XR for Business

XR has come a long way, baby – and we have one of the technology’s earliest pioneer’s on today’s episode. Dr. Walter Greenleaf has been working in the field for 33 years, since the days when VR was little more than a twinkle in research scientists’ eyes. Now, he and Alan chat about how far the technology has come, and how far it still has to go. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Dr. Walter Greenleaf, a behavioral neuroscientist and medical technology developer working at Stanford University. With over three decades of research and development experience in the field of digital medicine and medical virtual reality technology, Walter is considered the leading authority in the field of working in this industry, and he’s been doing this for 33 years. Unbelievable experience. Dr. Greenleaf has designed and developed numerous clinical systems over the last 33 years, including products in the fields of surgical simu

As the lead writer and head of content at BrainXchange, Emily Friedman has had ample chances to explore a lot of XR-related topics. She lets Alan pick her brain about a few of them, from getting millennials interested in trades, to democratizing knowledge, and how humanity will enter The Cloud. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Emily Friedman from BrainXchange and Augmented World Expo. Emily Friedman is a New York based enterprise immersive, wearable and emerging technology advocate, journalist and facilitator. She’s Head of Content and the lead writer at BrainXchange, lead journalist and senior editor at Enterprisewear Blog, and head of marketing and communications for Augmented World Expo USA and AWE EU. To learn more about BrainXchange, you can visit brainxchange.com. And if you wanna learn more about AWE or Augmented World Expo, you can visit awexr.com. Welcome to the show, Emily. Emily: Thank you for having me. Alan:

Most businesses have the information and infrastructures they need to be more efficient and competitive — it’s just a matter of having it all at their fingertips. RE’FLEKT is working at making that process easier by creating a modular, scalable, open-source operating system for businesses to build their own in-house AR applications on top of. President and CMO Dirk Schart drops in to explain how. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Dirk Schart RE’FLEKT President and CMO. Dirk Schart is a marketing and growth driven tech executive, whose current mission is to build the operating system for enterprise augmented reality. Dirk leads the US operations for RE’FLEKT. Dirk is one of the first employees of RE’FLEKT and is a funded company by global companies such as Bosch and BASF, and today plays a leading role in enterprise AR. Previously, Dirk built the Digital Innovation Lab for Hyperloop Transportation Techno

We often talk about how XR technologies are great tools for education and training on this podcast. But why is that? Like, physiologically? Turns out, XR tickles the thalamus in ways traditional learning strategies never could, and that’s not us just whistling Dixie. Today’s guest — Cognitive Design & Statistical Consulting, LLC CEO Todd Maddox — has a PhD in Computational and Psychological Science, meaning there’s no one better to explain why XR and your brain are a match made in heaven. Alan: You’re listening to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Todd Maddox. He is a cognitive design specialist. Todd is a PhD, and the CEO and founder of Cognitive Design and Statistical Consulting LLC. He’s also a learning scientist and a research fellow at Amalgam Insights. His passion is to apply his 25 years of psychological and neuroscientific expertise gained by managing a large human learning, memory, and performanc

Don’t let his impressive stature fool you; Virtual Reality Marketing CEO Terry Proto knows that, in an industry where there’s a ton of use cases and many roles to fill, it doesn’t hurt to be small. Heck, it usually pays to be! Terry joins Alan in a chat about how companies can best find their niche in the XR realm. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is the one and only: Terry Proto. He’s the CEO of Virtual Reality Marketing. Terry is an award winning digital imaging and digital games producer. He has over 15 years of production and sales experience in the US, Europe and Asia. And he’s been creating images since the very first version of 3D Studio back in the 90s, and has evolved over the years working on myriad projects, including agency work and other products and project endeavors. In a previous life, he struggled with getting clients and visibility consistently for his own creative studio, despite the quality

The human eye is a wonderful and complex thing, and it’s a technological feat just to even come close to its natural revolution. Well, the folks at Varjo have created something that is pretty darn good at it. Alan may have trouble remembering how to say their company’s name, but he can attest to the clarity of the XR-1’s display. Varjo CEO Niko Eiden comes by to give us a look behind the curtain of its creation. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today we have Niko Eiden, CEO of Varjo. He’s formerly held top product leadership positions at Microsoft and Nokia. At Nokia, Niko led a product program team in 2006-2007, and together with researchers from Nokia Research Center, his team developed the basis for the optical technology that later became the Microsoft Hololens. Niko has a Master’s in science in aeronautical engineering. Varjo is redefining reality by jump starting a new era in computing. Their hardware and software lets peopl

Firefighters need to train like any other professional, and their training usually involves setting a mock set ablaze – which, as you might imagine, would be costly to reset. Enter RiVR, who are using 360 video and photogrammetry to recreate these practice blazes digitally. CEO Alex Harvey and Alan have a heated discussion on the topic. Alan: Hey, everyone, my name is Alan Smithon, your host for the XR for Business Podcast. Today we have Alex Harvey, CEO and creative director at RiVR, a virtual reality training and visualization company based in the UK. RiVR harnesses the power of VR and photogrammetry technology to create interactive, immersive training experiences. They’re currently working with the UK Home Office, UK Fire Service, Police Service and the Department of Defense in the US. Their ultimate goal is to enhance the way humans learn (I love that). Alex has a deep understanding of the games industry, having worked on commissions for the likes of Codemasters, the BBC, and Ford Motor

LEARNING 1. Developing Communication Skills And Improvement of Literacy 2. Enlarging Real-Life Experience 3. Supporting Specific Needs of the Disabled Students 4. Developing and Improving Empathy 5. Receiving Workplace Experience Read more: https://programminginsider.com/5-real-uses-of-virtual-reality-in-education/ Mixed Reality Classroom The Mixed Reality Classroom Microsoft has created an ‘Immersive Classroom’ that teaches students about all sorts of emerging and exponential technologies such as VR/AR, AI and 3D Printing. it incorporates Paint 3D, HoloLens and other Mixed Reality headsets, and 3D printing. Other activities also explore coding and robotics using tools such as Minecraft and Artificial intelligence, where students get to build their own chatbot. The immersive classroom is open for schools to experiment with incorporating digital tools in learning, and has facilitated the delivery of more than 60 free workshops for over 1000 students since opening in 2018 A.

Step 1: Plant augmented reality gnomes across the world. Step 2: …? Step 3: PROFIT! Just kidding — Trigger Global’s army of AR gnomes has a more solid business plan than the Underpants Gnomes, as well as many other ventures across popular brands, utilizing mixed reality technologies to bring them to life. CEO Jason Yim emerges from his hidden meadow to talk about a few of them. Alan: Hi, my name is Alan Smithson, the host of the XR for Business Podcast, and today’s guest is Jason Yim. He is the CEO and executive creative director of Trigger Global, the mixed reality agency. He has creatively led over 150,000 hours of development in mixed reality, including as a Snap Lens Studio partner, preferred developer for Facebook, and showcase developer for Euphoria and Google, as well as an early adopter and early developer for Magic Leap. Yim’s recent high-profile work incorporates mixed reality in marketing for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, product development for Hot Wheels, and locatio

The old-school way to train someone for a task involves memorization, repetition, and practice, in order to make it like second nature. Not only is that time-consuming, but also, people aren’t very good at it. So why train, when AR makes it obsolete? Scope AR aims to help companies get out of old habits, and CEO Scott Montgomerie drops by to explain how. Alan: Today’s guest is Scott Montgomerie from Scope AR. Scott is the CEO and co-founder of Scope AR, a global leader in developing augmented reality solutions and products for industrial clients focused around field maintenance, manufacturing, and training. As the pioneer of utilizing AR for industry support and training, Scope AR are partnered with technology leaders such as Google and Microsoft. Since founding the company in 2011, Scott as one of the first executives to get augmented reality tools in use by multi-billion dollar corporations. Having launched many AR firsts, Scott has become one of the industry’s thought leaders and

The top of a wind turbine a hundred stories up from the ground is not the best place to be making mistakes, but making mistakes and learning from them is the whole point of on-the-job training. That’s why VR Vision Inc helps companies produce XR training modules, so trainees can make mistakes in a safe, controlled environment. COO Lorne Fade drops by to talk about it. Alan: Today’s guest is Lorne Fade, co-founder of VR Vision. Lorne is a serial entrepreneur that has built several businesses over the last 15 years. He’s had the pleasure of working with some of the world’s largest Fortune 500 brands and award winning marketing agencies all across North America and Europe. His previous agency, Academic Ads, was acquired, and he went on to found VR Vision Inc. As the co-founder and COO of VR Vision, they’re a virtual and augmented reality startup that’s enhancing immersive training outcomes for some of the world’s largest brands using VR, AR, and AI technologies.

Tired of waiting for the US treasury to put a female face on the $20? (Because you’ll probably be waiting a while yet!) Google’s got you covered, or rather, your cash: they’ve developed an AR app to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. That’s just one of the interesting bits of XR news Alan has in store for this week’s news update. A white paper published by Microsoft found that test scores among students using immersive technologies improved by as much as 22 percent, with the effect maintained over a period of weeks, including increased performance on skills-based tasks and gains in knowledge, abstract reasoning, and critical thinking.In a new survey of 900 developers working on VR/AR, 33 percent of them were focusing on education, and 27 percent were focusing on training Google puts women on US currency with an AR workaroundNew 8-minute galactic primer “Clio’s Cosmic Quest” is the future of AR educationFortum nuclear power plant uses VR for control room t

Even with all the advancements in CG animation, it can’t capture that distinctly lifelike essence that a real human exudes. But XR can capture that essence — volumetrically. Metastage CEO Christina Heller drops by to discuss the process of transcribing the aura of a person into XR space. Alan: I have a really special guest today; Christina Heller, the CEO of Metastage. Metastage is an XR studio that puts real performances into AR and VR through volumetric capture. Metastage is the first US partner for the Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture Software, and their soundstage is located in Culver City, California. Prior to Metastage, Christina co-founded and led VR Playhouse. So, between Metastage and VR Playhouse, she’s helped produce over 80 immersive experiences. To learn more about Christina Heller and Metastage, you can visit metastage.com. Welcome to the show, Christina. Christina: Thank you so much for having me. Alan: It’s my absolute pleasure. We met, maybe three yea

Game engines like the versatile Unity have long been the go-to for AR development, and for good reason. But its reputation as a video game engine can also be intimidating — especially to those who want to create AR software for enterprise. That’s why Paul Reynolds lit his TORCH; an app he co-founded that lets you design your own AR platform, right in the palm of your hand. He chats with Alan about his claim to flame. Alan: Hey, everyone, my name’s Alan Smithson, the host of the XR for Business Podcast. Today’s guest is Paul Reynolds, the CEO of Torch, a really exciting augmented reality platform. It’s a mobile augmented reality development and deployment platform for enterprise. Paul has been a software developer and technology consultant since 1997 – since before the interwebs! In 2013, after 10 years of creating video games, he joined Magic Leap where he was promoted to senior director, overseeing content and SDK teams. At Magic Leap, Paul recognized the lack of ac

The technology we talk about on this show is pretty cool, but what’s function without form, right? Thankfully, there’s plenty of both to go around, as Electric Runway’s founder Amanda Cosco drops by to talk about. TL;DR — there’s a lot of cool ways to use XR to stay in-fashion, from virtual try-ons, to AR-enabled hair colour-changing mirrors. Alan: Today’s guest is a great friend of mine; Amanda Cosco, CEO of Electric Runway. One part geek, the other part chic; Amanda Cosco is a leading voice in the intersection of fashion and technology. Through her work with Electric Runway, Amanda is committed to bridging the gap between these two seemingly opposite industries, to help humanize technology, and help push the fashion industry into the future. In addition to contributing to notable publications such as WWD, Toronto Star, and Wearable, Amanda shares her insights through talks given on both local and international stages. She’s made several radio and TV appearan

Alan – and XRIgnite — isn’t the only XR shepherding game in town! Samantha Wolfe — who co-authored Marketing New Realities with previous XR for Business guest Cathy Hackl — drops by to share her own insights on how best to help brands, businesses, and campaigns venture into the XR minefield, and come out the other end unscathed. Alan: Today’s guest is Samantha Wolfe, managing partner at we are PHASE2. Samantha is a marketing and branding strategist, focused on making “never done before” a reality. Sam is a co-author of the book “Marketing New Realities: An Introduction to Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Marketing, Branding, and Communications,” and is a contributing author to Charlie Fink’s book “Convergence: How the World Will Be Painted With Data,” with a chapter focused on augmented reality for brands. She also runs the largest marketing and branding Facebook group focused on VR, AR, and MR, which has over 2,500 members.

Welcome to the second episode of the XR for Business News podcast, the show where our host, Alan, provides a quick rundown of the week’s top XR news stories! This week’s XR use cases range from educating children and training police officers, to turning Snoop Dogg into an AR character in Snapchat filters, with many others in between. A new study shows that VR significantly reduces pain versus an active control condition in hospitalized patients. The marine electronics market is embracing AR to enhance sailing safety VR is being used to train police officers to better understand those with mental illnessMountain Equipment Co-Op is using AR to enhance the retail experienceWonderscope’s latest AR reading experience teaches kids how to handle bulliesSingularity University announces VR training program and on-demand classes at 2019 Global SummitSnoop Dogg becomes a Snapchat AR character to promote his latest recordTerry Fabrics creates app allowing customers to preview window coverings in A

A plain room with a table, a few chairs, and a whiteboard has never sounded so…futuristic! But that’s one way to describe the technology behind meetingRoom, a VR space, where colleagues from around the world can gather and discuss business as if they were all in the same, plain ol’ multi-purpose room! meetingRoom CEO Jonny Cosgrove does a better job of describing it, so take a listen! Alan: Today’s guest is Jonny Cosgrove, founder and CEO at meetingRoom.io. Jonny is responsible for creating a new collaboration platform that allows anybody from multiple devices to be in one room and collaborate together. Jonny started his career volunteering and doing activism, before moving into events, marketing, and technology, operating in Dublin and Boston. He completed his MBA at Trinity College, Dublin, and began building the future of work, with a focus on sustainability, collaboration, and emerging technologies. You can learn more about Jonny and his team at meetingRoom.io. Jonny, w

Last episode was all about the value of VR in creating virtual meeting spaces; today, we’re looking at AR. As Jacob Loewenstein from Spatial explains, both have their advantages in an enterprise setting, but AR is best suited for people collaborating together in the same room. Listen to this edition of XR for Business to find out why. Alan: Today’s guest is Jacob Lowenstein, VP of Business Development and Strategy at Spatial. Spatial’s mission is to empower people to be more connected, creative, and productive. Organizations are increasingly distributed across offices and information doesn’t flow easily; success depends on people working together. Their first product enables people to collaborate anywhere with AR. The founders have deep backgrounds in 3D user interfaces. Co-founder Anand Agarawala sold his previous startup, BumpTop — a 3D physics multi-touch desktop — to Google, and also demoed this in a TED Talk. Co-founder Jinha Lee developed pioneering AR interfa

Some people find VR to be a solitary experience – too lonely to ever really be a place that humans can feel comfortable in. Well, tell that to Alan, when he met today’s guest – Kalle Saarikannas from Glue – in Glue’s virtual reality chatroom. Despite being continents apart, it felt like they were face-to-face. Kalle sits down again with Alan – this time, without the avatars – to explain why he wants to make Glue a household name. Alan: Today’s guest is Kalle Saarikannas, business development manager for Glue, a new collaboration platform — and I’ll let him talk more about it — but Kalle is a 26-year-old combination of curiosity for emerging technology and commercial sense, making innovations a reality. Glue is a multi-user, multi-device, virtual reality hosting platform that is redefining the future of remote collaboration. Prior to Glue, the pioneer of XR remote collaboration, Kalle was working closely with intelligent packaging, RFID s