A couple of weeks ago, Barcelona hosted the world’s largest gathering for the mobile industry, the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017. The huge event covers a wide scope of everything “mobile”. The telecom focus of this year’s event was the 5G technology and its implications to human life. The demonstrations and representations of these implications appear in various forms such as connected cities, connected cars, smart buildings using various media types, etc.
Virtual reality was also highly visible at the event, as a vast majority of the big brands used VR applications in one way or the other. Some used it to demonstrate their product or services, while for others it was just a hook to catch the attention of the audience. QUALCOMM, for example, enabled visitors to embody their favorite Power Ranger character using a 360-animated video produced by Lions Gate. Ford introduced an auto-delivery experience using drones within their city of tomorrow concept. Mercedes-Benz was showing a virtual car configurator. Intel had 360 VR streaming and untethered wireless VR. Nokia offered a gamified tile-breaking demo showing comparison between 5G and 4G, while Samsung had multiple Gear VR stations involving various types of moving or rotating seats.
HTC, one of the immersive VR device manufacturers, also had a large presence at MWC. While its competitor Oculus probably decided only to attend the Game Developers Conference, which was arranged at the same time, HTC had almost 10 Vive stations showcasing different products and features including the new tracker.
Microsoft’s HoloLens was in frequent use in several demonstrations, though not so much as VR yet. But it definitely seems that mixed reality will be used more in the upcoming shows. For example, one of the attraction points at the event was Intel’s connected cars experience that features a BMW and a significant number of HoloLenses showcasing IoT, 5G and the city life.
As Stereoscape, we visited this year’s MWC with a special interest, as we wanted to get personal feedback on a customer project. The project; visual presentations with 3D content, interactive video applications, AR demo and mobile applications for one of the biggest companies in the mobile industry was presented at the event for the first time. It was a rewarding and informative experience to observe how Stereoscape’s 3-month long project was used in the real context by the product owners.
Ferhat Sen
CTO, Stereoscape
