AWE 2017: Rounding Up All the News from the Augmented World Expo

The Augmented World Expo (AWE), the biggest event for augmented, virtual, and mixed reality companies, developers, customers, and connoisseurs, is happening right now. You know what that means for us here at Next Reality? Companies presenting and exhibiting at AWE are releasing news like crazy.

Lucky for you, Next Reality has boots on the ground covering all of the news emerging from AWE 2017. Here's our recap of Day 1 and Day 2.

1. Prelude

Several vendors trumpeted their AWE news before the conference began. Here's what we picked up before our team even landed in Santa Clara.

Earlier this month, uSens announced the Fingo, a single-camera/dual-lens sensor capable of six degrees of freedom (DOF) head-tracking and 26DOF, which the company brought to AWE 2017.

Lowe's Home Improvement, who are showcasing their augmented and virtual reality innovations at AWE 2017, were highlighted at Google I/O as a pilot project for Google's Visual Positioning Service for Tango.

Last week, Next Reality spoke with Arvizio about their Mixed Reality Studio — a suite of enterprise-level collaboration tools for HoloLens — which they made available for demonstration at AWE 2017.

Another new product we learned about ahead of AWE 2017 was HeadsupAR, a headset from Threye Interactive that leverages smartphones to create mixed reality experiences.

Finally, we concluded our contest giving away free passes to AWE 2017.

2. Day One

The first day of the conference was the calm before the storm.

We did cover a pair of stories involving Epson and their Moverio line of smartglasses. First, Edgybees announced that their Drone Prix AR racing game for DJI drones is now compatible with the Epson Moverio BT-300 Drone Edition.

Later that day, Epson made an announcement of their own, unveiling two new products in their Moverio lineup: the BT-350 (successor to the BT-300) and the Pro BT-2200.

We also spoke with Sean Ong, a developer who displayed ingenuity in bypassing the ban of laptops on certain international flights by connecting a mouse and keyboard to his HoloLens headset.

3. Day Two

This is the day all of the magic happens! Ahem. In between presentations and keynotes, our team had wall-to-wall interviews scheduled.

We filed a pair of stories from Wikitude. First, Scope AR revealed their inclusion of Wikitude's markerless tracking technology in the Remote AR live remote assistance solution, as well as support for Tango devices.

Second, Wikitude presented their inclusion in Lenovo New Vision's Augmented Human Cloud, an enterprise platform competing with the offerings from the likes of PTC, Scope AR, and Upskill.

Speaking of PTC, they announced that they will offer free trials of their ThingWorx platform.

Finally, Meta created buzz with the demonstration of its new augmented reality operating environment. Dubbed Meta Workspace, the launcher features shelves for storing content, numerous virtual monitors, and the magical ability to "pull" content from a smartphone into the headset view.

4. Day 3 and Beyond

The eighth annual Auggie Awards were led by Meta Company, who won Best in Show among augmented reality entrants for their Meta Workspace operating environment. Microsoft, Zappar, Wikitude and Leap Motion, among others, also walked away with trophies.

After the conference, we picked up a few other stories, including an augmented reality campaign conducted by Arloopa for WWF Armenia and a new tunable lens from Deep Optics.

Expect more in-depth coverage and hands-on articles from the conference as our team unpacks. Check back here for more!

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