Hololens "Astounds" workers at Toyota

I remain sure that demand will be higher than Microsoft originally anticipated.

Seeing this, and knowing that Toyota has clearly invested time and effort to study this... you have to ask yourself "are they going to us it more, or less?"


MS Hololens and the AR glasses that could see a boost in productivity. (I didn't make it through the pay wall.)

Microsoft

Inspection of paint thickness 

The eye-catching finish of a new car does not come easy. At Toyota, the coating film thickness of every vehicle goes through a strict inspection process to ensure it is uniform and evenly distributed. Until now, that had been a laborious task. Custom-made papers — with holes at regular intervals — had to be cut and carefully applied onto a car’s curved surface. The holes served as guides for workers with measuring equipment, who scan the whole vehicle.

The process was tedious. A single inspection would take two people an entire day to complete.

With HoloLens, the process of inspecting paint thickness of new cars has reduced from a day to two hours.

Now with HoloLens, one person can do in just two hours.

Kayano’s have designed an app that enables them to skip the cut and paste process. Using HoloLens, a digital array of dots is projected directly onto a real car. Workers with HoloLens headset scan and inspect a car’s painted surface quickly and easily. This increases their productivity and frees up their time to do more meaningful tasks.

Automaker "frenemies" - CNBC

When you have a KEY bit of technical know-how in a space where bitter rivals are cooperating so they can get the technical job done... that's a good place to be.

A very small, very high resolution LiDAR for self-driving cars or ADAS.... that's a nice thing to have in your portfolio.

This article mentions nearly every automaker in the world.



From Ford to Volkswagen, rivals become frenemies to share the cost and risk of building self-driving cars -- CNBC

The sheer cost and technological burden of developing self-driving cars, electric vehicles and other advancements has companies that have historically been fierce competitors becoming, at the very least, frenemies. They're forming new alliances, joint ventures and agreements to help develop and build new technologies that may take years to get to market and even longer before turning a profit. While some Odd Couple alliances are more successful than others, all share a common cause.

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Volkswagen announced almost a year ago that it plans to spend $40 billion to develop autonomous and electrified vehicles through 2022. It is expected to invest billions more by 2025 when it hopes to have 50 all-electric vehicles filling out the product lineup of brands ranging from mainstream Seat, Skoda and VW to exclusive marques Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini. And the German automaker isn't alone.