Augmented reality helping future proof school lessons
At Gitex Technology Week, Apple is showing off a new range of interactive learning tools designed to make learning less of a chore, with coding central to the skills being taught.
Modules like Everyone Can Code are being delivered in selected schools via apps, books and teacher resources from kindergarten level through to university.
“We have a very active professional learning programme in Arabic and English with Apple, here in the UAE,” said Michael Pazinas, who runs his own UK education company, Athena Enhanced Learning.
“The curriculum is tiered, so if you are an adult you don’t have to learn from a child’s perspective. A series of books take pupils through the learning process.”
Using data from approximately 20,000 telephone interviews with parents, researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute and Cardiff University assessed the relationship between their children’s technology use and well-being.
Over the course of a month this relationship was measured in terms of impact on emotional resilience, curiosity and positive effect.
“By mixing the physical world with augmented reality, we find that children become much more sociable and are also aware of their surroundings.
See the full story here: https://www.thenational.ae/uae/augmented-reality-helping-future-proof-school-lessons-1.780571
Adobe’s next canvas is augmented reality
Adobe is always looking for the next area where creatives will need good authoring software tools. The lack of such tools has been hindering both AR and VR, says Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis.
Onshape lets engineers collaborate on 3D designs with Magic Leap’s AR glasses
“This is our first venture into AR/VR,” said Onshape engineer Evan Novak, in a demo at the event. “For us, there’s a lot of potential here. Having the ability to manipulate 3D CAD objects with your hand makes a lot of sense. You can do this today in a browser, but it’s a little clumsy in a 2D space.”
Onshape is making its CAD app for the Magic Leap One Creator Edition, a lightweight, wearable computer that allows digital content to step out of the screen and into the real world. Engineers will be able to bring life-size 3D CAD models into their surroundings and collaborate on design changes. I tried out the software with the Magic Leap glasses. I was able to grab a mechanical part and resize it so it was smaller. Then the other guy in the demo with me grabbed the part and made it bigger. I could see the part in three dimensions, and I could walk around it and see it from different angles. In the long term, the idea is to get CAD model changes to be visible in real time.
See the full story here: https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/13/onshape-lets-engineers-collaborate-on-3d-designs-with-magic-leaps-ar-glasses/
Mounds View senior honors sister’s memory with MRI app to calm kids
Michael Cao remembers how brave his sister was as she battled cancer, before she died at age 11 in 2009, but he also recalls the thing that scared her most: the tight confining tube of an MRI scanner.
His sister, Amy, panicked during her first scan, at age 10, and couldn’t finish it. Her terror became an obstacle throughout treatment.
“That first traumatic experience set the tone for a lot of other MRIs that she had,” said Cao, 17, now a senior at Mounds View High School. “They became very difficult for her.”
So, in her memory, Cao sought a solution: something that would save other children from suffering the same anxiety. The result is an app that syncs with virtual reality (VR) goggles, providing children interactive simulations of MRI scans before they go through the real ones. Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare in St. Paul now offers it to all children scheduled for the scans.
The app gives children a digital simulation of entering an MRI, accompanied by the real whirs, beeps and buzzes that a scanner makes.
See the full story here: http://www.startribune.com/mounds-view-senior-honors-sister-s-memory-with-mri-app-to-calm-kids/496746921/
Startup Spotlight: ARtGlass uses augmented reality to communicate culture and history
Visitors to the historic home of James Monroe near Charlottesville can now “see” a re-creation of the original house where the fifth president lived, even though the building burned sometime in the 19th century.
The trick is a new technology called augmented reality, or AR, which enables visitors to wear special transparent smartglasses that can superimpose three-dimensional images or text on a landscape, or objects.
In August, ARtGlass received an investment from Trolley Venture Partners, an investment fund created this year to back early-stage business ventures in central Virginia.
More than 700,000 people have used the technology at cultural sites in Europe, and Werkheiser said the company’s potential U.S. market is enormous.
“It binds together all of our narratives,” Woodle said. “It is not just about Monroe. It is not just a piece about slavery. It is about how all of those personalities were interacting and making Highland a working place.”
Apple buys Danish augmented reality start-up Spektral
Apple appears to have bought-up a Danish computing vision start-up called Spektral in a bid to augment its in-house augmented reality expertise - as it reportedly gears up to launch products by 2019.
Formally called CloudCutOut, the company Apple appears to have purchased specialised in software that can cut out figures from backgrounds in photos and videos.
See the full story here: https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3064451/apple-buys-danish-augmented-reality-start-up-spektral
Crypto Not Going Anywhere: 70% of Finance Executives think it’s Here for Good
See the full story here: https://blockonomi.com/crypto-here-for-good/
Deutsche Telekom, Niantic and MobiledgeX Partner to Create Advanced Augmented Reality Experiences Over New Mobile Network Technologies
Niantic will begin to integrate its Niantic Real World Platform through the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) of MobiledgeX on Edge servers. The partnership will jointly demonstrate the capability of this new network technology to enhance high-speed synchronous multiplayer AR interactions in a shared environment. This will open up new dimensions for shared experiences and introduce lower friction access networks for Niantic’s AR Cloud, part of the Niantic Real World Platform.
See the full story here: https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/10/11/1619985/0/en/Deutsche-Telekom-Niantic-and-MobiledgeX-Partner-to-Create-Advanced-Augmented-Reality-Experiences-Over-New-Mobile-Network-Technologies.html
The Augmented Reality Influencers of 2018
AR Influencers include those who have achieved or otherwise significantly supported groundbreaking augmented reality experiences, from marketing and business use-cases to new ways to tell stories or create art. They introduce new ways to apply AR for work and play and tutor developers on how to create experiences for new platforms. These influencers set the standard for ethics and morals in the field. They lead, inspiring many others to follow.
See the full story here: https://next.reality.news/news/nr30-augmented-reality-influencers-2018-0186092/