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VR headsets can potentially dethrone smartphones as the go to devices to connect and communicate

VR headsets can potentially dethrone smartphones as the go to devices to connect and communicate

You must be in a different world if you have not heard of the metaverse yet. The word became popular after Facebook renamed itself as Meta last year, and said it would invest $10 billion to build a digital land for people to interact and socialise. Facebook is not the only company charting a course to make a name for itself in the digital world. Google and Microsoft are all putting their teams to build a yet-to-be fully understood online space.

Tech titans are busy building hardware and developing software for digital avatars of real people to interact and socialise. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) headsets are therefore, one of the important cogs in this online fantasy land. VR/AR devices are the keys to unlock passage into the digital land. These gadgets take people into the virtual world to meet and greet each other. And some early movers failed to usher in a VR era without these gadgets.

In 2016, Google attempted to corner a share of the market with its Cardboard headset. The disposable spectacle shells allowed users to slide their smartphones into them for short VR experiences. Though the search giant shipped millions of devices to customers for free, it could not make the leap to a consumer headset. Part of the problem was the smartphone used to power these experiences. The phones ability to provide immersive on-the-go experiences were limited as 3D apps drained battery and the units were not easy to set up. At this point, stand-alone VR headsets like Oculus Rift and HTC Vive were providing much better user experiences for a few hundred dollars.

According to market intelligence firm IDC, Facebooks Oculus Quest 2 is the most popular VR device with 78% share of the AR/VR market in 2021. Nearly 9.4 million VR headsets were sold last year, a number that could rise to 13.6 million by the end of this year. The headsets Meta makes cater to individual consumers and are specifically designed for the metaverse that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has envisioned. Not all companies are interested in the retail consumer market where VR will be primarily used for gaming.

At the other end of the mixed reality market is Microsoft. The Window software maker unveiled its augmented reality headset back in 2015 with a $3,000 price tag, an expensive piece of gadget. The Richmond-headquartered company targets enterprise customers to sell its VR gadgets. The industry-defining HoloLens headsets were described at that time of launch as "the most advanced holographic computer the world has ever seen." The device had a self-contained computer with a CPU, a GPU (graphics processing unit), and a hologram processor. It also enabled spatial sound so people could hear holograms from behind them. Complete with a dark visor, the headsets could sense movement and the users immediate surrounding.

HoloLens was several notches above Google Glass, which was similar to Microsofts device but suffered from a slow hardware and patchy application ecosystem.

Three years after the launch, Microsoft signed a $480 million deal with the U.S. Army to sell customised HoloLens, called Integrated Visual Augmented System (IVAS). The headset augmented the view of a user by overlaying digital objects on top of the real world. In 2021, Microsoft bagged another large contract with the same government agency. This time around, it would sell over 1,20,000 HoloLens headsets in a deal worth more than $20 billion over a period of 10 years.

A year on, the software giant is bleeding talent in its augmented reality division. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, nearly 100 people from the mixed reality department left the company within a year. Most of them moved to Meta Platforms to build its products for the metaverse.

If that wasnt enough, the brain behind the HoloLens at Microsoft and the creator of the Kinect camera, Alex Kipman, has resigned following allegations of sexual harassment and verbal abuse. Microsoft developed its industry-defining HoloLens under Kipmans leadership. The headset became the go to device for engineers to run their mixed reality projects. Several companies used the device to train their employees; in some cases, medical students used them to immerse themselves in clinical procedures. Now, as Kipman leaves the company, its entire mixed reality division is undergoing a reorganisation, according to an internal memo obtained by GeekWire.

The talent exodus and the organisational rejig has dealt a blow to Microsofts vision of a mixed reality, making it reroute resources and people at a time when the market for AR/VR is heating up. Some have also pointed out Microsofts plans to partner with Samsung to build its VR gadget as possible reason for a churn within the mixed reality division.

VR headsets can potentially dethrone smartphones as the go to devices to connect and communicate. But companies building VR hardware and software are catering to different class of users some to other businesses, others to individual consumers. Firms are also facing a talent crunch as rivals poach people to build their own products.

The path to a VR future looks blurred for now.

THE GIST

In 2016, Google attempted to corner a share of the market with its Cardboard headset. However, it could not make the leap to a consumer headset as the smartphone used to power these experiences was limited. 3D apps drained battery and the units were not easy to set up.

Microsoftlaunched its augmented reality headset back in 2015. The industry-defining HoloLens headsets had a self-contained computer with a CPU, a GPU, and a hologram processor.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, nearly 100 people from the mixed reality department left Microsoft within a year. The talent exodus has dealt a blow to Microsofts vision of a mixed reality, making it reroute resources and people at a time when the market for AR/VR is heating up.

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Mixed reality has a blurred vision - The Hindu

(WXYZ) Over the last 20 years, technology has advanced rapidly. Along the way, things have come and gone. And now, one of the oldest game-changing softwares in Internet history has been laid to rest.

RELATED: So long, Internet Explorer. The browser retires today

On Wednesday, Microsoft shut down Internet Explorer, one of the world's earliest web browsers to ever be created.

Internet Explorer visuals

At the time of its entrance in 1995, the web browser was considered a hero amongst web users.

A lot of people like to paint Microsoft as kind of the villain in any tech story, but in this particular situation, it basically broke the monopoly that had not yet happened that Netscape was trying to do on the browser market," Charles R. Severance the Clinical Professor at the University of Michigans School of Information said.

Netscape was one of the first web browsers that worked across multiple devices.

The software was created by a group of college students. It was originally free and under the name Mosiac.

Now they had come from University where they had given it away for free and made us all want this really badly, and their first goal was to get rid of the free version of the web browser," Severance said.

It was clear that any new developers who entered the browser industry could be very rich. So Netscape decided to charge each user $50 to download the software.

And that might have happened except for Internet Explorer. And thats where Internet Explorer comes into the picture."

Microsoft realized that if a commercial web browser entered the market then everyone who paid for one of its devices would, in turn, be paying for someone elses software. Thus, they would be making Netscape very rich.

To stop this they decided to create their own web browser and to make it free.

Theres numbers, they hired like 1000 people in late 1994 to build Internet Explorer and it actually included some of the free software that was Mosaic, Severance said.

As technology continued to advance, more and more web browsers began to form and Internet Explorer strived to stand outa tactic that would eventually hurt them.

The whole web continued to evolve, the Internet Explorer did not want to evolve so thats how it goes to be something that we sort of laugh about, Severance said.

Quickly, users began to switch to browsers like Firefox and Google Chrome, but in this day and age, Severance says developers don't work as hard to knock each other out of the browser market, instead they work together to create a better user experience.

So perhaps this signals a golden age of kind of muted competition," Severance said. "Thats the optimistic way to look at the end of the long history of Internet Explorer.

To learn more about the history of Internet Explorer, the fall of Netscape, the rise of Google Chrome, the outlier browser that is Safari, and the future of web browsers as a whole watch the full interview with Charles R. Severance below.

UM professor recaps the life of Internet Explorer, the rise of Google Chrome and more

You can also skim through the video on YouTube. The description has a topic breakdown of the entire interview.

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Bye, Internet Explorer! Whether you love or hate the browser, here's what it's done for us - WXYZ 7 Action News Detroit

If Windows Autopatch arrives in July as planned, some of you will be able to say goodbye to Patch Tuesday.

Windows Autopatch formed part of Microsoft's April announcements on updates to the company's Windows-in-the-cloud product. The tech was in public preview since May.

Aimed at enterprise users running Windows 10 and 11, Autopatch can, in theory, be used to replace the traditional Patch Tuesday to which administrators have become accustomed over the years. A small set of devices will get the patches first before Autopatch moves on to gradually larger sets, gated by checks to ensure that nothing breaks.

If an issue crops up, the updates can be paused, rolled back or just the bits of an update that aren't broken rolled out. The cadence will also increase for urgent updates, such as zero-day threats.

Although Autopatch is available free for users running Windows 10/11 Enterprise E3 and above, there is a cost in terms of granular control. Earlier this month Microsoft confirmed it would not be possible to schedule rollouts only at certain days and times. It will also not be possible to individually approve or deny devices.

PowerShell fans will be disappointed to learn that "Programmatic access to Windows Autopatch is not currently available."

As for where Autopatch pulls its fixes, Windows updates come from the General Availability Channel and Office updates come from the Monthly Enterprise Channel. Teams and Microsoft's Edge browser are special cases Edge has its own update service and the Teams client application is synchronized with changes to the Teams online service.

Drivers and firmware published to Windows Update as "Automatic" will also dribble down to users via Autopatch. Windows Server and Windows multi-session is not, however, supported.

While Patch Tuesday will continue for many of us, there is now an opportunity for administrators immersed in Windows at an enterprise level and tired of the monthly festival of fixes to free up resources and let Autopatch do its thing.

That's as long as admins are willing to trust that Microsoft is better at managing updates than it is at quality control.

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Microsoft readies Windows Autopatch to free admins from dealing with its fixes - The Register

Digital teaching and communication tools are increasingly present in kindergarten to Grade 12 classrooms. By April 2020, not long after the onset of the pandemic, Google Classroom had doubled its users to more than 100 million.

For educational technology companies, the pandemic accelerated opportunities to grow markets and profits.

Whether for facilitating learning, assessing learning or communicating with parents and guardians, digital tools are increasingly part of many childrens and parents school experiences.

In our ever-connected classrooms and societies, one notable element is the use of freemium software software that is free for all users to obtain and use, but only with limited features. For a fee or monthly subscription, users can unlock further features.

Educational settings should focus on equity, especially when it comes to decisions related to the use of technology for teaching and learning.

In educational settings, software whether for teaching and learning or parent-teacher communication should not have tiered offerings where users who have the financial means to pay are privy to a better version of the software with additional features and tools.

School boards and provincial education ministries should focus on implementing universally accessible tools to eliminate two-tier access for learners and families that is enabled with freemium software. This may include licensing commercial software that has been carefully evaluated and assessed for how it supports student learning.

Read more: Investing in technologies for student learning: 4 principles school boards and parents should consider

Freemium software is an excellent marketing strategy and economic driver, and its become popular for multiple applications. Spotify software is one popular example for everyday music listening.

Some examples of educational software that have freemium versions are Prodigy Math and ClassDojo. According to these respective software companies, 20 million students a year use the free version of Prodigy. More than 50 million teachers and families use ClassDojo and more than one million use the plus (premium) version.

Freemium software exacerbates the digital divide for students who may be economically disadvantaged compared to their peers.

In turn, it contributes to whats known as the Matthew Effect where those who have more acquire better, more beneficial experiences compared to those with less who are left behind.

In the cases where schools choose to use software that has a freemium version, boards should license the software to ensure that all learners have equitable access to the tool.

Whats important to understand is freemium software is not actually free software, all things considered. With the data being collected, the provider is gaining valuable data from users.

The software provider gains a direct marketing channel to the parent and child through the application. The developer can now target the user with advertising for advanced features that are accessible if they pay a fee.

The U.S.-based non-profit organization Fairplay has called on schools to say no to using Prodigy, noting that the platforms push to sell premium memberships is relentless, and aimed at kids. In just 19 minutes of studying, we saw 16 ads for membership and only four math problems. In February 2021, the organizatons Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood and advocacy partners sent a letter of complaint to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission about Prodigy.

Parents who are able and willing to pay for premium access may do so without giving it much thought, or assume that the school has selected the tool and there is a cost, likening it to a field trip fee.

Read more: School fees undermine public educations commitment to equity

In addition to offering different forms of student and family access to tools, interactions enabled by premium features of freemium software could affect classroom relationships in inequitable ways.

For example, premium features of Prodigy Math enable parents to compare their childs progress with their peers: if children are privy to this information about classmates, this could affect how they engage with other children. In ClassDojo, if parents pay for the plus version, they are able to access read statuses notifications about when their messages to teachers have been read. Teachers have the ability to turn this feature off.

This has the potential to strain the parent-teacher relationship or to create privileged or priority communication access to teachers by parents who have paid if the teacher feels pressured to respond or be accessible.

As spending continues to increase on educational technology, it is important that software used for teaching and learning is evaluated by educational technology specialists and supported across entire school boards. If freemium software is being used, it should be selected based on evidence and licensed for the users.

Communication platforms need to work well and meet the needs of teachers and instructors while bolstering communication between the school and family without any cost to the parent or guardian.

Increasingly, data security and student privacy are concerns. Software that is deployed for teaching and learning in classrooms should be carefully selected using standard practices.

Proper supports for digital tools are required in order see benefits from tools. Its important to realize that simply making technology accessible to students isnt a guarantee of better learning outcomes: For example, research from the United States shows that the extent to which educators support training and immersion with devices in schools matters to students measurable learning gains.

Read more: Digital platforms alone don't bridge youth divides

In a time when school boards and schools are called upon to implement decisions that address student inequities and narrow the opportunity and access gaps students and families face, the free tier of freemium software is a step in the wrong direction.

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Why freemium software has no place in our classrooms - The Conversation

Sonos has confirmed that customers who received extra, unordered devices as a result of a recent software glitch dont need to return the speakers. Sonos does not require the return of extra equipment and respects the decision of each impacted customer, said spokesperson Madeline Krebs. We have and will continue to be in full compliance with FTC requirements.

A summary of the Federal Trade Commissions (FTC) requirements are outlined on the US agencys website. You never have to pay for things you get but didnt order, the website reads. You also dont have to return unordered merchandise. Youre legally entitled to keep it as a free gift.

The software glitch came to light after Sonoss customers started receiving anywhere from two to five extra devices after placing an order for just one. In some cases, they have even been charged for these unwanted extras. One particularly extreme example saw a customer receive around 30 shipments from Sonos containing roughly $15,000 worth of audio gear. Sonos has been approaching affected customers to offer them refunds where necessary and supplying them with shipping labels to return the extra devices that were sent in error.

But in customer support emails seen by The Verge, support agents havent been forthcoming about the fact that customers are technically allowed to keep these additional devices. One customer tried to cite the FTCs website as evidence that they didnt need to return the three additional Sonos Roam speakers they received after ordering just one. But the companys support agent seemingly ignored these comments, and sent returns labels anyway.

Although the freebies will likely be welcomed by some customers, others might just want to get the bulky packages out of their homes. The customer who received roughly 30 Sonos shipments said that the situation was impacting their relationship with their property manager, after the sheer quantity of deliveries meant they were having to leave the packages in their buildings lobby. The customer said their property managers were being patient about the situation, but were ultimately not happy about the boxes in the lobby.

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Sonos says customers that got extra speakers don't have to send them back - The Verge