We're about to hit peak device count, says HTC veep, as AR takes over
- Reference: 1693375534
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/08/30/peak_screen_xr_next_htc/
- Source link:
"Right now, there's so many screens in our lives, and the natural thinking is that we're going to keep having a lot more screens," Graylin told the [1]Augmented World Expo (AWE) Asia 2023 event in Singapore today. "And with this trend, you're thinking, hey, it's going to be another five or ten screens over the next few years. No, it's actually the opposite."
"Where we are going now is using the most natural interfaces that we have – our hands, our eyes and mouth, our bodies, and natural ways of how we interact with the physical world," he told the audience.
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"What we're going to find is that by having a device on your head, more and more of those screens are going to be replaced by that device on your face. And that device at some point will maybe even get embedded as a chip in your body," he added.
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As the gabfest's name implies, he's suggesting a transition to life lived in extended reality (XR) – probably beaming out from a single screen worn on your noggin to replace the collection of smartphones, computers, televisions, tablets and e-readers we use today. The myriad screens in public spaces are also at risk.
Graylin predicted the tech to make XR happen is happening.
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"Over the last year, we can see new generations of products coming," Graylin told the conference. He described next-gen XR products as thin and light – and becoming the new norm as more and more screen-bearing devices are replaced with headgear.
[6]Neuralink says US OK's human experiments with Elon's brain chips
[7]Metaverses are flopping – hard – says Gartner
[8]Metaverse? Apple thinks $3,500 AR ski goggles are the betterverse
[9]Meta virtual reality interrupted by financial reality as thousands lose their jobs
Your correspondent usually welcomes a drop in screen time – provided plenty is still dedicated to these pages. But beyond novelty applications, does anyone really want to be wearing screens on their heads? Or living in simulated environments?
Analyst firm Gartner says no. It recently assessed the metaverse as [10]plagued by low adoption, with users complaining that VR experiences are physically uncomfortable.
Don't worry, said Graylin – the headgear is only there until embedded chips come along.
The prospect of that happening is not entirely far-fetched.
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Elon Musk's brain/computer interface startup Neuralink recently [12]received US Food and Drug Administration approval for human clinical trials of its hardware. Neuralink's device has already been tested in monkeys, helping train them to do useful things like play Pong or move a mouse cursor. And scientists in the US have recently detailed how a brain/machine interface [13]allowed a stroke victim to speak with the help of computers.
Yet talk of chips routinely embedded in one's gray matter is an even more extreme vision than those uttered in recent years by the most fervent metaverse boosters.
Graylin conceded that the word "metaverse" may not be around in five or ten years. But what it represents is going to continue and become "the most natural way for us to interact with computers and with each other."
The veep said the metaverse is "really just the 3D version of the internet that we've all known for the last several decades, powered by AI, and mostly interfaced through XR."
"Although for the next probably five years, most people will actually continue interfacing through their existing devices, like 2D phones, laptops and tablets, but interfacing with a 3D world," he predicted.
Buckle up, dear reader. You've got about five years before Reg-O-Vision™ becomes a thing, with VultureBrain™ just over the horizon. ®
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[1] https://www.aweasia.com/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZO8TRgpfULNKpTJt037WCAAAAwQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/26/neuralink_brain_implant_fda/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/28/metaverse_adoption_slow_gartner/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/05/apple_vision_pro/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/19/meta_layoffs/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/28/metaverse_adoption_slow_gartner/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZO8TRgpfULNKpTJt037WCAAAAwQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/26/neuralink_brain_implant_fda/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/28/ai_in_brief/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
I needed a good laugh.
"What we're going to find is that by having a device on your head,"
I read that and laughed out loud. Everybody wandering around hooked up to a visor?
Let's leave that to films like Ready Player One and enjoy reality. It is as James Halliday says the only place to get a decent meal.
Seriously, I have enough trouble avoiding 'phone zombies wandering around with their gaze stuck to their 'phones' screen without having people loose on the street who are not really aware of what's going on around them. That, coupled with "self driving cars", seems like a recipe for disaster.
It's all self-interest and marketing. Like their visors it's not anchored in the real world.
And don't get me started on brain implants. I can see the governments of the world salivating at the prospect. Why bother spying on people when their implants are doing the job for you?
Battery life
I don't think we'll see these sci-fi visions coming any time soon, but if they want them, the first problem will be making them last more than an hour or two before the battery dies. This is a problem people who want to look into the future don't often bother with, because the battery is one of the least fashionable parts of a device. Yet, it's going to prevent people from adopting lots of technology as a daily tool because they don't want to be tethered to a wall. Some hardware can get away with battery life like that. If people put this on to play a game and then take it off and do something else, it doesn't have to last all day. If people are going to take it with them, they'll want some reason to believe that it won't be dead when they turn it on.
That's far from the only problem. Just talking about technical limitations, there is the size and weight problem which doesn't work that well with the battery problem, the getting sufficient data in and out problem, and the interface problem of how you interact with the stuff that's being displayed in front of you. The latter will also be tricky, because people don't want to use voice commands for everything and I'm guessing waving your hands to mimic interacting with objects you can't feel is not going to prove any more popular. I get why these analysts haven't thought of the even more plentiful reasons why people won't have anything useful to do with the devices, but you'd think they could at least consider the obvious technical limitations.
Alternate headline
VR/AR/XR/Metaverse is the future! Again.
Re: Alternate headline
You mean... "second life"....
(yeah, for those who don't even have a 'first' life)
Not going to happen
The only reason computing has had so much of an impact on our lives is because, for the past fifty years, there has been every reason to improve on it.
From the room-sized behemoths that could barely calculate a square root per second, to the desktop computers that revolutionized how we work, to the Internet that revolutionized how we could learn and be informed (not always for the better), to today's computing devices that can do it all and be carried in a pocket (for certain values of pocket), computing has been on a necessary improvement curve, and with shining results.
But, with all this tech, what hasn't changed ? Videophone. Oh, technically it has, tremendously. But nobody likes it. They didn't like it when it came out, they don't like it today, and I see no reason to think they will change their mind tomorrow.
Why are teens (and now tweens) always typing on the screens grafted into their hands ? Because texting can be done at your rythm. You impose your little circle of privacy, respond when you feel like it. Zoom, or videophone, or even phoning, deprives you of that choice. You're talking to someone directly, you have to respond at the right moment. That is why all those texters are not actually phoning people all day.
Having an implant in your brain, going on the theory that that will actually be one day possible and 100% reliable, means good-bye to the simple ability to ignore something for a while. You don't want to answer your phone ? Leave it on the couch, go to another room for a minute, just ignore it, the ringtone will die at some point. You don't want to answer that blinking light in your peripheral vision ? Good luck ignoring that.
And what about sleep ? Will you be able to go airline mode and not be bothered in the night, or will you not have a choice and wake up groggy at 3 in the morning with that bloody blinking light in your peripheral vision ?
Whatever the level of tech of this brain implant technology, I'm sure there will be people who try, and I'm sure the majority won't.
A phone, for all its faults, is something you can turn off. Sometimes it feels good to be able to turn off.