Last week was a whirlwind of VR AR events in 3 cities during the same week!
VRAR World event in London
The VRAR World event in London was a huge success. Kicking off the event with the opening and keynote were Steve Dann and Nathan Pettyjohn of the VR/AR Association. The event hosted thousands of senior level decision makers from over 50 countries for 2-days of innovation, networking and disscussion.
Some takeaways from the VRAR World event:
“Broadcasters are starting to understand VR pretty well, but are still looking to start-ups and VR industry to build the features”, Andre Lorenceau Founder and CEO at LiveLike VR. “They would rather let us pioneer this sort of this stuff and then license it from us.”
FutureSource research found that only 7% of UK consumers had tried VR, compared with 5% and 4% respectively in Germany and France. In the US, the figure stood at 8% in US. According to Michael Boreham, “many people, while aware of VR haven’t experienced a truly great VR experience yet. However, the number of 19 to 35-year-olds that had tried VR was double the average."
Daniel Doornink, founder & CEO VRBase: “Good content is going to be a big money maker. You need to know what is good, what works and how to utilize this.”
Huawei chief architect of future networks Richard Li said "we need to be at around 5ms to 7ms for VR and AR. Edge or fog computing could provide an answer.”
Major players like Meta, HTC, Epson and many others at the event were showcasing their high tech. My favorite product, which I think is the right product at the right time for the consumer masses, is this little "headset" shown here.
Nathan, Ana, and Kris at the VRARA booth
AWE Europe event in Berlin
This event had over 45 companies exhibiting their VR AR solution, making this event the largest event dedicated to VR AR.
A highlight of the event was the opening keynote by Ori Inbar, who is on track to inspire 1 Billion active users of augmented reality by 2020. Ori gave credit to the likes of PokemonGo and Snapchat (Snap Inc) for helping to achieve this and promote market awareness for VR AR, but also the Simpsons!
The event also had 6 tracks of sessions with the following themes:
AR in Automotive and Aerospace - Companies like Bosch and Audi showed solutions from assisting car owners with AR-enabled user manuals using smartphones to windshields that display computer-generated information the automotive industry is investing in opportunities to augment the car experience.
Enterprise Industrial AR Experiences - Companies like RE’FLEKT and Ubimax showed how organizations are using AR to empower their workforce allowing them to access information hands-free and collaborate in new ways using remote assistance.
Gaming and Entertainment - Presentations included Rabbx highlighting Mixed Reality Experiences with Project Tango and HoloLens, and Wikitude.
AR and VR investment opportunities - Annette Zimmermann, Research Director at Gartner and Super Ventures Partner, Tom Emrich talked about what are the market opportunities for the new wave of investments.
AR and VR developer tools - A number of developer workshops featuring SDKs from leading companies showed developers what they need in order for AR and VR to succeed.
AR and VR in education - This session showed how AR and VR offer unique opportunities for employees and students to learn including immersive virtual reality simulations and real-time instructions via a heads-up display.
AR for smart cities - Principal Scientist at VTT, Charles Woodward, explored this topic in his presentation “AR for Cities” and presentation from Holobuilder.
Oslo Innovation Week
VRARA was also invited to come checkout VR AR companies innovating in Norway. Even the Norwegian Royal Family came to the event to show support!
