BA2017 Seminar Archive

Abstract: AR and VR platform launches are providing further impetus and investment towards true “All Day Wearable” devices. New holographic and diffractive “waveguide optic” platforms are emerging as enablers, where additional features like eye-tracking provide unique user interaction modalities, for both enterprise and consumer applications.

Speaker Biography: A pioneer in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), Jonathan led the development of the first public VR games system and multiplayer game “Dactyl Nightmare”, which led to him founding the first public VR company, Virtuality. There his team developed the first consumer VR game headset for Atari, launched at E3 in 1995. In 1998 Jonathan emigrated to Silicon Valley to research and redress the deficiencies of classical optics for wearable displays. Today, DigiLens Inc. supplies optical nanomaterials and holographic printing tools, which enable the manufacture of diffractive waveguide optics for commercial HUD’s and “eyeglass” thin wearable AR displays. An innovator at heart, Dr. Waldern graduated in Design Engineering. Sponsored by the UK’s strategic computing initiative, he won a scholarship and partnered with IBM Scientific Center to develop VR systems at Loughborough University of Technology. His alma mater has become a center of excellence in both holography and VR/AR industrial research. Jon is a named inventor on over 100 patents and 35 technical papers. He’s developed five generations of VR and AR headsets, many of which are now considered “collectibles”. Waldern is the recipient of three National Business Awards and amongst several product accolades, recently won “Best New Display” during The Society for Information Display’s Display Week in San Francisco, CA in 2016.

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Tuesday April 11, 2017
Speaker: Dr. Asad Khan, CTO, Kent Displays
Title: Advances in eWriter Technology and New Applications

Abstract: As Boogie Board eWriters continue to grow and penetrate in larger numbers in consumer markets, new advances are taking place from large area to select erase and color. These will be discussed and shown in the context of commercialization.

Speaker Biography: Dr. Asad Khan is the Chief Technical Officer of Kent Displays and is also a member of the executive committee. In this role, he oversees the product development, engineering, quality, manufacturing, and research & development functions. He is involved in key strategic planning for the technology and business interactions of the corporation. Dr. Khan has been with Kent Displays for over 21 years. In this time, he has held numerous positions in R&D as well as management functions. Dr. Khan is also adjunct Professor of Chemical Physics at the Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State University. Dr. Khan holds more than 20 U.S. and international patents and is a co-inventor on several pending U.S. and foreign patents on cholesteric materials and displays. He is the author of numerous technical publications in liquid crystals including a contributing author in a book. He has given numerous presentations and seminars on liquid crystal display technologies in national and international conferences. He is a member of the Society for Information Display and the Society for Optical Engineering. Dr. Khan has a B.S. in Physics from the College of Wooster, an M.S. in Physics from Kent State University, and a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from the Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State University.

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Tuesday March 21, 2017
Speaker: Anurag Goel, CTO and VP of Software Development, Altierre
Title: Wireless Revolution in IoT

Abstract: At the risk of simultaneously sounding facetious and redundant, IoT devices must connect to an IoT Gateway and the Gateway must connect to a static IP server in the cloud for ease of remote accessibility. Bridging the IoT devices to the Gateway are the (mostly) battery powered RF modules that have now settled down to a handful of protocols that are well suited to a variety of verticals. This talk will focus on aspects of this wireless link that make for successful IoT solutions.

Speaker Biography: An Engineer and an entrepreneur, Anurag Goel has 30+ years of experience in systems engineering, product design, development, product management, product evangelism and marketing of robust enterprise scale software products. His technology experience includes computer image processing & pattern recognition, CAD/PLM, enterprise software, systems design, IoT applications, microfluidics and medical diagnostics. Prior to co-founding Altierre in 2002, he worked as product architect for Siemens NX, McDonnell Douglas, Medstone and Amada. He holds an MS Mechanical Engineering/Mathematics from UC Irvine and a BS from IIT Kanpur, India. In a moment of madness he authored a work on science fiction (“CE-5”), reads physics by night, and has a deep interest in a practical actualization of an Alcubierre’s space warp drive.

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Tuesday February 21, 2017
Speaker: Dr. Gordon Wetzstein, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, Stanford University
Title: Computational Near-eye Displays: Engineering the Interface Between Our Visual System and the Digital World

Abstract: Immersive visual and experiential computing systems, i.e. virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), are entering the consumer market and have the potential to profoundly impact our society. Applications of these systems range from communication, entertainment, education, collaborative work, simulation and training to telesurgery, phobia treatment, and basic vision research. In every immersive experience, the primary interface between the user and the digital world is the near-eye display. Thus, developing near-eye display systems that provide a high-quality user experience is of the utmost importance. Many characteristics of near-eye displays that define the quality of an experience, such as resolution, refresh rate, contrast, and field of view, have been significantly improved over the last years. However, a significant source of visual discomfort prevails: the vergence-accommodation conflict (VAC). Further, natural focus cues are not supported by any existing near-eye display. In this talk, we discuss frontiers of engineering next-generation opto-computational near-eye display systems to increase visual comfort and provide realistic and effective visual experiences.

Speaker Biography: Gordon Wetzstein is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and, by courtesy, of Computer Science at Stanford University. He is the leader of the Stanford Computational Imaging Group, an interdisciplinary research group focused on advancing imaging, microscopy, and display systems. At the intersection of computer graphics, machine vision, optics, scientific computing, and perception, Prof. Wetzstein's research has a wide range of applications in next-generation consumer electronics, scientific imaging, human-computer interaction, remote sensing, and many other areas. Prior to joining Stanford in 2014, Prof. Wetzstein was a Research Scientist in the Camera Culture Group at the MIT Media Lab. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia in 2011 and graduated with Honors from the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany before that. His doctoral dissertation focuses on computational light modulation for image acquisition and display and won the Alain Fournier Ph.D. Dissertation Annual Award. He organized the IEEE 2012 and 2013 International Workshops on Computational Cameras and Displays, founded displayblocks.org as a forum for sharing computational display design instructions with the DIY community, and presented a number of courses on Computational Displays and Computational Photography at ACM SIGGRAPH. Gordon is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award, he won best paper awards at the International Conference on Computational Photography (ICCP) in 2011 and 2014 as well as a Laval Virtual Award in 2005.

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Tuesday January 17, 2017
Speaker: Dr. Ravi Prasad, Chief Technology Officer, Vitriflex
Title: Transparent Ultra-Barrier Films for Optoelectronic Devices

Abstract: Vitriflex has developed transparent ultrabarrier film technology for protection of environmentally sensitive optoelectronic devices. We will present our current results including scale-up of optically tuned barrier films, together with some potential applications in OLEDs and flexible solar modules.

Speaker Biography: Dr. Prasad has over 25 years of experience in research and managing development of high gas barrier packaging films, membranes, advanced polymers and MEMS. He began his career as a process engineer in the petrochemicals industry at Shell, and he subsequently worked in engineering and management at Hoechst-Celanese Corporation. Dr. Prasad later joined HP’s Imaging and Printing Group, where he was CTO of the New Business Group. In addition to his large company experience, he has a strong entrepreneurial bent. He has over 25 issued US patents and numerous patents pending, has coauthored over 20 technical papers and contributed chapters in the Membrane Handbook and Membrane Separations in Biotechnology. He holds a BTech with distinction in Chemical Engineering from Univ. of Madras, India, and MS and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey.

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