With AI, the Future of Augmented Reality is in Your Ears

The tech industry currently stands at a crossroads. At the twilight of social media, adtech, and crypto bull markets (bubbles?), tech workers and consumers are simultaneously exhausted by tech and starving for more. Shiny trends like Artificial Intelligence and Mixed Reality stand on the sidelines ready to transform latent frustrations into newfang... See more

Learn how to live in the future, the world is moving towards being distributed firstMark finds it odd that VR/AR related science fiction assumes the world is in a dystopian state, both worlds can positively coexist and even mutually benefit from each other

Last week, Niantic (the makers of Pokémon GO) announced Lightship, a developer platform for localized augmented reality. AR will transform how we communicate. Virtual reality, for its part, also continues to pick up speed. It’s been overhyped for a decade, but I expect we’ll look back and realize the hype was deserved all along; it just came too ea... See more

Large parasocial platforms transformed the internet into a hostile and impersonal place. They feed our FOMO to keep us clicking. They exaggerate our differences for "engagement". They create engines for stardom to keep us creeping. They bait us into nutritionless and sensationalist content. Humanity cannot subsist on hype alone.

Small and sincere co... See more

The key technology that Branch and others are using to create spontaneity is spatial gaming infrastructure. At its core, the technology allows users to only hear people within their nearby proximity, and get quieter as they “walk” away. It gives the feeling of a hallway bump-in.

In recent years, we’ve seen the rise of spatial audio, Apple AirPods, digital walkie talkies, audio-based meditation and mindfulness services like Headspace (I’m an investor), and social audio experiences like Discord and Clubhouse.