Insta360 will unveil at CES an 8K video camera that takes 360-degree virtual reality images, 3D videos and still images, said the company Wednesday. The company will demonstrate Facebook Live 360 and Twitter panoramic broadcast capabilities, it said.
Artificial intelligence and virtual reality will be among seven of "the most significant and impactful trends in technology" next year, said an IHS Markit Technology paper Wednesday. "Liberated from the hallowed realms of science fiction and now incarnated as a helpful -- if somewhat impersonal -- aide," such as Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa, AI will have far-reaching implications when humans cede control to the technology such as semi- or fully autonomous cars or robots, the paper said. It acknowledged AI will also have consequences for the work force, which are issues outlined in a Tuesday White House report (see 1612200056). VR and augmented reality are poised to "advance significantly" as companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft leverage their technologies to "corner" this space, IHS Markit said. There will be a range of commercial, industrial and professional applications for the technology such as in retail and healthcare, it added. Another trend is expansion of IoT through low-power wide area network (LPWAN) technologies, which will open up opportunities for telecom operators and drive numerous applications such as smart metering, smart buildings, precision agriculture and environmental monitoring sensors, said IHS Markit. It expects LPWAN shipments to grow from 46.4 million units in 2017 to about 383 million units in 2021.
A CTA working group on virtual and augmented reality finished work on an agreed-upon set of “industry definitions” to help companies better and more uniformly explain to consumers “the spectrum of experiences their technologies deliver,” the association announced Monday. The working group defines VR products and services as creating “a digital environment that replaces the user's real-world environment,” while AR “overlays” digitally created content into the user's real-world environment, CTA said. Other definitions: (1) “Mixed reality” (MR) is an experience “that seamlessly blends” the user's real-world environment and digitally created content, “where both environments can coexist and interact with each other.” (2) The term “360 Video" is defined as an experience that allows users “to look in every direction around” them. (3) “Immersive Experience" is defined as deeply “engaging” and “multisensory,” which can be delivered by a diversity of different technologies. “The collaboration from across our industry to develop and align on these consumer definitions is the kind of joint effort across the value chain that will ensure the success of this brand new industry and art form," said Technicolor executive Mark Turner, chairman of the working group. "AR, VR and MR offer consumers a remarkable world of interactive and immersive engagement -- whether that's incorporating information and imagery into our everyday environment or submerging ourselves completely into another world.”
Worldwide shipments of augmented and virtual reality headsets are expected to rise at a 108 percent compound annual growth rate through the end of the decade, reaching 76 million units in 2020, IDC said in a Thursday report. More affordable VR devices will continue to lead the market in terms of volume, but AR headsets are expected to pick up momentum as more affordable technologies and more OEMs enter the market, IDC said. It called 2016 a “defining year” for AR as “millions of consumers were introduced to Pokemon Go” and developers “finally got their hands on coveted headsets” like Microsoft's HoloLens. "AR may just be on track to create a shift in computing significant enough to rival the smartphone,” though the technology “is still in its infancy and has a long runway ahead before reaching mass adoption," said the researcher. AR “represents the larger long-term opportunity,” but VR for the near term “will capture the lion's share of shipments and media attention," it said. IDC estimates 10.1 million VR headsets were shipped globally in 2016, and unit volume will grow to 61 million in 2020, said the research firm. It sees unit shipments of AR headsets climbing to 15 million in 2020 from only 100,000 in 2016, it said.
Six leading developers of virtual reality headsets banded together to form the Global Virtual Reality Association to promote the VR industry, the group said in a Wednesday announcement. GVRA, whose founding members are Acer, Google, HTC, Oculus, Samsung and Sony Interactive Entertainment, “will develop and share best practices for industry and foster dialogue between public and private stakeholders around the world,” it said. VR “has the potential to be the next great computing platform, improving sectors ranging from education to healthcare, and contribute significantly to the global economy,” the group said. The founding GVRA companies, through “research, international engagement and the development of best practices,” will work to “unlock and maximize VR’s potential and ensure those gains are shared as broadly around the world as possible,” it said.
The NPD Group added virtual and augmented reality headsets to its retail tracking service, with data dating back 12 months, it said Monday. U.S. dollar sales of VR/AR devices have been on the rise since July, jumping 300 percent in the six months ending October versus the previous six months from November 2015 through April, said the researcher said. NPD expects 2016 holiday sales to double those of the year-ago holiday season driven by use with mobile phones, gaming consoles and PCs, said analyst Ben Arnold.
Advances in artificial intelligence are helping Facebook create innovative virtual reality, speech recognition and connectivity technologies, said Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer in a Tuesday blog post. Computer vision, which helps machines better process, analyze and understand images, is improving immersive experiences and helping to build high-quality VR headsets not leashed to a computer, he said. AI is improving speech recognition through avatars whose lips move in sync with speaking voices and enable users to issue hands-free voice commands in a VR environment, said Schroepfer. AI technologies also are contributing to Facebook's connectivity projects -- the high-altitude, solar-powered unmanned aircraft Aquila aimed at providing internet service to remote areas and the Terragraph system to provide high-speed connectivity to dense urban areas, he said. AI is helping better analyze areas so the company can effectively deploy and install connectivity equipment, he added. The company, Schroepfer said, is investing in long-term AI research that can help computers "learn, plan and reason like humans" such as describing images for individuals who are visually impaired, providing better contextual understanding and perform predictive learning. Such abilities "will add up to something like what we call common sense," which will improve interaction with humans, he said.
Gesture and motion control, to become “vital” for certain forms of human-computer interaction in coming years, will ship in 492 million devices by 2020, up from 128 million at the end of this year, said a Juniper Research report Monday. Smartphone-based virtual reality will be particularly important in driving usage, Juniper said. Advances in development of gesture and motion interfaces from companies including Leap Motion and Thalmic Labs will lead to 50 percent penetration in all wearables and nearly all VR devices by 2021, said the report, but usage will remain low, less than 5 percent, in established categories such as PCs and smartphones, it said. The arrival of motion control for smartphone VR in 2017 will lead a “shift towards multimodal computing,” where users adopt peripherals and motion and gesture control, said Juniper. “VR and wearables have shown the way that gesture and haptics can provide fresh ways to interact with technology,” said analyst James Moar. “The game changer for other platforms will be when technology firms are brave enough to reinvent their [user interfaces] to incorporate gesture and motion control, rather than considering it an optional add-on.”
Joining Best Buy and Target, among other retailers aiming to simplify holiday shopping this season, GameStop issued a “must-have” holiday gift list in a Friday news release with a spotlight on virtual reality systems and gear. The list includes a $399 PlayStation VR core bundle combining the PSVR headset, cables, headphones and demo disc; HTC Vive ($799), developed by HTC and Valve, which bundles a headset, two wireless controllers with haptic feedback and 360-degree motion tracking; Samsung’s Gear VR ($99) headset; and the Merge VR headset ($79). Eight physical games are currently available for PlayStation VR and 165 for HTC Vive, said the retailer.
CyberPowerPC’s recent introduction of an Oculus-ready virtual-reality PC powered by an Advanced Micro Devices FX processor and Radeon GPU “brings the cost of entry for VR-ready systems down to $500 for the first time,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said on a Thursday earnings call. “This is a meaningful milestone for consumers and I am excited that AMD is enabling the ecosystem and driving broader adoption of VR by making premium experiences available at such an attractive price point.”