The Malaga Observatory consolidates itself as the reference event in Spain on new immersive technologies

The Digital Content Hub of Malaga hosts the New Technologies Observatory, for the second consecutive year, which will be held on July 18 and 19.

The Councilor for Innovation and New Technologies of the Malaga City Council, Mario Cortés, the director of the Digital Content Hub, Antonio Quirós, and the CEO of Medina Media, Ricardo Medina, have presented the activities that will be developed in the second edition of The Observatory of New Technologies, which will be celebrated on the days July 18 and 19, y que consolidan a este evento multidisciplinar como el más importante que se celebra en España sobre las nuevas tecnologías inmersivas.

Mario Cortés ha destacado la relevancia de este evento, que con vocación internacional, ha conseguido atraer a profesionales de primer nivel mundial, como la Responsable del Programa de Realidad Virtual de la NASA, Evelyn Miralles.

In addition, researchers from prestigious universities such as Cambridge, with María Pérez from Córdoba, will be on the Observatory's agenda; the director in Spain of the famous Nokia Bell Labs, Álvaro Villegas; and the surgeon Rubén Pérez Mañanes, who uses Augmented Reality for his operations at the Gregorio Marañón Hospital in Madrid.

After the success of the first edition in 2017, El Observatorio will bring together in its second edition national and international experts, and multinationals, leaders in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, 360, Video Games, eSports, “Serious Games”, etc., and everything that surrounds all the new immersive technologies.

Live immersive experiences in sports will also be exhibited at the Observatory, both from the Davis Cup and the Mutua Open in Madrid with Rafa Nadal, as well as the Winter Olympic Games, with the Olympic Channel.

The Observatory once again has sponsors such as the multinational technology companies Samsung and Nokia, and other leading companies in the sector such as Sngular, YerbaBuenaVR, Opossum Studios, Grupo Premo, Amfitech, Versus Gamers, among others.

“It is a reality that proves that Málaga is a benchmark in Southern Europe for New Technologies,” stated Mario Cortés.

For Ricardo Medina, “the success of El Observatorio lies in the fact that in two days, and in the capital of the Costa del Sol, we have a panoramic view each year of the real applications of these new technologies in different sectors, told first-hand by the best specialists.”

Antonio Quirós, director of the Malaga Digital Content Pole, highlighted that “one of the most relevant characteristics of this edition of El Observatorio is that, in addition to the conferences for professionals, there will be permanent free demonstrations that will make it possible for all Malaga residents who come to the Pole to test and compare the latest devices and live innovative immersive experiences.”

The 6,000 square meters of the Digital Content Pole will house a Demonstration and Experience Area that will be open to the public from 10:00 in the morning so that young and old can try VR, eSports and the best “indie” video games for free.

The audience will be able to try more than 30 experiences for free, including innovative devices such as Sngular's CoolPaintr tool, developed with PlayStationVR, which is already a success in the United States. Additionally, the public will be able to experiment with up to 17 different devices, including a relaxation or “Mindfulness” experience inside an insulating bubble.

La NASA, en realidad virtual

En la agenda de El Observatorio figura, como speaker de honor, la responsable del programa de Realidad Virtual de la NASA, Evelyn Miralles. Considerada una de las 10 mujeres latinoamericanas más influyentes del mundo, compartirá sus experiencias y visión de futuro con los asistentes a través de una videoconferencia desde Houston, Texas.

La empresa YerbaBuena VR, con sede en Santa Mónica (California, USA), presentará en el Polo de Contenidos Digitales de Málaga sus últimos avances y experiencias de retransmisiones deportivas en Realidad Virtual en directo en la Copa Davis, el Mutua Madrid Open y otros eventos deportivos.

Yeray Alfageme, Business Technology Manager of the Olympic Channel, will reveal the recording techniques during the Winter Olympic Games of the 7-episode series “Trending Gold”, as well as the productions carried out live in VR 360 in PyeongChang, Korea.

Grupo Premo, together with the Dutch company Amfitech, will share with El Observatorio attendees their international success story as manufacturers of antennas for new immersive technologies that demand a huge amount of sensors and information connected to the Internet wirelessly.

eSports and video games

The country's two largest operators, Movistar and Vodafone, will be present at El Observatorio with their two main eSports experts: Santiago Peydro, responsible for the eSports project at Telefónica Spain, and Borja Mengotti, Senior Brand Manager at Vodafone. In addition, the president of the Association of eSports Clubs, José Ramón Díaz, will also share with the attendees his vision and experience of the first months of life of this association.

The consulting firm Deloitte will carry out an analysis of the industry and the different eSports business models, led by its partner responsible for Sports, Fernando Pons.

For his part, José María Moreno, general director of the Spanish Video Games Association (AEVI), will share for the first time with the experts from El Observatorio the conclusions of the 2017 Yearbook on July 18. The 1,359 million euros of the video game market in Spain in 2017 is 17% more than in 2016 and represents the main leisure bet of Spaniards, doubling overall cinema (597 million) and recorded music (232 million).

“Serious games” and gamification will also be another topic that the professor at the University of Malaga, Antonio José Fernández Leiva, will address.

Medicine and educational environments

The practical and proven applications that Augmented Reality has for Medicine, and especially for Surgery, will be another of the thematic axes of the second edition of The Observatory. These innovative practical applications make headlines in national and international newspapers. And they have a name of their own in Spain: Dr. Rubén Pérez Mañanes. The young doctor and surgeon from the Gregorio Marañón University Hospital in Madrid will tell us about his experience with Augmented Reality and the benefits it brings.

The company Sngular, with a presence in Mexico and the United States, will present at El Observatorio its success story of applying Augmented Reality in an innovative heart operation with the cardiology unit of the Virgen del Rocío Hospital, led by surgeon José Miguel Borrego.

For its part, the University of Malaga will participate in El Observatorio for another year, showing the results of its innovative projects carried out by the Faculty of Medicine.

Además, Nokia presentará su demostración de “Vídeo inmersivo en entornos educativos”. Un estudio elaborado junto a la Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio (UAX) y el Banco Santander, cuya finalidad es mejorar la calidad en el proceso de aprendizaje mediante el empleo de grabaciones en vídeo 360 y usando visores y auriculares de Realidad Virtual. Lo han llevado a cabo con estudiantes de últimos cursos del Grado en Veterinaria, que realizan prácticas en el Hospital Clínico Veterinario de la Universidad Alfonso X El Sabio.

Arquitectura y museística

Salvador Moreno Peralta, renowned architect from Malaga, will explain how these new immersive technologies have landed in the field of architecture and will present examples of their use today.

For museum fans, Opossum Studios will present a demo in which it has recreated through VR the Roman villa of the Palacio de Villalón, a Roman house that was discovered during excavations on the land currently occupied by the Carmen Thyssen Museum in Malaga.

RTVE también estará un año más presente en El Observatorio. RadioTelevisión Española es el grupo audiovisual español que más ha apostado desde el principio por la Realidad Virtual y las narrativas inmersivas, desarrollando diversos contenidos y aplicaciones, desde los primeros proyectos como el Ministerio del Tiempo, hasta los más recientes grabados en el Teatro Real. Fran Llorente, que fue director de Informativos de TVE y que actualmente trabaja en el Área de Nuevos Proyectos del Ente Público, contará las experiencias en estos nuevos lenguajes audiovisuales.

In total there will be more than 20 conferences by representatives of multinationals, associations and presentations by leading companies in the application of VR in different sectors.

In addition, the program includes reports on the successes and failures of these immersive technologies, on eSports and Video Games, which will allow attendees to have a global vision of all these new technologies, compared to other national events that only focus, vertically, on one of these fields, abstracting from the overall vision.

The professional attendees at El Observatorio are engineers, producers, researchers, businessmen, entrepreneurs, consultants, executives, professors and investors who are already betting on these new immersive technologies and want to learn about new real projects.

The Digital Content Pole, with the celebration of this second edition of El Observatorio, an event of which Panorama Audiovisual is a media partner, fulfills one of its objectives of attracting national and international technology companies to Malaga to carry out innovative activities and position Malaga as one of the capitals on the European map of the new digital era.