Offering rides to public a world first in autonomous car testing

ANNABELLE LIANG AND DEE- ANN DURBIN
The Vancouver Sun

The world’s first selfdriving taxis began picking up passengers in Singapore, Thursday.

Select members of the public can hail a free ride through their smartphones in taxis operated by nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle software startup. While multiple companies, including Google and Volvo, have been testing selfdriving cars on public roads for several years, nuTonomy says is the first to offer rides to the public.

Its launch in Singapore is beating ride-hailing service Uber, which plans to offer rides in autonomous cars in Pittsburgh, by a few weeks.

NuTonomy is starting small — six cars now, growing to a dozen by the end of the year. The ultimate goal, company executives say, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, to help cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads. Eventually, the model could be adopted in cities around the world, nuTonomy hopes.

For now, the taxis only run in a 6.5 square kilometre business and residential district called “one-north,” and pick-ups and drop-offs are limited to specified locations. Riders must have an invitation from nuTonomy to use the service. The company says dozens have signed up for the launch, and it plans to expand that list to thousands of people within a few months.

The cars — modified Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV electrics — have a driver in front who is prepared to take back the wheel and a researcher in back who watches the car’s computers. Each car is fitted with six sets of Lidar — a detection system that uses lasers to operate like radar — including one that constantly spins on the roof. There are also two cameras on the dashboard to scan for obstacles and detect changes in traffic lights.

The testing time-frame is openended, said nuTonomy CEO Karl Iagnemma. Eventually, riders may start paying for the service, and more pick-up and drop-off points will be added. NuTonomy also is working on testing similar taxi services in other Asian cities, the U.S. and Europe, but he wouldn’t say when.

“I don’t expect there to be a time where we say, ‘We’ve learned enough,”’ Iagnemma said.

Doug Parker, nuTonomy’s chief operating officer, said autonomous taxis could ultimately reduce the number of cars on Singapore’s roads from 900,000 to 300,000.

“When you are able to take that many cars off the road, it creates a lot of possibilities. You can create smaller roads, you can create much smaller car parks,” Parker said. “I think it will change how people interact with the city going forward.”

NuTonomy, a 50-person company with offices in Massachusetts and Singapore, was formed in 2013 by Iagnemma and Emilio Frazzoli, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers who were studying robotics and developing autonomous vehicles for the Defence Department. Earlier this year, the company was the first to win approval from Singapore’s government to test self-driving cars in one-north. NuTonomy announced a research partnership with Singapore’s Land Transport Authority earlier this month.

Singapore is ideal because it has good weather, great infrastructure and drivers who tend to obey traffic rules, Iagnemma says. As a landlocked island, the city of 5.4 million people is seeking creative ways to grow its economy, so it’s been supportive of autonomous vehicle research.

Auto supplier Delphi Corp., which also is working on autonomous vehicle software, was recently selected to test autonomous vehicles on the island and plans to start next year.

“We face constraints in land and manpower. We want to take advantage of self-driving technology to overcome such constraints,” said Pang Kin Keong, Singapore’s Permanent Secretary for Transport and the chairman of its committee on autonomous driving.

Olivia Seow, 25, works in startup partnerships in one-north and is one of the riders nuTonomy selected, took a test ride of less than a mile on Monday. She said she was nervous when she got into the car, and then surprised as she watched the steering wheel turn by itself.

“It felt like there was a ghost or something,” she said.

But she quickly relaxed. The ride was smooth and controlled, she said, and she was relieved to see that the car recognized even small obstacles like birds and motorcycles parked in the distance.

“I couldn’t see them with my human eye, but the car could, so I knew that I could trust the car,” said Seow, who hopes to use the time freed up during her commute, thanks to the technology, or use the service to help her father get around town as he grows older.

An Associated Press reporter taking a ride Wednesday saw the safety driver step on the brakes once, when a car was obstructing the test car’s lane and another vehicle, which had appeared to be parked, suddenly began moving in the oncoming lane.

Iagnemma said the company is confident that its software can make good decisions. The company hopes its head start in autonomous driving will eventually lead to partnerships with automakers, tech companies, logistics companies and others.

“What we’re finding is the number of interested parties is really overwhelming,” he said.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc

CRTC may feel pressure on plans

EMILY JACKSON
The Vancouver Sun

T-Mobile, the third-largest wireless carrier in the United States, is abolishing data caps to offer consumers one plan with unlimited data, talk and text, a self-proclaimed “industry-shaking move” that has Canadian wireless advocates looking longingly south of the border.

T-Mobile customers will pay US$70 per month — roughly $90 in Canadian funds — for unlimited everything for the first line, $50 for the second and $20 for up to eight additional lines as of Sept. 6, the company announced Thursday. Caveats on usage kick in when a customer uses more than 26 GB of data or streams high-definition video.

Meanwhile in Canada, customers get only about two GB of data for the same price as T-Mobile’s new plan if they bring their own phones and use Rogers, Bell or Telus. (This excludes residents of Quebec, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where prices are significantly lower.) Major providers charge consumers about five cents per megabyte (up to a maximum of $50 per month) for going over their allotted data usage. None of the Big Three wireless providers offers unlimited data plans. Manitoba Telecom Services, which Bell will acquire for $3.9 billion pending federal approval, is the only provider in the country to offer unlimited data plans, starting at $86.50 per month.

The U.S. has a vastly larger market and fierce competition among its four major providers. But Internet advocacy groups, such as Vancouver-based OpenMedia, are hopeful unlimited data plans could make their way to Canada if regulators react to mounting pressure from fed-up consumers.

“If they can do it down there, then we can surely do this up here,” said OpenMedia spokesman David Christopher. “I do think it will take the CRTC to step in … I don’t think the big telecoms out of the goodness of their heart are going to reveal unlimited data plans.”

OpenMedia will push for an end to data caps at the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’ s fall public hearing on zero-rating and differential pricing, the practice of exempting certain usage from data caps. The tactic is picking up steam in Canada, with flanker brands such as Fido and Quebec’s regional carrier Vidéotron offering free music streaming with certain plans. Critics of differential pricing say the practice favours certain content when all data should be treated equally. Proponents call it a consumer perk that bolsters competition and argue a ban on data caps amounts to retail price regulation, which the CRTC does not do.

Ironically, T-Mobile has run afoul of open-Internet advocates in the past for zero-rating video and the Pokemon GO app. Even its new plan is getting flack for slowing down speeds from 4G LTE to 2G, known as throttling, when customers exceed 26 GB or tether their phones. (Nor do net neutrality fans like the fact that it’s a price jump for customers on the low end of service.) But former critics are praising T-Mobile for the move to a single unlimited plan. It indicates consumers don’t like sifting through complicated schemes to find a plan that suits them, Christopher said. Canadians have a wealth of choice when it comes to data plans. There are more than 100 different data options available for bring-your-own-phone plans with unlimited talk and text across all national brands. The glut of options swells when customers decide to purchase a phone at a variety of subsidized rates.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

ALISTAIR BARR
The Vancouver Sun

Google nailed email with the 2004 introduction of Gmail. Now it’s the No. 1 form of electronic correspondence in the U.S.

But as traditional email falls out of favour with a growing sliver of the population, Google has struggled to release newer messaging tools that resonate widely.

Now Google is trying again with a new video chat application called Duo. The app works with mobile devices running Google’s Android operating system and Apple Inc.’s iOS. It runs on Wi-Fi and cellular networks, automatically switching between different types and speeds of connection and adjusting video quality.

Duo also uses phone numbers, rather than a Google account or Gmail address, making it easier to call friends, family and other people already stored on smartphone contact lists.

The company’s existing video calling and messaging app, Hangouts, requires a Google account, which limited adoption, especially in emerging markets.

Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp and Messenger, Skype — now owned by Microsoft Corp. — and Apple’s FaceTime used phone numbers to grow faster.

A confusing array of communication options has held Google back. It has two email services — Gmail, which is the top email service in the U.S. based on unique visitors, according to ComScore, and Inbox; three text offerings, Hangouts, Messenger and the upcoming Allo; and now two video chat services, Duo and Hangouts (which offers texting and video calls).

This scattershot approach, and Google’s late start, is becoming more costly for the Alphabet Inc. division as messaging evolves from a simple way to communicate quickly into one of the next big technology platforms supporting digital commerce, advertising and new services powered by artificial intelligence.

“Google missed it because of the requirement that you needed a Google ID to communicate with others,” said Ankit Jain, a former Googler and executive at SimilarWeb Inc., which measures website and mobile app usage.

Hangouts ranked 84th among Android apps in the U.S. in July, based on installs and usage, according to SimilarWeb. That lagged Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Snapchat.

Nick Fox, a 13-year Google veteran, was tasked by Google chief executive Sundar Pichai 18 months ago with fixing the sprawl.

Soon after, his new team formulated a strategy and started building Duo and Allo.

“Google sees communication as this essential human need, whether that’s through text, a picture, calling someone or doing a video call,” Fox said in a recent interview.

This insight is a decade old and has guided Facebook’s strategy since its creation in 2004. Asian companies, like Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat and Line, have grown into tech powerhouses by connecting people through communication apps and offering related services on top of their networks. Skype, founded in 2003, became a leading video chat app on a similar foundation.

So how is Fox going to catch up? Job No. 1 is clearing up the bloated smorgasbord of Google communications services. Hangouts will be a workplace service, offering group video conferencing mostly via desktop computers and office laptops, Fox said. It will be integrated more with Google’s work software, such as Docs, Sheets and Slides, which will be easier to share.

Duo is a mobile app and only allows one-to-one video calling, limiting it as a consumer offering. Allo, a messaging service coming out later this year, will also target consumers, Fox said. Google’s Messenger is a basic text system, part of a group of services provided to wireless carriers that work closely with Android. The second tactic: Bringing what Fox says is better technology to the new services to catch up with rivals.

Duo constantly performs “bandwidth estimation” to understand how much video can be delivered. If Wi-Fi weakens, it switches to a phone’s cellular network. If a cellular signal drops as low as 2G, Duo will automatically cut video and maintain audio. Allo will use Google’s expertise in AI to automatically understand texts and provide useful suggestions. Google will also let third-party developers create chatbots that will interact with Allo users through messages. That’s already being tried by other companies such as Facebook and Microsoft, but Google has been working hard on AI for about a decade, so it may be more advanced.

“First build a great product,” Fox said, repeating a common Google mantra. “Once you get people to love it, they will share it with friends and co-workers and it grows.”

Google was late in other technology and caught up, Fox noted. Gmail started in 2004, more than six years after Yahoo Mail, but Google’s offer of mountains of free storage won over hundreds of millions of users. Google’s Chrome emerged in 2008 — over a decade after Microsoft’s Internet Explorer — and is now the most popular web browser partly because of speed and frequent updates.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

Thieves can take your car in seconds, and some automakers don?t care

David Booth
The Province

This is all that an enterprising young — and digital-savvy — car thief has to do to steal your new, high-tech, it’s-computerized-so-it’s-got-to-be-luxury sedan. First, follow you into your favourite chic little boîte, wait for you to get nice and comfy at your favourite table, then walk over and ….

Sit down.

That’s it. Sit down. No violence. No subterfuge. Actually, no interaction at all is required. He doesn’t even have to be facing you. Just sit down at the table next to yours and maybe sip a little oh-so-fruity Chablis.

 Meanwhile, outside, another bad actor with a similar lack of fanfare walks up to the car you’re absolutely sure you locked — you hit the lock button twice and the horn beeped, didn’t it? — and opens the door as if he was Ali Baba himself. He pushes the starter button — yes, the high-tech, anti-theft random number-generating key fob is still in your pocket — and faster than you can say “open sesame,” your fancy new Mercedes/BMW/Audi is on its way to a shipping container destined for Upper Slobovia.

Even the trick to this subterfuge — an amplifier that artful dodger No. 1 has in his pocket that increases the output of your key fob’s radio transmission — isn’t particularly complicated. Experts who know better than I say they’re not much harder to construct than the little Heathkit ham radios we old farts used to put together when they were the avant-garde of high-tech.

The only defence against such seemingly simple trickery is to construct something called a “Faraday cage” — you know it as the proverbial tin foil hat every dime-store Hollywood director scripts into their conspiracy theory blockbuster — or keep your key fob in something impervious to radio transmission like, say, the icebox in your refrigerator.

I know, I know. You’re thinking this is a joke. So did I when I first penned that exact same recommendation some three months ago in top-10 ways to avoid getting your car hacked. Who could seriously recommend you wrap your car keys in Reynolds Wrap or hide them under the Swanson’s TV Dinner as a serious deterrent to auto theft? Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club e.V or ADAC, the German equivalent to CAA, that’s who.

In a recent public announcement, they put together a video depicting exactly the scenario described above to illustrate how easy it is to steal a modern car. Car theft never looked so comfortable. Even more telling, however, was some real footage showing two reprobates stealing a new BMW 3 Series Touring in less time than it takes the owner — you have to fumble in your pockets for the key fob, after all — to get in and start his own vehicle.

Perhaps what will surprise you most, however, is ADAC’s list of vulnerable vehicles. This is not a bunch of low-cost rust buckets lacking in supposedly high-tech protections, but a veritable who’s who of high-dollar automobiles that most owners are convinced offer all manner of protection. BMW’s 7 Series leads the list, but Audi’s A3, A4 and A6, Ford’s Galaxy (a Sienna-like minivan Ford sells in Europe) and VW’s high-performance-diesel GTD version of the Golf are also vulnerable. The only car the automotive club couldn’t unlock was BMW’s i3, but they could start its little three-cylinder 1.5-litre engine.

“The radio connection between keys and car can easily be extended over several hundred metres, regardless of whether the original key is, for example, at home or in the pocket of the owner,” ADAC’s researchers said.

What made their announcement all the more interesting is it coincided with the first automotive cybersecurity super summit held July 22 at Detroit’s Cobo Hall, the same gargantuan arena that hosts the North American International Auto Show. Hosted by Thomas K. Billington, it was a veritable who’s who of doomsday prognosticators. U.S. Homeland Security was there, as was the FBI, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and even the American Federal Trade Commission, each trying to out-trump the other with tales of the terrible calamities the modern connected car might wreak on an unsuspecting public.

What started out as predictions of ne’er-do-wells merely misdirecting Autopilot turned into prophecies of Nice-like truck rampages, only with hundreds of inter-connected, self-driving buses wreaking unimaginable havoc.

All the assembled — there were many automotive captains of industry nodding their collective affirmation — agreed the only solution was complete technological transparency and an unprecedented level of cooperation — and not only between industry and regulators. They also claimed they could put aside the industry’s famed interbrand Hatfield and McCoy-like chicanery for the public good.

They even formed an organization — the Automotive Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Auto-ISAC) that will dedicate itself entirely to the thwarting of high-tech skulduggery and protection of its automotive citizenry. Such was the level of official co-operation on display before the cameras.

In the hallway outside this august arena, however, we got a different story. One marketing manager from a well-known computer security software provider (I’m withholding his name to protect the thankfully direct) complained that some car companies — not all — are not willing to spend even a dollar to augment their cybersecurity.

That’s not $1 for a superior antitheft key fob. Or even $1 to protect the engine control unit to prevent the horrible acts of terrorism the prognosticators of doom were predicting.

That’s not even $1 per car for all the cybersecurity measures needed to protect you and yours from any intrusion a high-tech miscreant might want to perpetrate on a car that, let me remind you, probably cost you anywhere between $20,000 and $150,000.

That’s how much they really care.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

Wi-Fi advertising on Chinese trains will tap into huge consumer market

CHUCK CHIANG
The Vancouver Sun

A B.C. company wants to put Canadian products in front of one of the largest captive audiences in the growing Chinese e-commerce market: rail passengers.

Richmond’s Freelife Solutions is partnering with Beijing-based C Media Group, a mobile technology company that currently provides free Wi-Fi service to about 1,000 rail cars in China through an app called “Luokuang” — or “bamboo basket” in Chinese — to launch “Canada Channel.” It will display information about Canadian tourism destinations, immigration processes and cultural events, as well as an e-commerce channel for booking flights and hotels or to purchase made-in-Canada products such as health supplements.

“We have about 180 million passengers — and we’re projecting that to grow to 200 million by the end of the year — covered through our Wi-Fi network on Chinese trains,” said Freelife executive director Jason Wang. “Because of the high speed of Chinese trains, the 2G and 3G network reception isn’t great for the passengers. So this is a very large audience.”

China has one of the world’s largest rail networks, totalling about 121,000 kilometres of track and carrying as many as 2.36 billion passengers a year. The Luokuang app hopes to cover about 50 per cent of the market by 2018, said CEO Carlo Pan, adding that the decision to start a Canada Channel was a result of market research.

“Most people think Chinese consumers care mostly about price and nothing else,” Pan said. “But our research shows that consumers care mostly about quality and expedited delivery, well ahead of price. For Chinese consumers, Canada means quality.”

That is why, Pan said, Freelife is looking for Canadian producers of everything from ice wine and bottled water to health supplements to sign on. The companies have to be able to certify their products as 100 per cent Canadian, he said, since that is an important factor driving consumers.

“Our model is that you can come to Canada anytime and check our vendors to see if everything comes from Canada,” Pan said.

He added that small companies without the means to enter the Chinese market themselves can use the Luokuang app to access customers in China through the delivery business model, making it an ideal way to test demand in the Far East.

“This resolves the problem of accessing the Chinese market for many small Canadian businesses, because sometimes the challenges of exporting regulations are too great to overcome,” Pan said. “With this, even if you have no desire to operate in China in any way, you can get your products to Chinese consumers.”

There have been similar forays by startups trying to link North American products to China’s ecommerce space, including by Chinese online giant Alibaba.

But the recent slowdown in the Chinese economy has worried some about the prospects of online advertising in China. In May, Chinese Internet software giant Tencent (maker of the WeChat app) said the economic slowdown dropped online advertising growth from 118 per cent a year ago to 73 per cent this year.

Wang, however, said given that China’s rail passenger market is largely unexplored, the potential for growth is huge.

“Right now, Luokuang only provides passengers with music, movies, games and reading material,” he said. “That’s already generating US$40 million in revenue for C Media every year. So you can see the consumption potential of these passengers. … What’s missing right now is e-commerce.”

Plans are underway to market Canada Channel in Vancouver and Toronto, and channels dedicated to the U.S., Japan, South Korea and Italy are potential future targets.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.

Pricey technology be damned with a pair of headphones and an iPod leading the way

David Booth
The Province

It’s no mystery why our lives are too complicated. The problem is, like so many of our problems, we bring this complication on ourselves.

For instance, why do we need the bazillion types, sizes, flavours and chemical formulations of toothpaste that now take up a whole row of shelves at my local Shoppers Drug Mart? What does it say about our organizational skills that we create endless email chains when a simple two-minute phone call can resolve pretty much any issue?

And why, when presented with a technological problem, do we always seem to insist on the most complicated solution, when our brains are seemingly hardwired — see Occam’s razor — to seek out the simplest solution?

I stumbled on this revelation by accident. And by accident I mean because I’m a cheap bastard. Since the purchase of my new-to-me 2002 Suzuki V-Strom — henceforth to be known as the ugliest motorcycle ever invented — I’ve been riding more. Hence, thanks to a complete and utter lack of geographic skills, I’ve been getting lost more. A lot more.

I did a lot of research. Obviously, I needed something top of the line and state of the art. You “complexifiers” — defined by Scott Berkun, author of The Myths of Innovation, as someone who “takes pride in consuming more bandwidth, time and patience than needed and expects rewards for it” — know what I am talking about. My first instinct was to pony up for a bucks-up motorcycle-enabled Garmin navigation system with Bluetooth connections, XM traffic updates and new technology called Garmin Adventurous Routing.

But I really am cheap. And the Garmin — once you throw in mounts, power cords and all the other options that electronic gizmos come with these days — tops out at about $1,000, approximately a quarter of what I paid for the aforementioned ugliest motorcycle in the world. So I did what any indeterminately frugal Scrooge would do: I fit some earphones under my helmet, plugged them into my iPhone and had Siri fix the whole situation.

At first, I thought this would be merely a stopgap solution until I got up the courage to fork over the big bucks for a Zumo 395LM (my Garmin of choice). Indeed, absent visual cues, how was one supposed to navigate? Wouldn’t that be a little like trying to drive with your eyes closed? How could I possibly navigate without visual confirmation of the audible instructions being piped, seemingly randomly, into my helmet?

Very well, as it turns out. In fact, I’ve been two-wheel navigating all over North America and Europe, trusting in nothing but Siri for a year and — in complete contradistinction to my experience with automotive GPS systems — have not been lost once.

The question is why? Why was I better informed with less information? How can it be that visual cues are actually detrimental to a task that seems so, well, visual?

The best answer I can come up with is because it’s simple. And by simple, what I mean is that by being forced to rely only on audible cues, I can’t — like all skeptical humans are wont to do — secondguess the system. Indeed, when I actually focused on why I was getting lost using visually enhanced automotive systems, it was because I was continually using the digital map to anticipate what she — and isn’t it interesting that all GPS systems use a female “navigator” — meant by her latest instruction. “Does she mean this turn?” or “Is it this street or is it the next one?” and “Crap, she wanted me to turn there?” are the constant refrains of a human trying to prove superior over technology by secondguessing its instruction.

I proved this — at least to myself — by testing Siri in a car. Thinking that it was simply Apple’s superior mapping, I mounted my iPhone on the dashboard and started following the map app visually. And promptly got lost. Finally cluing in — as William of Ockham said, “Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected” — I put my iPhone in my pocket. Presto, change-o! No more getting lost on the way to the corner store.

It was only then that I realized I was trying to out-think technology rather than use it. Forced to do without visual cues, I had no choice other than to simply wait for Siri’s audible commands, no misguided anticipation possible or permissible. How can one, after all, challenge what one cannot see?

At first, it was more than a little disconcerting. Siri’s calming voice would abandon me for hours at a time. Unlike so many automotive GPS systems, if she had no direction changes to make, she remained silent. I’d be certain that my iPhone had run out of battery power, that the headphones had become disconnected or, worse yet, that Siri had somehow abandoned me. I’d stop by the side of the road, doff my helmet, take off my gloves, dig my phone out from underneath three layers of thermal and waterproof Gore-Tex only to find that … I was still on my chosen path.

Bit by bit, I got used to her silence. I came to the realization that she wouldn’t tell me anything I didn’t need to know and, more importantly, that all the things she wasn’t telling me I really didn’t need to know. We reached an understanding: I wouldn’t worry about where I was going as long as she never steered me wrong. Twelve months later, I have yet to rescind that agreement.

I now use my iPhone even in cars with supposedly state-of-the-art navigation systems. And I never look at the screen.

© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc

In the first of a two-part series, real estate marketing ninja Sepy Bazzazi unfolds how virtual reality is already transforming home sales

Sepy Bazzazi
Other

A short generation ago, when MLS® listings first became available online, the real estate industry was in a state of excitement and turbulence.

Now roughly 20 years later, even the most old-school REALTOR® has been weaned off of filing cabinets and fax machines and has adapted to the internet age. Today we think back on the early 90s and wonder how we ever managed our real estate listings before the internet.

The introduction of online MLS® was only one of the most recent in a series of fundamental changes in real estate marketing. The Social Media Revolution was another, even more recent one. Major improvements and shifts in the way real estate business is conducted have been happening since as far back as we know.

“In the late 1800s, real estate brokers regularly gathered at the offices of their local associations to share information about properties they were trying to sell. They agreed to compensate other brokers who helped sell those properties, and the first MLS was born, based on a fundamental principle that’s unique to organized real estate: Help me sell my inventory and I’ll help you sell yours.” (Wikipedia)

Real estate ninjas who have remained agile and spotted opportunity in the changing landscape are the ones who have always levelled-up over the years. If you are a modern real estate marketer who has a grip on the current state of affairs, you might be wondering “What’s the next game-changing trend that REALTORS® should be aware of?”

Enter Virtual Reality

As a concept, virtual reality, or VR, has been around since the early 1960s. The many iterations of VR over the years have each been incrementally better than the last, but in 2014 when Facebook acquired Oculus Rift for $2 billion, things changed. Now there is a variety of competitors in the market; from general options such as Samsung Gear VR (powered by Oculus) or Google Cardboard to even some real estate-specific products such as Matterport. This product creates immersive virtual reality tours of homes, commercial spaces and places, and was first brought to Vancouver in 2014 by LNG Studios, a local 3D rendering and animation practice.

OK, so you might be thinking, “I already have virtual tours for my listings, so I’m all set”.

But virtual tours and virtual reality are completely different. You might have a YouTube video that was filmed by a cameraman walking through the property. If you’re really cool you’re probably showing visitors a 360-degree photograph of the different rooms in the property. They can use the mouse to control where they are looking, etc. This is definitely a virtual tour, but it is certainly not virtual reality.

Today, virtual reality has reached heights that are truly mind-bending. If you haven’t seen the photo-realism and total immersion that is possible with a VR headset, watch this video by VR Global in New York right now:

 

Pretty awesome, right? Now imagine the potential of virtual reality marketing for your real estate business. If you don’t have the time to imagine, fret not – there’s a number of current and upcoming VR marketing opportunities for Canadian REALTORS®.

Efficiency and Innovation

How many times have you spent an entire Saturday and Sunday driving your client around the city, taking them to 10+ properties that they are “serious” about? Trade in your fancy sports car for a VR headset and change the fundamental way you do business.

Your client is not actually serious about 10 listings, so why not boil those 10 down to two or three before you take them out to the physical address? With VR you will be able to take your clients through a detailed home tour from the comfort of your office or even their living room – in hours, not days. Just hand them the VR headset, load the VR tour of the property, and run your pitch.

Your client will be looking through the headset at their virtual property in awe. As they “stand” in the property and look around, they will be delighted at how cutting edge their REALTOR® is and shocked at how incredibly realistic the whole VR experience feels. Meanwhile, you will be able to monitor what they are looking at, so that you can actually cater the home tour to them with a relevant, live narrative.

By the way, I’m not talking about some concept that is years away. This is happening right now in the real estate industry around North America. In an interview with Fortune.com, Sotheby’s real estate agent Matthew Hood said:

“I can lead a VR tour remotely and even see where the client is looking, which allows me to address things like a kitchen counter style while they’re looking at it, just as I would in a real world tour.” (Full interview here)

For your business in particular, VR marketing has the potential to save you dozens of hours a month. Imagine what you could do with your free time.

 

In the second of a two-part series, real estate marketing ninja Sepy Bazzazi explains the next level of virtual reality in presales, gamification and neighbourhood tours

By

Sepy Bazzazi RealtyNinja

April 6, 2016

 

Presale Tours

Have you ever walked a client through the sample unit or showroom of an undeveloped building?

Many overseas buyers are online right now, checking out units in these undeveloped buildings, interested in purchasing ASAP. These people don’t have the means to come see the sample unit or showroom first hand, so they rely heavily on whatever they can find online to help them make their initial decision.

Luckily, the building they are interested in has a VR tour available for every different unit type. The overseas investor can throw on a VR headset and completely immerse themselves in the unit from thousands of miles away. They can walk around, look in any direction, examine unit features more closely and get a real idea of the space. Just by using VR, you’re already ahead of most the competition.

If you were wondering about local buyers, know this: the showroom of the future will simply be an office with numerous VR headsets on desks. Prospective local buyers will walk in, put on the VR headsets and have an agent guide them through the VR tour with live narrative. This gives you the ability, if you wish, to show the unit to thousands of people at the same time.

There are also other ways to enhance the VR showing experience, one of which we cover in the next section.

Listing VR Gamification

Virtual reality technology is going to make the biggest splash in the gaming industry. The same super nerds that were raised in part by video games are now the geniuses who are at the forefront of global technology. Guess what? They are actually building things they fantasized about as a kid.

The point is that virtual reality is not just a visual medium, it’s an interactive art form – it’s gaming, no matter how you chop it up. People who use your VR tours in the future are basically just playing a real estate video game (with real life outcomes, of course).

So why not make your real estate video game the best one out there?

What if, using your VR tours, your clients could change the paint on the walls with the touch of a button? Add a Persian rug or go full hardwood? Go full stainless steel in the kitchen and add a new 60-inch flat screen? Plan a full renovation, or just the removal of some walls? Once they are done “renovating,” potential clients can save their progress for later to share with family and friends. The result: they keep coming back to your website.

If you can be the first real estate agent who gamifies well in your market… the first who offers people a way to customize YOUR listings to THEIR liking?! Fuhgeddaboudit.

Immersive Neighbourhoods

Another opportunity worth exploring is the idea of free-roaming around a specific neighbourhood – from the comfort of your favourite chair (even that chair). We can already do this to some degree with Google Street View, but when virtual reality takes a firm hold on the world, this experience is going to be wildly different and highly dynamic.

Many agents currently showcase the neighbourhoods they serve on their website. Some use nice photos and others even produce beautiful videos. They do this to earn relevant traffic and to express their expertise and understanding of the niche.

Real estate ninjas of the future will complement their beautiful photos and videos on their site with immersive neighbourhood experiences. In less than 10 years, you will be browsing real estate websites and reading call to actions that say things like “Walk the Stanley Park Seawall in VR”, and “Drive across the Lions Gate Bridge in VR.”

Of course, when you start getting into VR neighbourhood tours, things can get pretty hectic pretty fast. Local businesses would get involved, and then so would advertisers. I wonder how the virtual neighbourhoods of the future will end up looking…

The truth is, there are a vast many possibilities when it comes to the virtual realm. I have covered a modest few of them here and hope that you will discover some unique ones of your own. With time and dedication, we’ll learn to harness the true power of Virtual Reality Marketing together.

Our goal at RealtyNinja is to make sure you’re always aware of the modern marketing opportunities available to you today, and in the future. And we’re not the only ones who believe virtual reality will play a role in the future of real estate. Inman said in January that VR is one of three trends agents should look out for.

I hope this two-part series has helped inspire the entrepreneur within each of you. If you have any questions, or would like to chat more, feel free to get in touch with me directly.

© 2016 Real Estate Weekly

Claire Brownell
The Vancouver Sun

Drawing on the power of Netflix Inc.’s global programming database could give the company’s new recommendation algorithms an advantage over Canadian competitors shomi and CraveTV when it comes to keeping viewers paying the monthly subscription fee.

On Wednesday morning, Netflix’s vice-president of product innovation Carlos Gomez-Uribe revealed the company has changed the algorithms that recommend what viewers should watch next. Instead of making recommendations based on regional models, Netflix now analyzes the types of videos a customer likes to watch and looks to other users with similar tastes around the world — presenting recommendations based on what’s popular with members of that fan community regardless of where they live.

Gomez-Uribe said the new algorithms are so good at personalizing recommendations, they’ve established that there’s a global community of people who like to watch movies with talking horses that’s distinct from the community that likes to watch movies with talking dogs. “It’s pretty funny. It’s not a level of detail we had before,” he said in an interview.

In contrast, both shomi — a video streaming service jointly owned by Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. — and Bell Media’s CraveTV tout the human touch their recommendations offer.

Mike Cosentino, senior vice-president of programming at CraveTV, said its service “features human curation for Canadians by real Canadian TV programming experts,” while shomi uses “a marriage of human curation and technical algorithm (to ensure) members discover new and unique content that is of interest to them but not limited to the boundaries of their profile,” said Anne Tebo, senior director of customer experience and insights.

Asked if Netflix’s new global algorithms can beat a human’s suggestions, Gomez-Uribe laughed. “Any day,” he said.

Canadian subscribers may still not be able to watch American Horror Story, for example, but Netflix is getting better at telling Canadian horror fans what else they might be interested in that’s legally licensed for them to watch.

On January 14, Netflix announced it would take steps to make it more difficult to access Netflix shows and movies that aren’t licensed for viewing in a customer’s place of residence by using services that obscure a computer’s location.

As many as one-third of Canadian Netflix subscribers use virtual private networks to watch videos available to our U.S. neighbours, according to some estimates.

Alan Wolk, a senior analyst at media consulting firm Diffusion Group and author of Over The Top: How The Internet Is (Slowly But Surely) Changing The Television Industry, said good recommendations are valuable to streaming services because they keep viewers engaged by constantly offering up new videos they want to watch. And happy and engaged customers are less likely to cancel their subscriptions, he said.

The downside is the loss of “serendipity,” Wolk said. Netflix might know that a viewer who’s watched three animated movies with talking horses is likely to be interested in a fourth, but that same viewer might have expanded his taste horizons had something else been offered.

“Sometimes we stumble upon something that’s completely unlike anything you’ve ever watched before,” Wolk said. “That’s something unfortunate that we’re losing.”

Algorithms that cater to niche global tastes offer both advantages and disadvantages to Canadian filmmakers. Netflix’s new global algorithms mean a Canadian who has never shown any interest in Canadian film could be less likely to receive a recommendation to watch one, but an American who loves whodunits could be more likely to receive a recommendation for, say, CBC’s Murdoch Mysteries.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission relaxed the Canadian content quotas that broadcasters must meet last March in response to increased competition from Netflix. It also decided against requiring the U.S.-based company to pay into a Canadian content fund.

Gomez-Uribe said Netflix’s new recommendation algorithms should increase exposure to Canadian films and television shows by suggesting them to people who are more likely to actually watch them.

“You’ll have many more people across the entire world watching Canadian productions,” he said.

© 2016 National Post

John Tenpenny
Other

With activity on social media platforms at increasingly higher levels, including many in the real estate industry, the temptation for others may be to jump in with both feet, but one agent warns to look before you leap.

“Social media is a small part of my marketing activity,” says Erwin Szeto, a sales representative with Rock Star Brokerage Inc., in Hamilton who specializes in helping property investors. “I use it more as a supplement to my core marketing initiatives.”

Recent CBC research pointed to Canadians being more digitally creative than ever before. The reports looked at social media sites other than Facebook: Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and Reddit.

The study on Twitter said 85 per cent of its users are creating content online for others to consume, while another report said 88 per cent of Instagram users are content creators.

Szeto says he finds email campaigns return more value than social media posts.

“If someone gives me their email, then they want to hear from me,” he says. “Versus when you post something on social media and you’re kind of butting into whatever conversation they’re having.”

Leads take time to develop and according to Szeto, much of the activity on social media from the real estate industry is “the push towards the sale, rather than having any sort of relationship-building dialogue. Everything I put out on my website and social media is always to educate”

That takes time he says.

“I have people who have been on my email list for a year or two before they’re say they’re ready and I find those people so much more educated about the service we provide and much further along in the decision making process. People who I get cold from social media are less so. They typically might ask ‘Can you tell me why I should invest in real estate versus the stock market.”

Copyright © 2015 Key Media Pty Ltd

Jordan Maxwell
Other

Real estate agents are turning to guys like Derek Celedon, a real estate photographer in Fresno, California, who uses drones to photograph homes and properties in the region.

“For people who can’t travel to see homes, it gives you a high-definition look at images of the property, both inside and out, and gives you a better quality image than what Google Maps or Earth could give you,” Celedon told REPA in an interview.

The Federal Aviation Administration began allowing drones to be used last year for commercial purposes. Since then, real estate agents have been teaming up with photographers like Celedon, who runs Aerial Properties Ltd.

The trend is helping agents to sell high-end homes and has also helped those looking for agricultural land to build on or harvest food.

Under the new regulations, drones must weigh 55 pounds or less and can only be flown during the day. The drones also must stay below 500 feet and have to be within eyesight of the operator.

Since the regulation change, real estate businesses have won nearly a third of the first 500 commercial done permits, according to a FAA study obtained by USA Today.

The most popular use accounted for 153 of the early permits granted by the FAA beginning in September, according to a study by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.

On a geographic scale, California businesses received 70 permits, with 46 in Texas, 40 in Florida, 18 in Illinois and 17 in Arizona. While privacy concerns, as well as how drones interact with air traffic, is still a worry for officials, the rollout is going to help agents offer buyers a multimedia experience.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has been a vocal supporter of the new drone rules and is actively lobbying for the FAA to speed up the process for implementation.

“NAR plans to submit comments to the agency and will continue to work with our members to educate them about the future safe, responsible and legal uses of UAVs,” said Chris Polychron, president of NAR, in a press release.

“However, until the final rule is published, NAR discourages Realtors from using UAV photography or video for commercial purposes without an FAA exemption.”

Copyright © 2015 Key Media Pty Ltd