Snap Says AR Is Driving Its Future (Just like Facebook’s and Apple’s)

“It is augmented reality that is driving our future,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said at the beginning of the company’s first-ever investor day.

“AR is the next major shift in computing,” Spiegel predicted, but we’ll need a decade before it fully materializes. Do Facebook and Apple have thoughts? *checks Emerging Tech Brew’s archives* They do.

• Mark Zuckerberg mostly agrees, as he predicted last year that we’ll get “breakthrough” AR glasses this decade.
• Tim Cook thinks AR “will pervade our entire lives,” and at this point, Apple’s top secret mixed-reality ambitions are really not-so-secret.

Right now, nearly everyone who interacts with AR does so through a phone. We won’t know the winning horse(s) in smart glasses for a while.

What we do know

Qualcomm’s XR chipset will power many next-gen AR and VR devices. Yesterday, the chipmaker dropped its reference design, a hardware blueprint for companies that want to build AR glasses based on the XR1 and other available technologies.

Qualcomm’s prototype is a glimpse into AR’s near future, and the glasses pack powerful technology. But they must be wired to a phone, computer, or puck. “And for that reason, I’m out.”—the average consumer

• AR hardware still has many technical constraints, from power management to processing power.
• Current price points and form factors appeal to commercial buyers. But beyond early adopters, a consumer market has yet to take shape.

In fully virtual land

This week’s big VR headline comes courtesy of Sony. The PlayStation 5 will get its own VR system, the company said yesterday.

• What Sony’s promising: More immersive VR, a higher res-headset, new tracking capabilities, and next-gen controllers with additional inputs.
• When: Sony will send out developer kits soon, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan told WaPo, but the company hasn’t landed on a launch date. So...not 2021.
• Easter egg: The glasses will have “future-proof technology,” Sony SVP Hideaki Nishino flexed.

Big picture: Depending on who you ask, VR is either AR’s competitor or a technological bridge to it. AR hardware will eventually be a bigger consumer market, but capable VR products are available right now or close on the horizon.