In Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality News
July 28, 2020 – Mixed reality design and development studio, AfterNow, has today announced the launch and availability of ‘AfterNow Prez Remote’ in private beta. The company states that its new software platform helps to deliver more meaningful and engaging remote meetings by harnessing the power of augmented and virtual reality. By using Oculus or Microsoft head mounted displays (HMDs), executives, sales teams, trainers, and educators can present immersive content to audiences, resulting in increased engagement, satisfaction, and retention while avoiding burnout and fatigue, according to AfterNow.
With many employees and students working and learning from home as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, they are having to rely heavily on remote software. AfterNow states that the drawback to some of the more popular platforms has resulted in experiences such as ‘Zoom Burnout’. Additionally, many people can feel that the typical video set-up doesn’t fit their particular working style. AfterNow Prez Remote makes use of virtual and augmented reality, which the company states can prove to be more effective than Zoom or Powerpoint for communicating, learning, and exchanging ideas, and can help to increase engagement, retention and satisfaction.
“Over the past few years, we’ve been building high end custom immersive presentations for the largest companies in the world and we’ve seen how effective the technology is – we’ve seen positive outcomes when our customers have used AfterNow Prez for sales and internal meetings.” said Philippe Lewicki, Co-founder of AfterNow. “This private beta of our new remote platform is the first step to bringing this technology to everyone – small and medium companies, schools and universities.”
AfterNow is an augmented reality company specializing in custom visualizations and presentations. As a Microsoft Mixed Reality partner, AfterNow has created and designed AR presentations for Fortune 500 companies. Though there are existing VR/AR collaboration platforms like Spatial, Glue, MeetinVR, EngagedVR, and Virbela, to name a few, AfterNow Prez Remote is designed specifically to present. The company claims that this is what makes it more effective for sales, training, and education, in that presenters are able to prepare content specifically for a virtual meeting.
“Almost all of us present ideas to one other. Presenting has become central to how we educate our children and work with our colleagues,” said Dave Birnbaum, HCI expert and AfterNow client. “As we spend an increasing amount of our time in immersive spaces, we will need well- designed software that allows us to make presentations that are richly sensory, nuanced, and convincing. Software that gets this right will be a key enabler of the XR revolution.”
AfterNow Prez Remote requires an internet connection and supports one presenter with up to 500 participants. Hardware platforms supported include Microsoft HoloLens 1 & 2 and Oculus Quest. The platform allows a presenter to upload images, audio, videos, 3D objects, as well as enter text, and organize information into Slides with transitions.
“In 5 to 10 years everyone will be using this technology. Today it’s a great solution for teachers to bring their classes into a students home with engaging 3D animated content and live interaction or a sales team that can go and see their prospects or present a virtual tradeshow.” added Lewicki.
For more information on AfterNow Prez Remote, please visit the company’s website.
Image / video credit: AfterNow / YouTube
About the author
Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.