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5 Takeaways From This Year’s Augmented World Expo
04:33 PM | June 06, 2022
As the “metaverse” slowly transitions from a buzzword to reality, the Augmented World Expo—a gathering of augmented reality CEOs, engineers, creators, consumers and investors—showcased what the future of the industry might look like.
Since its first event in 2010, AWE has grown to over 250 augmented and virtual reality companies from around the globe. The 2022 conference, which ran from June 1-3 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in the Bay Area, was the biggest yet—and flush with new experimental formats and new technology.
One example of the conference's new approach: a three-act augmented reality play performed at the conference called “MetaTr@versal: A Day in the Life.” Written by extended-reality (XR) technologist Sophia Moshasha, the play used VR screen mirroring to tell the story of an entrepreneur pitching new interoperability standards to investors.
“It was super ambitious, because we were using technologies from ARWall,” said AWE Head of Operations Andrea Lowery. “I can't even characterize all the different audio visual inputs and time and energy and creativity and tech that went into this thing.”
This year’s AWE featured keynotes, breakout rooms and a tech playground that included interactive and immersive experiences. Here are the five standouts from the conference and the advancing technology.
Magic Leap’s New Headset
Lines began snaking around the corner of the Magic Leap booth before the exposition floor even officially opened, as crowds gathered to try the Florida-based company’s new Magic Leap 2 augmented reality headset.
Participants were paired up and assigned to one of three demos. I was able to try the “wildfire” demo, where the glasses scanned a printed code on a circular tabletop and displayed a topographical map. The demonstrator toggled overlays off and on, showing the spread of weather and fire across the landscape. The company hopes their technology will be used in the future to train first responders, as well as workers in manufacturing, health and defense, among other industries.
The new headset aims to tackle some of the problems with the release of its first incarnation—including a narrow field of view and limited range of applications—by expanding the horizontal field of vision from 50 to 70 degrees and reaching out to more potential partners.
The most impressive part of the Magic Leap 2 was optical dimming, which shuts out nearly all light outside the augmented reality elements on the tabletop, drawing users’ focus to the data and cutting down on glare in outdoor environments.
Tilt 5
Tilt Five: Immersive Table-Top Gaming
Tilt Five was another popular booth. The startup produces augmented and virtual reality gaming hardware, and has partnered with third party game developers to build software that integrates turns table-top games in AR experiences. The full system includes a game board, a light pair of AR glasses and a control wand.
The company raised over $1.7 million in fan funding on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. It’s been shipping out completed products to its backers since December and hopes to have them all sent out by the end of the summer. Now, it has set its sights on expanding its offerings.
“We actually just signed with Asmodee Digital, who makes games like Catan, Carcassonne and Gloomhaven,” said Tilt Five Head of Communications Stephanie Greenall. “So we'll be taking a select number of their titles and putting them onto the board.”
Since last year’s AWE conference, Tilt Five has added mixed reality streaming, which allows fans to share their adventures on streaming and social platforms and the “XE Gameboard,” a larger board that tilts up so you can see further into the game.
TikTok’s booth showcasing its new AR features on June 3, 2022. Photo by Mallika Singh
TikTok Plays Catch Up in AR
About two months ago, TikTok launched Effect House, an AR development platform that plugs right into its mobile app. It’s an attempt to catch up on creative studio applications like Meta’s Spark AR Studio for Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat’s Lens Studio.
Effect House is built on a visual scripting system and a range of popular templates that is meant to make it easier for everyday creators to create their own visuals, without needing to know much about writing code.
According to Greg Feingold, AR ecosystem community lead at TikTok, there are already around 8,000 creators on Effect House’s Discord account, and videos using Effect House have already reached over 1 trillion views.
Fungisaurs
Fungisaurs: Augmenting Play with Figurines
L.A.-based artist and digital sculptor Aiman Akhtar’s background in 3D modeling and animation at studios including Nickelodeon, Dreamworks and Blizzard prepared him to develop his own line of augmented reality kids’ toys–in the form of small “dinosaur mushroom creatures.”
Fungisaurs started as a collection of real-life plastic toys in 2017, funded partially on Kickstarter. Three years later, Akhtar partnered with augmented reality company Octagon Studio to build ARise, a camera app that brings the physical toys to life and supports interactive play.
Next up for the company is more app integration, card functionality and a second series of characters.
“If we have a card read as well as the object, then we can trigger animations, we can trigger background changes,” Akhtar said. “So we can make narrative board games that can actually convey stories and have more interactivity between players.”
Fungisaurs was one of the only companies at AWE with a product tailored towards kids.
A conference attendee tries the HaptX DK2 Gloves on June 3, 2022. Photo by Mallika Singh
HaptX: Prototype the Training, Not the Product
HaptX, a leading producer in the haptic XR space, makes AR products for customers in training, manufacture, design and telerobotics. The company is based in Redmond, WA with offices in both San Luis Obisbo and San Francisco.
Its development kit, the DK2 Gloves, uses compressed air to simulate resistance by applying braking to the backs of the gloves, up to eight pounds of force per finger and up to 40 pounds per hand. The air contours the shape of the gloves to objects touched in virtual reality worlds.
Recently, HaptX worked with Nissan to mock up its Nissan Leaf electric vehicle virtually. Its system allows designers to touch and interact with the virtual car, obviating the need for wasteful and expensive automotive prototypes, which can cost up to $200,000 per model. HaptX’s gloves, meanwhile, cost in the high five figures for enterprise customers.
HaptX had both a stationary and mobile demo station at AWE. The mobile device was set up in a backpack. One woman trying it out at the Expo said the backpack’s weight was about the same as two MacBooks.
“This will get significantly smaller in the future,” said Victor Oriaifo, an account executive at HaptX.
He said the company aims to shrink the portable device once it’s manufacturing at scale.
***
Watch the main stage presentations on the AWE.Live mobile app ( iPhone/ Android), where the remainder of the sessions will appear by the end of next week. View this article in video form on our TikTok page!
Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that AWE had its first conference in 2013. It was in 2010. It's also been updated to more accurately reflect the number of users on TIkTok's Discord account.
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‘Influencer Olympics’: Content Creators Are Getting Paid Big Bucks To Attend Coachella
05:01 AM | April 20, 2023
Evan Xie
If someone attends Coachella and doesn’t make a TikTok about it, did they even go? Scrolling through any social media feed over the past few days, it seems like the answer is a firm “no.” Instead, people document everything from the food they ate to the cowboy boots they wore. The is even a genre of video dedicated to complaining about Coachella.
On TikTok, videos tagged #Coachella2023 have already amassed over 1.6 billion views—already up from #Coachella2022, which had 1.5 billion views and the second weekend has yet to begin. On Instagram, the hashtag has almost 37,000 posts. Sure, some of the content is posted by people attending the festival for fun. But a quick scroll through either platform shows that influencers have created the vast majority of the posts.
Content isn’t even limited to the two festival weekends. In the months leading up to Coachella, people share survival tips and outfit inspiration. And, afterward, the outfits reviews judge who captured the current trends and who fell flat.
This flood of content has led many to deride the influencers swarming Coachella. Critics say that the focus on fashion has ruined the festival and that influencers ushered in this change. A recent video by the singer Loren Grey, who rose to fame through TikTok, only confirmed these issues. Grey dubs Coachella “the influencer Olmpyics” despite the fact that many don’t even attend the festival. Instead, she says they film outfit and lifestyle content from the desert to make it look like they were in the thick of things.
So how did Coachella transform from a music-centric event to a TikTok content farm?
The influencers aren’t entirely to blame. Instead, people should point fingers at the brands Coachella works with to sponsor the festival. Brands like Neutrogena, H&M and Casetify—three of this year’s sponsors—all work with influencers to produce content from the festival and promote their products.
But the biggest player in Coachella’s influencers world is Revolve. Since 2015, the fashion company has produced the Revolve Festival concurrently with the first festival weekend, where they invite social media influencers and celebrities to network while watching trending artists perform. And, though influencers made Coachella content prior to Revolve Festival, the new event was a clear turning point in how brands could benefit from social media stars.
Revolve also works with influencer marketing agencies to gift clothes to attendees prior to Coachella. Evidently, the strategy works—back in 2018, the company said sales from the Monday before the festival were higher than Cyber Monday. The music festival has only become more crucial for the brand’s sales since then, with Revolve likening the festival to a retail Superbowl.
But it’s hardly just Revolve that’s capitalizing on the festival. Last year, one influencer said she earned $2,000 per Instagram post featuring Coachella content. Another influencer was paid $2,500 for three Instagram stories and a Reel in addition to a free ticket compliments of one of the brands she partnered with.
The reliance on influencer marketing during the festival is just a reflection of a wider focus on social media marketing. In recent years, brands are leaning even further into the presumed authenticity of micro-influencers who attend the festival. Which of course, means more content from more people.
So as annoying as some people find the unending stream of content, it’s time to accept that Coachella has long been a networking event for those whose livelihood depends on creating a glut of “get ready with me” videos.
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Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
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You Can Now Find Nearby Bird Scooters on Google Maps
02:39 PM | August 17, 2021
People navigating via Google Maps can now easily see Bird scooters available along their routes. Google also added San Francisco-based Spin to their app this week.
The move is the latest in Santa Monica-based Bird's partnerships with mobility-as-a-service platforms around the globe, such as Skipr and Tranzer. The company said in May that it plans to go public in a SPAC valued at $2.3 billion.
In addition to Spin and Bird, vehicles from micromobility giant Lime may also show up on the Google Maps app when searching for bike-friendly routes. The integration of Spin was announced just yesterday while Lime has been integrated in Google Maps since 2018.
To use the new feature, users can type in their location and destination into the Google Maps app and then opt to see bike-friendly routes. Then, if there are Bird scooters nearby, the app will display the Bird logo in those locations. If a user wants to use a scooter, they will be taken to the Bird app to complete their transaction.
Derek Paley, director of the Maryland Robotics Center at the University of Maryland who has done work in micromobility, pointed out that this could make scooter use easier, as it not only helps users find nearby scooters, but also scooter-friendly routes.
The announcement comes on the same day that the company is installing its scooters in New York City for the first time, along with competitors Veo and Lime.
Bird did not respond to a request for comment.
Deirdre Oakley, a professor of Urban Studies at Georgia State University who has done research on micromobility, said she is skeptical that a feature like this could prompt a significant number of non-Bird users to start using Bird vehicles. But, she is optimistic that it could increase the number of rides among those who are already Bird users.
Lime spokesperson Russell Murphy said that the company has seen "great user acquisition through Google Maps as it's one of the most widely used trip planning apps available."
Adding to the environmental benefits of e-scooters, Murphy also said that electric scooters are a preferable pandemic travel option: "With the Delta variant spreading, we also see riders once again turning to micromobility to travel as it's open air and you can socially distance naturally."
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Caitlin Cook
Caitlin Cook is an editorial intern at dot.LA, currently earning her master's degree in mass communication from California State University, Northridge. A devoted multimedia journalist with an interest in both tech and entertainment, Cook also works as a reporter and production assistant for MUSE TV. She got her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Filmmaking from University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
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