For my industry I went to the New York Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality Exposition. This convention went on for three days and I was able to attend the final day. I talked to several people at their booths and got to see a lot of cool developments the industry is making in VR and AR (though there were significantly more VR booths).
For the VR booths one that stuck out to me were a VR classroom that allowed students to construct molecules in a 3D environment. Another booth was more entertainment based, a new VR bar had opened in Brooklyn and they wanted to show off a bunch of VR games and get the public used to using the equipment.
For the AR there was a set of AR glasses that allowed a person to examine and move through various scans of the human body to try and find illnesses. There was also a AR company that used iPads and paintings to educate people on the forgotten/ignored events that shaped history.
In regards to my own thesis project, this expo mainly made me think about how many ways VR/AR can be used. There were booths focused on medicine, education, social awareness, entertainment, marketing, etc. Since this is still a very new field there’s so many industries trying to figure out how it can help them advance. The VR arcade booth also reinforced how much VR and playing VR game excites people. Everyone wanted to play the wide variety of games and the games with the tightest controls were the most popular.