Spatial Newsletter™ #055
This week we're all about Immersive, EU AI Regulations, XR and AI, and Spatial Newsletter™ from Finland!
Welcome to the 55th edition of Spatial Newsletter™! Congratulations! You've made it to the tenth Fibonacci number, you golden-ratioed creature, you.
"Regulators...! Mount up." - Warren G's "Regulate"
The Most Mis-used Word of 2023... Immersive
"The Void VR extravaganza offered genuine shock and awe. You not only saw recognisable blockbuster entertainment properties – you also spent time ‘with’ them, sensing your surroundings through haptics, temperature, air disruption and smell + physical touch-points. Now, that was immersive.
If your client wants immersive, give them immersive – not something simply badged with [the word]."
Nailed it, Dean Johnson. And thanks for sharing, Prof Bob Stone, who has been beating people over the head with this for 4 decades (?!).
The EU AI Act is Upon Us
Global standards are a race to be won, and no one regulates the race like the EU. (Wait...) It's true Regulation Royalty.
After 38 hours of labor from democratic bodies, startups and researchers' nervous hand-wringing was finally over. "These were the bureaucratic guidelines we've been waiting for!" said no one ever.
Said bodies also spent "a lot of time" figuring out how to use AI in law enforcement to turn Europe into a surveillance state. (Sorry, NOT to turn Europe into a surveillance state!)
Sure, I support AI regulation just like I support metaverse regulation to protect people's fundamental rights, but faceless, lumbering, bureaucratic behemoths always make me nervous. Unintended consequences and such.
More here about the historical event.
Or check out Oliver Patel's inforgraphic.
The Convergence of XR and AI
Avi Bar-Zeev says, "It's a safe bet." Why? Because it's been going on since the "early days" (and he provides a plethora of examples).
Two ways XR and AI can converge in the future is as a 'Personal AI Shield' "that holds and protects each of our personal data from rampant exploitation. [This shield] may appear as our 'digital twin' in a more literal sense--a 3D persona that stands in for us sometimes, perhaps answering questions only narrowly."
Closely related to this is his idea of a "very carefully crafted AI... needed for low-power functionality, where our all-day-wearable devices need to sleep part-time to conserve power [... but can run] independently of the wearable, to better watch out for us, given global inputs and situational awareness beyond our line of sight."
Online AI guard dog, I like it.
As Avi points out, all of this requires trust in the tech providers to not exploit us in turn. About that...
Maybe the EU's AI Act could help out.
Spatial Newsletter™ from Finland
Varjo Releases New XR-4
"Varjo is the first company to introduce gaze-directed, high-resolution autofocus cameras in mixed reality with the XR-4 Series; At $3990, the Varjo XR-4 is half the price of XR-3." (The price will still blow up your pockets like a Samsung smartphone battery.) Maybe, I'm just jealous because I haven't gotten a chance to try them out yet, Jussi Mäkinen...
According to my good friend Cristian-Emanuel Anton, founder of MeetinVR, "once in a while you try something which makes you feel like you'd never seen a true tech innovation before. Varjo made me feel this way before but the new XR-4 does it in a big way. The experience this headset provides is truly mindblowing and it's also really comfortable to wear. Speechless!"
MatchXR
is a Slush pre-event that brings the Finnish XR community together.
Antony Vitillo aka SKARREDGHOST made a nice write up about the event dubbed "the biggest one-night XR & emerging tech event in the Nordics". I, too, was there working the SeeTrue Technologies table (my other hat) where I hustled Tony over to try out our snazzy yet robust wearable eye trackers. He said he wouldn't review them if they were crap (I'm paraphrasing).
Well, guess what? Here's his review, "SeeTrue Technologies may have solved the calibration issue for eye-tracking". Boo-yah!
MatchXR is always good fun. This year it was also where Finland's Metaverse Initiative was revealed.
The Finnish Metaverse Initiative
Finland also likes to be a global standard setter. It's the first country in the EU and one of the first in the world to have an official national metaverse strategy (though South Korea leads the pack by already working on its Metaverse Seoul platform where users can take their avatars to otherworldly places like tax offices).
I missed the actual reveal because I was working the booth like a carnie, but I did take part in the actual workshops that helped form the initiative and will continue to do my part in one of the action groups, such as leading a mission to Val Verde (if you know, you know).
Check out Digital Finland for more deets about the strategy, the action groups, and more.
That's all folks! Short and sweet like a gingerbread cookie.
Remember don't accept the mark of the CBDCs, eat your vegetables, and treat each other as you'd like to be treated. Happy holidays!
This is our last newsletter until after winter break (mid-January, not the actual breaking of winter, which in Finland is late March). Thanks for partaking, Spatialists! And thanks to all the folks who created and shared great content that I could riff off of.
Joh, doesn't understand why Fibber Nachi's Sequins on Webmoviez is so hyped
"Regulation Royalty" lmao accurate