AWE 2019: Go XR, Be Awesome

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

“There are two parts to the new ThinkReality system—the AR headset and a software platform. The ThinkReality A6 is a comfortable, 380-gram headset with two fisheye cameras on the front as well as depth sensors and a 13-megapixel RGB sensor. There are also microphones onboard for voice control, and the headset can also detect where you're gazing to optimize resolution or navigation. You'll also be able to interact with your virtual environments using an included 3DoF controller. Untethered, the A6 can last up to four hours with its 6,800-mAh battery, and you can still use the device while it's plugged in and charging.”

Other advanced headsets—both the new portable as well as the larger headset design—were shown at AWE. Some that I feel are leading the pack include the Magic Leap 1, and of course, the latest Microsoft HoloLens as well as others.

An additional capability I expect to see included in headsets soon is ray tracing, real-time ray tracing, easy-to-use engineering simulation, and VR- and AI-enabled applications powered by NVIDIA RTX™ technology. It is not foreseeable, however, that this will be soon available in the portable devices as ray tracing requires a relatively powerful computer and GPU, but we will see. The uses for XR—specifically the MR segment for industrial and commercial usage—is expanding dramatically.

As mentioned previously, there were some concept videos using prototype hardware and a lot more discussion about real use in some industries. Ubimax states they have over 250 customers for its manual-workflow XR solutions. At AWE, they announced adding support for XR using the HoloLens 2 so that workers can read needed documentation (typically PDFs) while they also get the benefits of XR while doing other tasks. I expect that just as the use of videos (yes, videos are an old form of XR) to provide instructions and assistance changed the way we learn how to do things, XR will do the same thing.

There’s so much more to discuss when covering AWE. For a small but growing event, there is a lot to see and hear. For example, there was a room dedicated to being an XR playground. When you entered, you saw people walking around as if they were in a different world, and they virtually were. They were looking at and manipulating things that the rest of us could not see. When I suited up and entered the virtual world instead of an exhibit room, I found myself in a dungeon with a mission in a totally different world. Not only could I see and hear, but I could also feel the virtual world I had entered.

At the show, I also had a chance to speak with Dr. Thomas Coughlin, IEEE USA president, Kathy Grise, IEEE Future Directions senior program director, and Minu Seshasayee, senior program director for Interprose for IEEE. IEEE has been expanding its efforts significantly for the last few years. The conversation was quite interesting and will be published in detail in a separate article.

Conclusion

In the last three years since I became interested in XR and started experimenting with it and writing about it, the uses and reality of XR have expanded and improved significantly. Add 5G to the mix, and within a few years, we will be able to enter a global AR/MR/XR world. XR is now so much more than 3D sight and surround sound; add improved touch and then smell and taste, and you can only imagine the uses. It is happening, and it is happening fast. Stay tuned! CES 2020 is only a half year away.

References

1. Fay, K. “5G: Changing the Future of Sports,” January 29, 2019.

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