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Hello, I'm Karen Quatromoni, the Director of Public Relations for Object Management Group, OMG.

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Welcome to our OMG Podcast series. At OMG,

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we're known for driving industry standards and building tech communities.

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Today we're focusing on the Augmented Reality for Enterprise

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Alliance area, which is an OMG program.

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The AREA accelerates AR adoption by creating a comprehensive

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ecosystem for enterprises, providers, and research institutions.

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Today, Boeing's Sam Neblett will host the podcast session.

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So I know you have a huge amount of experience in the gaming sphere,

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and that's with your podcast. That's with just personal time,

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and I think the gaming sphere is leading the way

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for informing enterprises on how they can use AR both effectively

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and efficiently in just a wide variety of settings.

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You mentioned firearms training, that's guns are pretty popular in video games,

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but I want to think about real world examples of

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thinking outside of the box for industry specific applications

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and potential or interesting use cases that you've noticed.

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So not necessarily just picking up a gun with a

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controller, I'm thinking anything new and groundbreaking that you've seen

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or you feel could be on the horizon. Something like,

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it might not have to be super complicated, but just an out of the box solution.

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So something like voice commands for hands-free machine controlling

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manufacturing, hand gestures,

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and for sterile surgery in healthcare,

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or overcoming issues that you've noticed in UI and UX for learning

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curves with eye tracking and AR applications that you've seen.

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Is there anything very interesting in a specific industry that the

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enterprise might be interested in for ar?

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Yeah, I think quickly just to touch on one of the things you just mentioned there,

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the eye tracking and hand gestures for UI navigation

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I think is crucial. Previously before these technologies,

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if you're using a virtual reality controller or an AR controller,

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a lot of times when you're holding one of these controllers in your hand,

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there's a laser that comes off of the edge of it that you can point at objects

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in the UI to make menu selections and things like that.

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When you drop these controllers, boom, now it's like, oh, where's my laser?

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In what way can I make my next menu selection?

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And I think if you've used the Apple Vision Pro, that's exactly it.

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I think that is the best current method to solving UI and

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UX problems is by glancing at something and having a pinch gesture.

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You can cruise through menus so fast like that. If you've never used the Apple

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Vision Pro, I highly recommend you go to an Apple store and check one out.

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It's a quick demo. And very quickly you'll start to understand,

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I think the direction that a lot of this stuff is going. Now granted,

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the Apple Vision Pro is, I guess technically a consumer device, but

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I think that the intended uses of that device really

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lead to where we're going in this conversation.

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It's funny that you mentioned voice commands. I haven't actually seen any compelling use cases for voice commands.

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Neither have I. Yeah, which I find interesting because it seems like some low hanging fruit.

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And in the gaming side of things,

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I see people doing some really interesting stuff with AI and voice commands by

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basically connecting a chat GPT to the game that you're playing and

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attaching individual personas to NPCs in the world. I

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have a friend named Genis VR who makes a lot of cool stuff for VR and AR

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and uses peripherals, haptics and all that kind of stuff and her content.

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And she will be playing a game like Skyrim VR and will walk up to somebody and

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say, Hey, what do you think about dragons?

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And the AI will connect to the NPC and create a brand new

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never before heard of line of dialogue

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using that character's voice, which is really, really cool.

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But in terms of enterprise solutions and stuff,

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I haven't seen anybody use anything that I found compelling,

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which I find interesting in some of our trainings.

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We do have sections of the aircraft trainings where

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the user is prompted to speak out loud, but it's all,

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it's implied. You know what I mean? It's like now you say this and you say it out loud and then you hit okay and

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move on to the next thing. But yeah,

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I do find that interesting in terms of some kind of interesting and

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outside of the box use cases. Like I said, I'm a haptics industry professional,

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and my brain kind of goes to some of the haptics use cases there.

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And it's funny because there's a couple of companies that do this,

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but there are some electro stimuli,

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haptic suits that exist out there. One of 'em is made by a company called Tesla Suit,

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and another one in the gaming side of things is made by a company called

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O-O-O-W-O. And these haptics are not fun.

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They are not comfortable. It's a lot of friction to get into these devices because they are using electro

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stimuli. The nodes that attach to your skin can't have clothing in between you and

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it. So to wear the Tesla suit,

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which I put on at CES 2019, I think. So it's been a while now,

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I had to basically get naked at a conference to put this thing on.

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I had my underwear on still, but otherwise my whole body was inside of this suit.

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And the O technology is very,

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very similar except for it's just a shirt and it is designed to be used in

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games. However, the sensation of these,

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have you used one of these, by the way, Sam? I've used the OO suit. Yeah.

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The O. That thing is not comfortable, is it?

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No. And it's not fun to have,

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have all your users get in it, and then you have to worry about them.

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With cleanliness, we have to motion tracking suits too,

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so I have to take it home and wash it. So for all of those reasons, I would say it's not really good.

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It's not really worth it. They're expensive,

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they're uncomfortable to get into and out of, and the haptic sensation physically actually hurts. You're being shocked,

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which by the way, I learned electrocuted should only be used when referring to death because it's

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like execution, like execution, electrocution. So unless you died,

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you didn't get electrocuted, you got shocked, which is something that took me forever to learn,

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but this thing shocks you and some of the sensations are akin

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to scratches and stuff like that. And I do see,

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however, a compelling use case for negative reinforcement in training because

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let's say we are doing the oil rig training,

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snipping the wrong wire or pulling the wrong lever could mean literal death for

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everybody out there. Some of these things, there's a reason why we're using immersive technologies to train some of this

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stuff because it's very dangerous. It's scary to learn these things in medical

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procedures at contact.

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We've done some stuff with Cincinnati Children's Hospital and we went in there

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last week for a demo, and I'm looking at these little,

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I dunno, fake cadaver things and stuff like that that they have.

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And I'm realizing, wow, they're actually performing operations on children in here and

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they need to practice these procedures because messing up a little

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bit could mean something terrible happening to a child. So it's really,

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really important that we learn these things and take these trainings seriously.

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And if you've used the Owo vest or the Tesla suit vest,

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it only takes one shock for you to realize you don't want that to happen again.

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And now when I did the game for owo,

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my head was on a swivel in a way that it would not have been if I didn't

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have that negative reinforcement happening.

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So while I don't recommend these devices for something like gaming, I mean,

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I guess if you're a streamer and you want some shock value or something,

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you could buy one and use it. But at the end of the day,

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I don't see a practical use case other than negative reinforcement using haptics

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in a training where it could necessarily be a life death situation.

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That's fair. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

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So we've talked about some benefits and challenges that you mentioned

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challenges. I mean, it hurts or it's difficult to put on one of the EMS or TENS based

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like the suit and reducing cognitive load as a

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benefit and increased safety because you can practice

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surgery before actually going to do the real thing like you're mentioning.

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But what other challenges do you think you see with some of the newer

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modalities? User acceptance.

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Are the people familiar with controllers? Are they going to get frustrated with using hand tracking or eye tracking? Now,

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do you see any accuracy limitations with hand tracking or eye

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tracking or the contact CI glove for haptics?

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Is it not quite accurate enough that you're working on it? Security concerns?

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You mentioned that might be something that EU has to worry about collecting

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PII for advertisement purposes or whatever,

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aging IT infrastructure. Can our IT systems and enterprise take this stuff?

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Is it ready? Are these companies working with say,

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Microsoft Azure and AWS to really get them accepted in a

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more formal way? Or is it still kind of the wild west, you think?

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Yeah, I think in terms of infrastructure and stuff like that,

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I think we're good to go. I think most people have computers that can handle this type of technology.

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I mean, I guess you might have to acquire some hardware to pull some of this stuff off,

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but it all works pretty well with existing technologies.

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So I don't think we have too much to worry about there.

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You touched on a lot of really good stuff there. But I think in terms of some of the challenges with accepting some of these

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things, I think user acceptance actually is a pretty big one.

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People, they resist change. There's a lot of people,

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especially in the DOD side of things,

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there's some guys who have been in those roles for decades, literal decades,

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and the way they've been doing things has worked.

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They're not in a big hurry to make a huge change to the infrastructure of their

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training that's going to take years to fully implement and all of that stuff,

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especially when they're used to seeing the results that they expect.

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But other than some of the things that you kind of touched on there,

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I think that scalability is a really big one.

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I think that there is,

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if I'm trying to sell somebody on using AR or VR for training,

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I would probably lean into something like scalability.

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Traditional trainers for the Air Force, for example,

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are insanely expensive to build. It's basically a fake cockpit using all of the real stuff that a cockpit's made

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out of. It costs a lot of money to build.

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They can only exist in one place at one time,

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and only one person can occupy it at a time. And also, typically,

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you'll probably need a second body there as an instructor and as an instructor

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to explain what's happening. But if you had an AR or a VR application that was designed to

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train people in a virtual environment, this is a program that you could slap on a hundred headsets and send to

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everybody and say, all right, everybody, here's your homework.

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Spend an hour or two in this virtual cockpit.

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And then when everybody comes in the next day, they all have so much more experience than they did before.

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And you're able to scale this training and scale your ability to share this

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information with across your workforce or across your whatever in a way that

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was previously inaccessible. So I see a huge opportunity for scalability of training that

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would require you being onsite, having something really expensive or large or something that would be incredibly

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dangerous to participate in. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

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So moving on to future outlook,

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you mentioned how the enterprise can expect

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to use these different interaction modalities in the next five to 10

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years. Are there any particular companies that you expect to have a massive impact on

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the AR space? And then what are some high level steps that companies can do to

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prepare to integrate these new AR solutions? So that could be hand tracking,

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start looking at gloves, start integrating them,

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maybe start using if they're using Unity or Unreal,

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import the new like for Unity, for example, the XR HANDS toolkit,

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and start supporting that in your input code.

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What do you think companies to watch that you expect to have a massive impact on

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the AR space five to 10 years? And then what can companies do to

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within the enterprise do to prepare for these advancements?

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Cool. I'll start with the latter portion of this.

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I think if you've made it this far in this conversation and you're considering

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maybe getting into some of the stuff that now is a great time to start doing

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some of the stuff that you mentioned. Start taking a look at the different hand tracking solutions that exist.

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Maybe get a couple of different HMDs and start playing around, like I said,

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go to the Apple store, do a demo there. Experience what it feels like to have eye tracking and hand tracking working in

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conjunction with each other. This is definitely the time because the technology's moving very rapidly.

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We're looking, I mean, they could put out

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an AR headset and a VR headset once a year that would set a new standard for the

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technology. So things are moving really, really quick.

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And I wouldn't expect to have something that meets all of your

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expectations today. And I say expectations in quote marks because

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I do feel like the general public has a somewhat inflated idea

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of what to expect when they use a lot of these technologies.

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We are raised on incredible science fiction films in media

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and stuff like that that honestly show us a lot of tech

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10, 20, 30, 40 years in advance.

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One of my favorite movies ever is Total Recall starring Arnold Schwartzenegger.

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And if you watch that movie, you will see so many technologies that did not exist when that movie came out

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that are now commonplace in the real world.

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And most people who would watch that movie today would just,

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they wouldn't notice that it would just kind of go in one and out the other.

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And they're like, okay, cool. Yeah, they're doing a video chat. But I remember being younger and watching people do video chats and movies being

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blown away that that might actually be something that we can do. However,

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a lot of people, when they think about ar, they think about vr.

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They have this expectation that when they put an HMD on,

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it's literally stepping into a portal and it's going to change everything.

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And when they see a little bit of a friction or a little bit of lag here,

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or maybe the haptics don't line up perfectly,

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they kind of just want to throw it out, throw it out the window, I would say

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don't have unrealistic expectations of the technology of where it is today.

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But I think it's safe to assume that all this technology is going to reach

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utterly profound levels within our lifetimes,

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the type of profound where you will be changed by 10,

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20 minute experiences putting on the headset.

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So I definitely see all of that happening. In terms of companies to watch,

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I am not exactly sure,

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to be honest. There's definitely a few that have been making waves and have been

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pushing the envelope. Snap is one of 'em.

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Snapchat has been using AR filters. They're basically the first company to actually get

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wide adoption of AR technology, at least that I have seen.

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I mean so many people using Snapchat filters to send videos and stuff like that

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to their friends. They're working on a lot of AR stuff.

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So I think that's a company that's really worth looking at.

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Niantic does a lot of really cool stuff.

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They made Pokemon Go and similar AR games. Like you said,

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gaming kind of paved the way for a lot of these things.

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I think that's the case here as well. Also, meta,

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there are concerns with Facebook owning a company that does a lot of this stuff,

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like being a data collection company. There's some privacy concerns there.

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But in terms of the r and d and the money that's being spent on pushing all this

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stuff forward, I don't think there's another company that does what Meta does. They are pushing

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things so so hard. So I would pay attention to the products that Meta is putting out over the next

17:11

five to 10 years. In terms of where I see a lot of this stuff going,

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I think we're going to see this incredible blend of biometric data,

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immersive technology, and procedurally generated content that is going to create these

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amazingly immersive experiences for people that are totally individualized and

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completely custom to exactly what it is that you need to get out of that

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experience. So for example, let's say you have a training program that is using all these technologies.

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It is reading my biometric data in real time, my eyes,

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my facial expressions, all of that stuff. It sees my pupils dilating and focusing and all of that,

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and maybe there's some kind of BCI that can tell

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my level of engagement. So the procedurally generated content in real time can read my biometric

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data and feed to me the content that's necessary to get the desired outcome out

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of my biometrics. So maybe they're looking for a specific level of engagement,

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or maybe they're trying to scare me or make me experience fear.

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It can keep ramping up the fear levels until it gets to the point where it's

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getting the response out of me that it's looking for.

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So when you combine that with, you combine all these things,

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these biometric data, having it be an immersive experience where you really feel like you're connected

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to what's happening and it being procedural and custom to the user,

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I think it's going to be insanely potent.

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I think they'll be able to identify your weaknesses in a training relatively

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quickly and start to address those weaknesses in real time.

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And that's super, super exciting. Of course, like I said earlier,

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it comes with safety concerns. We all basically are going to have to get rid of the idea of privacy and stuff

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like that, I think at some point. But like I said earlier,

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I think the trains left the station.

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I think trying to prevent these technologies from integrating with people

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is trying to fight the tide. You know what I mean? This is nature.

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We are naturally connecting with technology more and more and more all the time.

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As a baby, a computer bs up and you crawl towards it.

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We are instinctually driven to connect with the stuff, and to me,

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it's natural. So I say, just hang on.

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And I'm throwing my hands up on the rollercoaster. I'm just like, all right,

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let's go. Woo, because it's going to be fun and exciting, and I'm here for it.

19:37

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. Great. So is there

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anything else that you would like to plug before we think we're good on

19:47

everything else? Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

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if you find this conversation and my perspective on some of this stuff,

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interesting, I would highly recommend you come and check out between Realities.

19:57

The podcast that I do with my partner s Skiva,

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we do live episodes every Friday as long as time permits,

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and we don't have work obligations and travels and things like that getting in

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the way. But we always have a guest on our show.

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So every week we have somebody either from the gaming space,

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the enterprise space, the training space. We get developers, CEOs,

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YouTubers, the whole gambit,

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basically anybody who cares about this technology as much as we do,

20:25

regardless of what they're doing, could be somebody that we would have on to the show.

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And we really do like to kind of peel away layers,

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talk about the nitty gritty of all this stuff,

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focus on some of the individuals who are really making a difference in the space

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and giving a voice to some people who are like us,

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who are just trying to get involved and come and be a part of it. Of course,

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if you're interested in some of the haptic stuff that mentioned,

20:47

definitely check out Contact ci. We are doing a lot right now that's currently available and behind the scenes to

20:54

improve some of the haptic fidelity and stuff like that that you were mentioning

20:57

earlier, which by the way, I will say fidelity of hand tracking and haptics has a long way to go,

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but I mentioned earlier it exists in a state that is

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enough to kind of bridge the gap from your hands to your brain to allow you to

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have a more immersive experience than you would if the haptics didn't exist.

21:17

A demo I like to do often is having a gloved hand and an unloved hand,

21:21

and you reach out and interact with some buttons and switches with a gloved hand

21:25

and then reach out and do it with your bare hand. And the difference is night

21:28

and day. One of them feels real,

21:30

however you want to define real and the other one doesn't.

21:33

So I really do think that there is a huge value for haptics right now,

21:37

even if it isn't entirely lifelike, and I do expect it to get to that point.

21:42

So yeah, between realities and contact CI are definitely my two primary things

21:47

that if you wanted to follow up with me to reach out. And also,

21:51

I'll say that I do a lot of traveling and I go to a lot of conferences and

21:54

events. So if you ever want to meet up, I'll be,

21:57

I don't know when this comes out, but I'll be in a WE at a WE in June in Long Beach,

22:02

and I go to basically all of the ar, vr, and tech focused conferences.

22:06

So feel free to reach out to me anytime. Send me a DM on Twitter or LinkedIn and we can connect.

22:13

What's your Twitter handle. For people? My Twitter handle is Alex vr, but there's some underscores in it.

22:18

It's like Alex under vr, but I think if you type Alex vr,

22:22

you'll probably get to me. Okay. Awesome. Well,

22:25

thank you so much for your time and all of your input and expertise, Alex,

22:30

and for anyone else who might be interested, just like Alex said,

22:35

check out his podcast and contact ci,

22:39

we'll get your email listed wherever we can host this. But yeah,

22:44

thank you again and take care. It's been great having you.

22:47

Thanks, Sam. Looking forward to our next chat. Talk to you soon.