Wednesday, January 20, 2016

How Virtual Reality May Revolutionize The Food & Beverage Industry


Google Cardboard branded VR headsets
As the expression goes, virtual reality, or VR, has been around the block a couple of times in the last twenty years or so, making a comeback early this decade thanks largely to the gaming industry.

While VR has been defined by gaming in the past, that may change in the future. According to Prateek Jose writing in SnapMunk late last year, “Despite being perceived mostly as an accessory to gaming consoles, virtual reality is an extremely versatile piece of technology. Some early adopters in different industries have shown that it can be used for more than just a novel gaming experience. These implementations may just be what it takes to carry VR into the next stage of its development.”

Early adopters in the food and beverage space are indicative of the kinds of consumer driven VR applications one may see in the future.

Brooke Linville, CEO of IonVR
Accoding to Brooke Linville, CEO of VR headset startup IonVR interviewed at her company's exhibit at CES 2016, “A lot of people talk about games, entertainment, you know the mass part of most cases, but virtual reality is far beyond those experiences. What we are talking about is in the enterprise space and even in the consumer space. How this can apply to retail, how it’s going to apply to food manufacturers, beverage makers, all kinds of interesting applications…We had one guy talk to us about a jerky company who used a virtual reality experience to help sell most of his jerky…he went to a trade show and because virtual reality is such a cool exciting space, he landed a huge food contract because of the experience he offered at the trade show booth.”

Gail Barnes, Brooke Linville, Ben Mann at CES
Read the rest of this article in SnapMunk.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Got milk? Smart fridge and app mean you’ll never run out again!


The Internet Of Things and smart appliances are big at this year’s CES Consumer Electronics Show, which has just ended in Las Vegas. There are internet connected coffee makers, toasters, and ovens all designed to make consumers’ lives easier by letting them manage everything from their mobile phones.

Upping the ante on smart connected appliances, MasterCard and Samsung announced a partnership which will let people buy groceries directly from their fridges! 

Samsung’s new Family Hub refrigerator comes with an Internet enabled screen that people can use to order their groceries through a MasterCard app.

Read the full article on FoodBev here.


‘Virtual reality gets real for food and beverage'







The 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which ended last week in Las Vegas, could be described as the show at which virtual reality (VR) got real.

While motion sickness remains a non-trivial issue for some VR technology suppliers to address, technology like Intel and IonVR’s MotionSync provides a high-quality mobile VR experience using hardware that will work with any VR-compatible mobile device – important from a consumer experience perspective as well as by providing a price point that more businesses and consumers can afford.

Below are some predictions regarding the application of virtual reality (VR) in the food and beverage space, and some examples of pioneering VR work already being done:

1. In what could be described as the most basic application of VR, beyond the conference or video call, food and beverage manufacturers can use VR for enhanced communication between facilities in geographically diverse locations, from day-to-day interaction to special projects and of course, training.

2. When building new facilities or commissioning new equipment, VR could be used for a smoother design-build process, for example when integrating new packaging and processing equipment into a facility or when building and commissioning a new facility.

3. Through VR, the learning opportunities offered by reference plant and site visits become a possibility for many more suppliers’ customers as the constraints of time to travel and cost of travel are removed.

4. VR could assist in food safety and environmental monitoring and quality control, through enhanced training of staff and also in helping personnel in preparing for audits.

Find out my other predictions by clicking here and reading on.