Spatial
As part of my research, today I went to a fancy club with my son in VR. We played beer pong, and he won.
Now I’m taking my insights back to how might we “step into data” with AR/VR.
My big hope is that Apple will keep pushing spatial computing and manage to reduce both weight and price of Vision this decade.
We need a much more robust technology and UX to empower knowledge workers to explore data in natural spaces. I’m confident we will get there; it’s just a question of when it makes sense to start investing in spatial computing.
Right now, Meta Quest is affordable but has an extremely junky experience. It is too heavy, hard to control, and extremely inconsistent in the experience of the world. It is a promising prototype but not a product I can bring to my customers and say, “Use this; it will increase your productivity”.
Spatial computing will transform how we do some work, but it will take a lot more to get there.
Hands and eye tracking need to get much better: we need the Natural UI to make spatial computing accessible. Voice will play a crucial role with LLMs providing conversational awareness. I see all the pieces coming together, and once they do, it will be a breakthrough.
The benefit of engaging spatial awareness in computing is huge: we can make really hard problems tangible. Naturally, we humans place things in space (even techniques like mind palace use this in virtualization) to remember and make sense of them.
Spatial awareness is used a lot in psychology: we are much better at holding space for complex problems than dealing with them in our headspace. I see us using AR/VR for therapeutic engagements.
We will be able to handle a lot more data points placing them in space and form deeper thoughts. I see us preforming strategy and exploratory sessions with AR/VR.
It will be fun to visualize your whole network with People App and find the right connections in AR/VR.
And finally yes, I think deep data analysis will be done in spacial. Imagine a space filled with data views all connected in a network. Collaborative sessions in-person and remote in this space. Natural AI agents participating to help build up initial data network and highlight patterns.
I see a glorious future of working with data in spacial computing. It is almost here.
What do you see?
Me, deconstructing an engine at IFC with Vision Pro.
Do you know you can get every new article I publish in your mail. It is free, spam free, and freeing. Sign up.
