Call for Presenters and Invitation to Participate in our 5G Committee

Our 5G Committee is inviting speakers for a Webinar we are planning for May. Please email info@thevrara.com if you’re interested to present! And or let us know if you’re interested in Sponsoring this webinar.

The goal of the VRARA 5G Industry Committee is to pursue VR/AR focused use cases and requirements for 5G networks so as to ensure that the resulting specifications address the needs of this key industry sector.

VR and AR technology holds the promise to fundamentally transform how people interact with and experience the physical world, how they are entertained, and how services are delivered to them. We are at the cusp of this transformation, and, yet, it cannot happen unless the networks that will have to support these applications can deliver the required performance, e.g. latency on the order of several milliseconds. Edge computing is necessary to deliver such performance; while mobile networks, which today already provide pervasive global connectivity, are likely to continue occupying this central role

Join our Committee and representatives from carriers, network providers, and other industry leaders.  More info here

Regards,

Alex Reznik, HP Enterprise & ETSI MEC Chairman

Jonathan Moss, Sprint

VRARA Co-Chairs

5G Can Reinvent Ecommerce With VR and AR

By Roslyn Layton

It’s easy for consumers to shop online for products and services they already know, but much commerce is still offline because people want to “try before they buy.” New technologies have emerged to close the gap, but whether consumers will be able to enjoy them depends on public policy.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are two of the technologies which can become mainstream, extending beyond just video games, with the advent of 5G, or fifth-generation mobile networks. 5G offers speeds 10 times the current 4G with more throughput and essentially no latency, or lag time. As 5G becomes more pervasive, the technologies like AR and VR will be democratized.

While many are familiar with AR and VR from the gaming experience, these technologies can help make products on a screen more real with images that can be rotated, enlarged, and experienced interactively. By holding up the phone’s camera for example, AR superimposes the desired product into the user’s view.  VR personalizes the experience for the viewer, for example, by simulating a road trip so a person can buy a car without leaving home. AkzoNobel's award-winning Visualizer mobile app, downloaded some 20 million times, allows users to virtually paint living spaces in chosen colors and gives customers the freedom to experiment with colors and make confident choices before purchasing the paint.

Ecommerce could become the top industry for VR/AR applications. The retail industry already spends over $1 billion annually on VR/AR solutions, growing by 240% according to the VR/AR Association.  Industry experts, like Eric Prince of Cimmerse – a startup enabling this technology for online sales of fashion, luxury goods, home décor, and fine art, are eager for 5G because of increased speeds and capacity for more information. This translates into larger augmented and virtual reality scenes, helping retailers to offer their customers a more compelling visual experience and hence close the sale.

Prince describes how 5G would work for his clients, “Imagine a product like a full-size couch in hyper detail that you can place in your room. With 5G, we will be able to provide the couch, the room and everything in it, toss in a realistic human avatar with artificial intelligence that walks into the scene and helps end user with any information needed to complete the purchase.” The VR/AR Association’s 5G Committee notes that this experience “cannot happen unless the networks that will have to support these applications can deliver the required performance, [e.g.] latency on the order of several milliseconds.”

The US generates most AR/VR revenue today, but long term economics could favor China. The Chinese Alibaba and Tencent have made massive investments in AR/VR and are in striking range of Amazon. China is well-positioned for its Asian neighbors to adopt its platforms, and the region could account for half of all global AR/VR revenue in just 5 years, according to AR/VR analyst Tim Merel. The country that wins on platforms has a lot to do with which is first to deploy generation networks, and a slowdown in 5G deployment could harm American firms.

The US was the global leader in investment and innovation in 4G mobile networks and technologies, but China now has the edge with 5G. The US fell behind because of many missteps over the last decade, particularly in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) failing to fill the spectrum pipeline and imposing a series of misguided internet regulations which caused network investment to fall by $1 billion consecutively between 2014 to 2016.

Fortunately, the current leaders at the FCC corrected those errors in 2017, clearing the way for the US to take the lead in 5G with policies to streamline infrastructure deployment and make more spectrum available, specifically in the 3.7 GHz band later this year. These are incremental steps toward encouraging 5G deployment to help the U.S. catch up to China, but the FCC must push forward with policies that make it easier to deploy the next generation of networks nationwide by streamlining regulatory and policy frameworks that inhibit buildout. With leadership at the federal level, states and cities can follow suit and embrace new technologies that improve people’s lives and stimulate growth.

For the EU, it may be too late to come back. While it once created the leading wireless technologies and devices, the EU regulated away incentives to invest and innovate, causing their leadership in investment to plummet and erasing the foundation of mobile R&D in the region. The EU continues to discourage innovation with the heavy-handed General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), so onerous that many companies have stopped serving the EU altogether and consumers shop less online. The U.S. should not follow this misguided path, but instead allow consumers to try new applications, technologies to compete, and the economy to flourish.

The FCC has taken steps to enact policies to streamline wireless infrastructure rollout and unlock spectrum at the federal level.  Now states and municipalities must do their part to encourage investment. This matters for retailers because the US and China are in a race for the preeminence of ecommerce platforms and applications. If US app providers don’t get 5G networks fast, there won’t be a second chance to win.

Source

ETSI Premieres New Augmented Reality Group with VRARA for 5G Networks Standards

By Nathan Cranford

Join our 5G Networks Industry Committee here

ETSI premieres new augmented reality group

Rolling into the augmented reality (AR) space, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) launched a new Industry Specification Group called Augmented Reality Framework (ISG ARF) yesterday. The purpose of the group is to define a framework for the interoperability of AR applications and services, thereby thwarting market fragmentation and allowing players to provide part of an overall AR solution.

ETSI is an organization responsible for developing globally-applicable standards for information and communications technologies, including radio, broadcast and web devices. AR applications like Pokemon Go provide a digitally enhanced representation of the world with texts and images graphed on. According to the 2017 Augmented/Virtual Reality Report, the AR market is expected to be worth $83 billion by 2021.

Currently, there are a plethora of standards that can be used in the development and deployment of AR applications and services. Unfortunately, interoperability gaps exist in the AR value chain. More work needs to be done to determine the best practices for using existing international standards. That is why ISG ARF was developed.

The group held its first meeting on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, electing Muriel Deschanel from b<>com as chair of the group and Ralf Schäfer from Fraunhofer HHI as vice chair. The group will begin with a systematic review of AR use case requirements and challenges, and develop a framework for the interoperability of AR applications and services.

“There are huge differences in AR applications but mapping digital information with the real world implies the use of a set of common components offering functionalities such as tracking, registration, pose estimation, localization, 3D reconstruction or data injection. The development of such a framework will allow components from different providers to interoperate through the defined interfaces,” said Deschanel. “This will in turn avoid the creation of vertical siloes and market fragmentation and enable players in the eco-system to offer parts of an overall AR solution.”

ETSI isn’t alone in developing standards for the AR industry. The organization announced last month that the Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality Association (VRARA) signed a letter of intent to collaborate on interactive VR and AR technologies delivered over budding 5G networks and hosted on Multi-access Edge Computing sites. Participation in ISG ARF is open to ETSI members and non-member organizations. The next ISG ARF meeting will be held Feb. 1 and 2 next year in Berlin.

Source

ETSI, VRARA to work together on Virtual and Augmented Reality for 5G

Join our 5G Networks Industry Committee here

European ICT standards body ETSI and the global VR/AR Association (VRARA) have signed a letter of intent to collaborate on interactive VR and AR technologies delivered over emerging 5G networks and hosted on Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) sites. The partnership is designed to encourage common member companies to pursue VR/AR-focused use cases and requirements for ETSI MEC Phase 2 with a view to ensuring that the resulting specifications address the needs of the sector.

VRARA will also support adoption of ETSI MEC work as appropriate and highlight benefits of Edge computing to VR/AR solution developers, said the partners in a statement.

“Virtual and Augmented Reality technology holds the promise to fundamentally transform how people interact with and experience the physical world, how they are entertained, and how services are delivered to them.” states Alex Reznik, ETSI MEC chairman. “We are at the cusp of this transformation, and, yet, it cannot happen unless the networks that will have to support these applications can deliver the required performance, e.g. latency on the order of several milliseconds. Edge computing is necessary to deliver such performance; while mobile networks, which today already provide pervasive global connectivity, are likely to continue occupying this central role.”

The partnership between ETSI, the home of the world’s leading Multi-access Edge Computing standardization activity and VRARA, the world leading industry association representing the Virtual and Augmented reality industry recognizes the need to bring the two communities together. This cooperation will encourage common member companies to pursue VR/AR focused use cases and requirements for ETSI MEC Phase 2 so as to ensure that the resulting specifications address the needs of this key industry sector. VRARA will support adoption of ETSI MEC work as appropriate and highlight benefits of Edge computing to VR/AR solution developers.

“In a recent research report we’ve published, we learnt that enterprise AR & VR have more receptive buyers than consumer markets, due to a strong ROI case.” says Kris Kolo, Executive Director of the VR/AR Association. “Working closely with ETSI which expertise lays in all ITC related sectors makes sense. We’re really excited to start this collaboration with their MEC group.”

About VRARA
The VR/AR Association (VRARA) is an international organization designed to foster collaboration between innovative companies and people in the virtual reality and augmented reality ecosystem that accelerates growth, fosters research and education, helps develop industry standards, connects member organizations and promotes the services of member companies.

For more information please visit: www.thevrara.com

About ETSI
ETSI produces globally-applicable standards for Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), including fixed, mobile, radio, aeronautical, broadcast and internet technologies and is officially recognized by the European Union as a European Standards Organization. ETSI is an independent, not-for-profit association whose more than 800 member companies and organizations, drawn from 68 countries across five continents worldwide, determine its work programme and participate directly in its work.

For more information please visit: www.etsi.org

Contact
Kris Kolo
Tel: +1 650 690 5361
Email: kris@thevrara.com

Claire Boyer
Tel: +33 (0)4 92 94 43 35
Mob: +33 (0)6 87 60 84 40
Email: claire.boyer@etsi.org