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Executive summary
Welcome to your weekly briefing on the metaverse and spatial computing. Here are your snippets to sound smarter in meetings this week:
Top story: So what’s up with privacy and smart glasses?
Other stories: Apple Vision Pro was the subject of a peer-reviewed UC San Diego study finding it cut average endoscopic tear-duct surgery time from 42.7 to 34.4 minutes with 100% functional success.
I couldn’t finish A Deadly Education because it read like an ADHD-addled teenager struggled to concentrate for longer than three seconds.
Top story
Smart glasses have been populating the news a bit like mushrooms sprouting in a dank forest. More stories have cropped up here and there of people feeling uncomfortable with glasses filming here and there, and people and events are shunning these for the sake of their privacy. Now, I find this interesting because this could be interpreted one of two ways:
An early fear based on emerging technology with a lack of social criteria to depend on. When something is as new as this and is populating as quickly, the social norms that would dictate its use do not exist quite yet. Perhaps there's a lack of awareness about a flashing light to show it's being filmed, or a lack of understanding of its approach.
Maybe more fundamentally, because by the nature of smart glasses, it is genuinely better hidden when it comes to filming. When people flash their phones or their cameras, it is much clearer when things are being filmed, whereas with glasses, even with subtle markers, it's still unclear whether they are being filmed at times.
My gut on this is that it comes down to time as well as innovation, as these products come forward. It also relies on the types of companies which are making these spectacles, as well. Perhaps they do not have an advertising model, as this core product may have a better approach when it comes to the rollout of these glasses. Maybe?
This week’s stories
Apple Vision Pro was the subject of a peer-reviewed UC San Diego study finding it cut average endoscopic tear-duct surgery time from 42.7 to 34.4 minutes with 100% functional success.
Beyond Frames Entertainment sold off publishing rights to three Combat Waffle Studios VR titles - Ghosts of Tabor, Silent North and GRIM - for $1mn.
Enduvo had its IDIQ immersive/AI training contract with the US Air Force extended through September 2028, a two-year extension valued at $10mn.
Meta added two monthly games and five catalog titles to its Horizon+ subscription for Quest.
Physical I/O, a London-based community for physical AI, robotics, and spatial intelligence, will hold its first event online on 20 August.
Unseen Reality's URXR One mixed reality glasses passed $500,000 on Kickstarter within 24 hours of launch.
Valve lowered the requirements for its Steam Frame Verified badge for native VR games ahead of the standalone headset's launch.
VITURE launched the Pro 2 AR glasses at $299, a 63-gram frame with Sony micro-OLED panels, alongside a $99 Mobile Dock Mini battery accessory.
VR Games Showcase returns August 13th with reveals from Flat2VR Studios and others, per UploadVR.
XGIMI's MemoMind One camera-less display smart glasses topped $1 million on Kickstarter with 20 days left.
Immersive Wire’s Support
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Note: The Immersive Wire is run by Tom Ffiske, who also works at Accenture. The contents of the newsletter should not be regarded as Accenture’s views.
All spelling mistakes are deliberate, actually.
