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Martina Sourada (NVIDIA): Developers Without Borders: Cross-Cultural Collaboration & Challenges
- 1. Cross-Cultural Collaboration in xR DEVELOPERS WITHOUT BORDERS
- 2. 2 -History -Market view -Evolution and Challenges -xR/VR as a Solution -Future
- 3. 3 A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY http://www.psdblogs.ca/mli/coding-programming-and-makerspaces/virtual-reality/ https://www.cheatsheet.com/technology/a-trip-down-virtual-reality-road-6-systems-of-the-past/
- 5. 5 THE MARKET Where are we Today? https://www.statista.com/statistics/755645/global-vr-device-market-share-by-vendor/ https://www.oled-info.com/will-vr-headsets-turn-large-market-oled-makers https://www.digi-capital.com/news/2016/04/the-reality-of-120-billion-arvr-business-models/#.Ww3NQu4vzmE
- 9. 9 CROSS CULTURAL COLLABORATION An evolution https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-khan-760569122/ https://www.torbenrick.eu/blog/strategy/the-internet-evolution-from-communication-to-shared-economy/
- 10. 10 CHALLENGES Political climate Changes have already come to H1B visas overall More stringent requirements Reduction in numbers H4 visa/employment. On the path to being revoked? Travel bans Logistics Travel/Time/$$$
- 13. 13 BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE
- 14. 14 THE FUTURE Hardware Price points High bar/requirements (GPU/System) Physical (weight, comfort, frame rate, space, interactive experience, movement tracking) Consumer acceptance Software Lack of content Poor quality content Lack of large scale distribution platforms for VR content Lack of content production standards Content censorship (eg. China) There are barriers to Growth
- 15. 15
Editor's Notes
- Good afternoon everyone and welcome to one of many talks today, Developers without Borders, Cross Cultural Collaboration in xR My name is Martina Sourada, I am a Senior Director @ NVIDIA in software responsible for quality and test tools/automation, and I will be taking you through this 30 minute journey.
- First a bit of a roadmap for you. Today, I’d like to cover a few things: To start with, a brief review on History (both ecosystem/and a personal anecdote) A dash of market view (some of the key things to internalize regarding where are we today) Some more evolution with respect to collaboration, and challenges that we face today And on the other side, some solutions (how and why is XR an attractive option and how is it being deployed) to meet those challenges Lastly, some quick thoughts on future development, pitfalls to navigate and potential.
- VR headsets today are not the first of their kind. VR gaming has actually been around for decades, but it was simply never a success. Certainly the technological limitations of the time, coupled with a market not yet ready to embrace the technology, with the icing of pricetag on top made for significant headwinds. VR has its own legacy and evolution and it’s important to take a look at some of the iterations of VR in the past. From Ivan Sutherland in 1965 with the ‘Sword of Damacles’ to Jaron Lanier and VPL + Atari in the 1980s (remember the dataglove and VR bodysuits)? In the early 1990s, Virtuality Group created VR systems that had a stand-up arena type system and a vehicle cockpit. Both used built in displays to put gamers right into the position of the characters they played. Between a first-person shooter called Dactyl Nightmare that let players run around shooting one another as a treacherous creatures attacked them as well as several other games, Virtuality had a memorable presence in arcades. But, with price tags in the 10K range, the VR systems were far too expensive for consumers. It didn’t keep Virtuality from being a proponent in the early push for VR, but it did translate into VR not being mainstream enough to make VR the next revolution. Many of you might remember the Virtual Boy of the mid ’90s. Nintendo was the giant behind this effort but despite being backed by one of the biggest game companies of the day, it did not succeed. The virtual boy didn’t really have what wed consider color, and though it had stereoscopic 3D, it lacked high quality graphics. It was cheaper than many of the other offerings at the time, but it didn’t have the core functionality that makes VR work — there was no head or hand tracking, it was essentially a 3D viewing system rigged to look like VR. In the end, it wasn’t the catalyst that either VR or Nintendo needed. Today? We have Facebook, Google, HTC and Microsoft all as active players in this landscape. So what’s different this time around? Many factors; Manufacturing has gotten cheaper and faster and more streamlined, processors are more powerful than ever before, the available choices in components such as optics and power are far larger in scope.
- As crazy as this looks, the real ground truth today is far more extensive. Between the initial major players all re-upping with new versions and standalone/mobile variants, MSFTs play into the space (and the various OEM offerings) + the many other 3rd party solutions (especially in China), the number of total HMDs offered as choice to the end consumer is staggering, but also guided by software offerings, support and geography. Keep in mind that Oculus, and Valve dominate the mind and market share for available applications (and more and more of the 3rd party HMD manufacturers recognize this, have to make the needed investments to ensure their respective HMDs can play in one of those gardens).
- Business models are hard to figure out during platform shifts, we can look to the playbook of mobile over the last decade as an example. AR/VR is the fourth major platform shift (after PC, web and mobile). At the end of the day business models come down to installed bases, use cases and unit economics. Facebook paid $2 billion for Oculus. Magic Leap took $1.4 billion from Google (and others). Apple bought Metaio. Plus major commitments from Microsoft, HTC/Valve, Sony, Samsung and other heavyweights. Serious folks. Not their first rodeo. But hardware is hard race to win. So why this much interest in an unproven early stage hardware market? Look at the future through the lens of the past, and that’s what is happening here. Over the next year, developers will continue to focus on creating more collaborative and social experiences in AR/VR. Facebook’s announced plans for Oculus certainly underscore this. In addition to its partnership with Magic Leap, the NBA announced a partnership between Turner Sports and Intel that will allow fans to watch certain games—beginning with the 2018 NBA All-Star Game—in VR. There are concerns that advancements in AR/VR will have negative effects, including furthering social disconnects. But the overwhelming agreement from the ecosystem is that collaborative and social experiences will be the future of AR/VR, and it suggests that the technology can actually bring people together.
- Oculus Rift and HTC Vive ran neck-and-neck at the top of the list of platforms that startups and tech companies are developing for, a result that largely matches the two platforms’ sales and their placement in the Steam Hardware & Software Survey released in January 2018. The third runner up was Samsung’s Gear VR, followed by Windows Mixed Reality headsets and Google’s Daydream VR, which offered Americans access to VR content from the 2018 Winter Olympics through a partnership with Intel and Olympic Broadcast Service. Video games have commanded the lions share of attention from startups and tech companies on current development efforts, though now, we are seeing nearly as many Developers elaborate another category, that being “Other.” In a data drill down, it turns out that this ”Other” category essentially is content not related to entertainment. As a point example, one developer stated that his company was developing “VR simulations for Real Estate, Architecture, Engineering, Medical & Healthcare and the Oil and Gas industry.” Other development groups listed “business applications,” “training and visualization for the aerospace industry,” “industrial training,” and “real-time in-surgery holograms.” So although the curve will likely track to gaming being the area where we continue to see a large percentage of investments in the next 12 months, more practical applications are going to make major gains as well. Many experts are keeping a close eye on applications of AR and VR in healthcare, with outfits such as Grand View Research, Inc. projecting that the market will reach $5.1 billion by 2025. “The consumer market won’t be the be all end all, rather, Enterprise has and will do much better”
- Virtual and augmented reality deliver a profoundly different and exciting way of interacting with computing environments beyond today’s traditional device ecosystem. To date, VR/AR applications in the market are fascinating consumers as they unlock rich, immersive experiences. As the technology matures, these experiences will create new opportunities and value for both customers and businesses. Generally speaking, the VR/AR space can be divided into three general areas of opportunity: Software and Content, Endpoint devices, and Core Infrastructure. The possibilities and use cases for VR/AR go beyond today’s conventional thinking. It’s a fair bet that when hearing of VR/AR, most consumers immediately revert to gaming, which, when using the above matrix touches only one area of the VR/AR map, endpoints. There has been substantial investment activity and development in endpoints driven largely by companies like Oculus, Magic Leap, Microsoft’s HoloLens, and Google. This has led to a consumer perception of VR/AR products as predominantly an endpoint, consumer-focused technology. Software and content categories, however, represent a larger opportunity. As consumers adopt VR/AR tech in greater numbers and “cross the chasm,” the full extent of these opportunities will blossom. Retail is but one example of where VR/AR holds potential. A Recent Goldman Sachs report disclosed, ecommerce is a $1.5 trillion market today while representing 6% of all retail spending worldwide. The belief is that there is potential to revolutionize ecommerce, opening previously untouched and/or difficult high-end portions of the market. An example of this can be seen from the platform provider Shopify and their Thread Studio. Shopify launched the solution in September and, while currently exclusively available for the HTC Vive, they have plans to expand to other VR/AR devices. As the head of VR at Shopify shared “Thread Studio is a new and interactive way of testing out t-shirt designs.” The user gets placed inside a virtual photo studio, where he or she can upload pre-created designs and lay them on a shirt currently dressed on a mannequin. It’s not the first time xR has taken retail to the next level either. Within the past year, the industry has watched two well known companies Microsoft and Volvo came together to further advance technology within the retail space. Volvo has taken heightened interested in streamlining the buying process for the consumer by deploying augmented reality. This experience is slightly different than virtual reality as the user is not fully immersed in the technology. An interview with Nina Larsen, director of Volvo’s retail marketing reveals that, “The Hololens can allow our customers to see features, colors, options. So rather than working on the computer seeing things, you can be part of the experience.” Not only does this technology help visualize the car the buyer may purchase, but it also explains more difficult features within the vehicle.” Under this paradigm, its easy to see how VR/AR technology can also be used as a more advanced teaching device with full immersion. The healthcare industry has the potential to benefit greatly from the integration of VR and AR technologies in a variety of ways including, diagnosis, planning, training, and even treatments. The benefits of implementing these technologies could have a profound impact on patient and doctor relations and how primary and secondary care is delivered. While the technology is still in the beginning stages of implementation, some companies are investing in research to bring VR/AR healthcare applications to life. Another example? Infinadeck is conducting research on how omnidirectional treadmills can be used for physical therapy when coupled with a virtual reality headset. Early trials have identified a use case to help people recovering from traumas to more quickly regain balance and movement with fewer falls. In addition to defined medical uses, Infinadeck’s technology has the potential to gamify exercise, prompting people to exercise more with the intention of promoting healthier lifestyles and reducing long-term healthcare needs.
- Though technology getting cheaper is usually a sign that we are advancing, and that the market is fertile ground, it still follows the path that we’ve seen time and time again. Its what happens with every technology. The market/ecosystem doesn’t know the specifics about that particular technology, tends to overinflate the impact that technology will have, and then there is disappointment because that technology didn’t meet the expectations. Gradually, ignorance gives way to reality, and the market figures out what the technology is actually good for. We’re all familiar with Gartner's hype cycle graph as evidence that everything's fine. The graph shows that new technology routinely enters a "trough of disillusionment" after a period of inflated expectations. If you believe our social media/news cycle, VR is currently in or emerging from its trough of disillusionment, and if it follows the graph it'll soon move onto the "slope of enlightenment" where the technology matures and eventually gets to true mainstream adoption. VR's current trajectory has so much in common with personal computers. In the 1970s when the Apple II and Atari 800 were released, the pricepoint was somewhere in the neighborhood of $1500-2500 and most people said 'wow these are really cool but who can afford this?’” Sales were initially low, supported by early adopters/true believers, and curious affluent people. And we all know how that story ended. Sometimes there are exceptions to this technology adoption curve, such as 3D TVs, that go crashing down from hype to flop, but there is a general belief that VR is safe from that kind of failure. The issue with 3DTV is it basically only did one thing and no one really found its killer fit, whereas VR has the ability to affect so many industries, gaming and entertainment for certain, but more importantly, enterprise: training, simulation, real estate, cognitive therapies, and healthcare.
- So let's set the stage. Collaboration across geographies and cultures has always been somewhat constrained by the technology of the era. From 1990 – 2000, telepresence was largely phone/email and some video (though not great quality). The best success? Time spent face to face on location. From 2000 – 2010, we began to see more conferencing tools, better conferencing tools (webex, GoToMeeting, skype), data speeds and connectivity worldwide see marked improvement. Time on location is still optimal, but the productivity you can get with options available is a much more feasible proposition. From 2010 – 2020, you’ve got not only good conferencing tools, good quality streaming, good data speeds, but you now have xR (VR/AR). What can’t you do!! The equation has changed, from physical presence being a necessity, to becoming a ‘nice to have but not needed’.
- It’s no secret that our current political climate has inserted some challenges into the collaboration paradigm. From the executive orders on travel that are continuously being battled in our courts, to the changes being done in the allocation of VISAs across the board, the landscape today, is markedly different than that of just a few years ago. Companies (both established and startups) that want to support a global development team, also still face the run of the mill logistical challenges (including travel, time and capital expenditure).
- So how does xR provide potential solutions for collaboration? A Blue Ocean is new territory — something XR creators know well. It has very little competition and it doesn’t require measuring competitive advantage — it’s a completely different game than the one everyone else is playing. Because XR is a complete platform change for most problems, it will often be competing against other platforms such as completing a job via 2D apps for desktop or mobile, watching a video, or even completing the task with physical tools. Most often, it will be replacing our current screens. Some of the real results companies are seeing from the implementation of AR/VR solutions (especially in the areas of collaborative work) include: Reduction in the cost of workforce training Reduction the cost of product design for remote teams Reduction in production cycle times Reduction in customer service costs, travel costs, and even error costs Chances are, for many companies today, xR can either be a part of the value chain or the delivery of their product— The likelihood that it will be the entire product is low but it will affect one or multiple competing factors. As an example, a given industry might compete on the speed of production. By using xR to train new machine operators, they can reduce the time and cost of training, raising effectiveness on the speed factor and thus taking a competitive edge. For startups on the other hand, many are solely focused on AR/VR products — many of which target pieces of the value chain for larger enterprises. Some examples, the team at a company called ScopeAR is creating AR instruction manuals for manufacturing floors. Logistics company DHL successfully carried out a pilot project testing smart glasses and AR in a warehouse in the Netherlands. In cooperation with Ricoh and Ubimax, it used the technology to implement "vision picking" in warehousing operations. Workers were guided through the warehouse by graphics displayed on the smart glass to speed up the picking process and reduce errors. The pilot proved that AR offers added value to logistics and resulted in a 25 percent efficiency increase during the picking process. Ford was one of the first automakers to go all in on virtual technology, beginning in 1999. In 2014, Forbes reported that the company employed dedicated virtual reality specialists to lead the way for engineers to design and build entire vehicles, including autonomous vehicles, in a virtual environment. Today, Ford has a mandatory, multifunctional VR review for all vehicles that go into production. AR and VR can speed the onboarding of new workers and improve productivity by offering more immersive on-the-job training. AR smart glasses that project video, graphics and text can visually guide a worker, step by step, through assembly or maintenance tasks. All that's needed for the worker to complete a repair, for instance, is to gaze at the machine part to be repaired. Upskill and GE Renewable Energy conducted a productivity study using AR to assist workers in wiring a wind turbine. When comparing first-time use of smart glasses powered with Upskill's Skylight software against the traditional process for wiring of a wind turbine, an immediate 34.5 percent productivity improvement was observed. For startups, focusing on helping enterprises innovate along their value chain is low hanging fruit right now.
- For companies that are creating headsets or content, their entire solution may be a standalone AR/VR product. For example, let’s look at Skype on Hololens. For starters, Skype for Hololens is not really competing with other XR conferencing products yet — it’s competing against other ways of getting the job done. They’re not necessarily competing with new social VR software like Facebook Spaces , they’re competing with substitutes. Products reach a Blue Ocean when they successfully change the way the game is played. Your competitive factors are the definition of how the job works in the mind of the customer today. To change it, your offering needs to change the way it emphasizes these factors and/or introduce completely new ones to the marketplace. Ask yourself which factors most offerings consider important — for each one, will you eliminate the emphasis, reduce it, or raise it? Which factors will you introduce that are completely new to the market? In the Skype for Hololens case, they took the approach of Reducing and Eliminating Competitive Factors In-person meetings have the ultimate user base… real life. Hololens on the other hand has a very small user base and with a $3-5k price point for the headset it’s unaffordable for most individuals. Microsoft is sacrificing volume for creating new value that has never been created before. In addition to nearly eliminating accessibility, Skype on Hololens is not as easy to set up as most other solutions and the recording ability is a work-around. Making these sacrifices allows Microsoft to create new value proposition that most tech companies couldn’t achieve as quickly. Despite the headset kinks, the strategy behind Skype for Hololens is to basically mimic the best things about in-person meetings like the range of motion, ability to share visuals and a feeling of connectedness — and bringing those attributes into remote collaboration. If you have the device already, using Skype costs as much as the desktop version but the added value is tremendous. Skype has achieved differentiation without raising cost — that is, sans headset cost.
- Some of the collaboration in XR in the examples I’ve mentioned, wouldn’t be possible without tools and software support. Many of the major Independent Software Vendors that you know well either already have xR-ready software, or are working on ensuring existing toolsuites can work seamlessly in xR environments. There are also a number of new players coming into this space, ready to deploy a solution for a critical piece of the value chain. NVIDIA has its own platform, Holodeck, which empowers designers, and stakeholders to collaborate in a 3D virtual environment. With geography removed as a barrier, remote teams can easily conduct product reviews and gain immediate visual, voice, and gestural feedback from participants. Development timelines can be shortened by viewing photorealistic 3D models from actual CAD data while reducing physical prototype iterations.
- Though the future is bright for xR. It isn’t without its own challenges. And they come down on both sides: hardware and software. Even with the aggressive price wars between major HMD manufacturers, price points are still considered high. Though mobile solutions such as Oculus Go and Daydream are pushing better experiences, the best that VR has to offer is still centered on PC offerings (which have a high requirements bar in order to obtain that experience). There are the physical considerations (headsets still have a way to go in terms of overall weight and ergonomics) nausea is still a concern amongst a larger swath of users, and although controllers have gotten better, consumer grade haptics are still not out of the science lab yet. Software barriers, in addition to those revolving around content, also include those for development (API unification among all HMDs sadly, is not yet quite a reality, though we are getting there). A developer has to seriously target choice of platform because content/playability/UI and actual potential market reach, will all be greatly influenced by that choice.
- But here’s the thing, the big guys are continuing to make big bets, and in the process, pulling many others into the slipstream to join in the adventure. With all of the demonstrated potential in xR collaborative efforts, it’s a hard sell not believe in a future dominated by the technology. Perhaps the key point of difference among observers? Is the eventual timeline of the mainstream.
- I hope you’ve enjoyed this session, thanks for listening, and happy to take questions.