written by - Eddie Avil
Currently AR/VR/MR is the buzz word believed to be at the cusp of a breakthrough point, enterprise specifically have understood that this technology is no longer gimmicky,It is not just bringing ROI and adding value but stands to become ubiquitous in the years to come.
So far the technology has been out of-reach for the common man because of the price points of both the AR/VR headsets or building experiential content, but the exponential growth and convergence of technologies such as Photonics, IoT, 5G & AI promises not just to bring the price points down but also take us to the next computing revolution "The Spatial Web".
Today the visionary first movers are implementing AR/VR/MR across Enterprise, Healthcare, Education, Gaming plus the Media and Entertainment Industry.
India's film and entertainment industry have been amongst the earliest movers and managed to garner the right kind of Media noise which caught the attention of the common man.
Bahubali India’s Highest grossing film introduced the first of its kind Making of their Film captured in Virtual Reality, Some of the top global studios are implementing “ VR for PR” .
Meraki an Indian VR Content Studio did a short VR Experience for the Bollywood feature film
“Phobia”.
The Startup Industry has been playing a major role in driving the XR Ecosystem forward, India has close to 200 AR/VR/MR Startups providing service, solutions for enterprise as well as building products.
Dimension NXG a startup based out of Mumbai-Thane is building an Augmented Reality headset and you can read the founder/coo Pankaj Raut’s interview plus catch him on XROM Podcast platform soon.
Lull Group another startup from India-Mumbai is building an Augmented Reality Headset, i had an interesting conversation with the founder Suraj Ravi which will be live on XROM Podcast soon.
VC Investors & Accelerators such as TNQ InGage,T-Hub, Zone Startups, SRI Capital, Carpediem Capital , Anthill Studio plus Reliance have been supporting the ecosystem by investing in early stage AR/VR/MR startups.
Kerala Govt is setting up an AR/VR Centre of Excellence
IAMAI has formed a committee to promote Augmented and Virtual Reality
Education Institutes & the Healthcare Industry in India are slowly but steadily warming up to Immersive technologies, notable first movers driving the industry forward are Thakur Institute of Aviation Technology (TIAT),M.G. Patel Sainik School for Girls, Oncologist Dr Vishal Rao amongst others.
The Gaming industry always had an head start it wont take too long for an Indian gaming development studio to start building AAA Immersive Games
Globally Facebook, Google, Microsoft , Magic leap are heavily invested in Augmented/Virtual & Mixed Reality, besides these tech behemoths some of the most innovative Global XR Startups are tirelessly working on building a wearable product that could phase out your mobile and your laptop into a single head mounted device which will have more utility than your mobile and laptop put together.
Apple has been silently and secretly working on it's Augmented Reality Glasses, all of this collectively will herald the world into the next computing platform, Web 2.0
India isn't far behind JIO Reliance India's largest telecom service provider introduced its HoloBoard MR Headset which will be supported by their broadband service, Jio Fiber
I recently spoke to Ashish Gupta General Manager Gaming Ecosystem at JIO and he had a very interesting perspective, while rest of the world is marketing XR to the Youth, Enterprise and is very industry specific, Ashish and JIO' view's XR as a family device and are vested in it for the long run with a vision to democratise AR/VR in India.
I do not know by when would you see mass adoption of augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality in India but under a decade AR/VR/MR will transform the way we live, work and play.
