November 2023 Summaries

In the blog, it discusses how both active and passive users play crucial roles in building a truly interconnected and vibrant ecosystem of online communities that span across physical and virtual worlds. Active users control avatars through devices like VR headsets or gaming consoles, while passive users engage with events in the metaverse with limited avatar mobility or from a virtual camera's perspective. The challenge lies in balancing these experiences to ensure comprehensive outreach and greater adoption of the metaverse. Agora's suite of Real-Time Engagement solutions can help bridge the divides in the fragmented device landscape, enabling users to engage in spatially-aware audio chats and text-based conversations.

In this comparison of real-time engagement performance between Amazon's Interactive Video Service (IVS) Real-Time Streaming and Agora, it is evident that Agora outperforms in several aspects. While both services provide real-time audio and video capabilities, Agora offers additional features such as interactive chat, whiteboard functionality, and real-time signaling for data synchronization. Furthermore, the Agora Extensions Marketplace makes it easy to add advanced capabilities like face filters and content moderation to any app with minimal coding effort. In terms of performance, Agora's Software Defined Real-Time Network (SD-RTN) is optimized for delivering real-time audio, video, and streaming at an extremely high scale, supporting up to 128 hosts and audiences of over a million viewers. Amazon IVS Real-Time Streaming, on the other hand, supports a maximum of 12 hosts and an audience of up to 10,000 viewers with latency under 300 milliseconds from host to viewer. Performance testing results show that Agora experiences fewer frame freezes and maintains a higher frame rate compared to Amazon IVS Real-Time Streaming, all with lower latency. This advantage is particularly evident when dealing with network packet loss or jitter, which are common issues for users on mobile devices or in areas with limited internet speed and bandwidth. Overall, Agora provides a more comprehensive solution for real-time engagement, offering additional features and superior performance compared to Amazon IVS Real-Time Streaming.

Agora has released the public beta version of Signaling 2.1, a real-time metadata synchronization tool that enhances Voice Calling, Video Calling, and Interactive Live Streaming experiences. The update introduces new features such as Signaling based on Pub/Sub, Stream Channel, Presence, Storage, and Lock to support various use cases. These features enable real-time applications with an average global latency of sub 200ms and regional latency between 50ms to 100ms. The tool can power applications like Interactive Live Streaming, Metaverse/Interactive Gaming, Online Education, and Internet of Things (IoT). Developers can try Signaling 2.1 for free during the public beta phase by signing up with a developer or admin account in Agora Console.

Real-time engagement technology has revolutionized faith-tech, enabling believers to connect seamlessly with religious communities and spiritual guides. Features like personalized guidance, interactive group sessions, and one-on-one consultations have filled the trust gap between seekers and mentors. Advancements in real-time engagement tech allow for virtual participation in rituals, guided meditation or prayer sessions, and even virtual reading and healing experiences. As more believers turn to online platforms, faith-tech providers must focus on creating personalized, engaging, and immersive experiences using features like chat, voice calling, video calling, live streaming, polls, surveys, augmented reality, and virtual reality. Technical reliability is crucial for building trust in these digital spiritual services.

In this tutorial, a video calling app is created using Unreal Engine with the Agora SDK plug-in. The process involves creating a basic C++ Unreal Engine project, installing the Agora plugin, creating game mode and implementing its life cycle, and finally implementing Agora callbacks and button functionalities in the UI. The resulting demo allows users to join video calls, mute their audio or video, and return to the introduction screen while maintaining the call session.

Live shopping is a rapidly growing revenue channel for e-commerce businesses worldwide, with potential to reach $1.2 trillion in China by 2025 and $55 billion in the West by 2026. This trend combines the convenience of online shopping with real-time engagement, allowing brands to connect with consumers on a personal level through live events, personalized experiences, community building, and social interaction. To optimize live shopping for increased conversion rates and sales, businesses should focus on audience engagement, authenticity, immersive experience, event optimization, and safety and security measures. Common challenges include latency, delayed responses, and multitasking, which can be addressed through proper planning and leveraging the right technology stack.

Recent advances in technology have the potential to revolutionize healthcare delivery through augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). These technologies can help doctors transcend location constraints, enhance remote patient care, and even improve in-person care. A study from Deloitte indicates that 80% of healthcare professionals believe AR/VR will significantly impact healthcare within the next five years. The market for AR/VR applications in healthcare is expected to grow to $28.8 billion by 2028. AR integrates a user's real-world environment with virtual imagery and digital information, while VR creates an immersive, fully virtual environment that replicates the real world. In telehealth, AR can allow healthcare providers to add visual and data-based overlays via devices like smartphones for virtual diagnosis and patient education. VR enables a wide range of scenarios from fully immersive 360-degree virtual appointments to allowing doctors to perform virtual surgeries while controlling surgical devices via VR. AR and VR can help healthcare providers overcome various telehealth challenges, including accurate diagnosis, conducting virtual and minimally invasive surgeries, and patient management. Some use cases of AR/VR in healthcare include cross-functional collaboration among specialists, remote patient surgery and care, healthcare professional training, patient education, remote post-surgery patient care, and mental health treatment. As adoption continues, the applications of AR/VR in telehealth will continue to expand, playing a defining role in healthcare delivery. AI-powered AR and VR are expected to play an increasingly important role in telehealth and its remote applications.