If anyone had seen me this morning, I was *that* gym bunny in the Beverly Hills Hilton who stopped running just so she could read the paper.
What had caught my eye was the Financial Time's front page reference to Microsoft and Artificial Reality (full article on p14). It's a highly recommended read. Richard Waters' article is a quick, crisp guide to the Virtual reality (VR) vs Augmented reality (AR) landscape, drawing comparison to the advent of the #Realitywars much in the way the battle forces amassed in the www.Browserwars.com of the 90s and 00s.
There are the usual suspects, the big hardware players (Sony and Samsung), but where it gets interesting is that unlike the battle of twenty year's past, the software makers (eg Microsoft, Facebook and Google) are also wading into the war and arguably have more clout with cross platform applicability in the days of iOS vs Android vs Windows.
This puts the old hardware vendors (and all the startups in the VR / AR hardware space) into an interesting predicament.
To play well, to play beyond the niche, you'll need a bit of cross-platform cooperation from the same platform software vendors entering the VR / AR space.
This then becomes a game of strategy, particularly timing and niche appeal. It helps a little that the whispers around CES '15 for OculusRift's release date was as late as "early 2016". So what can you do?
I spent the last 10 days in SF and Silicon Valley immersing myself in the AR / VR scene, attending as many AR and VR events, including talks by HealthTech Women, an excellent showcase by UPLOAD and a Meetup by SFHTML5.
Here's what I saw: the VR solutions, for its very ability to create a truly immersive experience, appeal to isolated environment experiences, mostly not requiring typing (feature not yet fully functioning) or interacting with text. VR vendors (small and large) have consequently focused on gaming or situational plays that lend itself to replaying and re-enacting scenarios (which have promising implications for therapy).
AR solutions attempt to walk a middle-ground: a balance of (currently, hardly) unobtrusive access to information when you require it and the ability to interact with your real-life environment. I've seen a variety of solutions and I'm sure there's more to come. The field of visual graphical language is evolving, with no small part being played by the illustrious Tony Parisi and co. The biggest challenges, I think, will be high-quality visual integration (how do you get a screen to be visible and unobtrusive at the same time?), content supply (volume of skilled talent and that old platform chestnut again), integration with existing eyewear and avoiding a completely scary-looking/socially-unacceptable device hanging off the front of someone's face.
For either AR or VR new entrants, the Holy Grail here is a mobile, untethered solution, with text and visual display interaction capabilities, ideally hooked into an augmented audio experience with voice command and bone conduction hearing. It's secure, not heavy on the nose, allows users to wear glasses (I mean, c'mon) and syncs effortlessly with your other devices. The basic features you want of your phone (call coming in, calendar, contacts and battery power) with the entertainment of your TV and the information access of your, well, everything.
And, just like that sacred object, may it endow its bearer with super powers.
Dr Grace Lai (+Grace Lai) is the Founder and Managing Director of a medical software business in Australia. She is an ex-IDC analyst, specialising in Infrastructure Software, Asia/Pacific and Japan business trends, as well as Strategy, Marketing and Operations. She also knows how to do a craniotomy, which nowadays comes in handy during awkward social situations.
+Financial Times +Tony Parisi @sfshtml5 @Healthtechwomen
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality - What can Startups do?
What had caught my eye was the Financial Time's front page reference to Microsoft and Artificial Reality (full article on p14). It's a highly recommended read. Richard Waters' article is a quick, crisp guide to the Virtual reality (VR) vs Augmented reality (AR) landscape, drawing comparison to the advent of the #Realitywars much in the way the battle forces amassed in the www.Browserwars.com of the 90s and 00s.
There are the usual suspects, the big hardware players (Sony and Samsung), but where it gets interesting is that unlike the battle of twenty year's past, the software makers (eg Microsoft, Facebook and Google) are also wading into the war and arguably have more clout with cross platform applicability in the days of iOS vs Android vs Windows.
This puts the old hardware vendors (and all the startups in the VR / AR hardware space) into an interesting predicament.
To play well, to play beyond the niche, you'll need a bit of cross-platform cooperation from the same platform software vendors entering the VR / AR space.
This then becomes a game of strategy, particularly timing and niche appeal. It helps a little that the whispers around CES '15 for OculusRift's release date was as late as "early 2016". So what can you do?
I spent the last 10 days in SF and Silicon Valley immersing myself in the AR / VR scene, attending as many AR and VR events, including talks by HealthTech Women, an excellent showcase by UPLOAD and a Meetup by SFHTML5.
Here's what I saw: the VR solutions, for its very ability to create a truly immersive experience, appeal to isolated environment experiences, mostly not requiring typing (feature not yet fully functioning) or interacting with text. VR vendors (small and large) have consequently focused on gaming or situational plays that lend itself to replaying and re-enacting scenarios (which have promising implications for therapy).
AR solutions attempt to walk a middle-ground: a balance of (currently, hardly) unobtrusive access to information when you require it and the ability to interact with your real-life environment. I've seen a variety of solutions and I'm sure there's more to come. The field of visual graphical language is evolving, with no small part being played by the illustrious Tony Parisi and co. The biggest challenges, I think, will be high-quality visual integration (how do you get a screen to be visible and unobtrusive at the same time?), content supply (volume of skilled talent and that old platform chestnut again), integration with existing eyewear and avoiding a completely scary-looking/socially-unacceptable device hanging off the front of someone's face.
For either AR or VR new entrants, the Holy Grail here is a mobile, untethered solution, with text and visual display interaction capabilities, ideally hooked into an augmented audio experience with voice command and bone conduction hearing. It's secure, not heavy on the nose, allows users to wear glasses (I mean, c'mon) and syncs effortlessly with your other devices. The basic features you want of your phone (call coming in, calendar, contacts and battery power) with the entertainment of your TV and the information access of your, well, everything.
And, just like that sacred object, may it endow its bearer with super powers.
Dr Grace Lai (+Grace Lai) is the Founder and Managing Director of a medical software business in Australia. She is an ex-IDC analyst, specialising in Infrastructure Software, Asia/Pacific and Japan business trends, as well as Strategy, Marketing and Operations. She also knows how to do a craniotomy, which nowadays comes in handy during awkward social situations.
+Financial Times +Tony Parisi @sfshtml5 @Healthtechwomen
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality - What can Startups do?
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