The Future of Spatial Computing | Megatrends You Want to Know More About

Spatial computing has already enabled virtual home assistants, ride-hailing services, and ride-sharing apps. It also allows game players to summon monsters into their living rooms and shoppers to try on clothes in digital changing rooms. Now imagine working, shopping, and interacting as an avatar in a rich three-dimensional digital world that overlays ours.

The idea of ​​a "metaverse" (virtual space and its services) built on spatial computing is no longer just for science fiction.

Facebook worked across the division to develop it, and even rebranded the company to Meta. Microsoft envisions what its CEO Satya Nadella calls the "Enterprise Metaverse"¹. In addition, Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, a US semiconductor manufacturer, aims to realize "a virtual world that is our digital twin (reproduction of the real space)"^{2, 3< /sup>.}

Their vision of a visible alternate realm that is always "on" and interacting with the real world is still far from reality. However, technologies such as AR (augmented reality), VR (virtual reality), and MR (mixed reality) are making progress in the spatial computing revolution.

What is Spatial Computing?

"Spatial computing integrates technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality with the real world," said Corinna Lathan, an inventor who founded the US research and development company AnthroTronix. By doing so, we can move around and interact with the virtual world and the real world at the same time.” “You can think of AR and VR as technologies. Spatial computing is a way of life in this world.”

For years, inconvenient headsets, laggy connections, and a lack of relevant content have hampered the development of these technologies. However, with the evolution of 5G mobile broadband and smartphones, that situation is changing. “AR appeared in the mid-2000s, but smartphones weren’t popular, so it didn’t make much progress. is Mr. Alex Jenkins, creative director in the interactive art department of Nexus Studios, a production studio for movies and animation based in London and Los Angeles.

Current mobile phones are equipped with cameras and GPS, enabling the fusion of real and digital. It also has improved processing power and functionality. The latest iPhones include LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging), a remote-sensing tool that Jenkins says "will revolutionize spatial computing." ) is installed.

The closest I've felt to merging these two worlds is in games. In 2016, US software developer Niantic leveraged spatial computing in the wildly popular game Pokémon GO. We are currently building a world-class AR platform for scalable user interaction. Additionally, players can project more sophisticated content into their homes.

For example, American AR entertainment company Illumix has applied its technology to the popular horror game "Five Nights at Freddy's," where game players transform their rooms into ghoulish animatronics (robots that mimic creatures). We made it possible to turn it into a horror space where the characters of The company's founder and CEO Kirin Sinha said, "This game is different from horror games on PCs and mobile phones. This game is a physical, immersive, Halloween horror-like experience." It's close to , but you can adapt it to your own space."

As for what the metaverse will look like, analysts point to Fortnite, developed by Epic Games⁴. The game started as a video game, but features users chatting, brands selling products, and musicians using digital avatars to give live concerts to millions of viewers. , has evolved into something of a social universe. In April 2021, Epic Games announced a US$1 billion funding round to support its Metaverse initiative⁵.