Mixed Reality Poised to Remake the Workplace
When Microsoft demonstrated a pair of applications that enables users to manipulate virtual objects in physical space at its Build 2018 conference in Seattle last month, it provided clarity on how the game-changing technology – until now deployed mostly in gaming environments – may impact the workplace.
Using the software giant’s HoloLens glasses, attendees were able navigate and repair mechanical operation systems with help from a colleague and array machines and equipment in a factory setting to simulate processes and work flows.
Together, the Remote Assist and Layout applications facilitate the mixed reality tools that allows wearers to make better use of enterprise IT systems closer to the business processes those systems underpin.
Productivity Gains
By marrying virtual and augmented reality technologies and applying them in workplace environments with the HoloLens glasses, the maker of the Xbox gaming console is indicating the productivity gains available from implementing mixed reality in the enterprise.
Efficiencies include eliminating the need to revert to system endpoints – either handheld devices in the field or workstations on the shop floor – and the “upskilling” that happens when workers can follow overlays projected onto physical objects and holograms for task completion and training.
It’s a path pioneered most notably by Google, which competes with Microsoft in browser and cloud hosting and whose Google Glass got a reboot in 2015 squarely aimed at industrial users.
Other manufacturers – in many cases using Microsoft’s Windows operating system – range from device and electronics manufacturers and gaming specialists to rival tech giants Amazon and Facebook.
Hologram Technology
A confluence of factors have come together to reduce the cost of the equipment needed to implement mixed reality and to expand the volume of use cases. They include faster processing speeds, lower power consumption and longer battery life, improving sensor, storage and projection capabilities, and the provision by manufacturers of dedicated kits for applications developers.
Publisher IDG predicts spending on augmented and virtual reality will soar exponentially among enterprise users, from $9 billion in 2017 to more than $160 billion by 2021.
As presented at its annual event for developers and at the Augmented World Expo in Silicon Valley in late May, Microsoft takes workplace application a step further with the hologram technology that enables HoloLens wearers to configure workspaces with what appears to them as physical plant and equipment. The technology also is useful in training for operations, maintenance and repair that might otherwise be impractical in a real-world counterpart.
Remote Engagement
The enhanced connectivity offered by Microsoft’s mixed reality applications improves remote engagement and information-sharing, enabling employees to demonstrate rather than tell colleagues how to operate and repair machines in the factory and in the field. The technology also can assist in marketing and sales, allowing customers to “try before they buy” in virtual showrooms, and in healthcare, speeding access to records and expertise for medical professionals.
Given the rise in forecast spend for mixed reality implementation by industry, development is gaining pace in both the visual hardware needed to create and accommodate projections that overlay the physical world, and for the cognitive software that makes manipulating objects and executing computer commands more intuitive for users and less onerous in terms of the data required.
Headset start-up Magic Leap is reported to be readying a unit for release later this year with eye-tracking technology and the ability to accommodate multiple users working in the same 3D environment it can superimpose on the real world. In March, it released a toolkit for developers.
The Florida-based company has raised more than $2 billion, including an investment from Google, to develop technology aimed at the gaming market. However, consultants say the benefits available from crossover applications will result in those attributes finding their way into products for use in the workplace.
