Rokid products empower the frontline workforce, providing real-time analysis, views, and documents to the control center. Many media and participants were surprised after trying Rokid products. Saying that the various control modes provided by Rokid AR glasses are very convenient for users to operate and can effectively improve work efficiency.

Rokid X-Craft, demonstrated live at the AWE 2022, has officially received ATEX Zone 1 certification from TUV Rheinland Group. Becoming the world’s first explosion-proof, waterproof, dustproof, 5G, and GPS-supported XR device. This is not only a great advance in AR and 5G technology but also a breakthrough in AR explosion-proof applications in the industrial field. Many users at the event said after the trial that safety headsets are comfortable to wear and are highly competitive products in the market. It not only effectively ensures the safety of front-end staff, but also helps oil and gas fields increase production capacity.

Rokid Air Pro, a powerful binocular AR glasses, features voice control to help you enjoy a wide variety of media including games, movies, and augmented reality experiences. Rokid Glass 2, provided real-time analysis, views, and documents to the control center, and successfully improved traffic management and prevention to ensure the long- term stability of the city.

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Enterprise XR. Immersive technologies are an attractive solution for enterprises seeking to increase productivity while reducing costs. Virtual training and simulation can give companies a competitive advantage by delivering a knowledge retention rate of as much as 80% – four times that of traditional methods. VRDays’ Enterprise XR program will feature VR/AR suppliers of virtual training and simulation tools, European industry use cases, and speakers offering specific guidelines to help any company deploy immersive technologies.

Training & Simulation – Rescue. VRDays’ Training & Simulation – Rescue program will feature speakers discussing how immersive technologies can contribute to educating healthcare professionals and first responders. How should virtual simulations be designed in order to give the most accurate representation of real-life interventions? How can institutions combine traditional and virtual training methods? Industry partners will present a selection of best cases of virtual training for police, defense, firefighters and medics with the goal of inspiring institutions to invest in technology that will prepare professionals for the future.

Visit here to learn more and register. And, don’t miss out on the AREA’s support and participation in this event; our Executive Director, Mark Sage, will be supporting the session ‘Enterprise XR’ as an industry expert and,  we’ll be hosting a virtual AREA ‘area’. There’s lots to look forward to, not to mention that we’ve secured a special member’s discount with the organisers.

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VRX Immersive Enterprise – Unleash the Full Potential of XR in Enterprise – 21/22 May, Boston

I’m always excited to attend enterprise-focused events like VRX. This was my second year and it continues to grow. The speakers were excellent, albeit perhaps focusing more on VR than AR. This year I moderated a panel titled – AR for enterprise – What’s happening now and what does the future hold?

I was joined by:

• Rich Rabbitz, Lockheed Martin – I’ve been lucky to chair a number of panels with Rich, he is an expert and practitioner in the AR space.
• Doug House, Porsche Cars of North America – Doug and his team have pioneered the use of remote assistance to make service at its dealerships hugely more efficient.
• Caroline McManus, PTC – Caroline is a Senior Market Strategy Analyst, Augmented Reality and was able to provide real insight and experience to the panel.

 We covered the key use cases being implemented in the industry, the benefits / ROI (both tangible and intangible) that the companies deploying AR have received, and the challenges they have had to overcome (including convincing stakeholders to invest, safety, security and technology issues). A great panel and engaged audience!

As part of the AREA’s media agreement with VRX, I offered and ran a mini-master class on Enterprise AR. This intimate, interactive workshop was a great way to present the work of the AREA. The focus is on highlighting its members thought leadership, explaining the key use cases (problems being solved), case studies (examples of companies deploying use cases) and how to overcome potential barriers to adoption. A good session with lots of positive feedback!

AWE US – 29– 31 May, Santa Clara

After a few days back in the UK, I once again boarded a plane to the US – this time, Santa Clara. This was my fourth time at AWE US, an event that is always well-attended with the expo floor growing year over year. The number of speaker tracks has also increased.

The AREA was unable to secure a speaking slot this year but did run a very successful AREA meetup. With an 8 am start on Thursday morning, coffee and doughnuts fuelled the conversation. Our thanks to AREA member PISON for allowing us to use their meeting room. Over 50 earlier birds attended and heard from AREA sponsor / board members. Brian Vogelsang from Qualcomm, Marc Schuetz from PTC, Christine Perey from PEREY Research and Consulting, Jay Kim from Upskill, and Peter Tortorici from Medtronic all discussed the experiences, insights, and benefits they have gained from AREA membership.

We also heard from a few of the AREA Committee chairs (the AREA runs monthly calls focusing on working together to reduce barriers to AR adoption including Research, Safety, Security, Human Factors, Marketing and Requirements). Tony Hodgson from Brainwaive (Security Committee Chair) and Christine Perey (Research Committee Chair) spoke about the objectives and deliverables from their respective groups.

Back home for a few days, bags packed and I’m excited to attend…

LiveWorx 2019 – 11 – 13 June, Boston

It was my first visit to LiveWorx and really enjoyed the experience! The event is focused on helping companies digitally transform. PTC CEO (and AREA member) Jim Heppelmann delivered a keynote that covered a wide range of solutions including the latest PTC AR technology, featuring live demos of many of PTC solutions. There were also many speaking tracks, including one dedicated to AR.

I was delighted to present the work of the AREA in a 45-minute session titled “The State of Enterprise AR.” We drew a sizeable audience, and I was able to cover many subjects including: the history of AR (using Gartner’s hype cycle); the key use cases being deployed; and the how the AREA’s research work – including the AREA ROI Calculator,  Research in AR Wearable Security and AR Human Factors and Safety framework – are helping to overcome barriers to adoption.

The AREA members wanted to offer an in-depth, insightful and comprehensive workshop, so I was honoured to be joined by Shelley Peterson (Lockheed Martin), Mary Claire McLaughlin and Rachel Boykin (Newport News Shipbuilding) and Chris Ambrose (Strategy Analytics) in running a 90-minute workshop.

With a focus on interaction, the attendees were able to ask any questions to the team. We covered a wide range of topics on enterprise AR, from detailed questions on use cases to ROI and benefits. We also addressed a wide range of barriers and how these companies had successfully deployed AR. It was a great session and the feedback was amazing, with everyone who attended thanking the team for their honest insight and feedback. It was a great way to finish the event season!

Thank you to the event producers, the companies sponsoring and the attendees. Our industry continues to grow and with more real-world case studies and enterprises deploying AR solutions, I look forward to kicking off the 2019 second-half event season!

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The Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) kindly hosted the workshop which saw more than 70 participants from a range of industries, including energy/utilities, buildings and infrastructure, aerospace, defence, industrial equipment, mining, automotive and consumer high tech, converge on the shop floor of Factory 2050 for a jam-packed series of presentations, interactive workshops, demonstrations and networking.

Day 1 was opened by AREA Executive Director Mark Sage and AREA President Paul Davies, who delivered a high-level overview of AR, supported by leading companies and AREA members who have deployed AR. ExxonMobil, Welsh Water and Boeing all helped paint a detailed picture by sharing their use cases, experiences and challenges.

We then heard from Jordi Boza of Vuzix who shared his thoughts and ideas of how to get started in AR followed by a presentation by Atheer that took attendees through a case study showing how Porsche transformed automotive dealer services with AR.

The last session of the day was an intense, hands-on session presented by the AREA’s Dr. Michael Rygol who helped attendees get under the skin of AR by discussing and documenting use cases and their key requirements in working groups. Presentations by attendees led to some healthy debate and interesting insights. The day was finished off with an informal networking session where participants had the opportunity to take a closer look at some of the organisations who were there with demo tables and to connect with colleagues both old and new.

The second day was an early start at 8am and then straight into a presentation from Theorem Solutions on the cognitive gap and potential of XR technologies followed by a lively panel discussion on workforce challenges led by AREA Board member Christine Perey of PEREY Research & Consulting with representation from Boeing, ExxonMobil and VW Group UK. We then explored more on the AREA’s Research capability by looking at past projects before jumping into a master class on AR human-centred design from London-based ThreeSixtyReality. A full agenda took us into a presentation on Human Factors and related safety challenges and a pre-recorded session on overcoming the challenges of AR security followed by a polished presentation from Microsoft on their MR strategy and the eagerly anticipated HoloLens 2. A three-minute provider pitch finished off a jam-packed day before participants headed home.

In summary, the depth and range of content and sessions provided participants with a framework within which to navigate (or continue navigating) their own AR journeys. Among the takeaways:

• Staying in the AR game is tough. Organisations should consider both the opportunities and limitations of the current evolving environment.
• The AR supplier ecosystem is continuing to grow, offering new and varied opportunities.
• Clearer understanding and definition of the barriers to adoption (including safety, security, user experience) and paths forward to overcome these is essential.
• Sound, appropriate use cases are key to learning more about AR. The number of use cases where AR delivers value continues to grow (and we need to capture and share these – hence the ASoN initiative from the AREA).
• Digital eyewear to support AR is maturing rapidly (e.g., new models from Vuzix and Microsoft). Ensure you stay informed on new developments.
• There is broad interest in AR across a number of industries – from industrial flooring to mining.
• Considering the business benefits of AR is essential to obtaining buy-in from stakeholders and decision-makers.
• There may be significant issues around safety and security where AR is concerned. Don’t ignore them.

The AREA annual workshop is an opportunity for members and non-members to connect, learn and share more on AR. We at the AREA are fortunate to have the opportunity to do this annually and it wouldn’t be possible this year without the valuable support of AREA members and our sponsors: Theorem Solutions, PTC, Vuzix and Atheer.

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Augmented Reality, and how it converges with IoT, AI, Cloud and Edge Computing technologies, was among the loudest and brightest themes of Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona 2019.

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The workshop objectives included:

• Discussing five widely-validated AR use cases to collaboratively derive a set of structured and related requirements;
• Generating new content for the AREA’s recently launched AREA Statements of Need (ASON) management tool;
• Providing networking opportunities

Following the introductions, Nicole Le Minous and Muriel Deschanel, of B<>COM (a Technology Research Institute focused on digital technologies, based in France) presented insights from a recent survey of 77 participants regarding AR use cases and challenges. The presentation is now available to download.

Michael then discussed the need for structured and connected use cases and requirements in order to help move the AR ecosystem forward, with reference to the ASON taxonomy. The goals were to help vendors understand the AR requirements of their customers; and to provide companies seeking to use AR with a neutral view of needs from the industry itself.

The AREA’s ASON provides users with the ability to manage, connect, review and report numerous artifacts used to help articulate a neutral set of needs. Such artifacts include business process scenarios, use cases, requirements, personas, industries and settings, and more to help create an actionable repository of connected data.

The audience was then organized into five groups, each of which included AR users, suppliers and researchers. Each group discussed its overview use case definition and applied it to a setting of their choice, from which they created a set of requirements. These use cases were (with the group-chosen specific application in parentheses):

1. Remote assistance with AR (onsite troubleshooting with a remote expert in an industrial setting)
2. AR for complex assembly (factory assembly of medical devices)
3. Inspection and quality assurance with AR (as-built vs. as-designed inspection for hotel construction)
4. Virtual user interfaces with AR (utilities controls within restricted access buildings)
5. AR for training (rapid training and instructions for business audio/video hardware installations)

To finish, a representative from each group presented a summary of their discussions.

The workshop was a very useful exercise and the content captured is now being entered into ASON for further use by the AREA community.

The post AREA-supported ISMAR 2018 Workshop Explores Enterprise AR Requirements appeared first on AREA.

For me, the highlights of the AR/VR Summit were the presentations by early adopters of AR and VR. We heard talks on implementations in Healthcare, Education, Entertainment, and Retail/eCommerce. Presenters included representatives from: Japanese telco KDDI; the National Institute of Education; Deloitte; the Singapore Radiological Society; payment provider Wirecard; and a few small Enterprise AR providers.

These speakers shared their expertise, use cases, and useful tips for a successful AR/VR implementation. The overall tone was guarded optimism. While they generally agreed that AR/VR offers great promise, many presenters stressed the need to carefully calibrate customers’ expectations in the near term.

I took advantage of the opportunity to introduce participants to the AREA – who we are and how we are working with our members and the ecosystem to advance the successful implementation of enterprise AR. It was a promising first step in developing the AREA ecosystem in Singapore and Asia-Pacific.

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It’s a great offer, but it’s only good through Sunday, July 22, so act now. Click here to register and save €100!

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