Wondering what all the buzz is about
when it comes to augmented reality and
virtual reality? Well stay tuned to find
out more!
Welcome to Build, brought to you by
Pivotal Tracker!
I'm your host Poornima Vijayashanker. 
In each episode of Build
innovators and I debunk a number of
myths and misconceptions related to building
products, companies, and your career in tech.
You've probably heard that
augmented reality and virtual reality
are the wave of the future and maybe
you're reluctant to join all the buzz.
Well I don't blame you!
In today's
episode we're gonna debunk a number of
myths and misconceptions related to
augmented reality and virtual reality.
And then in the future episode, we're
going to talk about some of its applications.
And to help us out I've
invited Rose Haft,
who is the CEO and founder of the
Lumenora.
Thanks for joining us today Rose!
Yeah absolutely! Thanks for having me.
Yeah so why don't we just get started by
introducing to our audience, in case
they're not familiar, what exactly is the
difference between augmented reality, AR,
and virtual reality, VR.
Absolutely yeah.
So augmented reality and virtual reality
are a way to have a computer interface
that's very close to the eye that allows
for there to be a different way to
interact with the computer than what you
are used to today. So augmented reality
makes it possible to see what's
happening in the real world, that everyone
else can see, with a little bit of image
overlay that will help to display text
or data. And if you've heard of Magic
Leap, it'll also help to display
holograms and things that look very
lifelike.
The difference between
augmented and virtual reality is that in virtual
reality, you have your own environment
and you're not able to access any of the
exterior world. So you're completely
immersed inside that environment, so it
makes it a little bit more difficult to
see what's happening out where- or
elsewhere, but there are a lot of really
useful applications for being fully
immersed, and reasons why people really enjoy
using it.
So maybe you can tell us what
got you interested in augmented and
virtual reality, and then we can talk
about why you decided to start your
company.
I got interested in augmented
and virtual reality in high school. I
knew I wanted to be an engineer and I
had an opportunity to work as an intern
at one of the local prototyping
facilities. And at that facility we were
working on building advanced headsets
for the military.
I really had a chance to see how having
a hands-free tool that could be worn, can
really do anything from help to save
lives as well as help to communicate
silently between people. I thought it was really
interesting; a different way of
interacting in technology than had ever
been there before.
So what inspired you
to start your company Lumenora?
Yeah so
after working at several companies,
including working at Meta helping to
design the Meta 2, I realized that there
were a lot of logistical and engineering
reasons why people weren't able to build
the headsets that I felt like were
ideal. And also why those reasons are
also part of the reasons why people
don't want to adopt them. And so I was
studying at Stanford, a little bit of
biomedical engineering and how to use
sensors like you would in surgery and I
thought it'd be great to incorporate
them into a headset; and again there
are logistical reasons into doing that.
And so after I found a partner company
that could help solve one of the major
problems in the area and with my unique
background in design, knowing how to
design things differently, it was a really
a great match to build something that is
more advanced, more capable and people
actually want to wear it and use it.
Yeah.
Do you mind sharing the application of
what you're working on?
Yeah so, right now
we're kind of fitting into the
maintenance repair and operations space.
There are over 200 companies
internationally that are using it to do
things like supply chain management,
companies like BMW, who build cars, find
it useful to make sure they're choosing
the right parts and putting them
together in the right way. And making
sure that their quality process, you
don't have to go back and double-check
work; your doing
it right in the first time. So-
It really is a training platform for people.
So
we're adding in extra features and we're
doing some fun and cutting-edge things
that will help to even more improve
those industries, especially like
training. So in order for people to
learn skills and trade crafts, and
majority of the Americans who hold the
same job title, need to go to school to
learn these things and how to work on
specific machines and machine types. And
so we'll be integrating a real-time
training system where you can learn a
new skill or craft in real time, you
don't need to have the several years of
school. So we'll be able to adopt robots
faster and self-driving cars and those
sort of things.
Very nice! So you mentioned early on
that there's been a lot of reluctance to
adopting this new technology, AR and VR,
why is that?
There's a lot of reluctance
for a variety of reasons. People haven't
found that they're stylish enough or
cool enough and also really haven't
found the benefits. They've really only
seen the detriments and pullbacks as far
as: feeling like their security is
being threatened or their privacy would
be threatened because of the ability to
record and take in information. So I
think their- the use cases are just now
starting to be developed; one of my
favorites is there is a 3D graphing app
and absolutes of calculus. And I know
we're doing some fun and cutting-edge
things that really will help the average
everyday person meet typical goals and
those sort of things and it'll make it
better and easier to adopt once those
use cases are there.
Yeah and we'll hold
that thought we're gonna dive into those
these cases in the next episode. So
there's also a lot of myths being
propagated right now and I think one of
them, because of the lack of adoption,
people just are saying that AR VR
is dead and there's not much going on.
Is that true? Are people not building
these headsets anymore? Are they no
longer investing in the technology
infrastructure?
Yeah that's absolutely
not true whatsoever.
Yeah.
There's still a
lot of investing to try to
find the right solutions and the
right designs so people can actually
wear them and adopt them.
I know companies like mine have tried to
stay as much out of the media as
possible because people have spent
billions of dollars trying to find the
right solution and as soon as you put
something out there, people feel like
they can help themselves. So working on
companies like mine who are working on
very proprietary things, we're making
sure that they're developing and
building strength and so we're doing a
lot of things in the background that
can't be seen quite yet.
And eventually we will come to
mainstream once we really feel like
we'll be able to offer something that
people really want.
So are there any other myths that are being propagated
aside from the one around it being dead.
Yeah so people think they're ugly,
the "glass hole" is like the standard term
that's used. We're building something
that will be a lot more sleek and
stylish and have a lot more options in
order to wear it and have it look
different. And I think the use cases that
we're developing will be cool enough and
necessary enough that people want to
adopt it anyways.
So yeah you're seeing a lot of friction just in terms of 
the adoption because of change of behavior,
because people that don't see this as
prevalent, so that makes sense.
There's already a number of big players
in the market today, you know Facebook
has Oculus, Google like you mentioned
used to have Google Glass. So what
exactly is the difference between some
of these big players and maybe what
you're building and what you see other
people building.
The main differences
between each of the companies are the
form factor and the technology
that's being used to develop them. There
are several different optical
technologies that are used and those
really make a big difference in what a
headset looks like. Most of the Virtual
Reality headsets have a screen like your
cell phone that's in front of the eyes, and
there are lenses that help you to see an
image clearly; and that's one type of
technology.
Companies like Google have
something called a beam splitter inside
the Google Glass, and while it's a
smaller-
smaller form factor it has limited
capabilities. Companies like Vuzix
has something called a waveguide that
has limitations around it as far as the
brightness of the image and the amount
of the screen that's able to be filmed;
and that might be a very technical
explanation but-
That's okay we have a
very technical audience. Well this- I'm hoping to
share relevant information. And so the biggest difference between each of
the systems is the way the computer
image is generated and so somebody can
see it. And and those are really the big
three ones that you see right now. Meta
has a direct reflection, I helped to come
up with that design.
I built a- Meta hired me because I had
built a prototype and they thought my
prototype was cool and they hired me out
to help with that.
Yeah that's awesome!
So when our audience out there is trying
to evaluate between fact and fiction
when it comes down to augmented reality
and virtual reality, what would you say
to kind of arm them?
Yeah so in order to
help understand the difference between
fact and fiction in augmented and virtual reality
environment, a lot of companies are going
out and giving a lot of information and
showing pictures and those sort of
things without actually having a product.
So it's really important to look at how
close is whatever is seen actually
able to go out and be used in the world.
And also companies that have a lot of
hype, where they are getting the most
press and it seems the  most exciting, aren't
necessarily the ones who're building the most
most useful tools. So I think it's kind of-
companies can be like people and so if
they're kind of showing off a whole lot,
but not really putting anything behind
behind the game then there's probably a
problem with it. Otherwise I encourage
your audience, everyone out there, to
really learn the science behind what's
happening. And part of the reason why
we've been able to do things differently
at Lumenora because I knew the science
and I was able to go through and do
things differently because I knew the
limitations of the methods trying to be
implemented. So science and also fact
check and double-check if something's
actually ready or usable or wearable. And
companies like Facebook who have a
five-year plan in order to build
something and they've talked about that
at F8 and those sort of things, they
haven't necessarily released anything
publicly to show what they're working on.
And those are the companies that are
more genuinely putting an effort into
creating something useful, before they go
out and get credit for something they've
not yet done.
Yeah, no that makes a lot of sense.
Well thank you so much Rose, this
has been really eye-opening for us! So I
appreciate you coming on the show and
sharing.
Absolutely!
Rose and I want to know
do you have any questions related
to augmented reality and virtual reality?
Let us know what they are in the
comments below.
And that's it for today's
episode of Build! Be sure to subscribe to
our YouTube channel to receive the next
episode where we'll do a deeper dive
into talking about some of the
applications of augmented and virtual
reality.
Ciao for now!
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