Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1190860
36 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2019 Shaughnessy: One of the things you've been interested in and worked with is AR and VR. Where do you think those are headed? Mazzitelli: When I was working at PTC, they were all about AR and VR, especially regarding factory and industrial controls. Where that's going as an industry is interesting. Now, you have the ability to overlay instructional infor- mation on any device. For example, with a cam- era, if I was pushing the shutter and it wasn't working, in an AR or a VR mode, I could put on my goggles and have all of the instructions on how to take it apart and troubleshoot it. Feinberg: Not only that, but you can have the designer of the camera, or the tech service per- son who's half a world away, standing next to you and explaining what to do. I had a chance to try some of the stuff with Microsoft; they're doing a huge amount of work with extended reality (XR). With XR, there are many applica- tions in different industries. Mazzitelli: And the other value AR can provide is in replacing product manuals. As the peo- ple with many years of knowledge are retiring, the challenge becomes how to capture their knowledge so that it can be passed down to the next generation of people who will need it. With AR, you capture that and give them the information they need to be able to both run and troubleshoot issues by expanding on the physical world in an AR or a VR environment. Feinberg: If you think about it, we are now over 100 years since the first VR, which was black- and-white movies. Mazzitelli: I never thought of it that way, but that's interesting. Feinberg: The first case of VR was the first au- dio recordings. Then, one of the very first mov- ies showed a train coming right at you; people thought it was real and ran. My wife does a lot of semiprofessional photography, and we had a demo four years ago that was underwater. They called it VR, and it was augmented to the point that you were in it. This whale came up behind my wife, and I said, "Look at that." She turned around and screamed because it was so real. I also built a new computer that is aimed strictly at XR that has 100x the power of the big IBM computers. Shaughnessy: And some people say you could use it for training surgeons, so you could study surgery without having to cut anyone open. Mazzitelli: Exactly. Feinberg: Let's focus on the positive aspects of the technology and figure out the positive and negative effects of 5G. With 5G, once you take out the lag, your surgeon can be in Moscow, do- ing DaVinci robotic surgery on somebody in LA. Mazzitelli: And looking at our industry, train- ing is key for PCB design engineers. In the last 10 years, there have been very few new people in our industry. But I'm seeing younger PCB designers now, and AR and VR could be a big part of their training; they embrace new tech- nology. Shaughnessy: We appreciate your time, Linda. It's been great talking to you. Feinberg: I enjoyed it too. Mazzitelli: Thank you. DESIGN007 Andy Shaughnesy and Linda Mazzitelli.