A Look Ahead
Thoughts on 2024
After a few weeks of getting settled, 2024 has officially started. We hope it has been a positive start to the year for you. These past weeks we’ve been thinking about what the coming year may hold. We have seen significant developments in immersive technology and AI recently, with platforms that enable almost anyone to create new products and content maybe being the most consequential. Looking ahead in terms of our internal R&D we’re focusing on understanding the impact of these changes, asking ourselves what it all might mean for the coming ten years. And we’re exploring how the merging of augmented reality, virtual reality, and AI create a new, more complex vision for spatial computing. This seems like playing with words, but actually looking past labels, what this represents is the merging of a number of technologies enabling the emergence of persistently blended realities.
DEVICES
Although Quest 3 sales are reported to be lower than expected, they are still outselling the Playstation 5 (about 2.5 million units in 2023). And there are an estimated 160-180k Apple Vision Pro’s making their way to buyers this very moment. That means Apple made 3x the profit on hardware that Meta did and we gained a new, well-developed app store ecosystem along with that.
Another way to see this is through the kind of features both Apple and Meta are focused on. The Quest and Vision Pro are different devices but both are working on our experience of the world, and evolving it to incorporate a persistent digital layer. We see this through Meta’s Augments’ and Apple’s focus on productivity and light-touch entertainment.
Many people will take Apple far more seriously in this context. As The Verge said today in their review of the Vision Pro: "There are a lot of ideas in the Vision Pro, and they’re all executed with the kind of thoughtful intention that few other companies can ever deliver at all, let alone on the first iteration."
If we have a meaningfully enriched experience of a real world merged with a digital layer, ‘mixed reality’ slowly becomes simply … reality. And we are wondering how we can reimagine the real world around us with this in mind. How adding that layer adds meaning for us, without taking any away. We’re keen to get into the detail. Like, how exactly does this change things?
What is clear is that as the boundaries between real and virtual blur, fitting together more seamlessly and persistently, a new era of functionality and creative expression emerges.
SPATIAL UX
As more spatially enabled devices enter our homes and our digital and real worlds merge, how we interact with apps, or the web will change significantly. You could say the mouse, the track pad, and the controllers we’ve become so used to are increasingly a thing of the past. The traditional ideas of a flat UI will be replaced with the room you are in, the surfaces around you, and the body you carry around with you everywhere you go. Your own body becomes the means to interact with surfaces, through for example voice, eye, or hand tracking.
With this in mind, the discussion around Spatial User Experience (UX) is becoming increasingly essential. When the majority of our interactions with the digital layer (ie. web, apps, AI) becomes either voice activated or uses the world around us, and with interaction happening using our own bodies just like in the real world, the interface we use moves out of the confined frames of screens, and windows and towards a very different approach to interaction. These are not new ideas, but crucially they will be very new to the general public.
Gesture and tracking technologies open doors to an array of novel experiences. We are captivated by the potential of Spatial UX to redefine how we engage with digital content. Because what this is really about is embodiment.
And although wearing a $3,500 device on your head as you head out is a problem for another day, the long term vision is cities, stadiums, and museums become dynamic canvases, enriched with digital narratives that unfold as you explore these spaces. Your ‘touches’ become contextual in terms of where they happen, and how you perform them.
PROMPTING
In addition to the mechanics of interaction to control the digital layer in the real world (UX) there is another change that became mainstream in 2023, and which is creating rapid change in terms of how we interact with everything around us. Prompting is a word we have all heard maybe too much. But it is significant in the context of a spatial immersive world.
Natural language processing is a way to have a conversation rather than having to write detailed technical instructions to the thing you’re interacting with. This changes how we talk to our devices, and means creation is undergoing a seismic shift. AI is changing the creation journey from the bottom up. Copilot and Ghostwriter are just glimpses into the future where our devices are increasingly autonomous and able to work while you are offline.
To put it another way, this is not Siri or Echo. Prompting is a stepping stone towards an assistant who lives in the digital layer in your world, and is capable of contextually thinking about how it can help you, and can work in the background while you do other things. A seamless dialogue with your apps as a partner, handling complex tasks without your need to over-explain and micromanage.
This is not just about productivity or even democratizing creation. And of course, we can not ignore what this means for artists and creators with real technical skills, and both the discussion about copyright as well as devastating job losses we’re seeing in the tech space are fundamental issues that can not be separated from these idealistic dreams.
MERGING
None of these developments individually represent real significant change. But how these different technologies are merging does. A spatial device with a more advanced capacity to understand where it is, where YOU are, and what you want it to do for you. That is significant.
We do not paint this as a purely utopian vision. But it is an interesting space to think, be creative, and innovate. Embodied technology combined with contextual input, and powered by AI will really change our understanding of the places we go, and what we do when there.
So, as we step into the new year, and as different layers of the technological landscape merge with the more traditional tangible world around us, we’re trying to imagine what new realities this will bring. And think actively about where we might want it to bring us. More accessibility, more usefulness, more beauty and meaning, and more types of stories, is what we’re hoping for. But also unintended consequences, and radical change.
If you’re interested in this, or anything related to the work we do at Studio ANRK, get in touch with us.
We hope you have a productive week ahead.