WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: an exceptionally good intro to lidar technologies and its myriad of applications - it's not just for self driving cars. And note that one of the leading companies in the field is from Quebec city!

WHY IT MATTERS: facial recognition + social networks allow tools like this one to surface: take a picture of someone on the train and find their personal pictures on social networks. For now, only Russia and China allow this, I would expect this to be a business killer app for augmented reality glasses: the glass continuously takes pictures and overlays the LinkedIn profile of people you meet in business context. I would install that without thinking about it twice!

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Pokemon GO was an early glimpse into this whole new world of augmented reality. Looks like we will see a deluge of apps in the coming months.

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So much money is being invested by so many large companies that it is difficult not to expect great things from AR and VR in the coming years. If you go beyond the hype on gaming gears and being able to watch a virtual TV on the wall, every corporate strategy should include at least evaluations of the technologies to help improve manufacturing, repairs, or other professional activities. 

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This is an annual bag of goodies.

Highlight #1: retail stores are closing at record pace while Amazon opens stores. This is such a huge trend because it transforms stores from a mini-warehouse into something else: a destination for experience, service, and training. Think Apple store with the highest sales per square foot, genius bar, classes and a showroom. Amazon has pushed its Amazon GO, no lines, no registers concept and it is rolling it out slowly. This is just the beginning...

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Virtual Reality (VR) is a great idea but very difficult to do well because you have to generate a whole new world. Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed-Reality (MR) offer a greater potential because it superposes useful information onto the real world. That is the promise and we will see with ideas like this, huge promises and a great deal of hype in the coming months and year. Brace yourself for the weirdests ideas and expect most to fail. 

But keep the faith in the basic idea that AR-MR will revolutionize your life and represent a technology/device/solution that will most probably become as pervasive as fast as the smartphone has with the advent of the iPhone. Because it will be useful.

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Looks like AR will be most powerful and useful in professional settings. This is a great example where surgeons get additional information to guide them during surgery without having to look up and away from their patient. Bravo!

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Grocery is the last frontier for digital disruption, everyone knows (huge market but late adopter of digital, especially eCommerce see http://sco.lt/8ai7W5 http://sco.lt/6q1Ijx http://sco.lt/8Y94vh ).

But no one knows when exactly they'll get disrupted. Many are betting on eCommerce but from the looks of this report, we may see a lot of changes in our weekly trip to the supermarket, from shelf monitoring to augmented reality.

Then again, grocers are pre-historic in their use of technology because of low margins and a very repetitive shopping experience. We mostly always buy the same products and are looking at our store "experience" to be fast with low prices, not so much fun and experiential (see Amazon GO http://sco.lt/8MTY8X where there is no cash register to slow you down still needs to be cheap http://sco.lt/80HuqX).

So my bets are on the startups that enable faster grocery shopping at a low cost- all others I expect will have a hard time (sorry AR and VR startups...)!

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Much talk about virtual reality these days but looks like the killer app will be AR. Wrote about this in the past and looks like IDC research agrees with me... ;-)

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With such growth will come one of 2 things: explosion of new solutions and a huge market size OR a complete failure. I vote for complete failure as the solutions will not live up to the hype (too expensive, too immersive / lack of environment understanding, etc.). VR will not be a mass market solution this time around (AR has more chances to be it, but it is much more difficult to achieve than VR IMHO).

But the huge amount of investment will yield amazing new devices and opportunities for businesses that will be able to put forward specialized VR solutions in healthcare and manufacturing.

Lots of elements to account for in your 2017 digital strategy.

A video from Google demonstrates how to drop virtual furniture in your home environment, make sure it fits in the room then buy it directly from the augmented reality scene. The eCommerce segment starts at 17m16s

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Augmented reality has the potential to revolutionize businesses much before Virtual Reality because it can so seamlessly add to your existing world. The video shows examples of an AR measuring tape that can also be used in an commerce setting. Other uses for AR in the business context, to review floor plans and planograms in retail settings, or help with repairs have been proposed in the past. Some Google glasses videos demonstrated some interesting use cases. It now looks like our mobile phone will in fact be carrying the necessary hardware to make AR a reality much sooner than anyone may have anticipated...

See also:

field repair, parcel delivery and other usage for google glasses: http://fmcs.digital/blog/google-glass-will-be-more-successful-among/ 

IKEA AR via its 2013 catalog: http://fmcs.digital/blog/augmented-reality-catalog-places-ikea-furniture-in/

translation AR: http://fmcs.digital/blog/looking-for-google-glass-killer-apps-via-mit/ 

google glass in operating rooms: http://fmcs.digital/blog/google-glass-finds-its-way-to-the-operating-room/ 

Short video that shows how human anatomy is being put into augmented reality to create lifelike, interactive models to help medical students learn anatomy.

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Right now this is a generic human but in the future we will be able to have our own bodies represented in AR for medical doctors to peer into our corpse, via scans and radiology pictures. 

IF they can do this with a human body, why are not more companies investing in making AR models of their most complex machines (think boats, planes, complex manufacturing machines, etc.) to help training, safe operations and troubleshooting? I would imagine that digital transformation strategies and plans should include elements of AR and VR, don't you?

A video shot in 3D that you can experience with glasses or not. Great example of what can be done with 3D, other than shoot'em up games.

Bloomberg video interview that provides motivations for the explosion on VR in the coming years:

1- applications are numerous, with opportunities in different space, not only in gaming but in medical, movie, etc.

2- big players are lined up : Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.

That being said, there have been multiple false starts for VR and #D (remember 3D TVs and google glasses?), so I remaining cautiously optimistic with both VR and AR. They may not be ready for consumer market but may expand into certain key niche applications and industries.

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In that context, it is essential for digital transformation strategies to consider VR and AR in their roadmaps. There must be clear business needs to drive adoption of this relatively immature technology which requires a number of user constraint (least of which is wearing a headset which makes you look like a dork and prevents you from living in the moment). But there are multiple types of industries where professionals can find benefits in viewing things in 3D in a lifelike fashion: those should be prioritized.

5 must read papers to understand where we stand in the area of direct brain communication with machines. In a nutshell; still very early.

This is a great idea: a power tool with intelligence that drives the motors and controls the drill bit, ensuring you cut to perfection every time. Basically you've become just a fancy motor for the tool to travel and perform its work. Brilliant. Watch the videos to see how it works for real. Expect to see more of this in the future: smart tools that go beyond the mundane to invade all aspects of the physical world, including in this case the construction industry.

Also: https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/23/hololens-24-core-chip-makes-vivid-ar-possible/ 

Not a surprise but rather an interesting news snippet: dedicated chipsets for AR are starting to appear. This paves the way for lower cost, better quality solutions. Be aware, AR may become a reality in the coming years as forecasted...

Just watch the video and you'll see. We live in the matrix! ;-)

Olympics in VR is just starting. This article describes what it is like to look at volleyball in VR. and it is quite something. Actually it is part of a larger trend to push sports in virtual reality as described elegantly here: http://bit.ly/2aJv8lO

Very interesting demonstration of what can be achieved with augmented reality and a ping pong table. I always wonder why there are so many great entertainment demos and so few business ones. This can be so beneficial in manufacturing, production and other environments where workers have to make repetitive tasks or get trained on physical objects.

(in french, english here)

Canadian Tire follows the likes of IKEA catalogue, real estate, technical publication, tourist guides and other applications to extends its paper catalogue with additional information using mobile phone technologies. Not sure the IKEA project received huge success but again this was 2013 and a lot has changed in the past 3 years.

With virtual reality (VR) being trumpeted as the next big thing, Augmented Reality (AR) may actually provide something more useful and less intrusive - thus leading to faster and larger adoption? Microsoft hololens project sure thinks that way.

http://bit.ly/1SEJeS8 

http://sco.lt/6g6TZp 

http://conference.corp.at/archive/CORP2013_128.pdf 

http://www.inglobetechnologies.com/docs/whitepapers/AR_printing_whitepaper_en.pdf 

http://www.scoop.it/t/digital-transformation-of-businesses/?tag=Augmented+Reality 

Detailed explanation of augmneted reality are starting to come out.

Amazing video presentation of what future video conferencing may feel like with augmented reality.