03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Immersive technologies present a series of ethical dilemmas for experiential designers who have to make morally-ambigious design decisions. For example, the Holocaust Museum had to request Niantic Labs remove it as a PokéStop within Pokémon GO. Respecting this sensitive cultural context seems like an obvious moral intuition, but it also points to a larger open question of who owns virtual space? Should the AR cloud be considered an extension of private property? Or should it be more of a First Amendment free speech zone that democratizes creative expression? Can both be true? How should designers navigate these types of complicated moral dilemmas when the interests of the individual are in conflict with the interests of the collective? This keynote talk by The Voices of VR podcast host Kent Bye will explore the full landscape of ethical and moral dilemmas that creators of augmented reality technologies will be facing in the near future ranging in topics of privacy, ownership, consent, identity, economics, cultural norms, and implicit social contracts.
09:00 AM - 09:30 AM
Ori Inbar, Co-founder and Executive Director of AWE and Super Ventures will kick off the 10th AWE USA with a special welcome address and his annual state of the industry.
For 50 years, computing has been a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional world.
Now, tech giants and thousands of startups who are seeking growth opportunities beyond mobile have set spatial computing on a trajectory for exponential growth. Most large corporations are adopting spatial computing to improve their businesses driven by strong evidence it delivers measurable ROI, and consumers begin to appreciate the radical benefits of this technology which could signal the next dimension of humanity. In 2019, everyone must enter the next dimension to understand the impact it’s bound to have on their lives and businesses.
09:30 AM - 10:00 AM
This keynote will give you hard data and lessons learned on what is and isn't working in AR/VR today, as well as a clear view of where the market is headed over the next 5 years
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Jim Heppelmann, CEO of PTC and co-author of A Manager’s Guide to Augmented Reality, will present the findings of his latest research collaboration with Prof. Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School. As the Augmented Reality (AR) market matures, there are a growing number of capabilities for industrial companies like the real-time capture of front-line processes from the expert’s point-of-view. With these new capabilities comes a set of choices around the strategy, content, and delivery of AR experiences. In this case-study driven keynote, Jim will present a framework of essential questions to capitalize on the promise of AR in the enterprise today.
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Spatial Computing is changing our understanding of AR/VR and MR today, at the dawn of the Age of Light. AR/VR and MR have long been understood as the next step for personal computing. But the emergence of Spatial Computing in self-driving vehicles, robotics, IoT, and screen free displays, breaks the mold of Personal Computing and unleashes computers into the world around us, enabling new forms of multi-user collaboration based on natural interaction, intelligence, proactivity, and social awareness. Spatial Computing and AR/VR/MR share the same core technologies - sensors, compute, AI, machine learning, 3D capture and rendering, ultra fast networks and compute. Creating new kinds of hybrid applications for AR/VR/MR that go beyond Personal Spatial Computing is one of the most exciting opportunities for AR/VR/MR innovators today. And, as the future of these technologies is tied to a bigger shift from electronics to photonics, we are also pioneers of the Age of Light who can help realize a bright future for humanity.
11:30 AM - 12:00 PM
We are at the beginning of a new era in storytelling. Through increasingly immersive and self-directed experiences, digital reality is cracking wide open our understanding of storytelling due to its unique ability to merge the roles of listener and storyteller. While the elements that make stories resonate aren’t likely to change, for marketers to fully realize the opportunity digital reality presents, we will need a new storytelling language that deconstructs and recomposes the elements of story for this new and powerful medium. This presentation will explore how these technologies play into brand storytelling and look at some leading examples of how brands are using digital reality storytelling to build their brand and deliver results.