What a busy summer it has been for the team at OVR Technology! As many of you know, we formally announced our Architecture of Scent® platform at this year’s Augmented World Expo (AWE) event in late May. The event was intended to be an in-person event, but like so many other events and meetings, it went online due to the COVID-19 restrictions.
While we were disappointed that we couldn’t share live scent experiences with the attendees, we were excited about the reactions we have received from attendees, the social media community, and the press and media since the show. Though we keep our News page up to date, we thought a blog post and email newsletter with some of the latest coverage would help our friends keep up with some of the latest coverage.
Now, to our reporters in the field with the latest from OVR Technology…
- The “Summer of AoS” kicked off with our Press Release and Announcement of the Architecture of Scent.
- A week before the AWE Online Event, Aaron (our CEO) was interviewed by Emily Friedman for the AWE Blog. (On their social channels she called it… “One of the coolest interviews I’ve done in a while.” We agree.)
- Then came the main event! Aaron was invited to be one of the main stage speakers at AWE. His session “Scent, the Key to Unlocking Virtual-World Immersion, and Powerful Real-World, Benefits” can be viewed on the AWE Vimeo Channel.
- During and after the event, we got quite a few media requests and stories. What is most exciting for us, is they all took a slightly different angle. The flurry of coverage started with the VR Scout article called “Olfactory Engineering: The Future of Multisensory VR Could Be Scent-Based” by Anne McKinnon.
- Followed quickly by “OVR: Stop and Smell the Roses in VR” by Kenneth Wong for Digital Engineering.
- And, AR Post’s “OVR Technology Creates First-of-Its-Kind Virtual Reality Experiences With Scents” by Gergana Mieva.
Then our story got the attention of several local Vermont and New England TV and print media outlets.
- First was a local segment called “Made in Vermont” from WCAX News’ Scott Fleishman.
- Our local newspaper, The Burlington Free Press, did a feature in the business section, by Dan D’Ambrosio. Unfortunately, they put the story behind their subscriber’s login (we hope they open that up soon). The article is called “Smell the reality: Burlington tech start-up is bringing an olfactory element to VR“. [Update: After the initial publication of this blog post this story appeared on the front page of the Sunday, Aug, 2 paper edition. See above image]
- And just last night, New England Cable News, and the local NBC affiliate WPTZ ran Jack Thurston’s report, “VT Company Aims to Make Virtual Reality More Realistic Through Scent“.
There are still a few interviews and articles that have yet to be published and quite a few more that upcoming. Stay Tuned!
We also participated in a few online and virtual reality meetups, as well as, helped start a scent-technology focused Discord channel. The “aroma” Discord group will hold monthly online meetups for those interested in the combination of scent and technology.
Of course, we are not slowing down after summer! We are starting to get excited about our upcoming participation at the next VRARA Online Summit, September 16-18. We hope to see you there, please remember to stop by our virtual booth.
Lastly, to get our latest news and updates in real-time, don’t forget to follow us on our social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram)! And of course, subscribe to the OVR Technology blog.
Now back to our regularly scheduled program.