HP Innovation Journal Issue 06: Spring 2017 | Page 8

H
eadlines in 2016 proclaimed, “The Year of Gear VR headset. Smaller players have also flood-
Consumer VR has driven the first wave of
VR!”, heralding unmistakable momentum ed into the industry in the past year.
commercial VR. Customers in HP’s commercial
reflected by exciting new product arrivals
Mark Zuckerberg’s declared intent to invest segments including product design, AEC, digi-
(notably headsets),
tal media and enter-
a vibrant ecosystem,
tainment, training and
and steadily increasing
simulation, health-
The View-Master system was introduced in
VC investment. This
care and education,
1939, four years after Kodachrome color film
came to market. Early units were made of
looks to increase even
are testing VR in their
Bakelite.
further in 2017; here
workflows.
Stereoscopic photography
Sutherland’s numerous
mid-1800s
graduate students went
are some promising
In the automotive
on to sow the seeds of
modern computer
indications.
industry, VR enables
graphics and VR.
immersive design re-
The Sword of Damocles, created
in 1968 by computer scientist
Follow the
views for dispersed
Ivan Sutherland, is considered to
have been the first head-mounted
teams. Solutions are
money
virtual reality and augmented reality
also proliferating in
system. The equipment was so
Brewster-type
heavy it was suspended by an
stereoscope, 1870
Facebook’s acquisition
training: a recent proj-
arm overhead—hence the
product
name.
It
showed
images
in
of Oculus in 2014 was
ect by Brazil’s power
stereoscopic display tracked to head
arguably the tipping
distribution company
movement.
point for mainstream
intends to reduce costs
virtual reality. It woke the industry and the public another $3 billion in the next decade reflects and improve safety. Major theme park provid-
to the technology’s potential and validated the industry optimism about the outlook for VR, ers and movie studios are creating VR content
market. Since then, venture capital investments in despite lukewarm sales of VR products.
to deliver new experiences to their customers.
VR and AR reached $2.3B in 2016 alone. Goldman
Where’s the smart money and momentum
Sachs estimates the market for VR and AR to in the consumer and commercial VR markets?
Technology maturity: Ready
reach $80 billion by 2025.
Gamers are VR’s early adopters. But de- for Prime Time
Microsoft and Google are making strategic veloping AAA (highest quality) gaming titles is
platform investments. Microsoft is releasing expensive. With emerging content, as well as Technology maturity may be the simple reason
Windows Holographic this spring and is partner- movies, sporting events and concerts get closer we are seeing VR finally take-off. In VR, the user
ing with all major PC OEMs on low-cost, high-res- to true 360° VR and Cinematic VR experiences, experience needs to be excellent, short of which,
olution Head Mounted
will result in motion
Displays (HMDs) with
sickness and dizzi-
Manufacturing
Maintenance
Research
inside-out tracking.
ness for the user. The
Design
Training
Marketing
Google has intro-
minimum acceptable
duced the Daydream
level has at last been
platform, based on
reached, though there
Android.
is much room for im-
The HTC, Oculus
provement. Consider
and Sony invest-
the elements required
ments in VR head-
to deliver a quality VR
sets has yielded three
experience, and the
great products which
technologies which
launched in 2016.
support them.
A number of VR
Resolution:
ready PCs were also
Watching a monitor
launched, including
from a few feet away
HP’s OMEN products. These PCs, with top-shelf they are expected to attract a larger audience the field of view is quite small, roughly 30-40
GPUs, are capable of driving rich VR experiences for mainstream consumer adoption. The cost degrees. In an HMD it’s roughly 100 degrees. As
with the new headsets. Microsoft, Google, Intel, of production in this category is comparatively the display resolution is stretched across this
and Qualcomm all have detailed their plans for low, and content distribution is on a larger scale, much wider field of view, individual pixels can
VR, and Samsung released a second-generation following a pay-per-view model.
become visible resulting in “screen door” artifacts
and indistinct imagery. In 2017, the industry will
Milestones on the road to Virtual Reality
8 Innovation Journal · Issue 6 · Spring 2017