#15: Dancing at the Edge of the World
This week: Spatial Computing's Story Arc // Digitising a Broken World // Plus: REMIX Summits Reader Offer and this week's best job
This week we’re looking at the state of play with the likely next big category of consumer digital device: mixed reality glasses.
With Apple announcing the on-sale date of Apple Vision Pro, we’re seeing a lot of marketing storytelling about new eras and new beginnings.
But what’s really going on? How far are we from mass-adoption mixed reality headwear? And what does it mean for tomorrow’s creativity?
Alongside that we’ll look at two beautiful projects at the sharpest edges of digital preservation. Plus jobs, an amazing offer for REMIX SUMMIT LONDON and more.
Let’s dive in.
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Threshold // Spatial Computing’s Story Arc
Stories have beginning’s, middles and ends.
Over the last weeks two of the world’s biggest technology companies have tried to convince us that they will define a new beginning and end to the story of spatial computing, augmented reality and XR. Their versions of the stories come with dates: 2nd February 2024, and sometime TBD in 2027.
But as always, the truth of the story is more subtle - and it might be what’s happening in the messy and uncontrolled middle that matters more.
So, first up, a new beginning: Apple announced this week that the Apple Vision Pro would go on sale on February 2nd.
“The Era of Spatial Computing Has Begun.”
That’s the brand language, and the ad is a clever re-do of the ad which first launched the iPhone.
Subtly, the last decade’s endeavour in mixed/extended/virtual and other realities are wiped away and a new name gets a chance to stick with all of Apple’s marketing power behind it.
That goes all the way down to the naming requirements for submitting apps for the Apple Vision Pro to the App Store:
New names mean a chance for a new beginning.
But “spatial” is still not the most important word here.
“Pro” is.
This device, all $3499 of it, is not a play for the mass consumer. It’s a straight-line from the Mac Pro, Macbook Pro, and a line of other devices built for the Creative sector over the last forty years.
How it’s used by designers, architects, artists, film-makers and more will shape its impact.
But will it shape the market for a consumer-level device? Will it change the consumer computing landscape the way Apple has done so many times before?
If the Apple Vision Pro is the spatial computing era’s beginning then there still has to be a sequel to come - a Luke to its Obi-Wan. A cheaper, mass-adoptable equivalent to the iMac, the iPhone or iPad. A category defining consumer technology device.
If not, the story has no point.
That’s one take. The other is: it’s someone else’s story.
That’s Meta’s bet: That they can define this device market, not Apple.
Meta are spending big here.
Their version of the story of spatial computing, is that whatever Apple say now, the REAL new era of spatial computing only starts with a mass-adoption device that puts augmented reality directly on our heads.
So that’s why the other key date this week is 2027 - the year when Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth thinks that device will be ready.
Meta don’t have the jazzy advertising videos here, but the language Bosworth is using about the device Meta are building in a widely repeated interview with The Verge may be even grander.
“I might get myself in trouble for saying this; I think it might be the most advanced piece of technology on the planet in its domain. In the domain of consumer electronics, it might be the most advanced thing that we’ve ever produced as a species.”
Why 2027?
Whilst the Apple Vision Pro has cool sci-fi design vibes, it’s an interior-use device. You won’t be wearing it to Tesco’s. They’re saying 2027 because there are major technology advances needed to make a device people assume will be socially acceptable.
Social acceptance is important - from the Google Glass onwards, a critical barrier to entry for what might work for real people has been the idea of looking really, really stupid.
The design assumption about an everyday mixed reality headset is that they will need to look like …. a pair of regular glasses.
But whilst glasses are just plastic, glass and screws, these devices will need to build in a whole heap of multi-modal features. By my reckoning this magic device will basically need all of the things inside the Apple Vision Pro at a fraction of the size:
DATA CAPTURE: A camera or LIDAR scanner to interpret - and record? - visual data and a microphone
SCREEN: The glasses would need to include a screen layering visuals over the real world in real-time … and presumably also traditional bi-focal or vari-focal capabilities for glasses wearers. Remember over 90% of over 50s wear glasses!
SPEAKERS: Either a Bluetooth connection to Ear Pods in their various forms, or bone conduction headsets
INTERFACE: Presumably a live, audio-activated AI “helper” who becomes your conversation-based point of interface with internet-delivered services
INTERNET ACCESS: Stable access to 4G, 5G (6G?) and WiFi.
STORAGE: A minimal amount of on-device storage at least for its operating system, and some level of device-only data-storage to manage the many many privacy concerns that will come from all this
LONG-LIFE BATTERY: At least as long as a phone or a smart-watch - a whole day’s service. Wireless charging capability
If you’re wearing glasses now, or have some to hand, have a look at the frames and think about just how much STUFF will have to miniaturise to get into the form factor.
It’s A LOT. And getting all that to work is where Meta’s R&D money is going.
Do they get there by 2027? We’ll see. Meta’s bets on the metaverse and VR have been, at best, marginal victories so far.
But let’s take another point of view.
Apple aren’t a beginning. Neither are Meta. This isn’t a story at the beginning or end, it’s in progress and in the middle.
Apple and Meta are both part of a Cambrian explosion of spatial, mixed, augmented and virtual reality glasses, all iterating their way towards a consumer device people actually want.
Meta, at least in part, are already in this arms race. Their partnership with Ray Ban has been public since 2021 and over the last month, the current gen of “Meta Wayfarers” have become a social media hit.
The main functionality of the glasses is being able to capture video and stream straight to Facebook and Instagram and over Christmas a whole set of videos lip-syncing to songs caught on the glasses caught fire on social media.
This below from Kakeguson got 80m+ hits according to friend and guest poster
at .
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
These are still some way off the general-purpose device Meta are gunning for. But the form factor shows that a wearable product is getting closer.
Amazon are also in the game with their Alexa enabled Frames that came out in their third version in September last year:
In a different approach, I liked this research idea that used sonar rather than cameras or scanning to capture location data whilst maintaining privacy.
And elsewhere, at the Consumer Electronics’ show in Las Vegas earlier this month, newcomer Rayneo were demoing two pairs of glasses that have cameras, AI, audio and more in what look OK-ish designs. Wired’s review of one is not entirely promising, but this is a category already full of product - albeit product that is almost self-conciously imperfect.
However, I think it’s Snap whose approach might really be telling us where we’re at in the story of spatial computing glasses.
Snap have been doing this as far back as 2016. Their Spectacles, which capture content direct to Snapchat, are now in their fourth iteration.
Iteration 3, a few years back, was still trying to make a case for XR glasses as a consumer product that was fashion-forward and purchase-worthy.
Reader, it didn’t work.
You still looked stoopid.
And so the Spectacles 4 retreated from the market. The design became self-conciously geek-only, and they became available for developers. You don’t buy them, you apply for a pair from Snap for R&D.
That seems to me an honest appraisal of where the market’s at - and why both Apple and Meta are focused on new beginnings.
XR glasses remain some way away as world-transforming product which every person alive will want to wear.
If Meta can get there by 2027, the future may be theirs. But there seems an equal likelihood that both the technology development necessary and the design which makes them desirable and acceptable, is a way off.
Keep watching. 😎😎
The Telling // Remix Summits Exclusive Offer
Remix Summit is a conference that is VERY close to my heart and so I’m delighted they’re our partner for January.
Remix is THE BEST place to get the state of the art in culture, tech and entrepreneurship, and this year’s theme is ‘Ideas for the Revolution’ on the 30-31 January 2024 at the Royal Academy of Arts & Here East.
“Creative R&D” Readers are being given a very special 25% discount on tickets. Just enter CREATRD when you check out at www.remixsummits.com/ldn-2024/.
The line-up looks 🔥🔥🔥 as always, and I’m excited to be in conversation with gaming legend Miles Jacobson OBE, Studio Director of Sports Interactive (creators of the global sensation Football Manager) on the future of gaming.
If you can get there, do - there’s no better way to start off 2024.
The Found and the Lost // On Digital Preservation
We’ve looked at different reasons for digitisation, starting in issue 3 with ways of recreating the past, or transforming the present in real-time.
These are nice to have use cases, paths to better research, or new forms of entertainment.
But this week I wanted to show two imperative uses of digitisation.
The first tells the story of places that have been destroyed. The second is an attempt to preserve a nation from the destructive forces of the future.
I found Broken Cities through
run by Thom Flynn, ex Sketchfab, and a true 3D believer who worked for me at the British Museum briefly years ago.Broken Cities is a beautiful project from the Red Cross, which takes you on 3D captured journeys through Mosul, Gaza and Aleppo - all places torn apart by conflict.
There’s real poignancy in the use of a technology whose power is to preserve getting there too late - when it’s only debris, ash and destruction left. The oral testimony only increases that sense of loss.
It’s another example of an emerging category of digital storytelling made using scanning-capture and 3D data as its base rather than camera-based image capture. This is an area of rich and still early potential - I think it will become a defining production approach in the years ahead.
Broken Cities is a beautiful project.
Tuvalu.TV is much much more than that.
Tuvalu is a Pacific Island nation at huge risk from climate change. Unless radical action is taken on decarbonisation, and at a speed the wider world shows no will towards, Tuvalu will disappear beneath the waves in the decades ahead.
So they have begun a process of what they call “digital migration”
This is a piece of thinking about nationhood in a digital world whose impacts and influence may reach centuries into the future. The steps Tuvalu are taking include:
A comprehensive three-dimensional LIDAR scan of all 124 islands and islets
Building a living archive of Tuvaluan culture, curated by its people. Citizens will be invited to contribute their most treasured personal items for digital preservation, creating a living record of Tuvaluan values.
Amending its constitution to reflect a new definition of statehood – the first of its kind in the world. The amendment pronounces that the State of Tuvalu within its historical, cultural, and legal framework shall remain in perpetuity in the future, notwithstanding the impacts of climate change or other causes resulting in loss to the physical territory of Tuvalu.
This is in many ways one of the most important digital projects taking place anywhere on earth - a nation state’s attempt to save what it can of a country which in its geographic sense, may soon be no more.
Writing that, I can’t help but feel how close we are getting to the terrain of science fiction.
Stories of destroyed civilisations, who live only in digital memories, are a genre trope. That we are at a point where they become a real world digital preservation strategy is a brutal reminder of the gruesome mess we’re in.
Changing Planes? // This week’s hot job
Only one job for you this week …. but it’s a doozy.
The brilliant Arebyte have a role for a Production Manager. Seriously cool job at a seriously cool venue.
And yes, since you asked, they ARE seriously nice people.
This Week’s References // Ursula Le Guin
This week’s titles and subtitles are all names of books by Ursula Le Guin.
She’s a writer who articulates the tension in two stories in this issue and their two different ways of telling the story of our world: Does technology shape society, or should technology’s purpose be to support humanity’s real needs?
Writing this week’s issue reminded me of this great video about her, which unpacks how her novels are all about imagining better worlds and ways of living.
Enjoy. See you next week.
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