Nextech AR and Kohls Expand Augmented Reality Contract For Ecommerce

Kohls in collaboration with Nextech is now significantly scaling WebAR for Ecommerce, creating thousands of new 3D models that will enhance the augmented reality experience for Kohls' customers.

Nextech AR Solutions Corp. a diversified leading provider of augmented reality (“AR”) experience technologies and services is proud to announce the expansion of its partnership with Kohls, Corporation (NYSE: KSS) one of the largest department store chains in the United States. The Kohls Nextech partnership began when Kohls identified Threedy.ai, now part of Nextech, and their WebAR for Ecommerce solutions as the most attractive option to introduce augmented reality and 3D models into its customer experience.

Extensive product testing which began with Kohls' Innovation Center, validated Threedy's return on investment (ROI)., Kohls in collaboration with Nextech is now significantly scaling WebAR for Ecommerce, creating thousands of new 3D models that will enhance the augmented reality experience for Kohls' customers. With Nextech's 3D WebAR for Ecommerce solutions, Kohls' customers can review products dynamically within any desired backdrop.

Nima Sarshar, Chief Technology Officer with Nextech and founder of Threedy.ai is close to this customer success story with Kohls. "When 3D ecommerce solutions are done right, the results can be incredibly rewarding. Not only financially, but also the joy of seeing your product used by millions of customers practically overnight. Our ability to use our AI pipeline to create 3D models at scale is a real value proposition for large retailers like Kohls" Sarshar commented.

View a 3D Model on the Kohls Website (Desktop Experience) or Watch a Video Preview
To try it yourself, scroll down beneath the product images and click “See it in 3D” or “View in your room”

Nextech's recent announcement that it was selected as an Early Access Partner with Google's 3D AR Search Program, strengthens the value proposition of WebAR for ecommerce, particularly for large retail customers such as Kohls. Kohls' 3D models will soon appear in organic Google search results, allowing shoppers to dynamically interact with and review the retailer's products.

Evan Gappelberg, CEO of Nextech commented on this customer success story. “Kohls is an example of a large retailer that quickly recognized the potential for WebAR to enhance its online business. Augmented reality in e-commerce can not only drive sales, but reduce customer returns as the buyer feels a higher level of product familiarity before placing the order - the latter being a key point for many e-commerce customers. By combining Threedy’s disruptive AI technology and our leading AR platform, large retailers like Kohls can reach the necessary scale critical to support their ecommerce business.”

Threedy.ai
Using Threedy’s proprietary AI and computer vision innovations, the production of 3D models can be scaled to 1,000s of 3D models per week. Threedy has built a truly disruptive end-to-end solution around its model creation technology for the AR industry. Through a simple JavaScript tag integration, product photos are automatically onboarded, 3D models are created for each product through the power of AI and hosted on the Threedy’s cloud, and 3D visualizations are served to client properties using web AR/3D, all within a single integrated platform.

More info here

Contact:

Name: Judith Planella

Email Address: judith.planella@nextechar.com

The Immerse Platform Now Available on SAP® Store

The Immerse Platform is built for enterprise from the ground up, and helps companies create, deploy, scale, measure and integrate VR training and maximise their ROI.

Today, Immerse announced that the Immerse Platform is now available on SAP Store. The Immerse Platform integrates with SAP and delivers immersive training for a range of topics, including health and safety, technical skills, soft skills, on-boarding, and corporate culture.

By integrating with SAP® SuccessFactors® Employee Central, the Immerse Platform delivers performance-enhancing virtual reality training.

London — 01 September 2021 — Immerse Learning Ltd. today announced that the Immerse Platform is now available on SAP® Store, the online marketplace for SAP and partner offerings. The Immerse Platform integrates with the SAP® SuccessFactors® Employee Central solution and delivers immersive training for a range of topics, including health and safety, technical skills, soft skills, on-boarding, and corporate culture.

‘’Virtual reality is enhancing human performance in ways that were once unthinkable and today it is transforming the way we learn, explore and interact,” says said Tom Symonds, CEO at Immerse. “The Immerse Platform creates an all-in-one solution for organisations, allowing them to create, distribute, measure, and integrate all forms of immersive content using highly secure cloud-based systems. As the employee experience continues to rise up to the boardroom agenda, organisations need to start embracing the next generation of learning technology in order to retain talent and stay ahead of the competition.’’

The Immerse Platform provides:

• Higher-quality learning and retention
  Using virtual reality to learn and train leads to a 75%* average increase in employee learning quality and retention with a direct impact on the reduction in skills fading post training.

• Faster speed to competency
  Virtual reality and immersive training has been proven to reduce the time to competency for employees by an average of 40% compared to traditional training methods.

• Signification cost reduction
  Savings for the cost of training are seen across all areas of the business, including reduced travel and accommodation expenses, builds of replica physical training environments, and lost opportunity cost in time away from day-to-day operations.
  
  

SAP Store, found at store.sap.com, delivers a simplified and connected digital customer experience for finding, trying, buying and renewing more than 1,800 solutions from SAP and its partners. There, customers can find the SAP solutions and SAP-validated solutions they need to grow their business. And for each purchase made through SAP Store, SAP will plant a tree.

Immerse is a partner in the SAP PartnerEdge® program. As such, it is empowered to build, market and sell software applications that supplement and build on SAP software and technology. The SAP PartnerEdge program provides the enablement tools, benefits and support to facilitate building high-quality, disruptive applications focused on specific business needs – quickly and cost-effectively. The program provides access to all relevant SAP technologies in one simple framework under a single, global contract.

About Immerse

www.immerse.io

Immerse is a global virtual reality technology company that has developed the Immerse Platform. Built for enterprise from the ground up, the Immerse Platform enables companies to create, scale and measure virtual reality training.

With clients in a wide range of industries such as CPG, oil and gas, pharma and life science and power and utilities, using the Immerse Platform enables companies to train and assess their employees in radically new ways maximizing human performance and the employee experience.

Any statements in this release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties described in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent annual report on Form 20-F, that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. SAP cautions readers not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements which SAP has no obligation to update and which speak only as of their dates.

SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

For more information, press only:

George Fryer, Senior Executive or Katie Charlton, Senior Consultant, Man Bites Dog

teamimmerse@manbitesdog.com +44 (0)1273 716 820

Orlando is hot technology center for VR/AR

By Jon Jaehnig

One of America’s Biggest VR/AR Centers Is… Orlando?

When you think about American VR/AR technology centers, where do you think of first? California? New York? How about Orlando?

Defense, simulation, education, and entertainment come together in South Florida like they do no place else. While Orlando has been a technology center for decades, it might also be a VR/AR technology center.

These Things Take Time

The history of Orlando as a technology center goes back to the early days of the space program and earlier.

“People know the Disney story in Orlando,” Orlando Economic Partnership (OEP) CEO and President Tim Giuliani told ARPost in a phone interview. “At the same time that Disney was choosing Orlando and building their theme parks here, we were going to space and Orlando is in that story too.”

The Orlando area is also home to a number of colleges and universities including Valencia College, FullSail University, and the University of Central Florida. However, our story begins a little more recently.

“Our technology community over the years was very grassroots. Over the last few years, the Orlando Tech Council came together through the Orlando Economic Partnership,” said Giuliani. I know it looks like this happened overnight, but I assure you, these things took time.”

The Orlando Tech Council is a tech-focused group within the larger OEP. Both organizations provide information on area resources, plan area industry events, and more.

“The tech community here is rather diverse. It’s in many different sectors and is geographically distributed. The Tech Council really serves as a convening body,” said Giuliani.

One organization that the Orlando Tech Council played host to fairly early, in 2017, was the VR/AR Association.

“We wanted to use the Association as a way to get companies to share information but we also wanted to use the Association to get those companies noticed outside of the area,” VR/AR Association Orlando Chapter President John Cunningham said in a phone interview with ARPost.

The VR/AR Association and the OEP

In 2017, Cunningham worked for Disti, a virtual maintenance training company specializing in aviation and based in Orlando. Cunningham was becoming increasingly interested in the extended reality aspect and regularly attended specialized trade shows.

See Also: 2021 VR/AR Association Global Summit: Metaverse, Convergence, and Adoption

“Every time I went to a conference, there were people from this group called the VR/AR Association. After three or four of these conferences, I realized that these people at the VR/AR Association were the most knowledgeable people in the industry and I wondered why we didn’t have a chapter in Orlando,” said Cunningham.

The kind of benefit that Cunningham was after required people from different backgrounds with different specializations and viewpoints. Most of the people that he knew in AR and VR were in defense. So, he reached out to the Orlando Tech Council.

“Just through the network down here, I was immediately connected with ten or more industry leaders interested in AR and VR,” said Cunningham. “[VR/AR] really is one of those rare technologies that addresses every industry.”

Cunningham started the Orlando chapter of the VR/AR Association. While he is now the Head of Government Solutions for Unity, Disti remains a member – Disti’s Global Managing Director is the chapter’s marketing director. Members of the OEP and the Orlando Tech Council also sit on the chapter’s Advisory Board.

“A lot of [OEP] organizations have been involved in promoting us and bringing us requests. It’s been a very two-way partnership,” said Cunningham. “It’s really an ecosystem-building partnership.”

The Red 6 Tech Hub

“There is really a number of reasons why we chose Orlando, why we chose Florida,” Red 6 CFO Maissan Almaskati said in a phone interview with ARPost. “It offers an ecosystem that is well-established around certain technologies that are critical to our operation.”

Red 6 is an extended reality simulation company offering an “airborne tactical augmented reality system” featuring “unlimited synthetic training against near-peer adversaries.” Right now, that means pilot training that is significantly safer, less expensive, and more adaptable than conventional training methods for the same skills and scenarios.

See Also: Why XR Twitter Is Up in Arms About Saying “Metaverse”

“Red 6 was really set up to solve a particular problem that was coming at the U.S. Air Force and broader defense sector when it comes to training,” said Almaskati. Beyond saving time and money, the platform allows trainees to face off against digital versions of an airplane when they don’t have access to a physical version.

The company is based in California but recently announced the opening of a tech hub in the Orlando area. They’re only the most recent organization to do so.

Why Orlando?

“A company that is in California like Red 6 that is trying to evaluate the tech community here can very quickly see what that looks like,” said Giuliani. “Red 6 talked to a number of members of our Tech Council about what the talent pool looks like.”

Similar cases include Luminar, who worked with Unity to create open-source LiDar models of Volvo Cars. A VR/AR technology company going to Orlando says a lot about the company and it says a lot about Orlando.

“Someone like Red 6, who clearly has a compelling solution, they need to scale and scale fast,” said Cunningham. “Red 6 coming to Orlando validates that this is a very developed and mature industry here.”

It’s true, the reasons that Almaskati gave for Red 6 choosing Orlando included the cost of living and operation, and the concentration of defense offices. However, the company is waiting for its tech hub to open its doors before officially getting involved with organizations like the Orlando VR/AR Association and the Orlando Tech Council.

“Memberships into those organizations will make sense once we’re up and running locally,” said Almaskati. “Most of our partnerships have been with the area’s academic institutions.”

Road Trip, Anyone?

Part of this story is history. It’s safe to argue that Orlando has never gotten the credit that it deserves for fostering groundbreaking technology.

However, most of this story hasn’t happened yet. Organizations like the OEP, the VR/AR Association, companies like Red 6, Luminar, and the Orlando educational institutions, and the larger community are building the future of a generation of science and computing that has yet to fully materialize.

Source

Lenovo and RealWear Join Forces to Bring Assisted Reality Solutions to Enterprise Customers

Lenovo’s global sales network to offer customers RealWear’s HMT-1 assisted reality wearable solutions, and Lenovo and RealWear certify the HMT-1 device for Lenovo’s ThinkReality™ XR cloud platform

Research Triangle, NC & Vancouver, WA – August 30, 2021 – Lenovo™ (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY), a global technology leader, and RealWear, the world’s leading provider of assisted reality solutions for frontline industrial workers, today announced a global collaboration to bring assisted reality solutions to enterprise customers. The combined technologies and resources of both companies will enable customers to select, deploy and scale right-fit extended reality (XR) technologies worldwide.

Extended Collaboration for the Global Enterprise XR Market

Under the collaboration, Lenovo has certified the RealWear HMT-1 devices for use on its ThinkReality™ platform, expanding frontline workers’ access to optimized, hands-free 2D applications. Additionally, Lenovo will offer RealWear’s HMT-1  family of assisted reality wearable devices through its global sales network.

A cloud and device-agnostic solution for enterprise deployments, ThinkReality™ is among the world’s most powerful and flexible enterprise XR software. The platform provides enterprise customers with advanced development and management tools, including a software development kit, content and device management services, enterprise integration, a robust developer portal, and ready-to-use microservices.

ThinkReality also includes turn-key certified solutions for vital XR applications from remote assistance, guided workflow and training to remote data visualization and design collaboration. Customers using devices on the ThinkReality platform have access to these common use case applications immediately  without needing to spend additional time or money on content development.

With the addition of the RealWear HMT-1, Lenovo’s ThinkReality platform now supports a full range of solutions across the XR spectrum. These XR solutions include the ‘reality first, digital second’ experience of assisted reality through the RealWear HMT-1 to the ‘immersive but not isolating’ experience of the new ThinkReality A3 smart glasses and the ‘world-focused’ ThinkReality A6 with transparent lenses, as well as  the fully immersive experience of virtual reality (VR) with the Lenovo Mirage VRS3 all-in-one VR headset.

The RealWear HMT-1 monocular device, the leading ruggedized head-mounted intelligent wearable, gives industrial workers real-time access to information and expertise, while keeping their hands and field of view free for work. The RealWear device allows workers to use voice-controlled commands – even in high noise environments – to collaborate with remote experts or navigate through complex workflows to reduce procedural errors. RealWear is fully compatible with worker Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), purpose-built for industry and enterprise, and features the category’s only ‘full shift’ hot-swappable battery.

The RealWear HMT-1 works with hundreds of powerful software applications from RealWear Ready solution partners, each optimized for completely hands-free voice control. That means no scrolling, swiping, hand gestures, or tapping – just simple voice commands. The HMT-1 can be used for remote mentor video calling, document navigation, guided workflow, mobile forms and industrial IoT data visualization. The device boasts more than 200 voice-controlled apps for hundreds of industrial use cases.

“To fulfill the ThinkReality vision of making it easier than ever to build, deploy, and manage enterprise XR solutions at scale, Lenovo is collaborating with a growing ecosystem of hardware and software solution providers,” said Jon Pershke, Vice President of Strategy and Emerging Business Development, Lenovo Intelligent Devices Group. “The addition of RealWear’s field-proven monocular device on the ThinkReality platform means we’ll be able to support an even larger and growing number of enterprise customers as they equip industrial frontline workers with cutting-edge XR technology that improves workplace safety and drive unprecedented ROI.”

“Our collaboration with Lenovo will provide a rich and powerful experience for frontline workers while enhancing worker safety,” said Sanjay Jhawar, Co-founder and President, RealWear. “We’re excited to help bring the benefits of HMT-1 assisted reality solutions to Lenovo’s enterprise customers globally, leveraging a strong ecosystem of collaboration and productivity software tools for digital transformation.  Additionally, we look forward to expanding our cooperation with Lenovo in the future across a range of end-user experience driven initiatives.”

Lenovo serves enterprise customers in 180 markets around the world. The company’s focus on quality and security is why Lenovo has been a trusted supplier to commercial customers and local/national government agencies around the world since 2005. In 2019, more than 300 of the world’s Fortune 500 companies bought Lenovo technology products.

The ThinkReality platform and devices are supported by Lenovo Integrated Solution Services (LISS), a global end-to-end service program that supports the relevant hardware, software, and services to provide an advanced level of care throughout a solution’s lifecycle.

Contact your local Lenovo or RealWear sales representative to find out more.

About Lenovo
Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is a US$60 billion revenue Fortune Global 500 company serving customers in 180 markets around the world. Focused on a bold vision to deliver smarter technology for all, we are developing world-changing technologies that power (through devices and infrastructure) and empower (through solutions, services and software) millions of customers every day and together create a more inclusive, trustworthy and sustainable digital society for everyone, everywhere. To find out more visit https://www.lenovo.com and read about the latest news via our StoryHub.

About RealWear
RealWear® is the world’s leading provider of assisted reality wearable solutions that engage, empower, and elevate the modern frontline industrial worker to perform work tasks more safely, and with increased efficiency and precision. RealWear give these workers real-time access to information and expertise, while keeping their hands and field of view free for work. Workers use voice-controlled commands – even in high noise environments – to collaborate with remote experts or navigate through workflows. RealWear is fully compatible with worker PPE, purpose-built for industry and enterprise, and features the only “all shift” battery. RealWear is field proven with world-class customers, including Shell, Goodyear, Mars, Colgate-Palmolive, and BMW, who have used it to improve workplace safety while delivering unprecedented ROI.

RealWear is headquartered in Vancouver, Washington in the United States, with local offices in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, and Korea, along with a new customer experience center in Dubai. RealWear’s number one position was further strengthened with triple (3X) year-over-year growth in 2020. The company has shipped wearable devices to more than 3,000 unique enterprise customers worldwide in a range of industries, including Energy, Manufacturing, Food & Beverage, Automotive, and Telecommunications.

For more information, visit www.realwear.com.

LENOVO and THINKREALITY are trademarks of Lenovo. REALWEAR and HMT-1 are trademarks of RealWear Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ©2020, Lenovo Group Limited.

New Study Projects Headworn AR Revenue to Reach $17.7 Billion by 2025

VRARA members can access this report through a discounted subscription to ARtillery Pro.

ARtillery Intelligence has released a new report that projects headworn AR revenue to grow from $1.6 billion in 2020 to $17.7 billion in 2025, a 61.8 percent compound annual growth rate. Entitled Headworn AR Global Revenue Forecast, 2020-2025, the report examines glasses-based AR revenue totals and subsegments – including consumer and enterprise spending.

Enterprise spending holds a commanding revenue share today, eclipsing consumer spending by 100 to 1. This is driven by productivity gains in industrial settings, where AR’s line-of-sight guidance boosts speed and error reduction. Consumer AR meanwhile trails in revenue, as the technology isn’t yet stylistically viable for consumer markets. But spending shares will shift over time as consumer AR adoption gains ground in later years – partly accelerated by Apple’s projected market entrance.

“Apple's projected smart glasses could have a classic Apple 'halo effect' by boosting consumer awareness and demand for the emerging hardware category,” said ARtillery Intelligence Chief Analyst Mike Boland. “Moreover, its V1 design target will be style and wearability versus graphical immersiveness; and its appeal will lie in elegant integration with other Apple hardware and wearables. Think of it like the iPhone 1 – evolving over several years.”

In addition to Apple, Microsoft has already begun to accelerate the headworn AR market. Its $22 billion 10-year contract with the U.S. Army to supply battle-grade hololens units caused an inflection in 2021, and elevated revenues throughout this forecast period.

As is the case across the global economy, AR glasses revenues have been impacted in the COVID era. Given that the consumer AR glasses market is relatively small to begin with, its revenue has been minimally affected. Enterprise markets have conversely suffered to some degree due to recessionary spending and supply-chain impediments. However, enterprise AR use cases support COVID-era demand signals, thus offsetting declines.

“Certain flavors of enterprise AR like virtual assistance and guided maintenance align with remote work in some corporate and industrial settings,” said Boland. “This could mean that COVID-pressured adoption in some fields engenders new enterprise habits that sustain into a post-COVID era of hybrid remote work.”

Report Availability

Headworn AR Global Revenue Forecast, 2020-2025 is available to ARtillery PRO subscribers, and more can be previewed here. VRARA members can access this report through a discounted subscription to ARtillery Pro.

About ARtillery Intelligence

ARtillery Intelligence chronicles the evolution of spatial computing, otherwise known as AR and VR. Through writings and multimedia, it provides deep and analytical views into the industry’s biggest players, opportunities and strategies. Products include the AR Insider publication and the ARtillery PRO research subscription. Research includes monthly narrative reports, market-sizing forecasts, consumer survey data and multimedia, all housed in a robust intelligence vault. Learn more here.

New VRARA Storytelling Report - featuring best immersive tech companies and studios

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Foreword By VRARA Storytelling Chair, Chris Pfaff

The immersive storytelling industry sector is growing exponentially, as creation engines and game engines are improved to enable rapid immersive content development and delivery. Producers have utilized the COVID-19 pandemic to broaden XR experiences in areas such as virtual theatre (e.g., ‘FindingPandoraX’), gamified live content (e.g., concerts in Roblox, Fortnite and League of Legends), and virtual location-based entertainment (LBE) (e.g., Metropolitan Museum, Krasner-Pollock House).

The entire immersive industry is essentially an exercise in “storytelling,” as virtual experiences deliver a grammar and a narrative structure for educating, informing, and entertaining users/customers/ spectators/fans in new ways. The immersive storytelling industry is now poised to become a larger part of communications and advertising, edutainment, and enterprise collaboration.

What were once utilitarian platforms for enterprise and industrial applications are now broadened to gameplay, requiring skill sets that are far beyond optical networking, GPU design, or display configurations.

Now, immersive storytelling embodies technologists who are as skilled inCAD/CAM,Unreal Engine/Unity, and Blender/Maya as they are in light field optics and field array components.

This report details companies that embody production, story creation, post-production, trans-media, game development, branded content, advertising and communications, and a host of technical areas that enable the new world of storytelling across the broad immersive spectrum.

Also, we invite you to join our weekly Online Meets with guest presenters & live discussions to help you grow your connections, knowledge, and your business.

MetaVRse Adds Tech Finance Pundit Scott Henry to Advisory Board, Positions for Funding

Toronto, Ontario - August 26, 2021 - MetaVRse, Inc., provider of a code-optional 3D game engine, announced that technology finance pundit Scott Henry has joined the company's advisory board as a shareholder.

Henry has an extensive background scaling innovative businesses and has held finance and operational executive roles with several high-growth companies including, most recently as CFO of competitive mobile gaming platform company Skillz, Inc. (NYSE: SKLZ) and as CFO of spatial computing company Magic Leap, Inc.

“As part of the MetaVRse advisory board Mr. Henry will provide guidance as we navigate the process of securing capital to rapidly scale the company” commented MetaVRse CEO, Paul Konieczny “Scott brings with him more than three decades of experience helping high growth companies scale. There are few people who understand the nuances of financing business growth and development better than Scott and his deep understanding of the XR world make him an ideal fit.”

“From the first time I met the founders at MetaVRse, I knew they were onto something big. They took 5 years to create an easy-to-use platform and build a world-class roster of customers and partners. They are well positioned for scale and growth” said Henry “spatial computing and XR is the next trillion dollar industry and MetaVRse is one of the companies paving the way and making it accessible to all players.”

About MetaVRse

MetaVRse is a web platform that makes it easy to Create & Share interactive 3D Experiences to over 7 billion compatible devices. The MetaVRse Engine launched in June 2020 and has thousands of creators and notable clients Samsung, Siemens Healthineers and Oracle with a focus on interactive real-time XR for Marketing, eCommerce and Training.

MetaVRse.com

Contact:

Gagan Singh

Media Strategist, Kindred PR

direct 360-909-3073

gagan@kindredpr.com

Augmented Reality gives Real Estate an Edge

Through the incorporation of innovative technologies such as Augmented Reality, potential real estate customers can facilitate the process of searching for properties and have a unique experience when choosing and purchasing.

This is happening as new technologies replace the traditional showroom or face-to-face visits with hyper-realistic immersive experiences that help customers have a quickly envision the property they want to buy, without having to go there. Not only does the client win, but it also saves the broker the time of organizing redundant tours.

Benefits of Augmented Reality: Use of 3D Models

By incorporating 3D models, the client can test out a range of products from a piece of pottery, a floor, or works of art to even larger spaces such as rooms, facilities, or offices. They can even directly tour a house or apartment. The interesting thing is to be able to visualize and try different styles and designs using only the cell phone.

Interceramic, the Mexican company which is a leader in manufacturing floors and tiles, decided to generate its product catalog with Augmented Reality. This way, their customers can scan a QR code to access spaces that show the latest product trends and visualize how they will look in real spaces. They recreated the Santa Monica line for the terrace and kitchen and the Satori line for the living room and kitchen.

Another example is the Uruguayan company Multiconteiner, who also choose to evolve by exhibiting its solutions with this technology. By entering the 360° experience, their clients can find information about the different models of containers, houses and modules they offer, and see a gallery of images for each one. In addition, Augmented Reality lets clients visualize the houses in real scale and in model size, walk through them and look at them in detail, as if they were there.

The advantage of this technology is that it helps to reduce the time and resources that customers devote to searching for products and properties, saving in-person visits for those of greater interest.

It has been demonstrated that these solutions increase the possibility of sale by 30% and shorten the purchase process by 50%. Therefore, these kinds of tools help to generate a competitive edge and mark the difference needed to boost business and the real estate industry.

Contact:

Name: Florencia Moltini

Email Address: florencia@camonapp.com

Website URL: http://camonapp.com/en/augmented-reality-real-estate/

Lenovo’s ThinkReality A3 Smart Glasses Are Here!

Transform your company vision

Advance productivity with ThinkReality A3—Lenovo’s versatile smart glasses for the enterprise. Ultraportable and comfortable, these augmented reality (AR) glasses create a customized, expanded personal workspace anywhere, from a virtual monitor at home, to guided schematics on the factory floor.

The Lenovo ThinkReality A3 Industrial Edition and PC Edition are now available!

Light and powerful, the ThinkReality A3 tethers to select Lenovo PCs and Motorola smartphones, it are one of the most advanced and versatile enterprise smart glasses to come to market.

With a versatile headset that supports industrial and PC applications, Lenovo's ThinkReality platform delivers enterprise-grade augmented reality in an easy-to-deploy and easy-to-support solution.

Immersive but not isolating, the AR smart glasses are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 Platform for high-quality performance and feature stereoscopic 1080p displays presenting the user with up to 5 virtual displays. An 8MP RGB camera provides 1080p video for remote expert use cases while the dual fish-eye cameras provide room-scale tracking.

The ThinkReality platform includes a host of development and deployment tools, as well. As the world's largest PC vendor, Lenovo has a rich partner ecosystem and deep experience in empowering enterprises to manage devices and users.

More info

RENK Group Increases Stake in Immersive Digital Twin Provider, Modest Tree

August 24th, 2021 - Globally active RENK Group (“RENK”) has successfully completed an additional share subscription and increased its stake in Modest Tree Media Inc. (“Modest Tree”). Modest Tree, based in Halifax, Canada, provides a range of digital tools and services to manufacturers, including immersive digital twins and the associated digital tools and extended reality solutions, to enable the visualization of products and processes through integration of enterprise datasets.

By increasing its investment in Modest Tree, RENK strengthens its position as a leading adopter of digital solutions, a growing trend in the global manufacturing industry. This allows RENK to provide innovative products and digital-based services to its customers.

“Working with global manufacturers in aerospace, defence, and automotive, we have seen the accelerated focus on digital solutions, unleashing new business models for training, digital twins, and digital in-service support,” states Modest Tree founder and CEO Sam Sannandeji. “Having RENK as a partner helps us to understand the unique and evolving needs of leading digital-focused industrial firms and to provide leading-edge digital solutions to our global industrial clients.

Contact:

Name: Laura Bohnert

Email Address: lbohnert@modesttree.com

Website URL: https://www.modesttree.com/

MIAT presented the first International Immersive Storytelling Masterclass Bootcamp: Training the talents of the future

Award-winning creators and artists, immersive directors, XR creatives and science-techs have transformed Milan into a pool of knowledge for those who will be the talents of the immersive world of the future. 

In July 2021, MIAT (https://www.miat.tech/), the Multiverse Institute Of Art and Technologies, launched the first SOLD-OUT international Immersive Storytelling Masterclass in Milan. 

The Bootcamp, led by international industry professionals, award-winning creators and artists, immersive directors, XR creatives, sound designers and science-techs was structured over eight days, and designed to touch, understand and experience all the facets of the immersive world and the entire immersive production process. 

“During the full immersion week, the participants have ranged from topics such as stereos & cameras, 360 producing and filming, immersive audio, virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, game-engines, and volumetric capture, to learn how to create immersive experiences using new worlds and languages. Furthermore, they went deeper, learning from a scientifical perspective what is behind these immersive technologies. 

Finally, through lectures and sensory and innovative workshops were addressed key topics concerning narrative, interactivity, and immersion, in order to understand how to build the perfect and engaging immersive storytelling capable of transmitting emotions, increasing empathy and connecting with the audience.” Said Elisabetta Rotolo, CEO - Founder of MIAT and tutor for the masterclass. 

At the end of the course, tutors and international experts guided the participant with creative and design thinking techniques through the conceptualisation of their immersive project presented afterwards to a jury of international commissioners including international executive producers, curators, interactive and immersive media experts as Liz Rosenthal, Myriam Achard, Dan Tucker, and Carlo Rodomonti. 

The masterclass, designed to meet the needs of the international XR market, providing the future generation of art-tech with artistic, creative and critical thinking, was the first masterclass launched by MIAT, which will be followed by new courses and opportunities for professionals, students, artists, creatives and corporations. 

More info here

ABOUT MIAT

MIAT is an educational and creative hub for immersive arts and emerging technologies, integrating an XR Academy with hands-on and practitioner-driven industry access training programs, alongside a full-service immersive production centre generating original immersive experiences.

We are an international team of immersive storytellers, filmmakers, producers, XR developers, lead artists, animators, sound engineers, combining high artistic skills with a cutting-edge technological expertise delivering training programs in immersive storytelling, directing, creative producing, filmmaking, VR shooting, XR art, interactive emerging technologies applications. We love to strengthen the talents of the future and create together high-end original immersive experiences for artistic expression and social impact.

For info and contact: 

Elisabetta Rotolo - CEO & Founder

elisabetta.rotolo@miat.tech

Nextech AR Goes Live with Enhanced 3D Google Ad Functionality With Launch of Web XR

NexTech AR Solutions Corp., an emerging leader in augmented reality for eCommerce, AR learning applications, AR-enhanced video conferencing and virtual events, today announced the launch of its next generation Ad technology.

With this announcement NexTech’s customers can now tap into Google’s immense network, delivering engaging and streamlined 3D ads that extend to AR at scale that do not require application download. The upgrade leverages WebXR and also enables a robust AR experience with each Ad. NexTech Ads also provide rich and robust analytics giving customers data driven insights so they can better capture impressions, clicks, interactions and gain overall AR engagement data.

Click to view 3D AR ad sample: view sample.

NexTech CEO Evan Gappelberg commented on this product enhancement. “Digital consumers are looking for engaging immersive experiences. The combination of Nextech AR’s 3D model creation at scale with Nextech’s Ad Network now on Google Ads creates an incredibly valuable offering that accelerates our customer’s reach with higher engagement levels. The Google Display Network reaches 90 percent of internet users worldwide, across millions of websites, news pages, blogs and Google sites like Gmail and YouTube”, said Gappelberg.

Analytics from NexTech’s Vacuum Cleaner Market (VCM) indicate click through rates (CTR) of approximately 5 percent for 3D Ads created with NexTech 3D tools, compared to average Google CTR of 1.55 percent according to Smart Insights. NexTech’s 3D technology enabled on Google’s expansive Ad network offers a compelling advertising tool. Google estimates that as of 2021, that their search engine processes approximately 63,000 search queries every second, translating to 5.6 billion searches per day and approximately 2 trillion global searches per year. According to eMarketer, Digital Ad spend will be 455.3 billion in 2021 with 55.2% of that going to display advertising.

NexTech 3D advertising customers such as Motif, a leading fashion knowledge and educational hub are recognizing NexTech’s 3D advertising suite of tools as a game changer. “Partnering with Nextech AR Ad Network gives us extended reach to new B2B communities in consumer product goods, fashion & apparel and branding agencies. Its 3D advertising capabilities were a key draw for us and enables us to illustrate to prospective students the type of 3D models they can create through our 3D digital fashion course with Roz McNulty”, said Elisabeth Souquet, Marketing Director at Motif. Now, with NexTech’s rollout of 3D Google Ads, customers such as Motif can extend 3D advertising built with NexTech tools to reach a significantly broader audience.

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Call for Participation in our report on Avatars, Holograms, Digital Humans (Companies and Tools)

Submit your info for our Report here

Advances in augmented and virtual reality promise to revolutionize the workplace and entertainment. These technologies will include the use of avatars, holograms, and digital twins to help humanize the experience. Many companies are moving to a hybrid workplace model and collaboration effects in the virtual world are evolving into a new normal.

Digital avatars or AI avatars are human-like bots that are created by AI-powered technology to increase human interaction. Avatars may seem a little silly, but they allow for a form of self-expression that extends beyond the capabilities of text and emoji alone. On digital platforms, digital avatars have a humanoid appearance, and using an avatar can be a helpful way to indicate the tone of your comment, so you're not misinterpreted.

Furthermore, avatars in AR experiences give every brand a face by creating a unique brand ambassador that interacts with the user in their own environment. Animated 3D Avatars react on the users actions with specific gestures, mimics, moods or continues the dialogue based on the given answers.

Our report will be published and promoted via our channels including our global newsletter (40K+ subs), website (24K unique monthly visitors), social media (60K followers), events (our Global Summit)

To get featured in our report or for sponsorship opportunities, email info@thevrara.com ASAP

Tobii introduces Tobii Spotlight for Foveated Transport for VR/AR

This week, Tobii introduced Tobii Spotlight for Foveated Transport, a lightweight foveation codec for VR/AR/MR at SIGGRAPH 2021. It leverages the Tobii Spotlight foveated gaze stream and a proof-of-concept foveation codec, aligning computing power with the human visual system to optimize display technology and enable greater visual clarity.  It reduces bandwidth and latency in the graphics rendering pipeline over 5G, wifi, or cable in split rendering systems.  

The optimization demonstrated by this technology benefits the next generation of eye tracking enabled headsets that promise to deliver ultra-realistic content for truly immersive VR experiences while maintaining comfort with smooth rendering and the freedom of movement of wireless form factors.   

This concept foveation codec for VR/AR/MR consists of image pre-reduction that can be combined with conventional video codecs. The initial testing gave no visible artifacts at a compression rate of 5:1 and the evaluation suggests that this approach can be implemented on current architectures improving visual quality and compression over static foveation. With more and more XR devices coming to market with native Tobii Eye Tracking, Tobii Spotlight for Foveated Transport will help devices meet the compression needs required to deliver high fidelity content and the best user experience. 

NVIDIA is an innovation partner with Tobii working on this promising technology for a wide variety of usage areas in XR.  For more information about Tobii Spotlight for Foveated Transport, please contact us. 

BOHEMIA INTERACTIVE SIMULATIONS JOINS TEAM CESI TO DELIVER U.S. ARMY’S NEXT GENERATION OF VIRTUAL COMBAT TRAINING

Aug 12, 2021

ORLANDO, Fla. (USA) - Bohemia Interactive Simulations (BISim), a global developer of advanced military simulation and training software, has been subcontracted by Cole Engineering Services Inc. (CESI) to deliver significant components of the U.S. Army’s next generation of collective training technology. CESI recently announced it had been awarded the Training Simulation Software/Training Management Tools (TSS/TMT) contract and plans to utilize all three of BISim’s primary products (VBS4, VBS Blue IG and VBS World Server) as part of the overall TSS/TMT solution.

We are excited to bring BISim’s products and technical expertise in support of prime contractor CESI to jointly deliver the U.S. Army’s next generation of virtual combat training technology in 2025.

Arthur Alexion, BISim CEO

The U.S. Army’s Synthetic Training Environment (STE), of which TSS/TMT supplies the central software capabilities, will allow units and leaders to conduct realistic, multi-echelon and multi-domain combined arms maneuver and mission command, live, collective training anywhere in the world. TSS/TMT will also converge live, virtual and constructive capabilities in a single, easy-to-use interface. Military leaders and instructors will be able to set up complex virtual battles, coordinating with thousands of AI-powered allies, and fighting against artificially intelligent or instructor-controlled adversaries, with realistic AI behaviors and at theater-wide scale. Soldiers will be able to repeat these training missions many times over, facing new challenges that will help them to better prepare for live training and enhance their readiness for operations.

Terrain data will draw from STE’s One World Terrain data and soldiers will interact either through PC-based soldier stations or through STE’s Reconfigurable Virtual Collective Trainers. The STE will facilitate quick set up, comprehensive after action review of exercises and an intelligent tutor capability, and will lead to more realistic, more targeted and ultimately more impactful training and mission rehearsal. The delivered system will be the most advanced and most comprehensive training capability in the military world, encapsulating the ambitious vision of the U.S. Army’s STE Cross Functional Team and combining the talents and software of a number of cutting-edge military-focused companies including CESI and BISim.

BISim’s easy-to-use, whole-earth virtual and constructive VBS simulation capabilities will be tightly integrated with TSS/TMT. BISim’s World Server technology will be utilized in the Army’s TSS/TMT to ingest OWT format into the TSS/TMT environment, providing soldiers the ability to train and rehearse on realistic virtual terrains anywhere in the world. VBS Blue IG, BISim’s high-performance, 3D whole-earth image generator (IG), is already providing high-fidelity visuals for RVCTs and usage of BISim’s IG will be expanded to STE through TSS/TMT.

BISim first began working with the U.S. Army on the STE-related programs in 2016 and, as prime contractor working with Cole Engineering Services (CESI) and 4C, developed a prototype for a cloud-enabled, virtual world training capability under the OTA1 contract in 2018. BISim’s VBS Blue IG product has been used to support the STE’s RVCT Air and Ground efforts and BISim’s world server technology is the core of the cloud-enabled STE World Server (STEWS) middleware used in the Army’s One World Terrain (OWT) project. We are humbled and proud that BISim’s involvement with STE has been substantial and ongoing, with the TSS/TMT subcontract being BISim’s 9th STE-related contract award.

“BISim has invested tens of millions of dollars in upgrading and modularizing our technology in anticipation of STE-type requirements, and VBS4 already supports all of the Army’s Games for Training capabilities, representing over one hundred U.S. Army-specific training uses,” said BISim CEO Arthur Alexion. “We are excited to bring BISim’s products and technical expertise in support of prime contractor CESI to jointly deliver the U.S. Army’s next generation of virtual combat training technology in 2025.”

BOHEMIA INTERACTIVE SIMULATIONS

Founded in 2001, Bohemia Interactive Simulations (BISim) is a global software company at the forefront of simulation and training solutions for defense and civilian organizations. BISim utilizes the latest game-based technology and a 200-strong, in-house team of engineers to develop high-fidelity, cost-effective training and simulation software products and components for defense applications.

Globally, more than 500,000 military personnel are trained every year using VBS software products. More than 60 NATO and NATO-friendly countries and over 250 integrators/prime contractors use VBS technology, many making significant funding commitments to extend VBS product capabilities. Customers include the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, Australian Defence Force, Swedish Armed Forces, French MoD and UK MoD and most major integrators. VBS products have become, by far, the world’s most widely used COTS product range in the military-simulation sector, supporting hundreds of military use cases and vastly greater military exploitation than any comparable products. 

Contact

David Dadurka

david.dadurka@bisimulations.com

Brought to life by MediaCombo, Tracing Paint: The Pollock-Krasner Studio in VR has launched on HTC Viveport

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, August, 2021 — Launching today on HTC Viveport, MediaCombo’s Tracing Paint gives art-lovers a virtual time machine to experience the times and place where Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, two of the most brilliant abstract expressionist artists, created their masterpieces. This fascinating VR experience--the winner of a 2021 Telly Award for Immersive & Mixed Reality--transports you into the artists’ studio, where you examine their work and listen to the artists talk about their inspiration and processes.

“MediaCombo is passionate about bringing new life and interactive possibilities to art and cultural experiences,” explains Robin White Owen, Principal at MediaCombo. “For this project, we wanted to make it feel like you were really in the studio talking with the artists. Until now, the experience has been available only at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, their former home and studio on eastern Long Island. Hosting Tracing Paint in HTC Viveport means that even more people will be able to interact with and learn from the artistic works of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner.”

The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, a National Historic Landmark, was opened in 1988 to interpret the artists’ living and working environment. Their works are all in museums or private collections around the world, so Tracing Paint brings the paintings back to the studio, giving visitors a deeper appreciation of what was created in this historic place. MediaCombo used photogrammetry to scan and create a 1:1 model of the building’s interior. This VR experience also enables people who can’t travel and those with mobility issues to visit the site virtually.

Tracing Paint is available for sale for $4.99. Two versions are now available on Viveport — the PC VR version for headsets like the Vive Pro 2 and the WAVE version for self-contained headsets like the Vive Focus 3.

Contact

Name: Michael Owen

Email Address: michael@mediacombo.net

Website URL: http://www.mediacombo.net/pollock-krasner-studiovr/

Nextech AR to Acquire AR Cloud-3D Mapping Company ‘ARway’ Transforming Into A Metaverse Company

Nextech AR Solutions Corp. (“Nextech”) is pleased to announce that it has signed a definitive agreement under which Nextech will acquire U.K. based spatial computing company ARWAY Ltd. (“ARway”) in an all-stock transaction and hire the key founders Baran Korkmaz and Nikhil Sawlani.

This acquisition provides Nextech with a spatial mapping platform critical to building the Metaverse. Through Unity, optimized for Google and Apple, and by using AI to recognize surroundings for hyper-accurate location mapping, ARway provides users an Augmented Reality Software Kit (SDK) to frame the digital world in a few minutes.

Facebook, Epic Games, Microsoft and others have all identified the Metaverse as the future of the internet and computing itself. This acquisition positions Nextech as a first mover in what it’s calling a ‘mini-metaverse’. Evan Gappelberg, CEO of Nextech AR Solutions comments, “We think that the mini-metaverse business use case is here to stay, and the implications for future growth are significant. Nextech's mini-metaverse offering will be available to brands and companies that want to create mini-metaverses based on a geolocation like museums, corporate headquarters, theme parks, sports stadiums, University Campuses and more. We can scan these spaces with ARway’s technology and drop in AR experiences that are triggered based on geolocation, making for a fully immersive Metaverse experience. The mini-metaverse is the first step toward universal mapping, a concept that while not a reality today, is a future inevitability. Nextech's mini-metaverse offering will enable people to experience the multiverse as it increasingly becomes a normal part of everyday
life.”

The ARway SDK combines robust mapping technologies for location persistent AR experiences across ARkit, ARcore and Microsoft Azure Spatial Anchors, delivered on cross-platforms Unity today, Unreal, Android Studio or Xcode/Swift soon, to unlock true spatial computing within a single toolkit for iOS, Android and Hololens. ARway has been creating persistence location experiences such as indoor navigation, guided tours, treasure hunts and many more with its No-code platform and has developed an ecosystem with over 1000+ developers, having created 3D maps in over 60 countries, with notable customers such as the HCG Hospital, British Telecom, Bosch, AirAsia, The City of London and the GuildHall School of Music and Drama.

ARway AR cloud and 3D mapping technologies combined with Nextech's scalable solutions for AR e-commerce, AR advertising, HoloX Human Holograms and AR Portals put it in a leadership position in the race to the Metaverse.

Evan Gappelberg, CEO of Nextech AR Solutions comments, “Creating the metaverse is the most ambitious thing we can accomplish as an augmented reality company, and now with the ARway platform plus Baran and Nikhil joining the Nextech team, we are positioned to do just that. The potential for Nextech to be first to market with mini-metaverses, spatial maps as NFT’s in the metaverse and leveraging our creator platform HoloX to populate the metaverse with content at scale is super exciting to me.” He continues, “with our global sales and marketing machine, our combined AI teams and our existing AR tech and resources as a public company, I'm convinced that we will quickly take a leadership position in the AR metaverse!”

Baran Korkmaz, CEO Co-founder of ARway comments:
“I believe this will be a historic moment in the development of the Metaverse, a vision that started over four years ago with ARWAY. Unifying human-machine understanding by connecting the digital and physical world to empower people to connect and share in deeper, more meaningful ways. And this vision is now becoming a reality with our new family at Nextech. As the future of augmented reality is inevitable, in this new age of Web 3.0, Mixed Reality and wearable cameras, it will be a large effort to map the physical world. And just like today’s web, there will be various use cases, proprietary data, walled gardens, and permission layers. So I'm super excited to be joining Nextech, where we will be at the next tech frontier”.

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Contact

Name: Judith Planella

Email Address: judith.planella@nextechar.com

Website URL

Contemporary art at the epicenter of digital technology

Contemporary art has found itself at the epicenter of blockchain technology. At the same time, blockchain technologies were at the epicenter of contemporary art: New York artist Jessica Angel presented the Voxel Bridge project at the Vancouver Biennale. The main content of the installation is AR-blockchain visualization. The artist has turned the Vancouver Cambie Bridge into a public art object, within the boundaries of which digital worlds come to life, similar to both space and the inner structure of a computer. The project is based on the Kusama Network’s blockchain and does use AR-tools created by the Spheroid Universe for visualise it. “Art is a mobilizing force capable of connecting seemingly dissimilar worlds, Voxel Bridge demonstrates this ability. The installation expands the sensory experience of art into a unifying experimental effort that allows blockchain technology, AR and public art to discover new ways to interact with each other. ”(Jessica Angel, artist, author of the Voxel Bridge project).

Voxel Bridge is a landmark event in the world of contemporary art. The project does not just present graffiti or a piece of booming crypto art. Voxel Bridge exists simultaneously in three worlds: in the real space of Vancouver's Cambie Bridge, in augmented reality visible through the application, and in the digital space of the blockchain. The connection of the real and digital worlds creates a new unexpected experience for the viewer: the installation includes twenty different interactive AR-animations with the help of which viewers “live” the history of the creation of the Kusama Network and “penetrate” its digital spaces and processes. Jessica Angel uses the information fabric of the blockchain online as a creative tool and directly projects this information into the visually perceived elements of the artwork. “It is believed that the Vancouver Biennale is always one step ahead and pushes the traditional boundaries of art in public space. Now that the very definition of “public” has been reimagined to mean “virtual,” we are determined to bring the world an art installation of immense artistic and technical value. The Vancouver Biennale is all about using art as a catalyst for learning, so if you really have no idea about the latest technological buzzwords like blockchain, cryptocurrency, augmented and virtual reality, this art installation provides a truly accessible and visually mesmerizing opportunity to experience these concepts ” (Barry Mowatt, President and Artistic Director of the Vancouver Biennale).

In addition, the event combines two significant elements - technological and social - the experience of visualizing complex digital technologies and the experience of creating large-scale AR objects for urban spaces. Blockchain technology is designed to change the way we interact with the world and creates unlimited opportunities for all types of business and social practices, including identity, healthcare, banking, logistics, decision making, arts and education. Voxel Bridge is the first art project to literally show the world this burgeoning revolutionary technology.

The development of AR solutions for Voxel Bridge was carried out by Spheroid Universe, which is the world's first platform that creates a unique opportunity to see the work of blockchain and other digital technologies through art, using augmented reality tools, advanced developments in computer vision and artificial intelligence. The visualization of the Kusama Network blockchain as an AR installation is based on dynamic geolocation, where the key technological problem is the precise positioning of a large-scale interactive AR object. The experience of solving this problem will soon be applied in the Polkadot / Kusama Network ecosystem to visualize AR objects of NFT art. In this regard, Voxel Bridge is not only a high-tech task in the implementation of contemporary art in augmented reality space, but also an experimental experience in visualizing NFT art objects that have appeared and circulate in the Kusama Network. The project is the first test of the Web 3.0 Spheroid.Earth algorithm for positioning objects over large areas.

The social advantages of emerging technologies can be mastered by people only through tireless mass education and information: what are the advantages of new technologies, why they are necessary, how they reach people. Jessica Angel's installation Voxel Bridge at the Vancouver Biennale is a big step in the right direction. “Creative and innovative visualization of information is critical in a global society that increasingly relies on information technology and digital systems. The differences that information accessibility provides are both wide and profound, and can lead to tremendous changes in attitudes, and in general we would like to hope that these changes will be in the direction of knowledge and understanding, not ignorance. ”(Gavin Wood, Founder of Polkadot, ex-CTO and co-founder of Ethereum).

Contact

Name: Alexander Sysoenko

Email Address: sys@spheroid.eu

Website URL: http://www.spheroiduniverse.io/