[PhilNote: Putting this in the context of the Qualcomm VR hdwr accelerator program, I hope the strong Vuzix development team has a better experience with this than their previous Nokia development effort.]
Under the terms of this agreement, Vuzix and Toshiba have embarked on a rapid development program with milestone payments totaling over one million US dollars. With development efforts well under way, Toshiba, subject to a final manufacturing agreement, expects to place additional purchase orders from Vuzix for production deliveries in the 4th quarter of 2017. Further details on the new smart glasses product will be released soon after public marketing of the product commences.
See the full story here: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/vuzix-enters-development-agreement-toshiba-140000817.html
Qualcomm has launched an accelerator to help hardware companies develop head-mounted displays for virtual reality.
The company has targeted its Snapdragon 835 mobile chip at virtual reality headsets and currently has four customers with early 820-based designs in the market. An additional five 820 designs are coming in 2017. Now, to further stoke the market, the company is launching the Qualcomm Head Mounted Display (HDM) Accelerator Program. Clearly, from Qualcomm’s perspective, spreading its bets around and encouraging the VR ecosystem could help the fledgling market grow.
The goal of the accelerator program is to help manufacturers increase the speed with which they are able to create and ship new products, while also reducing their engineering costs. The program is essentially designed as a catalyst for hardware manufacturers who are creating a VR HMD of their own.
See the full story here: http://venturebeat.com/2017/02/23/qualcomm-launches-virtual-reality-display-accelerator-program/
Inexpensive cameras that make spherical images are opening a new era in photography and changing the way people share stories.
[Phil Note: the story describes a number of consumer market 360 cameras.]
See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603496/10-breakthrough-technologies-2017-the-360-degree-selfie/
Factors that have held back VR’s popularity include expensive VR headsets, lack of compelling content, the potential for nausea and an experience that is isolating. The Void, which mitigates these factors, sees itself as “a new draw for dying malls” as well as another use for multiplexes. “We’re a big solution to a lot of big puzzles,” said Bretschneider.
But the big question is if there is long-term sustainability for The Void and how it will fare against competition. The Verge reports that one such competitor is IMAX, which, on January 6, opened its IMAX VR Experience Centre in Los Angeles, a standalone location with 14 VR “pods,” equipped with HTC Vive and Acer’s StarVR headsets, which offers a 210-degree field of view, and titles from “Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine” to “John Wick Chronicles.”
It’s the first of six pilot locations to open in New York City, the United Kingdom, China and a second in Los Angeles, all set to open by the end of 2017. Each installation will be linked to Cineplex chains, set up in the lobby or a movie theater.
See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/the-void-imax-pioneer-successful-virtual-reality-experiences/
Think about it: Mom and Dad bring the kids to the latest Star Wars movie, but the first stop is the new Star Wars VR experience. The simulation could not only bring new elements of the film into the mix, but also expand the film’s theatrical audience – a win-win.
Helping secure the future of VR through partnerships
To make an immediate splash in VR, IMAX is looking for strength in numbers. The company has used its considerable industry might to partner with a slew of powerful players in gaming, technology, and entertainment.
Its partners include film giants like Sony, Lionsgate, and Lucasfilm’s VR branch, ILMxLabs; gaming firms like Skydance Interactive and Ubisoft; alongside theater giants like AMC, Regal, and China’s JinYi. It also created a $50 million Virtual Reality fund with nine other investors to create at least 25 interactive VR content experiences over the next three years, across all VR platforms. And then there’s the gear.
See the full story here: http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/imax-vr-experience-center-opening-los-angeles/
Here are five companies looking to bring AR into enterprise, including the factory and beyond.
See the full story here: https://www.designnews.com/content/5-augmented-reality-suppliers-watch-2017/17538688352509
Here’s how it works: a one-square-inch screen is attached to the inside of a pair of glasses, sitting about half an inch from the wearer’s face. At that distance, our eyes can’t naturally focus on the screen.
So Innovega developed a high-powered contact lens that adjusts the wearer’s vision so she can focus on objects extremely close to her face. This high-powered lens also corrects vision like a normal contact lens and can be worn with or without AR glasses.
The versatility of the system means it could also be used to view media projected directly onto the lenses of glasses, Willey said.
With Newsweek predicting that 2017 will be shaped by Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)1 Dentons, as part of its on-going TechTalk series, thought it was timely to examine the legal issues associated with this new technology. The hype is real at least. There are predictions of the AR and VR sectors generating $150 billion by 2020.
Download the whitepaper here: http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/virtual-legality-virtual-reality-and-64436/
DAQRI® are going to be on the Ubuntu booth at Mobile World Congress to showcase the DAQRI Smart Helmet®. The DAQRI Smart Helmet, powered by an Ubuntu AR application, can be used in industrial settings and brings to life all the data generated by the new world of Industrial Internet of Things…
For those unfamiliar, DAQRI Smart Helmet is an advanced, augmented reality helmet powered by a 6th generation Intel Core m7 processor for highly performant multimedia and AR. Its high-speed, wide-angle camera pairs with a dedicated processor for AR applications. The transparent display has been ruggedized for industrial environments and its high brightness makes it suitable for indoor and outdoor use. An integrated RGB camera, a stereo infrared cameras with an infrared light projector work together intuitively allowing the helmet to infer depth. The absolute scale thermal camera offers persistent passive thermal monitoring of industrial equipment. By overlaying data onto the display, thermal anomalies can be quickly identified.
See the full story here: https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/02/21/daqri-showcases-ubuntu-powered-augmented-reality-helmet-at-mwc/
Future versions of Tinder could let users find out if strangers are single simply by pointing their smartphones at them, according to the dating app's co-founder.
Augmented reality technology similar to that used in Pokemon Go could transform the dating world by letting singles discover anyone's relationship status, according to Tinder's CEO Sean Rad.
He also predicted the app could guess which users may be attracted to each other - and even offer to help plan their dates using information about their interests.
See the full story here: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/augmented-reality-could-turn-tinder-9899585
