This is just the tip of the iceberg. According to IDC, the AR/VR market is projected to take off over the next five years with a compound average growth rate of over 75%, growing to over $120 billion by 2022.

The World Economic Forum has convened a Global Futures Council on VR and AR, with members from industry, government, academia, nonprofits, and content studios from around the world, who among them have expertise in public policy, education, art, ethics, computer science, innovation and medicine.

The goal of this piece is to summarize the inaugural work of the council and to highlight opportunities and pitfalls of large-scale VR/AR use.

We should learn from history. Here are five key lessons from the past that should shape our journey towards a more virtual and augmented future.

Various topics are covered in the article along with case studies including

Training using AR and VR of which there are a number of case studies.

Using AR and VR experiences to change attitudes and behaviour particularly around empathy which studies have shown can be more effective than watching movies or doing role-playing exercises.

What makes VR/AR special is its body movements—people turn their heads to see other people, use their hands to grab objects, and their feet to walk around.

Diversified teams – Given that VR/AR is a unique medium, and not just an extension of video games and film, the teams that produce the best applications tend to cross boundaries.

Avoid the downsides and the features of the technologies that produce these downsides can be used for strategic advantage.  Dozens of peer-reviewed academic articles have demonstrated the effectiveness of this Today, after 25 years of research, these products are beginning to emerge in hospitals and healthcare centres.

VR and AR present a significant market opportunity. To realize this growth, industry and policymakers must collaborate to find ways to mitigate the potential negative effects. Our best advice is to start with a problem that needs to be solved, and then decide if VR/AR technology is a fit. Not everything needs to be immersive, and when choosing where to start we should look to the amazing and enduring success cases from the past.

“Augmented reality can help van drivers find the precise address in the most efficient way, tackling road closures, beating traffic, and so on.”

In a fast-paced digital world, 84 percent of customers never repeat purchase from a vendor who has failed to deliver on time — that’s a statistic from a recent survey and it drives Koleva and her team to constantly look for ways to optimize last-mile delivery in a world where the volume and size of e-commerce transactions are skyrocketing year on year.

According to Statista, retail e-commerce sales in APAC grew from US$646.92 billion in 2014 to US$1.49 trillion in 2018 to US$2.34 trillion last year. This year, multiple forecasts suggest that revenues will touch between US$2.7 trillion and US$3.6 trillion this year.

Thanks to the recent coronavirus outbreak, retail e-commerce has spiked significantly just in the first two months of 2020 — making analysts even more optimistic about their forecasts.

Of course, the APAC has been leading the world in terms of retail e-commerce growth at 25 percent (2019), but a global average of 20 percent indicates the accelerated pace of growth, and the urgent need to make last-mile delivery more efficient.

At CES, Here Technologies explained that the company has been using LIDAR (light detection and ranging)-powered imaging devices mounted on cars (called True Cars at Here) that drive around the world, including the APAC, to collect 360-degree information about urban landscape to create maps in augmented reality.

“Using such data, logistics companies can help their on-ground staff to pin-point the exact destination of the parcels they’re carrying. When traffic and other data is factored in, this becomes even more efficient.”

Given the way that logistics companies around the world run their business, even the slightest scalable improvement helps save meaningful sums of money. A one percent improvement in last-mile delivery efficiency could easily result in a saving of more than US$20 million or more for a sizeable operator.

Koleva is passionate about the (unlimited and untapped) potential of augmented reality. She believes new and emerging technologies such as 5G, the internet of things (IoT), and others will play a big role, but ultimately, expects that industry players will be keen and swift to adopt new technologies to optimize last-mile delivery.

“The time to wait and watch has passed, it’s time to leverage digital innovations, it’s time to buckle up and race ahead,” concluded Koleva.

Not only can it bring 3D anatomical learning to life, as noted by medical device company, Proximie, it can help train nurses and doctors in complex situations. Better, according to Fortune, AR can used by surgeons to alert them to potential risks or hazards in surgery.

It can even be used to find patient veins and avoid accidentally sticking a patient far too many times.  As such innovation is improved, the global augmented reality market in healthcare is expected to reach $10.82 billion by 2025 – a growth rate of 36.1% between 2019 and 2026, according to Research and Markets.

All of that is creating sizable opportunity for companies including

• NexTech AR Solutions
• Intuitive Surgical Inc.
• Abiomed Inc.
• Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.
• Abbott Laboratories

Read the full press release on AR in Healthcare detailing those companies.

Without exaggeration, digital transformation is the mainstream of the technological development of the industry. Modern smart manufacturing uses digital and computer technology in all aspects of its work. Almost all processes, from direct control and process control to business planning and workflow, are currently carried out using digital data and digital infrastructure. This raises the need for more security of all technological processes.

Cybersecurity is a set of principles and means of ensuring the security of information processes, approaches to managing security and other technologies that are used to actively counter the implementation of cyber threats.

The modern security paradigm includes:

• Revision of access control models that take into account openness, flexibility and distribution. Models should be based on temporal logic.
• Adoption of virtualization technology as a powerful means of protection, which allows moving from the concept of a “protected system” (from a fixed set of threats) to the concept of “a system with predictable behavior”.
• The implementation of the principle of separation of the information processing environment and the means of protection.
• Building the theoretical foundations of managing dynamic protection (adapting to current threats) as an object of automatic regulation with the concept of a stability zone, aftereffect (inertia) of dynamic characteristics
• Acceptance of the openness of systems (Internet connection) as an inalienable property and the construction of protection with this in mind
• Development of the basics of assessing elasticity (system adaptability) and scalability.
• Development of new principles for detecting attacks, viruses, rootkits, worms, RPS and other malware.
• Taking into account the possibility of using supercomputers to create new attack scenarios, scanning systems, intervention in production management, cryptanalysis.

Industry 4.0 and Technology Areas

The basis for digital transformation is computer technology and digital measuring instruments. Computer technologies in smart manufacturing have gone from isolated “islands” of control systems and office computers to multilevel geographically distributed corporate networks with access control and information security. Due to the development of cloud technologies and data centers, the problem of a limited amount of stored data and computing power is removed.

This enables the large-scale digital transformation of manufacturing industry, which is often referred to in the literature as the fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 technologies include at least:

• smart manufacturing devices and the industrial Internet of things – the ability to obtain comprehensive data about an object or equipment with their transfer to any other system, usually over wireless networks;
• a digital copy (digital double) – a full description of the object at all stages of the life cycle, including drawings and three-dimensional models in digital form, a model of the process, data on the current process parameters and other important parameters;
• Big data – technologies for working with large volumes of heterogeneous data (time series, events, etc.) in order to analyze and obtain significant information for decision making;
• machine learning and artificial intelligence – a range of technologies for teaching computer systems in order to find dependencies and apply them to decision making;
• cloud technologies and services that allow you to store and process data, perform software services on the infrastructure of the “cloud” located on the Internet or in the corporate data center;
• wireless and mobile communications technologies, mobile devices, and applications;
• Robotics
• virtual and augmented reality;
• additive manufacturing and 3D printing, etc.
• Digital transformation allows us to ensure significant growth in market volumes, increases the competitiveness of enterprise products and solves at a new level the continuously complicated tasks of industrial enterprises. It is vital not to let security threats compromise a significant potential of smart manufacturing.

Organizations mentioned in the article include:

• Pimax
• Bosch (AREA member)
• Pico
• ThirdEye (AREA member)
• LetinAR
• Vuzix (AREA member)
• Nreal
• Cybershoes
• Panasonic
• NextMind
• Qualcomm (AREA member)
• TEGway
• Sarcos Robotics (AREA member)

Standalone means that like Lenovo’s previous Mirage Solo or the Oculus Quest, it shouldn’t require you to plug in a phone or PC, because the processing power is built right in. But where the ill-fated Mirage Solo relied on Google’s effectively defunct Daydream VR platform for consumers, it appears this new one will use a proprietary Lenovo platform and is solely for the educational market:

The Lenovo VR Classroom 2 will empowers teachers and administrators to easily integrate virtual reality lessons into their curriculum.

According to the product page, the “Lenovo Mirage VR S3” headset contains a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor and runs on Android, with a 1,920 x 2,160 resolution per eye and a 4200mAh battery inside, USB-C charging, and a simple controller. It appears to be a simple inexpensive 3DoF headset without inside-out tracking, like the Oculus Go, meaning you won’t be able to move around in VR at all beyond turning your body in different directions. A press release says it’s coming in spring 2020.

Speaking of Lenovo’s unlucky bets in virtual reality, it’s a little-known fact that the Chinese electronics company was behind the Oculus Rift S headset — you know, the tethered PC one that wound up playing second fiddle to the standalone Oculus Quest. (Did you also know that a licensing deal between Sony and Lenovo is how the Oculus headset can basically have the same headband as the PlayStation VR? Well now you do.)

Read original source article on the Verge.

Read Lenovo AREA member profile.

While XR is undeniably the future of business, many businesses aren’t quite sure where to start. Innovative ideas must be accompanied by managerial buy-in, financial support and a long-term plan, among other obstacles. A smart businessperson not only sees the potential for XR, but knows how they want to use it – and how to sell it to their superiors.

The XR Immersive Enterprise Conference, to be held on May 5-6, 2020 at the Revere Hotel in Boston, USA, is an interactive immersion into the world of extended reality. You’ll learn from the experts that have implemented XR in their companies; you’ll hear the lessons they learned along the way and how those lessons can be applied to your business. You’ll witness case studies across multiple industries. You’ll have the chance to work directly with XR professionals and fine-tune your pitch to management. Best of all, you’ll return home with actual facts and figures you can show your boss as you work towards incorporating XR into your business strategy.

You can join over 300 industry experts and hear from more than 50 thought leaders at the XR Immersive Enterprise Conference. Listen to the case studies of proven XR innovators like Wayfair, UPS and Novartis, discover the business applications of XR and how they can lead to success in your industry, and learn how to sell your boss on the applications, and ROI, of this industry-changing technology.

Don’t miss out on this explosive opportunity to ride the wave of the future. Start thinking about how XR can transform your business today.

For more information about the conference, check out the event website (https://events.vr-intelligence.com/enterprise/) where you can download the brochure and sign up for weekly updates to stay on top of all of the latest XR innovations. Most importantly, save the date – May 5 and 6, in Boston, for the XR Immersive Enterprise 2020 Conference.

In 2017, Microsoft entered the virtual reality (VR) industry with what it called “mixed reality” headsets made by ASUS, Lenovo, HP, Dell, and Samsung. The differentiation of these headsets from early Oculus and HTC Vive headsets was their inside-out tracking, meaning they didn’t need external trackers to locate the headset, but they were still tethered to a computer.

The concept was novel at the time, but operations were glitchy, and Facebook’s Oculus and HTC’s Vive products were superior even at Microsoft’s launch.

Xbox head Phil Spencer squashed the idea of VR for Xbox saying, “Nobody’s asking for VR.” Maybe nobody’s asking for VR, but Microsoft is investing in related augmented reality (AR) technology that customers are definitely asking for.

The VR/AR industry is booming, with market intelligence company IDC expecting growth of 79% to $18.8 billion in 2020. But it’s not consumer products that are expected to drive growth, it’s enterprise applications.

IDC projects that spending in areas like investment services and banking will grow at over 100% annually for the next five years. So enterprise solutions are big business, and that’s where Microsoft sees its opportunity in AR.

Read the full original article here.

Segmentation

The global augmented reality and virtual reality market is anticipated to exhibit substantial growth in the coming years. This market is an extremely dynamic, exciting, and promising one and is single-handedly fueled by recent technological advancements. While the application of this technology is already established in sectors such as retail, healthcare, and consumer goods, it is predicted that in the near future, many more new and innovative applications will come to the fore.

The global market for augmented reality and virtual reality can be segmented on the basis of technology into augmented and virtual reality technologies. Among these, augmented reality is projected to witness immense growth during the course of the forecast period owing to the rising demand for AR in gaming, media and entertainment, manufacturing, and healthcare.

By way of sensors and components, the market is fragmented into software, hardware, and services. The hardware segment held the dominant share of over 72.0% in 2015 thanks to the high demand for devices such as glasses, head mounted display, sensors, and console.

The market can also be segmented by application into gaming, media and entertainment, e-commerce, medical, military, and education among others. Gaming, media and entertainment, and healthcare are the most promising segments and are expected to contribute considerably over the forecast period. Further, the demand for augmented reality and virtual reality-based head up displays is likely to increase in the automotive sector in the coming years.

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Market: Drivers and Restraints

The global market for augmented reality and virtual reality is fueled the soaring demand and usage of smart phones and the growing application of this technology in the healthcare sector. The high Internet connectivity and penetration is also projected to serve as a driving factor for the global augmented reality and virtual reality market.

Some of the major factors restricting the growth of the market world over are privacy issues, lack of awareness, and image latency. The need for hardware also hampers the augmented reality and virtual reality market in terms of capital investment. However, an increase in R&D initiatives and emerging applications will emerge as key opportunities, fuelling the growth of the market.

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Market: Regional Outlook

From a geographical standpoint, the worldwide market is classified into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the world. It has been observed that the augmented reality and virtual reality markets in North America, Asia Pacific, and Europe are immensely lucrative, with North America dominating the international scene. In Europe, media and entertainment accounts for a significant share among all end-use applications.

The Asia Pacific market is extremely promising and is slated to exhibit a staggering CAGR over the course of the forecast period. The hardware and service segments are expected to contribute significantly by 2025. China plays a major role in the expansion of the Asia Pacific augmented and virtual reality market.

The Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South America markets are projected to contribute relatively lower revenue to the global market, at the same time, maintaining a steady pace over the forecast period. Hardware is anticipated to emerge as a prominent segment in MEA as well as South America as compared to the services and software segments.

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Market: Vendor Landscape

The key players competing in the augmented reality and virtual reality market include Catchoom, Blippar, Innovega Inc., Metaio Gmbh, Laster Technologies, Vertalis Ltd, Total Immersion, Augmented Pixels Co., Kishino Limited, Kooaba AG, Wikitude Gmbh, and Qualcomm Incorporated.

The global augmented reality and virtual reality market is increasingly dynamic and displays a high degree of competition. It is characterized by the presence of a few small-scale players and several of the world’s largest technology firms.