A Story of Future Technologies - Digital Explorers' Diary #63

Episode #63 - A Story of Future Technologies

Welcome to the Digital Explorers’ Diary, a curated collection of thought-provoking topics about interactive technologies, AI, web3, sense-making, entrepreneurship, and psychology.

Executive summary:

• It’s a science-fiction story… but how realistic is it, really?
• Are mixed-realty passthrough headsets causing psychological issues?
• Will we adopt voice as the new means of interaction with computers?
• And Microsoft cancels Windows Mixed Reality - too bad!

A Story of Future Technologies

Let’s imagine…

It’s 2 pm, you just finished work. It was a short day, adjusted to your peak focus time by your AI personal assistant - sponsored by your employee. An autonomous car from the town’s fleet picks you up, already playing your favorite songs, the temperature adjusted to your preferences. During the travel, you chat online with your partner - no need to talk; it all goes through your brain implant. The car drops you at a distance from your home, the perfect length for today’s workout, a 5km run calibrated to maximize your fitness. Your Augmented Reality lenses automatically hide most people you’re crossing, your earbuds playing a smooth blend of sounds, maximizing your performance.

Your evening is spent watching a movie with your partner through your Virtual Reality headset, a movie generated just for you based on stories you like. Besides you, your kid is playing with his AI toy. This digital agent follows her from birth, knowing everything she ever did, monitoring her development, and optimizing every second of her life. A couple of weeks ago, she was diagnosed with a rare sickness that wasn’t detected during her genetically optimized conception, but a specifically engineered virus cured her in a few days.

(End of story)

You will think that this is just science fiction. Well, let’s dive deeper…

• Augmented Reality lenses. The huge technical challenge to bring power and interface to an AR lens seems to have reached a breakthrough thanks to Blink Energy, as they showcase an interface that sits on the upper eyelid.
  Blink Energy
• Erasing people from a video in real-time. Already done.
  Meta
• Brain implants. Elon Musk’s Neuralink's first human test is in progress, reporting, “Initial results show promising neuron spike detection.” The initial goal is to allow people to control a computer directly with their thoughts.
  Neuralink
• Autonomous cars. Self-driving cars are still getting a lot of popularity and traction. They faced many issues and drawbacks in 2023. Will it become mainstream once the technology matures and regulations are in place?
  A self-driving car blocking a road
• Curing rare diseases. Have you heard of CRISPR? This emerging gene technology, short for “Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats,” promises to allow precise gene editing in living organisms. And it has already been used…
  DALLE’s interpretation of CRISPR
• Generating videos. Last but not least, Open AI again made the news this week with the preview release of Sora, their text-to-video model, that can generate 60 seconds of impressive, very stable video.
  The prompt for the video below was: A stylish woman walks down a Tokyo street filled with warm glowing neon and animated city signage. She wears a black leather jacket, a long red dress, and black boots, and carries a black purse. She wears sunglasses and red lipstick. She walks confidently and casually. The street is damp and reflective, creating a mirror effect of the colorful lights. Many pedestrians walk about.

What do you think? Will these technologies keep improving exponentially, as we’ve seen over the past few years, or will they hit a slowdown before becoming mainstream?

Want to discuss this? Reach out here or on LinkedIn to brainstorm with me!

From the Podcast

Every week, I’m teaming up with Guillaume Brincin and Sébastien Spas on the Lost In Immersion podcast. This week, we explore:

• 🧠 Are Mixed-Reality passthrough devices inducing psychological or health issues after an extended usage? Ultimately, even with high-fidelity devices like the Vision Pro, we still look at screens very close to our eyes. Users report a loss in depth perception, motion sickness, and social isolation. Are passthrough devices a dead-end? Are transparent headsets like the HoloLens the ultimate goal?
• 👓 Brilliant Labs has released its new AI-assisted glasses. Connected to your phone and to Open AI’s APIs, they are your always-on assistant. With devices like Meta’s Ray Ban, Human.ai, or Rabbit R1, will this trend pick up, and will the general public get ownership of this new user interface?
• 🚫 In the latest Windows 11 update, Microsoft has removed support for the Windows Mixed Reality feature. We wonder the reasons - it was, for many professionals, the easiest way to test their models and projects. It comes at a strange time; soon after the Virtual version of Teams was released, Microsoft Mesh - Windows Mixed Reality was the easiest way to access it!

Watch the podcast below, and tune in at 10 am UTC on Tuesdays on Twitch, and listen to the podcasts on Youtube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Amazon!

Did this newsletter spark some ideas? There are a lot of ways we can work together:

• A quick-fire, 30-minute brainstorm with me - book it here!
• We can ideate, prototype, and build your experiences - contact us here!