Category: Featured News

Google’s new video offered a mixed-reality style environment to bring digital and physical objects together.

Trixi Studios recently released a video that brought the new BB-8 Star Wars droid into a fun new augmented reality based environment in which digital objects were brought into the physical environment.

This experience was meant to provide Star Wars fans with a fun glimpse into what AR technology can do.

Despite the fact that Project Tango at Google and Hololens from Microsoft are both considered to be in the early phases of development, they are both working at full tilt to try to make the augmented reality experience more broadly available. Some of the recent releases have include the Hololens development kit from Microsoft that comes with a price tag of $3,000, while the development kit from Project Tango is a notably more affordable $512. The release of the Star Wars simulation was only one of a range of AR technology based teasers that have been released over YouTube in recent weeks.

There have also been several other players that have been strutting their augmented reality stuff.

Among them was the rather mysterious Magic Leap, which has been quite secretive about what it’s been up to. That said, it didn’t hold off releasing its own AR technology based video recently. With each new release, it becomes more clear that the tech has quite a bit to offer in terms of a unique and fascinating experience for users.

When it comes to the more recent Star Wars video, while the BB-8 droid was featured, it wasn’t the only character that made its way into the spotlight. In fact, there were several character interactions available as the creator of the video made it possible to provide digital representations of Boba Fett and Stormtroopers to be fought off.

While it is clear in the videos that the animations remain in earlier forms, the point wasn’t to show how accurate and detailed the animations could be. Instead, it was a fascinating demonstration of the type of features augmented reality could have to offer. The fact that top Star Wars characters were brought into the mix showed that there is some meaningful potential on the fun side of the spectrum.

Report shows that mobile commerce will see major growth through 2020

Mobile commerce is expected to see significant growth in the coming years, according to a the Mobile Checkout Report from BI Intelligence. Notably, the report contradicts others in showing that consumers are shopping via mobile browsers rather than applications. This may be bad news for some retailers, as some are beginning to develop their own mobile payments apps in an effort to effectively engage mobile shoppers. Regardless of this, however, more consumers are expected to use their mobile devices to shop online.

Mobile will account for 45% of all online sales by 2020

The report shows that mobile commerce accounted for 12% of the $303 billion e-commerce sales that were recorded in the U.S. last year. By 2020, however, BI Intelligence predicts that mobile will account for 45% of all online sales, with e-commerce sales expected to reach $632 billion that year. The report shows that adult consumers are spending more time shopping on a mobile device, but they are actually making online purchases through other channels.

Digital commerce is growing more quickly than conventional retail

The growth of digital commerce is outpacing the growth of traditional retail. According to information from the Department of Commerce, retail sales saw a 2% increase during the last quarter of 2014. By comparison, digital commerce saw 15% growth during the same time period. Mobile devices played a major role in the growth of digital commerce, as more consumers are beginning to rely on their smartphones and tablets to get their shopping done.

Retailers are having trouble encouraging consumers to actually make purchases from their mobile devices

Retailers are beginning to find it difficult to convert mobile shoppers into actual paying customers. The report from BI Intelligence shows consumers are quite willing to use their smartphones to browse for products and do research on items they may be interested in. After conducting such research, consumers often go to their computers to make purchases, as they see conventional e-commerce as a convenient way to purchase the products that they are interested in.