TIBURON, CA — Jon Peddie Research (www.jonpeddie.com) has announced a new Technology Advancement Award to celebrate companies, individuals, and organizations that have helped nurture and protect new technologies, enabling further development. The first Technology Advancement Award will be presented to Laval Virtual and the City of Laval, France, at Salle Polyvalente, Place de Herce, Laval, France on March 24 after the JPR briefing on the state of virtual technologies, which begins at 2 pm.
JPR has more than 30 years of experience in the fields of computer graphics and multimedia. “In that time we’ve seen a lot of technologies come and go. We’ve worked with many innovative developers and inventors. Many times, we’ve seen valuable ideas fail before they’ve had a chance to find a market. Sometimes those ideas are able to re-emerge; but often, valuable time has been lost,” says Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research. “We’ve also seen many groups and individuals commit their time, energy, and resources to helping good ideas take root. This award was established to recognize those people and companies.”
Virtual Reality is the perfect example of a breakthrough technology that can change lives. Invented decades ago, virtual reality was introduced as a product in the mid-80s and has seen several boom and bust cycles.
Laval Virtual was founded in 1999 through the aid of former MP and mayor of Laval François d'Aubert, who also served as France’s Secretary of State for Research. The Laval Virtual conference has served as a valuable forum for professional visualization technologies including immersive 3D visualization and virtual reality. The conference can take some credit for the strong position held by European companies in the 3D visualization fields.
Today, JPR is seeing a huge resurgence in consumer applications for virtual reality. This new growth is getting an important boost thanks to the firm foundation built in no small part by the community around Laval Virtual.
Francois Zocchetto, the Mayor of Laval, and Laurent Chrétien, the director of Laval Virtual are accepting the award. Their work has helped create a rich ecosystem for immersive visualization that will serve to further new development in the field.
Dr. Peddie will open the discussion with a short overview of the industry (brief historical sketch, market numbers) and will be joined by panel members: Tangi Mayer, ESI; Julien Castet, Immersion; Dr. Sebastian Knödel, Jean-Colas Prunier, Renaud Deligny, Renault who will discuss the ways in which they are already using virtual reality for visualization. The discussion will include current issues regarding the VR Headset industry and how this technology could be integrated into the current working process and how the work being done in the professional fields will inform new consumer applications.