The current generation of 4G devices are great, if you want to chat faster, share photos, or stream a movie on the go. But for real-time spatial computing technologies -- like XR, for example -- that just won't cut it, especially when it could mean life or death. Terry Schussler is the director of Immersive Technology at Deutche Telekom, and he's working to bring 5G into the XR domain, and expand the capabilities of mixed reality technologies.
Alan: Today's guest is Terry Schussler, "entreprenerd," technology architect, passionate software designer, writer, speaker, trainer and all-around awesome guy. As a software innovator, Terry's focus has been making software smarter for users, while leveraging technology to enable new forms of communication. During the development of over 200 commercial software products, reaching over 50 million users on desktop, mobile and tablet devices, Terry has delivered numerous technology innovations; artificial intelligence and consumer products, multimedia, hybrid online/offline CDRoms (what's a CDRom?), interactive multimedia on the internet, real-time character animations, factory-to-consumer personalized plush toy design, just to name a few. A number of his products have been category creators, opening up new markets with long-tail monetization opportunities. If you want to learn more about the company that Terry works for, Deutsche Telekom is at www.telekom.com
It is with great honor that I welcome Director of Immersive Technology at Deutsche Telekom, and founding member of the Open AR Cloud, Mr. Terry Schuster. Welcome to the show, Terry.
Terry: Thanks, Alan. Nice to have the opportunity.
Alan: Thanks so much. It's really a pleasure and honor to have you on the show. And I'm just going to dive right in here because I think the people listening really want to get an understanding of how this technology can be used for them. So to start it off, what is one of the best XR experiences that you've ever had?
Terry: One of the best experiences I ever had was actually realizing that the technology can be used not just to make people money, or to provide education, but to actually save lives -- that it can really be transformative. So a company which unfortunately is no longer in business, ODG, created an oxygen mask for pilots, which allowed the pilots to operate a plane using augmented reality when the cockpit was full of smoke. Seeing that product developed and come to fruition really got me thinking differently about the importance of utilizing these types of technologies to increase human safety and save lives, as well as provide all of the obvious benefits that we're used to.
Alan: Wow. That is... how do you even... that's a show-stopper. I had Mark Sage on the show, and he was talking about how firefighters are using this technology for heads up displays, and military are using it for being able to see in the dark and creating that visibility layer. Can you maybe talk a bit more about this, this mask that can help pilots in a distressed situation like that? Because there's so many ways this technology can be used to save lives. I think we should dig into that.
Terry: So, ODG co-develop this with... I think with FedEx. FedEx, I think, had two flights which had crashed due to a cockpit filled with smoke conditions that prevented the pilots from being able to properly control the plane. They made a decision to look at how they can utilize technology, a heads-up display technology, using AR to give pilots the visual controls that they need to continue flying the plane, even if such a situation happened. And they actually had a live demonstration unit at the Augmented World Exposition last year in Santa Clara, where you could try the mask on and actually see what the exper