Exploring Technological Change
Spatial Computing's technological change is laid out in Chapter 1, Prime Directive. Mobile phones soon will give way to headsets and glasses that bring computing to every surface. What is driving all of this new technology? We have a need for complex technologies to keep us around on this planet longer and in a more satisfied and productive state. What will drive us to build or buy new headsets, sensors, and vehicles, along with the connected systems controlled by Artificial Intelligence? Augmentation is coming, and that can mean a lot of different things, which we will explore.
We look back in Chapter 2, Four Paradigms and Six Technologies, at the previous three foundations of personal computing and include the new Spatial Computing paradigm. The six technologies discussed are those that enable Spatial Computing to work: Optics and Displays, Wireless and Communications, Control Mechanisms (Voice and Hands), Sensors and Mapping, Compute Architectures (new kinds of Cloud Computing, for instance), and Artificial Intelligence (Decision Systems).
It all started with the personal computer of the late 1970s. That paradigm shift was followed by graphical user interfaces and networking in the 1980s and the mobile phone and other devices that started arriving in the 1990s, culminating with the iPhone in 2007. Then, we look forward to the next paradigm and why it will be so different and why so many more people will be able to get more out of Spatial Computing than the laptops, desktops, and smartphones that came before.
Human/machine interfaces are radically changing, and we visit the labs that brought us the mouse to understand the differences between how humans interfaced with computers with keyboard and mice to how we'll interface with cloud computing that is hyper-connected by using voice, eyes, hands, and other methods, including even wearing suits with sensors all along our bodies. It's amazing to see how far we've come from the Apple II days, where there were very few graphics, to Spatial Computing where cameras see the real world, decipher it, and decide how to drive a car around in it.