising in forming the hockey VR training platform, already 16 months ago," said Bob Tetiva, Founder and CEO of Sense Arena.
To learn more about the pros and cons of Sense Arena's VR hockey training platform, I spoke with a Jr. Kings player who'd already spent a decent amount of time with the app. In his opinion, Sense Arena's greatest strength is its accessibility. The platform can be used alongside a variety of haptic feedback technology or on its own using the core Oculus (Meta) Quest 2 technology. The app can even be used in a seated position, offering those suffering from injuries a way to hone their abilities off the ice while they heal. Some players even practice while wearing their skates, as demonstrated in the image below.
"Sense Arena is a new platform that helps goalies to train without being on the ice. This system can be used for goalies that are injured or coming off an injury. However, the most useful aspect of the Sense Arena system is being able to train without the added stress of physically putting equipment on and stepping on the ice. You can train at home or in your hotel room when you are on the road, reducing the stress on your body," added LA Kings goaltending coach and Stanley Cup/Conn Smythe Trophy-winning goalie Bill Ranford.
The company's partnership with the LA Kings is just the latest in a long string of collaborations with major organizations. Sense Arena has partnered with numerous companies over the years and currently supports over 1,200 installations in 28 countries. The company is focused primarily on hockey, though it has expressed interest in expanding into other sports.
For more information visit SenseArena.com.
Quelle:
Feature Image Credit: Sense Arena
]]>Virtuelle Trainingsplattform getestet – spatial.io
Ich habe den Termin angeregt, ich habe das alles organisiert, und dann komme ich nicht hinein!!! So ein Frust. Aber fangen wir am Anfang an.
Wir – unsere VR-Experimentiertruppe Ellena, Harald, Torsten und ich (mehr Infos zu uns findest Du am Ende des Beitrags), haben uns ausgemacht, dass wir uns Sonntagabend um 18:00 Uhr zuerst in Zoom treffen und dann spatial.io ausprobieren. Gesagt, getan, wir trafen uns in Zoom und wollten dann gleich in die Kollaborations-Plattform einsteigen. Ich muss dazu erwähnen, dass ich schon ungefähr 2 Wochen vorher einen Account angelegt hatte, um einmal hineinzuschnuppern. Ich habe alles erledigt, was mir spatial.io angesagt hat, wie zum Beispiel die Brille mit der App zu verbinden, und dachte deshalb, alles Paletti, ich steige einfach ein. Falsch gedacht.
Ich starte meine VR Brille, setze mich in meinen coolen, und vor allem sich drehenden Bürostuhl, und rufe die App spatial.io auf – mit der Meldung, dass sie ein Update braucht, bevor ich starten kann. Jetzt schon etwas nervös, weil die anderen schon drinnen sind, date ich up – notgedrungen. Pause. Warten. Okay, geht eh recht schnell (auch wenn es natürlich immer noch zu langsam ist…) und ich muss neu starten. Ich starte die VR-Brille neu und soll – aus welchem Grund auch immer, denn eigentlich war das ja schon eingerichtet – Roomscale neu festlegen. Für die, die nicht wissen was das ist: damit wird der Bereich festgelegt, in dem Du im physischen Raum agieren kannst, damit Du nicht über Sessel, Tisch oder den Schwedenofen stolperst, während Du im virtuellen Raum bist. Ich – schon etwas gestresst – gehe schnell darüber hinweg, weil ich ja schon längst in spatial.io sein will, die anderen sind schon drinnen. Äh, nein, noch immer nix mit Spatial, ich muss noch einmal die Brille (mein Device) mit dem Account verbinden. Dafür wird eine Nummer angezeigt, die ich in meinem Account im PC eingeben soll.
Okay, was bleibt mir anderes übrig, ich lege die Brille ab, gehe zum PC, öffne dort den spatial-Account und will die Nummer eingeben – dich ich mir natürlich NICHT gemerkt habe. Ich und Zahlen… Also wieder zur Brille, aufsetzen, Nummer lesen, zurück, eingeben, …. falsche Nummer (Wie schon erwähnt, ich und die Zahlen…). Wie b… muss man denn sein, denke ich mir und gehe wieder zurück, schreib mir die Nummer diesmal auf und gebe sie ein – geschafft.
Zurück in den VR-Raum, spatial.io öffnen, endlich bin ich da, doch habe ich den Boden nicht richtig definiert. Äh, Roomscale einrichten, das zu übergehen ist sichtlich nicht so g'scheit. Ich sitze also bis zur Hüfte im Boden – virtuell natürlich. Ich komme mir sehr klein vor. Aber – da ich ja unbedingt schon mit den anderen testen will – mache ich einfach weiter und komme endlich in spatial.io an, in einem Raum, den Ellena – Gott sei Dank – schon eingerichtet hat. Puh, endlich kann ich mittesten. Zum Glück habe ich kompetente Experimentierpartner:innen!
Schon etwas geschafft vor lauter Einstiegsstress bekomme ich vom Testen jetzt nur mehr einen Teil mit. Die Avatare sind für mich etwas gewöhnungsbedürftig. Es wird ein Porträtfoto hochgeladen, aus dem das Gesicht des Avatars gestaltet wird. Klingt ja ganz gut, aber durch das an eine Form angepasste Foto habe ich ein sehr ausgeprägtes Doppelkinn und es wirkt die ganze Zeit so, als ob ich meinen Hals nicht bewegen könnte. Die Mimik wird zum Teil abgebildet. Sobald ich mich allerdings daran gewöhnt habe – auch die anderen schauen etwas eigenartig aus – ist es ein angenehmes Tun in spatial.io.
Es ist alles möglich, was in Präsenzseminaren so in der Regel auch genutzt wird – und noch ein paar Sachen mehr, wie Flipchart und Pinwand, zeichnen in 2- und 3D, etc. Harald hat schon 3D Objekte in seinen Account hochgeladen und dann in den Raum geholt. Damit können wir wirklich „herumspielen", größer, kleiner machen, mit Post It's behängen, eine Aufstellung gestalten, … Auch andere Unterlagen können im Raum genutzt werden, wenn sie vorher im Account hochgeladen wurden.
Spannend ist auch, dass Du mehrere Räume öffnen und nach Deinen Bedürfnissen gestalten kann. Du kannst also für jedes Seminar einen eigenen Raum eröffnen, ihn anpassen oder sogar vollkommen umgestalten (Das ist allerdings schon um einiges aufwendiger und nicht unbedingt Standard.) Und den Raum teilst Du dann mit Deinen Teilnehmenden – los geht's. Oder Du gestaltest Dir Deinen persönlichen Coachingraum, oder Dein Raum für Verkaufsgespräche, eine Messe, … Die Materialien werden im Account am PC hochgeladen, dann hast Du sie im VR-Raum zur Verfügung.
Eine Funktion hat uns übrigens am Anfang etwas Schwierigkeiten bereitet. Du kannst einen Gegenstand im Raum zur Umgebung deklarieren – und plötzlich saßen wir alle im Reifen des Autos fest. Mittendrin. Und kamen nicht mehr hinaus. Erst Ellena hat dann entdeckt, dass wir einfach den space neu definieren mussten, um wieder in einem der vorgefertigten Räume zu sein – Gott sei Dank. Es ist schon ein komisches Gefühl im Reifen festzusitzen, auch wenn es nur virtuell ist.
Ein wirklich cooles Zusammenarbeits-Erlebnis. spatial.io bietet viel für jemanden, der Workshops, Seminare, Meetings und Beratungen in 3D gestalten will. Du kannst viele Räume eröffnen, (um)gestalten und auch an Deine Bedürfnisse anpassen, also individualisiert vorbereiten. Die bestehenden Räume sind ansprechend mit netter Umgebung gestaltet. Sie haben einen ausreichenden Funktionsumfang mit viel Möglichkeit zur Interaktion. Und ein wirklich, wirklich großes Plus: der Preis. Ich kann einen Account für mich buchen um 20 Dollar im Monat (bei jährlicher Zahlung, 25 Dollar bei monatlicher Zahlung.) Wenn ich Leute in meinen Raum einlade, müssen sie keinen bezahlten Account haben. Das ist ein fast unschlagbares Argument für Spatial, vor allem da die Funktionen anderen Plattformen in nichts nachstehen (wie ich jetzt weiß, nach einigen Experimentierräumen…). Und es ist auch möglich ohne Brille, also in 2D, mit dabei zu sein. Der Interaktionslevel ist dann zwar eingeschränkt, aber es bietet sehr wohl Möglichkeiten mitzumachen. Zum Beispiel können dann Teilnehmende, die über ihren Computer einsteigen – also in 2D – zwar nicht mit den 3D Objekten hantieren, aber sie können den 3D Teilnehmenden – also denen mit Brille – Anweisungen geben. Das kann sogar als Tool genutzt werden, um die Kommunikationsfähigkeiten zu schärfen.
Torsten mit seinem VR-Kapazunder*- und Expertenblick war auch recht angetan. Er hat übrigens ein paar Tage nach unserem gemeinsamen Experimentieren mit einer Gruppe von Student:innen einen Workshop in Spatial gehabt und war ganz begeistert davon, wie die Stundent:innen die Umgebung an ihre Bedürfnisse angepasst hatten. Sie haben 3D Objekte in einen neutralen Raum geholt und dort damit ein ganzes Haus aufgebaut mit verschiedenen Inhalten. Wie aufwendig die Anpassung ist, das kann ich allerdings nicht sagen. Es braucht sicher Zeit und – wie immer beim Lernen im Internet – Frustrationstoleranz und Durchhaltevermögen. Aber dafür hast Du die Befriedigung danach – und die ist unbezahlbar.
* Anmerkung und Nachtrag für Leser:innen aus Deutschland: ich wurde gefragt, was ein Kapazunder ist. Das ist ein cooler Experte oder eine coole Expertin mit einigem Bekanntheitsgrad – auf österreichisch. Ich muss zugeben, ich dachte, das ist ein gängier Begriff auch in Deutschland, aber na ja, hier die Erklärung.
Quelle:
https://www.susannedrdla.at/virtuelle-trainingsplattform-spatial-test/
]]>Hybrid classrooms, blending the real and the virtual in a post-Covid world.
During the NSW Covid lockdowns, the schools I coach were closed. Our students entered into a daily routine of zoom calls and isolation. A routine that would continue for over 3 months. Unable to get to schools, I searched for an alternative to bring us together in one space. An online world that allowed students and teachers a chance to reconnect. As well as reconnecting, to have a presence in that space.
That's when the concept of creating an EDUmetaverse of Virtual Worlds began. Schools needed an application that allowed access through a domain, was password protected and ultimately protected the student's identity through simple avatars. That's when I found FrameVR. Accessible through a browser, without the need for a headset, opening up a world of accessibility for all schools. Worlds could become story prompts, sustainability centres, earth experiences and limitless teaching platforms. All designed to engage and excite. We wanted to take students from the surface of mars to the amazon rainforest. From the deck of a First Fleet sailing ship to a Research Station on Antarctica. The possibilities suddenly became endless. Limited only by my imagination and theirs!
Once the concept was in place the process of creating could begin. I taught myself the basics of Blender through an online course, from which I'll probably never recover. I bugged everyone in the community when I came across a hurdle, and there were many. Eventually, I had enough understanding to start creating basic worlds. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but they can teach themselves.
The foundation for the EDUmetaverse was to take lessons I'd previously done that worked well and build worlds around them. For instance, the RMS Titanic world is from a Literacy lesson on report writing. Now though, we can bring entire classes onto the deck of the Titanic and collaborate on projects in real-time using data sets and visual imagery. Many of the schools here in NSW use Google classroom. Being able to embed that into worlds creates incredible workflows that facilitate smooth transitions from the real class to the virtual one.
For example, in the Mars Mission Field Trip, there's an old computer on one of the desks. Students are required to collaborate to find multiple solutions to problems with living on Mars. Either working in the real classroom or returning to the virtual one, they can enter their data through hyperlinks to their teacher as Google docs and forms.
Three months in and students are still moving in and out of worlds to enhance their classroom learning. The feedback from them is incredibly positive. My favourite quote from a student during this time was "At the moment we can't go anywhere, but in here we can go everywhere!".
Now out of lockdown and returning to classes, the worlds have begun to get more intricate. I'm now up to 20+ worlds and I'm still building. Now the focus shifts to adding the EDU content. It's clear to see that this is just the beginning. Hybrid learning platforms in a post-Covid world, allow us to augment our physical classrooms with online ones. How many times as teachers have I heard a parent ask "Will there be work for my child while we are on holiday?". The answer is yes. Metaverse worlds allow learning to take place anywhere at any time from any place on earth. The possibilities are endless! Ultimately I aim to create Virtual Field Trips and online learning experiences for a global audience. Bringing teachers, students and experts together. It would be great to bring you along.
For examples of all the Virtual Worlds I'm creating and a chance to visit and experience them.. you can visit www.EDUmetaverse.com.au.
Quelle:
https://www.edumetaverse.com.au/post/teacher-to-metaverse-shaper
]]>On Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg announced the name change of #Facebook, already known to insiders, into #Meta and gave insight into #Horizon's vision of how virtual and physical worlds will be connected in the future. For me as a tech enthusiast it was great so see this things, but honestly not new.
Diving into artificial worlds is the wrong way to go, warns the head of „Pokémon Go" developer Niantic, John Hanke. I see it the same way; it's about supplementing our physical world with virtual content. If you want to experience this, come to Jena and visit the „Saurierpfad" (https://www.saurierpfad.de – unfortunately only available in German).
The Corona pandemic showed our vulnerable side. Lockdowns all over the world brought the global flow of goods to a standstill, businesses closed, trade fairs were cancelled, sales representatives were faced with closed doors. Companies and government agencies had to adapt to the new situation within weeks, many of them at great expense, having not invested in a #digitaltransformation for years.
After more than 1.5 years of the first lockdowns, and now that large parts of the world's population have been vaccinated, I feel this strong urge to go back to the „good old days". This is completely understandable and legitimate – we humans are very social beings. But what makes a lot of sense for family, friends and local businesses is questionable on a global scale.
As a child, I was a big fan of circuses and animal parks. I was fascinated by the performances and watching animals. What I didn't think about was under what conditions these animals lived. As a child, I was also as fascinated by great animal documentaries on television like those of Prof. Bernhard Grzimek, I didn't have to be on the ground in the Serengeti, I could participate on the screen how the animals lived in the wild.
As an adult, I have had the privilege of traveling to many countries around the world, both privately and professionally. Although I had always been committed to environmental protection, it wasn't until the advent of Atmosfair and the first emerging ecological footprint calculations that I realized my many travels had a massive impact holistically and that I was consuming many times more resources.
Professionally, I had a lot to do with global companies. When they weren't doing so well or the quarterly figures weren't right, travel was often banned- a sign of how much could be saved, these companies spent tens of millions on travel and expenses year after year. The following joke comes to mind: „Grandson to grandpa: And you used to travel for hours by car or plane just to show PowerPoint slides? Grandpa: Yes!"
For the last 10 years, I've been part of the large #Salesforce community. In 2013, I had the opportunity to travel to #Dreamforce, Salesforce annual customer conference, for the first time. San Francisco is worth a trip anyway and a very special city, but the positive vibe during Dreamforce, feeling the spirit of innvoation and inspiration, made the days very unique. At that time the Dreamforce already counted 120,000 visitors, one had already long ways to see certain sessions and had to queue longer for the keynote, but hey, for that one could experience Marc Benioff live (even if only as a small figure from the back rows perspective). With a lucky hand, you could still find an affordable hotel within walking distance, and you didn't have to queue long for food in the evening either.
2019 was my last visit to the Dreamforce. The flight through stopover (to make the flight costs affordable for my employer) was long, the hotel prices meanwhile so exploded that a hotel within walking distance was no longer to be thought of and in the evening one was grateful to be able to eat at least a little finger food at the numerous parties, because the restaurants were hopelessly overcrowded. For the keynote I stood in line for over an hour, only to find myself in front of closed security gates (ok, I should have come without a backpack, Dreamforce professionals already knew that from the year before) and even the site program on Brain Health with Deepak Chopra, which is unusual for tech conferences, I could only experience remotely. In 2013, I was sitting up front as Deepak and Wayne Dyer discussed how we can improve our personal lifestyles.
All in all, it had been quite a frustrating experience and after Dreamforce 2020 more or less didn't happen, this year I was able to join various sessions from the comfort of my own home.
So what do all these stories have to do with the #Metaverse, or rather, combined virtual and physical communities/experiences? The global community can come closer together via such virtual communities without harming the environment and incurring high costs.
Today more than ever, companies are required to be innovative, efficient and sustainable. The economy is undergoing a profound transformation.
However, companies do not have to wait a few more years, like Facebook – sorry Meta users, until virtual communities are a reality. Unlike otherwise, B2B can be pioneers in this environment, because 3D/VR/AR pioneers like rooom AG have already turned the vision of an enterprise metaverse into usable solutions before the pandemic hit and already offer a platform for the novel visualization of spaces, products and the combination in virtual events. More about this in my next posts.
Quelle:
Foto: (c) 2021 rooom AG
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hommage-metaverse-thomas-boehme/
]]>Virtual exhibition platform, Curatours, is now available on Oculus Quest via App Lab and PC, and it's launched its first destination, too.
The platform, which was revealed in late 2020 and created by Spaceteam VR developer, Cooperative Innovations, today introduced the Museum of Plastic 2121. As the name suggests, the exhibition envisions a future 100 years from now in which humanity has resolved the climate issues it faces today. The only single-use plastic left in the world is used within the museum. Check out a teaser trailer below.
Curatours – Museum Of Plastic 2121 Trailer
The museum's aim is to create a positive outlook for the future whilst informing visitors about what needs to change and how they can play a part. It was created in a collaboration with South African activist group, Greenpop, and Baz-Art, an artist collective that helped create murals and 3D paintings for the exhibit. Around the site you'll find information points to read more and other media drops. You can explore the exhibit with friends, and new wings of the museum are expected to open every Thursday of November 2021.
You can download Curatours for free on App Lab and SteamVR. The platform also offers live tour guides and other elements. Expect to see other museums and exhibits open in the future.
Quelle:
Since the turn of the century, the development and accessibility of technology have been on the rise. In the next few years, technology use will likely grow exponentially as newer and better trends emerge. As a result, most modern businesses and institutions have included tech advancements in their everyday activities.
Similarly, the educational sector is not left behind. Many schools and colleges use technology for a large portion of their administrative and academic activities. Therefore, as new technologies emerge, schools will have to include these tools in their system.
In this article, you are going to learn how new technologies can help worldwide education.
Use of Immersive Learning
The use of immersive learning is gradually gaining momentum. Immersive learning is a learning system that uses extended reality (XR) to provide an engaging learning experience. With the help of XR, students can study the whole world within the classroom.
Examples of things a student can experience using immersive learning technology include the following.
- Explore the oceans, forests, poles, and various remote locations in 3D.
- Discover the mysteries of the sun and the planets within our solar system in great depth.
- Have an engaging experience learning the anatomy of humans and other species.
- Learn more about ancient buildings, historic figures, and events.
With the help of the immersive learning experience that XR provides, students are better equipped to understand complicated concepts and processes and can pass any respective assessments with more ease. Similarly, students are better able to collaborate and utilize online research paper help for their assignment needs.
Use of Gamification
Gamification is another technology trend that is changing education before our very eyes. Many educators and learning institutions are turning towards gamification to provide an engaging learning experience for their pupils. In particular, businesses are using gamification as educational content for their employees. In addition, the introduction of new AI trends into games has improved gamification. Now, games are better able to adapt to the needs of each learner.
Increased Accessibility to Learning Resources
Now more than ever, learners can access educational materials with a single touch of a button. Within the internet, there are hundreds of platforms that provide virtual lessons to students. As a result, students are better able to optimize, enhance and personalize their learning process through flexible scheduling. In addition, most modern educational platforms are now available in several languages due to the growing need for localized content, dictated by globalization. To translate content into any language and adapt it for a foreign reader, click to find localization services.
Personalized Learning
At the moment, learners that access education via the internet continuously provide feedback along their learning path. Similarly, AI-powered algorithms can be used to compile and predict the most appropriate learning speed and pedagogy for each student. Therefore, e-learning platforms can use such technology to do the following.
- Inform students on how to maximize their personal learning process.
- Recommend further reading materials learners will most likely enjoy.
- Provide personalized educational content that addresses the individual weakness of a specific learner.
Improved Engagement
When technology is incorporated into school programs, students are generally more willing and eager to learn. It is particularly true for children in high school and grade school because kids of such an age are constantly exposed to technology. As a result, they find conventional learning boring and unengaging. However, when technology is added to the learning mix, many students express more interest in what the teacher has to say.
Save Cost
Traditional learning systems are expensive to set up. In the first instance, buildings, equipment, and a host of other facilities must be in place for learning to occur. However, with the help of technology, computers and a few devices are enough to provide education to millions of people. For this reason, many traditional colleges are racing to have a share of the online learning ecosystem. It helps them to stay relevant as well as save money.
Conclusion
New and existing technologies are instrumental in the educational process of today's world. With the help of immersive learning and gamification, the learning process has become simpler, more engaging, and relevant to modern youth. Students can also be given access to more personalized learning content, which is perfectly geared to help them progress in their education with more ease and swiftness. Finally, technology makes for an engaging and cost-effective learning experience, which can be shared by people from the remotest corners of the world, making modern technology-fueled education more accessible and inclusive than ever.
Quelle:
https://www.ilounge.com/articles/how-new-technologies-can-help-worldwide-education
]]>Colleges and universities are using virtual and augmented reality in courses that range from human anatomy to media as a way to make education more immersive and inclusive.
Instead of reaching for scalpels, medical school students at Colorado State University's Clapp Lab reach for virtual reality (VR) headsets, which dangle from the ceiling of the 2,500 square foot facility. Once students don their devices — each of which is connected to a high-powered HP workstation — they begin the day's "patient examinations."
Dissecting entire human cadavers in VR allows students to zoom into and explore body parts on a cellular level. "It's a much more efficient and intuitive way to display and learn from this type of data," says Tod Clapp, associate professor of biomedical sciences and the director of human anatomy at CSU. In internal surveys, 87% of students who have taken CSU's distance anatomy class say VR has helped them understand spatial relationships better than traditional two-dimensional resources. Spatial cognition is particularly crucial in medicine, helping doctors understand everything from where a patient's organs are located to how anatomical structures are connected.
According to Inside Higher Ed , the last five years have seen a "significant increase" in educational institutions using XR — "extended reality," a term that encompasses both virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR). Studies conducted by Educause, a nonprofit that advances higher education via information technology, suggest that XR promotes engagement, exposes students to new and impactful content, and deepens their interactions with complex concepts.
HP is a long-time advocate of bringing XR technologies into higher-ed environments, partnering with Educause in their Campus of the Future program, which identifies use cases for XR in college and university classrooms. In 2017, HP also launched the HP Applied Research Network, an initiative that helps more than 20 educational institutions implement XR technologies. HP is one of the sponsors of Educause's upcoming annual conference, to be held in-person in Philadelphia and online October 26-29.
"Concepts that are difficult to master in a 'flat' world — out of a book or looking at a chalkboard — are often much better suited for a 3D approach," says Paul Martin, HP distinguished technologist emeritus, who spent 36 years at the company before retiring this year. "XR is going to be crucial for future educational experiences."
Distance learning in VR
On top of helping students wrap their heads around complex concepts, the pandemic highlighted another practical use case for XR: giving homebound students an immersive, engaging experience, even when they can't be in the classroom.
When the CSU campus closed in March 2020, the Clapp Lab purchased 125 HP laptops and shipped them, along with VR headsets, to students. They've kept this technology on hand and deployed it for home use as classrooms have reopened.
RELATED: Get a behind-the-scenes look at how today's most intelligent VR solution came to be.
Clapp and other educators at CSU are now working on initiatives to bring this type of learning to underserved students and those who live in rural areas or have trouble commuting to campus.
"VR makes distance irrelevant — you can have access to experts from anywhere, and you feel like you're talking to them face to face," says Clapp.
Building community and critical thinking skills
In-person learning also benefits from advanced VR capabilities. At Florida International University (FIU), incoming students learn strategies to forge connections and adapt to new environments in a virtual experience called "COMMUNITY VR," part of FIU's First-Year Experience course.
Participating students enter a virtual, Everglades-style scene, only to immediately notice water rising around them. To avoid becoming completely submerged, small groups must work together to build structures out of blocks in VR. The exercise is designed to help students grasp the four "Cs" necessary to thrive in a university setting: creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication skills.
"The VR experience can provide an important analogy to the university experience itself," says John Stuart, an associate dean for cultural and community engagement at FIU. In the same way as VR is an unfamiliar environment for many people, being on a university campus can be daunting for first-timers. Students have to work together and get creative to keep their heads above water.
Exploring XR storytelling
At the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, center director Megan Elliott helped craft a curriculum focused on how XR might impact the future of live theater and the stage, among other disciplines. Some courses, taught by computer science and emerging media arts professors, involve using motion-capture and body data from dancers as a way to control avatars, sound, lighting, and visual effects in a live performance.
When the pandemic struck, Carson Center faculty and students used virtual collaboration software Mozilla Hubs to move the coursework online, re-creating the Johnny Carson Center virtually in just two weeks.
Like Clapp, Elliott sees serious potential for XR as a way to connect students from around the globe — including historically excluded communities — to top-tier learning institutions and experiences.
"We're really interested in our students becoming facile with both real-time creativity and real-time collaboration in virtual worlds," she says.
Evaluating the influence of media in XR
At Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications, Associate Professor T. Makana Chock is conducting research on storytelling in XR.
"My research looks at the potential effects of extended reality," she says. "How are people processing messages or information that they receive in XR? And what are the effects of that type of content on people's attitudes and beliefs?"
The ability to quantify some of these data points through biometric sensors, a feature of the HP Reverb G2 Omnicept devices that Chock uses in her research, could be a game changer. The devices capture data on eye movement, heart rate, and facial movements, allowing her to understand how people react to immersive experiences and design for new avenues of interactivity.
So far, Chock's research has found that XR tends to create greater levels of presence and immersion among users. It also seems to heighten emotional responses, which in turn can lead to more pronounced changes in attitudes. But results are dependent upon a person's own experiences and biases, Chock explains. And if content is too complex, it can result in cognitive overload or become emotionally overwhelming.
One major issue that needs to be addressed before XR can be widely used for social justice, Chock notes, is accessibility. "The pandemic created a greater awareness of the opportunities for the use of XR in education, but I think it also revealed some of the current limitations — some of which are technological and will be addressed in time, but others that are social, [like access and racial/gender equity]," she says.
Synthesizing a more inclusive future
At Columbia University's Computer Music Center, the oldest electronic music research facility in the Western Hemisphere, those social issues are top of mind. The center houses one of the world's largest collections of historical analog synthesizers and hosts classes like "Introduction to Digital Music," "Sound: Foundations," and "History and Practice of Electronic Music." This last one is especially pertinent to access and racial equity.
"The history of experimental sound includes a great many women and people who are nonbinary or have non-White/male/hetero/cis backgrounds, but their stories tend to get buried," says Suzanne Thorpe, a Mellon teaching fellow and lecturer at the Music Center.
Seth Cluett, assistant director of Columbia's Computer Music Center is leading an initiative to use VR and AR to give students an opportunity to play and record using the center's synthesizers and devices without actually touching the vintage hardware, which can be intimidating to novices.
"What we've tried to emphasize is that there is no boundary; there's no difference," says Cluett, referring to the difference between the virtual and physical experiences. "It is only understanding what kind of embodied physical gesture, action, or behavior you want to have control over a sonic result."
They also use the data-capture abilities of the HP Omnicept headset to understand how students feel when they're introduced to the historic collection. The HP Omnicept's sensors provide insight into where students' eyes go, for example, or what causes them stress, giving Cluett and Thorpe information they can use to design an experience that makes students feel more comfortable working with the physical devices.
"[We hope this work] might encourage those who feel hesitant because they've never seen 'themselves' represented, historically or culturally, in those kinds of environments," Thorpe says.
Quelle:
Foto: JOHN EISELE Biomedical students at Colorado State University's Clapp Lab work in VR with a chest CT data set to learn structural relationships.
https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/731236-5-higher-ed-programs-using-xr-transform-how-college-students-learn
]]>The future of VR haptics could be skin chemicals.
Researchers based out of theHuman Computer Integration Lab at the University of Chicago's Computer Science Department are working on a new form of haptic feedback technology that uses specific chemicals to simulate various sensations in VR, from heat and cold to numbness, stinging, and tingling.
These futuristic wearables can be worn anywhere on the body so long as it's touching the wearer's skin. Composed of silicone patches and micropumps, these "topical stimulants" distribute five different chemicals upon contact with the skin. Capsaicin, a key chemical found in spicy foods, is used to simulate heat. Menthol, on the other hand, is used to create a sensation of cold.
There's also lidocaine, an anesthetic that can numb the skin as well as sanshool, which delivers a tingling sensation. Last but not least there's cinnamaldehyde, an organic compound that can be used to create a stinging sensation.
"Our approach presents two unique benefits. First, it enables sensations, such as numbing, not possible with existing haptic devices. Second, our approach offers a new pathway, via the skin's chemical receptors, for achieving multiple haptic sensations using a single actuator, which would otherwise require combining multiple actuators (e.g., Peltier, vibration motors, electro-tactile stimulation)," states the team in their research paper.
For more information on theHuman Computer Integration Lab's chemical haptics technology, check out their official research paper entitled Chemical Haptics: Rendering Haptic Sensations via Topical Stimulants .
Quelle:
Feature Image Credit:University of Chicago
]]>Erstmalig wurde im Rahmen des Häusliche Pflege Innovationspreises 2021 der Sonderpreis „Bestes Ausbildungsprojekt" verliehen. Die Auszeichnung ging an den proVida Pflegedienst aus Hildesheim für sein ebenso attraktives wie innovatives Konzept „AZUBI NEXT LEVEL" – bei dem unter anderem auch 3D-Virtual-Reality-Brillen zum Einsatz kommen.
Zu den Säulen der Ausbildung bei proVida gehört neben den praxisbezogenen Lerninhalten und dem berufspraktischen Unterricht ein zusätzlicher betriebsinterner theoretischer Unterricht. Hierbei werden einmal monatlich die Lerninhalte der vergangenen Schulblöcke aufgegriffen und schwerpunktmäßig nochmals geschult.
In den wichtigen Bereichen der Themenfelder Anatomie, Physiologie und Pathophysiologie finden unter fachpädagogischer Anleitung und Begleitung 3D VR (Virtual Reality)-Brillen ihren Einsatz. Genutzt wird hierbei das spezielle lizensierte Lernprogramm „3D Organon". Hierbei handelt es sich um eine VR-Software, die speziell auf die medizinische sowie auf die gesundheitlich-pflegerische Ausbildung spezialisiert ist. Dabei ist es möglich, mehr als 10.000 anatomische Strukturen, die in 15 Körpersystemen angeordnet sind, sowie über 550 detaillierte Animationen von Körperaktionen von Muskeln und Organen darzustellen.
Detaillierten animierte Sequenzen
Der Einsatz der 3D VR-Brillen findet bei proVida immer im Kontext zur aktuellen Ausbildungsthematik statt. Theoretisch „auf der Schulbank" vermitteltes Wissen wird hierdurch für die Auszubildenden im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes greifbar und anfassbar. Ein Herz kann beispielsweise in jede Richtung gedreht und gewendet werden, es kann geöffnet werden, es wird ein Einblick ins Innere der Herzstrukturen ermöglicht. In detaillierten animierten Sequenzen können das arbeitende Herz, das Zusammenspiel der Herzkammern und der Herzklappen sowie die Funktionsweise des Kreislaufsystems von allen Seiten und im Detail betrachtet werden.
„Aufgrund des besonders intensiven und nachhaltigen Umgangs mit unseren Auszubildenden hat unser Unternehmen bereits in kürzester Zeit einen besonders guten Ruf als Ausbildungsbetrieb erhalten", unterstreicht proVida-Prokuristin Nele Trauernicht. „Durch die Kommunikation mit den Schulen und durch die Mundpropaganda in den Klassen hat sich bereits herumgesprochen, dass die Ausbildung bei proVida etwas Besonderes ist."
Lesen Sie den ganzen Beitrag in der aktuellen Ausgabe von Häusliche Pflege.
Quelle:
https://www.haeusliche-pflege.net/artikel/2021/10_2021/ausgezeichnete-ausbildung-azubi-next-level
]]>Looking To Manage Your Extended Reality Training?
Does your organization struggle to manage your extended reality (XR) training at scale? Are you excited to deploy your XR training program, but worry about managing and updating XR training content?
Look no further than an extended reality system (XRS).
What Is An Extended Reality System?
To understand the full capabilities of an XRS, let's first explore what extended reality (XR) training is. Extended reality (XR) training is inclusive of immersive learning technologies: virtual, augmented, and mixed reality. This type of training „extends" reality by transporting learners to a safe, multisensory learning environment that simulates real-world training scenarios.
As a way to manage, deliver, and assign this type of training, organizations may choose to use an extended reality system (XRS). An XRS uses cloud-based API technology to allow organizations to seamlessly administer their XR content and users from one convenient platform. Put simply, the main goal of an XRS is to make managing XR training easy.
Capabilities Of An Extended Reality System
While capabilities vary from platform to platform, an XRS generally enables an organization to perform a combination of the following tasks:
- Deliver and assign XR content directly to any user or device
- Automatically track and collect key training metrics [1] (e.g., user progress, choice selection, eye, and body movements)
- Integrate with an existing learning management system (LMS)
- Updates XR training [2] over WiFi without any additional software required
- Create custom XR training via accompanying software kits
How Is An Extended Reality System Priced?
The cost of an XRS depends on the number of licenses your organization purchases. Typically, each XR device (e.g., a VR headset) requires a single license and a baseline fee for a web-accessed portal.
It can be expected that the more licenses for an XRS that an organization purchases, the less expensive the monthly license fee is per device.
How Can An Extended Reality System Bring Value To Your Training?
The main way an XRS adds value to an organization's training initiatives is by helping them scale their XR training regardless of a learner's location. This provides a high level of scalability and accessibility for learners near and far, while also keeping the training material itself consistent and effective.
Without an XRS, organizations will need to require devices in person to make updates and may even need to juggle multiple training applications, causing an inefficient management process. An XRS provides a level of convenience and ease of use that wouldn't occur with manually managing XR training.
In addition, an XRS gives internal users (e.g., administrators, team leaders, L&D managers) access to dashboards and other essential training information all from one platform. This allows multiple personnel within an organization convenient access to key insights into the training's effectiveness.
3 Pros Of An Extended Reality System
- Conveniently deliver XR training to devices:Without needing to manually access devices, an XRS wirelessly delivers XR training and updates to devices over an internet connection.
- Track key performance indicators:Capturing training metrics is quite a challenge. With an XRS, organizations can automatically gather key performance metrics (e.g., attempts, completions, scores) and display them on easy-to-read dashboards for further analysis.
- Precisely assign training to learners:Each system is different, but typically an XRS allows organizations to assign training to the user, the device, or both. This gives organizations an added level of flexibility and control over their users' individual learning paths.
3 Cons Of An Extended Reality System
- File size and WiFi can affect content deployment and updates:More extensive XR training programs with advanced functionality may negatively affect download times of content. Additionally, WiFi with low bandwidth may further draw out deployment and update times. To avoid this problem, organizations should ensure the content required for training is downloaded onto the device well before training begins.
- Compatibility varies:Not every XRS is compatible with every operating system and device. To avoid compatibility issues, organizations should check that their XRS is compatible with their learning devices, software, and existing content prior to the start of their training.
- User education may be necessary:Given the advanced nature of XR technology, learners may need a tutorial or additional training on what to expect with this newer technology. Luckily, most XR technology is intuitive enough that learners won't have to worry about unexpected issues or difficulty navigating their training.
By eliminating the hurdles to efficiently manage XR training, an XRS allows L&D professionals to take control of their XR training like never before.
References:
[1] Training Metrics and ROI: Formulas and Descriptions
[2] Is An XRS The Best Way To Update VR Content?
Quelle:
https://elearningindustry-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/elearningindustry.com/what-is-extended-reality-system-capabilities-cost-pros-cons/amp
Foto: XR System Capabilities, Pros, And Cons
]]>The three incumbents with the most staked on the metaverse are Meta (Facebook), Apple and Microsoft.
In this article, I will explain why that's the case, using the methodology I began in the Value-Chain of the Metaverse. I'll cover the metaverse technologies they are investing in, along with their differences in business model and network effects, and how this may give us some insight into the future.
Apple
Apple is the most vertically integrated computer technology company ever created.
Apple has massive advantages when it comes to creating a version of the metaverse:
Experiences: Apple original TV programming is Apple's largest foray into actual content experiences. It's hard to say whether Apple will continue to fund more experiences, but this TV programming shows that they're no longer opposed to becoming content creators.
Discovery: App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Search Ads
Creator Economy: Xcode, needed for building MacOS and iOS applications of any kind, and numerous developer frameworks.
Spatial Computing:Metal (Apple's 3D graphics API), Apple Maps (which is mapping the Earth, a critical resource for augmented reality applications) and — most importantly — ARKit, the development framework for Augmented Reality applications, which is enabling Apple to create a significant developer ecosystem in advance of more advanced AR/VR hardware.
Decentralization: not particularly decentralized — indeed, Apple seems fairly hostile to the whole idea of decentralization. Their business is built around vertical integration, not sharing their technology stack with others. Apple's trajectory appears well on the way to becoming even more centralized. Recent changes to Apple's advertising ecosystem (clothed in admirable "privacy" features) does not apply to Apple's own advertising network, which has resulted in a significant boost in market share for Apple Search Ads. Other privacy features such as Private Relay, offers Safari web browsers greater protection of their IP addresses — but passes data through Apple's centralized service, which opens the door to Apple becoming a permissioned gateway to the World Wide Web. When Apple talks about interoperability, they're usually referring to interoperability between Apple products — not between the internet and other vendors. Apple is looking into blockchain, but there's no word whether this is just exploratory or the foundation of a serious plan.
Human Interface: Apple makes computers, the iPhone; wearables like the Apple Watch; the Apple TV. Tim Cook has described augmented reality as "one of these very few profound technologies that we will look back on one day and, 'How did we lives out without it?'" Augmented Reality has the potential replace virtually all of our other screens through digital holograms. There are few companies that can manufacture hardware at the scale of Apple, so when they finally have a consumer-ready augmented reality headset it will likely become one of the principal ways we access the metaverse.
Infrastructure:With the M1 chip, Apple is now a major semiconductor company. The M1 is a reflection of Apple's vertical integration — in this case, providing a complete "system on a chip" that unifies memory, GPU, CPU and Artificial Intelligence processing in a way that improves performance and power utilization, all of which will be key to enabling consumer-ready augmented reality. Of the three companies, Apple is far more advanced in its fundamental science and semiconductor engineering.
Apple is ultimately a hardware business with a rapidly-growing and thriving services business built on top of it. Apple genuinely wants to bring consumers amazing experiences — but the cost is a lot of permission, control and tollbooths along the way. As long as Apple has existed, they've sought to vertically integrate as much as they can — while adding more centralized control of their technology as they do so — and one can expect this to only continue.
Microsoft
Microsoft is the most decentralized of the three titans: PC software development remains one of the truly "open" and permissionless software ecosystems — one that Microsoft profits from handsomely through the Windows operating system, while also enabling software developers to extract most of the value.
Satya Nadella presented his vision of the Metaverse at Microsoft Ignite.Here's where Microsoft stands now:
Experiences:Microsoft has done the most of our 3 titans to advance and develop experiences: through homegrown products like Microsoft Flight Simulator — and through acquisitions, a roster of premier game studios that have produced hit franchises like Halo, Fallout and the Elder Scrolls. Minecraft is a household name; and the creativity of Minecraft shows much of what the metaverse's creator economy could look like. Microsoft Teams is a chat and conferencing platform that may lead the way to more immersive and embodied workforce collaboration in the future.
Discovery:Microsoft has brought software distribution closer to the operating system thanks to the Windows Store, while still enabling software developers to distribute however they like. The Xbox game console has a closed distribution ecosystem. And of course, Microsoft owns ad networks and the second-largest web-page search engine.
Creator Economy: an extensive set of developer tools including Visual Studio and countless other tools. And Minecraft is training countless kids on how to create content in a relatively open metaverse. Microsoft has also been investing in artificial intelligence technology — especially natural language processing — which will be important for no-code/low-code creative tools and virtual beings.
Spatial Computing: DirectX is the 3D graphics API that nearly all PC software ultimately depends on, and Microsoft is investing in the operating system technology that will enable augmented reality to function in a seamless way with our physical environment. The AI and deep learning technology Microsoft is investing in has applicability to image recognition which will be critical for augmented reality.
Decentralization: as noted above, PC software development is essentially permissionless. Microsoft is also investing in technologies like self-sovereign identity that could provide an open and decentralized means of authenticating and owning your identity without the centralized control of platforms like Facebook Login.
Human Interface: the Xbox game system has given Microsoft many years of experience working with GameTech and making it work with hardware. Microsoft is building up massive manufacturing scale on Hololens, their augmented reality product, thanks to a $21B deal with the US Military. Although Hololens is targeted at government, military and business customers — this may give Microsoft a head-start that allows them to perfect it before bringing it to consumers at even greater production scale.
Infrastructure: on the semiconductor front, Microsoft simply isn't at the same level as Apple — yet if open positions at Microsoft are any indication, they intend to change that. They're currently recruiting for engineers to help with display engineering as well as artificial intelligence silicon. On the other hand, the Azure cloud infrastructure business is enormous and an enabler of applications, games and metaverse experiences.
Microsoft is the yin to Apple's yang; where Apple is a hardware company with a substantial service business — Microsoft is a software and services company with a growing hardware business. This is reflected in Microsoft's business model, which is geared towards getting the most developers to adopt its software ecosystem.
Bill Gates claimed, "A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it, exceeds the value of the company that creates it."Microsoft seems more interested in selling the software and services to make developers successful, and less interested in extracting rents and control (although exceptions like the Xbox do exist).
Meta (Facebook)
I originally wrote-up Facebook's metaverse investments a bit before their Meta re-branding announcement. You can read the original here. The following breakdown has been updated to include some of Meta's recent acquisitions, the comparison to our other titans, as well as indications of how Meta is now investing in materials science and semiconductors:
Experiences:Meta acquired Within, the creators of Supernatural VR, an immersive fitness platform that takes place in virtual reality (with landscapes as far-off as the surface as Mars!) along with regular content updates and competitive dynamics. Facebook and Instagram have been increasingly adding real-time experiences such as livestreaming. And Venues is a way to watch movies or hang out with your friends in an immersive social experience. The Facebook Connect 2021 keynote covered how Facebook sees the metaverse evolving within their ecosystem — with a focus towards "embodied" experiences within virtual and augmented reality.
Discovery: Meta is an advertising company, which makes them quite a bit different from the hardware business of Apple or the software/services business of Microsoft. This is reflected in almost everything they do; advertising must be integrated into products to drive the revenue that will support the $10 billion (and more) per year that Meta expects to invest in the metaverse. Their other sources of revenue include revenue share that comes from the Oculus store, which is another form of discovery.
Creator Economy: Horizon Worlds is Meta's developer platform for creating virtual reality content. It includes no-code/low-code tools to content creation. Meta also announced that they expect to make it possible to create accessories for your avatar that would interoperate with applications that are not owned by Meta, utilizing NFTs.
Spatial Computing: along with their hardware products, Meta is investing in software to create the multi-layer user interfaces, digital holograms, AI for gesture recognition, etc.
Decentralization: we don't really know what Meta's plans with respect to decentralization are. They've had some half-hearted initiatives around digital wallets (Novi) and their own experiments in digital currency (Diem, formerly known as Libra). They mentioned NFTs as a means of providing interoperability for digital assets, but it is important to note that NFTs can easily be created on a private, centralized blockchain as on a permissionless, decentralized blockchain. But will you be able to create immersive content in something like Horizon that could be deployed anywhere using open standards like OpenXR? Nobody knows yet — although it's hard to see how that would fit Meta's business model.
Human Interface: hardware includes the Oculus virtual reality platform, as well as the Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses. While the latter do not yet include augmented reality features, they do have a camera, voice recognition commands, and a high-quality audio feature that I find more pleasant than wearing earbuds — and this ergonomic form-factor gives us a window into what headsets will evolve into. They also spent over half a billion dollars acquiring neural interface company CTRL-Labs.
Infrastructure: this is an area where Meta is playing catch-up to both Microsoft and Apple, which both have years of advanced hardware and manufacturing experience. The Oculus is largely built from components and semiconductors from other suppliers, but the hiring plans at Meta show that they intend to invest heavily in materials science and semiconductor engineering, following in the footsteps of the vertical integration Apple now enjoys. Job postings refer to positions to develop new integrated circuits, OLED circuit design; advanced materials engineers ("new materials for consumer near-to-eye displays") and photonic devices ("LED and laser devices core to delivering transformative experiences in Oculus AR/VR products").
Network Effects and Business Model Distinctions
Aside from the various investments being made in hardware, augmented reality headsets, experiences and the creator tools to make them — the most profound differences between Microsoft, Meta and Apple is their business models.
At their core:
- Apple is ahardware company.
- Microsoft is asoftware and services company.
- Meta/Facebook is anadvertising company.
I believe the way each company approaches new products, pricing, rents, privacy, permission and gatekeeping will reflect this DNA.
In Tech's Two Philosophies, Ben Thompson laid out the distinction between a platform that creates the most opportunity for its developers — versus an aggregator of demand that captures most of the economics for itself.
Apple looks like this today:
From Stratechery: Apple captures an outsized portion of iOS developer revenue, which impacts sustainability and innovation.
Facebook looks much the same — most revenue is captured in the form of discovery (via advertising or the Oculus store).
Microsoft's network effects and revenue come from the health of its developer ecosystem more than the ability to capture and control distribution.
Honorable Mention: Alphabet and NVIDIA
A couple other titans are worth noting, but didn't quite make the cut for this article.
NVIDIA's semiconductors lead in virtually all the areas that are critical to the growth of the metaverse: graphics processing units (GPUs), artificial intelligence and datacenter operations. And they're also working on the Omniverse platform, which is focused on workforce collaboration between various artists, engineers and designers within immersive space.
Alphabet's discovery services are the most important on the internet — between the Google search engine, YouTube, and the Google Play store. They've dipped their toe into the experience layer with Stadia. Their approach to hardware has been to license its operating system to the world (Android). And they have a growing cloud service business. Of all the companies mentioned, they have probably invested the most in artificial intelligence research. Yet they simply don't have as coherent a strategy for the metaverse in the same way that Apple, Microsoft and Meta appear to. That said, one can imagine them fixing this quickly.
Further Reading
- Read The Metaverse Value Chain to gain an understanding of the 7 layers I've covered here — experience, discovery, creator economy, spatial computing, decentralization, human interface and infrastructure.
- Check out my Market Map of the Metaverse to learn how 200+ companies fit into the 7 layers.
- Read Experiences of the Metaverse to gain some inspiration about the types of things we'll be doing in the metaverse.
Quelle:
https://medium.com/building-the-metaverse/clash-of-the-metaverse-titans-microsoft-meta-and-apple-ce505b010376
]]>Nach dem Mutterkonzern wird 2022 auch die Virtual-Reality-Sparte Oculus umbenannt: Meta Quest soll künftig ohne Facebook-Konto auskommen.
Im Windschatten der Umbenennung von Facebook.coms Dachgesellschaft zu Meta werden auch einige Hardware-Produkte des Unternehmens sowie Apps neue Namen bekommen. So wird die Virtual-Reality-Marke Oculus 2022 verschwinden. Das VR-Headset Oculus Quest heißt dann Meta Quest. Fallen soll der seit einem Jahr für neue Oculus-Privatkunden geltende Zwang zum Facebook-Konto.
Nachdem Mark Zuckerberg den Facebook-Konzern zu Meta umgetauft hat, legt sein Technik-Chef nach. Andrew Bosworth teilt mit, dass die Facebook Reality Labs als Unternehmensbereich für Virtual und Augmented Reality künftig nur noch Reality Labs heißen werden. An der Arbeit an Metaversum, Künstlicher Intelligenz und Entwicklerplattformen ändert sich dadurch nichts.
Tschüss, Oculus Quest. Hallo, Meta Quest!
Gleichzeitig werden mehrere Produkte umbenannt. Dass die smarten Displays Facebook Portal künftig Meta Portal heißen werden, überrascht wenig. Aber Meta vereinnahmt auch die VR-Marke Oculus, die Facebook 2014 übernommen hat. Bald ist Oculus Geschichte: Die Oculus Quest VR-Headsets werden ab irgendwann 2022 Meta Quest heißen. Dementsprechend werden auch die Apps von Oculus zu Meta umbenannt.
Andere VR-Anwendungen sollen unter der Marke Horizon laufen, wie beispielsweise „Horizon Workrooms" für digitale Teamarbeit, die als offene Beta-Version erhältlich ist. Deshalb werden bisherige Oculus-Apps künftig Horizon Home, Horizon Venues, Horizon Friends und Horizon Profile heißen.
VR-Headset: Ab 2022 auch ohne Facebook.com
Für VR-Interessierte in Deutschland ist besonders wichtig, dass Quest-VR-Headsets wieder ohne Facebook-Zwang gekauft werden können. Das im Laufe des Jahres 2022 möglich werden. Seit September 2020 wird Oculus Quest in Deutschland nicht mehr verkauft. Grund dürfte die Entscheidung des Bundeskartellamts sein, Facebook die Zusammenführung der Nutzerdaten zu verbieten. Das bezieht sich zwar auf die Facebook-Töchter WhatsApp und Instagram, aber auch bei der Einrichtung des VR-Headsets muss ein Oculus-Konto mit einem Facebook-Konto verknüpft werden.
Mit den Umbenennungen seiner Produkte in Meta beschreitet der bislang als Facebook, Inc., bekannte Konzern einen anderen Weg als Google. Die Suchmaschinenfirma hat sich 2015 eine Holding namens Alphabet übergestülpt, der Google, Waymo und andere Töchter untergeordnet sind. Als Markenname tritt Alphabet aber nicht in Erscheinung, im Gegensatz zu Meta.
Quelle:
https://www-heise-de.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.heise.de/amp/news/Virtual-Reality-Oculus-wird-Meta-und-entkommt-dem-Facebook-Zwang-6234860.html
]]>Thanks to TELUS' funding and high speed Internet technology, 10 Lü systems will help youth in isolated communities and Innu territories learn, explore, and be active
TELUS, theTELUS Friendly Future Foundation, and a team of partners donated $350,000 to distribute 10 Lü systemsfeaturing immersive audiovisual technology to schools in the Lower North Shore via the Fondation Docteur Camille-Marcoux. The 600 students in these isolated communities and Innu territories can now learn, explore, and be active, thanks to a virtual environment that connects them with one another and to activities that develop their social, emotional, physical, and intellectual skills.
This major donation includes $100,000 from TELUS and $100,000 from the TELUS Friendly Future Foundation, and follows the recent deployment of the TELUS 5G and 4G network in the Lower North Shore earlier this year, which connected 2,000 households to high speed Internet and mobile phone services for the first time. Through collaboration with the Government of Canada, Government of Québec, and the Société du Plan Nord, this network initiative marked one of TELUS' largest digital infrastructure projects north of the 49th parallel to date, helping bridge the digital divide by connecting the Lower North Shore and its businesses, healthcare centres, and schools to the rest of the world.
"We're so grateful for this donation from both TELUS and the TELUS Friendly Future Foundation," said Vincent Joncas, President of the Fondation Docteur Camille-Marcoux. "Since the arrival of high speed Internet, teaching has become easier and more engaging, and our youth now have the same advantages as other students. From Blanc-Sablon to Kegaska, Lü systems will transform our classrooms into interactive spaces where students can dance to great music, practice their high-jumping, and explore the infinite spaces of the universe and the depths of the ocean as though they are actually there. It's opened up a whole new world of information and possibilities."
Lü systems use virtual learning spaces built around a giant projection wall, a 3D camera, and light and sound systems. Through the power of high speed Internet, youth in the isolated villages of the Lower North Shore will be connected to the Lü virtual community, and will interact with students in other classrooms around the world. The Lü environments will also be accessible to residents in all remote communities, creating a circuit of connections between younger and older generations, and diverse cultures all across Québec.
"Our multi-award-winning wireless network and Lü's immersive technology create connections, break through isolation, and broaden youth's horizons in the Lower North Shore," said Marie-Christine D'Amours, Vice President, Consumer Solutions and Customer Experience for TELUS in Québec. "With today's announcement, we're linking our long-standing commitment to deploying our networks to Québec residents no matter where they live, with our goal to build a better future for communities and youth so they can achieve their full potential. We're also proud to have brought together a coalition of partners who were innovative during the ambitious deployment of our technologies in the Lower North Shore and answered the call to give back to local communities."
Since 2000, TELUS and the TELUS Friendly Future Foundation have donated $82 million to charitable organizations in Québec, and its team members have contributed 1.2 million hours of volunteer work. Founded in 2018, the TELUS Friendly Future Foundation is connecting youth to a world of opportunities by supporting charities that offer health or educational programs to help at-risk youth thrive in a digital world. Last year, the foundation, alongside the 13 TELUS Community Boards, provided $8.9 million in funding to 607 registered charities, serving more than 6 million marginalized Canadians in communities across the country.
A team of partners to bridge the digital divide
Six partners have joined the project alongside TELUS and the TELUS Friendly Future Foundation: IT2go, the Centre de services scolaire du Littoral, the Institut Tshakapesh, and corporate partners WesTower Communications, Nokia, and Madysta.
Quotes from partners:
- "Lü transforms play spaces into magical worlds for children," said Tommy Bouffard, President of IT2go, a partner of Lü – Interactive Playground. "The 3D camera and sound and light systems create giant, touch-sensitive projections on the walls, where youth can dive in to learn, move and have fun with hundreds of activities and applications. For example, they can release balloons when an answer is correct in a friendly mental arithmetic competition or become the heroes of a video game where they can explore new worlds. Sports, math, French, agility, music… We offer a range of games to suit all students."
- "The arrival of high speed Internet has provided teachers and students with additional tools to enhance the educational experience in Lower North Shore schools. Educational platforms that were previously inaccessible are now being used on a daily basis by our students," said Phil Joycey, Administrator of the Centre de services scolaire du Littoral, the region's school service centre. "High speed Internet is reliable and breaks down geographical barriers, giving all of our youth equal opportunities to learn and grow. We're pleased to be able to participate in this exciting joint project with a contribution of $45,000. We're taking education to new levels with the introduction of interactive tools such as Lü systems, which are now used in every school gymnasium in the area covered by the school service centre."
- "In a context of openness to the rest of the world, the Institut Tshakapesh provides communities with quality services in the fields of language, culture and education to encourage the success of each student," said Tina Vassiliou, Director of Research, Development and Innovation at the Institut Tshakapesh. "Not only will the Lü systems help our young people to learn, but the technology will also bring us closer to the Lower North Shore communities, becoming a vehicle for transmitting and sharing Innu culture. A digital path from one Lü system to another will link us all together for 400 kilometres, from Kegaska to Blanc-Sablon."
- "We're pleased to not only be a partner in building the infrastructure for this exciting project, but to also be contributing $25,000 to the Fondation Docteur Camille-Marcoux," said Nathan Schauerte, President and CEO of WesTower Communications. "Our team spared no effort in our work with TELUS to deploy the high speed wireless network in the Lower North Shore region, braving the harsh weather and complex logistics of working in this isolated area, including incorporating creative solutions like bringing equipment in by boat and helicopter. Supporting education for young people in the region was a perfectly natural next step in our commitment to promoting economic development and connecting the communities of the Lower North Shore."
- "To bring high speed technology to the Lower North Shore, Nokia and TELUS deployed one of the largest and most advanced microwave ecosystems in the world," said Jeffrey Maddox, President of Nokia Canada. "Our technology supports Internet and cellular services in the region, and is helping to deliver educational opportunities for local students that will enable them to ultimately excel in a global environment. We're excited to be a part of this important community project and to donate to the Fondation Docteur Camille-Marcoux."
- "Deploying high speed infrastructure across the vast and roadless territory of the Lower North Shore is one of the most ambitious projects we've been involved in to date," said Yvan St-Arnaud, President from Madysta. "We're delighted to make a $10,000 donation to deploy Lü systems in schools in the Lower North Shore, and to have a huge positive impact on youth's academic success."
To learn more about Lü systems, visit play-lu.com and for more information on the TELUS Friendly Future Foundation, visit friendlyfuture.com.
TELUS is committed to progressing the path of Reconciliation in a meaningful way. Learn more about our commitments and actions here.
About the Fondation Docteur Camille-Marcoux
The Fondation Docteur Camille-Marcoux's mission is to support the development of social, health and education services in the Lower North Shore, including support for the CISSS (Integrated Health and Social Services Centre) and local organizations in projects to improve the services offered to residents. The Fondation also supports human resources development in the Lower North Shore by granting scholarships based on academic perseverance.
About TELUS Friendly Future Foundation
Founded in 2018, the TELUS Friendly Future Foundation funds programs, services and technology for registered Canadian charities helping at-risk communities, particularly youth. The foundation provides more than 500 charitable grants annually in Canada and helps over 2 million at-risk Canadian youth every year.
Last year, the TELUS Friendly Future Foundation announced a $10 million commitment to urgently support and enhance public healthcare capacity and community response across Canada including funding to help purchase new medical technology and equipment, such as ventilators, as well as increased support for food security, outreach to isolated seniors, virtual education programs, and mental health initiatives. TELUS Friendly Future Foundation's current priorities include supporting charities that offer health, education and technology programs that help at-risk youth thrive.
About TELUS
TELUS (TSX: T, NYSE: TU) is a dynamic, world-leading communications technology company with $16 billion in annual revenue and 16 million customer connections spanning wireless, data, IP, voice, television, entertainment, video, and security. We leverage our global-leading technology and compassion to enable remarkable human outcomes. Our longstanding commitment to putting our customers first fuels every aspect of our business, making us a distinct leader in customer service excellence and loyalty. In 2020, TELUS was recognized as having the fastest wireless network in the world, reinforcing our commitment to provide Canadians with access to superior technology that connects us to the people, resources and information that make our lives better. TELUS Health is Canada's leader in digital health technology, improving access to health and wellness services and revolutionizing the flow of health information across the continuum of care. TELUS Agriculture provides innovative digital solutions throughout the agriculture value chain, supporting better food outcomes from improved agri-business data insights and processes. TELUS International (TSX and NYSE: TIXT) is a leading digital customer experience innovator that delivers next-generation AI and content management solutions for global brands across the technology and games, ecommerce and FinTech, communications and media, healthcare, travel and hospitality sectors. TELUS and TELUS International operate in 25+ countries around the world. Together, let's make the future friendly.
Driven by our passionate social purpose to connect all citizens for good, our deeply meaningful and enduring philosophy to give where we live has inspired TELUS, our team members and retirees to contribute more than $820 million and 1.6 million days of service since 2000. This unprecedented generosity and unparalleled volunteerism have made TELUS the most giving company in the world.
Quelle:
https://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=281469
]]>Microsoft möchte es gestalten, Facebook auch – und hat sich dafür sogar in Meta umbenannt. Das „Metaverse" ist die Hype-Idee der Stunde. Kommt jetzt ein Wettlaufen darum, wer als erstes die größte virtuelle Welt aller Zeiten baut?
„Das Metaverse ist da", verkündete Microsoft-Chef Satya Nadella diese Woche in einer Videobotschaft. „Und es verändert nicht nur die Welt, sondern auch wie wir an ihr teilhaben – von den Fabrikhallen bis zu den Konferenzräumen."
Hinter der großen Botschaft steckte fürs Erste noch keine Revolution. Microsofts große Ankündigung sind digitale Avatare, die als Doppelgänger ihrer realen Vorbilder in Meetings und Konferenzen teilnehmen können.
Der Gedanke dahinter: Anstatt stundenlang in nervenaufreibenden Online-Schalten festzustecken, sollen Mitarbeiter die Möglichkeit haben, digitale Abbilder anzeigen zu lassen, die mithilfe von künstlicher Intelligenz die Körpersprache ihrer realen Vorbilder lernen. Außerdem soll man durch diese digitalen Avatare nicht mehr auf 2D-Bildschirme angewiesen sein – auch in Virtual Reality oder Augmented Reality wären digitale Treffen künftig möglich.
Ob Microsofts Ideen wirklich eine Revolution darstellen, ist fraglich – viele Beobachter sind bisher skeptisch. Allerdings möchte Microsoft nicht einfach nur eine Technologie vorstellen, um Online-Meetings dreidimensional zu machen. Der Hinweis darauf liegt in dem Begriff, den Microsoft für die Technologie benutzt: Das „Metaverse".
Auch Facebook setzt auf das Metaverse
Erst letzte Woche hat Mark Zuckerberg öffentlich die größte Kursänderung in der Geschichte des Facebook-Konzerns bekanntgegeben: Der Konzern, der nun Meta heißt, will sich in Zukunft mehr auf virtuelle Welten konzentrieren, und bezeichnet diese ebenfalls als „Metaverse". Dass der Plan ernst gemeint ist, zeigt nicht nur der neue Name: Zuckerberg hat auch angekündigt, im Jahr zehn Milliarden Dollar in das Metaverse zu investieren und in Europa 10.000 neue Arbeitsplätze dafür zu schaffen.
Sowohl Microsoft als auch Google haben ähnliche Vorstellungen darüber, was das Metaverse sein soll: Eine Entwicklung hin zu virtuellen Welten, die mit digitaler Hardware betreten wird, und die im Alltag von immer mehr Menschen eine Rolle spielen soll. Die virtuelle Welt, so die Prognose, wird immer wichtiger – vielleicht sogar wichtiger als die analoge.
Was ist das Metaverse jetzt eigentlich?
Das Metaverse ist eine Zukunftsvision, maßgeblich geprägt durch die Essays des amerikanischen Autors Matthew Ball. Er beschreibt es als „den Nachfolger des mobilen Internets". In seiner Vorstellung bewegen wir uns auf eine Welt zu, in der virtuelle Güter und Dienstleistungen bald mit der gleichen Selbstverständlichkeit ausgetauscht werden wie in der physischen Welt. Virtual Reality spielt in diesem Szenario eine wichtige Rolle. Und in diesen Bereich investieren Meta, Microsoft und andere große Tech-Unternehmen gerade massiv.
Genauso wichtig ist jedoch: Das Metaverse soll ein vielfältiges Ökosystem sein, eine lebendige virtuelle Welt. Nach dieser Definition könnten die Bemühungen von Microsoft und Meta zwar ein Teil des Metaverse sein, aber niemals das Metaverseselbst. Genau wie Facebook nicht gleichbedeutend mit „dem Internet" ist.
Was bringt die Zukunft wirklich?
Letztlich lassen sich die Präsentationen von Microsoft und Meta auf zwei Arten interpretieren: Entweder die großen Tech-Konzerne wollen das Metaverse selbst bauen und besitzen – oder sie versuchen, einen Teil des Ökosystems Metaverse mitzugestalten. Letzteres wäre näher an Matthew Balls Definition des Metaverse: Einer digitalen Welt, die von zehntausenden Unternehmen und Menschen gleichzeitig entwickelt, und dadurch dezentral verwaltet wird.
Mark Zuckerberg hat in einigen Interviews seit der Meta-Ankündigung betont, wie wichtig das Thema Kollaboration für ihn sei: „Am Wichtigsten ist hier, dass die virtuellen Güter und die digitale Wirtschaft, die [im Metaverse] entstehen, interoperabel sind", sagte er dem Tech-Magazin Stratechery. „Das heißt, dass man seinen Avatar und seine digitale Kleidung, Werkzeuge und Erlebnisse woandershin mitnehmen kann."
Aktuell funktionieren die Facebook-Plattformen, genau wie die meisten großen Plattformen im Internet, noch als abgeschlossene Welten. Daten und Accounts funktionieren nur innerhalb einer Plattform, sie lassen sich nicht in andere mitnehmen. Sollte Mark Zuckerberg zu seinem Wort stehen, könnte sich das in Zukunft ändern – und die Metaverse-Welten von Microsoft, Meta und anderen Unternehmen könnten miteinander kompatibel und kombinierbar werden. Doch auch ein anderes Szenario ist möglich: Eines, in dem ein einzelner Konzern den Kampf darum gewinnt, als erster das Metaverse fertigzubauen, und damit zum Monopolisten aufsteigt.
Letztlich ist das alles möglich – und wohl auch die Tech-Konzernchefs selbst wissen nicht, was am Ende passieren wird. Insbesondere weil es auch noch ein drittes Szenario gibt: Dass das Metaverse sich als kurzzeitiger Hype erweist und in einigen Jahren niemand mehr darüber spricht.
Quelle:
https://www.br.de/nachrichten/netzwelt/wer-baut-zuerst-das-metaverse-und-brauchen-wir-es-ueberhaupt,SnmbEuq
Foto: Meeting in Microsoft Teams – mit Unterstützung durch 3D-Avatare – © Microsoft
Bildrechte: Microsoft
Google ist seit jeher als sehr experimentierfreudiges Unternehmen bekannt, das viele neue Produkte an die Wand wirft und sich ansieht, welche kleben bleiben. Mit diesem Modell ist man seit zwei Jahrzehnten erfolgreich und baut das nun intern um eine weitere Stufe aus. Durch eine interne Umstrukturierung wird das neueGoogle Labs geschaffen, in dem Aktivitäten rund um VR, AR sowie Area 120 gebündelt werden.
Google ist nicht nur sehr experimentierfreudig und probiert gern neue Dinge aus, sondern man zieht auch rigoros den Stecker, wenn es nicht funktioniert. Das kommt bei Nutzern nicht immer gut an, sodass es vielleicht eine gute Idee ist, den Status solcher Produkte noch weiter in die Öffentlichkeit zu tragen. Ob das bei der jüngsten Umstrukturierung, die erst einmal intern stattfindet, der Fall sein wird, muss man abwarten.
Es wurde der neue BereichGoogle Labs geschaffen, bei dem allein schon der Name verheißungsvoll ist. Ältere Leser werden sich noch an den Google Labs-Bereich mit damaligen Experimenten erinnern, die heute zum größten Teil in Produkten untergebracht wurden – so wie etwa der Google Maps Standortverlauf, die öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel oder die Bedienung per Sprache. Jetzt startet man intern erneut einen solchen Bereich, der wieder ein wenig Startup-Feeling in das Unternehmen bringen soll.
In einen sehr kurzen Auszug wird die Mission von Google Labs wie folgt beschrieben:
Focused on starting and growing new, forward-looking investment areas across the company.
Zur neuen Gruppe gehörenArea 120, die nach wie vor vielversprechenende BereicheVirtual Reality undAugmented Reality. Geleitet wird die neue Abteilung von Clay Bavor, der nun den Area 120-Bereich zusätzlich überblickt und bis 2015 die Dienste GMail, Google Drive und Google Docs leitete. Dass die neue Abteilung für das Unternehmen sehr wichtig ist zeigt sich daran, dass Bavor direkt an CEO Sundar Pichai berichten wird.
Eigentlich hatte Google die Virtual Reality bereits aufgegeben, doch erst vor wenigen Tagen haben wir euch von einem neuen VR-Spiel einer Google-Tochter berichtet und auch im AR-Bereich hat man einigen Aktivitäten. Area 120 ist seit jeher ein Startup-Inkubator und hat bereits einige erfolgreiche Produkte auf den Markt gebracht.
Quelle:
https://www.googlewatchblog.de/2021/11/google-labs-neue-abteilung/
]]>Students are set to attend a new US charter school using the Irish firm's inventive VR platform
ENGAGE XR announced on Friday it had struck a massive deal with classical curriculum development firm Optima Domi to provide solutions for a world-first virtual reality (VR) charter school in Florida.
The facility will open classes in Autumn 2022 and plans to host up to 1,500 teachers and scholars for grades 3 to 8, with learners attending their daily classes and subjects on ENGAGE's virtual platform.
Optima Domi also plans to extend VR classes to eleventh grade learners in the 2023-2024 academic year, with K-12 students joining the programme the following year.
Global science and technology firm 3M has also used the ENGAGE platform to develop its company Metaverse platform, MetaWorld '3M Home', a VR project aimed at exploring customer experience goals.
The Waterford, Ireland-based firm's contract with 3M, announced in late July, will allow customers to interact and access the latter's products globally via a head-mounted display (HMD).
In an investment presentation, David Whelan, Chief Executive Officer for ENGAGE XR, said it was "exciting" his company's platform was chosen for the world's first VR Charter school.
He added,
"ENGAGE is being utilised more and more in education and enterprise settings. Companies and organisations are also beginning to look at the role the MetaVerse can play in engagement. The development of 3M Home using ENGAGE is a great example"
Whelan explained how US tech firm Meta's announcement in late October had "helped shine a light" on his enterprise's developments over the last five years.
He added ENGAGE XR had also received ISO27001 Certification, indicating its pledge to building top-rated security for its platform.
The CEO said the next 12 months would see additional market recognition of the Metaverse, allowing customers of his company services to create their own MetaWorlds, concluding: "The Metaverse will be a collection of interconnected virtual worlds and ENGAGE XR can play a key role in enabling it."
The statement comes amid fierce competition from top global tech firms such as Meta, NVIDIA, HTC VIVE, Nextech AR, UpWorlds, Boson Protocol, and numerous others building the next generation of communications widely expected to succeed the Internet.
Quelle:
The new Metaverse firm has developed a haptic solution capable of industry-wide change
Meta AI, formerly Facebook AI, announced in a blog post on Monday it had created a new material and touch sensor capable of boosting the development of the Metaverse.
Researchers of artificial intelligence (AI) at the newly-branded Metaverse firm have worked jointly with researchers and scientists at Carnegie Mellon University to build ReSkin: a plastic, 3-millimetre-thick membrane with magnetic particles capable of measuring touch and sensation.
According to the post from Roberto Calandra, Meta AI Research Scientist and Mike Lambeta, Research Engineer for Meta AI, the new material would allow sensors to monitor changes in the magnetic field to communicate with AI-powered software to enable tactile-sensing robots.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's Chief Executive and Co-Founder, wrote the team had "designed a high-res touch sensor and worked with Carnegie Mellon to create a thin robot skin," bringing the company "one step closer to realistic virtual objects and physical interactions in the metaverse."
Robots handling soft fruits trialled the new skin, and further testing found the AI programme required training on 100 human touches to understand the link between magnetic field changes and touch.
The news comes after Meta said it had released the full open-source design of its DIGIT sensor last year, which was "significantly cheaper to manufacture and provides hundreds of thousands more contact points" compared to current commercial tactile sensors, offering greater access to global research teams.
Abhinav Gupta, Research Scientist for Meta, said in a phone conversation that tactile sensing had previously been too expensive or fragile to collect substantial data, adding,
"If you think of how humans or babies learn, rich multimodal data is quite critical for developing an understanding of the world. We are learning from pixels, sound, touch, taste, smell, and so on. But if you look at how AI has advanced in this last decade, we have made huge advances in pixels and we have made advances in sound: audio, speech and so on. But touch has been missing from this advancement even though it is very critical"
He concluded Meta's ReSkin could allow robots to measure pressure forces to roughly 0.1 Newtons on objects less than 1-millimetre wide, adding researchers could finally "have better understanding of the physics behind object" as they worked to build the Metaverse.
Meta AI's blog posts echoed Gupta's comments, stating the sensors should replicate the functions of the human finger, be compact and miniturised, "withstand wear and tear" caused by repeated contact with surfaces, and measure key information about objects such as surface features and contact forces.
The announcements come after numerous firms, including SenseGlove and HaptX, boosted efforts to develop XR technologies for robotic teleoperations, with both enterprises launching haptics-based solutions capable of detecting and simulating a spectrum of haptic feedback levels.
A key representative of HaptX spoke to XR Today in an industry-wide round table on key emerging technologies such as 5G, who said it was vital to allowing haptic solutions to detect, transmit, and function with low-latency, high-speed connections for greater accuracy and responsiveness.
Quelle:
Voice navigation technology combined with FitXR's adaptive fitness classes could revolutionize VR fitness.
During the recent Facebook Connect event, Zuckerberg showcased a new set of developer tools that will be used to help the company build the foundation of its growing metaverse. One of those tools was Voice SDK, which enables developers to implement voice-driven gameplay into their games and apps.
One app used to showcase the power of voice commands in VR was FitXR , a popular VR fitness app featuring an impressive number of full-body cardio workouts led by highly motivated instructors.
Voice commands can be used to easily search for specific workouts by asking for a session with your favorite FitXR trainer or by telling the app to focus on your arms. The goal, according to the company, is to provide a seamless fitness experience that allows you quick and easy access to your favorite workouts.
Earlier this week, we spoke with Bojan Wilytsch, Product Design Manager at FitXR, to learn more about the potential impact voice-driven interactions could have not only on FitXR, but the VR fitness industry as a whole.
"For us, we are always exploring different interaction models which not only make the app better but give you a better workout," said Wilytsch. When the team first got their hands on the Voice SDK, it was obvious the technology would be a game-changer for FitXR subscribers. Wilytsch tells me, "It was this moment where we put the headset on and just asked for a class and it reacted. It was a very magical moment."
Voice interaction is just another way the company is making fitness accessible to all people. Last month FitXR launched its adaptive fitness classes, six seated fitness experiences designed for those with disabilities, injuries, or mobility issues.
The addition of voice commands could make these adaptive fitness classes accessible to a wider group of people. During our conversation, Wilytsch explains that FitXR's vision of making fitness more accessible and reducing the access friction was aligned throughout the company. "We thrive to create the best experiences possible not only to achieve your fitness goals but to also make this as widely accessible as possible. We explored various areas in which the application can shine."
That said, this is just the start for FitXR. Using your voice as a navigation tool isn't new with smart devices, but it is relatively new for VR. In Wilytsch's opinion, voice command technology will find its space and advance quickly within the immersive tech sector. However, Wilytsch points out that there are still several obstacles we need to overcome, including privacy, language, and connectivity.
"At the moment we are just at the beginning. Further down the line, we can think of using wake words like Siri and Alexa. Once we make those steps, it levels up to be more accessible for people who are differently-abled and unable to use the controllers."
For now, FitXR will continue to explore different ways it can use Facebook's Voice SDK to increase the accessibility of its full-body cardio workouts.
"I'm hoping to bring this as soon as possible to consumers. It's something that just felt right. This is a very good next step," said Wilytsch.
FitXR is available for free on the Oculus App store . A monthly membership ($9.99 per month) is required in order to access the full list of boxing, HIIT, and dance workouts..To learn more about FitXR, click here.
Quelle:
Feature Image Credit: FitXR
]]>Immersive learning is becoming more accessible as technologies evolve–here's how it can impact the teaching and learning experience
Immersive learning experiences are a new type of educational experience that can be used in place of traditional lectures and classrooms. Immersive learning is meant to mimic the real world by providing students with an environment that is as close to reality as possible. It's designed for learners who are interested in hands-on experiences, problem-solving, and discovery over non-traditional methods like reading textbooks and listening to lectures from a professor.
There are also many potential applications of immersive learning techniques in schools. This article will discuss what immersive learning is, how it changes the classroom experience, and some current use cases of immersive learning.
What is immersive learning?
Immersive learning provides realistic settings in which students can participate in situations and simulations. Immersive environments are created with artificial stimuli such as sounds and images that make users feel physically present in the virtual world. Let's look at some of the most common types of technology involved in immersive learning techniques:
Augmented reality augments real-world surroundings into a user's device and enhances reality by incorporating digital features.
Virtual reality creates digital simulations in a headset, allowing users to be fully immersed in a virtual environment.
Mixed reality blends AR and VR to make virtual interactions seem more lifelike. MR enables digital and physical objects to coexist and interact in real-time.
3D immersive learning is a method that encourages extensive learning by using 3D visuals and simulations to give users an immersive experience.
How immersive learning changes the classroom
Immersive learning covers a wide range of topics. For example, it teaches people how to operate a forklift and other heavy machinery, control airplanes in flight simulators, and resolve conflicts in an office setting. Immersive technologies enable learning in nearly any scenario, which is one of the major benefits. There are several other benefits of immersive learning methods, but here are just a few:
Better knowledge retention: With immersive learning techniques, information is usually better retained than when learning with traditional methods. VR is in the top two with learning retention of 75 percent, according to a 2020 study. While lectures have learning retention of just 5 percent, and reading has learning retention of 10 percent, VR training is only surpassed by learning that occurs via teaching others, where learning retention exceeds 90 percent.
Increased motivation: Immersive learning experiences make education generally more enjoyable. With immersive learning technologies, educators can create exciting ways to deliver information. According to a 2019 study, this type of information delivery creates positive experiences that lead to higher motivation and willingness to learn and participate in educational activities.
Distraction-free world: Being immersed in a virtual world makes it easy for learners to tune out distractions. As mentioned earlier, immersive learning experiences create interesting scenarios that are usually fun and motivating for the user, so it's easy to ignore the usual distractions that cause minds to stray from the learning material.
How immersive learning is currently being implemented
Immersive learning can be used in almost any scenario. Here are some notable ways that immersive learning is currently being utilized:
Virtual field trips: Geographic location, safety, and budgetary constraints prevent specific environments and concepts from being explored with a field trip. However, the capacity to do so with VR opens up a whole new world of learning opportunities. Field trips can help students comprehend complex topics.
Vocational and life-skill training: Certify-ED is an online school that provides VR courses that allow users to receive training in certain career paths such as welding, nursing, culinary arts, drone flying, and many other topics. They also provide courses to train life skills such as laundry, scheduling, and more.
Astronomy courses: Some disciplines, like astronomy, are difficult to understand since the material is abstract. However, VR, AR, and other forms of immersive learning can help students better understand abstract and dynamic topics.
History lessons: Immersive learning allows students to learn about historical events and places throughout the globe. Teachers can plan lessons that take students back in time to learn more about historical subjects.
Education for students with special needs: One example near to my heart is The Dan Marino Foundation. The DMF has a VR program that mimics a job interview for its students who have autism or other developmental disabilities. The ability to practice with an avatar provides them with more confidence in their communication and interviewing skills.
The future of education
Immersive learning is a fantastic method for individuals of all ages and experience levels to acquire new skills. Immersive technologies are becoming more prevalent due to technological advancements such as cheaper VR equipment and improved mobile technology.
These developments enable instructors to harness the power of immersive learning and learners to study without boundaries and reach their full potential. Immersive learning can significantly enhance learning effect and engagement, and it makes for a great learning experience.
Quelle:
Kürzlich besuchte derNiedersächsische Ministerpräsident Stephan Weil die BBS-ME, um sich vorrangig über die folgenden Themen Robotik, speziell die Mensch-Roboter-Kollaboration (MRK) und die (Spät-)Folgen des pandemiebedingten Distanzunterrichts zu informieren. Ebenfalls zu Gast waren der Regionsdezernent Ulf-Birger Franz und der Bundestagsabgeordnete Knut Gerschau (FDP).
Innovations- und Zukunftszentrum für Mensch-Roboter-Kollaboration (MRK):Vor drei Jahren verabschiedete die Landesregierung den Masterplan Digitalisierung, mit dem unter anderem Robotik-Projekte an Schulen gefördert werden. Die BBS-ME ist eine von sechs niedersächsischen Berufsbildenden Schulen, die alsInnovations- und Zukunftszentrum für Robotik an dem Programm teilnehmen. Für das Kooperationsprojekt "Integration der Robotik in die Pflege" haben Lehrkräfte der BBS-ME und der Anna-Siemens-Schule (BBS7) gemeinsam ein Unterrichts- und Ausbildungskonzept entwickelt. Für die praktische Umsetzung des Konzeptes erhalten die beiden kooperierenden Schulen ein Budget von über 500.000 Euro.
Cobots – Roboter assistieren und entlasten:Die neuesten Generationen der Roboter werden „Cobots" genannt, weil sie mit dem Menschen kollaborieren. Cobots sind konstruktiv an den menschlichen Arm angelehnt, daher ist der Einsatz nahezu unbegrenzt. So ist die Erprobung neuer Anwendungsbereiche, wie z. B. in der Pflege, sehr vielversprechend. Der Einsatz von Robotern in der Pflege bedeutet hierbei aber nicht, dass die Menschen in Zukunft nur noch durch Roboter gepflegt werden. Wir zielen auf eine Entlastung bei wiederkehrenden Tätigkeiten, außerhalb des Einsatzes am Menschen, z. B. beim Packen von Patientenboxen, Spül- und Desinfektionsvorgängen ab, und möchten neue Einsatzbereiche, wie die Bewegungsanimation durch einen Roboter erproben. Um diese vielfältigen Aufgaben umzusetzen, bedarf es einer flexiblen Schulungsanlage, die eigens an der BBS-ME geplant wurde und sich momentan in einer europaweiten Ausschreibung befindet. Bis es soweit ist, wird mit Cobots gearbeitet, die die Region der Schule zur Verfügung gestellt hat. „Wir schaffen für die Ideen-Expos Cobots an und übergeben sie danach an die Berufsbildenden Schulen in Hannover und Neustadt," so Regionsdezernent Franz. Nach der Vorstellung der Kernpunkte des Robotik-Konzeptes stellten Schüler*innen dem Ministerpräsidenten ein Projekt vor, bei dem es um die Entwicklung einer Taschenlampe geht, deren Einzelteile durch Roboter zusammengebaut werden. Stephan Weil nutzte die Gelegenheit, spielerisch mit den Robotern zusammenzuarbeiten, indem er bei einem Cobot-unterstützten Tipp-Kick Wettbewerb gegen Schüler*innen antrat: „Tipp-Kick habe ich schon häufiger gespielt, allerdings noch nie mit einem Roboter. Das konnte ich heute bei meinem Besuch der BBS ME nachholen. Und siehe da: Mit der richtigen Programmierung können Cobots sogar Tore schießen! Mensch-Roboter-Kollaborationen werden nicht nur in der Industrie, sondern auch in vielen anderen Bereichen zukunftsweisend sein. Und auch die an der BBS von Schülerinnen und Schülern mit Virtual Reality geschaffenen neuen digitalen Räume spielen im Berufsleben eine immer größere Rolle. Ich freue mich deshalb sehr darüber, dass technische Innovationen zunehmend zum Unterrichtsalltag in Niedersachsen gehören. Das große Engagement und die Begeisterung der Lehrkräfte und der Schülerinnen und Schüler an der BBS haben mich sehr beeindruckt. Dafür und für die interessanten Einblicke bedanke ich mich sehr herzlich", so der Ministerpräsident.
Virtual Reality:Im Beruflichen Gymnasium der BBS-ME haben Schüler*innen die Möglichkeit mit einer VR-Brille zu arbeiten, Erfahrungen in der VR-Programmierung zu sammeln und damit eine besondere Möglichkeit, zukunftsorientierte Technik zu erleben. Die Projektideen sind dabei vielfältig an den unterschiedlichen Interessen der Schüler*innen ausgerichtet und fördern damit das intrinsische Lernen. So hat eine Gruppe ein virtuelles Modell der O2-Arena in Hamburg erschaffen und so programmiert, dass sich dort ein Konzert von Michael Jacksons Abschiedstournee miterleben lässt. Das Konzert hat 2009 zwar nicht mehr stattfinden können, doch dank der Kreativität der Schüler*innen und der VR-Technik können sie live mit dabei sein, mittanzen und sogar auf der Bühne mitsingen. Da bekommen Micheal Jackson-Fans sogar eine Gänsehaut. In der Industrie wir die VR-Technik zum Beispiel dazu eingesetzt schon in der Planung die Montage von Produkten zu testen und sicherzustellen, dass z.B. die Antriebskomponenten eines neu entwickelten E-Fahrzeugs platzsparend montiert werden können. Mit Hilfe von VR sollen zukünftig auch Treffen im virtuellen Raum mit den Partnerschulen in Schweden und in den USA ermöglicht werden. Die technischen Voraussetzungen sind hierbei von Seiten der Schüler*innen der BBS-ME geschaffen worden. Ministerpräsident Weil, setzte sich die VR-Brille auf und betrat die von den Schüler*innen entworfenen und programmierten virtuellen Räume und ließ sich von der Kreativität der Schüler*innen begeistern. "Hier ist es schön, hier bleibe ich", sagte Stephan Weil als er über eine farbenprächtige Blumenwiese spazierte.
Distanzunterricht:Im Gespräch über das Thema Distanzunterricht während der Pandemie stellten Schüler*innen der Energie- und Gebäudetechnik sowie der Fachschule für Technik Ihre eigenen Erfahrungen im Lockdown dar. „Bitte weiter am Online- und Distanzunterricht arbeiten und diesen vorantreiben" haben sie in einer Umfrage zurückgemeldet. Trotz technischer Schwierigkeiten und fehlendem direkten Kontakt erkennen die Schüler*innen im digitalen Unterricht große Chancen für die Zukunft von Schule. Zu den aktuell bestehenden größten Schwächen zählen sie u.a. die nachlassende Konzentration durch monotone Arbeitsbedingungen und ein hohes Ablenkungspotential.
Medienbildung:Wie mit geringen finanziellen Mitteln mehr Schüler*innen für Robotik, aber auch Medienbildung begeistert werden können, stellte Herr Müller dem Ministerpräsidenten an einem 3D-gedruckten voll funktionsfähigem Roboterarm vor. Durch den konsequenten Einsatz von Open Hard- und Software und der Einbindung von Open Educational Resources (OER) konnten Kosten und Entwicklungszeit extrem gesenkt, die Flexibilität und Skalierbarkeit sehr erhöht werden. Zu den Gelingensbedingungen hier wie auch zum Distanzunterricht gehört, dass geeignete Schulungen für Lehrkräfte systematisch angeboten werden. Davon profitieren alle Schüler*innen auch die, die mehr Unterstützung benötigen.. „An dieser Stelle setzt auch die Initiative Robonatives an", ergänzt Herr Franz.
Zukunftsweisende Veränderungen:Zum Abschied erklärte Ministerpräsident Weil, dass sich seitdem er die BBS-ME vor 25 Jahren zum ersten Mal besucht hat, sehr viel verändert hat. Er bestärkte die Schüler*innen und Lehrkräfte, dass Sie an einer guten Schule lernen und arbeiten. Er forderte die Schule auf, finanzielle Mittel aus dem Digitalpakt in Anspruch zu nehmen, um den erfolgreichen Kurs weiterzuentwickeln.
Quelle:
Die Facebook-Gruppe meldet Fortschritte zu seinem Augmented-Reality-System Aria. Diese drehen sich besonders um eine kontextbezogene KI, die mit Daten trainiert, die täglich von AR-Brillen-Testern gesammelt werden. Diese Tester und Testerinnen kommen teilweise auch aus der Schweiz.
Auf ihrer jüngsten Connect-Konferenz hat die Facebook-Gruppe ihren neuen Firmennamen „Meta" bekanntgegeben. Mit diesem Namen möchte das Unternehmen von Mark Zuckerberg sein Metaversum aufbauen. Ein hybrides Universum, welches das physische mit dem virtuellen verbindet. Um diese Vision Wirklichkeit werden zu lassen, konzentriert sich Facebook respektive Meta auf die Forschung im Bereich der virtuellen und erweiterten Realität (VR und AR). Das Unternehmen hat eine Reihe von Fortschritten bei seinem Aria-Projekt bekannt gegeben, bei dem ein Prototyp einer leichten AR-Brille zum Einsatz kommt, die bei alltäglichen Aufgaben problemlos getragen werden kann.
3-D-Kartierung und kontextbezogene KI
Forschende der Abteilung Reality Labs von Facebook haben die Fortschritte vorgestellt, die im Laufe des Jahres mit der Aria-Brille insbesondere in den Bereichen 3-D-Mapping und kontextbezogene KI erzielt wurden. Auf der Grundlage von 3-D-Daten aus der präzisen Modellierung einer Wohnung und der darin befindlichen Objekte ist die Brille in der Lage, physische Merkmale mit Augenbewegungen zu verknüpfen. Mithilfe des maschinellen Lernens kann das System eine Art proaktive Unterstützung bieten, indem es voraussieht, was der Nutzer mit einem bestimmten Objekt tun möchte. Wer zum Beispiel vor einem Fernseher sitzt, kann ihn direkt durch einen Klick auf den mit der Brille verbundenen Controller einschalten. Die Brille könnte dem Nutzer auch helfen, seine Schlüssel zu finden oder eine Bestandsaufnahme der Lebensmittel im Kühlschrank zu machen, erklären die Forscher von Reality Labs. Zukünftig soll die manuelle Steuerung somit durch Geräte ersetzt werden, die eine reibungslose Interaktion ermöglichen – wie zum Beispiel durch Armbänder, die EMG-Techniken (Elektromyographie) verwenden.
Unter den 3000 Testenden sind auch Schweizerinnen und Schweizer
Um Augmented-Reality-Geräte mit Hilfe von maschinellem Lernen weiterzuentwickeln, müssen die Algorithmen natürlich mit einer Vielzahl von Daten gefüttert werden. Aus diesem Grund stellt Facebook den Prototyp seiner AR-Brille immer mehr Mitarbeitenden und Auftragnehmern zur Verfügung, damit diese sie täglich zur Datenerfassung nutzen können. Einige der Testenden sitzen in der Schweiz, sagt das Unternehmen, das im November weitere Geräte verteilen wird, um die Marke von 3000 Testern und Testerinnen zu erreichen.
Vorkehrungen zum Schutz der Privatsphäre
Im Blogbeitrag von Reality Labs werden die Vorkehrungen zum Schutz von Daten und Privatsphäre hervorgehoben. So kann die Brille beispielsweise in bestimmten sensiblen Bereichen wie etwa in Toiletten, Gebetsräumen und Umkleideräumen nichts aufzeichnen. In der Wohnung sind diese nur unter Zustimmung aller Personen im Haushalt erlaubt. Alle Geräte zeigen ausserdem durch ein auffälliges weisses Licht an, dass sie in Betrieb sind. In öffentlichen Räumen müssen die Tester und Testerinnen Kleidung und ein Schlüsselband tragen, das sie als Teilnehmende des Aria-Projekts ausweist. Darüber hinaus werden die Daten nach dem Herunterladen einige Tage lang unter Verschluss gehalten (für Forschende unzugänglich), so dass ein System automatisch Gesichter und Nummernschilder unkenntlich macht.
Viele Unternehmen beschäftigen sich mit der Thematik der VR- und AR-Technologie. So tüftelt auch Google in Zusammenarbeit mit Teamviewer an neuen AR-Anwendungen für Google Glass.
Quelle:
https://www.netzwoche.ch/news/2021-11-02/die-ki-von-facebooks-ar-brille-trainiert-mit-daten-aus-der-schweiz
Foto: Die Augmented-Reality-Brille Aria von Facebooks respektive Meta's Reality Labs. (Source: Meta)
]]>GridRaster Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based Extended Reality (XR) platforms that power high-performance and scalable Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR)/Mixed Reality (MR) experiences for enterprises, announced today highlights from its latest study on how organizations are implementing mixed reality technologies for their organizations.
The implementation of mixed reality technologies continues to grow among enterprises, and according to GridRaster's latest online survey of more than 250 respondents, a growing number of enterprises are beginning to see gains in efficiency and cost reductions. Forty-one percent of organizations now say they've implemented some form of AR/VR into their organization's strategy, and another 81% say they either have plans to implement in the next year or are starting to research the potential it could have on their business.
Sixty-seven percent of organizations say they need AR/VR technologies to help with AR-assisted virtual maintenance and customer service visits; another 63% said they need AR/VR employee training programs; 60% said they are looking for remote collaboration through mixed reality technologies.
These numbers are reinforced by a recent report from research firm, IDC, which showed that 51% of respondents1 in their recent study said that their company had already seen a measurable retur on their investment when it came to using AR for employee training and knowledge transfer.
Thirty percent of business leaders say they have started to see healthy gains in overall manufacturing production because of their AR/VR implementations, and another 30% said they're beginning to see minor gains. In terms of realizing cost savings, 30% said they've started to see noticeable cost reductions over the last 12 months.
The gains are up from a year ago when 15% of businesses reported increases in productivity and 10% of businesses reported seeing noticeable cost reductions as a result of their AR/VR implementations.
"Currently in 2021, AR/VR as well as mixed reality and extended reality technologies are significantly impacting corporate enterprises and manufacturers in a multitude of ways," said Rishi Ranjan, CEO of GridRaster. "As the software becomes more widely available and organizations implement virtual solutions with hardware costs continuing to fall, companies across all industries will integrate and deploy these technologies into their daily operations for greater productivity and a reduction in overall costs."
Quelle:
Foto: Manufacturers Leveraging AR/VR for Training, Maintenance, Design and Production
https://www.automation.com/en-us/articles/november-2021/manufacturers-ar-vr-training-maintenance-design
]]>The internet and smartphones both revolutionized the finance industry, and AR could be next. AR has traditionally been used to enhance entertainment or gaming experiences, but it holds the potential for new developments in the banking world as well.
Its uses go beyond advanced shopping experiences and mobile games. The opportunities that AR and mixed reality (MR) present for the world of banking could revolutionize the industry in years to come. Here are the top 3 ways we see that happening.
1. We'll See Fully Virtual Banks
In the near future, physical bank branches could be replaced with fully virtual experiences, on both the user and company end. For customers, this might mean accessing their account information through an interactive heads-up display on their smart glasses. While smart glasses are not yet ready for the masses, similar ideas have been implemented using smartphone AR tech already. For example, Westpac Bank in Australia lets customers use their app to see an interactive AR summary of their account by scanning their bank card.
AR and MR software like this would allow users freedom, control, and convenience over their banking experience. They could access any account information they needed to at any time, from anywhere. This is an important feature to make note of because customers have been proven to view financial institutions as more trustworthy if they feel they are in control of their own data and experience.
On the corporate side of things, mixed reality could allow banks to operate fully virtually and remotely, with limited physical locations. This is made possible by applying today's remote work solutions to tomorrow's MR technology. Meta's (formerly Facebook) Horizons Workrooms is one example, providing a virtual office space that can be accessed from a variety of devices.
One day, this technology could take remote work to an entirely new level. Customer service specialists and accountants, for example, might meet with clients virtually and use AR to help them navigate their finances, all without either person ever leaving the comfort of their own home.
2. AR Will Transform Customer Experiences
One of the most popular applications of AR is entertainment. Apps and games using AR have become quite popular. Finance companies can use this same technology to create fun and exciting experiences for their customers.
For example, banking and investment startup Acorns welcomes new customers with an AR presentation showing them all the details of their new debit card and its components. This feature may not have an effect on the actual banking experience or platform, but it does offer a little cutting-edge bonus for customers.
On a larger scale, in 2019, Ally Bank partnered with Monopoly to create a massive AR marketing campaign. It turned a handful of cities in the U.S. into giant, interactive Monopoly boards where users could play for real-life prizes. This is a great example of taking the tech that makes games like "Pokémon GO" so popular and applying it to business. This new style of marketing could become the go-to for fully virtual banks one day.
3. Tutorials and Training Could Come to Life with AR
AR has proven highly useful for training employees on the job in everything from medicine to warehouse stocking. It allows users to see virtual mock-ups of what they are learning, building, or repairing, projected onto their actual world. This makes learning much more efficient than referring to a book or even video for guidance, especially when smart glasses are available for a fully hands-free experience.
There are multiple opportunities for applying this technology in the banking world. For example, financial institutions could use AR to remotely walk customers through doing their taxes or navigating their online accounts. A customer service technician could see a copy of the customer's screen, circle the correct button or menu for them, and have their notes displayed on the customer's screen, as well, all through the power of AR.
The same concepts apply on the corporate side, where new team members could learn rapidly and accurately on the job with AR and MR around to guide them, like an automated, personal instructor. This has the added benefit of freeing up more experienced personnel to focus on their own jobs instead of taking time out of their schedules to train new employees.
A Tech-Driven Financial Future
Decentralizing the banking industry was just the beginning. The virtual reality market is projected to grow by 185 between 2021 and 2028, creating a convincing case for the future of AR, MR, and VR. This technology is the future and each cutting edge advancement made over recent years and the years to come will present new opportunities for financial institutions to innovate and expand. By exploring these exciting new developments today, the banking world can build an experience for today, inspired by tomorrow.
Quelle:
In der Schweiz gibt es immer mehr Vorfälle von Gewalt mit Messern. Nun bereiten sich Polizistinnen und Polizisten auch mit Virtual-Reality-Trainings auf solche Situationen vor.
Darum gehts
- Die Messergewalt in der Schweiz nimmt seit Jahren zu.
- Polizeikorps reagieren: «Bei unseren Trainings mit der Stadtpolizei Zürich waren Messer dieses Jahr ein Hauptthema», sagt Ronny Tobler, der Virtual-Reality-Ausbildungen anbietet.
- Während die Polizeigewerkschaft die Bemühungen begrüsst, kritisiert das Institut für Gewaltprävention den Fokus auf repressive Massnahmen.
Jugendliche und junge Erwachsene stechen seit 2017 immer häufiger zu. Schweizweite Zahlen für 2021 fehlen noch, doch der Trend scheint sich fortzusetzen: «Ich kann den Eindruck, dass Gewaltdelikte, bei denen Messer im Spiel sind, im öffentlichen Raum zugenommen haben, bestätigen», sagte etwa Hanspeter Krüsi von der Kapo St. Gallen. Jugendliche sagen zudem, dass an manchen Orten das Tragen von Messern normal geworden sei.
Nun reagieren Polizeikorps auf die Gewalt-Zunahme: «Bei unseren Trainings mit der Stadtpolizei Zürich waren Messer dieses Jahr ein Hauptthema», sagt Ronny Tobler, der Virtual-Reality-Ausbildungen für Polizeikorps anbietet (siehe Video und Box): «Das dürfte an den vielen Zwischenfällen liegen, die es in den letzten Jahren gab.»
Stapo trainiert erstmals Messer im VR-Training
Auch von anderen Polizeien werde er für das Training von Messer-Situationen angefragt, so Tobler. «Wir arbeiten im Rahmen eines interkantonalen Projekts mit mehreren grossen Polizeikorps zusammen.» So auch mit der Berner Polizei: «Sie führen nächstes Jahr ein grosses Training bei uns durch.»
Das bestätigt die Kantonspolizei Bern auf Anfrage: «Wir planen im Herbst 2022 im Rahmen der Weiterbildung auch einen Ausbildungsblock mit Virtual Reality», sagt Sprecherin Isabelle Wüthrich: «Dabei werden insbesondere Bedrohungslagen für Polizistinnen und Polizisten, aber auch andere Aspekte der Polizeiarbeit thematisiert.» Die Ausbildung stehe aber nicht im direkten Zusammenhang mit Messergewalt.
Auch die Stadtpolizei Zürich bestätigt, dass dieses Jahr erstmals Messer ein Teil des VR-Trainings waren: «Die Teilnehmenden können in den Szenarien für die Thematik sensibilisiert werden», sagt Sprecher Marc Surber.
«Ausbildung dient Schutz der Bevölkerung»
Die Efforts der Polizeikorps werden beim Verband Schweizerischer Polizei-Beamter (VSPB) begrüsst: «Wir finden es generell immer gut, wenn unsere Mitglieder angemessen ausgebildet werden», heisst es auf Anfrage. Die Ausbildung sei schon immer an aktuelle Entwicklungen und Umstände angepasst worden.
Sie diene einerseits dem Schutz der Polizistinnen und Polizisten selbst, aber auch dem der Bevölkerung: «Dies vor allem, wenn gefährliche Gegenstände im Spiel sind.»
Mehr Prävention gefordert
Mit repressiveren Massnahmen allein sei es aber nicht getan, kritisiert Fabian Albisser vom Schweizer Institut für Gewaltprävention (SIG): «Man reagiert immer nur auf Jugend- und Messergewalt, wenn etwas passiert ist.» Er setzt sich für eine stärkere Prävention ein: «Diese muss schon früh im Primarschulalter beginnen – unter Einbezug von Kindern, Eltern und Schulen.» Einmal gefestigte Verhaltensweisen ändere man später nicht mehr einfach so.
Es brauche verstärkte und flächendeckende Präventionsprogramme, sagt Albisser. Da seien auch die Kantone gefragt: «Was momentan passiert, ist ein Tropfen auf den heissen Stein.»
So funktioniert das Training mit VR-Brille
Beim Training mit VR-Brille tauchten die Teilnehmenden völlig in die virtuelle Welt ein, sagt Ronny Tobler: «Wir können etwa Wind simulieren, wenn das Szenario draussen stattfindet und die Polizistinnen und Polizisten spüren Schmerzen über ihre Anzüge, wenn sie getroffen wurden.» Weil die Situation als echt wahrgenommen werde, sei der Lerneffekt viel grösser.
Man könne die verschiedensten Szenarien simulieren, sagt Tobler: «Von lebensbedrohlichen Attacken bis zu häuslicher Gewalt ist alles möglich.» Das Messer sei dabei eines von mehreren möglichen Angriffs-mitteln. Zudem sei eine detaillierte Nachanalyse möglich, was sehr wertvoll sei.
Quelle:
Foto:
Hier siehst du, wie das VR-Training der Polizei aussieht.Video: Refense AG / 20min
https://www.20min.ch/story/polizisten-bereiten-sich-mit-speziellen-trainings-auf-messerangriffe-vor-995934298134
]]>In today's classrooms, augmented reality (AR) education tools are a great way to introduce and excite students about any subject. Not only can they go beyond textbooks and abstract concepts and make them "real" but many AR tools can work independently of the teacher and the physicality of the classroom too. And as opposed to the typically expensive technical requirements of a full virtual reality setup, like a headset and gloves, AR education tools usually only need equipment that most classrooms and students already have: the computer, smartphone, or tablet.´
Here are some great platforms that can add the AR experience to almost any subject. (Note: These are platforms where the student, educator, or both can create their own learning content. So this list does not cover apps that are specifically made for a specific topic or companies that offer development of AR apps for education. All of these platforms have some kind of free tier as well — free trials did not count.)
1. Holo-SDK (https://www.holo-sdk.com/educational-program)
Holo-SDK lets teachers and students create their own AR models a little differently than the next program in the list. As hinted at in the name, Holo-SDK is a Unity plugin, allowing users to create their own holograms that will be projected from the computer screen with the help of anaglyph glasses (those red and blue glasses) while using its Desktop AR app. Modeling can be done in almost any 3D program and imported into Unity to be transformed as a holographic 3D model or game.
2. Grib (https://grib3d.com)
Although it's still in beta, the Grib app looks to be a promising way for teachers and students to create their own AR models. By scanning a flat drawing and using gestures in the app, users can push and pull the digital clay to create an AR model that can be then exported or 3D printed.
AR Platforms for Educators and Students
3. Metaverse (/https://studio.gometa.io/landing)
Metaverse is an augmented reality program that allows teachers and students to create their own Metaverse experiences. A Metaverse experience covers a variety of AR activities, from games and quizzes to scavenger hunts and stories. Teachers can gamify their lessons while students can create their own games to show what they've learned (plus learn some basic coding along the way).
4. MERGE Cube (https://mergeedu.com/cube)
A little different from Metaverse and the other apps on this list, MERGE cubes are foam cubes that work with AR applications and 3D software so students can "hold" the 3D objects in their hands. It's a way for students to have hands-on experience using the power of AR to change what they see and interact with, all depending on the lesson. Teachers can use a library of already-made models in combination with the Merge app to augment their lessons but both students and teachers can also hold models that they've made.
5. Waypoint EDU (https://www.waypointedu.com)
The Waypoint EDU app allows educators to create AR scavenger hunts, or as they call it "hunts." Designed only for iPads and iPhones, the app lets students learn more about almost any subject through geo-caching. The teacher creates multiple choice questions that are activated when a student finds the Waypoint in the play area. The two pre-installed hunts have 3D models that the students can find. There is also an option for indoor play by using printed "Hunt Cards."
6. 3D Bear (https://www.3dbear.io)
The 3D Bear app allows both teachers and students to create AR designs and stories that can be recorded and shared. Using the model libraries of Sketchfab and Thingiverse, as well as the teacher's or students' own models, students can recreate scenes from history, model an ecosystem, among many other uses. There are also ready-made lesson plans for educators.
7. CoSpaces Edu (https://cospaces.io/edu/)
Students can learn how to create their own virtual world, picking up programming basics along the way, with CoSpace Edu app. Students use a drag-and-drop interface to code animations and behaviors to pre-created or self-created 3D models. Through the app, the students can see their creations, tours, stories, and games come to life in AR, in VR if they have a headset, in the browser, or interact with them using the previously mentioned Merge cubes.
8. JigSpace (https://jig.space)
Think of JigSpace like an encyclopedia of AR 3D models. Students can view an exploded view of an engine or cross section of a heart through the free app's model library. Teachers and more advanced students can also upload their own 3D objects to view as well. With these models, teachers can create AR learning presentations around a certain topic and students can share what they've learned with each other.
9. AssemblrEdu (https://edu.assemblrworld.com/assemblr-edu-app)
The AssemblrEdu app allows teachers and students to create AR-focused lesson plans and presentations using existing models, create their own models in the in-app editor, or import their own. Teachers can easily share the lessons with their students in a virtual classroom and also download the projects of other teachers and students.
As the technology and devices improve, there will be more ways for AR to create educational, exciting experiences in the classroom. All that matters is how teachers can use them.
Quelle:
https://www.thevrara.com/blog2/2021/10/26/9-desktop-ar-platforms-to-bring-ar-content-in-the-classroom
]]>Which Collaborative VR Environment is Best?
In an age of remote and hybrid working, where companies are desperately searching to keep distributed teams aligned, VR is a lifeline. Virtual reality environments go beyond the benefits of video conferencing, by allowing employees to share a sense of presence once again in a digital environment. Within the right VR landscape, teams can discuss, create, share knowledge, and build amazing concepts, while still being miles apart.
For companies interested in exploring the benefits of VR for themselves, there are plenty of potential options available. AltSpaceVR and VRChat are two of the better-known, and more popular VR ecosystems. Both provide a collaborative space where teams and users can get together for virtual conversations, with customisable environments.
The question is, which VR landscape is right for your team? Let's take a closer look at the features of both, to help you decide.
AltspaceVR: Features
AltspaceVR is among the most popular virtual meeting landscapes for events, business collaboration, and even education. Since launch, the virtual reality environment has attracted countless users, who love the flexibility of the platform. You can experience interesting events on a daily basis, build your own meeting experiences, and even connect with people in the 2D world too.
The AltSpaceVR ecosystem works with all the top VR headsets, including Oculus and Windows Mixed Reality tools. You can also easily host and start your own meetup within the flexible, straightforward platform, without the need for extensive coding knowledge. Features include:
- Leading VR headset compatibility
- 2D cross-platform support
- Easy-to-access with Steam downloads
- Customisable meeting and event environments
- Comprehensive directory access
- Security and privacy controls
- Extensive development features
- Video camera streaming
- Custom avatar creation tools
- Mute or amplify your voice
- Public or private meeting spaces
- Unlimited stage management and capacity
- Hosting for event panels
- Screen-sharing and content sharing
- Audience interaction tools for events
- Microsoft Mesh support
AltSpaceVR is ideal for companies keen to unlock the benefits of VR for their teams, without spending a fortune on custom development strategies. The system is easy to use and comes with SDKs for building shareable apps. You can also customize pre-existing templates if you don't want to start building something from scratch.
VRChat Features:
VRChat is probably one of the first VR platforms most people heard of when collaboration in the virtual world began to gain more interest. The landscape features more than 25,000 community-created worlds. You can join existing environments or build something of your own. The solution is also available to use with a range of tools, including Oculus Quest and Rift headsets.
Suitable for 2D PC users and headset users alike, VRChat promises users a convenient and flexible environment where they can build worlds and bring their imagination to life. Like AltSpaceVR, you'll also get to change up your look with custom avatars. Features include:
- Global community of creators
- Public or private collaboration spaces
- Custom avatars with endless options
- Unity SDK for quick development
- Full-body eye and lip-sync tracking
- Hand gestures, emojis, and emotes
- 3D spatialized audio for more immersion
- Games like capture the flag and battle discs
- Chat, sculpt and draw with colleagues or friends
- Explore weekly events and community experiences
The VRChat landscape is all about bringing people together and championing the connective power of virtual reality. There are a host of ways to interact and engage with the other people in your VR space, through things like games, and custom avatars you can genuinely build from scratch. You might even decide to do some team building events with the weekly events hosted by the VRChat experts.
AltSpaceVR vs VRChat: Which is Best?
Both VRChat and AltSpaceVR are excellent introductions into the world of collaborative virtual reality. If you want to help develop bonds between the members of your team, and create unique learning experiences, both of these tools are excellent choices. AltSpaceVR and VRChat will both allow you to create custom environments and avatars for your specific needs.
Both of these tools also come with public events you and your teams can attend, as well as worlds you can check out if you don't want to build your own. You can also access both tools through a range of virtual reality headsets, or on a 2D environment like a PC.
With AltSpaceVR, you get a more professional, but still friendly virtual environment for sharing ideas and working together on a variety of tasks. You can access all kinds of content to improve your teamwork, and there's video and screensharing for additional context. You can even build modern events with integration to the Microsoft Mesh environment.
While AltSpaceVR seems to have been built for more professional and educational environments, VRChat is more informal, designed for making friends and bonding online. You can play games with the people you meet, explore public worlds, and even sculpt ideas with other users. There's also a lot more freedom when it comes to avatar creation and customization, with full body avatars featuring eye-tracking and lip syncing.
VRChat immerses teams in a fun and playful experience where they can build their own worlds, attend events, and express themselves with hand gestures and emojis.
Which VR Collaboration Solution Should You Choose?
Both VRChat and AltSpaceVR have the benefit of being fun, easy-to-use VR environments for business users. However, there are some slight differences. The AltSpaceVR environment is more likely to be your choice if you're looking for a structured teamwork experience. You can't load up your own content or share screens on VRChat, after all.
AltSpaceVR may also be a little more appealing for professional events, thanks to the integration with Microsoft Mesh. Alternatively, if you're looking for a fun way to promote team bonding in a world defined by remote and hybrid work, VRChat could be an excellent choice. You still get a lot of freedom or building here, and your team members can express themselves more effectively too.
Quelle:
Taqtile, a provider of enterprise software that leverages augmented reality (AR), cloud computing, and LTE/5G networks for knowledge capture and sharing, has today announced that it has enhanced its support of diverse AR headsets with advanced capabilities for Magic Leap's spatial computing device, as well as for RealWare headsets.
Taqtile stated that by optimizing its Manifest work-instruction platform on a broad variety of hardware, including head-mounted displays (HMDs), wearable computers, mobile devices, as well as the Microsoft HoloLens 2 and iPad – the company is able to provide more flexibility to customers, allowing them to outfit frontline workers with the optimal tools to complete complex tasks.
"Because there are a growing number of excellent headsets, each with unique attributes, it's essential we deliver the Manifest platform on multiple devices," said Dirck Schou, CEO, Taqtile. "We've made the strategic decision to optimize Manifest for a wide variety of hardware, empowering our customers to deploy the best solution for their businesses and their frontline teams."
Manifest for Magic Leap
Magic Leap's spatial computing device can support Manifest's heavy-duty 3D visualizations and collaborative communications with remote experts thanks to the device's three core processors. The latest version of Manifest is now available in the Magic Leap store.
Advanced Magic Leap capabilities include:
- Shared holograms – Enabling team members to collaborate during a Manifest Connect video chat to provide a greater level of context and guidance supported by AR content;
- Hologram support in Notes – Holograms embedded in video and photo notes help operators better comprehend guidance and instructions;
- Gesture support enhancements – Providing users an enhanced hands-free experience when using Manifest and Magic Leap.
Manifest for RealWear
RealWear devices provide a rugged, enterprise-ready solution for challenging environments. Taqtile states that it is delivering its Manifest work-instruction platform for deskless workers to select customers operating RealWear devices, enabling frontline staff to access AR-enhanced information and guidance.
According to the company, Manifest delivers two primary benefits to RealWear users:
- Remote assistance capabilities – Allowing workers to quickly and easily chat with colleagues and remote experts for assistance from any location with internet access;
- Step-by-step work instructions – Enabling workers to scan a QR code and access details about specific equipment and any associated procedures, such as a maintenance routine or troubleshooting workflow.
For more information on Taqtile and its augmented reality solutions for frontline and remote workers, please visit the company's website.
Quelle:
https://www.auganix.org/taqtile-announces-enhanced-support-for-its-manifest-ar-work-instruction-platform-on-magic-leap-and-realwear-devices/
Image credit: Taqtile
]]>A look at which verticals are investing most in XR right now!
When the world began exploring new realities for the first time, the impact of AR and VR centered largely around entertainment and gaming. Companies saw extended reality experiences as an opportunity to transport gamers into new worlds and influence their senses.
However, in recent years, the arrival of new technology and more affordable hardware has opened the door to new opportunities for AR and VR. Enterprise companies are beginning to implement alternate realities into their processes for everything from training to customer experience.
Already, between 2019 and 2020, the market for AR and VR grew by 78%. As this revolution continues, some industries will benefit more from extended reality than others. Here are our top 6 choices for the sectors set to benefit most from AR and VR.
1. Education and Training
Education is one of the most significant areas to benefit from the arrival of AR and VR technology. In 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, educators began searching for new ways to interact with and educate their students. Video conferencing and online collaboration tools gained popularity. However, with virtual reality, students could enjoy a more comprehensive hands-on learning experience.
Educational tech firm, Nearpod already uses Google Cardboard to deliver virtual field trips for students who need to visit different parts of the world. EON Reality also allows teachers to create their own VR content for education from scratch.
It's not just students that can benefit from VR for developing new skills either. In the professional landscape, employers can use augmented and virtual realities to improve employee onboarding and training opportunities. An AR headset can walk an employee through the process of examining a piece of equipment, teaching them about each element as they go. Virtual reality environments can teach employees how to deal with a stressful customer experience, or complete certain tasks.
2. Healthcare
The healthcare environment is another landscape that can transform drastically with the help of AR and VR. Through the right applications, surgeons and skilled specialists can practice complex procedures without risking expensive resources or patient comfort. Students that need to learn about how procedures work can also watch a surgeon performing through a virtual reality headset – which gives a lot more detail than you'd get standing over someone's shoulder.
Virtual and augmented reality in healthcare also has an impact on the kind of patient support that doctors can offer. In an age of telemedicine, where patients need to interact with experts from a distance, VR and AR goes beyond video conferencing. Doctors can see wounds and diagnose issues from a distance. Nurses can teach patients how to perform self-care activities using augmented reality overlays and graphics.
3. Construction and Real Estate
Developing and selling real estate is often an expensive process. However AR and VR could make this industry more efficient and productive. Architects are already excited about the potential of AR for digital modeling purposes. Creating amazing home designs is much easier when you have a 3D environment and immersive models to work with.
Companies like Augment already allow developers to create immersive building plans where they can see how various elements should appear in a home. Augmented reality headsets could also help employees to see issues as they work, like a frayed wire behind a wall or a pipe they need to avoid during an installation.
With virtual reality, you could even take a potential buyer on a walk around a property without requiring them to visit in person. A survey by Perkins Coie LLP said that Real Estate is fourth in the list of the top sectors most likely to attract the largest investment in VR and AR.
4. Manufacturing and Logistics
VR and AR have a fantastic opportunity to support specialists in the logistics, manufacturing, and similar trades. Like architects using AR and VR to build 3D models of houses, manufacturing and logistics professionals can use holographic images to improve productivity and performance. You might even be able to teach new manufacturing pros how to use specialist machines by overlaying instructions over a set of glasses as they work.
AR company Inglobe Technologies offers an excellent example of how AR might work within a construction environment. The company uses AR image overlays under the hood of a car for engine repair education. Heads-up displays in the logistics and supply chain sector could work wonders when it comes to boosting employee efficiency.
The right extended reality technology can even help with inventory management. The NHS worked with a supply chain solution in 2018 to bring AR and machine learning into the systems used for patient data and inventory information. The trust saw a 95% increase in time efficiency.
5. Automotive /Transport
VR and AR also have a lot of potential in the automotive and transportation sectors. Way back in 2014, Ford started working with the Oculus Rift team to build and prototype vehicles using virtual reality. Since then, countless companies have started to get involved.
Audi build an AR app that allows users to see cars nearly anywhere and set up personalized test tracks that demonstrate how the vehicle might function. The car buying process instantly becomes much more immersive when customers have VR and AR to experiment with.
All aspects of the travel industry could benefit from VR and AR, however. For instance, hotels can offer customers virtual tours of rooms before they visit. Airline companies might give customers the opportunity to use a VR headset that makes them feel like they're in their destination when they're still in the middle of travel.
6. Retail and eCommerce
Companies have been considering the benefits of AR and VR for retail for a while now. However, the demand for these solutions grew even more significant in 2020 with the arrival of a global pandemic. With stores unable to open, companies needed to look for new ways to offer fantastic customer experiences.
Fortunately, with AR and VR, retailers can give customers everything they need to enjoy their shopping trips. Consumers can shop virtually with fitting rooms that allow them to try on their clothes from home. Companies like Bold Metrics allow people to try on clothes in a virtual reality environment to see how they might look.
Companies can also use AR to help customers shopping online imagine what items might look like in their homes before making a purchase. Being able to see a piece of furniture in your living room before you buy it makes any consumer feel more confident.
AR and VR has a Lot of Potential
More than ever, business leaders are realizing that AR and VR doesn't just belong in the entertainment and gaming space. With the right technology, companies can create safer employee environments, better customer experiences, and more productive processes.
Even outside of the 6 industries discussed above, the potential for AR and VR keeps growing in virtually every sector. It's only a matter of time before this tech becomes second nature to us.
Quelle:
Auf keinen Fall! Das Dortmunder Fraunhofer-Institut für Materialfluss und Logistik (IML) verfügt über einen Virtual-Reality-(VR-)Simulator „LiftNick". Der unterstützt Gabelstaplerfahrerinnen und -fahrer beim Trainieren von Prozessen und steht jetzt auch Berufsschulen und Unternehmen offen.
Als „Serious Games" werdenTrainingsanwendungen beispielsweise des Staplerfahrens bezeichnet, die spielerische Elemente wie etwaHighscores enthalten. Dabei tauchen die Nutzer perVR-Brille in die digitale Welt ein. Und das steigere nachhaltig dieLerneffekte, so das Fraunhofer-IML. Zusammen mit dem Simulator-Hersteller KW Automotive wird derVR-Simulator „LiftNick" jetzt auch Berufsschulen und Unternehmen zur Verfügung gestellt.
Durch die Zusammenarbeit mit unserem Industriepartner können nun alle Interessierten ihre Trainings mit unserer Software gestalten und von den Vorteilen eines Serious Games profitieren.
Christoph Schlüter, wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Fraunhofer-IML
Das Staplerfahren mit dem „LiftNick" geht dabei wie in einem echten Lager vonstatten: Die Fahrerin/der Fahrer fährt mit ihrer/seiner Arbeitsmaschine durch die Regalreihen und erledigt ihre/seine Transportaufträge. Mit einem Unterschied allerdings: Die Nutzer trainieren diese Abläufe nur in der virtuellen Realität, mit Lenker und Steuerknüppel und einer VR-Brille. In der für sie scheinbar real existierenden Lagerhalle können die Nutzer mit dem Stapler interagieren und noch mit manch anderen Gegenständen, beispielsweise Scannern oder einem Fahrtenbuch.
Der „Staplerschein" muss sein
Aber Achtung: Der „LiftNick" ist nicht etwa dazu gedacht, das Staplerfahren zu erlernen, sondern das Angebot richtet sich eindeutig an Staplerfahrerinnen und -fahrer, die bereits im Besitz einer Fahrerlizenz sind. Neben dem Training unterstützt die Software beispielsweise bei der Sicherheitsunterweisung, die jährlich abgelegt werden muss. Weil die Forschenden am Fraunhofer-IML Lagerumgebungen auf Anfrage virtuell darstellen können, haben Fahrerinnen und Fahrer die Gelegenheit, ein neues Lager schon vorab kennenzulernen und müssen die Prozesse nicht erst vor Ort trainieren.
Quelle:
Foto:
Das Training mit dem VR-Simulator „LiftNick" am Fraunhofer-IML in Dortmund richtet sich an Gabelstaplerfahrerinnen und -fahrer, die bereits einen Staplerführerschein besitzen.(Bild: Fraunhofer-IML)stapler_vr
https://www.mm-logistik.vogel.de/staplerfahren-am-ende-alles-nur-ein-spiel-a-1072483/
]]>Wer im angepriesenen Metaversum dabei sein will, der braucht eine geeignete VR-Brille. Ocolus entwickelt an einem neuen Modell, das bereits Anfang 2022 auf den Markt kommen soll – und auch Mimik und Blickrichtung der Augen trackt.
Mark Zuckerberg wirkte auf der gestrigen Konferenz wie befreit: Endlich konnte er den neuen Firmennamen "Meta" präsentieren – und über seine Zukunftspläne und neuen Projekte reden. Ganz so, als wären die (er)drückenden Probleme der letzten Wochen und Monate damit Geschichte.
Mit der VR-Brille am Klavier – und die Noten "sehen"
Im Metaversum soll alles virtuell werden
Themenschwerpunkt des umfirmierten Unternehmens soll das Metaversum (Metaverse) sein. Zuckerberg will mit dem Metaversum nicht weniger als die "nächste Evolution der Geschichte sozialer Technologien" einläuten: eine komplett künstliche, virtuelle Welt, in der "dasselbe und noch mehr möglich ist" als in der "echten" Welt.
Damit seine Verheißungen wahr werden und Menschen mit Freunden, Familie, Kolleginnen und Kollegen gemeinsam talken, kommunizieren, lernen, arbeiten, spielen, einkaufen und kreativ sein können, müssen neben sehr viel Technik im Hintergrund (über den CO2-Footprint spricht bislang niemand) auch neue Geräte her.
Womit wir bei Oculus wären, der Firma, die Facebook vor einigen Jahren für zwei Milliarden Dollar gekauft hat. Jetzt soll sich diese Investition endlich rechnen.
Selbst Blickrichtung und Mimik erkennen die Headsets
Neues Headset: Eye-Tracker inklusive
Facebook alias Meta arbeitet mit Oculus-Ingenieuren an einem neuen AR/VR-Headset, das 2022 auf den Markt kommen soll – Codename "Project Cambria". So ein Headsetzt braucht man, um in die VR-Welt einzutauchen. Es macht nicht nur Daten, sondern auch komplett virtuelle Räume sichtbar. Gewöhnliche VR-Headsets erkennen jede Bewegung, um die Bilder anpassen zu können. Schaut man nach links, sieht man im virtuellen Raum nach links. Oder nach rechts, nach oben – oder sogar nach hinten.
Doch Facebooks neues Headet soll noch mehr können: Es soll Eye- und Gesichts-Tracking unterstützen. Damit die Avatare – unsere Alter Egos im Cyberspace – auch Freude oder Ärger zeigen und die Augen bewegen können.
Steht "Meta" für "Meta-Datensammler"?
Bei mir schrillen da allerdings die Alarmglocken: Ein Unternehmen wie Facebook, das nun wirklich jeden Winkel unserer Privatsphäre und sogar Psyche ausleuchtet, um die Erkenntnisse ungeniert zu vermarkten, will nun also auch noch unsere Mimik registrieren und aufzeichnen, wohin wir schauen?
Ein Alptraum in Sachen Privatsphäre. Denn Facebook-Chef Mark Zuckerberg glaubt doch keiner, wenn er im Metaversum "Privatsphäre ab Tag eins" verspricht.
Technisch ist so eine VR/AR-Brille (die auch in der Lage sein soll, die "echte Welt" um einen herum ins virtuelle Bild zu integrieren) durchaus reizvoll. Aber abgesehen davon, dass mir das Vertrauen zu Facebook fehlt, halte ich persönlich diese Entwicklung, die Realität komplett auszublenden, für ungeheuer gefährlich. Dystopien scheinen wahr zu werden.
Quelle:
Foto: Headset für Metaversum soll sogar Augen und Mimik tracken
]]>Imagine new ways to collaborate in virtual reality with MURAL and Quest 2
As part of Facebook Connect, we're excited to announce that the MURAL® platform is coming to Oculus Quest 2, bringing visual collaboration to virtual reality. MURAL will be among the first 2D productivity apps available in the Oculus Store. Imagine accessing the MURAL app from the new workspace in your Home environment on Quest 2 to jump into a team brainstorming session or review the output of a recent collaborative planning session from inside of VR.
"One of the benefits of virtual reality is being able to remove the physical constraints of the hardware we use. MURAL's visual thinking canvas is ideally suited for being as large as possible, which will be transformative for collaboration," shared Steve Schofield, who leads MURAL Labs. "It's been easy to take our existing web client and bundle it for the Oculus platform. I'm looking forward to seeing how members take advantage of MURAL in the world of virtual reality."
Steve will share more insights into the intersection of visual collaboration and virtual reality in the Facebook Connect session, Getting Stuff Done in VR: Bringing Productivity to Oculus.
The way we work has changed forever and distributed teams are here to stay. MURAL provides a space for teams to collaborate visually with an easy-to-use digital canvas where everyone can contribute equally no matter where they are located. We believe that virtual reality can further connect teams across the globe so they can imagine solutions to the thorniest business challenges. With the MURAL app for Oculus Quest 2, we're exploring how visual collaboration can extend beyond the limitations of the computer monitor to better connect teams and provide the freedom to innovate from anywhere.
Using MURAL in virtual reality will provide flexibility, context, and connectivity to drive innovation
The state-of-the-art in virtual reality has evolved leaps and bounds over the early technology, providing a more life-like and compelling experience. Now, with virtual reality, you can experience the feeling of being in a conference room on the verge of collectively finding the solution to a big challenge but without needing to physically be together. Working in VR offers the benefit of not needing to hastily snap a photo of the whiteboard and transcribe its contents into a project plan. MURAL in virtual reality will provide the best of the digital world with the connectivity of being in the office together.
MURAL is perfectly suited to take advantage of the benefits of working in VR:
- Remove physical constraints.You'll be able to do things that weren't possible when you were limited to working on a computer monitor or physical whiteboard. Imagine being able to extend a mural from the size of a monitor to that of a physical whiteboard and back as you need. You could open multiple apps alongside MURAL to reference while you map out your ideas. Imagine the possibilities for PI planning or a design sprint.
- Set the ideal mood and context for the job at hand.In VR, you can control the environment to set different moods and contexts to get the best from everyone on your team. If the team needs to be inspired for a brainstorm, you could run an ideation session from a virtual museum of innovation. For example, if you need your team to feel calm and reflective, you could run a retrospective session from a clearing in a forest during spring.
- Seamlessly move between VR and web.With MURAL, you'll be able to take the ideas and plans you collaboratively developed in VR back to your laptop and then back again. You'll be able to access your murals from your phone, computer, or Quest 2 headset.
- Increase connection and serendipitous moments with colleagues.During our annual retreat at MURAL, we connected in a virtual world to allow MURAListas to mingle and meet since we couldn't physically be together. People were able to congregate virtually at a beach, go to an auditorium, or go for a walk together. These moments allow for the kind of serendipitous moments with colleagues that we lost during the pandemic. With VR, you could "bump" into a colleague in a virtual world even though they're based on the other side of the globe. After uncovering overlap in your work, you could both head back to the virtual office and collaborate in MURAL together.
Using MURAL in virtual reality can make collaboration more playful and imaginative, and unlock the power of visual thinking in new and compelling ways. We're excited to see how visual collaboration takes off in this new world.
Learn more about MURAL's vision for virtual reality from Steve Schofield, who leads MURAL Labs, in the Facebook Connect session, Getting Stuff Done in VR: Bringing Productivity to Oculus.
Quelle:
https://www.mural.co/blog/announcing-the-mural-app-for-oculus-quest-2
]]>Mark Zuckerberg hat sein Unternehmen in Meta umbenannt und möchte nun das Metaverse aufbauen. Aber was ist das eigentlich?
Wenn Mark Zuckerberg vom Metaverse spricht, wird das schnell verwirrend. Das liegt daran, dass er allerlei Dinge durcheinander wirft und in seiner Keynote wild mischt zwischen Technologien, die bereits auf dem Markt sind und weitgehend funktionieren – wie virtuelle Realität – und hochtrabenden Visionen wie Hologrammen, die ausschließlich in seiner produzierten Keynote funktionieren. Und es liegt daran, dass sich viele Menschen unterschiedliches unter einem Metaverse vorstellen.
Dabei ist der Ursprung des Begriffs klar: Der Science-Fiction-Roman „Snow Crash" von Neal Stephenson von 1992 nennt den Begriff als Erstes. Dort ist das Metaverse eine virtuelle Welt, in die sich die Protagonisten immer wieder aus einer reichlich absurden realen Welt fliehen, die durch kapitalistische Ausbeutung gekennzeichnet ist. Es gibt aber auch Nutzer in dieser Welt – die so genannten Gargoyles – die sich entscheiden, für immer mit dem Metaverse verbunden zu bleiben. Sie betreten es mittels einer Art Augmented-Reality-Brille, mit der sie gleichzeitig in ihrem materiellen Leben und im Metaverse sein können. Der Roman zeigt die Implikationen, mit denen dieses „In-zwei-Welten-gleichzeitig-sein" kommt: Es ist für deren Gesprächspartner oft nicht klar, in welcher Welt sie gerade kommunizieren.
Die Grundprinzipien des Metaverse
Das Metaverse verbindet in Snow Crash also die reale physische Welt mit der virtuellen sowie erweiterten Realität in Form einer gemeinsamen Online-Welt. Auch wenn viele in der aktuellen Debatte das Metaverse mit Filmen wie „Matrix" oder „Ready Player One" verbinden, ist es also weit mehr als eine reine virtuelle Welt. In Ready Player One ist die reale Welt so heruntergewirtschaftet, dass sich die Menschen nahezu ausschließlich in der virtuellen Realität aufhalten – außer zum Schlafen, Essen oder um zur Toilette zu gehen, wie Hauptfigur Wade Watts erklärt. Dort gibt es aber keine „Misch-Zugänge" aus anderen Realitäten, keine Augmented Reality, die es ermöglicht, in beiden Welten zu sein. Die reale und die materielle Welt sind getrennt.
Das soll im Metaverse der Zukunft anders sein, darin sind sich zumindest einige einflussreiche Experten einig. Beispielsweise der Investor Matthew Ball, der kürzlich in einem vielbeachteten Aufsatz die Grundprinzipien des Metaverse beschrieben hat: unter anderem eine eigene Ökonomie, eine ständige Präsenz, synchron anstatt asynchron und voller vielfältiger Erlebnisse, die von „einer unglaublich großen Bandbreite an Beteiligten" kreiert wurden – manche als Individuen, andere als Gruppen oder auch Unternehmen.
Laut Ball ist das Metaverse schon lange das Ziel vieler Tech-Unternehmen und vor allem auch das von Spielanbietern wie Epic Games, das Unternehmen hinter „Fortnite": ein Multiplayer-Spiel, in dem die Nutzer miteinander agieren und eigene Welten bauen können. Und dort finden Popkonzerte mit mehreren Millionen Zuschauern statt. Als der Rapper Travis Scott im April 2020 mit einer psychedelischen Show auftrat, waren 12,3 Millionen Menschen zeitgleich in Fortnite. Es gibt zudem eine eigene Währung und Spielende lassen sich die Ausstattung ihrer Avatare einiges kosten. Insofern ist Fortnite längst mehr als „nur" ein Spiel.
Das Gefühl „vor Ort zu sein"
Aber auch wenn es Auswirkungen auf das reale Leben hat, ist es noch kein ausgereiftes Metaverse. Aber vielleicht ein erster Ansatz eines solchen. Die Pandemie hat dazu beigetragen, dass solche Plattformen wachsen – denn für viele ersetzten sie reale Begegnungen, die durch Lockdowns und Ausgangssperren verhindert wurden. Von daher ist das Gefühl „wirklich vor Ort" zu sein, von dem Zuckerberg in Bezug auf seine Metaverse-Vision spricht, in verschiedenen Plattformen schon vorhanden.
Eine ähnliche Rolle schreiben viele „Roblox" zu, einer Spieleplattform, die ebenfalls über verschiedene Geräte zugänglich ist – unter anderem Windows, Playstation und Oculus – und auf der Nutzer eigene Spiele programmieren und mit mehreren gemeinsam spielen können. Auch hier hat die Pandemie die Nutzerzahlen in die Höhe getrieben: Im August 2020 hatte Roblox monatlich über 164 Millionen aktive Spieler.
Nun stelle sich die Frage, ob Spiele „aus Spielen ausbrechen" könnten, schreibt der Investor Benedict Evans in seiner Analyse der Metaverse-Diskussion. Möglicherweise könne eine Kombination der Ideen hinter Roblox und Fortnite „mit ihren offenen Welten, ihrer offenen Kreativität und ihrem Crossover mit anderen Arten der Popkultur zu einem grundlegenden Wandel führen." Im Metaverse verschmelze VR und AR, „und Spiele brechen gemeinsam in die reale Welt und in die Populärkultur aus, und zwar viel breiter als bisher."
Auch wenn viele Metaverse-Ansätze also schon in sozialen virtuellen Welten sehen, in denen Menschen zusammenkommen, um zu spielen und sich auszutauschen, geht das Metaverse auch laut Ball weit darüber hinaus: es müsse persistent sein, „es pausiert oder endet nie", es gehe für immer weiter; es müsse synchron sein, „das Metaverse wird eine lebendige Erfahrung sein, die konsistent ist für jeden in Echtzeit".
Zuckerberg selbst hingegen bleibt nicht nur vage, sondern wirft auch vieles durcheinander. Das Metaverse sei „das, was der Teleportation am nächsten kommt", sagte er im Juli im Podcast des Tech-Magazins „The Verge". Das Gefühl der Immersion sei zentral, der Eindruck „wirklich da zu sein". Doch das nicht (nur) in der virtuellen Realität, sondern mit allen erdenklichen Mitteln und auf allen möglichen Geräten und Orten. „Das Metaverse ist nicht einfach nur virtuelle Realität. Es wird erreichbar sein über alle unsere unterschiedlichen Computing Plattformen, VR, AR aber auch den PC, und auch Mobilgeräte und Spielekonsolen." Es werde eine „persistente, synchrone Umwelt" sein, „in der wir zusammensein können." Später spricht er von einer „Umwelt, in der wir verkörpert sind", noch später fällt der Begriff „verkörpertes Internet."
Facebook allein im Metaverse?
Das Gefühl der Präsenz sei notwendig, aber nicht hinreichend, schreibt hingegen Ball. Das Metaverse sei auch nicht eine virtuelle Ökonomie allein oder ein Spiel oder ein virtueller Themenpark oder Disneyland. „Die Attraktionen werden nicht nur unendlich sein, sie werden auch nicht zentral gestaltet oder programmiert sein, und es wird auch nicht nur um Spaß und Unterhaltung gehen." Und vor allem sei das Metaverse keine neue Plattform wie YouTube oder Facebook.
Während Zuckerberg im Juli noch öfter pflichtbewusst fallen ließ, dass Facebook das Metaverse nicht allein betreiben wolle, ist in der aktuellen Keynote davon wenig zu hören. Konkret wird er eigentlich nur beim Thema VR – und davon präsentiert er nichts Neues: Soziale virtuelle Welten gibt es schon eine ganze Zeitlang. Doch diese sind eben noch kein Metaverse.
Zudem hat Facebook bisher wenig Offenheit für Interoperabilität gezeigt. Das wäre aber die Grundlage für ein Anbieter-übergreifendes Metaverse. Wenn Nutzer mit ihren Avataren, Gütern und Freunden in einer Welt gefangen sind und diese nicht in eine andere mitnehmen können, dann ist es kein Metaverse.
Quelle:
Foto: In digitalen Arbeitsräumen von Facebooks VR-App „Horizon Workrooms" können Kolleginnen und Kollegen als Avatare miteinander interagieren. (Bild: Webpräsenz Oculus)
https://www-heise-de.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.heise.de/amp/hintergrund/Alle-reden-uebers-Metaverse-Aber-was-soll-das-eigentlich-sein-6237609.html
]]>Erste Schrite App Design Sommer Adbe Educaton Exchange
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Posted by: stewartadvigul.blogspot.com
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