Software

German state gov. ditching Windows for Linux, 30K workers migrating

Biz & IT, germany, LibreOffice, Linux, microsoft, Software, Windows / Blake Jones / April 5, 2024

Open source FTW —

Schleswig-Holstein looks to succeed where Munich failed.

Scharon Harding – Apr 5, 2024 7: 03 pm UTC

Schleswig-Holstein, one of Germany’s 16 states, on Wednesday confirmed plans to move tens of thousands of systems from Microsoft Windows to Linux. The announcement follows previously established plans to migrate the state government off Microsoft Office in favor of open source LibreOffice.

As spotted by The Document Foundation, the government has apparently finished its pilot run of LibreOffice and is now announcing plans to expand to more open source offerings.

In 2021, the state government announced plans to move 25,000 computers to LibreOffice by 2026. At the time, Schleswig-Holstein said it had already been testing LibreOffice for two years.

As announced on Minister-President Daniel Gunther’s webpage this week, the state government confirmed that it’s moving all systems to the Linux operating system (OS), too. Per a website-provided translation:

With the cabinet decision, the state government has made the concrete beginning of the switch away from proprietary software and towards free, open-source systems and digitally sovereign IT workplaces for the state administration’s approximately 30,000 employees.

The state government is offering a training program that it said it will update as necessary.

Regarding LibreOffice, the government maintains the possibility that some jobs may use software so specialized that they won’t be able to move to open source software.

In 2021, Jan Philipp Albrecht, then-minister for Energy, Agriculture, the Environment, Nature, and Digitalization of Schleswig-Holstein, discussed interest in moving the state government off of Windows.

“Due to the high hardware requirements of Windows 11, we would have a problem with older computers. With Linux we don’t have that,” Albrecht told Heise magazine, per a Google translation.

This week’s announcement also said that the Schleswig-Holstein government will ditch Microsoft Sharepoint and Exchange/Outlook in favor of open source offerings Nextcloud and Open-Xchange, and Mozilla Thunderbird in conjunction with the Univention active directory connector.

Schleswig-Holstein is also developing an open source directory service to replace Microsoft’s Active Directory and an open source telephony offering.

Digital sovereignty dreams

Explaining the decision, the Schleswig-Holstein government’s announcement named enhanced IT security, cost efficiencies, and collaboration between different systems as its perceived benefits of switching to open source software.

Further, the government is pushing the idea of digital sovereignty, with Schleswig-Holstein Digitalization Minister Dirk Schrödter quoted in the announcement as comparing the concept’s value to that of energy sovereignty. The announcement also quoted Schrödter as saying that digital sovereignty isn’t achievable “with the current standard IT workplace products.”

Schrödter pointed to the state government’s growing reliance on cloud services and said that with related proprietary software, users have no influence on data flow and whether that data makes its way to other countries.

Schrödter also claimed that the move would help with the state’s budget by diverting money from licensing fees to “real programming services from our domestic digital economy” that could also create local jobs.

In 2021, Albrecht said the state was reaching its limits with proprietary software contracts because “license fees have continued to rise in recent years,” per Google’s translation.

“Secondly, regarding our goals for the digitalization of administration, open source simply offers us more flexibility,” he added.

At the time, Albrecht claimed that 90 percent of video conferences in the state government ran on the open source program Jitsi, which was advantageous during the COVID-19 pandemic because the state was able to quickly increase video conferencing capacity.

Additionally, he said that because the school portal was based on (unnamed) open source software, “we can design the interface flexibly and combine services the way we want.”

There are numerous other examples globally of government entities switching to Linux in favor of open source technology. Federal governments with particular interest in avoiding US-based technologies, including North Korea and China, are some examples. The South Korean government has also shared plans to move to Linux by 2026, and the city of Barcelona shared migration plans in 2018.

But some government bodies that have made the move regretted it and ended up crawling back to Windows. Vienna released the Debian-based distribution WIENUX in 2005 but gave up on migration by 2009.

In 2003, Munich announced it would be moving some 14,000 PCs off Windows and to Linux. In 2013, the LiMux project finished, but high associated costs and user dissatisfaction resulted in Munich announcing in 2017 that it would spend the next three years reverting back to Windows.

Albrecht in 2021 addressed this failure when speaking to Heise, saying, per Google’s translation:

The main problem there was that the employees weren’t sufficiently involved. We do that better. We are planning long transition phases with parallel use. And we are introducing open source step by step where the departments are ready for it. This also creates the reason for further rollout because people see that it works.

German state gov. ditching Windows for Linux, 30K workers migrating Read More »

Canva’s Affinity acquisition is a non-subscription-based weapon against Adobe

acquisition, adobe, Biz & IT, canva, generative ai, Software / Ari B / March 27, 2024

M&A —

But what will result from the companies’ opposing views on generative AI?

Scharon Harding – Mar 27, 2024 7: 27 pm UTC

Affinity's photo editor. — Enlarge / Affinity’s photo editor.

Online graphic design platform provider Canva announced its acquisition of Affinity on Tuesday. The purchase adds tools for creative professionals to the Australian startup’s repertoire, presenting competition for today’s digital design stronghold, Adobe.

The companies didn’t provide specifics about the deal, but Cliff Obrecht, Canva’s co-founder and COO, told Bloomberg that it consists of cash and stock and is worth “several hundred million pounds.”

Canva, which debuted in 2013, has made numerous acquisitions to date, including Flourish, Kaleido, and Pixabay, but its purchase of Affinity is its biggest yet—by both price and headcount (90). Affinity CEO Ashley Hewson said via a YouTube video that Canva approached Affinity about a potential deal two months ago.

Before its Affinity purchase, Canva claimed 175 million users, which interestingly includes 90 million accrued since September 2022, when Canva launched Visual Suite. Without Affinity, though, Canva hasn’t had a way to appeal to the business-to-business market.

Affinity, which works with iPads, Macs, and Windows PCs, meanwhile, has a creative suite that includes a photo editor, professional page layout software, and Designer, a vector-based graphics software that “thousands” of illustrators, designers, and game developers use, Obrecht said when announcing the acquisition.

Of course, Affinity’s user base isn’t nearly the size of Adobe’s. Affinity claims that 3 million creative professionals use its tools. Adobe hasn’t provided hard numbers recently, but in 2017, it was estimated that Adobe Creative Cloud had 12 million subscribers, and Adobe currently claims to have 50 million members on its Behance online community.

However, Affinity has earned a following among creative professionals seeking an alternative to Adobe. Speaking to Bloomberg, Obrecht was keen to point out that Apple has featured Affinity apps in presentations about creative products, for example.

Perpetual Affinity licenses will still be available

Since being founded in 2014, one of the biggest ways that Affinity has stood out to creatives looking to avoid the costs associated with Adobe, including subscription fees, is perpetual licensing. New owner Canva pledged in an announcement today that one-time purchase fees will always be an option for Affinity users.

“Perpetual licenses will always be offered, and we will always price Affinity fairly and affordably,” an announcement today from Canva and Affinity said.

If Canva ever decides to sell Affinity as a subscription, perpetual licensing will remain available, Canva said, adding: “This fits with enabling Canva users to start adopting Affinity. It could also allow us to offer Affinity users a way to scale their workflows using Canva as a platform to share and collaborate on their Affinity assets, if they choose to.”

As we’ve seen with many other acquisitions, though, it’s common for companies to start changing their minds about how they’re willing to operate an acquired business years or even months after finalizing the purchase. And, of course, Canva’s idea of pricing “fairly and affordably” could differ from those of long-time Affinity users.

What about AI?

Canva also vowed to keep Affinity available as a standalone product and said there will be upcoming free updates to Affinity V2. However, Cameron Adams, Canva’s co-founder, pointed to potential future integration between Canva’s and Affinity’s offerings when speaking with Sydney Morning Herald:

Our product teams have already started chatting and we have some immediate plans for lightweight integration, but we think the products themselves will always be separate. Professional designers have really specific needs.

Canva’s announcement today said that the company plans to accelerate the rollout of “highly requested” Affinity features, “such as variable font support, blend and width tools, auto object selection, multi-page spreads, [and] ePub export.” With Canva, which was valued at $26 billion in 2021 and generates over $2.1 billion in annualized revenue, taking ownership of Affinity, the creative suite is expected to have more resources for improvements and updates than before.

Notably, though, Canva hasn’t revealed to what degree it may try to incorporate AI into Affinity. Canva is fully aboard the generative AI hype train and, as recently as this Monday pushed workers of all types to embrace the technology. Affinity, meanwhile, has said that it won’t make any generative AI tech and is “against anything which undermines human talent or tramples on artists’ IP.” Affinity’s stance could be forced to change one day under its new owner.

To start, though, Canva’s acquisition helps to fill the B2B gap in its portfolio, and it’s expected to use its new appeal to go after some of Adobe’s dominance.

“While our last decade at Canva has focused heavily on the 99 percent of knowledge workers without design training, truly empowering the world to design includes empowering professional designers, too. By joining forces with Affinity, we’re excited to unlock the full spectrum of designers at every level and stage of the design journey,” Obrecht said in Tuesday’s announcement.

Meanwhile, Adobe abandoned its own recent merger and acquisition efforts, a $20 billion purchase of Figma, in December due to regulatory concerns.

Canva’s Affinity acquisition is a non-subscription-based weapon against Adobe Read More »

Nvidia’s new app doesn’t require you to log in to update your GPU driver

drivers, gaming, geforce experience, gpu drivers, NVIDIA, Software, Tech, Windows / Ryan Harris / February 23, 2024

Some updates are good, actually —

Removing little-used features also improved responsiveness and shrank the size.

Kevin Purdy – Feb 22, 2024 9: 11 pm UTC

Nvidia has announced a public beta of a new app for Windows, one that does a few useful things and one big thing.

The new app combines the functions of three apps you’d previously have to hunt through—the Nvidia Control Panel, GeForce Experience, and RTX Experience—into one app. Setting display preferences on games and seeing exactly how each notch between “Performance” and “Quality” will affect its settings is far easier and more visible inside the new app. The old-fashioned control panel is still there if you right-click the Nvidia app’s notification panel icon. Installing the new beta upgrades and essentially removes the Experience and Control Panel apps, but they’re still available online.

But perhaps most importantly, Nvidia’s new app allows you to update the driver for your graphics card, the one you paid for, without having to log in to an Nvidia account. I tested it, it worked, and I don’t know why I was surprised, but I’ve been conditioned that way. Given that driver updates are something people often do with new systems and the prior tendencies of Nvidia’s apps to log you out, this is a boon that will pay small but notable cumulative dividends for some time to come.

Proof that you can, miracle of miracles, download an Nvidia driver update in Nvidia's new app without having to sign in. — Proof that you can, miracle of miracles, download an Nvidia driver update in Nvidia’s new app without having to sign in.

Game performance tools are much easier to use, or at least understand, in the new Nvidia app. It depends on the game, but you get a slider to move between “Performance” and “Quality.” Some games don’t offer more than one or two notches to use, like Monster Train or Against the Storm. Some, like Hitman 3 or Deep Rock Galactic, offer so many notches that you could make a day out of adjusting and testing. Whenever you move the slider, you can see exactly what changed in a kind of diff display.

Changing the settings in <em>Elden Ring</em> with the more granular controls available in Nvidia’s new beta app.” height=”1009″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Screenshot-2024-02-22-134416.png” width=”1282″></img><figcaption>
<p>Changing the settings in <em>Elden Ring</em> with the more granular controls available in Nvidia’s new beta app.</p>
<p>Nvidia/Kevin Purdy</p>
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<p>If you use Nvidia’s in-game overlay, triggered with Alt+Z, you can test that out, see its new look and feel, set up performance metrics, and change its settings from Nvidia’s beta app. Driver updates now come with more information about what changed, rather than sending you to a website of release notes. On cards with AI-powered offerings, you’ll also get tools for Nvidia Freestyle, RTX Dynamic Vibrance, RTX HDR, and other such nit-picky options.</p>
<p>Not everything available in the prior apps is making it into this new all-in-one app, however. Nvidia notes that GPU overclocking and driver rollback are on the way. And the company says it has decided to “discontinue a few features that were underutilized,” including the ability to broadcast to Twitch and YouTube, share video or stills to Facebook and YouTube, and make Photo 360 and Stereo captures. Noting that “good alternatives exist,” Nvidia says culling these things halves the new app’s install time, improves responsiveness by 50 percent, and takes up 17 percent less disk space.</p>
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Broadcom ends VMware perpetual license sales, testing customers and partners

Biz & IT, Broadcom, Software, Tech, virtualization, vmware / Blake Jones / December 12, 2023

saas —

Already-purchased licenses can still be used but will eventually lose support.

Scharon Harding – Dec 12, 2023 10: 04 pm UTC

Broadcom has moved forward with plans to transition VMware, a virtualization and cloud computing company, into a subscription-based business. As of December 11, it no longer sells perpetual licenses with VMware products. VMware, whose $61 billion acquisition by Broadcom closed in November, also announced on Monday that it will no longer sell support and subscription (SnS) for VMware products with perpetual licenses. Moving forward, VMware will only offer term licenses or subscriptions, according to its VMware blog post.

VMware customers with perpetual licenses and active support contracts can continue using them. VMware “will continue to provide support as defined in contractual commitments,” Krish Prasad, senior vice president and general manager for VMware’s Cloud Foundation Division, wrote. But when customers’ SnS terms end, they won’t have any support.

Broadcom hopes this will force customers into subscriptions, and it’s offering “upgrade pricing incentives” that weren’t detailed in the blog for customers who switch from perpetual licensing to a subscription.

These are the products affected, per Prasad’s blog:

VMware Aria Automation
VMware Aria Suite
VMware Aria Operations
VMware Aria Operations for Logs
VMware Aria Operations for Networks
VMware Aria Universal
VMware Cloud Foundation
VMware HCX
VMware NSX
VMware Site Recovery Manager
VMware vCloud Suite
VMware vSAN
VMware vSphere

Subscription-based future

Broadcom is looking to grow VMware’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) from about $4.7 billion to about $8.5 billion in three years, largely through shifting the company’s business model to subscriptions, Tom Krause, president of the Broadcom Software Group, said during a December 7 earnings call, per Forbes.

“This shift is the natural next step in our multi-year strategy to make it easier for customers to consume both our existing offerings and new innovations. VMware believes that a subscription model supports our customers with the innovation and flexibility they need as they undertake their digital transformations,” VMware’s blog said.

With changes effective immediately upon announcement, the news might sound abrupt. However, in May, soon after announcing its plans to acquire VMware, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan signaled a “rapid transition” to subscriptions.

At the time, Tan pointed to the importance of maintaining current VMware customers’ happiness, as well as leveraging the VMware sales team already in place. However, after less than a month of the deal’s close, reports point to concern among VMWare customers and partners.

Customer and partner concerns

VMware’s blog said “the industry has already embraced subscription as the standard for cloud consumption.” For years, software and even hardware vendors and investors have been pushing IT solution provider partners and customers toward recurring revenue models. However, VMware built much of its business on the perpetual license model. As noted by The Stack, VMware in February noted that perpetual licensing was the company’s “most renowned model.”

VMware’s blog this week listed “continuous innovation” and “faster time to value” as customer benefits for subscription models but didn’t detail how it came to those conclusions.

“Predictable investments” is also listed, but it’s hard to imagine a more predictable expense than paying for something once and having supported access to it indefinitely (assuming you continue paying any support costs). Now, VMware and its partners will be left convincing customers that their finances can afford a new monthly expense for something they thought was paid for. For Broadcom, though, it’s easier to see the benefits of turning VMware into more of a reliable and recurring revenue stream.

Additionally, Broadcom’s layoffs of at least 2,837 VMware employees have brought uncertainty to the VMware brand. A CRN report in late November pointed to VMware partners hearing customer concern about potential price raises and a lack of support. C.R. Howdyshell, CEO of Advizex, which reportedly made $30 million in VMware-tied revenue in 2022, told the publication that partners and customers were experiencing “significant concern and chaos” around VMware sales. Another channel partner noted to CRN the layoff of a close VMware sales contact.

But Broadcom has made it clear that it wants to “complete the transition of all VMware by Broadcom solutions to subscription licenses,” per Prasad’s blog.

The company hopes to convince skeptical channel partners that they’ll see the way, too. VMware, like many tech companies urging subscription models, pointed to “many partners” having success with subscription models already and “opportunity for partners to engage more strategically with customers and deliver higher-value services that drive customer success.”

However, because there’s no immediate customer benefit to the end of perpetual licenses, those impacted by VMware’s change in business strategy have to assess how much they’re willing to pay to access VMware products moving forward.

Broadcom ends VMware perpetual license sales, testing customers and partners Read More »

Strivr Enhances Immersive Learning With Generative AI, Equips VR Training Platform With Mental Health and Well-Being Experiences

AI, Education & Training, Enterprise, Enterprise VR, featured, learning, Software, strivr, training, virtual reality, VR platform / Ryan Harris / May 30, 2023

Strivr, a virtual reality training solutions startup, was founded as a VR training platform for professional sports leagues such as the NBA, NHL, and NFL. Today, Strivr has made its way to the job training scene with an innovative approach to employee training, leveraging generative AI (GenAI) to transform learning experiences.

More Companies Lean Toward Immersive Learning

Today’s business landscape is rapidly evolving. As such, Fortune 500 companies and other businesses in the corporate sector are starting to turn to more innovative employee training and development solutions. To serve the changing demands of top companies, Strivr has secured $16 million in funding back in 2018 to expand its VR training platform.

Research shows that learning through VR environments can significantly enhance knowledge retention, making it a groundbreaking development in employee training.

Unlike traditional training methods, a VR training platform immerses employees in lifelike scenarios, providing unparalleled engagement and experiential learning. However, this technology isn’t a new concept at all. Companies have been incorporating VR into their training solutions for several years, but we’ve only recently seen more industries adopting this technology rapidly.

The Impact of Generative AI on VR Training Platforms

Walmart, the largest retailer in the world, partnered with Strivr to bring VR to their training facilities. Employees can now practice in virtual sales floors repeatedly until they perfect their skills. In 2019, nearly 1.4 million Walmart associates have undergone VR training to prepare for the holiday rush, placing them in a simulated, chaotic Black Friday scenario.

As a result, associates reported a 30% increase in employee satisfaction, 70% higher test scores, and 10 to 15% higher knowledge retention rates. Because of the VR training’s success, Walmart expanded the VR training program to all their stores nationwide.

Derek Belch, founder and CEO at Strivr, states that the demand for the faster development of high-quality and scalable VR experiences that generate impactful results is “at an all-time high.”

VR training platofrm Strivr

As Strivr’s customers are among the most prominent companies globally, they are directly experiencing the impact of immersive learning on employee engagement, retention, and performance. “They want more, and we’re listening,” said Belch in a press release shared with ARPost.

So, to enhance its VR training platform, Strivr embraces generative AI to develop storylines, boost animation and asset creation, and optimize visual and content-driven features.

GenAI will also aid HR and L&D leaders in critical decision-making by deriving insights from immersive user data.

Strivr’s VR Training Platform Addresses Employee Mental Health

Strivr has partnered with Reulay and Healium in hosting its first in-headset mental health and well-being applications on the VR training platform. This will allow their customers to incorporate mental health “breaks” into their training curricula and address the rising levels of employee burnout, depression, and anxiety.

Belch has announced that Strivr also partnered with one of the world’s leading financial institutions to make meditation activities available in their workplace.

Meditation is indeed helpful for employees; the Journal of the American Medical Association recently published a study that showed that meditation can help reduce anxiety as effectively as drug therapies. Mindfulness practices, on the other hand, have been demonstrated to increase employee productivity, focus, and collaboration.

How VR Transforms Professional Training

With Strivr’s VR Training platform offering enhanced experiential learning and mental well-being, one might wonder how VR technology will influence employee training moving forward.

Belch describes Strivr’s VR training platform as a “beautifully free space” to practice. Employees can develop or improve their skills in a realistic scenario that simulates actual workplace challenges in a way that typical workshops and classrooms cannot. Moreover, training employees through VR platform cuts travel costs associated with conventional training facilities.

VR training platform Strivr

VR training platforms also contribute to a more inclusive and diverse workplace. Employees belonging to minority groups can rehearse and tailor their behaviors in simulated scenarios where a superior or customer is prejudiced toward them, for instance. When these situations are addressed during training, companies can protect their employees from these challenges and prepare them.

What’s Next for VR Training Platforms?

According to Belch, Strivr’s enhanced VR training platform is only the beginning of how VR will continue to impact the employee experience.

So far, VR training platforms have been improving employee onboarding, knowledge retention, and performance. They allow employees to practice and acquire critical skills in a safe, virtual environment, helping them gain more confidence and efficiency while training. Additionally, diversity and inclusion are promoted, thanks to VR’s ability to simulate scenarios where employees can tailor their behaviors during difficult situations.

And, of course, VR training has rightfully gained recognition for helping teach retail workers essential customer service skills. By interacting with virtual customers in a life-like environment, Walmart’s employees have significantly boosted their skills, and the mega-retailer has implemented an immersive training solution to all of its nearly 4,700 stores all over America.

In 2022, Accenture invested in Strivr and Talespin to revolutionize immersive learning and enterprise VR. This is a good sign of confidence in the industry and its massive potential for growth.

As we keep an eye on the latest scoop about VR technology, we can expect more groundbreaking developments in the industry and for VR platforms to increase their presence in the employee training realm.

Strivr Enhances Immersive Learning With Generative AI, Equips VR Training Platform With Mental Health and Well-Being Experiences Read More »

AR and VR Content Creation Platform Fectar Integrates Ultraleap Hand Tracking

augmented reality, content creation, featured, hand tracking, News, Software, training, virtual reality / Ryan Harris / April 4, 2023

For the Fectar AR and VR content creation platform users, creating XR content with hand tracking feature has just become simpler and easier.

Launched in 2020, Fectar is “the multi-sided platform that makes the metaverse accessible for everyone, everywhere.” Focused on creating AR and VR spaces for education, training, onboarding, events, and more, and aimed at non-technical users, the company provides a cross-platform, no-code AR/VR building tool.

Last week, Fectar integrated the Ultraleap hand tracking feature within its AR and VR content creation platform, allowing users to build VR training experiences with hand tracking from the beginning.

AR and VR Content Creation With Integrated Ultraleap Hand Tracking

Ultraleap was founded in 2019 when Leap Motion was acquired by Ultrahaptics, and the two companies were rebranded under the new name. Ultraleap’s hand tracking and mid-air haptic technologies allow XR users to engage with the digital world naturally – with their hands, and without touchscreens, keypads, and controllers.

Thanks to the Ultraleap feature, Fectar’s users will now be able to create and share immersive VR experiences that use hands, rather than VR controllers. According to Ultraleap, this makes the interaction more intuitive, positively impacts the training outcomes, reduces the effort of adoption, and makes the experiences more accessible.

Non-Technical People Can Develop Immersive Experiences

The new addition to the AR and VR content creation platform is a strategic decision for Fectar. The company’s target clients are non-technical content creators. They don’t need to know how to code to create VR apps and tools, including training programs.

This is, in fact, one of the most frequent use cases of the Fectar AR and VR content creation platform. “We want our customers to be able to create world-class VR training experiences,” said Fectar CTO and founder, Rens Lensvelt, in a press release. “By introducing Ultraleap hand tracking to our platform we’re giving them an opportunity to level up their programs by adding an intuitive interaction method.”

VR Programs and Tools – the Future of Collaborative Work and Training

Virtual reality content has expanded beyond the field of games or applications for entertainment. VR is part of education and training, medicine, business, banking, and, actually, any kind of work.

This is why an AR and VR content creation platform for non-technical users, like Fectar, is so successful. Companies worldwide want to create their own training and collaborative VR tools, without hiring developers.

“The combination of Ultraleap and Fectar provides people with the right tools they need to develop the best education or training programs – and makes it easy to do so. We already know that enterprise VR programs improve productivity by 32%,” said Matt Tullis, Ultraleap VP of XR. “By making that experience even more natural with hand tracking, Fectar customers can expect to see their VR training ROI increase even further.”

AR and VR Content Creation Platform Fectar Integrates Ultraleap Hand Tracking Read More »

New HoloSuite Feature Enables Users to Seamlessly Blend Volumetric Video Clips

augmented reality, extended reality, featured, metaverse, News, Software, virtual reality / Ryan Harris / January 16, 2023

Arcturus, volumetric video editing and streaming tools provider, has been at the forefront of virtual production, revolutionizing immersive content experiences across a vast range of verticals.

As part of its efforts to bring volumetric video to a wider audience, it prioritizes research and development of new tools that allow creators to fully harness the power of volumetric video. One of its latest releases is an innovative tool that aims to transform virtual production, XR storytelling, and metaverse experiences on HoloSuite.

Blend: Connecting Volumetric Video Clips With Seamless Transitions

Arcturus recently unveiled a new beta tool that further amplifies the capabilities of HoloSuite, its flagship platform for volumetric video. The “Blend” tool, a product of years of research and development by the Arcturus team, gives users a unique way to explore new forms of digital storytelling, build immersive experiences, develop metaverse content, and more.

Arcturus - Beta feature Blend volumetric video

With Blend, users can connect volumetric video clips and blend them seamlessly. Creators can now take live-action clips, use volumetric video characters to populate virtual backgrounds, and build branching narratives with imperceptible transitions between tracks.

With the new tool, creators of metaverse experiences can use people instead of computer-generated avatars in their content. They can insert blended volumetric video clips of live-action 3D performances into digital environments without having to create digidoubles. Blend also allows users to blend and loop multiple recordings of a photorealistic subject.

“Volumetric video isn’t just offering content creators new ways to do old things better; with the right tools, it offers possibilities that simply weren’t there before,” said CEO of Arcturus, Kamal Mistry, in a press release shared with ARPost. “Our new tools will open up a huge range of potential uses across multiple industries, and soon we will begin to see content unlike anything that’s ever been seen before.”

The Arcturus team designed and developed the Blend tool to meet the emerging demands of volumetric video users. While still in beta, all current HoloSuite users have access to the tool and can provide their feedback to help improve its capabilities.

With the beta testing running over the next few months, the team can fine-tune functionalities and ensure compatibility and stability before the tool becomes a standard feature on the platform.

More HoloSuite Updates From Arcturus

The Blend tool is just one of the several updates released for HoloSuite last month. Along with it, Arcturus also released a host of quality-of-life improvements and upgrades that open a wider range of potential uses for HoloSuite across multiple industries.

Unity users can now enjoy improved OMS playback with their HoloSuite plugins. This provides them with better viewing controls for volumetric video files within Unity. Support for upgrades for OMS playback on Unreal Engine 5 is expected to roll out soon.

Game engine users can now also use “Generate Normals” to smoothen noise for better relighting on volumetric subjects. For more dynamic viewing, HoloSuite added new lighting preferences that include adding environmental lighting directly within HoloEdit. The new native 4DS file support also allows users to import data directly from 4DViews.

New feature Arcturus HoloSuite 4DS import

Framing the Future of Video

Arcturus is committed to giving content creators the tools they need to create authentic digital human representations and immersive experiences. To further advance technology in this field, it has announced a new $11 million round of Series A funding in November 2022. The funding, led by CloudTree Ventures with substantial investments from Epic Games and Autodesk, signifies confidence in the vast potential of volumetric video.

The new funding will help Arcturus grow its infrastructure and continue developing the HoloSuite platform. It will help expand research into new tools that further the use of AI in volumetric video production, improve 3D data capture, and enhance live streaming on digital platforms among many others.

Just like the Blend tool, more tools and techniques are bound to revolutionize the way users create and interact with digital content. As it unlocks new possibilities for virtual production through state-of-the-art 3D creation tools, Arcturus is framing the future of video.

New HoloSuite Feature Enables Users to Seamlessly Blend Volumetric Video Clips Read More »

MeetKai Launches New Building Tools

AI, augmented reality, CES, developers, featured, metaverse, News, Software, virtual reality / Mike M. / January 12, 2023

MeetKai has been around since 2018 but some of its first publicly enjoyable content hit the streets a few months ago. Now, the company is releasing a suite of software solutions and developer tools to help the rest of us build the metaverse.

From Innovation to Product

ARPost met MeetKai in July 2022, when the company was launching a limited engagement in Time Square. Since then, the company has been working with the Los Angeles Chargers.

“The purpose of the Time Square activation and campaign was really to test things out in the browser,” CEO and co-founder, James Kaplan, said in a video call. “With 3D spaces, there’s a question of whether the user views it as a game, or as something else.”

MeetKai Metaverse Editor - Los Angeles Chargers — *MeetKai Metaverse Editor – Los Angeles Chargers*

Those insights have informed their subsequent outward-facing work with the Chargers, but the company has also been working on some more behind-the-scenes products that were just released at CES.

“We’re moving from an innovation technology company to a product company,” co-founder and Executive Chairwoman, Weili Dai, said in the call. “Technology innovation is great, but show me the value for the end user. That’s where MeetKai is.”

Build the Metaverse With MeetKai

At CES, MeetKai announced three new product offerings: MeetKai Cloud AI, MeetKai Reality, and MeetKai Metaverse Editor. The first of those offerings is more in line with the company’s history as a conversational AI service provider. The second two offerings are tools for creating digital twins and for building and editing virtual spaces respectively.

“The biggest request that we get from people is that they want to build their own stuff, they don’t just want to see the stuff that we made,” said Kaplan. “So, we’ve been trying to say ‘how do we let people build things?’ even when they’re not engineers or artists.”

Users of the new tools can use them individually to create projects for internal or outward-facing projects. For example, a user could choose to create an exact digital twin of a physical environment with MeetKai Reality or create an entirely new virtual space with MeetKai Editor.

However, some of the most interesting projects come when the tools are used together. One example of this is an agricultural organization with early access to the products that used these two tools together to create a digital twin of real areas on their premises and then used the Editor for simulation and training use cases.

“AI as an Enabling Tool”

The formula for creating usable but robust tools was to combine conventional building tools like scanning and game engines with some help from artificial intelligence. In that way, these products look a lot less like a deviation from the company’s history and look a lot more like what the company has been doing all along.

MeetKai Cloud AI – Avatar sample

“We see AI as an enabling tool. That was our premise from the beginning,” said Kaplan. “If you start a project and then add AI, it’s always going to be worse than if you say, ‘What kinds of AI do we have or what kinds of AI can we build?’ and see what kind of products can follow that.”

So the first hurdle is building the tools and the second hurdle is making the tools usable. Most companies in the space either build tools which remain forever overly complex, or they make tools that work but have limited potential because they were only designed for one specific use or for use within one specific environment.

“The core technology is AI and the capability needs to be presented in the most friendly way, and that’s what we do,” said Weili. “The AI capability, the technology, the innovation has to be leading.”

The company’s approach to software isn’t the only way they stand out. They also have a somewhat conservative approach when it comes to the hardware that they build for.

“I think 2025 is going to be the year that a lot of this hardware is going to start to level up. … Once the hardware is available, you have to let people build from day one,” said Kaplan. “Right now a lot of what’s coming out, even from these big companies, looks really silly because they’re assuming that the hardware isn’t going to improve.”

A More Mature Vision of the Metaverse

This duo has a lot to say about the competition. But, fortunately for the rest of us, it isn’t all bad. As they’ve made their way around CES, they’ve made one more observation that might be a nice closing note for this article. It has to do with how companies are approaching “the M-word.”

“Last CES, we saw a lot of things about the metaverse and I think that this year we’re really excited because a lot of the really bad ideas about the metaverse have collapsed,” said Kaplan. “Now, the focus is what brings value to the user as opposed to what brings value to some opaque idea of a conceptual user.”

Kaplan sees our augmented reality future as like a mountain, but the mountain doesn’t just go straight up. We reach apparent summits only to encounter steep valleys between us and the next summit. Where most companies climb one peak at a time, Kaplan and Weili are trying to plan a road across the whole mountain chain which means designing “in parallel.”

“The moment hardware is ready, we’re going to leapfrog … we prepare MeetKai for the long run,” said Weili. “We have partners working with us. This isn’t just a technology demonstration.”

How MeetKai Climbs the Mountain

This team’s journey along that mountain road might be more apparent than we realize. After all, when we last talked to them and “metaverse” was the word on everyone’s lips, they appeared with a ready-made solution. Now as AI developer tools are the hot thing, here they come with a ready-made solution. Wherever we go next, it’s likely MeetKai will have been there first.

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How Different XR Companies Approach Cloud Services

Amazon, cloud technology, extended reality, featured, Lenovo, magic leap, microsoft, NVIDIA, Snap Inc., Software, varjo / Mike M. / December 11, 2022

XR hardware is on the move. But, software is important too. The bigger your XR needs are, the larger your software needs are. So, more and more XR providers are providing cloud services in addition to their hardware and platform offerings. But, what is the cloud anyway?

Generally, “the cloud” refers to remote servers that do work off of a device. This allows devices to become smaller while running more robust software. For example, some of the cloud services that we’ll look at are cloud storage solutions. Cloud storage is increasingly important because 3D assets can take up a lot of space. Others run computations on the cloud.

Other solutions make up “local clouds.” These are networks of devices managed from a central portal all on location. This kind of solution is usually used by organizations managing a large number of devices from one central computer.

Varjo’s Reality Cloud

“Cloud” takes on yet another meaning for Varjo. For Varjo clients, a lot of the management and IT solutions that make up cloud services for other developers are handled through software subscriptions bundled with almost all Varjo hardware. Varjo’s “Reality Cloud” allows users to join XR meetings including remotely present coworkers and virtual assets.

Varjo Reality Cloud - XR cloud services

“Varjo Reality Cloud is our platform that will allow the ultimate science fiction dream – photo-realistic teleportation – to come true,” CTO Urho Konttori said in a launch event last summer. “What this means, in practice, is true virtual teleportation – sharing your reality, your environment, with other people in real time so that others can experience your world.”

At the beginning of this year, Varjo announced that XR content will soon stream through Reality Cloud services as well. Just like streaming other forms of media, XR streaming aims to provide more content to smaller devices by hosting that content remotely and serving it to users on demand.

“These scalability opportunities that the cloud provides are significantly meaningful when we talk about XR deployment in the corporate world,” Konttori told ARPost in January. “We are now at the level that we are super happy with the latency and deployments.”

In a recent funding announcement, Varjo announced the most recent development in their cloud services. Patrick Wyatt, a C-suite veteran, has been appointed the company’s new CPO and “will be the primary lead for Varjo’s software and cloud development initiatives.” As this article was being written, Varjo further expanded its cloud with Unreal and Unity engine integrations.

CloudXR From NVIDIA

XR streaming is already a reality on other cloud platforms. NVIDIA offers CloudXR that streams XR content to Android and Windows devices. (Remember that Android isn’t a hardware manufacturer, but an operating system. While almost all non-Apple mobile devices run Android, it is also the backbone of many XR headsets.)

NVIDIA CloudXR - XR cloud services

According to NVIDIA, “CloudXR lets you leverage NVIDIA RTX-powered servers with GPU virtualization software to stream stunning augmented and virtual reality experiences from any OpenVR application. This means you can run the most complex VR and AR experiences from a remote server across 5G and Wi-Fi networks to any device, while embracing the freedom to move—no wires, no limits.”

This can be a “pure” cloud application, but it can also be an “edge” application that does some lifting on the device and some remotely. While NVIDIA promotes their cloud services for use cases like location-based experiences and virtual production, edge computing is being embraced by enterprises who may want to keep sensitive content offline.

RealWear’s New Cloud Services

Enterprise XR hardware manufacturer RealWear recently launched their own cloud. This is of the last kind of cloud discussed above. The solution allows IT specialists to “easily control and manage their entire RealWear device fleet from one easy-to-use interface.” That includes content, but it also includes managing updates.

If you own one headset, you know that installing software and updates can be a chore. Now, imagine owning a dozen headsets, or even a hundred or more. Putting on each headset individually to add content and install updates quickly becomes unscalable. The RealWear Cloud also allows real-time tech support, which wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

RealWear Cloud

The RealWear Cloud also allows data analysis across headsets. This is vital in enterprise applications which may be tracking items as they move through a supply chain or tracking employees as they move through tasks or training modules. Handling this data for an individual on an individual headset is possible but, again, becomes unbearable at scale sans cloud.

Cloud Storage in Lens Studio

As for cloud storage, Snapchat recently announced a solution in a Lens Studio update that gives creators up to 25MB of remote storage. While the file size is still capped per asset (you can’t have one 25MB asset), it drastically increases the abilities of Lens Creators working with large or complex models.

Snap Lens Cloud

“Prior to the launch of Remote Assets, if a project was over the Lens size limit, you only had two options: either remove the asset if it wasn’t critical to the experience or resize the image to lower its RAM usage and re-submit,” reads the release. “Now you can utilize our Lens Cloud service to host assets of larger sizes outside of the Lens, and then load them in at run time.”

This is significant because Snap Lenses run on mobile devices that not only have limited space but also share that computing power with a slew of non-XR applications. At least, until Snapchat makes a consumer version of Spectacles.

“At first, we were just building for the phone and porting to the glasses,” Lens Creator Alex Bradt told me when I got to demo Snap’s Spectacles at AWE. “Now we’re like, ‘what can we actually do with these that will solve problems for people that they didn’t know they had?’”

Parents and Partners

Not all XR companies offer their own cloud services. For example, Magic Leap has had a partnership with Google Cloud for the past year now. Likewise, AutoDesk offers its XR cloud services through a partnership with Amazon.

Similarly, ThinkReality cloud services are offered through parent company Lenovo. A similar relationship exists between Azure and Microsoft’s MR hardware.

Partnerships like these help each company get the most out of their existing offerings without needing to build services from the ground up. As enterprises explore entering XR, these offerings also help them integrate into cloud services offered by suppliers that they may already be working with, like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, or Lenovo.

Your Forecast: Cloudy

Right now, a lot of cloud services serve industry – where it is doing very impactful things for industry. That doesn’t mean that people with just one headset (or a phone) shouldn’t be taking note. Developments in XR cloud development (for enterprise or for consumer applications) are making smoother, faster, lighter-weight, and more robust XR applications possible for everyone.

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