Like many good ideas, San Francisco-based Paracosma traces back its origins to when it’s Founder and CEO Ken Ehrhart set out to tap the potential of a futuristic technology. “It is one of the most interdisciplinary, interesting and fastest evolving fields. It also has the most far-reaching potential to radically alter all aspects of human society and industry. Everything from real estate to travel, to interpersonal relationships will be altered by these technologies”, recounts Ehrhart. “Asking what the Killer App is for VR is like asking what the killer app for life is. Anything you can dream to experience in the real world will be possible in VR. Yet again, all the things impossible in the real world will also be possible in VR. Therefore it has a greater range of potential than real life”.
Curiosity bred invention. Ken has been in technology research for 23 years, a partner in Venture Capital for 19 years and worked on international market expansion for over 9 years. He brings a wealth of experience in growing early stage companies in a global world. Paracosma has been built from the start as an international company. It serves the two largest enterprise markets in the world, the US and Japan. With a strong belief in the inevitable ubiquity of AR and VR accessible largely through smartphones Ken’s goal has been to build a company that combines strategic thinking with broad and deep technical capability, so that it would be well positioned as the markets mature. The biggest challenge? “The goal for us is not to simplify VR to match today’s technology but to stretch the boundaries in advance of tomorrow’s technology. This allows us to focus on the ultimate potential of the technology”, says Ehrhart with enthusiasm.
Making Augmented and Virtual Reality as good as Reality is not enough! Paracosma’s focus was on disruption from the beginning in 2016.Thereby, instead of just making ‘Augmented and Virtual Realities better than Reality’ it envisions the grander ambition of making ‘Reality better through Augmented and Virtual Reality’. “Almost all projects we do require some level of innovation and creativity. In the case of a global durable goods manufacturer, we created AR models that required the modeling of realistic glass and flowing water, both challenges in AR. We are currently developing a surgery simulation that requires soft-tissue modeling and physics simulation that has not been achieved effectively in VR. A manufacturing client requires machine vision capability that is pushing the limits of current technology. We are developing an alternative to integrating 3D CAD models for industrial AR applications. We have ongoing R&D to produce AR and VR holographic renderings of the live broadcast and recorded video of people”, says Ehrhart. The ability to push its own boundaries of success has made Paracosma a leading innovator in the reality space.