It’s been a long time since I shared personal insight and opinions with regards to the XR space. Since my last share, I’ve spent a year and a half at Magic Leap. This gave me an entirely new perspective on what is currently possible with immersive technology here and now.
I believe Spatial computing (aka Mixed Reality or MR) is our long term future solution for human computing. Both Magic Leap and Microsoft have successfully removed the flat 2D display dependency for human computing. When combined with always-on (5G+) broadband, the world will fully convert to this form of human computing within the next ten years.
It’s important to understand how difficult it is to create a commercial grade interoperable hardware + software system. To successfully produce this in spatial computing currently is close to impossible. You need the right domain experts, a lot of time (years) and as much money as can be thrown at the solution.
Microsoft has wisely invested $Bs to unlock their Azure Cloud services through their Hololens. Magic Leap has spent well over $2B to reach version 1, while recently pivoting to focus on the enterprise exclusively. Both are the only two companies in the world who’ve achieved success with a commercially released spatial computer.
Some of the lower level see-through HMDs provide good output plus some interactivity, but at this point I consider them AR vs. spatial computing devices. Nreal is making a huge push towards commercializing their solution, but it’s pure speculation to think they will enter the depth of quality that ML and MSFT provide.
Nreal input, tracking, and display need to greatly improve to gain high-end XR developers. Currently, they use an Android phone (Apple will probably never allow iOS support) or a small attachable computer puck. I haven’t experienced the latest demos, but they need to double the quality they brought to CES 2020 to compete at the top.
Spatial computing hasn’t been massively adopted yet. As already mentioned, the Hololens and the Magic Leap 1 have made the impossible look difficult. AR and VR have been important foundations for spatial computing. These two initial immersive tech mediums will remain relevant for many specific use cases ongoing. But, spatial computing will consume the classroom, the factory, and all of our living rooms in some form factor eventually.
What makes me so convinced that spatial computing is our future human computing interface? I’ve experienced it!
There’s nothing more real than facts. While humanity has unknowingly redefined ‘facts’ and how truthful information via the internet and social media is distributed, we should aspire to using facts in our business and everyday lives. This is the only way to quantify solutions for real world problems. To not guide our professional actions with facts is irresponsible and dangerous.
My experience with the most recent Magic Leap World app releases including BBC’s Senses (made by Preloaded), Figmen, and Weta’s Boosters is nothing short of endless WOW moments. I was able to experience them easily in my living room space with a Magic Leap 1. They are all AAA spatial computing experiences that exist here and now.
When reflecting on our industry of AR, VR, and MR, we’ve seen a lot of evolution over the last 10 years. The hardware is now able to provide the technical input and output required to compute and display good to great human spatial computing experiences. The software is even more impressive. Both HW and SW will only get better.
Thanks to the popular 3D engines (Unreal and Unity) and some newer entrants, developers have the content creation power in their hands that is either free or extremely affordable. These futuristic 3D tools are available here and now.
Big tech players have continued to play an important supporting role to XR ecosystem growth. Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Sony, HTC, IBM, Qualcomm, and a few others have financed and created amazingly interactive developer communities. These companies have promoted tons of 3rd parties, playing nicely together for the most part. There has been inclusive collaboration with trade organizations, including actionable discussions and movement towards immersive technology standards and best practices.
The here and now theme in this article is also intended to highlight what we’re experiencing globally as an industry. Covid-19 has altered our world forever. It’s unarguably one of the most disruptive events in our lifetime.
The Corona Virus is present today in every country in the world. Life as we know it has changed, and we need to start charting a positive course to deal with this debilitating situation using existing immersive technology. From rich to poor, to every color of skin, to every sect of religion, this virus provides no exceptions to the world’s population it infects. This isn’t a political, social, or economically driven/divided issue.
Humankind has the technology here and now to transform our everyday real-world experiences into virtual, augmented, and mixed realities. Various headsets and supported platforms already bring people together virtually, collaboratively, and remotely. Whether it’s in the enterprise or on the consumer side, we can deploy and consume the merging of physical and digital experiences, with the right equipment and internet connection.
As mobile phones become mini-spatial computers this year and global employers acknowledge and accept the immediate changes needed to provide safe work places, we’re going to come out of this current pandemic soon: smarter and more agile with better tools to deal with future epidemics and crisis.
Scaling and adoption of spatial computing will continue to be dependent on resources and time, but we’ve seen examples such as Zoom, Fortnite, and Spatial experience booming success from what they offer here and now. Retail shopping and live events are already forming new channels and practices to survive, and both are huge opportunities for the immersive tech space.
The past is extremely important as it provides learning and a clear understanding of avoiding mistakes previously made. Future planning is always a priority, albeit speculative and inspiring. It’s the present, aka the here and now, that we should embrace more than ever.
This is why it’s also important and timely to address a few virtual gorillas that have been hanging around in our industry for way too long. They weigh down our positive potential as an industry and impede our true success.
It goes without saying that everyone is entitled to their opinions. Thanks to the internet, I know many more opinions (and have shared!) than I would have otherwise. We should continue to question and challenge ourselves to be the very best at what we do.
I’ve interacted and engaged the immersive technology space ever since I worked closely with Qualcomm while at Unity, almost ten years ago. I fell in love with augmented reality thanks to the amazing Vuforia team who created the first well-known commercial AR engine. Since that time, I’ve been lucky to work in this industry, creating genuine friendships through AR, VR, and spatial computing.
What I wanted to expose here and now (and hopefully encourage some dialog wrt) is the proverbial industry, company, and individual hating and bashing that is so prolific. What’s up with that? I know I’m not alone in questioning this pattern as I’ve had discussions with many of you about this topic for years.
I sharpened my tech teeth in the video game industry. While I was late to that party, it was an inclusive industry where celebs and stars were born out of collective efforts and hit games first, not the other way around. It eventually became like Hollywood, but it took 15 years to manifest into ‘star chasing’.
The immersive tech industry has never enjoyed the same comradery I felt in the music or video game industries. From the beginning, it has felt like an industry split between those who advertise their knowledge and those who don’t.
This has created a false positive in more ways than one, because one person’s knowledge is not necessarily fact or experience based. While the former includes some very bright people, the majority are what I call ‘tARzans’, or self-anointed ‘rainmakers’, making non-stop noise in social media as well as headlining conferences in order to further their careers. It feels like a lonely path towards self-preservation and profits. Most importantly it potentially feeds the news and fuels our industry with false information when the presenters are not real subject matter experts.
The group of our colleagues who don’t advertise their knowledge tend to not have time to post on LinkedIn and Twitter daily nor speak at overseas conferences, because of obvious reasons. They are a little too busy for that. These are the real sources of truth though. They are the individuals and small companies we should be following and emulating here and now.
Finally, the haters and bashers don’t seem to realize or accept that we’re all one industry. This nascent industry that we all want to succeed in is dependent upon success stories to encourage more investment. Every time an immersive technology solution fails or a related start-up company goes under, it feels like the Monty Python witch scene. Those are not celebratory or “I told you so” moments.
There will be great visionaries who are not great missionaries. There will be rich people who waste their money on crazy ideas and maybe even get lucky. There will always be stories of that 1 person getting rich off 20 people’s invention, while not losing any sleep over their actions. We have an opportunity here and now to support each other and promote the living daylight out of our technology which is so important post-Covid.
It’s time that we mature more as an organized immersive technology industry and cooperate more deliberately in order to succeed. Immersive technology and spatial computing are in their infancy. There is a place for everyone who wants to be in it, and it’s up to us to look at each other and question every move we make professionally but also celebrate every win, big and small, here and now!
– Mark T. Morrison
Start-ups are making great innovations in the specific area of immersive software tracking technology. SLAM has become a very popular key word in the immersive technology software space. SLAM is often simplified into one type of mapping/tracking technology when it actually covers an extremely wide spectrum of meanings and methods of uses.
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