Believe it or not but one can start the day by doing Yoga and enjoying tranquil seascapes and sunrise from the top of an Indonesian mountain, attend an interactive meeting at client premises in the USA, visit Mars during your lunch break, spend leisure time at SKY lounge of Burj Khalifa, roam around a jungle-clad Borneo island in Southeast Asia, and fly to a European country for dinner – all these in a single day. This is possible just because of the advancement in immersive technologies. These technologies simply create the world within a world; Individuals who believe that they are not experiencing these technologies today, already are. We are in the imagination age where immersive technologies like Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR) and Extended Reality (XR) has made each one of us superhero.
Today, AR and VR need no introduction. Although there is no industry-wide agreement on MR, it helps actual and imaginary components interact unitedly. Qualcomm® makes some of the best technologies on the planet and was working with Khronos on developing royalty-free standard for access to VR/AR platforms and devices. Eventually, they saw the convergence of these engaging technologies (AR, VR and MR) and started to collectively portray them as Extended Reality (XR) – That’s how XR becomes a hypernym with X as a variable. Three years ago, XR was quite a new term and now all the major conferences have started to use XR as the default term.
XR solutions are taking the complexity of technology to a very different level and call for high-end image and video processing with multiple camera support for 8K 360° video, AI capabilities, Seamless and ubiquitous 5G connectivity, Noise cancellation with voice enablement, and Vault-like security. These solutions can only be mass adopted if the associated cost is justifiably low. Moreover, it is very much essential for XR solution to be “Always-on” and at the same time to be a sleeker, fashionable and comfortable one. High performance, low latency, and low Power – that’s like a Mantra! Devices built around XR technology can save time and cost (in long run) reduce risk and first-time errors for all the parties involved. Let’s see how Qualcomm has contributed in overcoming these issues by working on technological advancements required for delivering XR solution.
Qualcomm’s contribution in XR
Qualcomm’s journey on XR has begun 10 years ago and is developing the foundational technology required for XR. It not only solves problems related to cost and low power requirement but also solves display, power and thermal, motion tracking, and connectivity issues. Qualcomm® is taking us one step nearer every day to make us experience immersive technologies. They have been working on AR SDK and a lot of other perception technologies to close the gap between what we experience as humans in reality and what you would see in a simulated environment. Qualcomm® has delivered the best silicon in terms of power, performance, and affordability with the announcement of two dedicated chips – XR1 and XR2 – and other XR-capable Snapdragon™ 845, 855, 865 processors for XR market.
Most Efficient Use Cases of XR
The roller coaster ride of XR has just begun. The use-cases for XR devices and the potential of that is still unknown but it’s a WIN-WIN for both, consumers and enterprises. We didn’t know before 15 years that you can book a car or order food on your fingertips. XR is meant to be mobile and can do wonders for almost every industry. Let’s explore some of the efficient use cases of XR technology.
Entertainment, Gaming, Sports and other leisure experience
Moviemaking and Gaming have always been propelled by interactive technologies. I am not that much into movies, but aware of immersive technologies used in visually stunning sci-fi movies like Avatar and Iron Man. XR enhances comprehensive participation and allows users to dive into a completely different reality. One can even play the lawn Tennis in Tennis-floor size room with nothing like an actual net in between. Leisure activities like attending live music concerts, sports events, exhibitions, traveling to unexplored places, and visiting an art museum while sitting at home can surely be fun on XR device. Art exhibitions can be made much more engaging with these interactive technologies for both, visitors and artists.
Real Estate, Design & Manufacturing, and Retail
XR solutions can make real estate and interior designing companies stress-free from creating the actual structure or even a sample house. XR device allows buyers or tenants to walk virtually through real estate properties and interior design work and further enhance customer experience while providing strong business opportunities. Coupled with intelligent data, XR is changing the way people work and driving industrial innovation. XR is particularly helpful in design, prototyping, and manufacturing as well as in the testing. XR streamlines the production workflows. XR can also be very effective in Repair and Maintenance operations; technicians in the fields can also get help from more experienced technicians in the office through XR. XR allows retail buyers to experience and decide before purchasing anything from e-commerce platforms or offline stores.
Healthcare
XR helps the health sector by providing 3D visualization of internal organs and micro parts of the human body structure like veins, blood vessels, cells. This improves the efficiency of diagnosing and surgical accuracies. Modern MRI and CT scan devices make extensive use of this technology. Also, better surgical training experience is possible with XR as students can practice on virtual patients.
Education and Training
A learner can gain knowledge of his interest from immersive learning tools and devices. Students can even have field trips while sitting in their classroom and even enjoy “School from Home” using XR. Subjects like History can also be learned with great interest. XR allows employees to be trained and educated in low-risk, virtual environments. XR provides hyper-realistic training tools that can help soldiers, surgeons, firefighters, pilots/astronauts, and chemists, without putting their lives at risk, to have an invaluable learning experience, yet make them capable of doing their job in real-life situations.
Marketing
XR can replace physical manuals with the virtual and interactive one. XR enables marketers to give their consumers a chance to experience the product before buying. It can also connect an expert remotely to the real-time issue for his expert advice. Sony Pictures had given an interactive AR experience to its viewers for their latest Jumanji movie.
Being a Snapdragon™ Technology Partner and Qualcomm® licensee, eInfochips has an intricate understanding of different Snapdragon™ and other platforms of Qualcomm. With 25 years of end to end product development experience, we have successfully delivered engineering solutions on immersive technologies like AR and VR. To know more about eInfochips’ solutions, get in touch with us.
