Live from MWC 2021 at Hall 2 Stand 2D18, Leland Hedges, GM, EMEA at Pico Interactive spoke to The Fast Mode in a brief interview on the vendor’s plans for this year’s event. As a provider of innovative VR and AR hardware, Pico Interactive shared their views on the VR market, insights on their product launches as well as their general outlook for the telecoms industry in 2021.
How does it feel to be back at MWC?
At Pico Interactive we are looking forward to reconnecting with old partners and meeting new businesses during MWC 2021. For us it will be the first in person demonstration since the start of the pandemic when we had to cancel our participation in the 2020 MWC. As a global company with offices here in Barcelona and in Hamburg (Germany), we knew we wanted to share a key product announcement for MWC to engage with the local community and start-up culture.
What’s your showcase theme this year, and what are the key technologies you will be exhibiting/discussing?
We will be showing our brand-new product, the unreleased Pico Neo 3 Pro. The Pico Neo 3 Pro is our latest all-in-one, stand-alone headset and is powered by the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ XR2 Platform that includes 6DoF motion controllers and four cameras for precision tracking. This will be the first time anyone outside China can experience this device in a public setting. In our booth we will have several technology demonstrations from Psious, Cornerstone, and Invelon. Our primary goal is to show the rapid improvement in XR devices using the latest technologies from Qualcomm (XR2) and also discuss the ways we will be using Tobii eye tracking and Nvidia technologies in our Neo 3 family of devices.
What’s your outlook for telecoms for the rest of 2021?
We have seen a broad re-engagement with VR devices and operators in Q2 this year after a slowdown starting in the middle of last year due to concerns about the pandemic. It will be great to continue to work with operators to solve network connectivity challenges for deploying Enterprise VR solutions at scale and prioritizing ease of use for the end customers. This year we look forward to helping bring amazing educational experience to students using their personal device 5G network connections. Or support easy to deploy VR solutions such as a multiple VR headsets case bundled with a 5G hotspot to elderly communities so the residents can experience immersive content and re-connect with their loved ones. Solving the last meter connection challenges between VR headset and 5G enabled devices is a key priority for Pico this year.
