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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: Timewalk will not be timeless (review below)
Other stories: Instagram will ban users who post non-consensual or harassment videos filmed on Meta smart glasses, per comments from Instagram head Adam Mosseri (more below)
Piranesi is a weird book. Think Backrooms vibes with a mystery between the Tides and Halls.
Top story
Timewalk will not be timeless.
What is it? Timewalk is an immersive exhibition that goes through five different civilizations across 12,000 years, using 360° projections across multiple rooms to tell the story of the ancients and how they progressed.
What are the pros? The technology was really good, showing a lot of the progress of civilizations as they evolved, with some decent voiceovers and effects. When the projections induced the feeling of motion across waves or land, I felt I was moving with the room, which was an impressive trick. The staff were friendly as well.
What are the cons? There were a number of concerns:
There was a technical hiccup that meant one of my friends was unable to listen to the audio, which was connected to a device rather than within the room itself. She was unable to listen to the rest of the experience after speaking to staff several times. A technical person in the first room to deal with technical issues would have been beneficial.
The historical information was really top-level. When we reached the Mayans, it went to the point of Cortez taking over the empire. It was a very light touch, with the line that the land was taken over by famine or gunpowder, which really surprised me considering the historical background of the experience. This was consistent across the exhibition; light on historical detail, to the point of skirting history.
The smattering of older objects at the beginning of the experience only lasted two minutes before it dove straight into the 360 projection, which was a bit of a shame as I would have loved to have learned more about the objects.
While a lot of the special effects were good, there was clearly a lot of AI being used to generate the people and their movements, with telltale signs of misting and jerky movements. It led to strange abhuman imagery, which was in stark contrast to the rest of the lightshow.
In my view, I felt that it was technically impressive but substantially weak. If you are a fan of history, then it's too top-level for it to be interesting. If you're a fan of immersive technologies, then it provides a good example, but not necessarily one that matches the quality of Cleopatra or the Vikings in the same city. The technical concerns make me worry about recommending it, in case there are issues with others as well.
This week’s stories
CalMac has paused public bridge visits on its ferries after a passenger secretly filmed crew and passengers using Meta smart glasses.
Durham Cathedral has launched its first augmented reality experience as part of its Colour and Light stained glass exhibition, letting visitors scan QR codes to explore window history.
Even Realities has named Spenser Blank as global chief communications officer to promote its camera-less smart glasses.
GaitSIT is a portable, low-cost VR-based test that reliably detects balance changes during walking under varied visual and surface conditions.
Gentle Monster plans to expand its North American and European retail footprint ahead of its Google- and Samsung-developed smart glasses launching this fall.
Loft Dynamics has launched the world's first H145 Multi-Pilot VR Simulator, co-developed with Airbus, with Babcock France committing to bring multi-crew VR training to the country for the first time.
Additionally, Loft Dynamics is expanding VR pilot training into South Asia, partnering with Indocopters to open the region's first dedicated H125 VR training site as Airbus ramps up local H125 production.
Meta has added the Xbox Game Pass "starter edition" to its Horizon Plus VR subscription, giving Quest users access to over 50 games including Fallout 4 and Deep Rock Galactic.
Samsung has detailed the features of its upcoming smart glasses, developed with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker, including a built-in camera, Gemini AI integration and gesture control.
Immersive Wire’s Support
To support the running of the Immersive Wire, I have accepted assistance from Wispr Flow. This is an app I use nearly every day on WhatsApp as well as my personal computer because it's genuinely a very good way of getting thoughts on paper relatively quickly (the thoughts themselves might be dubious, but that’s neither here nor there).
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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.
