A summary article by Tx Zhuo, Managing Partner at Karlin Ventures, published on Entrepreneur.com starts with citing Google Glass’ decision to focus on its Project Aura headset as an indication that the future of Augmented Reality is moving away from consumers and headed towards using AR as an enterprise solution.

It goes on to show how companies are already leveraging existing hardware like iPads and smartphones whereas others are developing innovative new products.
The article warns that while some consumers may think Augmented Reality is a gimmick, the workplace is already being revolutionized by AR technology, with processes being streamlined and improvements in safety and communication.

Vendor mentions in the article go to member DAQRI’s smart helmet, which delivers instructions and safety guidelines pertaining to the users’ surroundings, as well as to member Scope AR’s ability to deliver 3D instructions to field technicians. GetVu also received a mention for using wearables to increase efficiency and reduce warehouse packing errors, as does IBM’s Max Reality.

The article also offers advice for AR startups by presenting a four-step process to market positioning, including surveying stakeholders, considering hardware, targeting “motivated trailblazers” and thinking about the most valuable and contextual data inputs. Finally a word to enterprises considering investment in Augmented Reality: focus on ROI.

A press release by International Data Corporation (IDC) on May 19 announced the 2016 IDC Innovators: pioneers in the smart eyewear enterprise market. The criteria IDC employed were that companies must have under $50m revenue and must offer inventive technology and/or a ground-breaking business model.

We would like to congratulate AREA members APX Labs, Atheer and Vital Enterprises in being named IDC Innovators. All the awarded companies are said to be addressing the challenges of providing a robust, integrated, scalable and flexible enterprise platform for smart eyewear.

APX Lab’s Skylight software helps enterprises create a connected workplace through smart glasses by giving hands-free access to critical applications and information within workers’ field of view, without disrupting the flow of work. Skylight can integrate with existing and custom enterprise systems including those from Microsoft, SAP, Salesforce.com and others. Read APX Labs member profile here.

The Atheer AiR (Augmented Interactive Reality) platform consists of the AiR Smart Glasses, the Android-based AiR OS and the AiR Suite for Enterprise. The AiR glasses are designed to enhance the productivity and safety of deskless professionals. Atheer member profile can be read here.

Vital Enterprise’s platform connects remote workers and experts by providing remote assistance and telestration, and hands-free interaction with the data-display and communication capabilities of smart glasses. Vital’s enterprise software platform integrates with best-in-class glasses from ODG, Google and others.

Other innovators included Pristine’s EyeSight, whose platform enables real time connections between workers and managers via smart glasses, and XOEye Technologies, which equips facilities and field technicians with wearable technology systems that capture & share information. Well done to all!

New market research by MarketsandMarkets, recently forecast huge growth in the Mobile Augmented Reality Market, which is set to be worth almost $80 billion by 2022.

The major driver for the mobile augmented reality market growth is the high penetration of smartphones and tablets. A report by Jonathan Crowl for Mobile Business Insights, suggests that this is particularly true in markets where mobile technology is not yet as prevalent, arguing that the time frame will allow mobile developers to better understand how to build Augmented Reality experiences for a mass market. Smartphones could be the most important device in driving Mobile Augmented Reality growth, since users could, for example, use smartphones to create digital overlays of information in an environment.

Nods to Augmented Reality applications in the enterprise are given, including how Augmented Reality can make contributions in education, e-retail and hospitality. Geographically, the prediction is that the highest demand will be from the Asia-Pacific region, where new technology adoption will combine with economic growth to fuel innovation in mobile.

The challenge now is for developers to understand new mobile technologies and how they might create effective augmented experiences that will be applicable across multiple industries.

An article on emerging tech by NextGov.com suggests the government of the future will be hyper-connected, able to anticipate and respond to the needs of its citizens, running on modern IT systems and employing cutting-edge Augmented Reality. The article draws upon a report released by Deloitte University Press this week: Tech Trends 2016, Innovating in the Digital Era.

This hyper-connected government of the future is likely only a few years away. The Deloitte report covers in depth review of a number of emerging technology trends, including the Internet of Things, Augmented and Virtual Reality, modernizing core systems, leveraging virtualization, industrialized analytics and the associated social impact. Each trend comes complete with use cases and reading lists.

The NextGov article suggests the most important lesson to federal agencies is the necessity to modernize outdated IT systems to better handle IoT and what it refers to as an inevitable “deluge of data.” Organizations should take steps now to modernize their underlying technology to better enable a speedy adoption of emerging technology, even the traditionally slower, large bureaucratic public sector organizations.

With the section entitled “Augmented and Virtual Reality go to Work” spanning 12 pages, there is much useful information in Deloitte’s report for businesses to absorb. The report cites many real world examples of organizations currently using Augmented Reality in the enterprise and argues that the benefits to agencies and businesses “will likely outpace consumer adoption cycles.”

An article by Deloitte University Press published on February 24, 2016, outlines the roles and benefits of Augmented Reality in the workplace, citing use cases in medicine, construction, training and simulation, communication, collaboration, field and customer service and interactive marketing.

The article outlines how AR and VR adoption in the workplace is likely to outstrip consumer adoption and informs enterprises of what they can do to prepare for the introduction of Augmented Reality in enterprise. They argue that the volatility of the marketplace will be likely to improve rapid feature expansion, drive down prices and increase vendor collaboration and offerings. The article outlines practical installations and new technologies that enterprises will need to consider to get ready for AR adoption including connectivity, beacons, sensors and QR tags, depending on the organization in question.

The authors assert that the timing is right for companies to undertake audits to prepare for AR and VR advancements in technology. Namely, justifying their use cases around single purposes with measurable impact and value. The authors encourage business executives, IT managers and end users to equip themselves with knowledge now for how AR tools may be applied to drive value in their workplaces.
Original article authors are Nelson Kunkel, Steve Soechtig, Jared Miniman and Chris Stauch.

According to a post on the Real Wire blog, there is a new market research report published by Beecham Research. The report entitled “Augmented Reality and Wearable Technology – an operational tool for the enterprise” summarizes industry trends in 2015 and explores the benefits and challenges in adopting Augmented Reality (AR) in enterprises.

The post states that Beecham’s analyst and the report’s author Matthew Duke-Woolley forecasts that the market for enterprise Augmented Reality could approach $800 million in 2020.

Forecasting the growth of enterprise Augmented Reality is a difficult process that relies on numerous assumptions with high uncertainty. If you’d like to learn more about the methods and assumptions used by leading analyst firms, please plan to attend the March 17 AREA webinar.

AREA member Catchoom is a Barcelona-based computer vision technology service provider and developer of visual search enabling technologies which sends its team to Mobile World Congress each year. In this post on the Catchoom blog, the marketing team describes the situation at MWC 2016 very succinctly: it was more like a ‘Virtual Reality World Congress.’  The first highlight of the post is the photo of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg casually strolling amid hundreds of journalists wearing Samsung VR headsets during the Samsung preview evening event. This really set the stage for what blossomed into a global discussion about potential risks of VR turning people into tethered, captive puppets.

The post then provides insights about the vendors which were showing AR and making announcements in conjunction with the event. The most notable Augmented Reality announcement covered in the Catchoom blog was the Epson Moverio BT-300 introduction. Other highlights included the Fujitsu helmet for industrial workers.

The financial services firm Morgan Stanley has released a short video segment in which Katy Huberty, managing director, IT hardware analyst, shares her opinion that Augmented Reality will receive a great deal of new attention from investors globally in coming years.

https://youtu.be/9Q9kfhiy-0s

In the very brief analysis captured in the video, Huberty suggests that the growth of Augmented and Virtual Reality hardware will resemble that of smart phones in the recent past.

As more people begin to read about and to experiment with wearable technologies and Augmented Reality, there is increasing confusion around definitions and concepts. A very common source of confusion is the label “AR and VR,” or “ARVR” for short. As has been pointed out elsewhere, this confusion surrounding Augmented Reality does not help anyone. Customers can’t clearly explain what they need. Providers of technology are often unable to express what they offer.

In August 2014, long before the current wave of interest in VR, the question of what “True AR” means and what it takes to deliver it was the subject of an international workshop hosted by Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST)’s Interactive Media Design Lab. Researchers conducted a series of lectures and chaired round table discussions.

An excellent white paper written based on the workshop outcomes has recently been released. The collaboration between researchers Christian Sandor, Martin Fuchs, Alvaro Cassinelli, Hao Li, Richard Newcombe, Goshiro Yamamoto and Steven Feiner spans questions of definitions (What exactly do we mean by True AR?), benefits and approaches before exploring the technical and ethical challenges.

This paper should be required reading for those new to the field of Augmented Reality or for those who persist to blur the lines between AR and VR or AR and other forms of information presentation. For those who do not have time to digest the full report, a synopsis of the paper’s key concepts has been published on TechCrunch.

It is the season for analysts to release their forecasts about Augmented Reality and related technologies. One of the enabling technology segments is smart glasses.

In the new report on Consumer & Enterprise Smart Glasses: Opportunities & Forecasts 2015-2020, Juniper Research is predicting growth in hardware sales across 8 key regions and 12 countries. The forecast also breaks down unit sales and revenues according to whether the use is for Consumer, Enterprise or Healthcare.

The study mentions many companies that are not yet in the industry but could be preparing offerings, such as Amazon, Analog Devices, Apple, Brother and YouTube. AREA members APX Labs, Atheer and Augmate are mentioned in the report, but unfortunately, the summary of the report is unclear on how the analysts classified other hardware such as the DAQRI Smart Helmet and Microsoft Hololens.