Oberon Technologies® Delivers Apple Vision Pro Application for Clean Energy R&D Institute

Hear from Oberon at our Enterprise Summit 2024!

Ann Arbor, MI (May 15, 2024) – For leading experts in virtual reality technology and the energy sector, the Apple Vision Pro price tag is a small price to pay for a more effective and safe way to train workers in hazardous environments. In collaboration with independent, non-profit energy R&D institute EPRI, Ann Arbor-based Oberon Technologies® has developed a spatial computing application for use with the Apple Vision Pro. The application provides a more efficient and safe way to train and orient employees for work in nuclear facilities without the associated risk to themselves, the facilities, or the surrounding communities.

While the cost of training employees is a major operating investment across industries, the energy industry sees an even higher investment due to often-hazardous work environments. Considerations like exposure to radiation, hazardous gases, high voltages or even explosions are often points of concern for the overall safety of trainees. The demand for highly skilled energy workers continues to grow, making efficiency of training and preservation of historical knowledge even more crucial to success for employers. In addition to mitigating risk, VR training allows for additional benefits like increased locational awareness, knowledge retention, unlimited use, and the opportunity for in the moment and measurable feedback.

This new application provides an immersive, spatial environment with a virtual twin of a nuclear power plant where team members can train and test staff on proper identification of hazards and potential safety issues. When using the virtual experience, users can familiarize themselves with the nuclear facility and standard procedures before going into the physical plant and avoid onsite risks. The fully immersive view can also help gauge emotional responses to confined spaces or heights.

Oberon Technologies® has provided VR applications to clients for years, helping customers to capture and convert tribal knowledge into fully immersive virtual experiences that enable faster onboarding and higher levels of knowledge retention, as well as optimizing safety for those undergoing training. “Our enterprise clients recognize the numerous benefits beyond safety during training. The immersive environments allow users to experience in minutes what may take years to encounter and perfect in the field,” said Scott Allen, CIO of Oberon Technologies®. “The clarity and interactivity of the environment possible within the Apple Vision Pro provides a more realistic experience for trainees, increasing retention rates and recall. We have all seen the gaming capabilities using Apple’s technology. We believe leveraging the same immersive, spatial environment at a corporate level will be a game changer for the industrial enterprise clients that we support,” Allen added.

Click here for video, use cases and more insights on our XR solutions for commercial applications.

PIXO VR Raises $6.5M Round, Led By Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures (SAEV) and Announces New Tech & Product Leadership

Original Post Appearing on pixovr.com

ROYAL OAK, Mich. — Enterprise extended reality (XR) solutions provider, PIXO VR, which launched its platform for delivery of VR/AR workplace training content, PIXO Apex™, in 2020, has announced $6.5 million in funding. This investment, which will fuel the next phase of growth for the company, was led by Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures (SAEV), the corporate venturing subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, along with Peter Karmanos Jr., co-founder and former CEO of Compuware Corporation, and others.

“This injection of capital allows us to continue to improve our first-of-its-kind platform,” said PIXO Founder and CEO Sean Hurwitz. “We believe virtual reality provides more immersive, interactive, and meaningful experiences, and with PIXO, it has never been easier for organizations to leverage this technology to train employees.”

Companies like Saudi Aramco and Chick-fil-A are partnering with PIXO for its enterprise-compliant platform, Apex; a true all-in-one solution for management and delivery of VR/AR training content. PIXO Apex helps seamlessly integrate XR training, from initial adoption to scaling across an entire organization. Apex works on any headset and integrates with any Learning Management System (LMS) to provide a holistic view of training program performance, making it as simple as possible to launch a pilot and prove ROI prior to full scale adoption.

Apex is also the only XR platform that is an open system. With Apex, integration with other XR solutions is possible; a huge benefit for organizations looking to scale their XR training.

According to Hurwitz, PIXO saw the need to provide both their customers and partners a significant competitive advantage with this type of XR ecosystem, and built Apex around that need.

“We knew six years ago (a lifetime in this industry) that big companies would never use a dozen different solutions, each with their own exclusive use case, to adopt XR,” Hurwitz said. “When creating products with the end user in mind, it’s been clear to us that an all-in-one platform is what the market needs. It’s just what’s best for the customer.”

With customer focus in mind, PIXO, which recently was featured in The Silicon Review as one of the 50 fastest growing companies of 2022, has invested in its leadership team. “Adding strong leadership in technology, product and content is key to giving customers the tools they need to adopt and scale VR training,” Hurwitz said. PIXO’s newest leadership members include: VP of Content Brian Draper, VP of Product Leo Alsufi, and VP of Technology Michael Drzewiecki.

PwC economists predict VR and AR have the potential to boost the global economy by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years, with one fifth of that ($294 billion) coming in the form of VR/AR training. PIXO is poised to capitalize on the market with a unique solution and overall approach to the industry.

One of PIXO’s earliest customers, Saudi Aramco began using VR training through PIXO’s platform in 2020. After two years of partnership, Saudi Aramco’s strategic technology venturing program, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures (SAEV), has become the lead investor in this round of funding for PIXO.

“We have been partners with PIXO since 2020, and have seen first hand the various benefits immersive training experiences can provide organizations,” said Anupam Singh, Investment Director for SAEV. “We anticipate tremendous future growth in the XR industry, and PIXO is in a great position to capitalize on that with their unique all-in-one platform.”

About PIXO VR

PIXO offers a complete, end-to-end, extended reality (XR) solution for enterprise. With PIXO’s cloud-based system, organizations can deploy, use, and scale XR content globally across thousands of users and devices. Headquartered in Royal Oak, Michigan, the PIXO mission is to unlock human potential and improve lives through the power of emerging technology.

About Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures

Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures LLC (SAEV) is the corporate venture fund of Aramco Ventures, the Venture Capital subsidiary of Aramco, the world’s leading fully integrated energy and chemical enterprise. Headquartered in Dhahran with offices in North America, Europe and Asia, SAEV’s mission is to invest globally in startup and high growth companies with technologies of strategic importance to its parent company. For more information, visit www.saev.com.

About Peter Karmanos Jr.

Peter Karmanos Jr. is current Chairman at Maddog Professional Services, a high-tech venture capital firm. Karmanos is co-founder and former CEO and Chairman of Enterprise for software and IT giant, Compuware Corporation. Karmanos is also former owner of the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2015.

Tags: PIXO, PIXO Apex, SAEV, virtual reality, virtual reality training, VR, VR training

XR Made Simple: PIXO Launches Groundbreaking Platform for VR, AR, MR

Extended Reality (XR) Solutions Provider Streamlines XR Implementation with New ‘PIXO Apex’ Platform

ROYAL OAK, Mich. — Extended reality (XR) solutions company, PIXO, which recently made news with its VR Training collaboration with global engineering firm Bosch and Big Three automaker Ford Motor Company, has announced the launch of ‘PIXO Apex’, a first-of-its-kind XR content distribution, management, and analytics platform designed to make XR easier than ever for enterprise clients and other major organizations to deploy, use, and scale. Critically, this new platform stands apart from other solutions with its ability to manage all three XR technologies, including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) applications, with a single, cloud-based system. 

Fortune magazine recently estimated the XR industry will grow to $250 billion by 2026, particularly in light of the need for more remote and virtual work, collaboration, and training solutions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But that rapid growth has created its own challenges, said PIXO Founder and CEO Sean Hurwitz.  “PIXO Apex solves issues around content, hardware, and distribution on a global scale which have, up until now, held the industry back from reaching its full potential,” Hurwitz said, referencing common implementation hurdles he’s witnessed since his company first started developing virtual reality training solutions for business in 2016.  

“Enterprise VR Training is an important space for us and why we invested in PIXO last year,” said Angelo Del Priore, partner at HP Tech Ventures, the venture capital arm of HP Inc. “In PIXO, we see a company delivering compelling XR solutions to customers across industries like construction, manufacturing, energy, and public safety.”

Hurwitz said the beauty of his company’s new platform is its simplicity, flexibility, and ease of use. With PIXO Apex, organizations that need content can access a growing library of VR, AR, and MR titles, license what they want, then provision that content to a wide variety of popular XR headsets, including models from HP, Oculus, HTC, and Pico, as well as non-XR digital devices. Organizations who already have content, developed internally or by third parties, can also distribute and manage it simply by integrating those titles with the PIXO Apex platform’s web-based API.

Perhaps even more exciting for the XR industry is what happens on the user end. Once VR, AR, or MR titles are provisioned to devices, authenticated users can securely download experiences to tethered, head-mounted displays (HMDs) or directly to tetherless, standalone headsets without the need to individually sideload content. SCORM-compliant data, session duration, and other user metrics can be viewed in real-time on an organization’s reporting dashboard, and can be integrated into a company’s existing learning management system, (LMS).

By offering content, distribution, and management, PIXO Apex represents a complete, end-to-end, XR solution, offered on a monthly subscription basis. Further, third party XR developers can partner with PIXO to license and distribute their own content, and affiliates and associations can offer their members easy access to a library of curated, immersive learning experiences, particularly for industries where on-site, instructor-led training is often too difficult, dangerous, or expensive to conduct, particularly with the added complications of a post-COVID world. 

“Apex makes XR for training, design, collaboration, and endless other uses more affordable and accessible to companies, developers, associations and resellers, helping to grow the industry,” Hurwitz said. “XR provides more immersive, interactive, and meaningful experiences for everyone, especially those now entering the workforce, who have grown up along with this technology through gaming and entertainment. PIXO Apex is XR for the entire world.”

Please join the PIXO team at the VR/AR Global Summit, Sept. 16-18.  For more information, visit pixovr.com. 

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About PIXO

PIXO offers a complete, end-to-end, extended reality (XR) solution for enterprise. Our proprietary, patent-pending content distribution, management, and analytics platform makes XR — including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) applications — easier to manage than ever before. With one cloud-based system, organizations can deploy, use, and scale XR content across potentially numerous global endpoints and thousands of users and devices. Headquartered in Royal Oak, Michigan, the PIXO mission is to unlock human potential and improve lives through the power of emerging technology. For more information, please visit www.pixovr.com, Like PIXO on Facebook, and follow on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Media Contact for PIXO:

Jo Bourjaily248.766.5765; jb@virgogroup.net

Get your Company Featured in our VR AR Ecosystem Reports

VRARA's 50+ Chapters are producing industry reports on the regional VR/AR ecosystems to promote companies and organizations involved with immersive technologies and media from NYC to Sydney, across the world.  The reports will be promoted by VRARA and our partners reaching potentially a 1M audience. 

Would you be interested to have your company featured in these report or sponsor the report? If yes, then let us know at info@thevrara.com 

Each report will specifically highlight the following:

• Size of the local ecosystem market

• Number of relevant companies in the ecosystem

• List of companies and company info (size: number of employees, revenue; vertical, customers)

• Reasons why company is based in the local ecosystem

• Needs and hopes from and for the ecosystem

If you have any questions or are interested in being featured or sponsor, please reply to this email or email info@thevrara.com

VIP Reception at IoT TechConnect courtesy of VRARA Detroit Chapter

RSVP here

VRARA in partnership with Terry Bean who created Motor City Connect, is hosting a three-hour workshop that will not only tell you all about the latest trends, but let you sample VR and AR.

The VIP Reception at IoT TechConnect from 6 to 8:30 pm will offer attendees the chance to play with both technologies courtesy the Virtual Reality Augment Reality Association and Great Lakes Drone Company. These are the latest and some of the coolest IoT (Internet of Things) technologies going. Less than 200 tickets remain. To buy tickets or a booth click on https://iottechconnect.com/vip-networking-reception/

The VIP Reception also will feature cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, desserts and the chance to meet many of the panelists who participated in the day-long event that features Michigan IoT Technology, experts, and much more.