AWE

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Highlighting the Top 3 XR Trends of 2023 [Insights From This Year’s AWE USA]

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The 2023 edition of AWE USA not only lived up to its reputation but also reached new heights, reportedly marking its largest event to date. From cutting-edge hardware to new, groundbreaking technology and software solutions, this year had it all.

3 Trends That Will Shape the Future of XR

Let’s dive in and explore the main three trends that stood out and are bound to shape the narrative for the future of XR.

Main Focus on AR

There was a lot of discussion this year about artificial intelligence and how it will enable XR rather than replace it. Just like with the metaverse last year, AI became a new hot topic, but in terms of hardware, the spotlight was clearly on AR.

There were, of course, some notable VR-first devices presented: Lenovo announced their new ThinkReality VRX headset, which is now available for purchase ($1,299). I had a chance to give it a try and was impressed with its large sweet spot, visual clarity, and a high degree of comfort. The headset includes a cooling system that takes the heat away from your face and makes the inside feel almost air-conditioned.

ThinkReality VRX
ThinkReality VRX

HTC presented their modular HTC Vive XR Elite ($1,099) for which they had won a “Best Headworn Device” award. It can be worn both like a traditional headset with a head strap or akin to glasses with an external power source instead of the battery in the back. In detached form, the Vive XR Elite weighs only 270 grams.

These devices were more of an exception rather than the rule, however, and pale in comparison to the amount of AR devices showcased this year. Just on the main floor, we had Vuzix promoting their Ultralite turnkey AR solution, Sightful with a screenless Spacetop AR laptop, XREAL presenting XREAL Air glasses, and Magic Leap returning with Magic Leap 2. Right next to those was C-Real with their unique light field display and Tilt Five. In the lobby, Zappar was demonstrating its $75 Cardboard-inspired device.

And that’s just the hardware, the list doesn’t include smartphone-based solutions like Snapchat’s SnapAR and Snap Lenses or Ffface.me digital clothing. Many software providers were experimenting with AR as well. Whether it was enterprise and training applications or entertainment like a laser-tag-inspired Laser Limbo, the focus on augmented reality was prevalent.

Laser-tag-inspired Laser Limbo
Laser-tag-inspired Laser Limbo

Subjectively, I found the XREAL and Tilt Five glasses to be the most promising choices in terms of their usefulness and affordability. Tilt Five ($359) offers six degrees of freedom and a wide 110° field of view, plus a whole range of tabletop applications and games. It also comes with a tracked controller.

Tilt Five
Tilt Five

The XREAL Air ($488 with XReal Beam) might only have three degrees of freedom and a smaller FOV of 46°, but makes up for it with its versatility. It weighs only 79 grams and is compatible with phones, consoles, and laptops. Almost any device with a screen can be beamed into the glasses. For those looking to start experimenting with AR, both offer a good and inexpensive entry point.

The Renaissance of Haptics

It was hard to ignore the sheer volume of haptic-related products at AWE. There was a surge of novel startups and original concepts along with many industry veterans returning to show off their latest progress.

I did not expect haptics to have such a strong showing and was positively taken aback. Bhaptics were busy presenting their new TactGlove and Contact CI came out with a new product called Maestro. The most established player in the space, HaptX, was there as well.

Among newer entrants, SenseGlove was celebrating their €3.25M Series A funding with a newly updated Nova 2 haptic glove. Weart demoed their TouchDIVER glove capable of not only feedback but also temperature variations, while OWO showed off their latest haptic vest that uses electrical impulses to simulate sensations. Fluid Reality stole the show with its electroosmotic device that uses an electric field to create feedback.

Fluid Reality
Fluid Reality

There were too many to list but even this short rundown underscores how noticeable haptics were this year. Most of these products target industrial and business markets, with the notable exceptions being the OWO vest ($499) and Bhaptics (also $499). Both devices have their strengths and weaknesses, though I have to give extra points to OWO for taking a bold, unique approach and allowing users to configure the vest so that it can simulate discomfort as well as other unpleasant feedback. This can result in a significantly more visceral experience and a heightened feeling of presence that’s hard to replicate using other methods.

OWO Haptic Vest
OWO Haptic Vest

Seeing all the new and creative ways to model and recreate tactile data left me impressed with what’s to come, but at the same time, underwhelmed with the more conventional approaches.

Full resistance feedback, which restricts your movement, felt detached and did not properly mirror what I was seeing inside the headset. That was the case for both SenseGlove Nova and the high-end HaptX.

Their feedback, while indeed powerful, felt very mechanical and arbitrary. There are two paradigms here at play, one is trying to nail the fidelity but approximate the sensation, while the other one is trying to provide the exact, realistic sensation at the cost of fidelity.

New Optics Solutions Are Coming

There were a number of booths dealing with optics and display solutions this year. It’s possible the latest push into AR helped supercharge this progress in optics. Many booths had some kind of developer kit or proof-of-concept ready. Visitors would come and literally peer into the future through these stationary prototypes.

One example was Ant Reality demonstrating their mixed waveguide solution called Crossfire. While the displays (ranging in field of view from 56° to 120°) were impressive, what made them unique was their ability to do both AR and VR. At a press of a button, the surroundings would go completely dark, turning the augmented overlay into an immersive experience. Magic Leap 2 is known for offering what is called segmented dimming, but in the case of the Crossfire, the glasses would become completely opaque despite the AWE show floor being exceptionally bright.

Ant Display demonstrating their prototypes
Ant Display demonstrating their prototypes

Another never-before-achieved breakthrough was a light field display incorporated into an AR headset, courtesy of CREAL. Light field displays promise to solve a lot of issues, the most common one being correct focal depth. Harnessing the direction of light can produce outstanding results, but shrinking light field tech to fit into a glasses form factor still proves tricky. CREAL’s headset is an important, pioneering step in this field.

CREAL’s LFD headset
CREAL’s LFD headset

Another interesting innovation came from a company called Hypervision. Their claim to fame is their ultra-wide display capable of achieving a human vision 240° field of view. To make this happen, Hypervision used not one, not two, but four pancake lenses. Vertically, the screen has 95° so it doesn’t quite match the human eye top to bottom, but horizontally there’s full peripheral vision. While the stitching between the screens was slightly perceptible, the ability to achieve human FOV in such a small form factor is a massive step forward.

Hypervision
Hypervision

Overall, this means that the future generations of XR devices will have access to a wide variety of new, next-gen optics and display solutions, most of which are not even known to the general public. Display tech doesn’t follow Moore’s Law so it’s always difficult to make any specific predictions, but there’s clearly no stagnation in the field and some of the breakthroughs we saw this year are truly exciting.

Closing Thoughts

These are just some of the main trends and shifts we saw this year. There was a notable increase in 3D spatial display panels, such as Leia Lume Pad 2, Sony’s Spatial Display, Looking Glass, and a human-sized holographic box by ARHT.

This forms part of a larger trend of broadening the definition of spatial computing, which is sometimes expanded to include other real-world tools and technologies like visualizations, projection mapping, and 3D screens.

What also caught my eye was a noticeable reduction in locomotion solutions. Gone are the days of omnidirectional treadmills or big simulator seats. The only two exceptions were the unconventional EXIT SUIT, which suspends the wearer slightly above the ground allowing them to run in the air, sit, fly, and do a range of other motions (for which the team had won this year “AWEsome” award) and the Freeaim shoes that act like rollers, pushing the wearer backward as they walk.

This was the last AWE hosted in Santa Clara. From next year on, the event is moving to the Long Beach Convention Center. This shift to a new, bigger venue highlights the constant growth of the XR space and that’s one trend that speaks for itself.

Guest Post

About the Guest Author(s)

Mat Pawluczuk

Mat Pawluczuk

Mat Pawluczuk is an XR / VR writer and content creator.

Highlighting the Top 3 XR Trends of 2023 [Insights From This Year’s AWE USA] Read More »

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Looking Forward to AWE Asia 2023

AI, AR/VR events, augmented reality, AWE, Events, featured, metaverse, trending, virtual reality / /

If you get all of your AWE coverage from ARPost, you might be under the impression that the event is only in California – but it wouldn’t be much of a “World Expo” then, would it? In addition to frequent all-online events, AWE consists of three in-person events each year: AWE USA, AWE Europe, and AWE Asia.

AWE Asia, this year taking place in Singapore, is fast approaching, with the agenda now finalized. Attendees can look forward to hearing from over 60 speakers in over 60 sessions including keynotes, talks, and panels over the course of the two-day conference. Let’s take a look at some of the most exciting sessions.

AWE Asia Keynotes and Addresses

Day One starts off with an opening ceremony by AWE co-founder Ori Inbar, joined on-stage by AWE Asia President and Vice President, Gavin Newton-Tanzer and Ryan Hu. This session is followed by back-to-back keynotes by HTC Global Vice President of Corporate Development Alvin Graylin and University of South Australia professor Dr. Mark Billinghurst.

Day Two also starts off with keynotes. First, “Metaverse as the Next Biggest Thing: Challenges, Roadmaps, and Standardization” by IEEE president Dr. Yu Yuan. This is followed by “ifland: A Case Study on Telco Collaboration in Building a Global Metaverse Platform” presented by SK Telecom Vice President Ikhwan Cho and Deutsche Telekom Senior Director of XR and the Metaverse Terry Schussler.

Day Two then closes with remarks and awards from Inbar, Newton-Tanzer, and AWE Asia COO and Content Director David Weeks.

The keynotes and addresses are great because they often feature some of a conference’s biggest announcements and most anticipated speakers. They’re also great because nothing is scheduled at the same time as a keynote. From here, we’ll have to start making some tough calls.

Day One Sessions

Following the AWE Asia welcome address and keynotes on Day One, the crowd is sure to split. Remain near the main stage to hear NVIDIA’s Vanessa Ching discuss “Developers, Platforms, and AI.” Venture off to a substage to hear Joe Millward and Kyle Jackson of Talespin talk about “Scaling XR Content for the Enterprise With Generative AI.”

Next up. Niantic Senior VP of Engineering, Brian McClendon, explains how “Niantic is Powering AR, Everywhere, All at Once.” Having seen this talk at AWE USA, I can tell you it’s worth seeing, but I can also point out that you could watch the recording online and stretch your day a little further.

Another tough decision follows. Will it be “How AI Will Enhance the Metaverse and Education” with Meta Head of Global Education Partnerships Leticia Jauregui and Zoe Immersive CEO and co-founder Emilie Joly? Or will it be “Beyond Loudness: Spatial Chat and the Future of Virtual World Communication” with Dolby Laboratories Developer Advocate Angelik Laboy?

Day One’s Marathon on the Main Stage

The afternoon of Day One has a lineup of promising presentations on the main stage. Starting, Immersal Chief Marketing Officer Päivi Laakso-Kuivalainen and Graviton Interactive co-founder and Managing Director Declan Dwyer talk “Revolutionizing Fan Engagement: Augmented Reality in Stadiums Powered by Visual Positioning Systems and Spatial Computing.”

This is followed by Linux Foundation General Manager Royal O’Brien talking about “Inspiring Game Development Through Open Source.” Then, keep your seat to hear Trigger XR founder and CEO Jason Yim talk about retail, advertising, and e-commerce. A little later on the same stage, Mindverse.AI co-founder and COO Kisson Lin talks about the Web3 creator economy.

Day Two Sessions Main Stage Sessions

One can’t-miss session on Day Two comes from Dispelix APAC VP of Sales and Partnerships Andy Lin, presenting “PERFECTING COMFORT – Vision Behind Dispelix Waveguide Combiners for Near-to-Eye XR Displays.”

Some of the last regular sessions on the main stage before the AWE Asia closing address look promising as well.

First, Infocomm Assistant Director of Innovation Joanne Teh, Deloitte Center for the Edge Southeast Asia Leader Michelle Khoo, Serl.io co-founder and CEO Terence Loo, and SMRT Corporation Learning Technologies Lead Benjamin Chen have a panel discussion about “The Future of Immersive Experiences: Navigating the World of XR.”

Immediately following the panel discussion, Google’s Toshihiro Ohnuma takes the stage to discuss “Connecting Both Worlds – Google Maps and AR Core.”

In between those sessions, the substages look pretty promising.

Major Side-Stage Attractions

After Lin’s talk, head over to Substage 1 for a series of promising talks. These start with Maxar Technologies Business Development Manager Andrew Steele presenting “Experience the Digital Twin Built for Connecting Your XR Content With the Real World. “ The world-scale digital twin won the Auggie for Best Use of AI at the awards ceremony in Santa Clara this spring.

Up next on the same stage, Anything World co-founder and Creative Director Sebastian Hofer explains “How AI Is Powering a Golden Age in Games Development.”

A quick break between sessions and then back to learn about “ThinkReality Solutions Powering the Enterprise Metaverse” with Lenovo Emerging Technologies Lead Martand Srivastava and Qualcomm’s Kai Ping Tee.

Lots to Take In

AWE Asia being two days instead of three certainly doesn’t solve the classic AWE problem of there being just too much amazing content to take in everything. At least, not live anyway.

To attend AWE Asia yourself, get tickets here, and use our code AW323SEB25 for 30% off the standard ticket and PAR23VSEB for 35% off the VIP ticket.

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Unveiling the Spacetop AR Laptop: AWE 2023 First Impressions

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This year’s AWE 2023 was a remarkable testament to the accelerating pace of innovation in the field of augmented reality, hosting an unprecedented 6,000 guests and 300 exhibitors.

Amidst the sea of booths, one exhibit captured sustained attention—the Spacetop laptop by Sightful. Throughout the day, from early morning until the closing hours, its stand was constantly buzzing with activity.

Unveiling the Spacetop AR Laptop - AWE 2023 First Impressions
Long lines to try Sightful’s Spacetop AR; Source: AWE

Face-To-Face With The Spacetop

Spacetop’s uniqueness stems from its design—it shuns the traditional physical screen and employs a pair of AR glasses as the display medium. The glasses are not proprietary but are a product of Sightful’s collaboration with XREAL (formerly Nreal), who provided an existing AR solution tailored specifically for Spacetop.

Spacetop AR laptop
Source: Sightful – Spacetop press kit

Field of View

With its sleek and futuristic design, the laptop certainly looks promising at a glance. However, a set of issues quickly surfaced during my hands-on experience. The most significant one is the limited field of view that’s insufficient to accommodate the entire screen.

The glasses’ restricted field of view necessitates constant head tilting which undermines the entire purpose of having large virtual monitors and results in what is known as “windowing”—a term used in spatial computing when virtual objects fail to fully overlay and appear cut off.

Attempted solutions like moving the virtual monitor further away were not effective due to the glasses’ 1080p (1920×1080) resolution. Push the screen too far back and the text becomes difficult to read. Therefore, users are forced to deal with near-placed screens that, while clear and readable, outsize Spacetop’s field of view.

Input Solutions and Design

The laptop also lacks hand tracking, a disappointing omission considering the advancements in the field. Users are left with a trackpad, navigating a vast spatial spectrum with a traditional cursor, a process that can feel slow and inadequate. Monica Chin from The Verge has reported instances of losing the cursor among the screens, then struggling to locate it – a problem no doubt amplified by the limited FOV.

Low-precision tasks such as moving tabs or resizing that could be done in fractions of a second with either touchscreen or hand tracking, here took exponentially longer. It made the whole experience of using Spacetop feel frustrating.

There are also other less obvious quibbles. For example, no screen means the webcam must be positioned down on the keyboard. This suboptimal positioning creates an unflattering, spycam-like angle.

Although users can lower their virtual screen to align with the webcam, mitigating gaze-switching between the screen and camera, ultimately the very design of the Spacetop laptop necessitates certain compromises.

Sightful in It for the Long Haul

I asked a Sightful representative about the low field of view and was informed that the company is aware of these display limitations. They assured me that they are prepared to iterate in tandem with the industry.

It seems Sightful is conscious not to portray Spacetop as a purely AR device. More than anything else, Spacetop is a screen-less laptop with a proprietary operating system, Spacetop OS (based on Android), and a unique set of AR-specific features.

In the future, the team may design the laptop to work with any glasses they deem suitable for their purpose. This is their first product and instead of playing catch-up, Sightful is eager to start early and keep perfecting the experience as better, newer glasses come into the market.

However, as things stand today, it’s hard to avoid the obvious question: Why would one choose to splash $2,000 on a Spacetop when one could simply spend $379 on the XREAL glasses (or $488 bundled with the XREAL Beam) and use them to stream from any device? The Spacetop team attempts to answer this by emphasizing their AR-first design and focus.

For instance, executing a three-finger swipe on the touchpad moves screens spatially between closer and further planes. There is also a Reality Mode button that turns the AR off allowing for full pass-through, and a range of shortcuts that enable you to snap screens in place, re-center them, and more. While these improvements and enhancements are handy, they don’t quite seem to justify the substantial premium.

Mat at AWE using Spacetop
Author believers that Spacetop’s form factor makes it socially acceptable.

Potential Is There

Initially, I had planned to log into my Twitter account from within the Spacetop, take a screenshot with its webcam, and do a live tweet, heralding the dawn of a new era in spatial laptop computing.

However, the realization that the Spacetop still has some distance to cover before it can be deemed fully user-friendly made it challenging to compose a strictly positive and genuine tweet (time constraints and burdensome trackpad navigation played a role as well).

The potential is undoubtedly there. Large field-of-view, high-resolution AR displays, along with some ultralight tracking solutions, were already being showcased at this year’s AWE and might be integrated into the next generation of glasses.

During my brief encounter with the Spacetop, I could easily envision it becoming a preferred work tool for many, not just for those working from home, but also in cafes or co-working spaces. Moreover, there’s an inherent benefit of privacy. For stock traders, artists, or anyone who values personal workspace, the ability to work on non-public screens adds a lot of appeal.

Its form factor is among the most socially acceptable options available – there’s something about having AR glasses paired with a clearly visible laptop or tablet that makes the entire setup immediately understandable to onlookers. It doesn’t seem to invite confusion or ridicule; if anything, it might invite desirability.

Spacetop screens
The author thinks that promotional materials feel misleading; Source: Spacetop press kit

For now, however, Spacetop’s primary promise of being a superior alternative to traditional laptops falls short. Its promotional materials, which depict users encircled by screen panels, feel misleading.

The current iteration is hampered by a lack of hand-tracking, a limited field of view, and clunky user interface solutions. Moreover, the price point does not seem to correspond with the value provided. However, with improvements and upgrades coming, it’s worth keeping an eye on Sightful.

Guest Post

About the Guest Author(s)

Mat Pawluczuk

Mat Pawluczuk

Mat Pawluczuk is an XR / VR writer and content creator.

Unveiling the Spacetop AR Laptop: AWE 2023 First Impressions Read More »

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Celebrating the 2023 Auggie Awards and XR Prize Challenge

AR/VR events, auggie awards, augmented reality, AWE, Events, featured, trending, virtual reality / /

The Augmented World Expo has its own awards ceremony – the Auggie Awards. Watchers of the XR space submit nominations and vote for their favorites. A panel of distinguished judges then selects the winners from among the finalists. Or, at least, that’s how it works for the first 16 categories.

The Best in Show awards, the XR Startup to Watch, and a few other Auggie Awards are determined differently. This year also saw the award of the XR Prize Challenge that AWE founder and CEO Ori Inbar announced last year.

The 14th Annual Auggie Awards

“I’m super excited to be hosting the Auggie Awards ceremony for the 14th year,” said Inbar. “The Auggie Awards have been recognizing XR since 2010.”

Ori Inbar and Auggies

Inbar shared that there were a record 377 nominations this year, which public voting narrowed down to 89 finalists before 30 judges chose the 16 winners. Or, the 13 winners, as one organization left with a record-breaking three awards.

Auggie Awards 2023 judges

Best Art or Film

Developer, entrepreneur, and consultant Antony Vitillo, perhaps better known as “Skarred Ghost”, presented the first Auggie Award of the night for Best Art or Film.

“I totally love storytelling experiences and the emotions they give me,” said Vitillo.

The Auggie Award went to Delta Reality for The Museum of Digital Life. The massive multi-user art exhibit includes everything from 2D photographs to 3D objects and virtual worlds. Delta Reality was also nominated in the same category for The Metaverse Park and was up for Best Enterprise Solution and Best in Location-Based Entertainment.

The group won over Mutienliao, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Ferryman Collective. Unfortunately, no one from Delta Reality was present to accept the award.

Best Campaign

It was the “great pleasure” of University of South Australia Professor of Computer Human Interaction Mark Billinghurst to present the Auggie Award for Best Campaign. The award went to Zappar for Countdown: Bricks Farm. The interactive game for a New Zealand Supermarket included social lenses, games, and recipes.

Ori Inbar, Caspar Thykier, and Mark Billinghurst

“We talk about technology, but it’s all about the people,” Zappar CEO and co-founder Caspar Thykier said in accepting the award.

The experience beat out two experiences by CamOn XR and an experience by Viewtoo, as well as another Zappar experience that had also been nominated. Zappar was also up for Auggie Awards in the categories of Best Creator & Authoring Tool, Best Developer Tool, Best Headworn Device, Best in Location-Based Entertainment, and Best Societal Impact.

Best Collaboration Tool

Sony Electronics Head of XR Business Development Thaisa Yamamura was “honored to present” the Auggie Award for Best Collaboration Tool. She also presented the winner with a 15.6in Sony Spatial Reality Display.

The Auggie Award went to Pfizer for VR collaboration tools used in developing the COVID-19 vaccine, and was accepted by a representative of the company. Also nominated were Arthur, Morpheus, Holo-Light, and R3DT GmbH.

Best Consumer App

“We spend a lot of time talking about enterprise XR, and for good reason, but the consumer market is where things really scale,” XR analyst Mike Boland said in introducing the Best Consumer App category.

The Central Library of Düsseldorf App, by Exponential Dimensions, took home this award, despite facing stiff competition from the likes of Snap Inc. and Overlay LLC. The Auggie Award was accepted in person by a representative of the City of Düsseldorf.

Best Creator & Authoring Tool

“This is an exciting category because these are the tools we can all use to create amazing worlds for each other,” All These Worlds LLC founder Jackie Morie said in presenting the Auggie Award for Best Creator & Authoring Tool.

The Auggie Award went to Snap Inc for Lens Studio with fellow nominees Overlay LLC, Zappar, HoloPundits, ARSOFT, and DEEPFINE. The award was accepted in person by a representative who passed on praise to the “300,000 AR creators creating with us.”

Best Developer Tool

Another Snap representative, Head of Platform Developer Relations Tessa Kriesel, took the stage next to present the Auggie Award for Best Developer Tool. This category could have gone to anybody with finalists Blippar, Zappar, 8th Wall, Holo-Light, and Qualcomm, but echo3D took home the prize.

echo3D Auggie Awards 2023

Best Enterprise Solution

“XR Tech has the power to change the way we work but only when we have enterprises who do the development and work to bring those projects to us,” AWE Advisory Council member Shelley Peterson said in presenting the Auggie Award for Best Enterprise Solution.

Nominees in the packed category included Lowe’s Innovation Labs, Delta Reality, and HoloPundits, but Ajna Lense, an MR developer headset by Indian company Dimension NXG took the prize. The same headset was also a finalist in the Best Headword Device category.

Best Game or Toy

“This one has a special meaning to me as someone who has devoted his entire life to a toy,” skateboarder Rodney Mullen said in presenting the Auggie Award for Best Game or Toy.

Resolution Games was nominated for both Demeo and Spatial Ops, ILMxLAB was nominated for StarWars: Tales From the Galaxy’s Edge, and DB Creations was nominated for Table Trenches. However, the prize went home with the team of Innersloth, Schell Games, and Robot Teddy for Among Us VR. Or, it will be mailed home, as no one accepted the award in person.

Best Headworn Device

Science fiction author Daniel Suarez had the honor of presenting one of the evening’s most anticipated Auggie Awards – and perhaps the one with the stiffest competition.

Zappar’s Zapbox, DigiLens’ ARGO, Sony’s PlayStation VR 2, the Magic Leap 2, XREAL (previously Nreal) Air, and the Varjo XR 3 Focal Edition were all in the running, but the prize went to the HTC VIVE XR Elite.

best headworn device Auggie Awards AWE 2023

“We’re just so happy. This is something we’ve been working on for a long time,” HTC China President Alvin Graylin said in accepting the award. “We’re so excited to be recognized here.”

Best in Healthcare and Wellness

XR Association President Elizabeth Hyman called the field of healthcare and wellness “a great way to change the world” in presenting the Auggie Award for this category. Nominees included Groove Jones and Lucid Reality Labs but the award went home with ARSOFT for NextMED – a tool for medical visualization.

best healthcare and wellness Auggie Awards AWE 2023

“We’re here from Spain just to be with so many interesting companies and amazing people,” founder and CEO Santiago González said in accepting the award.

Best in Location-Based Entertainment

“So many people find their first XR experience through LBEs,” Hopscotch Interactive CEO Emily Olman said in presenting the Auggie. “This is an amazing category that brings so many people into XR for the first time every single day.”

Nominees included ONTOP and Delta Reality, but Thykier returned to the stage to accept the award for LEGO MYTHICA Magic Forrest – Zappar’s second Auggie of the night.

Ori Inbar, Caspar Thykier, and Emily Olman

“It’s everyone’s dream to work with a property like LEGO,” said Thykier. “There’s a wonderful team there and they’ll be happy that we’ve won this.”

Best Indie Creator

“Without our indie creators, there would not be an industry,” GatherVerse Summit founder Christopher Lafayette said in presenting the Auggie Award for Best Indie Creator. He also gave a “shoutout to our startups.”

In a field that included DB Creations and OnBoardXR, the prize went to Big Rock Creative, best known for bringing Burning Man into VR for the past three years. The producers, Doug Jacobson and Athena Demos gave brief speeches, but were accompanied onto the stage by a team of creators including the worldbuilding duo Cause and Christie.

Big Rock Creative

“We all start out as indie collaborators,” said Demos.

“I want to thank the whole team. We’re very excited to learn the language of storytelling in this new medium,” said Jacobs.

Best Interaction Product

“You guys are so lucky to have the XR devices and the ecosystem that you have out there,” Graylin said, returning to the stage to present the Auggie Award for Best Interaction Product. “These are good times.”

VIVE itself was nominated for their Self-Tracking Trackers, along with the likes of Leia Inc., SenseGlove, and Wisear. Graylin presented the award to TriLite for the Trixel 3, an impressively small projector for AR displays.

best interaction product Auggie Awards AWE 2023

“Thank you so much, AWE,” Head of Product Marketing and Business Development Susan Backhaus said in accepting the award. “This is a great recognition of our work.”

Best Snapdragon Spaces App

“We’ve been super impressed by the number and quality of applications we have seen,” Qualcomm’s Senior Director of XR Martin Herdina said in presenting the first Qualcomm-sponsored Auggie Award.

best snapdragon spaces Auggie Awards AWE 2023

The award went to Verizon for The Future of Training, an XR upskilling program. In this case, the Auggie also came with a $10,000 check from Qualcomm.

Best Societal Impact

Unity VP of Education and Social Impact Jessica Lindl said that “the world is a better place with more creatives in it,” as she prepared to award another of the evening’s most anticipated Auggies. The category had a number of repeat nominees including Lucid Reality Labs, with two experiences in this field, and Zappar for their Zapvision solution.

best societal impact Auggie Awards 2023

Thykier returned to the stage once again to accept the third Auggie Award of the night – beating the record that the company set last year. This time Thykier was accompanied by a number of Zappar representatives to accept the award that makes product information available to vision-impaired individuals through an enhanced QR code.

“We do a lot of exciting work at Zappar, but it’s amazing to do some important work,” said Thykier, who also gave special thanks to Unilever, the consumer packaged goods company that partnered with Zappar on the project. “This is the [Auggie] that is super important.”

Best Use of AI

“It came to the attention of the world recently that the singularity is underway,” AWE co-founder Tish Shute said in presenting the Auggie Award for Best Use of AI. “There is a cycle where AI feeds XR and XR feeds AI. This is going to cause an acceleration that is mind-boggling, to say the least.”

best use of AI - Auggie Awards AWE 2023

With competition like Move.ai and Avataar, it was a tough field. The Auggie was awarded to Maxar Technologies for SYNTH3D – a high-fidelity world-scale digital twin created with satellite data.

The Startup Pitch Competition

“We had an incredible group of startups pitch,” Boost VC Partner Maddie Callander said in presenting the Startup to Watch Auggie. “It’s always exciting to see the cutting edge.”

Atopia won from among the 14 finalists for “creating the metaverse of arts and culture.” The Auggie was accepted by co-founder Annabell Vacano.

Ori Inbar, Maddie Callander, and Annabell Vacano

“We couldn’t have done this without our small team back in Germany,” said Vacano.

Best In Show

WXR Fund Managing Partner Amy Lameyer presented the Best In Show award. This award is presented during the event wrap-up and considers expo floor interest. The award went to Sightful, one of the companies behind Spacetop – a laptop that uses AR glasses in lieu of a screen.

The award was accepted in-person by the company’s co-founders Tomer Kahan and Tamir Berliner. Berliner talked about the growth of AWE and of XR generally, including the massive presence of XR hardware at the recent Consumer Electronics Show. He also referenced Ori’s end-of-show announcement that AWE will move from Santa Clara to Long Beach.

“I do want to thank everyone here, but Ori, also to you. I met you, I think it was AWE 2014 in Tel Aviv, I think that there were about a hundred people there – not speakers, attendees,” said Berliner. “I think the move to LA is messaging everyone that CES should watch out because Consumer Electronics is becoming AWE.”

The AWEsome Award

The AWEsome Award is determined by a “complex algorithm” that includes “buzz,” participation, expo floor interest, and other factors. The Auggie was presented by XREAL founder Peng Jin.

The award went to EXIT SUIT but was not accepted in person. Ori commented that exhibitors are often packing up their booths while the event wrap-up is under way.

Visual Impact

A special award, the “Visual Impact Award” was presented by NTT Ltd. Group Vice President of Connected Industry Rika Nakazawa to the XR artist best known as Sutu. Sutu had created the art used for promoting AWE but also used as the backdrop on the main stage.

“I’m so happy that Ori asked me to create the art,” said Sutu. “It’s been a journey. I was at AWE in the early days and to see what it’s become and to be a part of that, it’s been a journey.”

The XR Prize Challenge

Last year, Inbar announced The XR Prize Challenge: “A global competition to harness the power of XR to fight climate change” with a $100,000 grand prize. 230 projects were submitted. 150 of those advanced to the next level. 90 of those submitted a minimum viable product. Those were narrowed down to 11 finalists. In the end, there were three runners-up and one winner.

The runners-up and grand prize winners were announced in the categories Optimize, Educate, Visualize, and Replace. All runners-up received an Nvidia graphics card.

Optimize

Niantic VP of Business Development Jenna Seiden presented the runner-up in the Optimize category, saying that “the technologies that we’re celebrating tonight make the world more magical.”

incitu

The award went to inCitu, a project that shows immersive models of familiar locations in potential futures – for example, as impacted by rising sea levels due to climate change. An earlier version of the experience had first been demod at a 2019 AWE event in Munich.

Educate

IEEE Standards Association President Yu Yuan presented the runner up in the education category saying, “education is very important to get more people working with us in XR.” The award went to Mangrove City – a VR experience that helps users understand the ecological significance of wetlands.

mangrove city AWE 2023

Visualize

University of Oregon Assistant Professor of Immersive Media Psychology Danny Pimentel presented the runner up in the “Visualize” category.

“It was moving to see so many organizations and creators around the world leverage these technologies in such thoughtful ways,” said Pimentel.

Qikiqtaruk

The award went to Qikiqtaruk: Experiencing the Arctic Under Threat. The project brought in multiple co-creators to make a virtual tour of a national park that serves as an immediate example of the impacts of climate change.

The Grand Prize

Tom Furness, founder of the Virtual World Society, presented the Grand Prize to Between Two Worlds. The AR app helps users learn about endangered species, their habitats, and why they are endangered.

Another Year, Gone

That wrapped another year of the Auggie Awards and of the Augmented World Expo. Of course, events are coming up in Europe and Asia, as well as regional meetups and events that visitors can join on the AWE.live app. Until next year, it’s time to make some Auggies-worthy news for next time.

Celebrating the 2023 Auggie Awards and XR Prize Challenge Read More »

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AWE USA 2023 Day Three: Eyes on Apple

AI, Apple Inc., AR/VR events, augmented reality, AWE, Events, extended reality, featured, Meta, trending / /

The last, third day of AWE USA 2023 took place on Friday, June 2. The first day of AWE is largely dominated by keynotes. A lot of air on the second day is taken up by the expo floor opening. By the third day, the keynotes are done, the expo floor starts to get packed away, and panel discussions and developer talks rule the day. And Apple ruled a lot of those talks.

Bracing for Impact From Apple

A big shift is expected this week as Apple is expected to announce its entrance into the XR market. The writing has been on the wall for a long time.

Rumors have probably been circulating for longer than many readers have even been watching XR. ARPost started speculating in 2018 on a 2019 release. Five years of radio silence later and we had reports that the product would be delayed indefinitely.

The rumor mill is back in operation with an expected launch this week (Apple’s WWDC23 starts today) – with many suggesting that Meta’s sudden announcement of the Quest 3 is a harbinger. Whether an Apple entrance is real this time or not, AWE is bracing itself.

Suspicion on Standards

Let’s take a step back and look at a conversation that happened on AWE USA 2023 Day Two, but is very pertinent to the emerging Apple narrative.

The “Building Open Standards for the Metaverse” panel moderated by Moor Insights and Strategy Senior Analyst Anshel Sag brought together XR Safety Initiative (XRSI) founder and CEO Kavya Pearlman, XRSI Advisor Elizabeth Rothman, and Khronos Group President Neil Trevett.

Apple’s tendency to operate outside of standards was discussed. Even prior to their entrance into the market, this has caused problems for XR app developers – Apple devices even have a different way of sensing depth than Android devices. XR glasses tend to come out first or only on Android in part because of Android’s more open ecosystem.

“Apple currently holds so much power that they could say ‘This is the way we’re going to go.’ and the Metaverse Standards Forum could stand up and say ‘No.’,” said Pearlman, expressing concern over accessibility of “the next generation of the internet”.

Trevett expressed a different approach, saying that standards should present the best option, not the only option. While standards are more useful the more groups use them, competition is helpful and shows diversity in the industry. And diversity in the industry is what sets Apple apart.

“If Apple does announce something, they’ll do a lot of education … it will progress how people use the tech whether they use open standards or not,” said Trevett. “If you don’t have a competitor on the proprietary end of the spectrum, that’s when you should start to worry because it means that no one cares enough about what you’re doing.”

Hope for New Displays

On Day Three, KGOn Tech LLC’s resident optics expert Karl Guttag presented an early morning developer session on “Optical Versus Passthrough Mixed Reality.” Guttag has been justifiably critical of Meta Quest Pro’s passthrough in particular. Even for optical XR, he expressed skepticism about a screen replacement, which is what the Apple headset is largely rumored to be.

karl guttag AWE 2023 Day 3
Karl Guttag

“One of our biggest issues in the market is expectations vs. reality,” said Guttag. “What is hard in optical AR is easy in passthrough and vice versa. I see very little overlap in applications … there is also very little overlap in device requirements.”

A New Generation of Interaction

“The Quest 3 has finally been announced, which is great for everyone in the industry,” 3lbXR and 3lb Games CEO Robin Moulder said in her talk “Expand Your Reach: Ditch the Controllers and Jump into Mixed Reality.” “Next week is going to be a whole new level when Apple announces something – hopefully.”

robin moulder AWE 2023 Day 3
Robin Moulder

Moulder presented the next round of headsets as the first of a generation that will hopefully be user-friendly enough to increase adoption and deployment bringing more users and creators into the XR ecosystem.

“By the time we have the Apple headset and the new Quest 3, everybody is going to be freaking out about how great hand tracking is and moving into this new world of possibilities,” said Moulder.

More on AI

AI isn’t distracting anyone from XR and Apple isn’t distracting anyone from AI. Apple appearing as a conference theme doesn’t mean that anyone was done talking about AI. If you’re sick of reading about AI, at least read the first section below.

Lucid Realities: A Glimpse Into the Current State of Generative AI

After two full days of people talking about how AI is a magical world generator that’s going to take the task of content creation off of the shoulders of builders, Microsoft Research Engineer Jasmine Roberts set the record straight.

jasmine roberts AWE 2023
Jasmine Roberts

“We’ve passed through this techno-optimist state into dystopia and neither of those are good,” said Roberts. “When people think that [AI] can replace writers, it’s not really meant to do that. You still need human supervisors.”

AI not being able to do everything that a lot of people think it can isn’t the end of the world. A lot of the things that people want AI to do is already possible through other less glamorous tools.

“A lot of what people want from generative AI, they can actually get from procedural generation,” said Roberts. “There are some situations where you need bespoke assets so generative AI wouldn’t really cut it.”

Roberts isn’t against AI – her presentation was simply illustrating that it doesn’t work the way that some industry outsiders are being led to believe. That isn’t the same as saying that it doesn’t work. In fact, she brought a demo of an upcoming AI-powered Clippy. (You remember Clippy, right?)

Augmented Ecologies

Roberts was talking about the limitations of AI. The “Augmented Ecologies” panel moderated by AWE co-founder Tish Shute, saw Three Dog Labs founder Sean White,  Morpheus XR CTO Anselm Hook, and Croquet founder and CTO David A. Smith talking about what happens when AI is the new dominant life form on planet Earth.

Tish Shute, Sean White, Anselm Hook, and David Smith - AWE 2023 Day 3
From left to right: Tish Shute, Sean White, Anselm Hook, and David Smith

“We’re kind of moving to a probabilistic model, it’s less deterministic, which is much more in line with ecological models,” said White.

This talk presented the scenario in which developers are no longer the ones running the show. AI takes on a life of its own, and that life is more capable than ours.

“In an ecology, we’re not necessarily at the center, we’re part of the system,” said Hook. “We’re not necessarily able to dominate the technologies that are out there anymore.”

This might scare you, but it doesn’t scare Smith. Smith described a future in which AI becomes the legacy that can live in environments that humans never can, like the reaches of space.

“The metaverse and AI are going to redefine what it means to be human,” said Smith. “Ecosystems are not healthy if they are not evolving.”

“No Longer the Apex”

On the morning of Day Two, the Virtual World Society and the VR/AR Association hosted a very special breakfast. Invited were some of the most influential leaders in the immersive technology space. The goal was to discuss the health and future of the XR industry.

The findings will be presented in a report, but some of the concepts were also presented at “Spatial Computing for All” – a fireside chat with Virtual World Society Founder Tom Furness, HTC China President Alvin Graylin, and moderated by technology consultant Linda Ricci.

The major takeaway was that the industry insiders aren’t particularly worried about the next few years. After that, the way in which we do work might start to change and that might have to change the ways that we think about ourselves and value our identities in a changing society.

AWE Is Changing Too

During the show wrap-up, Ori Inbar had some big news. “AWE is leveling up to LA.” This was the fourteenth AWE. Every AWE, except for one year when the entire conference was virtual because of the COVID-19 pandemic, has been in Santa Clara. But, the conference has grown so much that it’s time to move.

AWE 2024 in LA

“I think we realized this year that we were kind of busting at the seams,” said Inbar. “We need a lot more space.”

The conference, which will take place from June 18-20 will be in Long Beach, with “super, super early bird tickets” available for the next few weeks.

Yes, There’s Still More

Most of the Auggie Awards and the winners of Inbar’s climate challenge were announced during a ceremony on the evening of Day Two. During the event wrap-up, the final three Auggies were awarded. We didn’t forget, we just didn’t have room for them in our coverage.

So, there is one final piece of AWE coverage just on the Auggies. Keep an eye out. Spoiler alert, Apple wasn’t nominated in any of the categories.

AWE USA 2023 Day Three: Eyes on Apple Read More »

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DigiLens Expands Ecosystem With Hardware, Software Announcements

AR glasses, augmented reality, AWE, digilens, featured, News, optics, qualcomm / /

DigiLens may not be on every XR user’s mind, but we all owe them a lot. The optical components manufacturer only recently released its first branded wearable, but the organization makes parts for a number of XR companies and products. That’s why it’s so exciting that the company announced a wave of new processes and partnerships over the last few weeks.

SRG+

“Surface Relief Gratings” is one complicated process within the production of the complicated system that is a waveguide – the optical component that put DigiLens on the map. The short of it is that waveguides are the translucent screen on which a feed is cast by an accompanying “light engine” in this particular approach to AR displays.

DigiLens doesn’t make light engines, but the methods that they use to produce lenses can reduce “eye glow” – which is essentially wasted light. The company’s new “SRG+” waveguide process achieves these ends at a lower cost, while also increasing the aspect ratio for an improved field of view on a lighter lens that can be produced more efficiently at a larger scale.

DigiLens announces SRG+

Lens benefits aside, this process improvement also allows for a more efficient light engine. A more efficient light engine translates to less energy consumption and a smaller form factor for the complete device. All of those are good selling points for a head-worn display. Many of those benefits are also true for Micro OLED lenses, a different approach to AR displays.

“I am excited about Digilens’ recent SRG+ developments, which provide a new, low-cost replication technology satisfying such drastic nanostructure requirements,” Dr. Bernard Kress, President of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, said in a release. “The AR waveguides field is the tip of the iceberg.”

A New Partner in Mojo Vision

The first major partner to take advantage of this new process is Mojo Vision, a Micro-LED manufacturer that became famous in the industry for pursuing AR contact lenses. While that product has yet to materialize, its pursuit has resulted in Mojo Vision holding records for large displays on small tech. And, it can get even larger and lighter thanks to SRG+.

“Bringing our technologies together will raise the bar on display performance, and efficiency in the AR/XR industry,” Mojo Vision CEO Nikhil Balram said in a release shared with ARPost. “Partnering with DigiLens brings AR glasses closer to mass-scale consumer electronics.”

This partnership may also help to solve another one of AR’s persistent challenges: the sunny problem. AR glasses to date are almost always tinted. That’s because, to see AR elements in high ambient light conditions, the display either needs to be exceptionally bright or artificially darkened. Instead of cranking up the brightness, manufacturers opt for tinted lenses.

“The total form factor of the AR glasses can finally be small and light enough for consumers to wear for long periods of time and bright enough to allow them to see the superimposed digital information — even on a sunny day — without needing to darken the lenses,” DigiLens CEO Chris Pickett said in the release.

ARGO Is DigiLens’ Golden Fleece

After years of working backstage for device manufacturers, DigiLens announced ARGO at the beginning of this year, calling it “the first purpose-built stand-alone AR/XR device designed for enterprise and industrial-lite workers.” The glasses use the company’s in-house waveguides and a custom-built Android-based operating system running on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 chip.

DigiLens ARGO glasses

“This is a big milestone for DigiLens at a very high level. We have always been a component manufacturer,” DigiLens VP and GM of Product, Nima Shams told ARPost at the time. “At the same time, we want to push the market and meet the market and it seems like the market is kind of open and waiting.”

More Opportunities With Qualcomm

Close followers of Qualcomm’s XR operations may recall that the company often saves major news around its XR developer platform Snapdragon Spaces for AWE. The platform launched at AWE in 2021 and became available to the public at AWE last year. This year, among other announcements, Qualcomm announced Spaces compatibility with ARGO.

“We are excited to support the democratization of the XR industry by offering Snapdragon Spaces through DigiLens’ leading all-in-one AR headset,” Qualcomm Senior Director of Product Management XR, Said Bakadir, said in a release shared with ARPost.

“DigiLens’ high-transparency and sunlight-readable optics combined with the universe of leading XR application developers from Snapdragon Spaces are critical in supporting the needs of the expanding enterprise and industrial markets,” said Bakadir.

Snapdragon Spaces bundles developer tools including hand and position tracking, scene understanding and persistent anchors, spatial mapping, and plane detection. So, while we’re likely to see more partnerships with more existing applications, this strengthened relationship with Qualcomm could mean more native apps on ARGO.

Getting Rugged With Taqtile

“Industrial-lite” might be getting a bit heavier as DigiLens partners with Taqtile on a “rugged AR-enabled solution for industrial and defense customers” – presumably a more durable version of the original ARGO running Manifest, Taqtile’s flagship enterprise AR solution. Taqtile recently released a free version of Manifest to make its capabilities more available to potential clients.

“ARGO represents just the type of head-mounted, hands-free device that Manifest customers have been looking for,” Taqtile CTO John Tomizuka said in a release. “We continue to evaluate hardware solutions that will meet the unique needs of our deskless workers, and the combination of Manifest and ARGO has the ability to deliver performance and functionality.”

Getting Smart With Wisear

Wisear is a neural interface company that uses “smart earphones” to allow users to control connected devices with their thoughts rather than with touch, gesture, or even voice controls.

For the average consumer, that might just be really cool. For consumers with neurological disorders, that might be a new way to connect to the world. For enterprise, it solves another problem.

wisear smart earphones

Headworn devices mean frontline workers aren’t holding the device, but if they need their hands to interact with it, that still means taking their hands off of the job. Voice controls get around this but some environments and circumstances make voice controls inconvenient or difficult to use. Neural inputs solve those problems too. And Wisear is bringing those solutions to ARGO.

“DigiLens and Wisear share a common vision of using cutting-edge technology to revolutionize the way frontline workers work,” Pickett said in a release shared with ARPost. “Our ARGO smart glasses, coupled with Wisear’s neural interface-powered earphones, will provide frontline workers with the tools they need to work seamlessly and safely.”

More Tracking Options With Ultraleap

Ultraleap is another components manufacturer. They make input accessories like tracking cameras, controllers, and haptics. A brief shared with ARPost only mentions “a groundbreaking partnership” between the companies “offering a truly immersive and user-friendly experience across diverse applications, from gaming and education to industrial training and healthcare.”

That sounds a lot like it hints at more wide availability for ARGO, but don’t get your hopes up yet. This is the announcement about which we know the least. Most of this article has come together from releases shared with ARPost in advance of AWE, which is happening now. So, watch our AWE coverage articles as they come out for more concrete information.

So Much More to Come

Announcements from component manufacturers can be tantalizing. We know that they have huge ramifications for the whole industry, but we know that those ramifications aren’t immediate. We’re closely watching DigiLens and its partners to see when some of these announcements might bear tangible fruit but keep in mind that this company also has its own full model out now.

DigiLens Expands Ecosystem With Hardware, Software Announcements Read More »

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The Most Important Upcoming AR/VR Events This Year

AR/VR events, augmented reality, AWE, Events, extended reality, featured, trending, virtual reality / /

After the COVID-19 pandemic made most event organizers cancel their live AR/VR events or host them virtually, in the past year more and more live events are making a comeback. Even the immersive industry needs a real-life environment to discover gadgets and try AR/VR content.

And we will tell you exactly where you should go if you want to try the most exciting discoveries and devices. Also, we know that if you work in this industry, you should not miss these AR/VR events, either. You have the great opportunity to network with peers or even discover new business or employment opportunities.

The Most Relevant AR/VR Events in 2023 You Should Not Miss

Here are some of the most important AR/VR events that are taking place until the end of this year.

1. AWE USA 2023

When: May 31 – June 2

Where: Santa Clara, CA, US; and virtual

AWE USA 2023

Late spring/early summer is a great time to be in California. This year, it is made even better by one of the top AR/VR events: AWE USA. This is one of the most comprehensive fairs for professionals, stakeholders, and tech enthusiasts focused on immersive technologies.

They will be able to test various gadgets, discover content trends, and attend insightful keynote presentations. Attendees will be able to hear from a vast number of XR professionals, such as Peggy Johnson (the CEO of Magic Leap), Hugo Swat  (Vice-President and General Manager of XR at Qualcomm), Chi Xu (CEO of Nreal), Elizabeth Hyman (CEO of XR Association), John Riccitiello (CEO of Unity), Kavya Pearlman (Founder & CEO of XR Safety Initiative), and many more.

For those who can’t attend in person, there’s also the option to access some parts of the event online through the awe.live platform.

As AWE USA 2023 media partner, ARPost offers its readers a 20% discount code. Use the code 23ARPOSTD during registration.

2. XR Expo 2023

When: June 15-16

Where: Stuttgart, Germany

XR Expo 2023

If you happen to be in Germany this summer for business, you can also put aside two days to attend XR Expo 2023. This B2B event will bring together industry users, technology providers, content service providers, and XR researchers, and will focus on professional applications of extended reality technologies in health, industry, architecture, and trade and craft.

Right now, registration for XR Expo 2023 is open, but the event’s program is still under development.

3. Enterprise Metaverse Summit

When: June 28-29

Where: London, UK; and virtual

Enterprise Metaverse Summit 2023

Another AR/VR event taking place in Europe, Enterprise Metaverse Summit is hosted by the British weekly newspaper The Economist. The event audience includes senior executives focused on XR, automation, IoT, 5G, the future of work, AI, machine learning, and edge computing.

This year’s event will cover a vast number of topics, from how the metaverse is expected to replace or improve human experiences at work, and how VR is making surgeries safer, to how the metaverse can help businesses become more sustainable and reduce their carbon footprint, and the benefits of VR as an engine to catalyze diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Attendees will be able to hear from speakers such as Meta Reality Labs’ VP Christine Trodella, Wallart’s Head of 3D Creative Technology Cynthia Maller, MetaVRse co-founder Alan Smithson, and EndeavorXR founder and CEO Amy Peck.

For all those who cannot attend, the event organizers offer a free virtual pass for full access to all virtual sessions on the first day of the event.

4. XR:WA

When: July 20-23

Where: Perth, Western Australia

XR:WA 2023

Australian winter is mild compared to the summer heat in many parts of the US, so it’s a great moment to attend one of the best AR/VR events of the year. XR:WA is for everyone, from those curious to try immersive experiences for the first time to seasoned professionals.

The event aims to discuss the impact and opportunities for XR across a number of industries including architecture, design, medicine, education, training, science, art, and entertainment.

Back for its fifth edition, the event activities include talks, panels, various AR and VR experiences, workshops, a trade floor, and exhibition.

5. Industrial IMMERSIVE Week

When: August 28-30

Where: Houston, TX

Industrial Immersive Week 2023 event

Industrial IMMERSIVE Week is one of the AR/VR events for professionals interested in XR, spatial computing, digital twins, AI, IIoT, 5G, 3D models and simulations, and connected workforce solutions.

Touted as the event “where industry goes for real-world use cases, best practices and emerging tech for your enterprise to launch, pilot and deploy metaverse programs,” Industrial IMMERSIVE Week is intended for professionals from diverse industries, including manufacturing, construction, oil and gas, engineering, mining, automotive, aerospace, and logistics.

From C-suite leaders, to department leaders and professionals, Industrial IMMERSIVE Week brings together seasoned specialists and decision-makers. Some of the most important Fortune 500 companies will be represented at the event, including Boeing, Canon, Shell, Amazon, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

6. Augmented Enterprise Summit

When: October 24-26

Where: Houston, TX; virtual

Augmented Enterprise Summit 2023

As its name suggests, this AR/VR event is aimed at enterprises. Augmented Enterprise Summit is dedicated to the business and industrial applications of XR and other metaverse-related emerging technologies.

This year, the event boasts an impressive line-up of speakers including NASA’s Simulation and Graphics Capabilities Manager Angelica Garcia, CocaCola’s Director of Technical Training and Development Michael Whatley, Airbus Head of Augmented Worker Product Andreas Oeder, and Amazon Web Services Principal Spatial Computing Solutions Architect Kurt Scheuringer.

Among the sponsors and exhibitors, you can find a number of XR companies such as Mytaverse, RealWear, Strivr, and Vuzix.

Aside from more than a thousand expected attendees, the 10th Augmented Enterprise Summit will also feature over 50 exhibitors and sponsors, and more than 50 educational sessions.

The event also offers a virtual pass, with access to a virtual event app, digital exhibitor zone, exclusive post-event resources, and all sessions and on-demand recordings. As Augmented Enterprise Summit media partner, we can offer our readers 15% off for event tickets with the code arpost15.

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awe-2023-is-right-around-the-corner

AWE 2023 Is Right Around the Corner

AR/VR events, augmented reality, AWE, Events, extended reality, featured, virtual reality / /

Augmented World Expo, AWE for short, returns to Santa Clara this year from May 31 to June 2, 2023. The agenda is still coming together but there’s already a lot to be excited about. Let’s take a look.

Morning Keynotes

Many XR companies save some of their biggest announcements for the AWE stage. Even when companies aren’t dropping new products, apps, and services, they use the time to inform and inspire listeners about this rapidly developing space.

Day One

The first day of AWE always starts with an opening keynote from event founder Ori Inbar. Inbar’s addresses are always insightful and digestible with good measures of his palpable enthusiasm and humor. During his opening keynote last year, Inbar spoke about how XR can help make both big dreams and small dreams become reality.

Next up is the Qualcomm keynote from Vice President and General Manager of XR Hugo Swart. At his keynote last year, Swart presented Snapdragon Spaces and introduced the first two recipients of Qualcomm Ventures’ metaverse-funded companies.

Then, Nreal CEO Chi Xu takes the stage. Nreal hasn’t been a keynote presenter in the years that ARPost has covered AWE. But, the company is definitely going places. This year saw the commercial launch of Nreal Air (review) and we know that they have at least one more model waiting in the wings for the next big launch.

Day Two

Day two only has one proper keynote scheduled, this time with Magic Leap. Last year, the company’s Head of Product Management, Jade Meskill, took the stage to talk about the Magic Leap 2 and “augmented enterprise.” We don’t yet know what will come of this year’s keynote but it’s being given by the company’s CEO Peggy Johnson.

Following that is a “Fireside Chat” with Unity CEO John Riccitiello. That it’s a “fireside chat” and not a “keynote” arguably suggests that there won’t be any big product announcements but that doesn’t mean that this session shouldn’t be on your schedule.

Days two and three are lighter on heavy-hitting speakers to encourage attendees to check out the expo floor, which we’ll look at next. Don’t worry though, there are sessions to look forward to beyond just keynotes and we’ll look at some of those later.

The Expo Floor

It’s impossible to know exactly what will be going on on the expo floor, which is part of what makes it so exciting. A list of exhibitors (over 130 of them) and a map of the expo floor are posted on the AWE website, but what companies will be showcasing and how is a mystery until the floor opens on day two.

First off, a number of haptics pioneers will be there including Haptx, bHaptics, and SenseGlove. Any immersive technology is better when you experience it yourself instead of just seeing it on YouTube, but this is doubly true for haptics. But, unfortunately, many of these products are still hard for the average person to get their hands on. That makes the expo floor a great intro.

Mojo Vision will also be on the AWE expo floor. While this company isn’t likely to be putting their AR contact lenses onto the eyeballs of just anybody, they do have rigs that allow you to get a glimpse through what they’re building.

DigiLens, Vuzix, and Lenovo will also be on the AWE Expo floor. These companies make components and enterprise hardware that’s usually a cut above available consumer models. Trying them out can be a glimpse into the future. I got to get my hands on some of their hardware at last year’s expo and left feeling enlightened.

Also, Tilt Five will be returning. Last year, their augmented game board was the life of the expo floor drawing huge crowds – not just to interact with the product but to watch other people interact with the product.

Of course, that’s only a sliver of the total exhibitors. Personally, I’m hoping to reconnect with some of my friends from Avatour, Echo3D, FundamentalVR, Inworld AI, Leia Inc., Mytaverse, OVR Technology, VRdirect, and Zappar.

Expert Talks and Panel Discussions

Day One

On day one, right after the keynotes, many will likely stay in their seats to see Forbes columnist, author, and educator Charlie Fink talk with Magic Leap founder and former CEO Rony Abovitz about “How We Can Invigorate XR.” A few hours later on the same stage, Qualcomm Director of Product Management Steve Lukas will talk about “Building AR for Today.”

A little after that, one might head out of the Mission City Ballroom to Grand Ballroom C’s “Web3” track where EndeavorXR founder and CEO Amy Peck will be debating “Pros &Cons of Web3” with XR Guild President Avi Bar-Zeev. It’s hard to find an XR organization that Peck isn’t or hasn’t been involved with, and Bar-Zeev co-created Google Earth and HoloLens.

From there, one might head back to the Mission City Ballroom for “Intersection of AI and the Metaverse: What’s Next?” a panel discussion with leading XR ethicist Kent Bye, HTC VIVE China President Alvin Graylin, WXR Fund Managing Partner Amy LaMeyer, and Creative Artist Agency’s Chief Metaverse Officer Joanna Popper.

But wait! Happening at the same time is “How XR Technology Is Changing the Fashion Landscape” with Beyond Creative Technologist David Robustelli, Ready Player Me co-founder Kaspar Tiri, and DressX co-founder Daria Shapovalova.

Depending on which of those last two talks you see, you might have time for “What Problem Does the Metaverse Solve?” with Nokia Head of Ecosystem and Trend Scouting Leslie Shannon.

If you miss the first fashion session, you can always catch “Redefining Fashion and Beauty’s Next Decade – From Virtual Beings and Gaming to Generative AI” with LVMH VP of Digital Innovation Nelly Mensah, 5th Column founder and CEO Akbar Hamid, and Journey founder and Chief Metaverse Officer Cathy Hackl.

Day Two

On the same day that the expo opens up, on the main stage, Paramount Pictures Futurist Ted Schilowitz presents “XR Excellence: Demonstration & Discussion” – billed as a collection of “what he thinks are the best experiences in VR and MR today, and what we can learn from those experiences” followed by Q&A.

But oh no! At the same time in Ballroom D, Khronos Group President Neil Treveett, XRSI founder and CEO Kavya Pearlman, and Moor Insights & Strategy Senior Analyst Anshel Sag are talking about building open standards for the metaverse!

XR Talks with ARPost

Both of those events conflict with a “Meet the Makers” session featuring Julie Smithson and Karen Alexander of MetaVRse, Sophia Moshasha of the VR/AR Association, and Ben Erwin of The Polys Awards.

Later in the afternoon, Inworld AI’s Chief Creative Officer John Gaeta and Chief Product Officer Kylan Gibbs debut a new concept demo called “Origins” – a new kind of caper in which a human detective must navigate a world of generative AI bots.

The evening of AWE Day Two is also The Auggie Awards. We can’t tell you too much about the Auggie Awards because the finalists aren’t out. In fact, you still have until April 7 to submit nominees. Then, there’s a period of public voting until May 4. You can submit nominees and vote for your favorites here.

Day Three

On day three, in the “AI and Virtual Beings” track, producer, director, and strategist Rebecca Evans, Stanford University Graduate Research Fellow Eugy Han, Odeon Theatrical CEO Stephanie Riggs, and Dulce Dotcom advisor Dulce Baerga will discuss “Avatars, Environments & Self Expression – from Social VR to Cross-Reality Experiences.”

From there, you might head back to the Mission City Ballroom for a Fireside Chat with Tom Furness, the founder and chairman of the Virtual World Society – one of the oldest and noblest organizations in immersive tech.

AWE concludes on the afternoon of day three with Inbar’s closing statements and the Best In Show Awards on the main stage.

How to Attend AWE

Once again, all AWE recordings will become available on AWE.live. If you want to experience AWE in person, you still have time to get tickets. If you’re reading this before February 28, you still have time for Super Early Bird Tickets. You can also get 20% off of your ticket price by using discount code 23ARPOSTD at checkout.

And keep an eye on ARPost as AWE draws nearer. As a media partner of the event, we’ll be giving two free tickets to selected readers as part of an upcoming drawing. Watch our social media channels for details.

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