Content futurists alert! The eighth edition of Augmented World Expo (AWE) – the world’s largest augmented reality, virtual reality and wearable technology expo – took place in Santa Clara, California on 31 May-2 June.
Augmented reality hardware and software is still in the early stages relatively speaking but it is improving all the time, and many brands are keeping a keen eye out for AR applications that will help their business – which means jobs for the suitably skilled. As one of our recruitment areas at Firehead, the field of AR content is increasingly one to watch and so AWE is one of the most fascinating conferences for us to tune into, albeit from afar. We’re also looking forward to AWE’s European event in Munich, Germany on 19-20 October.
While AR content jobs and opportunities for digital communicators are not yet mainstream, it is certainly an area to watch. So here are some of our collected highlights from the main event to add to your bookmarks…
Keynotes
Catch up on the various filmed talks – too many to list individually.
- Opening keynote by Ori Inbar (Founder and CEO of AugmentedReality.Org)
- 36 keynotes and talks from Awe 2017, from AR in Pokémon Go to the current state of AR
- Other AR tracks
Who won the Auggies?
The list of 2017 Auggie Award winners provides a quick view of ‘ones to watch’ in the worlds of augmented and virtual reality.
Roundups and reviews
Keep abreast of the latest AR and VR inventions and state of the industry with these summaries.
- AWE in the news – a great roundup list to choose from
- All the News from the Augmented World Expo (Augmented Reality News)
- The Augmented World Expo proves AR isn’t ready for prime time, but it’s still pretty cool (Digital Trends)
- California’s Augmented World Expo reveals dozens of new VR and AR tech (Mobile Syrup)
- Five Big Takeaways (So Far) From The Augmented World Expo (Forbes)
- The best – and weirdest – things we saw at Augmented World Expo 2017 (Wareable)
We were particularly interested in this AWE highlights post by John Hopkins University PHD student Long Qian who attended #Awe2017. He notes that content providers were thin on the ground at the event, suggesting that this demonstrated the fact that hardware and software for AR is still not ready yet.
“In my opinion, content providers are the key to the life or death of a certain technology. Even if the hardware is cool to use, it needs to be useful for the public, and content providers create useful things,” says Long Qian. “I hope augmented reality content providers will be gathered at AWE soon, and that’s the real era of augmented reality.”
We hope so too.
As CJ Walker, founder and director of Firehead, said in 2014: “While technological advances drive the headlines, it’s relevant, interesting and accessible content that will help bring AR alive and into the mainstream.”
What do you think?
Are you working on the content side of augmented reality? What does the work involve and what are the opportunities and skills you need for the job? We’re looking for people to do one of our job insight Q&As – please get in touch if you’re an AR evangelist working in digital communications and are interested in being interviewed for the series.
You might also like:
