J. Michael Wheeler
CEO/Founder
We recently launched Reality Lab, but over 25 years ago I launched Wheeler Design Group. That’s when I began exploring the influence of technology on storytelling: from print, to multimedia, to CD-ROM, to the early excitement of the internet, and now, augmented reality.
These are early days of augmented reality, similar to the early days of the movie camera’s invention in the 1890’s. No one knew then how to tell a story with moving pictures. The first films from those hand-cranked cameras were of commonplace occurrences — trains approaching or people dancing in front of the camera.
Today you can capture, edit, and distribute amazing films with the phone in your pocket. The technology of video (moving pictures) has created a generation of new storytellers.
I am happily exploring the new storytelling technology of AR: what we can do in AR that we can’t do in any other medium? What is unique, what is intrinsic to this new media? That discovery will be the power and promise of AR.
Right now we’re setting AR on a tripod, as it were, and filming that train entering the station at La Ciotat. Like all new storytelling advances, we borrow vocabulary from the languages that came before: books, film, app design, video gaming. And just like early filmmakers, we are creating a vocabulary that is intrinsic to this media.
Pioneering augmented reality, defining the vocabulary of AR, and seizing the opportunity to tell stories in AR are the inspirations that has driven me to launch Reality Lab.
Teams
Every AR project has a different problems to solve; each solution is unique. Creating an AR app for marathoners requires different skills and solutions than creating an interactive AR teaching tool to be used in a busy casino setting. Building an AR sea-level visualization app has another set of needs, and museum and galleries have their own solutions.
Reality Lab embraces the movie studio model: like a movie studio, we bring together the best teams to create the best solutions: we customize each team and medium for each and every solution.
Strategic Partners
Our embrace of flexible teams is not limited to just individuals. Reality Lab works closely with other companies as well. We partner with OBLSK, PreviewLabs, Hoverlay, and Wheeler Design Group.
Current Clients and Projects
Through our client the Massachusetts Council on Gaming Health, we are working closely with the Mass Gaming Commission, the Massachusetts casinos (Encore Boston Harbor, Plainridge Park Casino, MGM Springfield) creating an AR app teaching tool.
We are working with a Startup (stealth mode for the moment) that helps runners visualize the marathon course by providing video of the actual course. We are adding a whole AR component to the app. You’ll soon see this stealth-mode company integrated into the runner’s app of a Global Running-Shoe Company.
Reality Lab is producing an AR Art Exhibition in Greater Boston.