A perfect storm of change will arrive during the 2020s. We predict that we will see computing switch from staring into a four-inch piece of glass in our hands to using devices on our face that bring computing to every surface. Along with that, we will see advances such as vehicles moving without humans in them for the first time. A fourth paradigm of the personal computing age is upon us, Spatial Computing, and it is one that truly makes personal computers even more personal.

With the coming of Spatial Computing and its two purest members, Virtual and Augmented Reality, we believe that businesses and human cooperation need to be aimed at one thing: working together to build complex technologies to keep us around on this planet longer and in a more satisfied and productive state, while paying attention to the effects that these technologies have on ourselves and the planet. Spatial Computing in the 2020s will see immense challenges, but great opportunities will...

Introduction

You aren't reading this book to learn about small new features of existing apps, but rather to more deeply understand what we are calling the "Fourth Paradigm" of personal computing―Spatial Computing.

This chapter will bring you up to date on the technology you need to know about to understand where Spatial Computing came from, where it's going, and why it's so fundamentally different than the desktops or mobile phones that came before, even though it is using a lot of technology invented for the machines of earlier paradigms. Spatial Computing is the fourth paradigm, and we see it as the most personal of all the personal computing paradigms yet to come. We will cover six technologies 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...