Well I think I may have broken a record for my longest streak without a blog post at six days without writing. It was a strange feeling but we did something this week that consumed absolutely every waking minute, meaning that my life had no balance, just one singular focus – it was awesome, and it really feels like we made history.
This week we announced a partnership between Bold Metrics and Morph3D, and unveiled what I think we’ll remember years from now as the first look at the future of commerce. What does all this mean?
Over the years our technology has emerged as the gold standard for predicting body measurements. We’re helping to create a world where you don’t need to measure yourself, take a selfie, or step into a body scanner. Instead, our AI technology can calculate your body measurements more accurately than you can likely measure yourself, and return a result in milliseconds. All a user has to do is answer a few simple questions like height, weight, etc.
Today we provide solutions for brands and retailers where they want to connect people with products. This can be clothes, furniture, sporting goods, and this week we announced the first application of our technology in augmented and virtual reality with our partnership with Morph3D.
Morph3D is the world leader in realistic human avatars that are used in AR and VR. With this new partnership the Bold Metrics API is powering nearly instant true-to-life avatar creation which solves a huge problem – creating a real “to-scale” avatar of your body. Why is that important?
While having a virtual you that actually matches your detailed body measurements might not be a requirement for gaming and entertainment, to enable commerce, it’s a must. Imagine a world where we no longer have physical screens, the digital world isn’t flat any more, and instead you can shop in 3D again, just like the real malls but virtual. This experience will likely be powered by virtual or augmented reality, and we think augmented reality will likely have the most interest when it comes to commerce.
Now think about what you do when you buy things relative to the human body today…you go to a store? You sit on the couch, you stand on the bike, you try on the jacket. It’s not hard to envision a world 5 – 10 years from now where incredibly similar experiences can happen, but from the comfort of your own home. In this world having your body actually there in AR or VR will make it possible for the next evolution of commerce. This is incredibly relevant now given the struggle brick-and-mortar retailers are seeing, VR Focus did a nice write-up about that partnership that did a deeper dive here:
Retails stores in the real world have suffered a slow in sales and profits since online retailers like Amazon began their rise to prominence. Brick-and-mortar stores need an extra incentive to lure customers away from the internet, and Bold Metrics and Morph 3D believe they have found it.
The technology they are introducing allows shoppers to create 3D avatars of themselves.
The Bold Metrics algorithm maps body measurement details onto an avatar, a process that involves no measuring tape or time-consuming 3D scans, only a series of simple questions. The resulting virtual avatar can then be used to experience products and services available in the virtual world. (Source VRFocus)
We made the announcement at one of the biggest shows in the retail world, ShopTalk, and let this group of retail leaders and innovators be the first to try-out the future of commerce using one of the most cutting-edge AR headsets, the Microsoft Hololens.
Today Discovery Channel including our partnership in a segment on their popular Canadian TV show, Daily Planet and next week you’ll be able to hear me talking more about this exciting move into the future on NPR. On top of sharing the future of commerce I think we also broke a new record for the number of new client’s that are going to come on-board using our core solutions. Our technology is already used by some of the worlds largest brands and retailers, in fact you might have even used us before and never even knew it! As a backend technology, we plugin to eCommerce sites and in-store experiences, today we do this in the same way we all access content, on laptops, desktops, smartphones and tablets.
In the future we’ll plugin to some of the most immersive and exciting AR and VR experiences and with it power the next generation of commerce. As you can probably tell, I’m more than a little excited and I don’t think it’s just me!
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