Brief Reality: Augmented Reality Companies Earn Accolades for Innovation

A pair of organizations recognized companies working in augmented reality for their innovative technologies over the past week. Meanwhile, another company used augmented reality for a sector that is overdue for a technology makeover, while another company has developed new camera modules that could usher in the next evolution of mobile AR.

IDC Profiles Five AR Headset Makers as Emerging Innovators

International Data Corporation (IDC) released a report last week profiling DAQRI, Meta, Vuzix, ODG and Optinvent as five innovators in augmented reality headsets.

The companies were chosen for the report based on them having revenue under $100 million at the time of selection and due to their Innovative approach to business and technology.

"The concept of hands-free augmented reality head-mounted displays has been around for quite some time, but the technologies necessary to bring such devices to a broader enterprise market have only coalesced in the past few years," said Tom Mainelli, IDC program vice president, devices and AR/VR, in a news release. "These five innovative vendors are well positioned to succeed as competition begins to heat up and larger companies such as Microsoft, Epson, Intel, and others begin to focus an increasing amount of attention on the space," he added.

According to a report by Markets and Markets, the head-mounted display market is expected to be worth more than $25 billion by 2022.

ENGIE Winning Startup Goes to Fieldbit

Fieldbit, a provider of augmented reality solutions for field services, emerged as the winning startup at the third annual Innovation Week hosted by European energy company ENGIE.

The third annual Innovation Week invites innovative companies from around the world to participate. Hundreds of applicants apply for recognition at the event.

"It is an honor to be selected as a winning startup by ENGIE, one of the world's largest energy providers," said Evyatar Meiron, CEO of Fieldbit, in a news release. "We look forward to strengthening our cooperation with ENGIE as their field engineers proceed with the evaluation of our augmented reality platform."

Fieldbit operates in the same space as companies like Upskill and Scope AR, providing remote assistance and knowledge capture solutions for enterprises.

Titan HST Applies AR to Emergency Response Solution

Titan Health and Security Technologies, Inc. introduced a next-generation 911 platform that integrates augmented reality into emergency communications.

With the Titan HST platform and the accompanying mobile app for iOS and Android, law enforcement and campus administrators can improve emergency response by utilize augmented reality and crowd-sourced data to pinpoint locations. The platform also provides communications tools for emergency alerts and broadcasts.

"With the frequency of emergencies on the rise, the future of safety demands a unified, simple, immediate and reliable way to obtain help. Old emergency communications systems fail to timely notify necessary parties due to failure in adopted technology, reliance on a single outdated medium, or due to incorrect user data during an emergency. Survivors tell us that lives would have been saved if only they had the Titan HST system in place," said Vic A. Merjanian, Founder and CEO, in a news release.

SoftKinetic Develops New Camera Module for Mobile AR

Sony subsidiary SoftKinetic has applied the DepthSense time-of-flight technology to camera modules for mobile devices.

The module, if adopted by smartphone makers, would enable facial recognition security and gesture control for AR applications. The company had previously applied the gesture control features to infotainment systems in automobiles.

Prototypes will be on display at Mobile World Congress in Shanghai this week.

Every Tuesday, Next Reality gives readers a rundown of the augmented and mixed reality news briefs from the preceding week that we didn't cover already. This way, you'll never miss anything of importance in the Next Reality landscape, and will always know what's going on with new augmented and mixed reality tech and applications. You can browse previous Brief Reality reports, too, if you'd like.

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