Augmented reality has a number of increasingly important applications in a variety of industries, from engineering to retail to interior design. One of the most exciting applications of AR, and the one that promises perhaps the most immediate impact on our lives, is in medicine, where AR can help educate, diagnose, and even treat disease in new and innovative ways.
Microsoft’s HoloLens AR solution is perhaps the most advanced today in terms of becoming a part of the real world, even while it’s not yet a retail option aimed at consumers. Global medical technology company Stryker, which is using HoloLens to redesign the operating room, provides a clear example of the potential of AR in this setting.
From DSC: Microsoft uses the term “mixed reality” when they are discussing their Hololens product:
Using HoloLens and Stryker’s new By Design solution, hospital stakeholders are now able to envision the ideal operating room configuration with the power of holograms and the benefit of mixed reality.
Physics can be difficult to grasp—even for adults. So how do you teach the subject’s abstract ideas to middle schoolers?
Show some of the concepts in action. That’s the idea behind Peer, an experimental project from New York-based design firm Moment that uses mixed reality to teach middle schoolers scientific ideas such as aerodynamics, sound waves, gravity, and acceleration. The project, though purely conceptual, is a tantalizing hint at where technology in the classroom could be headed next.
Finding the best way to position and utilise your business when you’re dealing with future technologies like AR can be a difficult proposition. The skill set required is a relatively new thing, and the mobile developers who can do it, and are good at it, are likely to already be seeing offers from other companies. All of this adds up to mean that finding new talent to drive your AR business forward isn’t easy, and this is compounded if you’re new to the game and haven’t established a foothold. In an attempt to make it easier for you, we’ve already covered the top 10 IoT (Internet of Things) developers – and 3 ways to overcome your app backlog before that – and this week we’re looking at AR developers. Using our number crunching based on Alexa rankings, here’s who came out on top.
From DSC: Given the exponential pace of technological change that many societies throughout the globe are now on, we need some tools to help us pulse-check what’s going on in the relevant landscapes that we are trying to scan.
Below, I would like to suggest 2 methods/tools to do this. I have used both methods for years, and I have found them to be immensely helpful in pulse-checking the landscapes. Perhaps these tools will be helpful to you — or to your students or employees — as well. I vote for these 2 tools to be a part of all of our learning ecosystems. (And besides, they also encourage micro-learning while helping us spot emerging trends.)
The Mobile Crane Simulator combines an Oculus headset with a modular rig to greatly reduce the cost of training. The system, from Industrial Training International and Serious Labs, Inc, will debut at the ConExpo Event this March in Las Vegas. The designers chose the Oculus for its comfort and portability, but the set-up supports OpenVR, allowing it to potentially also work on the Vive. (The “mobile” in the device’s name refers to a type of crane, rather than to mobile VR.) – ROAD TO VR
How do terms like machine learning, AI, and cognitive computing relate to one another?
They’re not synonymous. So, cognitive computing is very different than machine learning, and I will call both of them a type of AI. Just to try and describe those three. So, I would say artificial intelligence is all of that stuff I just described. It’s a collection of things designed to either mimic behavior, mimic thinking, behave intelligently, behave rationally, behave empathetically. Those are the systems and processes that are in the collection of soup that we call artificial intelligence.
Cognitive computing is primarily an IBM term. It’s a phenomenal approach to curating massive amounts of information that can be ingested into what’s called the cognitive stack. And then to be able to create connections among all of the ingested material, so that the user can discover a particular problem, or a particular question can be explored that hasn’t been anticipated.
Machine learning is almost the opposite of that. Where you have a goal function, you have something very specific that you try and define in the data. And, the machine learning will look at lots of disparate data, and try to create proximity to this goal function ? basically try to find what you told it to look for. Typically, you do that by either training the system, or by watching it behave, and turning knobs and buttons, so there’s unsupervised, supervised learning. And that’s very, very different than cognitive computing.
Would you buy a home without ever stepping foot in it?
Thanks to virtual reality, prospective homebuyers can check out for-sale properties by viewing them through a headset — exploring faraway kitchens and bathrooms without ever leaving the couch.
“VR is the next natural evolution in terms of marketing real estate,” said David Scott Van Woert, account director at Transparent House, which has developed a virtual reality mobile app for home builders. “A lot of these companies are very tech-forward and always looking for, not only an edge over competition, but to stay current.”
From DSC: For those of us working on creating and renovating learning spaces, consider producing VR-based pieces for your donors to check out. It could really help paint the picture — the vision — of what your selected space will look like once it’s done. Very compelling visuals — and a very compelling experience.
It’s 2017, a new year, and another tremendous growth opportunity for VR and AR. With advancements in eye-tracking technology, inside-out camera-based positional tracking, the implementation of add-on wireless capabilities for tethered headsets, and a push for lower price points, just like the preceding year, 2017 will continue to be a time of growth and technological innovation for virtual and augmented reality headsets.
As mentioned before, VR/AR headsets are still in the introduction stage of the product cycle while steadily creeping into its second iteration as investment in R&D is being poured into the industry. Here at 900lbs, we’re researching all we can to stay on frontier of the emerging market, making sure we’re using the greatest, if not latest, hardware and software for our projects.
We compiled a list of the coolest, mind-blowing headsets last year (Part 1), but much has changed and will change. Here’s an updated list of the coolest (still mind-blowing) headsets available or soon-to-be-available on the market now. Note: we included some of the headsets we covered in our original post.
Augmented reality–a technology that uses a trigger image to superimpose digital content over a user’s view of the real world–is growing in popularity and accessibility, and it holds a wealth of potential for education.
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“If you can captivate those kids when you introduce the lesson, you know they’re going to pay attention throughout the lesson,” Peterson said. “This is a great way to grab kids and get them involved.”
Formal Education
Virtual Rehab will develop an interactive formal education tool, where inmates can strengthen their knowledge of English, Business, Mathematics, Sciences, Technology, and other courses, as deemed appropriate
Vocational Job Training
Leveraging Virtual Rehab’s interactive tool, inmates will be able to acquire new vocational job training skills including car mechanic, plumbing, welding, carpentry, and others, as deemed appropriate
Psychological Rehabilitation
Virtual Rehab’s interactive tool will assist in treating inmates psychological challenges including mental & emotional disorders, co-existing disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, and others, as deemed appropriate
Correctional Services Rehabilitation
The real-life scenarios and interactivity of Virtual Rehab’s tool will allow inmates to undergo correctional services rehabilitation across sex offending, family violence, alcoholism, and others, as deemed appropriate.
Aside from AWS, Amazon Alexa-enabled devices were the top-selling products across all categories on Amazon.com throughout the holiday season and the company is reporting that Echo family sales are up over 9x compared to last season. Amazon aims to brand Alexa as a platform, something that has helped the product to gain capabilities faster than its competition. Developers and corporates released 4,000 new skills for the voice assistant in just the last quarter.
Alexa got 4,000 new skills in just the last quarter!
From DSC:
What are the teaching & learning ramifications of this?
By the way, I’m not saying for professors, teachers, & trainers to run for the hills (i.e., that they’ll be replaced by AI-based tools). But rather, I would like to suggest that we not only put this type of thing on our radars, but we should begin to actively experiment with such technologies to see if they might be able to help us do some heavy lifting for students learning about new topics.
Virtual Reality for architecture: a beginner’s guide — from aecmag.com With the availability of affordable headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, VR is now within reach of AEC firms of all sizes. Greg Corke explores this brave new virtual world
Excerpt:
It’s an all too familiar scenario: an architect enters a building for the first time and the space doesn’t quite match the vision of his or her design. However beautiful a static rendered image may be, traditional design visualisation can only convey so much, even when the scene is rendered at eyelevel with furniture for scale.
At Gensler, design director and principal Hao Ko knows the feeling. “You still have to make a translation in your mind, in terms of how tall this space is going to feel,” he says. “More often than not, I’ll go to my own projects and I’ll be like, ‘Wow! That’s a lot bigger than I expected.’ You still have those moments.”
This, he says, is where virtual reality, or VR, comes in – and others in the industry are starting to reach the same conclusion.
VR head-mounted displays (HMDs) such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive have the power to change the way architects design and communicate buildings before they are built. The wearer is instantly immersed in a true three dimensional environment that gives an incredible sense of scale, depth and spatial awareness that simply cannot be matched by traditional renders, animations or physical-scale models.
What is the potential for Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in the AEC industry? How might viewing virtual objects integrated into one’s physical environment or immersing oneself into a virtual world benefit the AEC sector? In this article, we will focus specifically on the use of augmented and virtual reality technology on head-mounted displays by architects, engineers and designers in the building design process.
From DSC: Note this new type of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). I think that we’ll likely be seeing much more of this sort of thing.
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
How is Hayo different?
AR that connects the magical and the functional:
Unlike most AR integrations, Hayo removes the screens from smarthome use and transforms the objects and spaces around you into a set of virtual remote controls.Hayo empowers you to create experiences that have previously been limited by the technology, but now are only limited by your imagination.
Screenless IoT:
The best interface is no interface at all. Aside from the one-time setup Hayo does not use any screens. Your real-life surfaces become the interface and you, the user, become the controls. Virtual remote controls can be placed wherever you want for whatever you need by simply using your Hayo device to take a 3D scan of your space.
Smarter AR experience:
Hayo anticipates your unique context, passive motion and gestures to create useful and more unique controls for the connected home. The Hayo system learns your behaviors and uses its AI to help meet your needs.
Apple’s (AAPL) upcoming iPhone 8 smartphone will include a 3D-sensing module to enable augmented-reality applications, Rosenblatt Securities analyst Jun Zhang said Wednesday. Apple has included the 3D-sensing module in all three current prototypes of the iPhone 8, which have screen sizes of 4.7, 5.1 and 5.5 inches, he said. “We believe Apple’s 3D sensing might provide a better user experience with more applications,” Zhang said in a research report. “So far, we think 3D sensing aims to provide an improved smartphone experience with a VR/AR environment.”
Apple’s iPhone 8 is expected to have 3D-sensing tech like Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro smartphone. (Lenovo)
As we look forward to 2017 then, we’ve reached out to a bunch of industry experts and insiders to get their views on where we’re headed over the next 12 months.
2016 provided hints of where Facebook, HTC, Sony, Google, and more will take their headsets in the near future, but where does the industry’s best and brightest think we’ll end up this time next year? With CES, the year’s first major event, now in the books, let’s hear from some those that work with VR itself about what happens next.
We asked all of these developers the same four questions:
1) What do you think will happen to the VR/AR market in 2017? 2) What NEEDS to happen to the VR AR market in 2017? 3) What will be the big breakthroughs and innovations of 2017? 4) Will 2017 finally be the “year of VR?”
The MEL app turned my iPhone 6 into a virtual microscope, letting me walk through 360 degree, 3-D representations of the molecules featured in the experiment kits.
Labster is exploring new platforms by which students can access its laboratory simulations and is pleased to announce the release of its first Google Daydream-compatible virtual reality (VR) simulation, ‘Labster: World of Science’. This new simulation, modeled on Labster’s original ‘Lab Safety’ virtual lab, continues to incorporate scientific learning alongside of a specific context, enriched by story-telling elements. The use of the Google VR platform has enabled Labster to fully immerse the student, or science enthusiast, in a wet lab that can easily be navigated with intuitive usage of Daydream’s handheld controller.
Jessica Brillhart, Google’s principle VR filmmaker, has taken to calling people “visitors” rather than “viewers,” as a way of reminding herself that in VR, people aren’t watching what you’ve created. They’re living it. Which changes things.
In November, we launched Daydream with the goal of bringing high quality, mobile VR to everyone. With the Daydream View headset and controller, and a Daydream-ready phone like the Pixel or Moto Z, you can explore new worlds, kick back in your personal VR cinema and play games that put you in the center of the action.
Daydream-ready phones are built for VR with high-resolution displays, ultra smooth graphics, and high-fidelity sensors for precise head tracking. To give you even more choices to enjoy Daydream, today we’re welcoming new devices that will soon join the Daydream-ready family.
Kessler Foundation, one of the largest public charities in the United States, is awarding a virtual reality training project to support high school students with disabilities. The foundation is providing a two-year, $485,000 Signature Employment Grant to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, to launch the Virtual Reality Job Interview Training program. Kessler Foundation says, the VR program will allow for highly personalized role-play, with precise feedback and coaching that may be repeated as often as desired without fear or embarrassment.
Deep-water safety training goes virtual — from shell.com by Soh Chin Ong How a visit to a shopping centre led to the use of virtual reality safety training for a new oil production project, Malikai, in the deep waters off Sabah in Malaysia.
The authoritative CB Insights lists imminent Future Tech Trends: customized babies; personalized foods; robotic companions; 3D printed housing; solar roads; ephemeral retail; enhanced workers; lab-engineered luxury; botroots movements; microbe-made chemicals; neuro-prosthetics; instant expertise; AI ghosts. You can download the whole outstanding report here (125 pgs).
From DSC: Though I’m generally pro-technology, there are several items in here which support the need for all members of society to be informed and have some input into if and how these technologies should be used. Prime example: Customized babies. The report discusses the genetic modification of babies: “In the future, we will choose the traits for our babies.” Veeeeery slippery ground here.
This is an invitation to collaborate. In particular, it is an invitation to collaborate in framing how we look at and develop machine intelligence. Even more specifically, it is an invitation to collaborate in the construction of a Periodic Table of AI.
Let’s be honest. Thinking about Artificial Intelligence has proven to be difficult for us. We argue constantly about what is and is not AI. We certainly cannot agree on how to test for it. We have difficultly deciding what technologies should be included within it. And we struggle with how to evaluate it.
Even so, we are looking at a future in which intelligent technologies are becoming commonplace.
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With that in mind, we propose an approach to viewing machine intelligence from the perspective of its functional components. Rather than argue about the technologies behind them, the focus should be on the functional elements that make up intelligence. By stepping away from howthese elements are implemented, we can talk about whatthey are and their roles within larger systems.
Also see this article, which contains the graphic below:
From DSC: These graphics are helpful to me, as they increase my understanding of some of the complexities involved within the realm of artificial intelligence.
