Vanguard Projects: Expanding Teaching and Learning Horizons Authors — from er.educause.edu by Malcolm Brown Members of the higher education community provided a long list of projects that exemplify the six developments in educational technology from this year’s Horizon Report. A few of the projects are highlighted to convey a sense of the range and direction of current innovations in teaching and learning in higher education.
Excerpt:
This list summarizes the distribution across the six developments (as laid out in the preview):
Overhyped by some, drastically underestimated by others, few emerging technologies have generated the digital ink like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR). Still lumbering through the novelty phase and roller coaster-like hype cycles, the technologies are only just beginning to show signs of real world usefulness with a new generation of hardware and software applications aimed at the enterprise and at end users like you. On the line is what could grow to be a $108 billion AR/VR industry as soon as 2021. Here’s what you need to know.
The reason is that VR environments by nature demand a user’s full attention, which make the technology poorly suited to real-life social interaction outside a digital world. AR, on the other hand, has the potential to act as an on-call co-pilot to everyday life, seamlessly integrating into daily real-world interactions. This will become increasingly true with the development of the AR Cloud.
The AR Cloud Described by some as the world’s digital twin, the AR Cloud is essentially a digital copy of the real world that can be accessed by any user at any time.
For example, it won’t be long before whatever device I have on me at a given time (a smartphone or wearable, for example) will be equipped to tell me all I need to know about a building just by training a camera at it (GPS is operating as a poor-man’s AR Cloud at the moment).
What the internet is for textual information, the AR Cloud will be for the visible world. Whether it will be open source or controlled by a company like Google is a hotly contested issue.
Augmented reality will have a bigger impact on the market and our daily lives than virtual reality — and by a long shot. That’s the consensus of just about every informed commentator on the subject.
Despite all the hype in recent years about the potential for virtual reality in education, an emerging technology known as mixed reality has far greater promise in and beyond the classroom.
Unlike experiences in virtual reality, mixed reality interacts with the real world that surrounds us. Digital objects become part of the real world. They’re not just digital overlays, but interact with us and the surrounding environment.
If all that sounds like science fiction, a much-hyped device promises some of those features later this year. The device is by a company called Magic Leap, and it uses a pair of goggles to project what the company calls a “lightfield” in front of the user’s face to make it look like digital elements are part of the real world. The expectation is that Magic Leap will bring digital objects in a much more vivid, dynamic and fluid way compared to other mixed-reality devices such as Microsoft’s Hololens.
Now think about all the other things you wished you had learned this way and imagine a dynamic digital display that transforms your environment and even your living room or classroom into an immersive learning lab. It is learning within a highly dynamic and visual context infused with spatial audio cues reacting to your gaze, gestures, gait, voice and even your heartbeat, all referenced with your geo-location in the world. Unlike what happens with VR, where our brain is tricked into believing the world and the objects in it are real, MR recognizes and builds a map of your actual environment.
Also see:
virtualiteach.com Exploring The Potential for the Vive Focus in Education
On the big screen it’s become commonplace to see a 3D rendering or holographic projection of an industrial floor plan or a mechanical schematic. Casual viewers might take for granted that the technology is science fiction and many years away from reality. But today we’re going to outline where these sophisticated virtual replicas – Digital Twins – are found in the real world, here and now. Essentially, we’re talking about a responsive simulated duplicate of a physical object or system. When we first wrote about Digital Twin technology, we mainly covered industrial applications and urban infrastructure like transit and sewers. However, the full scope of their presence is much broader, so now we’re going to break it up into categories.
Digital twin refers to a digital replica of physical assets (physical twin), processes and systems that can be used for various purposes.[1] The digital representation provides both the elements and the dynamics of how an Internet of Things device operates and lives throughout its life cycle.[2]
Digital twins integrate artificial intelligence, machine learning and software analytics with data to create living digital simulation models that update and change as their physical counterparts change. A digital twin continuously learns and updates itself from multiple sources to represent its near real-time status, working condition or position. This learning system, learns from itself, using sensor data that conveys various aspects of its operating condition; from human experts, such as engineers with deep and relevant industry domain knowledge; from other similar machines; from other similar fleets of machines; and from the larger systems and environment in which it may be a part of. A digital twin also integrates historical data from past machine usage to factor into its digital model.
In various industrial sectors, twins are being used to optimize the operation and maintenance of physical assets, systems and manufacturing processes.[3] They are a formative technology for the Industrial Internet of Things, where physical objects can live and interact with other machines and people virtually.[4]
Walt Disney Animation Studio is set to debut its first VR short film, Cycles, this August in Vancouver, the Association for Computing Machinery announced today. The plan is for it to be a headliner at the ACM’s computer graphics conference (SIGGRAPH), joining other forms of VR, AR and MR entertainment in the conference’s designated Immersive Pavilion.
This film is a first for both Disney and its director, Jeff Gipson, who joined the animation team in 2013 to work as a lighting artist on films like Frozen, Zootopia and Moana. The objective of this film, Gipson said in the statement released by ACM, is to inspire a deep emotional connection with the story.
“We hope more and more people begin to see the emotional weight of VR films, and with Cycles in particular, we hope they will feel the emotions we aimed to convey with our story,” said Gipson.
Over the past two years, RealNetworks has developed a facial recognition tool that it hopes will help schools more accurately monitor who gets past their front doors. Today, the company launched a website where school administrators can download the tool, called SAFR, for free and integrate it with their own camera systems. So far, one school in Seattle, which Glaser’s kids attend, is testing the tool and the state of Wyoming is designing a pilot program that could launch later this year. “We feel like we’re hitting something there can be a social consensus around: that using facial recognition technology to make schools safer is a good thing,” Glaser says.
From DSC: Personally, I’m very uncomfortable with where facial recognition is going in some societies. What starts off being sold as being helpful for this or that application, can quickly be abused and used to control its citizens. For example,look at what’s happening in China already these days!
The above article talks about these techs being used in schools. Based upon history, I seriously question whether humankind can wisely handle the power of these types of technologies.
Here in the United States, I already sense a ton of cameras watching each of us all the time when we’re out in public spaces (such as when we are in grocery stores, or gas stations, or in restaurants or malls, etc.). What’s the unspoken message behind those cameras? What’s being stated by their very presence around us?
No. I don’t like the idea of facial recognition being in schools. I’m not comfortable with this direction. I can see the counter argument — that this tech could help reduce school shootings. But I think that’s a weak argument, as someone mentally unbalanced enough to be involved with a school shooting likely won’t be swayed/deterred by being on camera. In fact, one could argue that in some cases, being on the national news — with their face being plastered all over the nation — might even put gas on the fire.
Glaser, for one, welcomes federal oversight of this space. He says it’s precisely because of his views on privacy that he wants to be part of what is bound to be a long conversation about the ethical deployment of facial recognition. “This isn’t just sci-fi. This is becoming something we, as a society, have to talk about,” he says. “That means the people who care about these issues need to get involved, not just as hand-wringers but as people trying to provide solutions. If the only people who are providing facial recognition are people who don’t give a &*&% about privacy, that’s bad.”
Per this week’s Next e-newsletter from edsurge.com
Take the University of San Francisco, which deploys facial recognition software in its dormitories. Students still use their I.D. card to swipe in, according to Edscoop, but the face of every person who enters a dorm is scanned and run through a database, and alerts the dorm attendant when an unknown person is detected. Online students are not immune: the technology is also used in many proctoring tools for virtual classes.
The tech raises plenty of tough issues. Facial-recognition systems have been shown to misidentify young people, people of color and women more often than white men. And then there are the privacy risks: “All collected data is at risk of breach or misuse by external and internal actors, and there are many examples of misuse of law enforcement data in other contexts,” a white paper by the Electronic Frontier foundation reads.
It’s unclear whether such facial-scanners will become common at the gates of campus. But now that cost is no longer much of an issue for what used to be an idea found only in science fiction, it’s time to weigh the pros and cons of what such a system really means in practice.
Also see:
As facial recognition technology becomes pervasive, Microsoft (yes, Microsoft) issues a call for regulation — from techcrunch.com by Jonathan Shieber Excerpt:
Technology companies have a privacy problem. They’re terribly good at invading ours and terribly negligent at protecting their own. And with the push by technologists to map, identify and index our physical as well as virtual presence with biometrics like face and fingerprint scanning, the increasing digital surveillance of our physical world is causing some of the companies that stand to benefit the most to call out to government to provide some guidelines on how they can use the incredibly powerful tools they’ve created. That’s what’s behind today’s call from Microsoft President Brad Smith for government to start thinking about how to oversee the facial recognition technology that’s now at the disposal of companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple and government security and surveillance services across the country and around the world.
Guiding faculty into immersive environments — from campustechnology.com by David Raths What’s the best way to get faculty to engage with emerging technologies and incorporate new learning spaces into their teaching? Five institutions share their experiences.
Excerpt:
One of the biggest hurdles for universities has been the high cost of VR-enabled computers and headsets, and some executives say prices must continue to drop before we’ll see more widespread usage. But John Bowditch, director of the Game Research and Immersive Design Lab at Ohio University’s Scripps College of Communication, is already seeing promising developments on that front as he prepares to open a new 20-seat VR classroom. “Probably the best thing about VR in 2018 is that it is a lot more affordable now and that democratizes it,” he said. “We purchased a VR helmet 13 years ago, and it was $12,000 just for the headset. The machine that ran it cost about $20,000. That would be a nonstarter beyond purchasing just one or two. Today, you can get a VR-enabled laptop and headset for under $2,000. That makes it much easier to think about integrating it into classes.”
Colleges and universities face several hurdles in getting faculty to incorporate virtual reality or immersive experiences in their courses. For one, instructional designers, instructional technologists and directors of teaching and learning centers may not have access to these tools yet, and the budgets aren’t always there to get the labs off the ground, noted Daniel Christian, instructional services director atWestern Michigan University‘s Cooley Law School. “Many faculty members’ job plates are already jam-packed — allowing little time to even look at emerging technologies,” he said. “Even if they wanted to experiment with such technologies and potential learning experiences, they don’t have the time to do so. Tight budgets are impacting this situation even further.”
Computing in the Camera — from blog.torch3d.com by Paul Reynolds Mobile AR, with its ubiquitous camera, is set to transform what and how human experience designers create.
One of the points Allison [Woods, CEO, Camera IQ] made repeatedly on that call (and in this wonderful blog post of the same time period) was that the camera is going to be at the center of computing going forward, an indispensable element. Spatial computing could not exist without it. Simple, obvious, straightforward, but not earth shaking. We all heard what she had to say, but I don’t think any of us really understood just how profound or prophetic that statement turned out to be.
“[T]he camera will bring the internet and the real world into a single time and space.”
— Allison Woods, CEO, Camera IQ
The Camera As Platform — from shift.newco.co by Allison Wood When the operating system moves to the viewfinder, the world will literally change
“Every day two billion people carry around an optical data input device — the smartphone Camera — connected to supercomputers and informed by massive amounts of data that can have nearly limitless context, position, recognition and direction to accomplish tasks.”
The bigger story, however, is how fast the enterprise segment is growing as applications as straightforward as schematics on a head-mounted monocular microdisplay are transforming manufacturing, assembly, and warehousing. Use cases abounded.
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After traveling the country and most recently to Europe, I’ve now experienced almost every major VR/AR/MR/XR related conference out there. AWE’s exhibit area was by far the largest display of VR and AR companies to date (with the exception of CES).
Specifically, we explored the potential for how virtual reality can help create a more empathetic nurse, which, we hypothesize, will lead to increased development of nursing students’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes. We aim to integrate these virtual experiences into early program coursework, with the intent of changing nursing behavior by providing a deeper understanding of the patient’s perspective during clinical interactions.
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In addition to these compelling student reflections and the nearly immediate change in reporting practice, survey findings show that students unanimously felt that this type of patient-perspective VR experience should be integrated and become a staple of the nursing curriculum. Seeing, hearing, and feeling these moments results in significant and memorable learning experiences compared to traditional classroom learning alone. The potential that this type of immersive experience can have in the field of nursing and beyond is only limited by the imagination and creation of other virtual experiences to explore. We look forward to continued exploration of the impact of VR on student learning and to establishing ongoing partnerships with developers.
Reimagining the Higher Education Ecosystem — from edu2030.agorize.com How might we empower people to design their own learning journeys so they can lead purposeful and economically stable lives?
Excerpts:
The problem
Technology is rapidly transforming the way we live, learn, and work. Entirely new jobs are emerging as others are lost to automation. People are living longer, yet switching jobs more often. These dramatic shifts call for a reimagining of the way we prepare for work and life—specifically, how we learn new skills and adapt to a changing economic landscape.
The changes ahead are likely to hurt most those who can least afford to manage them: low-income and first generation learners already ill-served by our existing postsecondary education system. Our current system stifles economic mobility and widens income and achievement gaps; we must act now to ensure that we have an educational ecosystem flexible and fair enough to help all people live purposeful and economically stable lives. And if we are to design solutions proportionate to this problem, new technologies must be called on to scale approaches that reach the millions of vulnerable people across the country.
The challenge How might we empower people to design their own learning journeys so they can lead purposeful and economically stable lives?
The Challenge—Reimagining the Higher Education Ecosystem—seeks bold ideas for how our postsecondary education system could be reimagined to foster equity and encourage learner agency and resilience. We seek specific pilots to move us toward a future in which all learners can achieve economic stability and lead purposeful lives. This Challenge invites participants to articulate a vision and then design pilot projects for a future ecosystem that has the following characteristics:
Expands access:The educational system must ensure that all people—including low-income learners who are disproportionately underserved by the current higher education system—can leverage education to live meaningful and economically stable lives.
Draws on a broad postsecondary ecosystem:While college and universities play a vital role in educating students, there is a much larger ecosystem in which students learn. This ecosystem includes non-traditional “classes” or alternative learning providers, such as MOOCs, bootcamps, and online courses as well as on-the-job training and informal learning. Our future learning system must value the learning that happens in many different environments and enable seamless transitions between learning, work, and life.
From DSC: This is where I could see a vision similar to Learning from the Living [Class] Room come into play. It would provide a highly affordable, accessible platform, that would offer more choice, and more control to learners of all ages. It would be available 24×7 and would be a platform that supports lifelong learning. It would combine a variety of AI-enabled functionalities with human expertise, teaching, training, motivation, and creativity.
It could be that what comes out of this challenge will lay the groundwork for a future, massive new learning platform.
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), often used in video games and mobile apps, are transforming the world—and with that, the way we learn. These technologies have the capability to change students’ outlook on the world and the way they engage with it. After all, why would you learn about outer space from a classroom when you could learn about it from the International Space Station?
As AR and VR technology become more widely available and user-friendly, interest and market value have spiked across the world. In 2017, interest in VR hardware such as PlayStation VR, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Samsung Gear VR spiked around the globe.2 In China in particular, AR and VR are booming.
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With AR and VR, geographical distances are no longer an obstacle. Interactive experiences, tutorial videos, and learning apps work just as well, whether the teacher and student are in the same room, or across the world from each other.
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From their site, here are some additional resources:
I have argued that several conditions for good learning are likely to be enhanced by VR. First there’s increased attention, where the learner is literally held fast within the created environment and cannot be distracted by external stimuli. Second is experiential learning, where one has to ‘do’ something where that active component leads to higher retention. Third is emotion, the affective component in learning, which is better achieved where the power to induce empathy, excitement, calm and so on is easier. Fourth is context, where providing an albeit simulated context aids retention and recall. Fifth is transfer, where all of these conditions lead to greater transfer of knowledge and skills to the real world.
In August, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection will roll out new technology that will scan the faces of drivers as they enter and leave the United States. For years, accomplishing that kind of surveillance through a car windshield has been difficult. But technology is quickly advancing. This system, activated by ambient light sensors, range finders and remote speedometers, uses smart cameras and AI-powered facial recognition technology to compare images in government files with people behind the wheel.
Biometric borders are just the beginning. Faceprints are quickly becoming our new fingerprints, and this technology is marching forward with haste. Faceprints are now so advanced that machine learning algorithms can recognize your unique musculatures and bone structures, capillary systems, and expressions using thousands of data points. All the features that make up a unique face are being scanned, captured and analyzed to accurately verify identities. New hairstyle? Plastic surgery? They don’t interfere with the technology’s accuracy.
Why you should care. Faceprints are already being used across China for secure payments. Soon, they will be used to customize and personalize your digital experiences. Our Future Today Institute modeling shows myriad near-future applications, including the ability to unlock your smart TV with your face. Retailers will use your face to personalize your in-store shopping experience. Auto manufacturers will start using faceprints to detect if drivers are under the influence of drugs or alcohol and prevent them from driving. It’s plausible that cars will soon detect if a driver is distracted and take the wheel using an auto-pilot feature. On a diet but live with others? Stash junk food in a drawer and program the lock to restrict your access. Faceprints will soon create opportunities for a wide range of sectors, including military, law enforcement, retail, manufacturing and security. But as with all technology, faceprints could lead to the loss of privacy and widespread surveillance.
It’s possible for both risk and opportunity to coexist. The point here is not alarmist hand-wringing, or pointless calls for cease-and-desist demands on the development and use of faceprint technology. Instead, it’s to acknowledge an important emerging trend––faceprints––and to think about the associated risks and opportunities for you and your organization well in advance. Approach biometric borders and faceprints with your (biometrically unique) eyes wide open.
Near-Futures Scenarios (2018 – 2028):
Optimistic: Faceprints make us safer, and they bring us back to physical offices and stores.
Pragmatic:As faceprint adoption grows, legal challenges mount.
In April, a U.S. federal judge ruled that Facebook must confront a class-action lawsuit that alleges its faceprint technology violates Illinois state privacy laws. Last year, a U.S. federal judge allowed a class-action suit to go forth against Shutterfly, claiming the company violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which ensures companies receive written releases before collecting biometric data, including faces. Companies and device manufacturers, who are early developers but late to analyzing legal outcomes, are challenged to balance consumer privacy with new security benefits.
Catastrophic: Faceprints are used for widespread surveillance and authoritative control.
How AI is helping sports teams scout star play — from nbcnews.com by Edd Gent Professional baseball, basketball and hockey are among the sports now using AI to supplement traditional coaching and scouting.
The workplace of the future will be marked by unprecedentedly advanced technologies, as well as a focus on incorporating artificial intelligence to drive higher levels of production with fewer resources. Employers and education stakeholders, noting the reality of this trend, are turning a reflective eye toward current students and questioning whether they will be workforce ready in the years to come.
This has become a significant concern for higher education executives, who find their business models could be disrupted as they fail to meet workforce demands. A 2018 Gallup-Northeastern University survey shows that of 3,297 U.S. citizens interviewed, only 22% with a bachelor’s degree said their education left them “well” or “very well prepared” to use AI in their jobs.
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In his book “Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun argued that for higher education to adapt advanced technologies, it has to focus on life-long learning, which he said says prepares students for the future by fostering purposeful integration of technical literacies, such as coding and data literacy, with human literacies, such as creativity, ethics, cultural agility and entrepreneurship.
“When students combine these literacies with experiential components, they integrate their knowledge with real life settings, leading to deep learning,” Aoun told Forbes.
We’re going to talk to our technology, and everyone else’s too. Google proved that earlier this month with a demonstration of artificial intelligence that can hop on the phone to book a restaurant reservation or appointment at the hair salon.
Now it’s just a matter of who can build that technology fastest. To reach that goal, Microsoft has acquired conversational AI startup Semantic Machines for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 2014, the startup’s goal was to build AI that can converse with humans through speech or text, with the ability to be trained to converse on any language or subject.
A team of researchers from the State University of New York (SUNY) recently developed a method for detecting whether the people in a video are AI-generated. It looks like DeepFakes could meet its match.
What it means: Fear over whether computers will soon be able to generate videos that are indistinguishable from real footage may be much ado about nothing, at least with the currently available methods.
The SUNY team observed that the training method for creating AI that makes fake videos involves feeding it images – not video. This means that certain human physiological quirks – like breathing and blinking – don’t show up in computer-generated videos. So they decided to build an AI that uses computer vision to detect blinking in fake videos.
Without even knowing it, we are interacting with pragmatic AI day in and day out. It is used in the automated chatbots that answer our calls and questions and the customer service rep that texts with us on a retail site, providing a better and faster customer experience.
Below are four key categories of pragmatic AI and ways they are being applied today.
1. Speech Recognition And Natural Language Processing (NLP)
2. Predictive Analytics
3. Image Recognition And Computer Vision
4. Self-Driving Cars And Robots
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the practice of law, and “data is the new oil” of the legal industry, panelist Dennis Garcia said at a recent American Bar Association conference.Garcia is an assistant general counsel for Microsoft in Chicago. Robert Ambrogi, a Massachusetts lawyer and blogger who focuses on media, technology, and employment law, moderated the program.“The next generation of lawyers is going to have to understand how AI works” as part of the duty of competence, panelist Anthony E. Davis told the audience. Davis is a partner with Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP in New York.
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Davis said AI will result in dramatic changes in law firms’ hiring and billing, among other things. The hourly billing model, he said, “makes no sense in a universe where what clients want is judgment.” Law firms should begin to concern themselves not with the degrees or law schools attended by candidates for employment but with whether they are “capable of developing judgment, have good emotional intelligence, and have a technology background so they can be useful” for long enough to make hiring them worthwhile, he said.
HomeCourt is built on tools announced by Federighi last summer, when he launched Apple’s bid to become a preferred playground for AI-curious developers. Known as Core ML, those tools help developers who’ve trained machine learning algorithms deploy them on Apple’s mobile devices and PCs.
At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday, Federighi revealed the next phase of his plan to enliven the app store with AI. It’s a tool called Create ML that’s something like a set of training wheels for building machine learning models in the first place. In a demo, training an image-recognition algorithm to distinguish different flavors of ice cream was as easy as dragging and dropping a folder containing a few dozen images and waiting a few seconds. In a session for developers, Apple engineers suggested Create ML could teach software to detect whether online comments are happy or angry, or predict the quality of wine from characteristics such as acidity and sugar content. Developers can use Create ML now but can’t ship apps using the technology until Apple’s latest operating systems arrive later this year.
Lehi, UT, May 29, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, fast-growing augmented reality startup, Seek, is launching Seek Studio, the world’s first mobile augmented reality studio, allowing anybody with a phone and no coding expertise required, to create their own AR experiences and publish them for the world to see. With mobile AR now made more readily available, average consumers are beginning to discover the magic that AR can bring to the palm of their hand, and Seek Studio turns everyone into a creator.
To make the process incredibly easy, Seek provides templates for users to create their first AR experiences. As an example, a user can select a photo on their phone, outline the portion of the image they want turned into a 3D object and then publish it to Seek. They will then be able to share it with their friends through popular social networks or text. A brand could additionally upload a 3D model of their product and publish it to Seek, providing an experience for their customers to easily view that content in their own home. Seek Studio will launch with 6 templates and will release new ones every few days over the coming months to constantly improve the complexity and types of experiences possible to create within the platform.
Apple unveiled its new augmented reality file format, as well as ARKit 2.0, at its annual WWDC developer conference today. Both will be available to users later this year with iOS 12.
The tech company partnered with Pixar to develop the AR file format Universal Scene Description (USDZ) to streamline the process of sharing and accessing augmented reality files. USDZ will be compatible with tools like Adobe, Autodesk, Sketchfab, PTC, and Quixel. Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis spoke briefly on stage about how the file format will have native Adobe Creative Cloud support, and described it as the first time “you’ll be able to have what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) editing” for AR objects.
With a starting focus on University-level education and vocational schools in sectors such as mechanical engineering, VivEdu branched out to K-12 education in 2018, boasting a comprehensive VR approach to learning science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and art for kids.
That roadmap, of course, is just beginning. Which is where the developers—and those arm’s-length iPads—come in. “They’re pushing AR onto phones to make sure they’re a winner when the headsets come around,” Miesnieks says of Apple. “You can’t wait for headsets and then quickly do 10 years’ worth of R&D on the software.”
To fully realize the potential will require a broad ecosystem. Adobe is partnering with technology leaders to standardize interaction models and file formats in the rapidly growing AR ecosystem. We’re also working with leading platform vendors, open standards efforts like usdz and glTF as well as media companies and the creative community to deliver a comprehensive AR offering. usdz is now supported by Apple, Adobe, Pixar and many others while glTF is supported by Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Adobe and other industry leaders.
There are a number of professionals who would find the ability to quickly and easily create floor plans to be extremely useful. Estate agents, interior designers and event organisers would all no doubt find such a capability to be extremely valuable. For those users, the new feature added to iStaging’s VR Maker app might be of considerable interest.
The new VR Maker feature utilises Apple’s ARKit toolset to recognise spaces, such as walls and floors and can provide accurate measurements. By scanning each wall of a space, a floor plan can be produced quickly and easily.
I’ve interviewed nine investors who have provided their insights on where the VR industry has come, as well as the risks and opportunities that exist in 2018 and beyond. We’ve asked them what opportunities are available in the space — and what tips they have for startups.
Augmented reality (AR) hasn’t truly permeated the mainstream consciousness yet, but the technology is swiftly being adopted by global industries. It’ll soon be unsurprising to find a pair of AR glasses strapped to a helmet sitting on the heads of service workers, and RealWear, a company at the forefront on developing these headsets, thinks it’s on the edge of something big.
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VOICE ACTIVATION
What’s most impressive about the RealWear HMT-1Z1 is how you control it. There’s no touch-sensitive gestures you need to learn — it’s all managed with voice, and better yet, there’s no need for a hotword like “Hey Google.” The headset listens for certain commands. For example, from the home screen just say “show my files” to see files downloaded to the device, and you can go back to the home screen by saying “navigate home.” When you’re looking at documents — like schematics — you can say “zoom in” or “zoom out” to change focus. It worked almost flawlessly, even in a noisy environment like the AWE show floor.
David Scowsill‘s experience in the aviation industry spans over 30 years. He has worked for British Airways, American Airlines, Easy Jet, Manchester Airport, and most recently the World Travel and Tourism Council, giving him a unique perspective on how Augmented and Virtual Reality (AVR) can impact the aviation industry.
These technologies have the power to transform the entire aviation industry, providing benefits to companies and consumers. From check-in, baggage drop, ramp operations and maintenance, to pilots and flight attendants, AVR can accelerate training, improve safety, and increase efficiency.
London-based design studio Marshmallow Laser Feast is using VR to let us reconnect with nature. With headsets, you can see a forest through the eyes of different animals and experience the sensations they feel. Creative Director Ersinhan Ersin took the stage at TNW Conference last week to show us how and why they created the project, titled In the Eyes of the Animal.
Have you already taken a side when it comes to XR wearables? Whether you prefer AR glasses or VR headsets likely depends on the application you need. But wouldn’t it be great to have a device that could perform as both? As XR tech advances, we think crossovers will start popping up around the world.
A Beijing startup called AntVR recently rocketed past its Kickstarter goal for an AR/VR visor. Their product, the Mix, uses tinted lenses to toggle between real world overlay and full immersion. It’s an exciting prospect. But rather than digging into the tech (or the controversy surrounding their name, their marketing, and a certain Marvel character) we’re looking at what this means for how XR devices are developed and sold.
Google is bringing AR tech to its Expeditions app with a new update going live today. Last year, the company introduced its GoogleExpeditions AR Pioneer Program, which brought the app into classrooms across the country; with this launch the functionality is available to all.
Expeditions will have more than 100 AR tours in addition to the 800 VR tours already available. Examples include experiences that let users explore Leonardo Da Vinci’s inventions and ones that let you interact with the human skeletal system.
At four recent VR conferences and events there was a palpable sense that despite new home VR devices getting the majority of marketing and media attention this year, the immediate promise and momentum is in the location-based VR (LBVR) attractions industry. The VR Arcade Conference (April 29th and 30th), VRLA (May 4th and 5th), the Digital Entertainment Group’s May meeting (May 1), and FoIL (Future of Immersive Leisure, May 16th and 17th) all highlighted a topic that suddenly no one can stop talking about: location-based VR (LBVR). With hungry landlords giving great deals for empty retail locations, VRcades, which are inexpensive to open (like Internet Cafes), are popping up all over the country. As a result, VRcade royalties for developers are on the rise, so they are shifting their attention accordingly to shorter experiences optimized for LBVR, which is much less expensive than building a VR app for the home.
The world is about to be painted with data. Every place. Every person. Every thing. In the near term this invisible digital layer will be revealed by the camera in your phone, but in the long term it will be incorporated into a wearable device, likely a head-mounted display (HMD) integrating phone, audio, and AI assistants. Users will control the system with a combination of voice, gesture and ring controller. Workers in factories use monocular displays to do this now, but it’s going to be quite some time before this benefits consumers. While this coming augmentation of man represents an evolutionary turning point, it’s adoption will resemble that of the personal computer, which took at least fifteen years. Mobile AR, on the other hand, is here now, and in a billion Android and Apple smartphones, which are about to get a lot better. Thanks to AR, we can start building the world’s digital layer for the smartphone, right now, without waiting for HMDs to unlock the benefits of an AR-enabled world.
12 hot augmented reality ideas for your business — from information-age.com Augmented reality is one of the most exciting technologies that made its way into the mass market in the recent years.
Excerpt:
In this article we will tell you about other ways to use this technology in a mobile app except for gaming and give you some augmented reality business ideas.
The new AR features combine Google’s existing Street View and Maps data with a live feed from your phone’s camera to overlay walking directions on top of the real world and help you figure out which way you need to go.
The VR travel industry may be in its infancy, but if you expect to see baby steps leading to market adoption, think again. Digital travel sales are expected to reach $198 billion this year, with virtual reality travel apps and VR tours capturing a good share of market revenue.
Of course, this should come as no surprise. Consumers increasingly turn to digital media when planning aspects of their lives, from recreational activities to retirement. Because VR has the power to engage travelers like no other technology can do, it is a natural step in the evolution of the travel industry. It is also likely to disrupt travel planning as we know it.
In this article, we will explore VR travel technology, and what it means for business in 2018.
HP Inc. is teaming up with DiSTI to create VR training programs for enterprise customers. DiSTI is a platform for user interface software and custom 3D training solutions. The companies are partnering to create maintenance and operations training in VR for vehicle, aircraft and industrial equipment systems. DiSTI’s new VE Studio software lets customers develop their own virtual training applications or have DiSTI and HP professional services teams assist in designing and building the program. — TECHRADAR
HP Inc. today announced an alliance with the DiSTI Corporation, a leading global provider of VR and advanced human machine interface development solutions, to address the growing demand for high-impact, cost-effective VR training.
The two companies will work together to develop unique VR training solutions for enterprise customers, with a specific focus on maintenance and operations training for complex systems such as vehicle, aircraft and industrial equipment.
It’s a different approach to storytelling: Just as standard video is a step up from photography in terms of immersiveness, 360 video and VR amp this up considerably further. Controlling what’s in the frame and editing to hone in on the elements of the picture that we’d like the viewer to focus on is somewhat ‘easy’ with photography. With moving pictures (video), this is harder but with the right use of the camera, it’s still easy to direct the viewer’s attention to the elements of the narrative we’d like to highlight.Since 360 and VR allow the user to essentially take control of the camera, content creators have a lot less control in terms of capturing attention. This has its upsides too though…360 video and particularly VR provide for a very rich sensory environment that standard video just can’t match.
Google’s virtual assistant can now make phone calls on your behalf to schedule appointments, make reservations in restaurants and get holiday hours.
The robotic assistant uses a very natural speech pattern that includes hesitations and affirmations such as “er” and “mmm-hmm” so that it is extremely difficult to distinguish from an actual human phone call.
The unsettling feature, which will be available to the public later this year, is enabled by a technology called Google Duplex, which can carry out “real world” tasks on the phone, without the other person realising they are talking to a machine. The assistant refers to the person’s calendar to find a suitable time slot and then notifies the user when an appointment is scheduled.
About a dozen Google employees reportedly left the company over its insistence on developing AI for the US military through a program called Project Maven. Meanwhile 4,000 others signed a petition demanding the company stop.
It looks like there’s some internal confusion over whether the company’s “Don’t Be Evil” motto covers making machine learning systems to aid warfare.
FOR MONTHS, A growing faction of Google employees has tried to force the company to drop out of a controversial military program called Project Maven. More than 4,000 employees, including dozens of senior engineers, have signed a petition asking Google to cancel the contract. Last week, Gizmodo reported that a dozen employees resigned over the project. “There are a bunch more waiting for job offers (like me) before we do so,” one engineer says. On Friday, employees communicating through an internal mailing list discussed refusing to interview job candidates in order to slow the project’s progress.
Other tech giants have recently secured high-profile contracts to build technology for defense, military, and intelligence agencies. In March, Amazon expanded its newly launched “Secret Region” cloud services supporting top-secret work for the Department of Defense. The same week that news broke of the Google resignations, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft locked down a deal with intelligence agencies. But there’s little sign of the same kind of rebellion among Amazon and Microsoft workers.
Facebook SEATTLE (AP) – The American Civil Liberties Union and other privacy advocates are asking Amazon to stop marketing a powerful facial recognition tool to police, saying law enforcement agencies could use the technology to “easily build a system to automate the identification and tracking of anyone.”
The tool, called Rekognition, is already being used by at least one agency – the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon – to check photographs of unidentified suspects against a database of mug shots from the county jail, which is a common use of such technology around the country.
From DSC: Google’s C-Suite — as well as the C-Suites at Microsoft, Amazon, and other companies — needs to be very careful these days, as they could end up losing the support/patronage of a lot of people — including more of their own employees. It’s not an easy task to know how best to build and use technologies in order to make the world a better place…to create a dream vs. a nightmare for our future. But just because we can build something, doesn’t mean we should.
What is conversational commerce? Why is it such a big opportunity? How does it work? What does the future look like? How can I get started? These are the questions I’m going to answer for you right now.
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The guide covers:
An introduction to conversational commerce.
Why conversational commerce is such a big opportunity.
Complete breakdown of how conversational commerce works.
Extensive examples of conversational commerce using chatbots and voicebots.
How artificial intelligence impacts conversational commerce.
What the future of conversational commerce will look like.
Definition: Conversational commerce is an automated technology, powered by rules and sometimes artificial intelligence, that enables online shoppers and brands to interact with one another via chat and voice interfaces.
Artificial intelligence (AI) stands out as a transformational technology of our digital age—and its practical application throughout the economy is growing apace. For this briefing, Notes from the AI frontier: Insights from hundreds of use cases (PDF–446KB), we mapped both traditional analytics and newer “deep learning” techniques and the problems they can solve to more than 400 specific use cases in companies and organizations. Drawing on McKinsey Global Institute research and the applied experience with AI of McKinsey Analytics, we assess both the practical applications and the economic potential of advanced AI techniques across industries and business functions. Our findings highlight the substantial potential of applying deep learning techniques to use cases across the economy, but we also see some continuing limitations and obstacles—along with future opportunities as the technologies continue their advance. Ultimately, the value of AI is not to be found in the models themselves, but in companies’ abilities to harness them.
It is important to highlight that, even as we see economic potential in the use of AI techniques, the use of data must always take into account concerns including data security, privacy, and potential issues of bias.
AI for Good — from re-work.co by Ali Shah, Head of Emerging Technology and Strategic Direction – BBC
Excerpt:
What AI for good is really trying to ask is how we might develop and apply AI so that it makes a positive difference to society. Since the material question is about the change in society we would like to see, then we must first define the change we are hoping for before we can judge how AI might help. There are many areas of society that we might choose to consider, but I will focus on two interrelated issues.
Microsoft just demonstrated a meeting room of the future at the company’s Build developer conference.
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It all starts with a 360-degree camera and microphone array that can detect anyone in a meeting room, greet them, and even transcribe exactly what they say in a meeting regardless of language.
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Microsoft takes the meeting room scenario even further, though. The company is using its artificial intelligence tools to then act on what meeting participants say.
From DSC: Whoa! Many things to think about here. Consider the possibilities for global/blended/online-based learning (including MOOCs) with technologies associated with translation, transcription, and identification.
But as with any new technology, there are inherent risks we should acknowledge, anticipate, and deal with as soon as possible. If we do so, these technologies are likely to continue to thrive.
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As wonderful as AR is and will continue to be, there are some serious privacy and security pitfalls, including dangers to physical safety, that as an industry we need to collectively avoid. There are also ongoing threats from cyber criminals and nation states bent on political chaos and worse — to say nothing of teenagers who can be easily distracted and fail to exercise judgement — all creating virtual landmines that could slow or even derail the success of AR. We love AR, and that’s why we’re calling out these issues now to raise awareness.
Microsoft Remote Assist — Collaborate in mixed reality to solve problems faster
With Microsoft Remote Assist we set out to create a HoloLens app that would help our customers collaborate remotely with heads-up, hands-free video calling, image sharing, and mixed-reality annotations. During the design process, we spent a lot of time with Firstline Workers. We asked ourselves, “How can we help Firstline Workers share what they see with an expert while staying hands-on to solve problems and complete tasks together, faster.” It was important to us that Firstline Workers are able to reach experts on whatever device they are using at the time, including PCs, phones, or tablets.
Microsoft Layout — Design spaces in context with mixed reality
With Microsoft Layout our goal was to build an app that would help people use HoloLens to bring designs from concept to completion using some of the superpowers mixed reality makes possible. With Microsoft Layout customers can import 3-D models to easily create and edit room layouts in real-world scale. Further, you can experience designs as high-quality holograms in physical space or in virtual reality and share and edit with stakeholders in real time.
From DSC: Those involved with creating/enhancing learning spaces may want to experiment with Microsoft Layout.
The new updates allow for collaborative AR experiences, such as playing multiplayer games or painting a AR community mural using a capability called Cloud Anchors.
After acquiring the rights to the New Media Consortium’s Horizon project earlier this year, Educause has now published a preview of the 2018 Higher Education Edition of the Horizon Report — research that was in progress at the time of NMC’s sudden dissolution. The report covers the key technology trends, challenges and developments expected to impact higher ed in the short-, mid- and long-term future.
Virtual reality (VR) has often been mentioned as the empathy machine, however it has many use cases. When it comes to memory and retention it looks like VR is not only useful for simulation but for education as well. Immersive VR Education teamed up with HTC Vive and Windsor Forest Colleges Group to create a memorable experience of virtual teaching.
On the April 25th ten students from Windsor Forest Colleges Group in the UK put on an HTC Vive headset and guided by David Whelan CEO & Founder of Immersive VR Education and Mike Armstrong, Senior/Lead Developer of Immersive VR Education using the free VR social education and presentation platform ENGAGE. ENGAGE allows users to hold meetings, classes, private lessons and presentations. Users can record, create their own lessons and presentations as well as allow users to interact with virtual objects.
The $200 Oculus Go is the most accessible VR headset today.
Up until now, one of the biggest barriers to entry for VR has been price. Headset adoption has taken a conservative growth path, mostly due in part to high prices of PC-required systems or just requiring consumers to own a specific line of VR compatible phones to pair with mobile headsets.
But now the Oculus Go is finally here and it’s a big deal, especially for the millions of iPhone users out there who up until today have had limited options to get into VR.
Starting today, the Oculus Go standalone VR headset is available for purchase for $199. Available for sale on Oculus.com in 23 countries, you can also pick up one online from Amazon or in Best Buy Stores in the U.S. The Oculus companion app used for initial setup is available for both iPhone or Android devices.
![The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV](http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/The-Living-Class-Room-Daniel-S-Christian-July-2012.jpg)
