Johnstown, PA April 16, 2019

Extended Reality (XR), which encompasses Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR), is quickly moving from research to the real world. Organizations as diverse as Walmart, the U.S. Army, and Porsche are applying XR to improve their operations and experiences.

Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC) sponsored the VR/AR Association Pittsburgh’s “XR Executive Summit” on April 10 at Carlow College. Business leaders gathered to understand and identify opportunities for XR in their own enterprises.

A highlight of the evening was keynote speaker Yaser Sheikh, Director of the Facebook Reality Lab in Pittsburgh. He talked about the cutting-edge technology they’re developing to create photorealistic social interactions in AR and VR. Attendees also experienced VR and AR firsthand and heard from a panel of experts across industries.

“This was a very valuable session in that it introduced how Extended Reality can benefit organizations,” said Ron Punako, Senior Mixed Reality Research Engineer. “With its focus on robotics and data science, the Pittsburgh area provides a rich environment for working with XR in support of process automation and monitoring, job performance, and training.”