Burström acknowledged the recent progression of surgical techniques, “Today we see a number of trends in spine surgery; image guided surgery and navigation is widely used and widely studied, and [alongside] those, 3D imaging in the operating room is on the rise.”

He noted that the literature depicts a wide variation of accuracies reported for pedicle screw placement. For example, in meta-analyses, many studies report superiority for navigation compared to free-hand. However, this finding was not reported by all studies and cannot be extended to all indications.

Exozet’s team of digital transformation experts work with some of Germany’s most well-known brands to re-define their training and customer engagement experiences. Powered by VE Studio, they will be able to create and manage immersive 3D virtual and augmented experiences faster, on more xR devices, and more economically than with a traditional hand-coding process.

Over the past 15 years DiSTI has been a leader in developing virtual training solutions for the US market and is now expanding into global regions where there is a need for virtual and augmented reality enterprise solutions. The German market is an area of high demand given the presence of global manufacturing companies who are requesting innovative new training solutions based on virtual and augmented reality technologies in order to improve training for internal staff and customers on new products delivered around the world.

For Exozet, this partnership aligns with their ambitions to expand their capabilities to develop virtual and augmented reality training solutions for enterprise customers in Germany and the region. VE Studio will enable Exozet to address their customers’ demands in an even more efficient and agile manner by leveraging its patented data-driven approach to content development and management.

Commenting on this partnership agreement, Frank Zahn, Exozet CEO, states: “There is a growing demand in Germany for virtual and augmented reality solutions which improve employee performance and enable companies to leverage the technology to improve global operations. VE Studio provides us with a proven and very efficient platform with which we can reduce the development time and cost, and allow us to support our customers more efficiently.”

The partnership will enable both companies to scale their business in the German-speaking region where the demand for virtual and augmented reality solutions is accelerating. As part of the partnership with DiSTI, Exozet will establish a Virtual and Augmented Reality Innovation and Development Center at their headquarters in Berlin where they can demonstrate existing production use cases and work together with customers to develop their virtual reality training solutions.

The press release in German on Exozet’s website can be found here.

Full press release in English.

The London morning event has sold out in just 5 days.  Innovate UK has therefore organised a second session in London on the afternoon of the 18th October.  Another new briefing event will take place in Newcastle on 8th November.

The Audience of the Future Challenge is designed to support the growth of the creative immersive tech sector through £33m of funding and investment. It aims to bring creative businesses, researchers and technologists together to create striking new experiences.  It positions the UK as the global leader in the creative and commercial implementation of immersive technology.

The Production Innovation for Immersive Content challenge will provide up to £8m funding for business-led R&D projects. These enable immersive content to be created faster, more efficiently, or in new ways. They also significantly improve on the current ‘state-of-the-art’ in the field.

For more information see the Knowledge Transfer Network website: Production Innovation for Immersive Content

The first Royal Society “Creating Connections” conference showcase event and exhibition in the North East took place on Friday 7th September.

For years now, technology has been improving the education industry and thus developing entire human race. Technology has made our classrooms digital with screens, projectors, etc. There are advanced labs set up for computer programming, Bloomberg terminals for finance and equity learning, etc. This  technology was very much the need of the hour since students learn much more by doing (experiential learning) than by listening or seeing. Educational institutions are charging technology fees or infrastructure fees which is required to build such high-class infrastructure for better learning.

The access to the internet and online resources enables researchers to share their ideas and knowledge on specific topics which can be accessed by anybody around the world. The Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) have opened a new world of knowledge. Top Universities and Professors around the world are launching their courses via MOOC which can be accessed easily. This as an example of democratizing education which is good for humanity as a whole. There are many startups in EduTech space which are also working towards same.

All of this creates a huge amount of data regarding lectures, content, videos, etc. Students sometimes get lost in the sea of information, and need help in analyzing and evaluating the information and also determining the authenticity and validity of the content. The main challenge is the adoption of technology and the up-skilling of teaching staff. They need to learn new technical skills to be relevant.

Whatever we have discussed till now have already been implemented in most of the developed countries, but the developing nations are still very far behind.

The fourth industrial revolution has brought new technologies like Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Internet of Things (IoT), Machine learning, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, etc. Their technologies are going to completely transform the world and almost all the industries including education industry. Experiential learning will reach a new height with the help of virtual reality and augmented reality. There are many apps already available for this.

Machine Learning will help in personalizing the learning for individual student and redesigning the assessments. Artificial intelligence can help in tracking the mental steps which a student take to approach a problem and modify the feedback, exercises and explanations and intervention to promote self-regulation, self-monitoring, and self-explanation would revolutionize engagement.

Algorithms can help in clustering the students in similar groups based on their ways of learning and evaluating the outcome. Chatbots using Natural Language Processing and Deep Learning can answer common student’s queries. AI will free-up teachers and give more time for one-on-one interaction with the students and solve more complicated personal or behavioural issues or misconceptions.

Advanced Machine Learning using Text Mining and computer vision can also help in evaluating answer sheets which are in the form of free-form text. It does not mean AI will replace teachers. The role of the teachers will remain intact to take care of individual learning needs for every student.

Machine Learning can predict strengths and weakness of a student in particular subject, his learning pace and understanding level. By analyzing their test scores, worksheets, interactions and their course, helps in creating a significantly different and unique learning pathway which is customized and fun-filled. Tasks like tutoring, grading, giving individual feedback are pretty cumbersome, and AI tends to take that burden off of them. There are multiple ways of applying AI in the education system. One of the most widely accepted and used is Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) which have given a significant impact and made progress in past few years.

On the other side, artificial intelligence can also analyze teacher’s data (subject, content, methods, evaluation criteria, etc.) and give feedback to improve the teaching process. Teachers can take that feedback positively and takes necessary steps to improve.

AI can also predict the career path for the students which is very complicated and sensitive decision to be made. Currently, it takes all the factors including parent’s profession, society preference, market trend and highest paid jobs. But it does not take into consideration student’s interest, behaviour, likes dislikes, aptitude, etc. AI can take all these factors and predict a better career path for the student.

AI and Machine Learning can have a tremendous impact on the education industry. It can help us find the solutions for all the problems which were existing in the education industry but were getting neglected. It can revolutionize the entire education industry just based on past data and harnessing that to make data-driven and better decisions.

Presented on 24 September in Berlin, the purpose of the Pharma 4.0 Award recognises outstanding implementation in manufacturing execution systems innovation in the pharmaceutical industry.

Vifor Pharma was the first company to pilot a dynamic team-based augmented reality system (Goodly Innovations’ OptiworX) in a pilot project at its site in St. Gallen, Switzerland, in 2017. Augmented reality uses optical devices to create a “mixed reality” (i.e. real and virtual) 3D holographic information, like superimposed text and graphics over the real environment.

Pharmaceutical manufacturing and packaging processes are complex. Floor operators must run through many detailed checklists of changeover or line clearance tasks while ensuring that no errors occur. These processes, often managed using printed manuals and checklists, are slow and prone to errors.

Augmented reality turns any task list – no matter how complex – into a dynamic multi user workflow that adapts continuously to real-life operations as each task is completed, such as when the number of operators changes. The application also gives users only the instructions they need at each step in the process. Operators are thus able to do their jobs better and faster, and with much more flexibility and accuracy, even when processes become more complex.

“Applying augmented reality in our operations allowed us to improve the changeover process and increase productivity by up to 50% at our packaging plant,” said Dr. Benno Bischof, Head of Product Group, Technical Operations, in St. Gallen. “We have clearly demonstrated the potential of augmented reality by using it to create a dynamic teamwork system, unprecedented in our industry. -. This is the kind of innovative technology that we strive to use to improve our operations.”

Congress will be welcoming top vertical industry executives end-users from Manufacturing, Energy & Utilities, Connected Transport, Healthcare, and Buildings & Infrastructure.

1Minuut is bringing real-life experiences virtually to patients that can’t enjoy them in person by allowing patients to view real-time POV video streamed remotely by the Vuzix M300 Smart Glasses. Genzõ through their unique social communication platform which was designed to make POV video sharing mobile easy and safe to implement for customers. 1Minuut’s Genzõ’s mobile platform is unique and provides a new innovative and reliable method to connect patients, bring positive experiences and enable patients to watch through the eyes of others from anywhere.

Another aspect of 1Minuut Genzõ mobile platform is delivering telemedicine patient care services remotely and hands-free by connecting a doctor in the field to a nurse and patient in the doctor’s office or patient facility to augment patient care and save lives.  Through the M300 and Genzõ mobile platform ambulatory nurses are instantly connected to a doctor that can; observe the patient; provide immediate feedback or care instruction; and act faster and more appropriately.  This technology can also help bridge the labor shortage gap by allowing doctors to remotely service more patients because the solution instantly removes travel time, which would otherwise be required by a doctor to come visit the patient at their physical location.

1Minuut has worked closely with the Dutch healthcare industry over the last four years to develop Genzõ and over the past twelve months 1Minuut has successfully piloted and placed dozens of Vuzix M300 Smart Glasses into operations across the Dutch healthcare industry. The Genzõ, a mobile platform solution paired with the Vuzix M300 Smart Glasses has proven in actual field deployments to be extremely safe, reliable and enjoyable for customers as well as patients. After four years of development and one year of field testing this innovative Smart Glasses based solution is now being implemented across the healthcare industry as a new way to deliver care that improves the efficiency and quality of care and appreciation of life for patients.

The combination of the Vuzix M300 Smart Glasses and the Genzõ mobile platform enables real-time audio, first person Point of View (POV) video streaming and file sharing that is easy, mobile and safe.  Through collaboration with Deloitte Assuring Medical Apps Netherlands, the Genzõ mobile platform is also an extremely safe and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) ready application.

Read the full press release here.

The Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Honorable Mark Green, and the Secretary of State for the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom, The Right Honourable Penny Mordaunt, M.P., announced 23 intended finalists for Creating Hope in Conflict: A Humanitarian Grand Challenge, at the 2018 edition of the Concordia Annual Summit in New York City.

The finalists emerged from a pool of 615 applications received from 86 countries – 48 percent of which came from lower-middle-income countries. About one-third of the applications involved projects led by women.

The finalists, who stand collectively to receive $5 million in funding, will now put their innovative ideas into action to implement solutions that will provide, supply, or generate locally safe drinking water and sanitation, energy, life-saving information, or health supplies and services to help the most-vulnerable and hardest-to-reach people affected by conflict.

Steven Serneels of Iristick commented:

“While breakthrough tech innovations, such as Iristick smart glasses, are great for Industry, they can, at the same time, also mean so much for society, addressing pressing societal needs such as creating access to high quality, affordable health care by leveraging the expertise of doctors in remote areas in the area of e-health.”

USAID and DFID, which launched Creating Hope in Conflict as a multi-organizational partnership, today announced an additional combined investment of $10 million. In addition, the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands announced its commitment to join the partnership and invest $7.5 million in this effort, which brings the total contribution for the Humanitarian Grand Challenge to $32.5 million.

Grand Challenges Canada is implementing Creating Hope in Conflict on behalf of the investors.   The new commitment by the Dutch Government and the announcement of the 23 intended finalists are a testament to the power of partnerships to bring organizations together to respond more nimbly to complex emergencies and empower people to create better lives for themselves.

The 23 selected seed projects will receive grants of up to $250,000 each over a maximum of twenty-four (24) months to support the validation and testing of new approaches. Final grants, subject to negotiation, will be signed later this year.

You may also like to see Iristick’s AREA member profile and the Iristick website 

PwC also has two dedicated VR/AR labs in London where they help clients discover the technology and devise their business cases.

Liu starts by stating that transformation is a fact of daily life for business and organisations, not just a buzzword. It’s triggered by sudden crises, new competition, technological change, global opportunities, or simply the recognition that the world is rapidly changing around them – and they risk being left behind.

These major change initiatives can be complex, cumbersome and costly. But they don’t have to be that way – they can create new spaces for possibility—in markets, in operating models, and in employees’ hearts and minds – that yields profitable growth and breakthrough-level improvements.

This is the first in a series of blogs that PwC will be writing over the next few months, shining a light on the multitude of enterprise applications of virtual reality (VR)/augmented reality (AR).

Liu makes many points worth reading. A summary is below:

• More organisations are grasping the potential of VR/AR to solve a wide range of their problems.
• This in turn is fuelling more investment.  
• From health and safety to medical and behavioural training custoemrs are energising and improving their people’s learning and development.
• Virtual reality and augmented reality connect and engage people at deeper, more meaningful levels
• The technology creates entirely new ways for people to experience the world around them.

VRAR gives us the ability to simulate challenging situations where team members can learn from mistakes, watch others’ reactions and fail in a safe environment.

VR/AR offers us four key benefits when applied to organisational training (these are explored in detail in the full article):

1. More memorable
2. Increased engagement
3. Reduced risk
4. Lower costs

It’s clear that VR/AR offers the potential to revolutionise organisation training. It offers a cost-effective way to provide better learning outcomes than traditional training methods. Participants can get closer to real-life experiences and hone techniques for managing difficult or dangerous situations.

Liu concludes by stating that getting started is less difficult than you may think. Start by discovering your training requirements and goals, then devise your business case and finally develop and deploy your solution.

The author quite rightly points out that there is also huge emphasis on enabling enterprise decision-makers to better understand how to leverage maximum ROI via AR initiatives.  This is in line with The AREA’s own ROI research which was directed by what enterprises were looking for.  Mozenix have their own infomration about ROI – the ROI of mobile AR: ARKIt verses ARCore.

“As more AR prototyping projects mature into full scale productions, the commercial benefits of the technology become increasingly clear.

For big businesses, kick-starting an AR initiative can bring about wide ranging commercial benefits including the creation of new revenue streams, the ability to grow existing streams of revenue and cost reduction. These commercial benefits, particularly in the context of industry 4.0, can be realised through the deployment of AR to bring about process efficiency gains and to enhance existing safety procedures and practices.”

The article states that now is a very good time to kick start projects in AR.

The piece goes on to mention a specific industrial example of Aberdeen based business Return to Scene Ltd who are deploying AR within the oil and gas sector.

Read the full article on the Mozenix blog https://mozenix.com/augmented-reality-industry-4-0-what-it-means-for-ctos/