An Evening with ImTech: The Era of Experience
At Techzulu we get the amazing opportunity to attend and participate in events that focus on building and exploring new business opportunities. With ImTech’s “Era of Experience” night, the focus was on the building of not just businesses and projects, but the expansion of a whole new industry.
The term Immersive technology refers to technologies that bridge the gap between the physical and digital world. Think things like virtual & augmented reality, gesture interfaces, interactive media, etc; cool and novel pieces of tech that seek to blend our lives seamlessly with the digital realm. But not just novel anymore, when the film Minority Report came out in 2002, these concepts were admittedly a bit scary, eye scanning spider robots, humans being plugged into computer systems, advertisements bombarding you simply by walking into a mall. That’s sci-fi stuff, impossible in our lifetimes. Just kidding. It’s a lot closer than you’d think; and this event aimed to show it.
Speaking of Minority Report, John Underkoffler, chief scientist at Oblong Industries (the original concept designers of the Minority Report interface system), was present to accept Oblong’s 2010 “Immy” award and to give light to the future of gestural interfaces and where Oblong will play their role. Along with Underkoffler sat high profile players across a large number of fields:
(Full Special Guest Panelist list):
Gregg Apirian – CEO, DVELOP
Andrew Cheeseman – Consultant, Previously Emerging Tech Dir at Mattel, IBM
Greg Davis – General Manager, Total Immersion
Matthew Forrest – COO, Social Animal
Wendy Heimann-Nunes – Partner, Zuber & Taillieu, LLP
Ed Lantz – CEO, Vortex Immersion Media
Phil Lelyveld – Program Manager at USC’s Entertainment Technology Center
Tyler Malin – CEO, Social Animal
Kate McCallum – Founder, c3 VisionLAB
Ernie Merlan – Owner, Merlan Creative
Fred Nikgohar – CEO, RoboDynamics
Patty Rangel – Tech & Product Development, AV Concepts
Gunther Sonnenfeld – SVP, RAPP
Matt Szymczyk – CEO, Zugara
Scott Trowbridge – V.P. Creative R&D, Walt Disney Imagineering
John Underkoffler – Chief Scientist, Oblong Industries
(For a complete gallery of the event photos, click here!)
Three rounds of panelists served to discuss and answer questions on a number of industry questions: gesture interfaces and their growing prevalence in entertainment, interactive media in relation to new technological mediums (such as the iPad) and even some questions on legal issues dealing with identity anonymity. Clearly with the recent explosion of (iPad/iPhone driven) demand for augmented reality and touch-based interfaces, it would seem the lighter sides portrayed in Minority Report don’t seem too far off. And at “The Era of Experience”, we had the chance to rub elbows with the very people leading the charge for these developments!
“The Era of Experience” was a follow-up event to the world’s first Immersive Technology Summit from October 2010. We were also on hand for the summit, with 300+ attendees, and 25,000 viewers tuned it through Techzulu’s live streaming. The organization’s followup event was a bit smaller in physical scale, seeing about 150 attendees, but with 45,000 online viewers tuned in. Located in LA’s industrially eccentric Brewery artist lofts, the evening was hosted in ImTech’s 4,000 square foot factory loft with panel discussion, cocktail, and networking hours set against a dramatic Los Angeles skyline.
Some extra bonuses were a custom laser light show, and open demonstrations of an immersive system by Worldviz. Their system, with head mounted display and motion tracking combo allowed us to walk freely and experience multiple immersive environment first hand. From setting up the decor in a virtual apartment to experiencing the stomach wrenching tingling of plummeting down a 100 foot pitfall, we were happy to see some cutting edge technology first hand.
Overall, we had a great time covering the event. The panelists were professional, knowledgeable, and most importantly, evidently passionate about their work. The ones we did get to chat with were very personable; happy and excited to talk about their projects. Especially when pioneering a completely new industry, we assume it’s extra important to convey that excitement. We definitely appreciated that.
For more information on ImTech, click this link!
ImTech: Era of Experience Part 2
