Savannah Niles of Magic Leap at MIT Media Lab Reality Virtually Hackathon

Notes from Savannah Niles’ talk at MIT Media Lab Reality Virtually Hackathon.

On localized and contextualized apps. The thought of bespoke apps naturally speaks to applications that are tailored to your exact locale based on local knowledge.

See the video below. The in the full post (below) have the Q&A note featured in the video.

LOCALIZED AND CONTEXTUAL APPS

Not one interface to rules them all

At MIT we don’t like to only think about Singleton solutions

But dealing with the locale, the space, and the context

As the medium emerges, something more powerful

To authentically integrate digital content into the real world

Stat innovations solutions that are site specific and relative to context

INPUT

[Started with a tight input pallet]

James- made the initial eye tracking graffiti app (former Graffiti Research Lab)

@jamespowderly

5 way controller - able to grow to 6 dof, but also the simplest version to be used for accessibility

Number of calories burned = similar to number of clicks

Gentle interfaces, highly response,

Redundant input is natural and gives users a choice

———————

Embrace collisions and physics when you can

Interactivity is reactivate - make something that can react with your environment

Graceful degradation

(Eg being derezzed)

Eg particle effects and portals - whenever something breaks in your environment reconstruction

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Classically taught recognition over recall - this Don Norman thought

That works on screens, but

The more minimal you render your interface

Morally mash it on an off with buttons, but reveal II with head pose gaze - gaze signals attention

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There has to be a button to go back to reality.

(There has to be a way to dismiss everything / remove everything from your view).

In testing QA said “Hey, there’s a bug. When you press this button you can’t see anything.”

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Use affordances of the physical world to interact with digital things

We'll communicate with apps like we communicate with each other

From gesture to conversation, to gaze, to direct focus

E.g. the "put that there" demo that we've all been told about since the 70s

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Her full-time focus is for shared experiences

Spatiate - multi-person multi-platform drawing application

————

Future of input or interaction?

Her personally - thinks that interacting on physical surfaces - eg tapping on table

Being able to switch from fine to ballistic control - from nearby to further objects in the distance

Q&A

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Skeuomorphism for touch devices was necessary

We'll develop a model for using this device

We use headpose as an input - it is fundamental (even in normal h2h culture)

But people got tripped up on headpose

We'll probably have buttons for a while

————

Everyone will try this as the technology is going viral

Consistency across apps and the ecosystem

————

Hire more diverse teams

unrepresented people with diverse points of view

representations

Educate ourselves

Read more and look at models like the wiki

Collective Authorship

A Focus on Training in VR

Training in VR saves money and probably increases learning, retention and value creation over time at scale.
I believe AR in manufacturing immediately increases efficiency, output and value.

“Virtual reality training by companies like Microsoft is saving lives, millions of dollars, and ensuring the future of mixed reality”

— - CNBC

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/11/vr-training-by-microsoft-and-pixo-vr--saving-money-and-saving-lives.html

CES 2019

AR ruled.
Despite the sad goodbye of some AR innovators at the end of 2018, there’s not a slowdown there is in fact one more SLAM HMD (glasses that understand the physical space around you).
SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) is in many devices. Robots, vacuum cleaners, drones, cars, glasses. Computer vision is so good that SLAM can run from an RGB camera over a mobile web browser (see 8thwall).

Two products that my work touched launched at CES this year.

1. The Apprentice platform - for telepresence and remote collaboration.

2. Lovot - a heart-warming robot from Japan.

   (That doesn’t mean the next step is to control a SLAM robot via your glasses).

What a lovely robot 🤖

🤖💖😄

“Some robots are designed to build cars. Others are meant to perform surgery or help astronauts in space. The Lovot, however, has a far simpler and adorable mission in life: to make you smile.”

— engadget

https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/07/lovot-groove-x-robot-adorable/

✌️ BlippAR

This year, we've seen a few AR companies land on the other side of the Hype Cycle's peak of expectations. BlippAR is the latest. Everyone I met from BlippAR was sharp and responsive. Despite what AdWeek says, BlippAR collaborated with agencies very well. BlippAR, their tools, example applications, and mindset for how AR can apply to our daily lives were more advanced than most companies will be by this time next year. They were advanced in practice, not just theory. And they wanted to advance the practice of AR. Critics say BlippAR may have been too early. But that's better than being way too late. Thanks for giving us a preview of what the next computing platform feels like.

Glasses Reviews

It is obvious we are moving towards a heads up future with information contextually being displayed over places, objects and people.

 Hand held devices will still play a role and often as a control device (like Magic Leap's controller application that is a better source for text input than voice for the interim). 

 On my Instagram stories, I've reviewed some of the most well known HMDs, from binocular 3D with SLAM to sleeker more subtle monocular glasses. 

MIT Media Lab Reality Virtually Hackathon 2019

A collaborative event to apply technology that is ready to break out of R&D.

Last year my team won 2nd place in the Merge Cube Prize.

Follow along here:
https://realityvirtuallyhack.com/

https://twitter.com/realityvrhack

https://www.facebook.com/realityvrhack/

NYVR 2018

Much smaller.

Last year it had its own dedicated exhibition hall with presence from larger players like Samsung and HTC. This year it was part of NY Photo Expo and contained mostly local companies.

Apprentice had a booth and many people were interested in the new form factor for wearable AR.

Image courtesy my friend Jae from SVRF and Church Street Boxing Gym.
https://www.instagram.com/jae_sal/

Parsons' origin

Today at the Parsons Reunion, Kay Unger mentioned that Parsons School of Design was on East 54th street in the 1960s.

Searching for “Parsons East 54th street” pulled up this one relevant result on Google books “The Lives of Danielle Steel.”

Danielle Steel, the the best selling author alive, went to Parsons for a year before dropping out and then going to NYU which she also left before she could graduate.
Here’s a description of what Parsons was like in the 1960’s and how rigorous it was.

source: Google Books.

Bane, Vickie L., and Lorenzo Benet. The Lives of Danielle Steel: the Unauthorized Biography of America's #1 Best-Selling Author. St. Martin's Paperbacks, 1999.

buy the book Lives of Danielle Steele

Magic Leap LEAPCon

The first Magic Leap LEAPCon.