Meta: Making Augmented Reality Fashionable.
At AWE 2017 Meta announced its Meta Workspace, a spatial AR operating environment designed for creativity and collaboration.
The original Meta AR headset was a great proof of concept with a great 40° field of view much like Microsofts Hololens is today. That was three years ago. The feedback the Meta team received from this was that it was good for R&D, good for innovation, good as a glimpse into the future of computing, but not good enough to replace the screens that characterize our lives in technology.
The teams answer was to tap in some of the most innovative AR minds globally to develop an optical engine that can create a 90° field of view. The Meta team also tapped into the Google Project Tango framework to acquire the expertise of Alan Betran in developing a sensor array capable of dexterous hand interaction. With over 600 patent claims for the technology, the Meta team now offers us a truer vision of their future of reality.
I spoke with Meta's evangelist extraordinaire Ryan Pamplin about what its like to be part of an award winning AR company making the term Augmented Reality fashionable.
Ryan Pamplin: It is an honor, really and truly, the team loves this. The team sleeps, eats, and breathes Meta. Not for the sake of AR, not for the sake of technology but for the sake of a more natural computing experience.
Check out my interview with Ryan above.
What is the Meta vision for the future of computing? To shift the paradigm of computing from a small scale flat experience to a visceral reality of interaction and point of view.
The Meta team has stepped their game up with their new operating system which overlays the physical world with your computer's desktop, eliminating the need for a monitor. Meta won an Auggie award for Best In Show at AWE 2017.
Meta is the precursor to a future that will use VR, AR, voice control, a digital canvas and haptic technology (recreating the sense of touch) all working together to let people create in more natural ways.
Ryan Pamplin had some advice for me to work on AR cats.....well maybe if I had a Meta Cat shirt I might be incentivized.
