4 reasons why Atmel is ready to ride the IoT wave

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The IoT recipe comprises of three key technology components: Sensing, computing and communications.

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In 2014, a Goldman Sachs’ report took many people by surprise when it picked Atmel Corporation as the company best positioned to take advantage of the rising Internet of Things (IoT) tsunami. At the same time, the report omitted tech industry giants like Apple and Google from the list of companies that could make a significant impact on the rapidly expanding IoT business. So what makes Atmel so special in the IoT arena?

The San Jose, California–based chipmaker has been proactively building its ‘SMART’ brand of 32-bit ARM-based microcontrollers that boasts an end-to-end design platform for connected devices in the IoT realm. The company with two decades of experience in the MCU business was among the first to license ARM’s low-power processors for IoT chips that target smart home, industrial automation, wearable electronics and more.

Goldman Sachs named Atmel a leader in the Internet of Things (IoT) market.

Goldman Sachs named Atmel a leader in the Internet of Things (IoT) market

A closer look at the IoT ingredients and Atmel’s product portfolio shows why Goldman Sachs called Atmel a leader in the IoT space. For starters, Atmel is among the handful of chipmakers that cover all the bases in IoT hardware value chain: MCUs, sensors and wireless connectivity.

1. A Complete IoT Recipe

The IoT recipe comprises of three key technology components: Sensing, computing and communications. Atmel offers sensor products and is a market leader in MCU-centric sensor fusion solutions than encompass context awareness, embedded vision, biometric recognition, etc.

For computation—handling tasks related to signal processing, bit manipulation, encryption, etc.—the chipmaker from Silicon Valley has been offering a diverse array of ARM-based microcontrollers for connected devices in the IoT space.

Atmel has reaffirmed its IoT commitment through a number of acquisitions.

Finally, for wireless connectivity, Atmel has cobbled a broad portfolio made up of low-power Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee radio technologies. Atmel’s $140 million acquisition of Newport Media in 2014 was a bid to accelerate the development of low-power Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips for IoT applications. Moreover, Atmel could use Newport’s product expertise in Wi-Fi communications for TV tuners to make TV an integral part of the smart home solutions.

Furthermore, communications across the Internet depends on the TCP/IP stack, which is a 32-bit protocol for transmitting packets on the Internet. Atmel’s microcontrollers are based on 32-bit ARM cores and are well suited for TCP/IP-centric Internet communications fabric.

2. Low Power Leadership

In February 2014, Atmel announced the entry-level ARM Cortex M0+-based microcontrollers for the IoT market. The SAM D series of low-power MCUs—comprising of D21, D10 and D11 versions—featured Atmel’s signature high-end features like peripheral touch controller, USB interface and SERCOM module. The connected peripherals work flawlessly with Cortex M0+ CPU through the Event System that allows system developers to chain events in software and use an event to trigger a peripheral without CPU involvement.

According to Andreas Eieland, Director of Product Marketing for Atmel’s MCU Business Unit, the IoT design is largely about three things: Battery life, cost and ease-of-use. The SAM D microcontrollers aim to bring the ease-of-use and price-to-performance ratio to the IoT products like smartwatches where energy efficiency is crucial. Atmel’s SAM D family of microcontrollers was steadily building a case for IoT market when the company’s SAM L21 microcontroller rocked the semiconductor industry in March 2015 by claiming the leadership in low-power Cortex-M IoT design.

Atmel’s SAM L21 became the lowest power ARM Cortex-M microcontroller when it topped the EEMBC benchmark measurements. It’s plausible that another MCU maker takes over the EEMBC benchmarks in the coming months. However, according to Atmel’s Eieland, what’s important is the range of power-saving options that an MCU can bring to product developers.

“There are many avenues to go down on the low path, but they are getting complex,” Eieland added. He quoted features like multiple clock domains, event management system and sleepwalking that provide additional levels of configurability for IoT product developers. Such a set of low-power technologies that evolves in successive MCU families can provide product developers with a common platform and a control on their initiatives to lower power consumption.

3. Coping with Digital Insecurity

In the IoT environment, multiple device types communicate with each other over a multitude of wireless interfaces like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy. And IoT product developers are largely on their own when it comes to securing the system. The IoT security is a new domain with few standards and IoT product developers heavily rely on the security expertise of chip suppliers.

Atmel offers embedded security solutions for IoT designs.

Atmel, with many years of experience in crypto hardware and Trusted Platform Modules, is among the first to offer specialized security hardware for the IoT market. It has recently shipped a crypto authentication device that has integrated the Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) security protocol. Atmel’s ATECC508A chip provides confidentiality, data integrity and authentication in systems with MCUs or MPUs running encryption/decryption algorithms like AES in software.

4. Power of the Platform

The popularity of 8-bit AVR microcontrollers is a testament to the power of the platform; once you learn to work on one MCU, you can work on any of the AVR family microcontrollers. And same goes for Atmel’s Smart family of microcontrollers aimed for the IoT market. While ARM shows a similarity among its processors, Atmel exhibits the same trait in the use of its peripherals.

Low-power SAM L21 builds on features of SAM D MCUs.

A design engineer can conveniently work on Cortex-M3 and Cortex -M0+ processor after having learned the instruction set for Cortex-M4. Likewise, Atmel’s set of peripherals for low-power IoT applications complements the ARM core benefits. Atmel’s standard features like sleep modes, sleepwalking and event system are optimized for ultra-low-power use, and they can extend IoT battery lifetime from years to decades.

Atmel, a semiconductor outfit once focused on memory and standard products, began its transformation toward becoming an MCU company about eight years ago. That’s when it also started to build a broad portfolio of wireless connectivity solutions. In retrospect, those were all the right moves. Fast forward to 2015, Atmel seems ready to ride on the market wave created by the IoT technology juggernaut.

Interested? You may also want to read:

Atmel’s L21 MCU for IoT Tops Low Power Benchmark

Atmel’s New Car MCU Tips Imminent SoC Journey

Atmel’s Sensor Hub Ready to Wear

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Majeed Ahmad is author of books Smartphone: Mobile Revolution at the Crossroads of Communications, Computing and Consumer Electronics and The Next Web of 50 Billion Devices: Mobile Internet’s Past, Present and Future.

The Hands Omni glove will let gamers feel virtual objects

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Rice University students create a feedback wearable device for virtual reality environments.

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Though virtual reality has grown by leaps and bounds over the years, a vast majority of recent advancements have been focused around the audible and visual senses — touch not so much. With that in mind, a team of Rice University engineering students has unveiled a haptic glove that lets a wearer feel simulated objects as if they’re actually there. In other words, to make virtuality reality even more “real.”

The Hands Omni glove was designed to provide a way for gamers and others interested in VR to experience the environments they inhabit through the likes of three-dimensional heads-up displays. The prototype — which was introduced at the George R. Brown School of Engineering Design Showcase and developed in collaboration with gaming technology company Virtuix — works by providing force feedback to a user’s fingertips as they touch, press or grip things inside their virtual world.

The right-handed glove is comprised of inflatable bladders that sit underneath each finger, and expand and contract as necessary. What’s more, the wearable is wireless to allow the user to have a full-range of motion without ever having to worry about unwanted cables getting in the way during gameplay.

While the team’s agreement with its sponsor Virtuix means the underlying technology of the glove must remain top-secret, the students did reveal that an Atmel based Arduino is at the heart of its system. Its creators also point out that programmers will find it pretty straightforward to implement the glove’s protocols in future games and other immersive projects.

Basically, as a game is played, signals are sent from a computer using Arduino over to its proprietary system, which in turn inflates each of the individual bladders. The fingers are individually addressable, though pressure on the ring and little fingers is triggered as one unit in the prototype.

For example, say you come across an apple, a baseball or even some sort of weapon in a Call of Duty-style game, and want to pick it up, the Hands Omni will enable you to simply reach out and make it so that it’s as if you are touching a physical object.

The Hands Omni glove weighs around 350 grams (just over 12 ounces), which its creators say makes it light enough to be comfortably worn on a hand for long sessions without ever noticing it’s there.

“We had our own constraints based on testing to determine the amount of perceptible weight that could be strapped to your fingers, arms, legs and limbs — the maximum weight that is perceptible to users — and we came up with 660 grams on the forearm and much less than that on the back of the hand or on the fingers,” explains team member Kevin Koch. “We wanted as much mass as far back on the hand as possible, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

Intrigued? You can head over to the project’s official page here.

pico-Platinchen is a pocket-sized, Arduino-compatible wearable board

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This Arduino-sensor combination is perfect for your next wearable design.

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Last year, Guido Burger had brought to our attention his impressive blueIOT. The open sensor platform was based on the ultra low-power combination of an ATmega328P MCU and a BLE module along with a single coin cell battery. Created in collaboration with the Fab-Lab Europe team, the board would on to be successfully implemented in a number of applications, ranging from DIY fitness trackers and smart socks to  magical Easter Egg hunts and hacked Nespresso machines — which you will actually be able to witness live at Maker Faire Bay Area.

Well, hot on the heels of its predecessor’s success, Burger has returned with the latest innovation from his crew: the pico-Platinchen. The uber mini, Arduino-compatible board was designed with wearable devices in mind and comes loaded with a high-precision, absolute orientation sensor from Bosch Sensortec. The BNO055 is joined by an ATmega328P, and like its older sibling, is powered by a CR2032 coin cell battery.

“The basis for your projects comes pre-integrated but you can still can expand it with more LEDs, sensors (e.g. I2C/SPI) and displays,” Burger explains. “Also, pico-Platinchen is a perfect basis for students and kids to start exploring the physical world: g-forces, magnetics, movements and much more!”

With a diameter of only 20mm, pico-Platinchen is ideal for projects that involve sewing, particularly hats. What’s more, the platform packs the punch of an Arduino Uno along with the flexibility of an entire 9-DOF sensor. And, to provide on-board notifications and color-fading, the Fab-Lab team decided to add some NeoPixels (WS2812 LEDs) that can drive up to 256 lights with the pico-Platinchen right out of the box.

“By the way, it comes with a lot horse power,” Burger adds. “The motion co-processor for 3D maths is an Atmel | SMART SAM D21. [The] gyro, accelerometer and magnetometer are [all] combined with high-precision and 100Hz update for an absolute orientation in 3D space.”

Using the Arduino IDE 1.0.7, Makers can build their own application with just a few lines of code in a matter of minutes. Aside from wearable projects, pico-Plantichen makes for a viable option in a variety of settings, whether that’s robotics, aviation or even in education (particularly physics). What’s more, the board can be coated for underwater projects.

Intrigued? The pico-Platichen is now available on Tindie for $32. Meanwhile, if you’re wondering what to make with the super small, wearable board, you can check out one of its recent projects on Hackster.io here.

Control your wearable display with a touch-sensitive belt

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Belt is an unobtrusive touch input device for head-worn displays.

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As the wearable market continue to mature, Makers are coming up with some pretty slick ways to use body-adorned items as interfaces for their mobile devices — whether that’s stroking one’s own hair to discreetly make a phone call or affixing stickers to one’s skin to control their music player. And while Google Glass has yet to experience mainstream popularity, it’s only a matter of time before the technology behind it will be enhanced to the point where it can eventually be integrated into a pair of everyday glasses. Until then, however, a group of researchers from Ulm University in Germany have come up with an alternative solution: your belt.

The aptly-dubbed Belt not only can hold up your trousers, but can enable a user to command their wearable display device as well. The accessory is covered in punk-like, touch-sensitive metal studs, which allow a wearer to slide their thumb across its surface to scroll down lists, tap to make selections, or use other gestures to control the wearable device’s UI — all without ever having to touch the side of their head. What’s more, shortcuts to applications be implemented anywhere along the outside of the belt, whether that means accessing Facebook just above the left-hand pocket or opening up emails right above the rear.

Ultimately, wearers can decide as to how much of the belt they would like to use as a touch-sensitive controller. What’s more, the software can be made intelligent enough to distinguish between an accidental stroke of an arm and an actual gesture, as well as ignore any unwanted activity.

The Belt itself is equipped with an Arduino Pro Mini (ATmega328), a Bluetooth Low Energy module, four SparkFun capacitive touch sensor breakout boards, and a battery to power it up.

“In a qualltative user study with 14 participants, we found out that for short interactions (two-four seconds), most of the surface area is considered as appropriate input space, while for longer interactions (up to 10 seconds), the front areas above the trouser pockets are preferred,” the team writes.

Intrigued? Check out the project’s entire paper here, or watch it in action below.

This hoodie can sense and react to weather

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This hoodie will emit various lighting effects based on the forecasted precipitation, temperature, and wind speed.

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As they say, April showers bring May flowers. Or, in Barbara Eldredge’s case, a flower-covered hoodie that illuminates based on the weather forecast.

The aptly-named Spring Hoodie, which is actually a combination of two inexpensive hoodies from Old Navy, is packed with an Adafruit FLORA (ATmega32U4), a CC3000 Wi-Fi module and a lithium battery, all hidden inside an inner pocket. 18 NeoPixel LEDs were embedded inside of fake flowers adorning the hood. In order to protect and conceal the wiring, the Maker turned one of the two sweatshirts inside-out and placed it directly within other. (Or as Eldredge calls it, create a “hoodie sandwich.”) Just so she never had to take the FLORA out, the Maker also added a button that is tasked with turning the wearable on/off.

“When I turn on the hoodie, the Wi-Fi module tethers to my phone, and the FLORA uses it to connect to a simple PHP web page pulling three-hour forecast data for the predicted precipitation, temperature, and wind speed from the Open Weather Map API,” Eldredge writes.

Once the FLORA is connected over Wi-Fi, the lapel flower emits green to show that it is indeed working. When it connects to the webpage, the ATmega32U4 based MCU collects the weather information and uses it to control the color, brightness and changing of the LED flowers. The color adjusts based on the amount of predicted precipitation. In other words, the more rain that is predicted, the more the LEDs will become blue (and not red/orange).

Meanwhile, the intensity of the LEDs is dependent upon temperature — the warmer, the brighter. Though she wanted some slight pulsing or suggestion of movement in the lights, the speed of this movement is actually dictated by the predicted wind speed. The faster the wind, the faster the lights will change or flicker.

“The Spring Hoodie is admittedly a pretty wacky piece of clothing. But after the cold wet winter we’ve had, I’m ready for flowers and color. And I like that it’ll always let me know how the weather’s going to be,” she concludes.

Interestingly enough, for those spring days where you can’t decide as to whether it’s too cold to wear a lightweight jacket, the hoodie will do it for you. Should the temperature dip below an appropriate level, the wearable won’t turn on at all.

Want a Spring Hoodie of your own? Head over to the Maker’s official project page on element14 here, and check it out in action below.

MetaWear is a mini wearable sensor platform

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MetaWear is a tiny BLE module that can power complete solutions that are merely the size of a button. 

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MetaWear is a tiny wireless sensor platform that enables Makers to build and program their Internet of Things projects right from their smartphones. Recently launched on Kickstarter, the platform works by connecting to any product to a mobile device via Bluetooth LE, then logging or streaming six-axis of motion and environmental data.

Packed with a number of sensors, the lightweight, versatile board is capable of measuring an assortment of information, ranging from acceleration and orientation, to angular velocity and temperature, to pressure and altitude. This makes it applicable to nearly every setting and activity, such as health and fitness, gaming, navigation and sports. Once collected, MetaWear displays the data in real-time with the touch of a button and processes it with the help of its embedded filters. From there, the data can be exported into a CSV file and used in tools like Excel and Python for further analysis and algorithm development.

For instance, users can study their football throw or baseball swing by turning MetaWear into a wearable that can track form or speed of the ball. Beyond that, the board can be embedded into a ski to review a day at the slopes or tagged along inside a backpack during a hike to capture data at its peak.

What’s nice is that MetaWear transforms a smartphone into the ultimate developer’s tool — a programmer and debugger all in one. This permits users to program the board through its accompanying mobile SDK, which communicates with the board via BLE, and then enables them to command it to do just about anything.

“MetaWear is IF THIS THEN THAT for Bluetooth and sensors,” the team writes. “You don’t need to mess around with a firmware engineer, complicated IDEs, expensive debuggers, or embedded programming. Our mobile SDK (iOS and Android) gives you the power to send instructions to the board that are temporary or permanent.”

Based on an ARM Cortex-M0 processor with 256KB of Flash and 16KB of RAM, the board features a rechargeable battery circuit with a microUSB port, exposed GPIOs and an I2C bus for additional sensors, a built-in LED and a push-button. What’s more, the wireless platform has an approximate range of 100 feet and three weeks of continous operation (and six months of idle time) on a single charge.

Interested? Currently live on Kickstarter, MbientLab is seeking $5,000. Shipment is expected to begin in July 2015.

Throw on a pair of #Ravespecs for your next party

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Wondering what to wear for that party? Make yourself some LED glasses.

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What do you get when you combine basic safety goggles, an laser-cut acrylic frame, some electronics and plenty of RGB LEDs? One electrifying pair of #Ravespecs, that’s what. Throw ‘em on and you surely become the ‘light’ of any party.

Created by Lorenzo Wood, the glasses were originally a last-minute, thrown-together idea for a friend’s party. Initially conceived as a mask, the Maker felt that glasses would be “a bit more social.” He thought about powering the specs through a remote battery tucked away in his pocket and running wire to the glasses; however, Wood realized that it would be much more fun, portable, and of course, aesthetically-pleasing to make them self-contained.

“In spite of the rushed build and the shoddy wiring, they turned out to be quite robust. The reason that there are wires visible on the front is that for speed I wired the power with just two stripped wires, threading them in and out of the LED strips and connecting them with solder. I don’t recommend that.”

The shades are built around an A-Star 32U4 MCU (ATmega32U4), adorned vertically with Adafruit NeoPixels and powered by standard Lithium AAA batteries mounted to the frame itself. Since the LEDs consume quite a bit of power, a wearer can expect anywhere between one to two hours of continuous use before having to replace its batteries.

Beyond that, a wearer can easily change the lighting sequences or down the brightness with a little coding, and even try to create designs that don’t engage all the pixels at once, such as strobing rainbow, chasing or police-like effects.

“Because of time, I only had one go at the frame design. I positioned the slits around a typical inter-pupillary distance of 55mm-65mm. In fact, pretty much anyone can see through them (even small children), because the frame is held quite a long way from your face by the safety goggles. The slits could therefore probably be sightly narrower so you could get even more LEDs on.”

With the party now behind him, the Maker reveals that he has already begun working on improving the #Ravespecs. Enhancements include more complex patterns, adding radios for synchronizing more than one pair and enabling wireless controlling, as well as incorporating different sensors. The glasses will be able react in more expressive ways through sound, motion and hand gestures.

See them in action below! If you liked this project, then you’ll love these programmable LED shades from Garrett Mace as well!

LED wristbands will invade the Academy of Country Music Awards

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Throw away your glowsticks and keep your phones in your pocket, because these LED wristbands are headed to the ACM Awards. 

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Go to any concert, and during a ballad, look around the crowd. Back in the day, you would be sure to find the flickering of fan’s cigarette lighters filling the night sky throughout the stadium. With the advancements in technology, these lighters were soon replaced by the waving of illuminated smartphones. And well, it wasn’t before long that mobile apps like Virtual Zippo were able to bring the old-school look of lighters right to the device’s screen.

Now, there’s a new innovation in town — one in which you’ve probably already witnessed it in action. Perhaps, you tuned in to this year’s Super Bowl halftime show with Katy Perry? Remember the 516 glowing “orbs” that floated about the field, all wirelessly controlled to create a variety of LED designs? Or, maybe for the younger crowd, have you attended an Ariana Grande tour recently? You may have adorned your heads with the musician’s signature cat ears with a few extra twinkles to amplify the show experience.

Once again, Glow Motion Technologies will be front and center in the national spotlight. That’s because, during the upcoming Academy of County Music Awards, fans will be adorning LED bands to their wrists as they wave their arms along to the tunes of their favorite singers. The devices provided to spectators will ultimately transform the audience into one giant, lit-up canvas, all while increasing sponsor visibility and fan interaction in millions of homes.

The wristbands — a collaboration between Glow Motion, Warner Music Nashville, Mobaglo and Mary Kay — will create synchronized effects from more than 16 million LED color options inside AT&T Stadium during performances from names like Jason Aldean, Garth Brooks, Luke Bryan, Kenny Chesney, Lady Antebellum, among many others.

The interactive wristbands are comprised of silicone, powered by a single AAA battery, and are fully-controllable through its wireless transceiver, enabling them to communicate with one or many thousands wristbands simultaneously. In fact, up to 65,000 devices can be accessed individually using only 33 DMX channels. Beyond that, GMT’s wristbands features the ability to ‘talk’ with each other via RFID. This gives designers and event producers, like the ACM Awards, a whole new way to approach event design and credentialing.

Interested in this bright idea? Head over to its official page here, or watch them in action below.

Swimmo is the ultimate smartwatch for swimmers

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Swimmo a new smartwatch designed for continuous use underwater.

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While countless wearable devices have been introduced with hopes of revolutionizing athletic activities, from the court to the field, not so many have taken to the water. That is something the company behind Swimmo is hoping to change. For instance, how often have you forgotten the number of laps you swam during a training session, or wished to surpass a personal best and then instantly share it with your friends on social media? That will all be possible thanks to the latest smartwatch designed specifically for continuous underwater use.

Swimmo itself is a sleek, aesthetically-pleasing and comfortable band equipped with a color OLED display that is 100% waterproof. What’s more, the wearable boats a unique “Rotate&Tap” patent-pending technology that allows a swimmer to control the watch using two simple gestures — no gaps between buttons that might let water in.

The device works by monitoring a swim session in real-time and providing immediate feedback to the trainee, helping them to efficiently achieve their results. The device comes with training apps to track performance in the water, such as a heart-rate monitoring IntensityCoach, a speed focused PaceKeeper, and an overall performance gauge TrainingGuide. It will measure total distance in laps, yards or meters, analyze calories burned, and keep tabs on the length of a training session as well. Swimmo will even alert a swimmer with vibrations when it’s time to increase or decrease their speed to better improve their strength by exercising at the right intensity.

Aside from being compatible with other fitness apps, such as RunKeeper, Strava and HealthKit, it also syncs with its own mobile app (available on both iOS and Android) via Bluetooth Smart. Unlike a number of other smartwatches already available today, Swimmo’s basic features can be accessed without having to pair with a phone at all. In an effort to make swimming more social, the gadget enables users to compete with their friends and others nearby through Facebook and Twitter.

Intrigued? Swim on over to its official Kickstarter page, where the team is currently seeking $39,000. Shipment is expected to begin in October 2015.

Pedestrian ‘cruise control’ will steer your muscles in the right direction

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Say goodbye to Google Maps! 

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Envision yourself trying to navigate the streets of New York City, but too busy peering down at the Google Map on your mobile device, you continue to miss ever important turn. Luckily, a team from University of Hannover may have a cruise control-like solution for the eyes-down-on-the-screen-for-directions problem. That’s because the researchers have developed what they call an “actuated navigation” system that steers pedestrians along the right route by sending vibrational feedback to the legs to influence walking direction.

“Navigation systems have become ubiquitous. While today we use them mainly as commercial products in our cars and on our smartphones, research prototypes include navigation systems that are integrated with belts or wristbands,” the team writes. “These systems provide explicit navigation cues, ranging from visual feedback (e.g. on a phone screen) via audio feedback (e.g. a voice telling the direction in which to walk) to tactile feedback (e.g. indicating the direction with vibration motors on the left or right side of a belt).”

This new system, however, is comprised of electrodes attached to the skin over the lengthy sartorius muscle. (For those without a human biology background, that’s the muscle running from the top of the outer thigh to the inside of the knee.) Weak electrical signals are sent directly to the muscles, which interact with the motor nerves and cause the leg to turn ever so slightly in the right direction. This rotation occurs during the swing phase of a step and can easily be counteracted, the team notes. This lets the walker remain in control. So, could it be possible that these electrodes will one day be integrated into our clothing, giving us actual ‘smarty pants?’

After initially testing their approach in the lab, the researchers successfully escorted 18 test subjects through a crowded park using a set of control apps on a smartphone that communicated via Bluetooth to a prototype device responsible for applying EMS signals to the user with different impulse forms, intensities and activation times. This piece of equipment included an EMS device, self-adhesive pads, a Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini with control apps, as well as a custom wireless control board which was packed with an Arduino Nano (ATmega328), a Bluetooth module, a digital potentiometer, and a 9V battery for power.

According to the paper, 80% of the participants said that navigating distracts them from other tasks, such as from traffic, conversing with friends, listening to music, and talking on the phone. Following the completion of the experiment, users reacted “very positively” overall to being turned into human GPS systems. Participants also shared that while in the beginning they were consciously aware of the feedback, they “did not think about it anymore after just a few minutes.” Generally speaking, these users reported the navigation to be very subtle so that they could easily focus on their surroundings.

Intrigued? Check out the project’s official paper to learn more, or just watch the system in action below.