In our previous post about the event we focused on the exhibits and demonstrations of enterprise Augmented Reality found on the CES exhibition floor. But to cast CES as only an exhibition experience is shortsighted. Discussions and demonstrations of enterprise Augmented Reality during the four-day event were not limited to the vast and crowded exhibition halls.

Beyond the Exhibition Halls

Some companies, including Atheer, an AREA founding sponsor member, were demonstrating their new hands-free display technology and development kit in private suites. Such environments are more conducive to advancing business discussions with potential partners and customers.Some of those prospective new partners and customers joined AREA members and guests on the evening of January 6.

Some of those prospective new partners and customers joined AREA members and guests on the evening of January 6. Over 40 enterprise AR providers and customers gathered for casual networking during which members provided insights and shared their views on enterprise Augmented Reality trends. The international crowd included representatives from Portugal, Spain, Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Germany, France and, of course, the United States.  

Augmented Reality in the CES Conference

In addition to featuring the DAQRI Smart Helmet during the Intel keynote, this year CES also featured enterprise AR during a panel discussion in which I participated on behalf of the AREA. While I shared the stage with Christopher Stapleton of Simyosis, Neil Trevett of NVIDIA and Ralph Osterhout of Osterhout Design Group (ODG), Mashable’s Tech Editor Pete Pachal moderated the “What’s Next for Augmented Reality?” session.

We began by debating the age-old question of whether it is important for customers to understand the differences between Virtual and Augmented Reality. The confusion between these two concepts lingers and increases the risk of customers thinking that Augmented Reality is “just a game” or a gimmick.  In the end, we agreed that when there is an opportunity, a first-hand demonstration quickly clarifies the differences between AR and VR. 

We explored the wide range of use cases for Augmented Reality and shared opinions about which industries or use cases would be likely to break out in 2016. Panelists also explored if and when interoperability might come and the role of emotions as part of delivering meaningful value to users.

The Future

Despite its name, CES isn’t just a consumer electronics or technology show. In my opinion, it’s currently the world’s most important event when it comes to seeing and trying on the latest (and future) enterprise Augmented Reality hardware. And, even if the environment does not lend itself to realistic demonstrations, touching new hardware is extremely important when making buying decisions. This is the appeal that motivates customers and providers to make plans to attend CES, then drives them to crawl the halls looking for those high value partners.

“The quality of the discussions at CES is far more mature than in past years,” Jay Kim, Chief Strategy Officer of APX Labs, remarked to me. “This year we’re spending very little time explaining the concept of Augmented Reality or the use cases for it, and having more meaningful discussions with new partners and customers.”

While the establishment of new contacts made at CES is a compelling benefit, converting those to customers and generating new revenue streams or highly successful enterprise AR projects remains a year-long (or longer) process.

Furthermore, CES logistics are an issue. Getting to Las Vegas for the event is fraught with problems due to congested air traffic. The accommodations are expensive; it’s also painfully difficult to navigate the large exhibition halls. There’s a lot of waiting around in long lines. While waiting or walking around it’s common to feel that there are people we should be meeting but who, due to lack of time or high congestion, we miss.

What do you think? Do so many people really need to endure this annual punishment to see the future of enterprise Augmented Reality hardware first-hand?  Did you attend CES 2016 and have observations you can share with us?

As with other new technology introductions, enterprise Augmented Reality projects are fraught with familiar and new risks. To move forward with enterprise AR projects on reasonable budgets and schedules, it’s important to acknowledge the existence of risks and to find ways to creatively manage them.

Risk 101

Managers should take a short course on risk as part of their preparation for taking on Augmented Reality introduction projects. One of the first lessons in risk management offers different ways to classify and prioritize the risk types or sources. 

To my view, there are four classes of risk for enterprise Augmented Reality:

• Technological maturity risks
• Financial risks
• User acceptance risks 
• Regulatory/corporate policy risks

While this is good theory, in practice most risks are interconnected. Sometimes addressing one risk increases another.  Furthermore, the type of project will impact the number and type of risks within each class.

Bring in All the Project Stakeholders

Just as with other aspects of Augmented Reality, management of risks is a multi-disciplinary process. It’s important to have representatives of all the stakeholders in the discussion of risk and to keep them engaged as the project advances to monitor and adjust the risk assessment.

For example, a representative from your corporate finance group will have different perspectives than the representative of the labor union. The IT department will keep an eye on security and the safety managers will be looking for a different set of risk sources.

If possible, establish a shared risk tracking system for the project and maintain a schedule of regular reviews.  Some risks are reduced or eliminated quickly while others could escalate and derail a very promising project.

Where Rubber Meets the Road

In the end, all stakeholders realize that, as with any new technology introduction, there’s not a silver bullet that will remove all known and imagined risks. The best the project manager can aim for is reasonable management of risk.

Watch the AREA webinar archive to learn more about this topic and recommendations to project managers. AREA members will also be discussing how they have approached or address these risks in real world settings.

This year, enterprise Augmented Reality was highly visible at the CES, the tech industry’s gathering in Las Vegas.

Enterprise Augmented Reality’s first “prime time moment” of 2016 was when Brian Mullins, CEO of DAQRI, an AREA founding sponsor member, was invited by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich to the CES main stage. During the event’s pre-show keynote address, thousands of media and analysts and tens of thousands of attendees watched as an assistant wearing the shiny white helmet examined a maze of pipes. As Mullins described the DAQRI Smart Helmet’s features and benefits, video output of the helmet, including pipes with readings visible in Augmented Reality, appeared on the stage’s mega screens.

Rising Numbers

Although it lasted less than five minutes of the nearly two-hour keynote, DAQRI’s Smart Helmet demonstration caught the attention of major media outlets and produced dozens of interviews, posts and articles. And, with this coverage, enterprise attendees at CES and tens of thousands of professionals who have watched (or will watch) the segment since its enactment can more easily understand that enterprise Augmented Reality has the potential to improve workplace performance and reduce risk.

While many new customers are only beginning to understand its potential, many of those who have done pilots and are now seeking to go to scale also attended CES 2016. Visitors from hundreds of large enterprises such as Caterpillar, Phillips 66, Pratt & Whitney, CNH Industrial and Northrup Grumman, and dozens of government agencies and smart cities, including Brussels, Amsterdam and New York, were prowling around the booths of AR technology vendors, listening carefully and asking probing questions about volume pricing and service options.

If the DAQRI Smart Helmet had been worn around the 2.47 million square feet of CES exhibition floor, it would have helped its user to find DAQRI’s demonstration which was featured in a corner of the Intel booth alongside the AR-assisted sand table provided by Design Mill, also an AREA founding sponsor member.

It could also have helped customers find other AREA members including Bosch and Huawei, and APX Labs, which had demonstrations in both the Sony and Vuzix booths. The helmet might have led its user to nearly 80 other booths where enterprise Augmented Reality-enabling technologies or systems were featured. While small in comparison with the total 3,800 CES exhibitors, 2016 brought out nearly double the number of relevant exhibitors and demonstrations we found in 2015. In 2016, most AR exhibitors at CES were showing or using transparent hands-free display technology or components with which such products are manufactured.

Its Own Marketplace

CES helps visitors focus on product segments by creating zones it refers to as “marketplaces.” At the center of the large Virtual Reality and Gaming Marketplace was a perpetual line of attendees wrapped around the giant black Oculus booth patiently waiting for their turn to sit in a theater while wearing a VR display for 10 minutes.

Next to it was the first and significantly smaller CES Augmented Reality Marketplace, where exhibitors included Marxent, Matter & Form, Occipital, Lumus Optical, VanGogh Imaging, InfinityAR, ODG and Sony Electronics.

ODG had the Augmented Reality Marketplace’s largest footprint dedicated to enterprise AR demonstrations. Inside a closely guarded cage (a miniature “marketplace” within the CES Augmented Reality Marketplace) were members of the ODG Reticle Partner Program showing their solutions to increase workplace safety, improve productivity and streamline complex workflows. Demonstrations by Optech4D, Vital Enterprises, Augmenta, and ScopeAR featured utilities, oil and gas, aerospace, logistics and automotive industry use cases, while other parts of the booth allowed visitors to discover ODG’s R-7 and to try on the next generation device sporting a 1080p resolution and 50-degree field of view display. ODG suggests that users of the next generation smart glasses will also have the ability to control opacity, offering both optical see-through Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality experiences with the same device.

Also within the CES Augmented Reality Marketplace:

• Sony had a small booth in which several partners were demonstrating enterprise solutions using SmartEyeglass and a station showing the new Rochester Optical lenses.
• InfinityAR demonstrated an Augmented Reality-assisted office using its 3D tracking based on the company’s stereoscopic camera technology combined with an InvenSense IMU.
• Nearby, Lumus was showing its latest optics for integration into smartglasses and its new developer kit. The company announced that it has entered in partnership with InfinityAR and SUNCORPORATION, a Japanese IT and entertainment provider, to use its optics in AceReal, a new product targeting enterprise markets.

Surrounding the Augmented Reality Marketplace were many vendors showing the latest mobile 3D scanning systems that capture the real world when authoring AR experiences. Partnerships with these providers should accelerate the speed of authoring AR experiences. For example, VanGogh Imaging announced that it has integrated its advanced tracking technology with 3D capture technology provided by Orbbec3D, a newcomer to this product segment.

But the CES Augmented Reality Marketplace didn’t meet all the relevant exhibitors’ budgets or requirements, so finding other examples of enabling technology and enterprise Augmented Reality experiences involved careful research and route planning. 

Beyond the Marketplace

Augmented Reality was in many of the automotive industry booths as a feature of new “safe driving” technology packages and a future component of automated or computer-assisted driving. Although these consumer-facing solutions are quickly coming to market, the same technologies could also be made available for helping workers to navigate, operate or service their trucks, forklifts or other types of industrial vehicles.

Elsewhere there were dozens of enterprise AR use cases illustrated. In the Dassault Systems booth, Augmented and Mixed Reality were shown as part of a creative data-driven workflow. In Vuzix’s CES booth, partners using the M100 were illustrating use cases in service, maintenance and logistics. XOEye Technologies conducted regular remote service calls with representatives at Lee Company, its customer based in Nashville, TN. The printed brochure and industrial design of M300 were available at one of the stands but, unfortunately, working models for demonstration purposes were not. The latest Vuzix VR and video streaming products for consumers occupied the other half of the booth and received considerable attention.

The latest products for enterprise Augmented Reality were also being shown in Sands Expo by:

• Optinvent, a French provider of optics and fully integrated eyewear
• Brilliant Service, a Japanese company, introducing mirama, eyewear targeting industrial users
• Sharing the booth with Brilliant Service was Telepathy, which showed its new “Walker” product targeting Augmented Reality gamers
• Ryosho, a Japanese company which is distributing the InfoLinker, manufactured by Westunities,in Japan and internationally (from its office in San Jose, CA)

In Westgate hall, the spokespeople in the expansive AltoTech booth explained that the company is preparing to launch its next generation of the Cool Glass product which, despite several differentiators, closely resembles Google Glass. AltoTech plans to release the next generation Cool Glass product internationally from its new offices in the US as well as in China later this year.

To read my observations about other CES 2016 features and highlights, please read the second post on this topic.

Were there CES announcements that you want everyone to know about? What did you find most valuable at CES 2016? Share your thoughts in comments below.

Technical communicators are a technology-savvy audience so they’ve read and heard about Augmented Reality. But most people in this role have yet to acquire knowledge about how it works and hands-on experience with the tools. The 2015 edition of tcworld, the annual conference of the European Association for Technical Communication (tekom), offered a unique opportunity for attendees to satisfy their curiosity and begin filling the gaps in their understanding of this new technology, but left them hungry for more.

Held in Stuttgart, Germany, from November 10-12, tcworld drew over 4,200 delegates from 48 countries and featured ten sessions on Augmented Reality topics. To view abstracts of the Augmented Reality track sessions, you can select “Augmented Reality” from the “Topic Area” drop-down menu on the English language program here, and the German program here. All seats were filled and people stood along the walls during the AR sessions delivered in German, the primary language of business for the attendees and, while there remained open seats, English language sessions were also well attended.

Technical Communication Toolsets and AR Demos

In addition to the conference sessions, tcworld has an extensive exhibition floor. Over 200 vendors offering software and services filled two halls. In their own zone there were a half dozen technical communication associations, several emphasizing localization. Some exhibitors, such as Bosch, Cognitas, Semcon, Kothes! and others, demonstrated that their tools could produce and manage Augmented Reality experiences, and the added value of AR as an alternative or extension of traditional user manuals and service documentation. Although many questions about AR delivery hardware platforms such as smart glasses were asked, the tcworld vendors’ AR demonstrations exclusively used tablets. The Oculus Rift demonstration in the Canon/Cognitas booth attracted curious visitors, many of whom were unclear on the distinctions between VR and AR.

Some vendors shared that, compared with last year’s offerings, they are able in 2015 to demonstrate improved object tracking and more complete AR-enabled systems as a result of dedicating more internal resources to research and development. It’s clear that both those in the aisles and the booths consider AR a promising new technical information visualization and delivery method.

Enterprise Augmented Reality Use Cases

In contrast to some other events focusing on AR topics, the tcworld AR session speakers consistently featured real world use cases for the technology. Their high-quality presentations highlighted practical benefits of introducing AR, such as how employees can do their jobs faster and better with the technology, rather than using AR as a marketing gimmick to sell more products.

For example, Andrew Head of Semcon Product Information described and then demonstrated an AR-assisted training use case executed as part of a project with J.C. Bamford Excavators Limited (JCB).

In this use case, overlays of engine maintenance information offer advantages over standard service manuals such as:

• Improved learning efficiency and knowledge retention as a result of users associating instructions with an object’s features and visual cues, thus promoting spatial learning.
• Increased awareness and retention of the safety regulations, as a result of users being required to read regulations prior to starting the AR-based experiences.

Head reported that users were generally happy with the technology and were motivated to explore its further usage, asking such questions as, “When can I get this on my phone?”

In another presentation, Dirk Schart of RE’FLEKT GmbH presented projects underway for urban dwellers and service technicians and described experience delivery on a variety of AR-enabled devices, such as smartphones and smart glasses.

Specifically, Schart described use cases involving:

• An AR-enabled emergency responders’ system (such as this one) for firemen that displays a user interface projected on a fireman’s glove and features remote streaming with dispatchers.
• A smart helmet by AREA member DAQRI for providing both hard hat protection and AR visualization in the field of view.
• A tangible UI developed by the MIT Media Lab, permitting AR-based visualization of additional user interface features overlaid on products.
• Hybrid-city lighting that uses projection AR to guide pedestrians along walkways.
• An AR-enabled window created by RE’FLEKT and displaying information for passengers as part of the Hyperloop transportation system.

Robert Schaefer of TID Informatik GmbH and Daniel Schultheiss of AllVisual presented interesting AR-assisted helicopter maintenance use cases, developed on the basis of the CAD models of Schaefer’s CATALOGcreator product.

The product not only enables real time guidance of mechanics in their daily work, but it showcases another, and just as important aspect of enterprise AR: the visualization of enterprise data and its role in industry 4.0.

Schultheiss spoke about the sheer amounts of data collected by their helicopters before, during and after flight, and how they leverage the data to enhance maintenance. For example, in-flight data can be collected and used for both (predictive) maintenance and insurance. They use tool chains from SAP, TID Informatik and Wikitude to simplify tablet-enabled helicopter servicing, and have developed an integrated data model and cloud technologies to support efficient data collection and usage.

Requirements for Augmented Reality Systems

Several sessions focused on practical aspects of implementing Augmented Reality systems in enterprise.

Representatives from Bosch shared their experiences and challenges with AR projects, and compiled a list of the right questions to ask. The presentation revisited many of the themes that AREA member representative Juergen Lumera spoke about at the AR in Automotive conference in Cologne on October 5^th. 

Simone Schappert, a Masters student at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences provided a survey of tools and technologies for incorporating Augmented Reality in work instructions, and explained the basics of tracking methods (such as marker and markerless tracking), as well as the current landscape of tool vendors. She emphasized the strengths of AR technology in user manuals, such as providing a more immediately helpful (and emotional) experience for users.

In another session of the AR track, Rob Heemels from Canon Business Services discussed the creation of a Learning Activity Plan (LAP) using inputs from intelligent devices and sensors with Augmented Reality (along with some VR) for presentation. Based on recent projects with the Dutch Océ International Training Center

Mixed and Augmented Reality increases target audience engagement with training materials when the service professionals are remote. Professionals who successfully use mixed and Augmented Reality as part of training are likely to feel comfortable with extending its use in service and support use cases.

Augmented Reality is Technical Communication

At heart, the visualization of data in context with Augmented Reality is an important development in the field of technical communication. The presence of AR as a topic in the conference presentations, as well as the interest of traditional technical communication vendors for the technology serves are clear evidence of AR’s growing role. We’re sure to see increasing numbers of AR use cases in the workplace, as well as sessions at tcworld.

Did you attend tcworld 2015? What were your impressions of the Augmented Reality offerings? Leave your comment below.

Enterprise Augmented Reality engineers and content managers who published experiences created with Metaio’s software tools have or will soon encounter a situation they didn’t anticipate: the publishing and delivery environments are unsupported and not evolving to take advantage of the latest enabling technologies.

Are you among this group? If so, you are not the only one to find yourself in this uncomfortable situation.

If there was a mandate to continue providing the value of their AR experiences to end users, customers of other AR software providers who are no longer supporting or advancing their platforms with the latest technology innovations hit the same roadblock. Prior to agreement on standards, they could not “port” their experiences to another AR platform. Evaluating and choosing another proprietary AR technology platform, and then investing in re-authoring, testing and re-deploying AR experiences based on their original designs, was the only way forward.

Unfortunately, some of those reading this blog are in this awkward position today.

Successfully addressing the root causes of low AR experience “portability” and the inherent lack of integration or interoperability between AR authoring and publishing systems is an important, highly collaborative process.  Different parts of the AR ecosystem must agree that there are issues, firstly, and then on principles for collaboration. Then, based on shared conceptual frameworks, they must work together towards implementing those principles in their workflows and solutions.

Supporting that collaborative process is the reason I’ve been leading the grassroots community for open and interoperable Augmented Reality content and experiences since 2009.

Is There Really a Problem?

Interoperable Augmented Reality is not a high priority for most people. Only about a hundred people are consistently investing their time in advancing the principles of open and interoperable Augmented Reality. We know one another on a first name basis; many of us compare notes in person a few times per year. Another few hundred people know of such activities but don’t directly invest in meaningful ways.

For most companies, the investment in AR has not been great. A few tens of thousands of dollars to rebuild and deploy a half dozen carefully handcrafted AR experiences is minor by comparison to investments in other enterprise technologies. 

“There’s still too much innovation to begin working on standards,” is another commonly heard refrain. Clearly they haven’t been reading the posts or listening to the presentations made by AREA member IEEE Standards Association, or leaders of other standards development groups. When designed collaboratively and to address interoperability in strategic places, there are many examples of standards doing the reverse.

There are other reasons for many to turn a blind eye to the problems. They are valid for different people to different levels.

This is a Serious Problem

In my opinion, ignoring the lack of open and interoperable Augmented Reality solutions and services is doing everyone a disservice.

The fact that only a relatively low amount of money has been invested to date is a poor justification for investing yet more time and money into building experiences with another proprietary platform, only to have the same scenario in a matter of months or years.

In fact, innovation in Augmented Reality is not what it should be today because many of the best AR developers are building a better mouse trap: smart engineers are working to solve problems that have, for the most part been solved by others, in a different way. Whether it’s for reasons of avoiding encroachment on a third party’s patents or something else, this investment of effort is in highly integrated proprietary silos and at the expense of solving other problems that remain unaddressed.

There are three more serious problems with having only proprietary technology silos and very low use of widely agreed standards for Augmented Reality experiences. The first of these is that enterprises with assets that could be leveraged for AR experiences are unable to integrate production of AR experiences into their corporate workflows. This lack of integration between AR as a method of information delivery and other information delivery systems (e.g., web pages and mobile services without AR support) means we can’t seriously stand before a CIO and recommend they support the development of AR content. What we are recommending requires setting up another entirely separate and different content management system.

In the same vein, the second reason that enterprise CIOs and CFOs are justifiably reluctant to deepen their investment in AR projects is that they cannot deploy modular architectures in which multiple vendors can propose different components. In today’s landscape of offerings, it’s all or nothing. The customer can buy into provider A’s system or that offered by provider B. If provider C comes along with a better option, too bad.

The third reason the lack of standards is a serious problem worthy of your support is closely related to the other two. Deep collaboration between AR-enabling technology vendors (providers of technologies) and service providers is currently very difficult.  They are not working to improve customer outcomes: they are working much more on competing with one another for attention and for the small investments that might be made.

Three serious enterprise AR obstacles that agreements about open and interoperable AR could reduce

1. Low or lack of content or experience portability between proprietary technology silos

2. Strong customer aversion to risks due to vendor lock-in

3. Low cooperation between competitors or ecosystem members to partner for best customer outcomes

This situation with lack of interoperability and fear of vendor lock-in would be addressed if the vendors took a more serious look at possible open interfaces and standards within a larger framework. Conversely, vendors might study new approaches and establish some level of interoperability if they believed that customers would respond by increasing their budgets for Augmented Reality.

This is all very serious.

Another recent development is not helping: it’s clear that some internet and IT giants are paying a lot of attention to AR. The lack of visibility into what highly competitive and successful companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple and PTC will do about AR interoperability and integration has cast a very cold spell over enterprise AR adoption.

Their lack of support for standards and their unwillingness (to date) to shed light in a public way on how they will cooperate or how their proposed (future) systems will interoperate is causing so much uncertainty. No CIO or CFO should seriously invest in enterprise Augmented Reality until these companies’ plans with respect to integration and interoperability are clearer.

Progress is Being Made

We should be open to the possibility that 2016 will be different.

Thanks to the dedication of members of the grassroots community, the situation is not as bleak as it could be. A few weeks ago a few dozen members met in Seoul, Korea, to compare notes on progress. SK Telecom, a strong supporter of open and interoperable Augmented Reality, hosted two days of sessions. We heard status updates from four standards organizations that have highly relevant activities ongoing (Khronos Group, Open Geospatial Consortium, IEEE and ISO/IEC). We also received reports from AR developers who are working to advance their solutions to support standards.

The fact that the ISO/IEC JTC1 Joint Adhoc Group for Mixed and Augmented Reality Reference Model is nearing completion of its work is a major development about which I presented in Seoul.

In the spirit of full disclosure: the community of people in support of open and interoperable AR was the environment in which this work began, and I have been a member of that ad hoc group since its formation. If you would like to obtain a draft of the Mixed and Augmented Reality Reference Model, please send me an email request.

We are also seeing increased interest from industry-centric groups. There is a German government supported project that may propose standards for use in automotive industry AR. The results of an EU-funded project for AR models in manufacturing became the basis for the establishment of the IEEE P1589 AR Learning Experience Model working group (which I co-chair). In a recent meeting of oil and gas industry technologists, formation of a new group to work on requirements for hands-free display hardware was proposed.

These are all encouraging signs that some are thinking about open and interoperable Augmented Reality. If you want to monitor the activities of the grassroots community focusing on this topic, and to receive announcements of upcoming meetings, visit this page and register yourself for one or more of the mailing lists.

Have you seen other signs that there is increasing awareness of the problems? Do you know about any new standards that should be monitored by and presented during a future meeting of the grassroots community?

Many workplace scenarios require use of both hands to manipulate physical world objects. Having a display on the wrist or head (or both) with a variety of sensors and optional cloud services, offers attractive alternatives to tablets for supporting access to real time or contextual information.

According to a Gartner Group report shared at the Enterprise Wearable Technology Summit (EWTS), sales of head-mounted displays will be greater in enterprise than consumers until at least 2020.

Unfortunately, the interest in enterprise wearable computing is not currently being addressed by consumer technology providers.

Connecting Those with Questions to Those with Experience

What are current enterprise customer requirements? What have enterprise wearable pioneers learned? What are enterprise customers’ best options today? These were among the questions that the EWTS organizer, BrainXchange, set out to answer.

BrainXchange chose Houston for its inaugural event on October 20-21, 2015.  The city is a business center for the oil and gas industry and is reachable from an international airport as well as from both coasts of the US.

Over 150 delegates from at least six countries gathered to hear from 60 speakers, including many veterans of the Google Glass Explorer program and vendors looking for new customers. The format offered plenty of networking in a convivial and relaxed atmosphere. 

AREA Members at EWTS

AREA Member	Role
	Sponsor
	Speaker
	Speaker
	Delegate in attendance
	Delegate in attendance

Criteria for Enterprise Wearable Success

There is wide agreement with the simple guidance that Joe White, VP and GM Enterprise Mobile Computing at Zebra Technologies offered during his opening remarks.  White recommends that enterprises focus on systems that are:

• Technically sound
• Socially acceptable
• Solve a problem

These criteria sound simple, but adhering to them requires careful research and planning. Many delegates at the summit who are shopping for wearable technologies don’t feel that the current commercial technology options are sufficiently mature for most of their use cases. One person confided that everything his team has evaluated to date “feels like a science project.”

Weight, balance and resolution remain significant technical obstacles but short battery life as a result of high power consumption continues to be high on the list of technology barriers.

One test of wearable display technology reliability is how well it performs in a live demo on stage. There were more videos than live demos, but Rafael Grossman, a highly promoted surgeon in the Google Glass Explorer program successfully demonstrated Atheer Labs’ AiR platform for the audience.

Another criteria added to White’s list over the course of the first day was cost. If devices are expensive to purchase and to operate or maintain, adoption and use will remain limited.

Regardless of the criteria and how firmly an organization wants to adhere to them, customers remain divided about what’s truly going to solve their problems. Some feel that their use cases require true Augmented Reality in enterprise. Others are, at least for the present, finding the “simple” delivery of live information or images to a wearable display (as currently done by Google Glass or Vuzix M-100) sufficient. In the opinion of those who use information “snacking” devices, real time registration and tracking of data in the real world are still expensive and technically difficult.

Connecting Remote Experts with those in the Field

Real time consultation between a remote expert and a person wearing a camera and display while performing difficult tasks is a highly compelling use case for most of the EWTS speakers. Although a few speakers mentioned their experience with AR-assisted remote assistance, the majority shared numerous and immediate benefits of having another “set of eyes” focused on a particular procedure.

For example, emergency medical technicians working on MedEx ambulances as part of the Google Glass Explorer program can transmit more information about injuries or patient conditions to emergency room staff ahead of their arrival at the hospital.

In another case study, a tradesperson working on a Rogers-O’Brien Construction job site can see and transmit the details of the job site and get guidance or feedback from an architect or supervisor in real time.

Some Industries Are Further Along

While the medical and construction industries were highly represented among the Enterprise Wearable Technology Summit speakers in Houston, some case studies and presentations highlighted the promise of wearable technology in the logistics industry. DHL and Ubimax described how they are working together to put their warehouse picking solution into production and conducting research on their next generation systems for pallet packing. 

Energy production and distribution were also frequently mentioned. John Simmins of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), an AREA member, spoke of projects underway in some power generating facilities. Speakers from CenterPoint Energy and Sullivan Solar Power also attested they are actively exploring the use of wearables in their businesses.

Many Challenges Remain

An entire event could focus exclusively on expected and promised technology improvements. For example, uneven network coverage and issues preventing secure access to off-device content came up frequently. But, EWTS did not limit its scope to technology barriers.

Getting wearables into production requires companies in highly regulated industries such as healthcare and construction to educate decision makers and executives and to negotiate creation of many new policies. Those are both very lengthy and costly processes.

Complex regulatory environments are but one item in the list of business challenges.

Lack of trust is another significant obstacle to adoption. Large enterprises are looking for vendors that are on the one hand nimble and responsive to special requirements while on the other endowed with the financial resources to quickly ramp up production for large orders.

Despite these and other challenges, wearables continue to hold enormous promise and will increasingly demand the attention of enterprise technology buyers and users. We can expect these to be on the agenda at future BrainXchange summits. The company announced that it will produce its next event in June 2016 on the East Coast, although details were not provided.

Are there events you plan to attend to learn about enterprise wearable technologies?

Augmented Reality offers tremendous opportunity for organizations to improve workforce productivity and reduce human error through increased contextual awareness and guidance. Whether implemented on a head-mounted display, on a tablet or through a stationary system, AR can deliver and collect information for a myriad of applications including training, manufacturing, field service and warehouse logistics.

It is an exciting time to join and participate in the AR ecosystem. Many companies are jumping in. Some are making tremendous advancements in wearable technology through miniaturization. Innovation at the silicon level is lowering power consumption and processing. Others are focusing on improvements in computer vision. Mobile systems including phones, tablets, watches and glasses are becoming more interconnected and integrated, and smart fabrics present the potential for a fully integrated mobile augmented human.

Truths are Difficult to Accept

Progress is being made but significant challenges to the effective development and deployment of AR within the enterprise environment remain. And, unfortunately, the hype around AR and the initial example demonstrations (and concept videos) have created the perception that AR is ready to go and can be easily implemented and deployed.

In truth, many technical issues still need to be solved to enable successful implementation and widespread use of AR for extended periods of time. Organizational issues including culture, security and safety are other significant barriers that must be addressed. Most current AR examples are custom developed for specific, focused applications with highly controlled conditions. And, the AR tools and technology provider and developer ecosystems are still immature. The path to AR success is not obvious.

We Are Working Together

The AREA is here to address these issues among others, and to create an environment for organizations—large and small—to learn, share and accelerate the adoption of AR in the enterprise.

Within the AREA, member organizations from around the world have committed to sharing their experiences and challenges in a collegial atmosphere to solve complex technical and implementation problems. AREA members represent a unique blend of AR end users, systems integrators, content developers, and technology providers as well as not-for-profit research centers and academic organizations from multiple industries. Through a combined program of thought leadership, education and outreach, best practices development and communication, and technology and implementation research, AREA members are actively building the community and knowledge base that will ensure successful implementation of AR-enabled information technology environments across the enterprise.

Meetings Make Member Collaboration Tangible

By joining the AREA you will become part of a global AR ecosystem. Our shared vision for the potential of enterprise AR infuses our member meetings, like the one in Houston on October 22. We are learning and sharing best practices. We collaborate to define the best problem-solving research, and to support workforce development.

As President of the AREA and as a Sponsor Member, I am witnessing, firsthand, the level of knowledge sharing and exchange across member organizations. It is clear to me that the AREA is the only organization that provides this opportunity for AR technology providers, developers and customers.

If you didn’t get to our recent member meeting, then this website is the best place to learn more about enterprise Augmented Reality and the benefits of joining the AREA. I invite you to take the next step by contacting me or Christine Perey, AREA’s executive director, to discuss how you can contribute and participate.

We look forward to welcoming you and collaborating with you at a future meeting!

Carl Byers
AREA President
Chief Strategy Officer at Contextere

This post originally was published in French on augmented-reality.fr.

Just before summer, we launched a survey to better understand the strategies of Augmented Reality developers following Metaio’s sudden change in circumstances. This blog post presents the results of our survey and our interpretations.

We launched the survey in mid-June and left it open over the summer of 2015. There was no specific respondent selection and therefore we cannot speak of any representative sample. However, with 63 responses, approximately 30 to 50% of whom were English speakers,  we decided that the dataset was sufficient to be representative.

First, we present the results of the survey. We then offer our interpretations.

Metaio Product Distribution

Respondents were mainly users of Metaio’s SDK, and slightly more than half were users of Metaio Creator. The Continuous Visual Search (CVS) tool is used relatively little by our sample. Although it is not easy to fully know respondents’ use of Metaio tools, we can assume that the majority of respondents work in or near development because only 2 of the 63 respondents exclusively use Metaio Creator.

The Impact on Business

The impact of Metaio’s cessation of its offers on the developers’ business is important, even if 16% of respondents do not see the effects. While 40% of respondents said they have alternatives to Metaio products, 34% said they do not.

Open Source Solutions

The use of an Open Source alternative to avoid the current situation is mixed. Although the survey was not specific about the capabilities of the offering, sixty percent of the respondents thought they would consider using an open source option, but a quarter of respondents remained uncertain.

Software Development Kits

Not surprisingly, developers responded that, alone or in combination, Vuforia and Wikitude were the best alternatives to the Metaio SDK. Other proposed alternatives included ARToolkit, Catchoom and ARmedia. However, it is important to note that the third most common answer among respondents was “I don’t know.”

Metaio Creator

Presently it seems that the vast majority of users have not found an alternative for Metaio Creator. Wikitude Studio is popular but Layar Creator,  though popular one or two years ago, no longer seems a viable alternative. It is surprising not to find Aurasma in the options considered by survey respondents.

Metaio Continuous Visual Search

The results concerning Metaio CVS proved difficult to interpret as few people use it. Although Vuforia Cloud Recognition gained slightly more traction than other proposed alternatives, CVS users are much more divided on alternatives overall.

Open Comments from the Survey

Comments we received from respondents raise a few salient points.  In particular, Metaio’s technical expertise and advanced solutions were noted. Despite Wikitude and Vuforia having the same capabilities, there is currently no product in Metaio’s class.

We also see bitterness against Apple as well as an awareness of the potential fragility of other alternatives.

General Remarks

Today there is no obvious miracle solution to take Metaio’s place. The impact of the company’s change in circumstances on developers clearly demonstrates the overall fragility of the global Augmented Reality ecosystem. It is rather surprising to me that a third of respondents have no viable alternatives to Metaio technology. Rumors of Vuforia’s sale by Qualcomm may make the situation even more complicated in the coming months.

Paradoxically, these uncertainties do not help in the establishment of an Open Source solution. Although half of respondents believe this would be a good thing, a quarter remains uncertain. After discussions with several companies specializing in Augmented Reality, I felt a certain reluctance to support an open source system, primarily due to fear of losing an advantage in terms of technical prowess. There is much to say about this and I plan to prepare a more complete article in the coming weeks. In fact RA’pro will launch an invitation for a debate on this topic via web conference in the near future.

Returning to alternative tools, there is not a lot of surprise in seeing mention of the major market players: Vuforia, Wikitude, ARToolkit, ARmedia, Catchoom, etc. I am personally amazed at the few mentions of Layar, which seems to be a relatively major player in the AR print arena. However, it is true that the absence of a freemium model does not facilitate adoption by small businesses. The total absence of Aurasma and Total Immersion in the responses was also surprising.

As a final note, no one really knows if Metaio’s place can be taken since Apple has made no statement on the future of the product. We can however, presume that Metaio technology will be integrated in future products and will, therefore, lose the cross-platform nature that made Metaio products successful.

What do you think? Please leave your comments below.

Use Cases for the Factory Floor

With successful conclusions of pilots and trials, Augmented Reality continues to move into areas where the overlay of virtual information promotes vehicle quality and helps employees work faster and better, but also where more experience with the technology is a prerequisite. As well, higher numbers of AR implementations put greater technical and organizational demands on projects.

One key trend is the growing number of use cases for Augmented Reality in pre- and post-production processes in the automotive industry. Vehicle design and development, and then final verification after assembly are the most popular use cases.

Lina Longhitano of Mercedes-Benz Vans leads the transformation of advanced manufacturing facilities through the Van Technology Center and has a wealth of experience with digital transformation in manufacturing and the use of Mixed and Augmented Reality in vehicle development. The center provides high-end visualization and analysis for ergonomics and buildability of vehicles.

In particular, she mentioned three Mixed Reality use cases for engineering:

• The visualization of out-of-position and validation of flexible parts.
• The overlay of digital crash simulation data on physical crash vehicles.
• Digital assembly and disassembly simulations with collision testing.

Mercedes-Benz Vans uses Augmented Reality for factory floor layout and design, as well as for visually inspecting components to assess differences between virtual and physical objects.

In a similar vein, Hermann Gross of Opel is putting AR to use in pre-production processes, especially in vehicle development and component integration. Opel’s Augmented Reality-assisted systems also verify the quality of physical vehicle mockups. Gross provides a number of examples for these, such as verifying the final position of parts and optimizing cable positioning. He revealed a number of benefits of AR, including:

• Shortening the duration of mockup builds and increasing their quality
• Speeding up problem solving
• Positively influencing data quality

On the other end of the production spectrum, Sebastian Rauh has in-depth knowledge about how Audi is using Augmented Reality for final assembly inspection. These range from vehicle start-up to engine parameter optimization and calibration of control units and sensor parameters. On behalf of Hochschule Heilbronn, Mr. Rauh is also working with Audi to design post-production verification workflows and equip personnel with Google Glass and the Epson Moverio BT-200 to execute tasks.

The Industrialization of Augmented Reality

Juergen Lumera of Bosch, an AREA sponsor member, is one of the first in automotive who is moving beyond simple AR prototypes and into larger deployments involving greater numbers of users, departments, processes and tools. Taking a holistic approach to the human, technological, financial and organizational aspects of incorporating AR technology across an enterprise, he outlined ways to expand projects beyond pilots. Mr. Lumera emphasized that AR adoption is a journey whose destination, as well as roadmap, has to be carefully planned in order to reduce risk and promote success.

Bosch’s Common Augmented Reality Platform (CAP) is an example of a system that integrates authoring and publishing of AR content across business units and technology silos, and can become part of a wider move towards the digital factory.

Matthias Ziegler of Accenture presented a framework for enterprise Augmented Reality adoption by Accenture’s clients and confirms the expanding interest in use of wearables that support AR for hands-free workplace performance. Accenture is expecting 212 billion devices and autonomously driven cars by 2020, with a doubling of IP traffic between 2013 and 2016. Bulky form factors will delay adoption by consumers, but Accenture sees enormous opportunity for hands-free AR-enabled displays in the enterprise space.

Their template, based on a number of pilot projects, compiles statistics and experiences and defines business value drivers and use cases, guiding investment in potential areas where AR can increase ROI. For example, if a company can quantify the length of time spent researching work instructions in paper documentation, and attribute a given number of errors to misinterpretations of drawings or procedures, then AR might promise higher returns.

Augmented Reality and Customer Experiences

Ashutosh Tomar of Jaguar Land Rover says the company’s vision is to use AR for enhancing the driver experience in their vehicles. Today’s typical car is packed with sensors and features—one type of vehicle having over 70 onboard computers and 170 “smart features.”

Customers are no longer judging automobile features as a selling point alone, but also expect a better customer experience. How can cars automatically change settings (e.g., music station, seat and mirror adjustments, etc.) based on who’s driving? How can cars communicate with drivers via other sensory inputs such as haptics? JLR is making large investments in human factors research and in ways to increase driver safety via Augmented Reality, for example:

• Visualization of “ghost cars” in windshields driving ahead to clearly demonstrate the safest way to make turns in a city.
• The projection of cones in windshields for training purposes.
• “B pillars” enhancing a driver’s line of sight and situational awareness by turning car walls “transparent” in certain situations, like when making narrow turns in cities.
• Haptic feedback in the seat behind a driver’s shoulder to alert them of another vehicle passing in their blind spot.

Legal Implications

New features such as the projection of information and images in the driver’s windshield will require new regulatory regimes. Brian Wassom, intellectual property attorney at Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP, described the current regulatory environment and spoke about the principles of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s “Visual-Manual NHTSA Driver Distraction Guidelines for In-Vehicle Electronic Devices.”

• Distractions in all forms, including cognitive and visual, should be recognized by designers and regulators.
• Displays should be as near the driver’s forward line of sight as possible.
• A number of distracting features should be avoided entirely: glare, social media interactions and text that scrolls or contains more than 30 characters.
• Glances away from the road should last no more than 1.5 to 2 seconds.

The above principles apply to current systems (dashboard layouts with navigation and phone information), but might also be the basis of conversations about Augmented Reality safety and liability.

In his presentation, Ashutosh Tomar had also emphasized the need to minimize the amount of information displayed to drivers to reduce distraction, as a basic tenet of safety.

Conclusions

In addition to those already mentioned, there were interesting presentations by Volkswagen, Ubimax, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Feynsinn, Frauenhofer Insititute and others on topics ranging from showroom use cases to the latest research on AR user experiences.

Overall it was encouraging to witness the depth of questions about Augmented Reality being asked by companies in automotive manufacturing, research, design and others, and to get the sense of its evolving acceptance in enterprise, complete with growing pains and successes.

When it was introduced in February 2013, Google Glass 1.0 was far ahead of its time. Consumers and developers identified many issues that needed to be addressed and, although some have adopted the hardware, it was deemed unsuitable for widespread use by consumers or enterprise customers.

Over two years later, in early summer 2015, Google began showing key developers and sharing with the media that it is working on the next generation of Glass, code named “Project Aura” powered by Intel.

The new device is geared for professional users. Employees using the information provided via the wearable display will be able to perform tasks with fewer human errors while enhancing productivity and operational efficiency.

The new “ruggedized” Google Glass hardware design is said to be easy to fold and more durable in work environments. Some options include the ability to clip the tiny display unit on the existing eyewear.

Perhaps Google Glass 2.0 is primed to grow in many industries such as oil and gas, warehousing, manufacturing, agriculture and mining.  The likely impacts depend on the use cases and company readiness for change.

The Benefits of Hands-Free Displays in Warehousing Operations

 In April 2014, DHL published a report describing how logistics operations can be improved with the assistance of hands-free wearable devices. The use cases fell into four categories:

• Warehouse operations
• Transportation optimization
• Last mile delivery
• Service and repair and other enhanced services

The evidence to support the assertion that warehouse picking can be improved, the first use case identified in the DHL study, is mounting.

• In January 2015, DHL published results of a study involving 20,000 items and 9,000 orders using Vuzix M100 technology with Ricoh and software applications designed by Ubimax. The study measured a 25% increase in efficiency.
• According to Active Ants, a Dutch company specializing in warehouse operations for e-commerce order fulfillment, if the picking process is carried out with the support of Google Glass, the process is 15 % faster when compared to the manual picking process.
• The same study reveals that Google Glass helps in reducing the errors during the picking process by 12%.
• A Belgium-based startup, Smart Pick, also develops Google Glass applications for order picking.

Google Glass can also be used for reducing the cost of warehouse redesign as well as factory planning but studies about metrics for these use cases are not available at this time.

The Future of Google Glass

Will Google Glass 2.0 address the issues seen in the first prototype?  This remains to be seen, but with several confirmed reports on the changes and improvements Google is making with Glass 2.0, it is evident that Google is all-in on changing the future of computing through wearables and, ultimately, with Augmented Reality.

Have you tested Google Glass 2.0? Share your thoughts and feedback below.