CC at Augmented World Expo 2018
CC Partner Via headed to the world’s #1 AR+VR conference and expo with annual dates in the USA, Asia and Europe. This report by VIA’s Thomas Erland Pedersen.
This was the 9th World Expo and the third time it was held in Munich. This is the world’s #1 AR+VR conference and expo with annual dates in the USA, Asia and Europe.
It brings together a mix of CEOs, CTOs, designers, developers, creative
agencies, futurists, analysts, investors, and leading media in a fantastic opportunity to learn,
inspire, partner, and experience first hand on of the most exciting industries of our times.
This was 2 days with 100 speakers, 100 exhibitors and over 1000 attendees.
The agenda for the speakers was across 7 different strands.
MAIN STAGE
DEVELOP TRACK
ENTERPRISE TRACK
ENTERPRISE 2 TRACK
LIFE TRACK
DESIGN TRACK
STARTUP PITCH
About AUGMENTEDREALITY.ORG
AWE is produced by AugmentedReality.ORG a 501 (c) (6) non-profit organization. All
profits are reinvested in AR.ORG’s services.
Mission: Advancing Augmented Reality to Advance Humanity.
Goal: 1 billion active users of AR by 2020.
AR.org facilitates and catalyzes the global and regional transformation of the AR
industry by:
Educating and boosting awareness about the real power of AR
Connecting the best talent around the world with the best in AR
Hatching AR initiatives and helping bring them to market
During my two days in Munich I attended several panels and talks on the future of AR and
were the industry is heading
Among them:
PTC Vision for Augmented Reality in the Enterprise (Main stage)
Augmented Reality has the power to fundamentally change the way people work. It
bridges the digital and physical worlds, providing value across the enterprise.
When coupled with IoT data, AR applications become truly transformative experiences,
driving many enterprises to completely re-imagine how they manufacture, sell,
operate and service their products.
From Prototype to Global AR roll-out with Bosch (Main stage)
Together with Bosch, we will share the most essential ingredients to open up the
AR world to your organization. We will tell our joint AR story from start to finish (and
beyond) with insights into content approaches, strong partnership ideology,
business strategy, and technical criteria. Start your enterprise AR journey today by
learning how those have done it before you.
Bosch Technical Trainings Supported by Augmented Reality (Main stage)
The presentation explains about this innovative training application and it’s
challenges, it describes the technical solution approach and provides initial
feedback and learnings from training sessions that were held in Bosch training
facilities and during public events.
Mobile AR IS White Hot (Main stage)
This presentation will discuss the key ideas in my book “Charlie Fink’s Metaverse,
An AR Enabled Guide to AR & VR”: (1) Technology succeed when it takes what we
are already doing and makes it better; (2) People are the killer app; (3) we always
overestimate the short term and underestimate the long term. To this, I would add
two insights, which I’ll discuss in some detail. First, the world is going to be painted
with invisible data. How will it work? How will we see it? What will we use it for?
Second, VR and AR are still wrongly conflated and use confusing terminology. We
can’t even agree on what to call things. I will also talk about my follow up book,
coming out in March 2019, “Painted With Data”, which is a deep dive into the many
modes of AR.
The Age of Smart Information (Main stage)
Led by Author and Envisioneer, M. Pell of The Microsoft Garage, this session takes
you through real-world examples of how common collections of content can be
transformed into Smart Information (powered by XR). The session also serves as a
launch point for a movement that will revolutionize the very nature of information.
The Reality Ecosystem: what XR (AR/VR/MR) needs to go big (and how Europe
wins), (Main stage)
Tim is a software engineer, investment banker, lawyer and founder, and one of the
most connected people on the planet for AR/VR/XR at CEO level. He writes
regularly about AR/VR/XR for TechCrunch and others, as well as being interviewed,
quoted and presenting across all major media and conferences globally.
Tim was educated at Yale and Sydney Universities, and before founding Digi-
Capital worked for investment banks, News Corp and Ernst & Young in North
America, Europe and Asia.
I also visited several of the many exhibitions.
AWE (Augmented World Expo) kicked off its third annual European conference and expo
with an exciting press conference featuring major announcements from some of the
Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality (XR) industry’s top thought leaders
and companies, including AWE, Digi-Capital, PTC, RE’FLEKT, Bosch, Vuzix, Upskill,
Eyecandylabs, and the newly established Open AR Cloud Organization (OARC).
The morning began with opening remarks from AWE Co-founder and CEO, Ori Inbar,
highlighting the XR industry’s growth echoed in AWE’s news of its global community
expansion with the launch of 10 new AWE Nite meetup chapters: San Francisco, New
York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, Berlin, Tokyo and Tel Aviv. The
goal of AWE Nites is to advance the augmented reality industry in each city by
connecting and empowering its community and to join these local communities to the
greater AWE network which currently has a reach of over 250,000 professionals across all
“AWE is the world’s gathering place and showcase for the rapidly maturing XR industry–
attracting the leaders, the doers, and the corporations evaluating adoption of XR
technology,” said Ori Inbar, founder and CEO of AWE. “The ultimate goal of AWE is to
inspire one billion active XR users by the year 2020, and all signs point to this becoming a
reality: rapid XR adoption by the Fortune1000, big bets by tech, manufacturing and
consumer giants, and record investment in the billions. These growth and collaboration
factors, when combined with our news partnerships news, the expansion of our AWE
Nites series to 10 cities worldwide, and our open call to the community at large for OARC
awareness and involvement–make this year’s AWE EU our most compelling and powerful
event yet.”
Inbar’s remarks were followed by the debut of exclusive market data, both globally and
specific to EU, presented by Tim Merel, Managing Director of Digi-Capital, based on the
results of an XR survey conducted in cooperation and partnership with AWE. One of the
major findings highlighted in his presentation was the need for XR organizations to seek
revenue opportunities outside of their geographic regions:
“Our work shows that the bulk of AR/VR startups aren’t selling outside their own
backyards, at a time when growing revenue and extending financial runways are critical to
survival. So while there is money to be had internationally, many are simply leaving it on
the table. Although Chinese computer vision/AR investment grew 3x to $3.9 billion over
the last 12 months, in stark contrast North American VC investment in AR/VR startups
dropped below $120 million in Q3 2018. So North American startups (63% of revenue
generated domestically) not making money in Asia (only 11% of revenue coming from the
largest revenue region) or Europe (just 16% of revenue from the second largest revenue
region) could be putting themselves at risk.”
The AWE EU 2018 press conference then debuted the following major announcements.
PTC announced new industry research with detailed findings of how augmented reality
drives best-in-class performance in factory operations, service, and training. The report,
compiled in conjunction with Aberdeen Group, identifies significant financial
improvements realized by companies embracing augmented reality, and provides best
practices for unlocking the potential of AR across a variety of environments.
Vuzix announced that it is ready to launch the Blade Edge commercial edition release of
the Vuzix Blade® Smart Glasses and expects shipments the first week of November
2018. The first commercial release of Vuzix Blade includes the Blade Edge SDK version 5
commercial edition, which allows customers to take advantage of communication links
between iOS and Android devices. The release also includes the Vuzix Blade companion
app, featuring email, messages, media player support and user-specific application
RE’FLEKT unveiled a new standard enterprise operating system–built on its leading
REFLEKT ONE Enterprise Augmented Reality ecosystem– with extensive partner network
of global hardware, software and enterprise players. The standard enterprise operating
system plus partner network opens up the workforce to utilize visual guidance powered
by AR as an out-of-box integration to improve day-to-day tasks across all business
Upskill announced the expansion of its early access program for Skylight for Microsoft
HoloLens to global customers. In addition, the enterprise AR software leader unveiled
expanded device support and the availability of its latest Skylight for Mobile for Android
and iOS. These enhancements allow users to leverage the Skylight AR software platform
across multiple experiences and device paradigms –assisted reality on smart glasses,
mixed reality on Microsoft HoloLens, and remote assistance on mobile devices.
Eyecandylabs announced the release of its augmen.tv SDK to allow customers to
incorporate the software based solution into apps for augmented reality video and linear TV. The toolkit roll-out, which will initiate with the Unity SDK Plugin beginning in 2019 and followed by iOS and Android native SDKs, enables content creators to build engaging and interactive AR-experiences on video, driving user engagement and monetize it through new revenue streams.
Bosch introduced a new AR solution for the automotive industry: a link between the
company’s ActiveSchematics software, which automatically generates VIN specific wiring
diagrams to allow vehicle technicians to diagnose and repair vehicles, with its Augmented Reality application (CAP Common Augmented Reality Platform). When combined, the solution significantly reduces effort and time for automotive service technicians.
Open AR Cloud (OARC) initiative introduced at AWE USA 2018 including the introduction
of its 16 founding members and an inaugural Open AR Cloud working session to focus on two core topics: the introduction of its “Privacy Manifesto for AR Cloud Solutions,” a policy statement outlining the organization’s preliminary seven core AR-Cloud privacy and security principles; followed by an open discussion on the development of a shared
Spatial Index / DNS and frame of reference for a geographical 6dof/pose format.
Along the way I talked to several people from the AR industry.
Oneasme.com
Re-flekt.com
Wikitude SDK AR platform
Guidebot.com
Vufuria – Engine – Chalk - Studio
BOSCH
Charlie Fink - METAVERSE