Augmented / Virtual Reality Archives

Aug 30

Accelerating the Adoption of Augmented Reality Technology

By Joe Barkai Augmented / Virtual Reality, Field Service No Comments

As described in a new report conducted by PTC and BCG titled Unleashing the Power of Data with IoT and Augmented Reality, augmented reality (AR) is still emerging as a key technology to leverage and amplify the full potential of the Internet of Things (IoT). I say “still emerging,” because, despite its well-recognized potential, industry has been slow to adopt AR in a meaningful way. While early AR systems were ill-suited for mass adoption, fast technology innovation in both IoT and AR over the past half-decade opens new possibilities. PTC saw this opportunity back in 2015 and acquired AR vendor Vuforia, and has been at the forefront of developing these technologies and promoting their strategic value.

May 29

Closing the Coronavirus Knowledge Gap with Augmented Reality

By Joe Barkai Augmented / Virtual Reality No Comments

As I continue to meet and read about companies that explore the use of augmented reality (AR) technology, I come across many that struggle to identify meaningful use cases and, subsequently, realize the promise of AR. The fast improvement in the utility and cost of AR technology has not been matched yet by broad adoption of the technology. Most of the time, the culprit is focusing too much on the visual appeal of the technology and failing to deliver meaningful user value.

Mar 20

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

How to Succeed in Implementing Augmented Reality Without Really Trying

By Joe Barkai Augmented / Virtual Reality No Comments

A catchy and optimistic title, isn’t it?

But as some early adopters (yes, we are still in the early adoption phase) can attest to, implementing a successful augmented reality (AR) system can be tricky.

For decades, the bold vision of AR pioneers was limited by bulky hardware and inadequate computing power of early generation AR systems.

Today, HoloLens, RealWear and other AR hardware make wearable AR far more practical, and AR editing software such as Vuforia makes content creation and delivery within easy reach. Still, over-enthusiastic vendors of AR-based products showcase systems that look great on paper, sorry – on head-mounted display, but fail to demonstrate meaningful end-user value. The gap between increasingly more capable hardware and software and broad industry adoption continues to widen.

Nov 18

The Industrial Internet of Things: When the Party is Over

By Joe Barkai Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Augmented / Virtual Reality, Internet of Things (IoT), Manufacturing, Mergers & Acquisitions No Comments

IoT Industry Snapshot and Predictions

The industrial Internet of Things community is finally beginning to sober up from the bacchanalia of counting connected IoT devices and terabytes of cloud data storage that has dominated the IoT narrative for too long.

IoT platform vendors and consultants are shifting their focus from the lower rung of the IoT technology stack that focuses on device connectivity to the other end of the stack, to technologies that provide meaningful business value: multidisciplinary data aggregation, complex data analytics and higher capacity for optimal decision-making.

Robust articulation of the business value of industrial IoT has been absent from much of the narrative, in the vein of “if you build it, they will come.” Many IoT platform vendors provide tools to draw snazzy dashboards, plot complex data graphs and display virtual gauges. But their data analytics tools are not as robust and trending and predictive capabilities are over optimistic. And the recent rush to add statistical analysis tools (often linear regression tools masqueraded as artificial intelligence and machine learning) will face real-world challenges of data biases, inconsistency and scale. Read More

Jan 17

Get Real: How to Build a Useful Augmented Reality Application

By Joe Barkai Augmented / Virtual Reality, Internet of Things (IoT), Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) 2 Comments

Gauging Value in AR Service Applications

You know I have been very vocal in criticizing augmented reality (AR) applications that, in my opinion, demonstrated too little business value. You have heard (or read) me referring these as righty-tighty lefty-loosey systems.

From time to time, clients and attendees of my public lectures challenge me for guidelines to help them gauge the potential business value of AR applications. If a simple air filter replacement procedure isn’t useful, then what is? Read More

Augmented / Virtual Reality