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Category: Augmented Reality

New startup mixes reality with computer vision and sets the stage for an entire industry

by Robert Scoble
This post is by Robert Scoble from Scobleizer

About 11 years ago I was standing outside in the snow in Munich, Germany with the CTO of a small company, Metaio. He was showing me monsters on the sides of buildings. Apple later bought his company. It got me interested in augmented reality and its uses to make people’s lives more fun and more interesting. The way that first demo happened? The building was turned into an invisible digital twin that the virtual monsters could attach themselves to and move around the building.

Snapchat has, in the past few years, finally brought that tech to consumers with its augmented reality lenses. Things that can turn your world into complete augmented reality scenes, way better than what Metaio showed me 11 years ago.

While SnapChat’s invisible digital twin lets developers do very cool things, it leaves me wanting. Why? So far the Snap platform doesn’t give us many computer vision capabilities. Doesn’t really let us do a whole range of things we want our augmented reality worlds to do (like keep track of your keys).

Today Perceptus, from Singulos Research, gives us an important answer to the future of what humans might do with augmented reality, beyond Snap’s filters, which are really designed to make your selfies much more interesting and it does it with a new kind of computer vision that can catalog physical items in your home or factory.

Augmented Reality has so much more potential into changing EVERYTHING in our homes and factories and Perceptus (Read more...)

5 Trends Shaping the Future of eCommerce

by Sponsored Content

The following content is sponsored by Logiq

Spotlight

5 Trends Shaping the Future of eCommerce

The global eCommerce market is growing at a rapid pace.

By 2025, it’s expected to reach $4.2 trillion in revenue. But the fast-growing eCommerce market is evolving just as quickly as it’s expanding. And because of rapid innovation in this space, tomorrow’s eCommerce landscape could look vastly different from today’s.

While we can’t predict the future, there are some telling signs of what’s to come. This graphic sponsored by Logiq explores five emerging trends that are transforming the future of eCommerce.

#1: Omnichannel Shopping

These days, a majority of consumers research a brand online before they set foot in a physical store. Because the customer journey now has a myriad of touchpoints across various devices, it’s important that businesses fully integrate their channels to provide a frictionless, holistic shopping experience.

That’s what omnichannel shopping aims to do—seamlessly integrate a company’s physical and online channels. When done correctly, omnichannel strategies can be valuable revenue drivers. In fact, according to research by Google, omnichannel strategies can help generate an estimated 80% of a business’s in-store visits.

#2: AI and AR

Artificial intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) are transforming the online shopping experience, with things like:

  • AI-enabled chatbots
  • Virtual assistants
  • AI-enabled personalized shopping
  • AR-apps that help replicate the physical world online

Ideally, these applications provide an easier, more enjoyable shopping experience for consumers. AI and AR technologies are impressive on their own, but when combined, they leverage (Read more...)

The Last Gameboard raises $4M to ship its digital tabletop gaming platform

by Devin Coldewey

The tabletop gaming industry has exploded over the last few years as millions discovered or rediscovered its joys, but it too is evolving — and The Last Gameboard hopes to be the venue for that evolution. The digital tabletop platform has progressed from crowdfunding to $4M seed round, and having partnered with some of the biggest names in the industry, plans to ship by the end of the year.

As the company’s CEO and co-founder Shail Mehta explained in a TC Early Stage pitch-off earlier this year, The Last Gameboard is a 16-inch square touchscreen device with a custom OS and a sophisticated method of tracking game pieces and hand movements. The idea is to provide a digital alternative to physical games where that’s practical, and do so with the maximum benefit and minimum compromise.

If the pitch sounds familiar… it’s been attempted once or twice before. I distinctly remember being impressed by the possibilities of D&D on an original Microsoft Surface… back in 2009. And I played with another at PAX many years ago. Mehta said that until very recently there simply wasn’t the technology and market weren’t ready.

“People tried this before, but it was either way too expensive or they didn’t have the audience. And the tech just wasn’t there; they were missing that interaction piece,” she explained, and certainly any player will recognize that the, say, iPad version of a game definitely lacks physicality. The advance her company has achieved is in making the touchscreen (Read more...)