XR to Combat Employee Burnout
But First…Cool, if Real
Is this image real?
No! But that’s what makes it so cool. This image is a still from a Salt & Pictures production for Bundeswehr (watch the video here). Salt & Pictures used Gaussian Splats, a type of 3D scene, in their video production. Splats are usually used in gaming and VR to bring real world scans into a digital environment. It’s the opposite of AI image gen. Here’s what the scene actually looked like:
Updates and Wins
NOAA has a new coronagraph (aka sun camera) sending images to Earth. See those space snaps in our Aura app for free on Quest. We turned the stills into a video feed with our image sequencer (which devs can use for free via the Unity Asset Store).
NOAA made headlines the past few weeks as the White House looks to privatize NOAA’s weather services. If this happens NOAA will keep running the sensors and Earth and in space, and Dauntless will keep displaying the data feeds from them, but weather forecasting will go behind a paywall of third party companies. We’re working on some low cost options for customers with space/space weather considerations and that use GIS for things like storm surges and tsunamis. Weather forecasting costs taxpayers in the US about $4/year. How much would you pay to keep the weather app on your phone?
Industry News
Breaking News: Burnout Employees Cost Companies Millions of Dollars. (Fast Co). For anyone who has experienced burn out as an employee this isn’t surprising. A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine quantified how much damage burnout causes to both the individual and company. Fast Company did the math and it equates to $5M/year for a business of 1000 employees. We took notes because overworked employees is one of the main drivers that brings biz leaders to our Katana XR app because it automates the tedious parts of hands-on work.
Meta Replaced Quest for Business Third Party Services (Business Wire). If you’ve tried to get Quest devices into your org but hit roadblocks we have good news: You can now use Quests without linking your personal Meta account to the device if you use a device manager. Meta partnered with third party MDMs to help get more devices into corporate users hands. Why does Meta need third parties like ArborXR and ManageXR to rollout Quests to enterprise users? Because Meta started Quest as a B2C product and then decided to expand to service businesses (B2B). Because Meta built Quest as a consumer product they weren’t thinking about the corporate logistics of stuff like device management and secure sign on. Until now.
Realwear Brings Microsoft Teams to Their Hands-Free Display. (LinkedIn).
Everyone: Teams is dead! Microsoft: But what about Teams in the Metaverse?
If someone was going to make “see what I see” scalable and reliable for front line desk-less workers - Microsoft and RealWear can pull it off. NGL though the promo video made the “call a contact” flow seem cumbersome.
Meta Allegedly Will Move Headset Production to Taiwan to Skirt Tariffs (The Information). Will tariffs impact the AR/VR industry? Yes, but not with higher headset prices. Meta holds 70.8% of the marketshare for headset sales all of which are made in China, and are allegedly moving production to Vietnam to skirt tariffs. Given Meta is selling headsets at a loss already, the tariffs are more likely to siphon future R&D funds, rather than increase headset prices, at least in the short term. Meta can pull any of these levers: take a higher loss on each Quest sale, release fewer updates, longer cycles between Quest launches, and/or consolidation their headset line.What do you think the right call is?
Recently Played >
What our founders listened to this week:
Saved on Socials
The posts, memes and videos that caught our attention and made us think this week.
“In the digital age, the victors are those who control information.” (LinkedIn). Have truer words ever been spoken?
Find Your Purpose With AI. (Website). Things billionaire’s understand that you don’t: the role mindset plays in success (apparently). Peter Diamandis swears by having a massive transformative purpose (MTP) and now you can find you MTP with the help of AI.
Overheard on Slack
“Did I ever think I’d photoshop a flight helmet onto a gorilla for work? No. I did not.” - When you need a product icon ASAP.
“LinkedIn search sucks, does it use Bing under the hood?”
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