By Technology
HoloLens Augmented Reality Experience featuring the Cat® 287C MTL
1 min read
SmartEyeglass: Top Three Types of Industries That May Benefit
Written by Special Guest Blogger Joakim Elvander, Senior Partner Engineer and Developer Advocate, Sony Mobile CommunicationsWe have a gap. It’s actually quite a huge gap. The gap I’m speaking of is between traditional industries dealing in machinery, maintenance and so on, and the new technology and software that may help them. Many of them don’t have their own software development departments. This means that they have to hire consultants whenever there’s integration work to be done. With the digitalization of the industry this becomes a real problem if they cannot buy off-the-shelf solutions that immediately fit their business. At Sony, we have chosen to work mostly with partners on developing solutions for SmartEyeglass for the industry, but we have also made sure to understand the needs ourselves so that we may help out and guide companies wanting to use or re-sell smart glasses. The common traits we have found for the industries we are talking with, are that they are in most cases interested in Augmented Reality, and not Mixed Reality or Virtual Reality. The workers and personnel intended for the glasses need to have both hands free most of the time. They also need to see what they are […]
7 min read
Microsoft’s Hololens poised to live up to the hype, bringing into competition with the likes of Sony, not Google
Written by Special Guest Blogger Jonathan Melnick, Senior Analyst, Lux Research Amongst much fanfare and hype, Microsoft has begun shipping $3,000 development kits for its augmented reality smart glasses “Hololens.” The 579g Hololens comes with 2 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage space and users can expect 2 to 3 hours of battery life although details on the battery specs are currently unavailable. Perhaps the most exciting pieces of the Hololens are the display, which are waveguide-enabled 3D stereoscopic displays with a field of view of approximately 35 degrees, and device inputs, which include four microphones, four cameras, and speech, head movement, and gesture controls. Hololens’ capabilities make it one of the top smart glasses on the market or in development today. The primary market for smart glasses has shifted from consumer, when Google originally launched the Google Glass, to industrial today. While there have been a lot of industrial pilot programs, there are only three major functions that smart glasses perform – accessing information, real-time communication, and documentation (for more information see the report “Better than Google Glass: Finding the Right Smart Glasses for Enterprise“). All 11 industrial applications make use of one, two, or all three […]
2 min read
A Detailed Breakdown of the IoT Platform Space
Written by Special Guest Blogger Isaac Brown, Lux Research Today, most people are already familiar with enterprise adoption of wearable devices like Google Glass and the Apple Watch. However, while enterprise wearables are one of the interfaces between workers and the Internet of Things (IoT), many still lack a deep understanding of how the IoT platforms behind them work, let alone the crowded IoT platform space and the new startups looking to enter enterprise wearables. While slicing things up into discrete categories is always imperfect (is a platypus really a mammal?), it is useful to break the IoT platform space down into four categories. Many of the platforms offer functionalities across the various categories, but the following categorization is valuable for understanding this confusing space. Device Management Platforms These companies offer IoT platforms that provide deep functionality and control over the processing and communications hardware in IoT devices — they either sell embedded boards themselves, or have established partnerships with major semiconductor manufacturers who ship boards with their software stack on them. The major features include device provisioning, over the air firmware updates, remote control capabilities, and deeper visibility into the activity of the IoT devices. For example, Eurotech’s IoT […]
4 min read
AREA Webinar: Forecasting Enterprise AR Growth
1 min read
Wearables in Enterprise: 10 New Stats, Findings, and Predictions
A few months back, we pulled together a number of interesting facts and predictions from studies and reports related to the use of wearable technology in the enterprise. Since then, there have been more reports (of course), and the landscape has changed—there is more activity in the enterprise wearables space, with a bunch of new and next-generation devices either recently launched or on the horizon, and more openness on the part of enterprise organizations to experiment and share use cases. It’s time, therefore, for another list of the 10 most interesting facts, findings, and predictions as reported by the experts in 2015: 90% of 603 professionals surveyed by Modis at the start of 2015 said they were interested in using a wearable device to complete work tasks if provided by an employer. An April 2015 report by Robert Half Technology found that 81% of 2,400 U.S.-based CIOs expected wearable devices like smartwatches and smart glasses to become common tools in the workplace. According to 451 Research’s June 2015 survey of IT decision makers in the U.S. who either currently use or plan to use wearable technology, 39% said they would be deploying solutions in the next 6 months (following the […]
3 min read
Virtual Reality in Enterprise? Big Brands Say Yes
Sources say Augmented Reality will be big for enterprise; Virtual Reality, on the other hand, is expected to have mainly entertainment/gaming applications. The following use cases of wearable technology may seem like consumer use cases, but they’re not. They’re instances of major enterprise organizations evaluating new technologies and finding ways to incorporate wearable tech – not AR glasses but this time VR headsets – to propel their businesses forward. The following companies are not putting wearable devices into the hands of employees who then interact with customers; they’re putting devices – however atypical and modest – into consumers’ hands to build their brand and generate revenue. Indeed, an emerging application area for wearable tech seems to involve major name brands using AR and VR technologies to engage with consumers. Marriott, Coca-Cola, and McDonald’s are among the latest brands to turn to AR/VR in their marketing strategies—to excite and entertain customers, appeal to new and younger audiences, and generate business. Marriott Hotels Marriott has been testing out VRoom Service – a first-of-its-kind, in-room Virtual Reality travel experience – for guests staying at specific locations. The cutting-edge guest service was created in collaboration with Samsung, and is one of the first business […]
4 min read
Wearable Tech and Smart Gesture Recognition in the Enterprise, Part I
It seems as though new reports come out every week related to the growth of wearable technology. According to a report published in November 2015, the market for wearable sensors is expected to reach $5.5 billion by 2025. I mention this forecast, since in this article we will be moving away from a device-oriented discussion of the potential for wearables in business in order to consider the sensor technology within our favorite wearable devices–specifically, motion sensor technology. How might enterprises capitalize on motion sensors–cheap, ubiquitous, powerful, and coming soon to a wearable device in your workplace? At the recent EWTS event in Houston, TX, Toronto-based tech company Kiwi utilized the sensors already present in attendees’ smartphones to track their movements–specifically, their activity levels during networking breaks. From this data, the Kiwi team was able to determine the most active networker throughout the conference, and reward that individual with a prize. Now imagine the sensors built into your wearable devices. These are closer to your body than your smartphone, and potentially more accurate. Kiwi’s smart gesture recognition platform has the potential to measure some very significant or key motion and activity metrics in a variety of workplaces and enterprise environments based […]
3 min read
Wearable Tech and Smart Gesture Recognition in the Enterprise, Part II
Now, how might smart gesture recognition be applied in the enterprise? An obvious place to start would be in considering how a platform like Kiwi‘s could be employed to diminish repetitive motion and manual handling injuries on the job. Many workers in a variety of industries are at risk for these kinds of injuries; but smart gesture recognition technology on wearable devices could be employed to capture, visualize, assess, and correct workers’ motions to create a safer working environment. And since lifting-related injuries are the leading cause of workers’ compensation costs in the U.S., implementing motion recognition software on workplace wearables could save companies millions of dollars to boot. Most of the injuries which lead to back pain – the leading cause of worker absenteeism – are preventable. As of now, there are a few wearable devices on the market designed with deskless workers’ physical comfort and safety in mind; but a smart gesture recognition platform could be a less broad, more tailored and even cost-effective means of achieving the same or similar results. With smart gesture, there is the opportunity to customize solutions for specific use cases and businesses; and there is also potential to equip the tools workers […]
3 min read
AGCO: Google Glass on the Manufacturing Floor
AGCO’s Jackson, Minnesota manufacturing team has incorporated Google Glass to audit finished product before it is shipped to dealers for consumer purchase.
1 min read
Top 5 HoloLens “Share Your Idea” Submissions
We’re pretty stoked on the Microsoft HoloLens “Share Your Idea” campaign. Holographic computing and augmented / mixed reality stand to utterly transform the way we perform our jobs (and live our lives). Already we’ve read about some great proposed enterprise applications for the HoloLens technology by Volvo, the first car brand to collaborate with Microsoft, and by Autodesk. So we are now able to picture car shoppers in the auto showroom of the near future using HoloLens to explore individual vehicle features. Industrial designers, mechanical engineers, and others in product development will also make use of the mixed reality technology to experiment and collaborate on product designs. What else can HoloLens achieve in the workplace? We combed through the most popular of the nearly 4,000 already submitted concepts to find some intriguing enterprise-related submissions. Of course we couldn’t read through all the proposed applications, so we limited ourselves to just those that had 20 or more “likes.” I’m sure there are lots of great business and industry ideas for HoloLens in the mix; and if you have the time, please share any submissions that we may have overlooked as well as your own ideas at the bottom of this post. […]
4 min read
Smart Glasses in Museums
Industry: Education / Museums / Leisure; Company: de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA, and other cultural institutions; Device: Google Glass (AR & VR headsets) What do you get when you pair smart glass technology with the world’s greatest art and cultural artifacts? A revolutionary redesign of the museum-going experience. While multimedia exhibits have long been mainstays of science, history and children’s museums, fine art museums have traditionally avoided digital tools in an effort to preserve the art viewing experience. For a while now, however, one has been able to rent designated devices (and more recently smartphones and tablets) as audio guides in museums; iPads and other touch screens have been employed to supplement exhibitions; most major museums boast a proprietary app for visitors to download to their smart devices; and QR codes beneath artwork labels have been featured to provide information on key works. Now, art museums are looking to interactive Augmented and Virtual Reality exhibits to enhance the visitor experience, hopefully without degrading the artworks/artifacts themselves in the move towards embracing new forms of technology. Indeed, both major museums and smaller cultural institutions are experimenting with smart glasses and other augmented reality devices to serve as virtual tour guides, […]
5 min read
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