"Are we crossing the chasm in wearable AR?": 3rd Workshop on Wearable Systems for Industrial Augmented Reality Applications

Abstract

The term "Crossing the Chasm", coined by Geoffrey A. Moore [1], states that there is a significant time gap in high-tech marketing between the phase of early adopters and visionaries using new products and the early majority. With the latest success of wearable devices or the marketing of such devices, we seem to cross the chasm in wearable technology in general. One of the ideal pictures, we painted over the last years, is the use of Augmented Reality-based wearable computing systems overlaying our view of the real world with useful information. Such systems, though, are only about to become commodities or actual tools and many research results presented at previous ISWC conferences have yet to be implemented and industrialized. Augmented Reality (AR) is a successful application area of Wearable Computing, especially for professional, industrial settings, in which mobility is an important factor. With the proliferation of mobile technology in the workplace, wearable computing research can offer a valuable contribution to the usability of mobile solutions, such as the use of context information to inform devices and services of the current task and user situation, relieve professionals of tedious and repetitive information entry tasks and increase worker safety in complex and hazardous environments. Wearable AR systems in general are widely utilized in various domains, including architecture, military, tourism, navigation, and entertainment. Such diverse usages impose several challenges on researchers from both areas of Augmented Reality and Wearable Computing, such as interaction, activity and context recognition, wearability, design, and modeling. We invite researchers and industrial developers from relevant disciplines to a one-day workshop held in conjunction with ISWC 2014 and UbiComp 2014 to present novel works and discuss the application of state-of-the-art Wearable Computing research and Augmented Reality systems. The workshop provides an opportunity for directed discussion to identify current issues, research topics, and solution approaches, which lead to the proposal of future research directions.