Virtual reality in the workplace has made strides in recent years. Employees putting on a VR headset in preparation to collaborate with other colleagues no matter the distance, or employees participating in training through VR to better prepare for real-work situations – these are a couple of examples of the benefits of VR in the workplace.
As convenient as VR can be, there are instances when the headsets are less than ideal. Sometimes they don’t fit as comfortably as users want. Sometimes users experience motion sickness. Whatever the case, users tend to accept the “side effects” because a headset is typically the more ideal way to utilize AR/VR.
This leads to the new path of VR. Mobeus, innovative technology startup, and Oblon, intellectual property law firm, collaborated on a portfolio of patent applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and other international intellectual property regulatory bodies for a new genre of VR that does not require any additional hardware such as AR glasses or VR headsets.
The aim of the collaboration is to create a more inclusive and accessible VR experience through a virtual smart glass technology that enables consumers to see and interact with any existing document, media, website, game or app within the depth of the new VR genre.
The result is an interactive perception of depth surrounding a screen derived from the built-in camera on the device.
An introduction to the technology is available as Mobeus Airglass. Airglass allows users to mix people, applications and drawings. Users also can collaboratively draw by sketching over anything on the screen as well as create short video clips to share with others.
“The first time I tried the prototype comprising the inventions was transformative; the connectedness you feel with your old screen is a new relationship between us and our existing devices,” said James Love, a partner at Oblon.
The portfolio is developed by an international team of inventors, engineers and designers. While putting the portfolio of applications into a broader context, Maryam Imam, Head of Intellectual Property at Mobeus, says that it might be possible to add a virtual smart glass to devices to see this new genre of VR, similarly to how a browser is added to devices to see the internet.
The reach of this new path to VR includes consumers who have existing devices but might need more hardware to experience current genres of VR.
Edited by
Alex Passett
