Mixed Reality (MR)

Will blockchain help make Virtual Reality more social? — from thenextweb.com by Alice Bonasio

Excerpt:

Emerging social VR platforms are experimenting with new ways of democratizing access and ownership of content and information.

VR has often been considered something of a solitary experience, but that’s changing fast. Social VR platforms are on the rise, and as the acquisition of AltspaceVR by Microsoft shows, major players in that space are taking notice.
…
This shows how momentum is building around social VR, and although it’s unlikely that such platforms will replace social media in terms of popularity overnight, the question is certainly being asked about who will emerge as “Facebook of VR.”
…
“We believe virtual reality will flourish once users have a more prominent role in controlling their creations. Currently, the companies that create the virtual worlds own all of the content built by the users. They are the ones who profit, reap the benefits from the network effects, and have the power to undo, change or censor what happens within the world itself. The true potential of VR might be realized, and certainly surpass what already exists, if this power were put into the hands of the users instead,” believes Ariel Meilich, founder of blockchain-based virtual platform Decentraland.

A blockchain is a digitized, decentralized public ledger of cryptocurrency transactions. Essentially each ‘block’ is like an individual bank statement. Completed ‘blocks’ (the most recent transactions) are added in chronological order allowing market participants to keep track of the transactions without the need for central record keeping. Just as Bitcoin eliminates the need for a third party to process or store payments, and isn’t regulated by a central authority, users in any blockchain structure are responsible for validating transactions whenever one party pays another for goods or services.

From DSC:
As this article reminded me, it’s the combination of two or more emerging technologies that will likely bring major innovation our way. Here’s another example of that same idea/concept.

Warby Parker Uses Face ID in iPhone X to Measure Your Face for Glasses — from mobile-ar.reality.news by Tommy Palladino

Excerpt:

Online glasses retailer Warby Parker built its reputation by selling fashionable yet affordable eyeglasses, so it perhaps a surprise that it’s one of the first developers to take advantage of the technology in the least affordable iPhone yet.

While other developers are making adjusting to their apps to account for the infamous camera notch, Warby Parker decided to update its Glasses app to directly leverage the Face ID facial recognition system. Now, in the updated version of the app, Glasses can measure the user’s face to estimate which frames will fit best.

Apple Is Ramping Up Work on AR Headset to Succeed iPhone — from bloomberg.com by Mark Gurman

Excerpt:

Apple Inc., seeking a breakthrough product to succeed the iPhone, aims to have technology ready for an augmented-reality headset in 2019 and could ship a product as early as 2020.

Unlike the current generation of virtual reality headsets that use a smartphone as the engine and screen, Apple’s device will have its own display and run on a new chip and operating system, according to people familiar with the situation. The development timeline is very aggressive and could still change, said the people, who requested anonymity to speak freely about a private matter.

“The power is that we can take the user anywhere in the entire universe throughout all of time for historical experiences like this.” (source)

AR navigation app promises better accuracy than GPS alone — from engadget.com by Jon Fingas
Walk the streets as if you had a local by your side.

Want to Really Teach a Robot? Command It With VR — from wired.com by Matt Simon

Excerpt:

Ask a robot to do the same and you’ll either get a blank stare or a crumpled object in the cold, cold grasp of a machine. Because robots are good at repetitive tasks that require a lot of strength, but they’re still bad at learning how to manipulate novel objects. Which is why today a company called Embodied Intelligence has emerged from stealth mode to fuse the strengths of robots and people into a new system that could make it far easier for regular folk to teach robots new tasks. Think of it like a VR videogame—only you get to control a hulking robot.

From DSC:
To remain up-to-date, Engineering Departments within higher ed have their work cut out for them — big time! Those Senior Engineering Teams have many new, innovative pathways and projects to pursue these days.

Daqri ships augmented reality smart glasses for professionals — from venturebeat.com by Dean Takahashi

Excerpt:

Daqri has begun shipping its augmented reality smart glasses for the workplace.

Los Angeles-based Daqri is betting that AR — a technology that overlays digital animations on top of the real world — will take off first in the enterprise, where customers are willing to pay a higher price in order to solve complex problems. The idea is to help people solve real-world problems, like fixing a jet engine or piecing together an assembly. Daqri argues that the gains in productivity and efficiency make up for the initial cost.

At $4,995, the system is not cheap, but it is optimized to present complex workloads and process a lot of data right on the glasses themselves. It is available for direct purchase from Daqri’s web site and through channel partners. Daqri is targeting customers across manufacturing, field services, maintenance and repair, inspections, construction, and others.

The NBA really wants you to watch games in VR — from cnet.com by Terry Collins
The basketball league has now struck two partnerships to broadcast games in virtual reality. Are fans willing to watch them?

Excerpt:

What’s keeping you from watching NBA games in VR?

Is it the bulky headsets? Is it the slow camera switches that don’t follow the players quickly enough? Is it too expensive?

The NBA is betting that one reason is it just doesn’t have enough partnerships yet. So, the league is teaming up with Turner Sports and Intel TrueVR to air weekly games on TNT in VR starting with the All-Star weekend festivities from Los Angeles in February.
russell-westbrook-alley-oop.jpg

NBA fans will soon be able to see more of MVP Russell Westbrook in virtual reality.
NBAE/Getty Images

This partnership represents a doubling down of NBA’s VR efforts, despite indications it isn’t actually working. Last year, the NBA began airing games with NextVR as part of a multiyear deal.

Microsoft: Here’s how Mixed Reality will aid information workers and boost digital transformation — from techrepublic.com by Alison DeNisco Rayome
At Microsoft Future Decoded, the tech giant explained how mixed reality can help workers and companies achieve more.

Excerpt:

The 3 big takeaways

At the Microsoft Future Decoded conference in London, executives from the tech giant offered a vision for integrating Microsoft 365, Microsoft HoloLens, Windows Mixed Reality, and 3D capabilities into modern workplaces to aid digital transformation.
Firstline workers and information workers will likely be the first to benefit from mixed reality in the workplace, using the technology for collaboration, training, and more.
Microsoft has made a number of moves into the mixed reality space recently, including expanding its HoloLens headset into new European markets.

“Infuse real life into virtual reality worlds”

On 10/25/2017, in emerging technologies, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

“Infuse real life into virtual reality worlds”

Microsoft’s new studios create Mixed Reality holograms — from theverge.com by Tom Warren

Excerpt:

Microsoft is opening its first Mixed Reality capture studios in San Francisco and London, allowing developers and creators to create holograms from real life objects. Microsoft has been using its own studio at its Redmond headquarters to capture Buzz Aldrin, Reggie Watts, Max Frost, and Cirque Du Soleil performances and bring them into virtual reality and augmented reality holograms.

The new studios in San Francisco, London, and Redmond will allow third parties to create holograms that can be used on regular 2D screens, a HoloLens device, or even Microsoft’s new Windows Mixed Reality (VR) headsets. Microsoft will be licensing these studios, and it’s likely to be an expensive process to capture items as holograms.

VR and AR: Transforming Learning and Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences — from er.educause.edu by Emory Craig and Maya Georgieva

What if a text or work of art is no longer read, but instead, experienced? What new questions are raised when it’s possible to visit an author’s home or stroll through the streets of an ancient city? How will our interpretations of literature, art, history and archaeology change when we are no longer passive recipients but co-constructors and actors in immersive experiences? How will this challenge us to think outside our current learning paradigms? These and other questions arise when we examine the impact of immersive technologies on the humanities and the social sciences.

Some examples mentioned there include:

Microsoft joins the VR battle with Windows Mixed Reality [on 10/17/17] — from theverge.com by Tom Warren

Excerpt:

Microsoft is launching its own answer to virtual reality today, taking on HTC and Oculus in the process. Windows Mixed Reality will be available in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, and headsets are now available to buy. Here’s everything you need to know about Windows Mixed Reality.
…
Microsoft is offering movement tracking (six degrees of freedom) without the need for traditional external sensors placed throughout a room. Windows Mixed Reality headsets have cameras and sensors to track the motion controllers.

Walmart looks to see if virtual shopping is better than the real thing — from washingtonpost.com by Abha Bhattarai

Excerpts:

…Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is setting its sights on virtual reality. Imagine this, says Katie Finnegan, who heads Walmart’s tech incubator: You need a tent for your next camping trip. If all goes to plan, you could one day virtually swoop in to your campsite and see any given tent in action. “You could unzip it, lay down, look left and right and say, ‘Oh, this is supposed to be a two-person tent? It’s kind of tight,’ ” she said. And then you could move on to the next tent — without leaving your couch.
…
Here are the five ideas the Bentonville, Ark.-based company says could be making their way online:

3-D holograms at Bonobos.com, the male clothing site Walmart acquired this year for $310 million, that would make it possible for shoppers to try on virtual clothing for fit and style.
At ModCloth, the women’s clothing site Walmart took over in March, customers may one day be able to take 3-D photos of themselves using their smartphones, and use those images to get an idea of how something might look on.
An “interactive virtual store” for designer Rebecca Minkoff, whose items are sold at Walmart.com, would allow customers to sit in on fashion shows and shop directly from the runway.
Tired of shopping online alone? If Walmart gets its way, you may soon be interacting with other shoppers and experts as you pick out items for your virtual cart.
Electric outlets, stove tops and door handles can all be child safety hazards — and soon, an online tool could peek inside your home and tell you where the biggest risks are lurking.

Explore the surface of Mars from the comfort of your living room — from haptical.com
Google’s new project allows viewers to explore the discoveries of NASA’s Curiosity rover.

Excerpt:

NASA and Google have teamed up to build a new virtual experience that lets space enthusiasts explore the red planet without having to leave their homes. Dubbed as “Access Mars”, the new project virtually transports users, wherever they are, to Earth’s neighboring planet in the solar system.

Chinese School Opens Full-Function VR Classrooms — from vrfocus.com by Rebecca Hills-Duty
HTC Vive have created a system which allows 50 VR units to work together with no cross-interference.

Congrats to the NingXia province on opening the first of 20 Vive 50-student full-function #VR classrooms. @htcvive #EducationEvolved pic.twitter.com/g6URsslgPP

— Alvin Wang Graylin (@AGraylin) October 13, 2017

For institutions of higher education: Some of the ways to respond to the new, exponential pace of change [Christian]

On 10/18/2017, in 21st century, adult learning, Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), Blockchain, bots, business, business side of he, career development, change, colleges, community colleges, consortiums, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, distance education, education reform, elearning, emerging technologies, expectations, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, interaction design, interface design, internet, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, Michigan, Mixed Reality (MR), online learning, organizational change, pace of change, parents/guardians, personalized/customized learning, platforms, real-world assignments, reinvent, society, staying relevant, strategy, streams of content, student-related, surviving, technology (general), traditional / tradition, trends, United States, universities, user experience (UX), user interface design, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
In Part I, I looked at the new, exponential pace of change that colleges, community colleges and universities now need to deal with – observing the enormous changes that are starting to occur throughout numerous societies around the globe. If we were to plot out the rate of change, we would see that we are no longer on a slow, steady, incremental type of linear pathway; but, instead, we would observe that we are now on an exponential trajectory (as the below graphic from sparks & honey very nicely illustrates).

How should colleges and universities deal with this new, exponential pace of change?

1) I suggest that you ensure that someone in your institution is lifting their gaze and peering out into the horizons, to see what’s coming down the pike. That person – or more ideally, persons – should also be looking around them, noticing what’s going on within the current landscapes of higher education. Regardless of how your institution tackles this task, given that we are currently moving at an incredibly fast pace, this trend analysis is very important. The results from this analysis should immediately be integrated into your strategic plan. Don’t wait 3-5 years to integrate these new findings into your plan. The new, exponential pace of change is going to reward those organizations who are nimble and responsive.

2) I recommend that you look at what programs you are offering and consider if you should be developing additional programs such as those that deal with:

Artificial Intelligence (Natural Language Processing, deep learning, machine learning, bots)
New forms of Human Computer Interaction such as Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality
User Experience Design, User Interface Design, and/or Interaction Design
Big data, data science, working with data
The Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications, sensors, beacons, etc.
Blockchain-based technologies/systems
The digital transformation of business
Freelancing / owning your own business / entrepreneurship (see this article for the massive changes happening now!)
…and more

3) If you are not already doing so, I recommend that you immediately move to offer a robust lineup of online-based programs. Why do I say this? Because:

Without them, your institution may pay a heavy price due to its diminishing credibility. Your enrollments could decline if learners (and their families) don’t think they will get solid jobs coming out of your institution. If the public perceives you as a dinosaur/out of touch with what the workplace requires, your enrollment/admissions groups may find meeting their quotas will get a lot harder as the years go on. You need to be sending some cars down the online/digital/virtual learning tracks. (Don’t get me wrong. We still need the liberal arts. However, even those institutions who offer liberal arts lineups will still need to have a healthy offering of online-based programs.)
Online-based learning methods can expand the reach of your faculty members while offering chances for individuals throughout the globe to learn from you, and you from them
Online-based learning programs can increase your enrollments, create new revenue streams, and develop/reach new markets
Online-based learning programs have been proven to offer the same learning gains – and sometimes better learning results than – what’s being achieved in face-to-face based classrooms
The majority of pedagogically-related innovations are occurring within the online/digital/virtual realm, and you will want to have built the prior experience, expertise, and foundations in order to leverage and benefit from them
Faculty take their learning/experiences from offering online-based courses back into their face-to-face courses
Due to the increasing price of obtaining a degree, students often need to work to help get them (at least part of the way) through school; thus, flexibility is becoming increasingly important and necessary for students
An increasing number of individuals within the K-12 world as well as the corporate world are learning via online-based means. This is true within higher education as well, as, according to a recent report from Digital Learning Compass states that “the number of higher education students taking at least one distance education course in 2015 now tops six million, about 30% of all enrollments.”
Families are looking very closely at their return on investments being made within the world of higher education. They want to see that their learners are being prepared for the ever-changing future that they will encounter. If people in the workforce often learn online, then current students should be getting practice in that area of their learning ecosystems as well.
As the (mostly) online-based Amazon.com is thriving and retail institutions such as Sears continue to close, people are in the process of forming more generalized expectations that could easily cross over into the realm of higher education. By the way, here’s how our local Sears building is looking these days…or what’s left of it.

4) I recommend that you move towards offering more opportunities for lifelong learning, as learners need to constantly add to their skillsets and knowledge base in order to remain marketable in today’s workforce. This is where adults greatly appreciate – and need – the greater flexibility offered by online-based means of learning. I’m not just talking about graduate programs or continuing studies types of programs here. Rather, I’m hoping that we can move towards providing streams of up-to-date content that learners can subscribe to at any time (and can drop their subscription to at any time). As a relevant side note here, keep your eyes on blockchain-based technologies here.

5) Consider the role of consortia and pooling resources. How might that fit into your strategic plan?

6) Consider why bootcamps continue to come onto the landscape. What are traditional institutions of higher education missing here?

7) And lastly, if one doesn’t already exist, form a small, nimble, innovative group within your organization — what I call a TrimTab Group — to help identify what will and won’t work for your institution.

Reflections on “Faculty Predict Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality Will Be Key to Ed Tech in 10 Years” [Kelly]

On 10/12/2017, in 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), Blockchain, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, future of higher education, innovation, internet, IT in HE, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, Mixed Reality (MR), mobile learning, mobile technologies, Natural Language Processing (NLP), personalized/customized learning, platforms, smart classrooms, streams of content, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, United States, universities, videoconferencing, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, wearables, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Faculty Predict Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality Will Be Key to Ed Tech in 10 Years — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly
Faculty in our 2017 Teaching with Technology Survey believe tech will play a positive role in the future of higher education — but some technologies will be more important than others.

Excerpt:

What technologies do faculty think will be important in education over the next decade? The most popular answer to that question by far was virtual/augmented/mixed reality, garnering 81 percent of responses (it topped the list last year as well). Mobile devices and apps, 3D modeling/scanning/printing, adaptive/personalized learning and video/streaming all rounded out the top five.

From DSC:
Great to see several of these items made the list. I would also add:

The use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) to allow more voice-enabled and voice-driven applications
Learning agents/bots (for example, a learning-related bot could go find out the top 50-100 jobs that employers are hiring for and present a list of potential digital playlists from a variety of providers that would help potential employees be able to do the work in those positions)
Blockchain and the use of web-based learner profiles
Artificial Intelligence / cognitive computing (which could be argued is already mentioned in the item re: adaptive, personalized learning)
Moving towards providing up-to-date streams of content (for purposes of lifelong learning and microlearning)

Finally, it was great to see #9 on the list as I, too, believe that a next gen learning platform is needed:

Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2018 — from Gartner Research

Summary

The intelligent digital mesh is a foundation for future digital business and its ecosystems. To create competitive advantage, enterprise architecture and technology innovation leaders must evaluate these top trends to identify opportunities that their organizations can exploit.

Key Findings

Artificial intelligence (AI) delivers value to every industry, enabling new business models. It does so by supporting key initiatives such as customer engagement, digital production, smart cities, self-driving cars, risk management, computer vision and speech recognition.
As people, places, processes and “things” become increasingly digitalized, they will be represented by digital twins. This will provide fertile ground for new event-driven business processes and digitally enabled business models and ecosystems.
The way we interact with technology will undergo a radical transformation over the next five to 10 years. Conversational platforms, augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality will provide more natural and immersive interactions with the digital world.
A digital business is event-centric, which means it must be continuously sensing and adapting. The same applies to the security and risk infrastructure that supports it, which must focus on deceiving potential intruders and predicting security events.

Table of Contents

Analysis

Trend No. 1: AI Foundation
Today’s AI Is Narrow AI

Trend No. 2: Intelligent Apps and Analytics
Augmented Analytics Will Enable Users to Spend More Time Acting on Insights

Trend No. 3: Intelligent Things
Swarms of Intelligent Things Will Work Together

Trend No. 4: Digital Twins
Digital Twins Will Be Linked to Other Digital Entities

Trend No. 5: Cloud to the Edge
Edge Computing Brings Distributed Computing Into the Cloud Style

Trend No. 6: Conversational Platforms
Integration With Third-Party Services Will Further Increase Usefulness

Trend No. 7: Immersive Experience
VR and AR Can Help Increase Productivity

Trend No. 8: Blockchain
Blockchain Offers Significant Potential Long-Term Benefits Despite Its Challenges

Trend No. 9: Event-Driven Model
Events Will Become More Important in the Intelligent Digital Mesh

Trend No. 10: Continuous Adaptive Risk and Trust
Barriers Must Come Down Between Security and Application Teams

Gartner Recommended Reading

Also see:

AI, Merging of Digital and Physical Worlds Among Top 10 Tech Trends for 2018 — from campustechnology.com by Joshua Bolkan
Excerpt:
Gartner has released its list of top 10 strategic technology trends for 2018 with a focus for the coming year on technologies related to artificial intelligence and machine learning and those that blend the physical and digital worlds.

7 Things You Should Know About Research on Active Learning Classrooms — from library.educause.edu

Excerpt:

Research into active learning classrooms (ALCs)—spaces explicitly designed to support and promote this kind of learning and pedagogy—is expanding. This research provides educators with insights about how best to implement active learning pedagogies and support learners in ALCs. Studying how pedagogy and physical space can influence each other, researchers assess how well design elements work and how they affect learning. Higher education needs to know why active learning works, how it works best, and how these methods can be adopted more widely. Research that shows the efficacy of ALCs helps advance the use of such spaces and informs improvements in the design of learning spaces.

That item also mentions:
A Guide to Teaching in the Active Learning Classroom

7 Things You Should Know About AR/VR/MR — from library.educause.edu

Excerpt:

Augmented reality can be described as experiencing the real world with an overlay of additional computer generated content. In contrast, virtual reality immerses a user in an entirely simulated environment, while mixed or merged reality blends real and virtual worlds in ways through which the physical and the digital can interact. AR, VR, and MR offer new opportunities to create a psychological sense of immersive presence in an environment that feels real enough to be viewed, experienced, explored, and manipulated. These technologies have the potential to democratize learning by giving everyone access to immersive experiences that were once restricted to relatively few learners.

Check out these huge announcements from Microsoft’s Windows 10 Mixed Reality Event & Google’s Pixel 2 Event

On 10/04/2017, in A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, collaboration, communities of practice, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, machine-to-machine communications, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), multimedia, music, Natural Language Processing (NLP), technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, trends, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Before we get to the announcements in more detail….
can you imagine being a teacher, a professor, or a trainer — with all of the required applications
launched — if you were the presenter in this video at say the 12:45 mark?

If you are at all interesting in emerging technologies and what several pieces
of our future learning ecosystems — and meeting spaces — could easily look like,
you NEED to watch the entire presentation.

Also, they announced
Microsoft’s purchase of AltspaceVR…in virtual reality!
This clip shows them meeting in a virtual space.

The era of Windows Mixed Reality begins October 17 — from blogs.windows.com by Alex Kipman
Samsung unveils Windows Mixed Reality headset, AltSpaceVR joins Microsoft, SteamVR catalog coming to Windows Mixed Reality this holiday.

At an event in San Francisco we unveiled our vision for Windows Mixed Reality, announced SteamVR and AltSpaceVR are coming to Windows Mixed Reality, introduced the new Samsung Odyssey HMD, and kicked off the holiday shopping season by announcing the availability of pre-orders for Windows Mixed Reality headsets at the Microsoft Store.

Also see:

Mixed Reality at Microsoft’s site

Inside VR & AR

Oct 4th, 2017

Microsoft held its long-awaited launch of Windows 10 Mixed Reality yesterday, and while most of the new devices and products had been leaked earlier, there were still some big takeaways. Here are some of them:

Mixed Reality: Microsoft gave a demo of what its new platform will do, covering the AR/VR spectrum with games, apps, and experiences. One such experience is Cliff House, a virtual work space and entertainment room.
Altspace VR: When the pioneering social VR app shut down this summer and was rescued by a “third party,” people wondered who that was. Turns out it was Microsoft, which acquired Altspace VR for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition was announced yesterday.
Steam VR and Halo: Microsoft had previously announced that its new Mixed Reality headsets would support Steam VR titles. Developers can now access that support, and consumers will be able to access it later this year. In addition to the hundreds of VR titles available on Steam, on Oct. 17, Microsoft will offer free downloads of Halo Recruit.
Odyssey and other headsets: The new Windows 10 platform is launching alongside a host of new headsets. In addition to the new Odyssey, which was made in partnership with Samsung, there are other headsets forthcoming from Acer, HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Asus.
2018 Olympics: This was announced previously in June, but yesterday Microsoft briefed the press that Intel is partnering with the International Olympic Committee to bring Windows Mixed Reality experiences to the 2018 games.

Watch the Google Pixel 2 event in 19 minutes — from the verge.com by Natt Garun
The Google Pixel event has wrapped and we got a good look at a bunch of new hardware lineup this year: the second generation of Pixel smartphones, new Google Homes, a Pixelbook, and a surprise new Google camera that uses artificial intelligence to snap pictures and videos of your family. Is it as weird as it sounds? If you missed the keynote where Google presented everything, here’s a recap of everything Google announced in about two hours cut into a 19-minute video so you can see for yourself if these new products will make it to your shopping list this holiday season.
Google Upgrades Virtual-Reality Headset, Debuts Augmented-Reality Features — from bloomberg.com by Mark Gurman
Google is turning Stranger Things characters into adorable augmented reality stickers — from the verge.com by Adi Robertson
Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced with water resistance, ‘dual-pixel’ camera, and always-on display — from theverge.com by Jacob Kastrenakes
The 5 biggest announcements from Google’s Pixel 2 event — from theverge.com by Shannon Liao
Google Launches PixelBook Laptop Embedded With its Services — from bloomberg.com by Mark Gurman

Ikea’s New App Flaunts What You’ll Love Most About AR — from wired.com by Arielle Pardes

Excerpt:

Tap through the app’s catalogue of over 2,000 products—nearly the company’s full collection of umlauted sofas, armchairs, coffee tables, and storage units—then hold up your phone and use the camera to place the digital furniture anywhere in a room. Want to see how the Strandmon winged chair looks by the window? Done. Can you really squeeze in that 7-foot-long area rug? Open the app, point your camera at the floor, and watch it appear at scale. You can even place a futon where it would go in the guest room, then see what it looks like when it unfolds into a bed.

Ikea built the app with Apple’s ARKit, a developer toolkit created to usher in the augmented reality revolution on iOS devices. The app is free and available now, as long as your iPhone is updated to iOS 11.

.

Every ARKit app you can install right now — from imore.com by Russell Holly

Excerpt:

One of the biggest features to come to iOS 11 is ARKit, enabling developers to open up your world to a whole new kind of gaming and discovery system. Instead of being limited to the screen, you can play on surfaces big and small and you can play with others. The only thing limiting you right now is not knowing which ARKit apps are out there right now, so you can dive in and see which apps are your new favorite.

Searching Apple’s massive App Store can take a long time, so we’ve compiled a big friendly list for you to pick out the real winners!

Everything You Need to Know About Augmented Reality Now That It’s Invading Your Phone — from fieldguide.gizmodo.com by David Nield

Excerpt:

The majority of these apps are still at the demo stage for now, but it’s not difficult to see the potential. Games can take place in the real world, whether that’s on your living room floor or around your neighborhood, while you’ll be able to imagine anything from a new sofa to a new house extension through your phone’s camera.

Further down the line you’ll be able to point your phone at anything and get information overlaid about what you’re seeing with a whole new level of accuracy—the distance to the pin on a golf course, the current stats for players out on a baseball field, or precise directions to the store you need in the mall you’ve just got lost in. You can measure distances, land a rocket in your backyard, and so much more.

Of course AR (or “mixed reality”) headsets are going to provide a much more immersive experience and are a more natural fit than having to hold your phone or tablet in front of you to see anything in AR land. Until those headsets hit the mainstream though, ARKit and ARCore are about to introduce millions of people to the potential of augmented reality. Instead of looking down at your phone you’re going to be holding it up to access all the information of the internet with a swipe.

Amazon working on Alexa-powered smart glasses, says report — from theverge.com by Sam Byford
And a home security camera

Excerpt:

Amazon’s first wearable device will be a pair of smart glasses with the Alexa voice assistant built in, according to a report in the Financial Times. The device will reportedly look like a regular pair of glasses and use bone-conduction technology so that the user can hear Alexa without the need for earphones or conventional speakers. It won’t, however, likely have a screen or camera, although Google Glass founder Babak Parviz has apparently been working on the project following his hiring by Amazon in 2014.

What does Google want with HTC’s smartphone business? — from theguardian.com by Samuel Gibbs
Google is acquiring a $1bn chunk of HTC’s smartphone arm, including 2,000 employees and access to intellectual property, as it bets big on hardware

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Google has announced it’s acquiring a $1.1bn chunk of HTC’s smartphone business, and with it providing the once leading Taiwanese phone brand a much needed lifeline. But what does Google want with part of a smartphone business?

Google isn’t buying the whole of HTC, just a relatively large part of the Taipei-based company’s smartphone business and not its Vive virtual reality headset business. Google gains half of HTC’s research and development team – about 2,000 people – and a non-exclusive license for HTC’s intellectual property, allowing it to take advantage of some of HTC’s advances in smartphone technology.

HTC gets a cash injection, which will help it survive in some very competitive markets, and Google gets to continue its “big bet on hardware” according to Rick Osterloh, the company’s senior vice president for hardware.

It’s “a business decision to have access to one of the best R&D teams”, said Neil Shah, research director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research. But it’s also “a sort of emotional decision to save its close partners”.

The Washington Post enhances in-app augmented reality experience — from washingtonpost.com

Excerpt:

The Washington Post today announced the launch of its first embedded augmented reality story. The Post built an industry-first embed code that lets users trigger an augmented reality experience with 3D visuals and audio narration.

“We were excited to be the first news publisher to support augmented reality in a news application, but for our second iteration in our iconic building series we needed to make augmented reality even simpler,” said Jeremy Gilbert, director of strategic initiatives at The Post. “We’ve been working to reduce the friction to make augmented reality as easily accessible as a photo gallery or a video—those are played inline and augmented reality should be too.”

After Successful Pilot Testing Ford Is Expanding Its HoloLens Program — from uploadvr.com by Jamie Feltham

Excerpt:

You can get a sense for what this expansion means in the video below. Ford has already been using HoloLens to help design new cars; bringing 3D models into the real world using the augmented reality headset. Now, however, the company is introducing new processes, like overlaying new features onto existing car models and creating guided tours of cars using voice recording. The company also says it’s developing new apps for better collaboration in AR.

Augmented Reality Technology: A student creates the closest thing yet to a magic ring — from forbes.com by Kevin Murnane

Excerpt:

Nat Martin set himself the problem of designing a control mechanism that can be used unobtrusively to meld AR displays with the user’s real-world environment. His solution was a controller in the shape of a ring that can be worn on the user’s finger. He calls it Scroll. It uses the ARKit software platform and contains an Arduino circuit board, a capacitive sensor, gyroscope, accelerometer, and a Softpot potentiometer. Scroll works with any AR device that supports the Unity game engine such as Google Cardboard or Microsoft’s Hololens.

Also see:

Scroll from Nat on Vimeo.

Addendum on 8/15/17:

New iOS 11 ARKit Demo Shows Off Drawing With Fingers In Augmented Reality [Video] — from redmondpie.com by Oliver Haslam |

Excerpt:

When Apple releases iOS 11 to the public next month, it will also release ARKit for the first time. The framework, designed to make bringing augmented reality to iOS a reality was first debuted during the opening keynote of WWDC 2017 when Apple announced iOS 11, and ever since then we have been seeing new concepts and demos be released by developers.

Those developers have given us a glimpse of what we can expect when apps taking advantage of ARKit start to ship alongside iOS 11, and the latest of those is a demonstration in which someone’s finger is used to draw on a notepad.

Create compelling AR & VR apps quickly via the EON Creator AVR Enterprise & Education content builder

On 05/15/2017, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, digital learning, digital video, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, innovation, instructional design, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), mobile learning, mobile technologies, multimedia, tools, usability, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

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Also see:

The 2017 Dean’s List: EdTech’s 50 Must-Read Higher Ed Blogs [Meghan Bogardus Cortez at edtechmagazine.com]

On 05/09/2017, in 21st century, active learning, adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assistive technologies, Augmented Reality (AR), blogs / blogging / vlogging, bots, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, computer science, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education, education reform, education technology, educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty/staff, flipping -- inverted learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces, liberal arts, lifelong learning, Mixed Reality (MR), mobile technologies, online learning, pace of change, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, social learning / networks, strategy, streams of content, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, traditional / tradition, trends, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, youth, by Daniel Christian

The 2017 Dean’s List: EdTech’s 50 Must-Read Higher Ed Blogs — from edtechmagazine.com by Meghan Bogardus Cortez
These administrative all-stars, IT gurus, teachers and community experts understand how the latest technology is changing the nature of education.

Excerpt:

With summer break almost here, we’ve got an idea for how you can use some of your spare time. Take a look at the Dean’s List, our compilation of the must-read blogs that seek to make sense of higher education in today’s digital world.

Follow these education trailblazers for not-to-be-missed analyses of the trends, challenges and opportunities that technology can provide.

If you’d like to check out the Must-Read IT blogs from previous years, view our lists from 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013.

From DSC:
I would like to thank Tara Buck, Meghan Bogardus Cortez, D. Frank Smith, Meg Conlan, and Jimmy Daly and the rest of the staff at EdTech Magazine for their support of this Learning Ecosystems blog through the years — I really appreciate it.

Thanks all for your encouragement through the years!

From DSC:
I appreciate the innovative work of Dr. Susan Aldridge and Marci Powell; check the Virtually Inspired site out for some examples of what I’m talking about.

Yesterday’s announcements from Microsoft — with a strong focus on education

On 05/03/2017, in 21st century, collaboration, communications, education, education technology, emerging technologies, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), multimedia, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Microsoft Announces New Laptops and OS Perfect for 21st-Century Students — from edtechmagazine.com by Meghan Bogardus Cortez
Windows 10 S, Surface Laptop and other updates are coming to classrooms in the fall.

Excerpt:

Surface Laptop Introduces Seamless Technology
Perhaps the biggest cheers from the crowd came from the announcement of the new Surface Laptop, which will be available in June 2017.
…
The laptop checks in at 2.76 pounds with a 13.5-inch PixelSense display and 3:2 aspect ratio. Equipped with a fabric overlay on the backlit keyboard, the laptop is so seamless it doesn’t even have speaker grills. Instead, Panay says users can be immersed in sound while working on things like video. With a Surface Pen and the laptop’s LCD touch module, annotation is easy, even on videos.

Microsoft Debuts Surface Laptops, Windows 10 S for Education, Teams for Office 365 for Education — from campustechnology.com by David Nagel

Excerpt:

Microsoft has unveiled several new offerings for education, including the forthcoming Surface Laptop and a new version of Windows 10 designed for school environments — Windows 10 S.

Also see:

From Mixed Reality to New Minecraft and OS, Microsoft Unleashes a Flurry of EDU Upgrades — from edsurge.com by Jenny AbamuMay

Excerpt:

“How can technology create more opportunity, not for a few but for all,” asked Nadella, noting how his own grandfather was not able to go to school because of the limited resources his family had. “Democratizing education must be something that is for everyone and not just for a select few, this is something that is deeply personal.”

His passionate and personal plea set the tone for the flurry of announcements and updates that followed. By the end of the whirlwind showcase, educators were weary but excited about future possibilities.

Also see:

Microsoft Unveils K-12 Operating System, Tools to Challenge Google — from edweek.org by Sean Cavanagh

Excerpt:

Microsoft unveiled a new, streamlined operating system, a slim laptop and a bevy of classroom tools, a group of products that in design and spirit seem aimed at competing with ascendant Chromebooks and other Google offerings in the school market.

At a product announcement on Tuesday crowded with company employees and tech journalists, Microsoft executives repeatedly touted a theme in describing the new operating system, Windows 10 S, and the accompanying products: simplicity.

The goal is “simplify to magnify,” Terry Myerson, Microsoft’s executive vice president of the Windows and devices group, told the assembled crowd. “Simplicity is power.”

“Technology should help, not hinder, teachers’ work in the classroom,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said. It should make educators’ jobs easier, and “spark students’ creativity.”

2 items re: Lifeliqe and Mixed Reality (MR) in the classroom

On 04/08/2017, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, attention, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, health, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), science, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, youth, by Daniel Christian

Lifeliqe Piloting Mixed Reality on Microsoft HoloLens for Grade 6-12 Classrooms — from thejournal.com by Richard Chang

Excerpt:

Using interactive 3D models and lesson plans from its app, Lifeliqe (pronounced “life like”) is now delivering educational content on two major immersive hardware platforms (Microsoft HoloLens and HTC Vive) as well as software platforms (Windows and iOS).

Students and teachers at Renton Prep Christian School in Washington state and Castro Valley Unified College in California participated in the pilot and were the first ever to try out Lifeliqe’s educational content on HoloLens during a science lesson (see video).

“The excitement we witnessed during the pilot shows us the great potential mixed reality has in sparking lightbulb moments.”

Lifeliqe is introducing pilots of mixed reality applications on Microsoft HoloLens — from lifeliqe.com

Excerpt:

Lifeliqe is thrilled to start piloting mixed reality educational scenarios for Microsoft HoloLens in grade 6-12 classrooms! The first two schools we are working with are Renton Prep in Seattle, WA and Castro Valley Unified College, CA. The students and teachers there were the first ever to try out Lifeliqe’s educational content on HoloLens during a Science lesson.

Learning Ecosystems

DC: It’s the combination of 2+ emerging techs that will likely bring major innovation our way. 8 items on VR, AR, and MR.

“Infuse real life into virtual reality worlds”

7 things you should know about ALCs as well as AR/VR/MR [EDUCAUSE]

Yesterday’s announcements from Microsoft — with a strong focus on education

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