AWE 2015 – Why I am Going

The Augmented World Expo 2015 starts today. I learned about it through @VDCwhiz Cesar Escalante at work. He and I are volunteers at the conference in order to get free conference passes. The conference is at the Santa Clara Convention Center. I am taking Caltrain to the conference, my first trip using the “real” train south. It’s only a 2 hour trip door to door, but I truly feel like I am leaving the city for a conference, but get to sleep in my own bed each night. I hope to get some work done during to commute.

I plan to get my badge, take a few classes this morning and volunteer this afternoon. I then get full access the next two days.

Why am I going? This is not your typical AECO conference. In fact, I don’t expect to see many from “our” world there. There is one session tomorrow with my friend @MetaverseOne Damon Hernedez, hacker behind @AECHackathon. His panel will be talking about AR in Real Estate and Construction. I am going because this will enter the AEC market soon. We as an industry are typically slow to evolve, embrace change, or implement new technology. Microsoft Hololense is getting attention as of late and since the SketchUp team is trying to integrate it; Architects at the AIA are now gaining interest. Construction has started to show interest from what I observed at FutureTech and the BIMForum. Players like Daqri have been showing of their AR integrated hard hat. I plan to check it out on the exhibit floor. Many design firms want to put their creations in gaming engines, but they don’t know what that means. They download a free version of Unity and hope to create an Xbox experience for a tech savvy client. Google ended their developer conference keynote last week with VR, showing the new 360 GoPro drone with 360 Hero coming soon. Why end a huge keynote at a critical conference if VR if it’s not of interest to an important innovation company like Google. I know I am paying more attention. I am going to see what more I don’t know and could learn about Augmented Reality. Could AR be the next disruptive technology? I plan to find out this week.

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