A conference gauging the progress of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies, which are receiving attention as the multimedia services of the future, was held on July 22. Participants are experiencing the new devices. (Image : SK Telecom)
Seoul, July 23 (Korea Bizwire) – A conference gauging the progress of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies, which are receiving attention as the multimedia services of the future, was held on July 22.
SK Telecom hosted a forum to discuss the present and future of immersive multimedia services such as augmented reality and virtual reality. Many developers from academic circles as well as officials from information and communications technology (ICT) companies such as Microsoft and Google were present.
Augmented reality blends reality and virtual environments to provide additional information of use in the real world. Virtual reality creates a certain ‘fake’ environment, making consumers feel as if they are interacting with their surroundings.
Titled ‘The Present and Future of Virtual Experience Technologies, towards the 5G era’, professor Woo Woon-tek from KAIST, an authority on augmented reality, gave a speech that talked about how AR could be adopted in the 5G era, and professor Park Jae-hyung from Inha University emphasized the importance of 3D displays in immersive multimedia services.
Eitan Marder-Eppstein, a senior software engineer at Google, talked about a new IT device called ‘Tango’, which senses three dimensional space with a 3D sensor. He predicted that a future when smartphones and tablet PCs can recognize space like humans is not very far away.
The ‘HoloLens’ from MS drew great interest of the participants, as details about the new product had been scarce. Park Joong-seok, Microsoft’s technology evangelist, introduced the AR device that is currently under development, predicting that the scene from ‘Iron Man’ where Tony Stark works with a hologram screen could happen in reality.
SK Telecom announced their current technical development status and outcome, including a report on ‘T-AR for Tango’, which was revealed at the Google Annual Developers Conference in May. They also introduced the ‘T-AR for CardBoard’, a developer’s toolkit enabling an easy way to create applications that provide AR and VR experiences using the Google keyboard.
Choi Jin-sung, head of technology at SK Telecom, offered his predictions for the future, saying, “The 5G era which is approaching will evolve in a direction that provides experiences that exceed boundaries of reality and virtual reality”. He promised to discover a future service that would lead the approaching 5G era, and activate the ecosystem, making connections with the T-Open Lab.
By Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
