Amazon Web Services anticipates new services at its annual 're:Invent 2017' conference

These include Amazon Sumerian, a new service for creating virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and 3D applications, and AWS Elemental Media Services, an integrated set of services that makes it easier for video providers to have a range of reliable, flexible and scalable solutions in the cloud.

From November 27 to December 1 Amazon Web Services (AWS) is holding its annual conference in Las Vegas (United States) re:Invent 2017. At the beginning of this AWS summit with its customers and partners, it announced interesting new services.

Among them, Amazon Sumerian stands out, a new service for the creation of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and 3D applications, which can be viewed on mobile devices, virtual glasses, digital signage or web browsers. With Amazon Sumerian, developers can build realistic virtual environments, including 3D objects and animated characters in their proposals.

With the Amazon Sumerian editor, developers can build realistic virtual environments, fill them with 3D objects and animated characters, and guide how they interact with each other and with app users. VR and AR apps built on Amazon Sumerian will run on any browser that supports WebGL or WebVR graphics rendering, including Daydream, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and iOS mobile devices. Getting started with Amazon Sumerian will be as simple as signing in to the AWS Management Console. Amazon promises that there will be no software to install or upfront costs as customers only pay for the storage used for the 3D assets and the volume of traffic generated to access the virtual scenes they create.

Customers in many industries are adopting VR and AR technologies to build realistic virtual environments, or overlay virtual objects on the real world, for a wide range of applications. Until now, creating realistic virtual environments or “scenes” required specialized skills and the use of multiple different tools for disciplines such as 3D modeling, environmental design, animation, lighting effects, audio editing, and more. And then, once a VR or AR application is ready, developers must learn and implement unique specifications and deployment processes for each of the major hardware vendors.

Amazon Sumerian solves these challenges by providing a web-based editor that developers can use to quickly and easily create professional-quality scenes, and a visual scripting tool to build logic that controls how objects and characters in scenes behave and respond to actions. Amazon Sumerian also makes it easy to create scenes where natural interactions occur between objects, characters, and users by using AWS services such as Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, AWS Lambda, AWS IoT, and Amazon DynamoDB.

Marco Argenti, vice president of technology at AWS, highlighted that "customers across industries see the potential of VR and AR technologies for a wide range of uses, from educating and training employees to creating new customer experiences. But customers are intimidated and overwhelmed by the initial investment in specialized skills and tools necessary to even start building a virtual reality or AR application. With Amazon Sumerian, it is now possible for any developer to create a realistic and interactive VR or AR application in a few hours."

AWS Elemental Media Services

Another novelty presented in Las Vegas is AWS Elemental Media Services, an integrated set of services that makes it easier for video providers to have an offer of reliable, flexible and scalable solutions in the cloud. Based on AWS Elemental video solutions, these five new cloud services enable customers to create end-to-end workflows for live and on-demand video with the professional image quality and reliability features needed to deliver premium experiences to viewers across a multitude of devices.

With just a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, customers can create custom video applications and pay only for the technology resources they use, with no upfront capital investment.

Whether for entertainment, sports, news, education or corporate, today's consumers expect great video experiences delivered securely and reliably to any device, including tablets, smartphones, connected TVs or set-top boxes. Previously, to meet these high expectations, video providers had to purchase very expensive specialized streaming equipment that was inflexible, slow to adapt to new device platforms, difficult to scale to meet peak demand, and often lacked support for the latest video formats, resolutions, and streaming techniques. Additionally, if the video provider wanted to adopt new revenue-generating business models, such as personalized advertising to a global customer base, they needed to spend considerable time and effort to make that work work seamlessly across devices.

AWS Elemental Media Services eliminates the need to purchase expensive equipment for video data centers. These services automate what were previously complex and time-consuming processes that manage continuous video operations. Additionally, AWS Elemental Media Services enables video providers to avoid wasted infrastructure due to continued technology obsolescence. With AWS Elemental Media Services, which combines the proven broadcast-quality video solutions of AWS Elemental with the security, durability, availability, and scalability of AWS, video providers can focus on creating great content through the cloud instead of building and maintaining on-premises video infrastructure. Projects that once took months or years – such as 24x7 live streaming channels, converting a library of video-on-demand (VOD) assets for distribution, or streaming a high-profile live event – ​​can now be completed in a fraction of the time with AWS Elemental Media Services.

Additionally, using AWS Elemental Media Services, video providers can also embed personalized ads into the video stream using advanced techniques to generate additional revenue from their video content.

Alex Dunlap, CEO of AWS Elemental, maintains that "for most of the last six decades, professional-grade video workflows were limited to a few large industry players who could afford to build and maintain custom infrastructure that would be updated once or twice every decade. These companies spent a lot of time, money, and focused operational infrastructure with resources that could have been better spent creating great content and viewer experiences. We created AWS Elemental Media Services to enable customers to “This not only helps traditional video providers innovate faster, but also opens up new opportunities for startups, government agencies, schools and multinational companies that, before today, had limited access to premium quality video technology.”