Can Artificial Intelligence Take Our Jobs?
Can robots and AI replace our jobs?
Transcribed using Artificial Intelligence
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, xr, vr, ar, headset, oculus, training, liveworx, technology, augmented reality, business, jobs, question, tractor, Alan Smithson, company, future, buy, linkedin, object recognition, day, virtual, MetaVRse, Quest 2
SPEAKERS
Sebastien Perez 00:00
This is where you do all the goofiest faces possible. (Laughs) So I think we might be live will have to ask the people
Alan Smithson 00:10
Are we live?
Sebastien Perez 00:11
Oh yeah, that looks live.
Alan Smithson 00:13
Oh, we're live!
Sebastien Perez 00:14
Alan's getting live! (music playing)
Sebastien Perez 00:21
Alan, please Introduce yourself? we've got the man of the hour Alan Smithson. What?
Alan Smithson 00:28
Wow! Whaaat? So thank you for talking with me Sebastien, this is a really exciting. I'm here. I'm actually live coming to you live on LinkedIn live from LiveWorx
Sebastien Perez 00:39
Nice!!!
Alan Smithson 00:40
I was at the LinkedIn or sorry the LiveWorx VR AR enterprise summit yesterday in Boston. I'm actually here right now and you know I'm sitting outside of the convention center. And yeah, it's really exciting. There is a ton of enterprise applications of mixed and augmented reality. So we'll get into that later. I'm the CEO of MetaVRse, and MetaVRse is a virtual and augmented reality consulting firm, we design build custom applications for different businesses. But I'm also really excited to announce, actually we announced last week at AWE, a new program called XR Ignite, which is a community hub for XR startups, or Virtual / Augmented / Mixed Reality startups and companies that really bring them together. Because what we found is that all these startups have great products, they have great, you know, solutions, they may be they're a studio, and they don't know how to get into the enterprise. The big companies, they don't know how to do business with small startups, they don't know how to pick the ones that they want to work with. So we're really trying to become that conduit between business and startups in the XR space. It's XRIgnite.com. I'm also the host of a podcast, which you Sebastien should be on later too. It's the XR for Business Podcast, where we interview industry leaders who are either making or using Virtual /Augmented / Mixed Reality technologies to transform their businesses. So that's why LiveWorx today is so exciting, because there are so many applications available. I got to try a tractor in VR, where I was, using a RealWear (VR headset) I got to repair a tractor, and I never touched a tractor before. But because of this new technology, I'm able to put on this headset, I've never touched it before and I'm able to fix a tractor. This is the power of this technology, which is for training, for remote assistance, for marketing, for sales, for data visualization, the impact of these technologies is never ending and every single industry will use them. So that's what I'm really passionate about it.
Sebastien Perez 02:40
Awesome. Well, thank you for that. And that sounds really exciting. Let's talk a little bit about that tractor for a second. So this is obviously Location Based Training for businesses.
Alan Smithson 02:52
No it's not.
Alan Smithson 02:56
And this is what really amazing about this technology. By simply having these heads up display you can now upload any information to this headset, put the headset anywhere in the world and it will give you the information on how to fix that particular tractor. Now, imagine that you have model number 375 for example, right, model #375. So you pull up the schematics and it walks you through step by step how to repair maybe change the filter which is what I was doing today change the oil plugs or change whatever, spark plugs and oil pans or whatever it is you need to do for that tractor but imagine every single tractor model can have this.
Alan Smithson 03:33
As you know we're in the very early days, people are experimenting and stuff like that, but this is kind of the future because as we have a massive retirement of skilled workers who have been working on these tractors for years and years. And, what they're able to do is just put this headset on them and it's just a little camera and a little screen but they're able to put this headset on the professionals who are going to be retiring in a few years and capture their skills digitally.
Alan Smithson 04:03
So, if you don't have anybody or someone comes out of school maybe they don't know anything about tractors they could put this headset on hands free and walk them through how to fix the tractor! I mean it's just one of the many use cases, but this is an exponential use case because now you can hire people to replace these retired workers, but you don't have to spend six years training them on how to fix a tractor as you can literally train them on the job which is expediting training.
Alan Smithson 04:29
And one of the things that people worry about is artificial intelligence and quantum computers and all these different exponential technologies that are replacing jobs. It's not that they're going to get rid of jobs, it’s that jobs are just going to keep changing and it's less a matter of will I lose my job or not? some jobs will be completely wiped out but so many more jobs will be reinvented and so I think it's really important to understand how these technologies can help somebody reinvent themselves over and over. As certain categories of jobs will get replaced.
Alan Smithson 05:06
But it's not something to worry about, it's not something to be scared about, it's something to embrace because we have now the technologies to replace your job but also train you really fast for a new one and I think that's what's exciting.
Sebastien Perez 05:18
I think that’s really an impactful thoughts there, because I, I've listened to a lot of UBI conversations, you know, conversations about how like, for example, the truck driving industry will be the first one to get hit. And the question is, how do we retrain these truck drivers to be able to make a sustainable income? And then on top of that, are the skills transferable? So I hear a lot of conversation about that. But I haven't actually heard a lot of discussion on how AR/VR plays a role in retraining, you know, future workforces or existing workforces who have lost their employment. So I think that that's awesome. Go ahead, go for it.
Alan Smithson 06:02
So I have a theory on the whole truck driver thing, because you know, over the next maybe five years? It's coming faster than I would have said 10, a couple of years ago, but like, five years, maybe six? Large rigs, you know, big kind of freight trucks, they will be autonomous, because, you know, let's just do a quick business analysis, I have a truck, I can run it 13 hours a day with a driver, I got to pay the driver, 100 grand a year, or whatever it is 200 grand a year, he's got it, he can only drive for she can only drive 13 hours a day, and then they've got to stop. With autonomous vehicles, I can run that thing 24/7, it rides more safely, it is more fuel efficient, and it never asks for vacation. But what I think would be really interesting, we're going to go through this phase of, you know, autonomous trucks, we'll have to have a driver in them for the next kind of five years. After going through this transition phase, you don't have to be staring out the window and worried about the cars driving itself. So while you're driving twelve, thirteen, twenty-four hours a day, in an autonomous vehicle, you can be upskilling yourself. You can be learning, if you want to learn how to code, you can learn anything you want with 13 hours a day. If you imagine, if you put 13 hours a day into studying something now that you won't have to worry about driving, you can learn. So I think what we need to do is really empower these drivers to learn whatever it is they want to learn. While they're being phased out of their own job.
Sebastien Perez 07:28
Interesting!
Alan Smithson 07:29
Not a bad idea.
Sebastien Perez 07:30
Yeah! No, absolutely. Again, I was just thinking in my mind, okay, we'll have training centers and you know, with VR and whatnot.
Alan Smithson 07:40
You can have a training center, anywhere you are, in VR!
Sebastien Perez 07:45
I think that goes to speak for all enterprises really. What VR and AR is enabling is simulations of any possible event or something that you would want to replay and retry. And it allows training for virtually any job which I feel is an incredible power.
Alan Smithson 08:11
XR Ignite is a community hub and accelerator, so if anybody wants to go on it's XRIgnite.com you can sign up you're an XR Startup or you're a company wanting more information: XRIgnite.com We started with the people first. So we assembled a list of, in my opinion, the top influencers, the top people doing stuff, the top people in XR. The top people in the world so we have 50 mentors, and three of the mentors yesterday spoke at this LiveWorx. There is John Cunningham, from Disney, who does military simulations, flight simulations and stuff like that for the military. You have Jonathan Moss, who is the Head of Learning for Sprint. And then Kris Kolo, who runs the global Executive Director for VRAR Association. They all spoke yesterday. And the reason why I want to bring this up is because, Jonathan Moss, for example, he's running education and training for Sprint. And what they did was they use Augmented Reality on a tablet. They gave it to all their employees, like 30,000 employees, and they're seeing real defined growth. So they've been able to identify three key metrics. One of them is speed to training. The other one is retention rates. And then the last one is just costs of training and profit made. So what they did was they gave all the staff this iPad with a special AR app so when they pointed at a logo, and it comes to light and it shows them the features of the new phones or just to walk them through the new features that they're trying to promote.
Sebastien Perez 09:50
Oh yes sure
Alan Smithson 09:51
The great thing is and the unintended consequence of that, was that the staff now take that and start teaching the customers with it. So they built it as an internal training app, but the staff said, well, it's awesome, I can now help, you know, my customers with it. So it became a sales app with no additional coding. Imagine like now, they're seeing a decrease in training times and an increase in retention rates. And they're seeing an increase in sales, all from a simple AR app that they made, that teaches people. So learning is going to be by far and away the best and most impactful use case of Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality technologies. And yesterday's presentation, there was a full day of presentations at the VR AR enterprise summit. And every single one touched on learning or training.
Sebastien Perez 10:42
Yeah, it's almost like, you know, we ran through the information era, and now we're entering like the education era, you know, this is real, democratized, portable training, I don't think that people realize the power. I think some people look at it, as, you know, still a video game or you know, AR Masks. And the truth is, you know, people out there on LinkedIn, realize that there's a lot of business value there, there's a lot for the future of education, stopping people from losing their jobs, becoming skilled workers. [Cross Talk]
Alan Smithson 11:18
Let me explain something. I don't know that it's going to stop people losing their jobs, because AI is going to replace a block of jobs. So accountants, I'm talking to you accountants, that's going to be a job that's going to be wiped out by AI. No, because it will just do it better and faster than you can ever possibly do it. Now, I've done a lot of talks, in a lot of schools, I try to inspire and educate schoolchildren on exponential growth, and you know, just kind of preparing their mind for the future. And in every single one that I do, you know, 500 kids in a room, I'll say how many people how many kids who want to be an accountant, zero hands go up every time.
Alan Smithson 11:25
So, you know, maybe replacing certain jobs that are just kind of repetitive, mindless jobs that people need for money, maybe that's not a bad thing for humanity, maybe it will unlock a little bit more creativity, a little bit more excitement around your job, because let's be honest, a lot of people graduated University and they get a job to pay their bills. They're not getting a job to fulfill their passions. And I think, you know, with these technologies, you can learn anything as fast as possible. Walmart rolled out VR training this year and they are training a million people in VR in partnership with a company called Strivr Labs. But the magic sauce behind that is normally would take a day, they'd fly people into us in our regional center, and or drive them in or whatever, they bring them in and take a day, a full day of training for this one module. It now takes two hours in VR and they can ship the VR headset to them.
Sebastien Perez 12:48
That's amazing! Let's grab some comments here from the feed because it's growing up. And that's why we're here live. So big shout out to Mark Shaw, Harvey Craft, Sarjeet, Gil, Surai, Petras. Let's get some questions here.
Alan Smithson 13:13
All right.
Sebastien Perez 13:14
Well, Mark says "What's up guys? Hey Alan, XR Ignite on fire! We've got Ken Gold who says "my pleasure" Mark Shaw "Loving the discussion Seb! As always, live is best." Okay, cool. Harvey Craft says "Usability is number one." Sarjeet says "XR Ignite is a great idea. I work with startups in the Bay Area and I'm an investor and advisor. Make sure you follow Robert Scoble. He is the go-to resource for all things AR VR."
Alan Smithson 13:47
So Robert, is actually on our podcast. So we've done a podcast with Robert on the XR for Business Podcast. That episode will probably come out on the fall. We've done 35 episodes so far and it's we're a little bit backlogged right now, but we'll get them out. If you want to follow us it's XRforBusiness.io.
Sebastien Perez 14:06
You got it! XRforbusiness.io. We're gonna pull up a screen here show you exactly what it is. They've got a podcast, They've got some guests like Cathy Hackl.
Alan Smithson 14:19
Today, actually, she speaks at 4pm today at the LiveWorx today
Sebastien Perez 14:22
Alright! So, it's a very small, small world, isn't it?
Alan Smithson 14:26
It is and it's funny because I think we're in this precipice where, you know, we've been growing linearly fairly quickly. But over the last 10 years, it took us 10 years to get to $10 billion in revenue as an industry. As an VR/AR industry it took 10 years to get to 10 billion. Next year, it goes to $20 billion and the year after it goes to $40 billion. So in the next kind of three years, we're going to $100 billion in revenues. That's not including...and I use the statement VR & AR (XR) will create a trillion dollar in value in the next five years. Now let's unpack that for a second. a trillion dollars is a huge number. But if you factor in virtual and augmented reality, let's say over the next three, four years, we'll be at $100 million. Work backwards, so let's say it generates $500 billion. But that's not taking into account the savings and the productivity gains by industries. It's hard to quantify that when McDonald's rolls out training and saves $100 million in training.
Sebastien Perez 15:32
That's right.
Alan Smithson 15:33
Right?
Sebastien Perez 15:34
Time is money.
Alan Smithson 15:35
It really is
Sebastien Perez 15:36
Efficiency is money.
Alan Smithson 15:38
Yep.
Sebastien Perez 15:39
You know, those mistakes can be costly. At scale, it can cost you to lose customers. If they're not trained properly.
Alan Smithson 15:43
Yep. If we take away training for just a second, and we look at retail, so I hosted at AWE. And it was one of the guys was Mohammed from Macy's. And remember, Johnny, and what did I know? What they did was amazing. So they started a small trial in six locations, they brought VR in and brought their furniture store into VR. So you could see what couches look like any. So they did a small trial, and they had no idea what was gonna happen, they just did it, they saw 65% increase in sales, and less than 2% return rates, you can imagine returns of a couch or up , you know, a giant piece of furniture is expensive.
Alan Smithson 15:47
So they got it down to less than 2% returns, 65% increase in sales. And here's the kicker, when they build a furniture location in a Macy's store, it costs half a million dollars, just for the furniture section, right. And it's you know, it takes up a huge amount of space, real estate, the VR one takes up a couple 100 square feet and cost 50 grand. So it's a 10 x savings just there. And they now rolled it out to 100 locations, 112 locations I think they're at now. And you know, when scaled over 100 locations, they're still seeing a 45% increase in sales. How can anybody argue with that? And why companies aren't like all over this. It's beyond me. So I think I really think we're agreed, which is why we formed XR Ignite in which was what we formed XR for Business to educate and inspire business leaders to invest in this technology. That's why we did it.
Sebastien Perez 17:23
Absolutely. I think that, first of all, it's awareness. So it's like that it is not beyond or just a game or just beyond a mask, then once they're aware of it, then it’s too hard. That's future technology. That's alien technology. There's no way my business could adopt that. And now you hear companies like Macy's, a lot of even a classic companies that are not, you know, tech companies are adopting this AR VR implementation into their business. So yeah, let's grab a few questions here from the field because it's blowing up. And then after that, I'm gonna jump into a game of hot or not. All right, would you rather and then and then we'll continue this great combo we got so we've got real quick, we've got this question" let us know if there was any training center is likely to set up" Let's see, I'm not sure what that means.
Alan Smithson 18:25
Can you maybe raise that question? And we'll we'll get to it for sure.
Sebastien Perez 18:29
Sure. Yeah. Okay, so Hi. Currently AR is missing a killer app. any personal thoughts? What might that app could be?
Alan Smithson 18:38
Sure. I actually wrote an article on this. You can Google it. It's on my medium channel. The first killer app in my opinion, for augmented reality is virtual trials. So being able to use your phone to train a person but like it like a face filter, right? You know, you go on Snapchat and Facebook. You can do these crazy face filters.
Sebastien Perez 18:57
Yes like trying a Rolex.
Alan Smithson 18:58
Yeah, so maybe you're trying to watch for virtual try-on for watches. There's a shoe one. glasses, jewelry makeup. So I don't know if people know this. There's a company out of Toronto called ModiFace. ModiFace have 20 patents on virtual makeup try-ons. And so they were so successful with it thar L'Oreal bought the company. So now it's L'Oreal ModiFace. But I think makeup try-on / virtual try-ons is the first killer app for augmented reality in my opinion.
Sebastien Perez 19:26
Try before you buy. It make sense.
Alan Smithson 19:28
And then there's IKEA Place. I want to see what the furniture looks like in my space. And you know, we've got a ton of these different ones that we've been working on. So I think the first killer app is virtual try-ons, in my opinion. Well, aside from Pokemon.
Sebastien Perez 19:41
Haha! That's right. All right. So we go we've got "How do you deal with XR applications that requires security and privacy of data on platforms like Steam and Oculus?"
Alan Smithson 19:55
Well, I don't know that you would, you would use Steam or Oculus for Enterprise right now. They just don't have the security protocols. What we've been recommending, and then this is a really good question, because the answer is: we're working through it. Yeah, we don't know yet. Yes, security protocols are very important. The Oculus Quest, for example, they're pushing out an enterprise version of it, which is like three times the price. But, it comes with the enterprise security kind of baked into the back end. So I don't think it's fully baked just yet, but it's getting there. So it's a really good question. It's one that people are actively trying to figure out and sort out because another big problem is Device Management, right? How do you, how do you manage these devices, and actually, I should send you guys, I'll send you a photo while we're talking here. My friend, Jeremy Dalton, from PwC UK, he did an event recently where they had 275 people in VR simultaneously.
Sebastien Perez 20:55
Wow.
Alan Smithson 20:56
And the problem is in it, and I've got a video of it. And what the problem was, was, after everybody did the thing, they put it down on the table, whatever, they had to collect them all. And there was literally a pile of headsets, like 275 headsets piled in a pile and one by one.
Sebastien Perez 21:12
What kind of headsets?
Sebastien Perez 21:13
They were using Pico G2s. The reason why they actually did a full analysis and all the different three degrees of freedom. So for the people listening three degrees of freedom means you can look left, right, up and down, but you can't move in those directions. So you have no sense of kind of moving in the space. But it's good enough for you know, 360, video training, a lot of different things for that it's a really good, scalable thing. So they did a full analysis of all the different headsets in three degrees of freedom. And the Pico G2, again, came up on top because they could push security protocols to it, they could push it up wildly. They didn't have to go through the Oculus store. So they chose that one as their thing. And I think that's to answer the question about security. I think you can bake it into headsets that aren't on Oculus, as well.
Sebastien Perez 22:02
Okay, interesting thing to consider.
Alan Smithson 22:04
We're completely agnostic. So we use Oculus, we use Pico, we use HTC Vive, whatever is the best solution for the client at the time.
Sebastien Perez 22:14
Right, whatever, whatever gets the job done. That makes sense. All right. Well, let's jump into a quick game, a lightning round, if you will, of "Would You Rather?" So I'm going to show you a couple options that you and then you're going to let me know which one you would choose. So ready to kick it off here. The first question is, "Would You Rather?" Considering the prices are both $499? Nreal Light or Oculus Quest?
Alan Smithson 22:47
For what purpose? They're both completely different technologies, and you can't have your so the holy? So the question is...
Sebastien Perez 22:56
if you had to take one home, let's say you had a choice, you have $499 in your pocket, they're definitely different applications.
Alan Smithson 23:02
I would say Oculus Quest because there's, it's kind of there's more things you can do with it. So the Nreal, just to unpack what that is, for people who don't know, the Nreal glasses are Augmented Reality Glasses with a pretty wide field of view, and are very lightweight, 88 grams, and then they have a cable that goes from the back down to your phone. So your phone becomes the processing unit for these glasses. There's nothing on them. Like literally it's a developer kit. So I think I need both because it depends on the use case, if you need something for augmented reality where you need to see the real world, Nreal is an amazing pair of glasses. But the Oculus Quest is awesome. You got Beat Saber in the Quest, like, pshhhhh. Have you played Beat Saber? It's amazing!
Sebastien Perez 23:47
Yeah, that makes sense. It's content.
Alan Smithson 23:49
I want in, I want both.
Sebastien Perez 23:50
Yeah, but it sounds like you said content is king. That's what it sounds like.
Alan Smithson 23:53
It's true. I'll take the Quest if I'm going to use it and Nreal if we're building for it.
Sebastien Perez 23:59
Yeah. So maybe, maybe a year from now you'll have a different answer.
Sebastien Perez 24:06
So on that same trend. Apple Pro Stand for $1,000.
Alan Smithson 24:15
What is it? Apple Pro Stand?
Sebastien Perez 24:17
Apple Pro Stand. So it's literally the stand to their new screen.
Alan Smithson 24:21
Okay. [Laughs]
Sebastien Perez 24:21
So if you want to buy the display, I believe it's about five grand. Four or five grand and the stand has the magnetic connectors. Remember proprietary!
Alan Smithson 24:32
Okay...
Sebastien Perez 24:33
It allows you to it's $1,000. Now, if you want to skip the...I'm just giving you the details on the product, if you want to skip the Pro Stand, you can get an adapter for your stand, but it's going to cost you I believe another $200. So either way, you got to spend $200 or $1,000. So I think that the Pro Stand sounds pretty good, but what about when compared to an Nreal and an Oculus Quest?
Alan Smithson 25:01
No brainer man! Nreal and a Quest over a frickin' stand any day! You know what? Dammit! If you'd said the Mac Pro for 10 grand or whatever it is, I would have been like, "it's pretty badass." But I would not pay $1,000 for a stand. I'm cheap, and I'm not doing that.
Sebastien Perez 25:20
Well. So there you have it, you can either have the future of technology or you can have a stand. You choose people.
Sebastien Perez 25:26
[Laughter]
Alan Smithson 25:28
I love you Apple. You're amazing.
Sebastien Perez 25:30
All right, let's keep going down here. So "Would You Rather?" Varjo or Vive Pro?
Alan Smithson 25:38
Ooh. Vive Pro with eye tracking?
Sebastien Perez 25:43
Sure, let's throw it in just to make it easy. Varjo XR-1 has eye tracking as well. So let's say Vive Pro Eye versus Varjo XR-1?
Alan Smithson 25:52
Varjo XR-1. I tried it at AWE, it is really badass. And the fact that I could probably sell it and buy three Vive Pros.
Sebastien Perez 26:04
Yeah, the price is unfair. But you know, I would tell you that the Varjo blew my mind too.
Alan Smithson 26:09
It's really good. So the way they did it, for the people listening Varjo, it's V-A-R-J-O. The way they did it was they actually did a fixed foveated rendering meaning the middle of the screen is higher resolution because you really only see high resolution in the middle of your vision anyway. If you want to test that, take your hand, look at it in your periphery and it's actually fuzzy, it's blurry. Because your eyes don't, you're only basically your focus is only in the first center 5% of your vision. So what they did was they took that thought, and really just made a really high resolution screen in the middle, and then the screen on the outside is lower resolution. So it kind of blends out to that. And it's a really, really great use case. And the XR-1 has two front facing cameras with 15 millisecond precision, for pass-through camera, augmented reality. There's a photo of me like I'm holding my hand like this looking at my hand and I'm, you know, waving it. It's really accurate. I really love it.
Sebastien Perez 27:02
I agree it's beautiful
Alan Smithson 27:04
So beautiful.
Sebastien Perez 27:05
The pass-through going from full pass-through in color to AR to full VR. I mean, I had chills. You know, it's kind of hard to explain.
Alan Smithson 27:13
You're in a room looking at everybody. And all of a sudden, this car spawns itself in front of me. And now I'm sitting in a car with this photo real like I'm looking at a Volvo logo in it. The chrome is shining in the right light, yet the whole world changes around it is really impressive.
Sebastien Perez 27:30
So you can disappear from your reality. So yeah, I I definitely agree. All right, this next one is going to be a callback to an old live stream that I had on LinkedIn live. And if you guys haven't seen it yet, make sure you go back to my activity and check it out, it's "AI vs AI" So the question here is a personal question. Amazon Alexa, or Google Home.
Alan Smithson 27:50
Google Home every day of the week man.
Sebastien Perez 27:52
Ooooooh!
Alan Smithson 27:53
I love it! We have both. And so for Christmas, we bought two because we have two daughters. And we bought an Alexa and Google Home. And we actually sat down beside each other without them fighting each other.
Sebastien Perez 28:04
Yeah, that is awesome.
Alan Smithson 28:05
We got Alexa to say, "Hey, Google" and then like, oh, yeah, we got them going. With Alexa, what I found is you have to be a Prime member, which is fine, but they make you pay for everything. Whereas Google, "Google play some music" and it plays music. Whereas, you know, the Alexa has a place music. "Well, you have to sign up for our Music membership" Like, it's kind of a pain in the ass. Yeah, Google Home. I love it.
Sebastien Perez 28:33
"Content is King" isn't it? I love it.
Sebastien Perez 28:35
"Content is king" There goes again, for the content part. Alright, content creators, you know that, you know, once the device exists, you know that there still has to be stuff built for it? And if there's not enough, then then he's not going to choose it on the next episode, of "Would You Rather?"
Alan Smithson 28:50
With XR Ignite and content creators, we were really focused on kind of products and platforms. And what we realized recently is that products and platforms are useless without the content. So we're opening it up to content creators and everybody because we need to have a full ecosystem. And that was a mistake of ours, we thought we could just work on the platforms and products. And then we realized that we can't we have to have the content creators, it's part of the ecosystem. So if creators are out there, and you're making VR, 360 video, anything to do with virtual reality. photogrammetry whatever you're doing, sign up at XRIgnite.com. That's right.
Sebastien Perez 29:15
XRIgnite.com. You have to. Yeah, all right. Here's the last question on "Would you rather?" then we're going to jump into "Hot or Not?" The future of retail is AR or VR?
Alan Smithson 29:44
That's a really good question. Future of retail. Hmm, I think AR because I think what's gonna happen is Apple's gonna have some AR glasses that come out in the next little bit. What's gonna happen is they're gonna be I think we're gonna have this convergence of AR and VR together so that your glasses do both. But I think AR is going to be the future of retail because with the pass-through camera, or with the camera not pass through, but with a camera, I can now look at a pair of shoes. And with object recognition, it can tell me where I can buy those shoes right on by looking at somebody's feet. So the future retail is not going to be going to store it's not going to be looking at these racks of shoes and be like, I love that backpack. Look at the backpack. I go buy now when it comes to my Amazon shipment.
Sebastien Perez 30:30
That makes sense, contextual, contextual order.
Alan Smithson 30:33
And I think that's, you know, really what it comes down to. And there's a company that pitched at the startup pitch day that I hosted at AWW last week, and they actually won, it was called lex.ai (lex.ai) And they have image recognition for websites. So for example, you pull up a website, and you pick an image on it, and it'll show you where to buy it. It's really, really useful. So I think AR for retail, because it's contextual.
Sebastien Perez 31:00
I think that's a great answer. And it doesn't make sense. Yeah. You know, you want to walk into someone's house, you know, where did you buy that and (Inaudible)
Alan Smithson 31:08
look at it wink or, you know, whatever, that Yeah, gaze at it. (cross talks) All the glasses in the next five years will have eye tracking too. So you know, when you have eye tracking, you can have this kind of really, really powerful device stuck on your face. And hopefully, I don't know if you guys want to watch something dystopian and weird. Look at "Hyper Reality"...
Sebastien Perez 31:32
...by Keiichi Matsuda. Yeah. So as the previous futurist, for Leap Motion.
Alan Smithson 31:41
Yeah. So I met him finally at AWE last week. So he's a legend. And I couldn't believe how young he was. I don't know if he maybe is old, but I don't know, he looked very young. But it's interesting because the community manager from Leap Motion, and people don't know what Leap Motion is, it's a little sensor, you know, but the half the size of a phone with some sensors that track hand motions for industrial applications. And they just merged with another company called UltraHaptics, UltraHaptics out of UK. And UltraHaptics is a using ultrasonic waves to give you a tactile feel in midair. So imagine tracking the hand but also feeling something like a nut knob that doesn't exist, but you can feel it and turn it and move it. So I think that combinations are really going to be great. And Alex Cogan, who is the community manager, and marketing for Leap Motion is also our community manager and marketing for XR.
Sebastien Perez 32:39
Look at that, what a coincidence.
Alan Smithson 32:42
Go back to Hyper Reality. Check out hyper reality, go on YouTube type in Hyper Reality, it's insane. But I think the user experience of Hyper Reality is nuts. Like it's when your whole world is hijacked by digital. I honestly don't think that's where it's gonna go, what I think will happen is the UX will be a little different, where some things that are activated by AR will just highlight slightly very slightly highlights, you know, that if you chose to look at that, maybe wink or whatever the interaction is that it will give you more rich content. So you'll be able to decide which content you want in your world. I think it's got to be that way or the otherwise we're just going to get bombarded by crap. And I don't think people will go for that.
Sebastien Perez 33:23
Yeah, I think it's going to be a combination of sensors, like for proximity, and then also location information. So you get contextual information, and not when you don't need it. And I think the old classical computer, is, we're used to having multiple windows, and that's kind of what that future is the paints with the Hyper Reality. But yeah, I think that AI will decide what to show you when before you know you want it based off of where you are and what your habits are. So actually a quick comment on that last part about the Apple headset. So there's, there's a rumor and it's allegedly, okay, allegedly, I repeat, this is not a fact. But allegedly, it's a VR headset with pass-through not an ARheadset. Something to think about. Hmm, well, à la Varjo perhaps.
Alan Smithson 34:23
Interesting. So that makes sense from a couple of different reasons. So a couple years ago, Apple bought it I don't agree with that, actually, we'll see. Apple bought a company called Metaio and the title was a an augmented realityplatform very similar to kind of euphoria with you know, planar tracking and object recognition and image recognition. So they bought Metaio and they turned it into ARKit. Metaio was the framework for ARKit, and that's how that came about. But they also bought a company called VRvana out of Montreal. VRvana, the only thing they really solved was occlusion at a distance. So it is standing in front of you And something walks in front of or behind you then you can tell. But imagine augmented reality, it doesn't know how far that is. And like, they had solved that problem using single cameras instead of depth sensors. So that's why they bought VRvana, which gave them the ability to create a really robust I guess, positional tracking and opposite. You know what I'm looking back. Yeah. Yeah,
Sebastien Perez 35:27
yeah. And I think I think that the ARKit is incredibly impressive. Their new updates is like...woo! It gives me excited. That's like an instant update over millions of experiences with occlusion and all of that is really great stuff. All right, well, let's jump into this game of "Hot or Not?" Hot, or not! Hot like Ignite? Like something hot on the way? I don't know. We'll have to see. So okay.
Alan Smithson 35:56
It's on fire!
Sebastien Perez 35:57
It's on fire! LinkedIn Live is on fire!
Alan Smithson 36:01
How many people we got viewing right now?
Sebastien Perez 36:02
We are burning down the booth. Let me check. So it looks like we've got in the 60s live, but we've got a ton of people participating in the comments.
Alan Smithson 36:13
Awesome. Well, hi, everybody!
Sebastien Perez 36:16
Awesome. Thank you guys for tuning in. This is Alan Smithson on LinkedIn Live stream.
Alan Smithson 36:22
Yeah, I need to be a LinkedIn Live person so that I can stream from these types of things, but I guess I'm not that important because I live in Canada.
Sebastien Perez 36:29
Oh, it's a Canadian thing.
Alan Smithson 36:31
Totally, a Canadian thing! [Unintelligible] I had to fly to Vegas to get my Magic Leap.
Sebastien Perez 36:36
Ah, man. All right. Well, LinkedIn pay attention to Canada, there's a lot of things happening there. Alright, so Hot or Not? Inside-out Tracking.
Alan Smithson 36:47
Hot. Obviously, if you're without inside out...For people don't know what that is inside out tracking is using cameras on the device to track where you are. So the Vive Focus+, and people don't know this, it's on, it's actually on the podcast with Alvin Wang Graylin on XR for Business Podcast that I own. But the Vive Focus+, you can have up to 40 devices in a space the size of a football field, all tracked with only two external sensors. So it's using the inside-out tracking, and the external sensors to triangulate up to 40 people in the size of a football field.
Sebastien Perez 37:20
Wow!
Alan Smithson 37:20
Now, think about the things you could do with that!
Sebastien Perez 37:23
Amazing.
Alan Smithson 37:24
It's cool. Imagine like, you know, laser tag at scale, and a football field, you just rent out a football field and have laser tag with your friends in VR.
Sebastien Perez 37:33
I mean, the reason why I bring it up is obviously some people are very upset about the Oculus Rift S and the direction that they took that. And also, you know, for the record, really, they're still using
Alan Smithson 37:44
But they're still using sensors on the Rift S.
Sebastien Perez 37:46
Yeah, they're using sensors, but they're not using the base stations that you can kind, link up three sensors and put one behind you. So nothing is occluded. And your tracking is like perfect. I think that's more maybe a gamer (inaudible)
Alan Smithson 38:05
HTC nailed it with their base stations, they are so much better. Anyway, I don't want to get into a battle with Oculus.
Sebastien Perez 38:12
Yes, sure. Exactly. Okay. "Hot or Not?" Volumetric Video
Alan Smithson 38:16
Not. I think Volumetric Video has a very limited scope. And it's very expensive still. And to be honest. There's not a lot of use cases for it. In my opinion, right now. We are investing in a company called VRAVO!, it's like Bravo with a V in the beginning, vravo.com. And what they've done is they've allowed you to take a video so I can actually take a video right here on my phone, and cut out the background and drop me into AR VR all automatically. And because it's a 2d video, it's cheap to do. But what they did, their secret sauce is they've kind of feathered the edges a little bit and added a drop shadow. So it looks like volumetric video. And if you're doing a presentation with somebody, when was last time you're talking or watching a presentation, you walk behind somebody to look at the backside, right? Never. So volumetric video while, pretty cool. It's got to drop in price. We're like we're talking like $10,000 a second kind of thing right now. It's crazy. You've got 8i Virtual Reality, Microsoft's Meta Stage, and you've got Intel. So there are people working on it. I just don't see it right now.
Sebastien Perez 39:31
That's a great answer. And in a way, I was hoping you would give that answer because it's an easy one to say volumetrics’ the future. But if you want to be realistic, it's the future. It's not the current.
Alan Smithson 39:44
It's not here right now. But there is cool things being done with it. You know, there's music videos being shot. And you know, I think what's going to be interesting about that is that, as artists start to push the limits because it all starts with cool artists doing cool stuff. Really let's be honest and then Anything that we do, it's always the musicians and artists that end up doing the coolest shit. So I think it'd be interesting to see how artists start using this technology so that you're not watching a corporate presentation, you're actually interacting and moving through the space. I think that's really when it gets exciting.
Sebastien Perez 40:17
I totally agree. I think we need more creatives in advanced technologies.
Sebastien Perez 40:23
I'm not gonna limit it to VR and AR, I think we need creative thinkers in AI and blockchain as well. In 3d printing and the like, you know, I mean, so these are all new superpowers, the system super powered creatives in there. Alright!
Alan Smithson 40:23
100%
Alan Smithson 40:42
As of yesterday, I think I saw it yesterday. Beat Saber partnered with...
Sebastien Perez 40:47
Imagine Dragons. I'm on you, man. Don't worry about it. I got you.
Alan Smithson 40:51
You're like sucking it out of my brain! That's pretty cool. Right? You know, you've got a killer app, this big VR game that's just awesome. You're slicing beats, but now they're partnering with artists to make it even better. It's that's the next thing. So I don't know if people know. But I used to be a DJ and I invented a touchscreen DJ controller.
Sebastien Perez 41:11
Yeah, the touchscreen. Tell us more about the touchscreen.
Alan Smithson 41:14
Sure. So in 2010, we launched Emulator, which was the first multi touch real time application for Windows 8. So Microsoft took it around and showed it all their different conferences and stuff. But we got to work with Linkin Park. Infected Mushroom, Armin Van Buuren, amazing artists. Infected Mushroom, they created a complete new system. So they created a completely new touch screen interface that controlled all of their MIDI triggers. So they could trigger things from this huge touchscreen that's see-through so the audience could see it. But it was amazing to watch what artists did with it. And we work with some lighting artists, who took the touchscreen interface. And instead of DJing with it or performing with it through music, they actually controlled all their lighting from it. And I thought it was really, really impressive. So I think bringing the artists to the table for technology is essential.
Sebastien Perez 42:07
Absolutely.
Alan Smithson 42:08
We're actually we're starting to kind of move pivot our main company MetaVRse to focus on training. And one of the things that we're building in as our secret sauce is we're gamifying it for one but we're also bringing in storytellers to help tell the training in a better more immersive, fun way. Because let's be honest, we're competing with Fortnite games, we're competing with triple A video games. Why are we still showing training and like boring shitty PowerPoints? So we got to get it exciting for people I think that will help people buy into training.
Sebastien Perez 42:41
Absolutely. All right, I got three more "Hot or Not?"s for you. And the next one is "Hot or Not?" Folding Phones. So that's phones with folding screens.
Alan Smithson 42:53
Yeah, i'm going to say No. I've seen this thing come and go forever. I think the folding screens on purses or on fashion is really awesome.
Sebastien Perez 43:04
Like Louis Vuitton?
Alan Smithson 43:05
Yeah, like imagine having a purse. In your purse, the top of it, I saw it at CES and the top of the purse was a screen and you can program it to be whatever you want. I thought that was really cool. But a phone that folds. It's kind of gimmicky and really no use for it. There used to be a computer and I can't remember what it was called. But there was a computer that when you open it up both sides were screens there was no keyboard it was two screens. And we programmed it with Emulator so we had like touchscreens on both sides. And it never went anywhere. So i'm gonna say Not.
Sebastien Perez 43:35
I'm with you on that one. Not a fan and especially for the price I think that they're asking for like what 10 grand or something. Man I'd rather get two Nreal Light's and two Oculus Quests and start a damn business. Alright, so "Hot or Not?" XR for Business.
Alan Smithson 43:57
This is a trick question. It's hot AF! (meaning very sexy)
Sebastien Perez 44:00
Hot AF? I think we need to have that as an option! Hot AF!
Alan Smithson 44:06
So here's the thing. Everybody, all the investors, a lot of VCs and a lot of investors got into the early and thank god they did because they catapulted this industry but what the people fail to realize and this is why we started enterprise first, enterprise is leading this technology I can go down to the floor at LiveWorx right now. And there is probably two dozen HoloLens 1's, they're RealWear headsets. There, I also saw HoloLens v2 down there, like there's a dozen Oculus Go's, there's five or six HTC Vive's, all in business, and all making a difference. So definitely hot. It's the future and it's what's going to fund the development moving forward of all these technologies.
HTC Vive Pro in action, click here for more
Sebastien Perez 44:53
Okay, last one. [laughs] "Hot or Not?" XR Ignite.
Alan Smithson 44:59
Nice, we even have a little flame, I'm gonna say it's hot, as well. And the reason why I think it's hot, you know, our mission is is very simple and straightforward. Hyper accelerate XR for business and education. So our goal is not to make a gazillion dollars, our goal is to foster the growth and communication of everybody in this industry to work with businesses and push it forward. So I think it's very hot for the whole XR community.
Sebastien Perez 45:36
That's awesome. Well, all right. I think that that's a good game of "Hot or Not?" and I'm going to wrap it up with a question here for you. What advancement would take your business to the next level?
Alan Smithson 45:52
What advancement...would...oh!
Sebastien Perez 45:56
It's open ended on purpose.
Alan Smithson 46:05
Computer Vision, so artificial intelligence with computer vision, being able to rapidly identify images and objects. So one of the things that is kind of lacking right now is object recognition. Really, really robust object recognition for augmented reality. So being able to look at something, and it automatically recognizes that thing shows me how to fix it, or whatever, whatever, you know, whatever I wanted to do. But I think we're still early days on object recognition. I think if we can catapult that using AI, I think will really, really help. So computer vision and machine learning advancements will really help this whole industry grows fast. Also, Field of View in AR like Nreal. So Field of View in AR.
Sebastien Perez 46:50
Yeah, I agree. Awesome. Well, it has been awesome conversation. We learned a lot today. And I think that we've had a great time. I wanted to kind of roll out the red carpet for you. If there's anything else you wanted to let the people know out there things that they may not be considering. What message do we leave them on?
Alan Smithson 47:13
I think the message that Jonathan Moss from Sprint yesterday, left everybody with and then John Cunningham from Disney, the message was simple. Start now, make mistakes. Just start now. If you are running a company and you're not using virtual and augmented reality for your training, at least, like at the very minimum your training, then you're going to get bowled the fuck over. Because here's what's happening. Big companies all realize the value of this. Macy's, Walmart, Boeing, these big companies are all starting to come in. And thank God that they're sharing their information with everybody, because now there's real evidence to show that this works. And it's really effective. And companies...It's like the web, if you don't if you don't have a website now while it's useless. If you go back 10 years when you're like, "Oh, well, this web thing may or may not take off." It's coming! And it's revolutionizing business. And it's also creating real business value immediately. You know. What other technology can decrease your training times by 70%? Call it 7%! You know, if you if you're working for big enterprise, and you get a 7% improvement on anything...Amazing. We're not talking 7% we're talking 20%, 30%, 40% improvements across the board. So start now. Start making mistakes, partner with somebody on XR Ignite so that we can get this community going and really just start investing in this technology. You don't have to spend a lot of money to start now.
Sebastien Perez 48:42
How can startups get involved with XR Ignite?
Alan Smithson 48:44
Just sign up on there's a tab for startups in the top and bottom. Just sign up there. What we're going to be doing is we're starting to vet them and then put them into a database where we're going to take the companies and kind of marry them together. So just sign up an XRIgnite.com
Sebastien Perez 48:59
All right, there you have it, everybody. So we've got XR for Business, the podcast. We've got MetaVRse and now we have XR Ignite. And we've got the great Alan Smithson here on LinkedIn live and so glad to have you.
Alan Smithson 49:15
Live from LiveWorx!
Alan Smithson 49:16
LiveWorx 2019! So this is the big collab Hope you guys enjoyed it. If you liked what you saw today make sure you like, share, comment, subscribe and all the like. Make sure you follow Alan Smithson he's got some cool future tech content for you.
Alan Smithson 49:34
I reached the limit of LinkedIn but if you add me, you can at least follow me. There's a cap 30,000 people on LinkedIn. I don't get it.
Sebastien Perez 49:41
Yeah, I'm not there yet to the cap. So I'm not as big as Alan Smithson, but I'm trailing. I'm about three or four thousand from reaching the cap, so you can only follow him. You can actually connect with me and make sure you do that if want to stay tuned to the future.
Alan Smithson 49:57
I'm gonna go trip out at LiveWorx because I'm full of some Digital Acid.
Sebastien Perez 50:01
Haha! Yeah, we're on a trip right now. And so make sure that you check us out next week. We're gonna have more guests. We're gonna have more stuff. More fun stuff. We're trying to make the future fun. So stop being so damn serious. You know what I mean?
Alan Smithson 50:16
Sebastien Perez 50:16
Yeah! The Digital Acid! All right, Alan. We'll see you next time and enjoy that conference.
Alan Smithson 50:23
Thanks very much guys. Peace! (music playing).
