Augmented Reality + Brain Computer Interfaces: Hololens 2, FNIRS, EIT
Learn about two exciting & free San Francisco Events coming up tonight and tomorrow (5/15 & 5/16/2019:
Tonight in San Francisco you can learn about one of the most exciting new Augmented Reality devices called the Hololens 2 at the Microsoft Reactor, and then Tomorrow you can learn about two of the most exciting emerging Brain Computer Interface technologies: FNIRS (Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy) and EIT (Electrical Impedance Tomography)
Tonight at the Microsoft Reactor you can meet Kurtis Eveleigh, one of the main engineers behind the Mixed Reality Toolkit v2.
“ Meet Kurtis Eveleigh, one of Microsoft’s main Engineers behind Mixed Reality Toolkit v2. Kurtis has played a vital role in the evolution of MRTK since its inception as HoloToolkit, to its new modular incarnation that allows cross-platform MR-AR-VR design and development.
“Kurtis will provide an overview of MRTK v2. Then he’ll show you, in the Unity Editor, how to get started developing HoloLens 2 apps that leverage new hardware capabilities using MRTK v2.”
https://www.meetup.com/hololens-mr/events/260928509/
Hololens 2 features a user interface that consists of hand & finger tracking, and eye tracking, so you can interact with 3D polygon based Windows applications in an intuitive & pleasing way. Hololens 2 has more than double the screen viewable area than the original Hololens, and the screen area has been compared to the Magic Leap although Microsoft believes they have the highest resolution device that will lead the AR field for the next few years.
Unlike the Magic Leap and even the Oculus Quest the Hololens 2 is aimed squarely at Business & Military applications. This device is not meant for video games or for consumer sales. Curiously I learned that Microsoft’s mixed reality partners, which include HP, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, and Samsung are all able to make their own Hololens devices, and we may expect Microsoft’s partners to learn from Oculus, to introduce new devices that take design inspiration from the Oculus Quest and the Oculus Rift S.
The Hololens 2 device is a perfect device for medical researchers and neurohackers to experiment with because there is a lot of user activity information that can be gathered from the hand tracking, eye tracking, and environment understanding (semantic segmentation) that Hololens 2 does.
In the future we may also see mixed reality devices incorporate sensors that are traditionally considered to be in the realm of non-invasive brain computer interfaces. I’m talking about near-infrared sensors (HEG), ultra sound sensors, electrical impedance sensing, electroencephalography (EEG), ECG and more.
If you are in San Francisco Thursday you can learn about some of the latest research in this area that Neurotech X meetup in San Francisco. Here are some photos from our last hacknight at the Red Victorian. We are meeting again at the Red Victorian on 5/16/2019 starting at 7pm
The event is called “Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy” featuring a talk by Jonathan Toomim about FNIRS & more.
Jonathan Toomim, who is a Neuroscientist by training, will talk about brain computer interfaces and more, specifically he will talk about FNIRS: Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy, a product that he built in 2014 before he started getting involved with projects like Xthinner and Blocktorrent
Here are some interesting links about Toomim that may give you an idea about some of the interesting projects he has been involved in.
Excerpt:
“Hemo-EncephalographyIn 1999, the late Hershel Toomim and Robert Marsh were awarded the US patent on HEG. HEG uses light to observe blood in the brain through the skull.In 2009, Hershel Toomim and I had the opportunity to discuss the wave. Had he seen it using HEG? His answer was, that he had looked for it, but “No”, he had not seen it. His thinking was that for cerebral homeostasis, the brain micro-manages blood flow, normalizing the wave.
“Hemo-EncephalographyBut could it be a matter of filtering, i.e. very low frequency signals were being excluded? (The way we were able to see the wave plethysmographically was by eliminating the low frequency filtering of the state-of-the-art heart rate variability instrument.)Hershel and I agreed to consider it..He passed away in 2011 at age 95.
“This year I learned that Jonathan Toomim, Hershel’s grandson had continued his HEG research.I connected with Jonathan via Skype, and learned that he had developed a research instrument without filtering.”
https://coherence.com/Breathing_Blood%20Flow_And_The_Brain_Production.pdf
After the talk folks will get to try an FNIRS device and also an EIT Electrical Impedance Tomography device called Spectra by Jean Rintoul
Also watch a podcast I did with J. Toomim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlfAOM4dx90
Here is a podcast I did with the speaker of tomorrow nights event.
More about the podcast here:
Both events are free. I hope to see you there.
Lastly I want to thank Alex Pelin at Tech Events Today (TET) for inviting me to last nights event called VR/AR/MR — a guide to 2019! It was great to learn more about some of the latest AR VR devices. Here are a couple of photos from that event, and a photo I took after leaving the event of the port of San Francisco sign.
The TET event had demos from Magic Leap and Onedome (Hololens)
Speakers included: Emily Olman
- CEO & Co-Founder at SpatialFirst, building spatial computing solutions for commercial real estate
- VR/AR Association San Francisco Chapter, Co-President
- Founder of Hopscotch Interactive, a real estate marketing services company and reality capture provider
- Previously, Robert Bosch Foundation Fellow, and Bosch Foundation grant recipient (AWE 2018)
- MBA, U.C. UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and BA, German Studies, Scripps College, Claremont
Mark Morrison
- Director, Sales: Media, Sports, and Entertainment @ Magic Leap
Heads up all outbound sales and customer partner initiatives for Media, Sports, and Entertainment at Magic Leap.
- Previously: Business Development, Sales, and Marketing at FS Studio, Kudan, uSens, and Daqri focused on immersive XR technologies
- Helped build Unity 3D global games business from 2010–2013
- Also worked at Atari, Midway, and Ubisoft and previous to that film, TV, and music industries
- Father, consumer and emerging tech. Fan looking forward to the Magicverse!
Ashleigh Harris
- Chief Marketing Officer of High Fidelity, an open-source VR platform.
- Co-hosted and co-produced the “VR Identity + Privacy Summit” in November with Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Stanford University.
- Previously, SVP of Marketing at RocketSpace, a startup accelerator and corporate innovation consultancy.
- Extensive startup marketing experience across a variety of industries, from hardware to software, and CPG.
- B.A. from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Suzanne Leibrick
- XR Market Development Engineer at Intel® RealSense™ Technology
- Previously, VR course developer at Udacity
- Prior to Udacity, Creative lead for mobile gaming startup.
- Boost VC Mentor
- President and cofounder ARVR Academy, a diversity focused educational non-profit.
- BS Media Arts and Animation, Art Institute of California, Sacramento.
Leila Amirsadeghi
- Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer at Onedome- Previously SVP Integrated Marketing at Eclipse Advertising, (Entertainment Marketing Agency).
- Prior to that VP Client Engagement at Trailer Park (Entertainment Marketing Agency).
- 20 years on the agency side working with the world’s largest brands and entertainment properties. Extensive experience in digital product development and integrated marketing experiences across Entertainment, Technology, Gaming, LBE & CPG.
- Recent notable work prior to Onedome includes launching the digital marketing & experiential campaigns for Star Trek: Discovery, Netflix Lost in Space, Warner Bros. Pictures Ready Player One and rebuilding the Oscars.com platform across web and mobile.
- BSc (Hons) Investment & Financial Risk Management, City University Business School London.
