- Critics have doubted the appeal of the face-worn computer, which “seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world”, but Apple has pre-sold as many as 180,000 of the US$3,500 gizmos.
- Apple hopes the new device will redefine personal computing, like the iPhone did 16 years ago, and Macintosh did 40 years ago.
Spatial computing
- In an extensive set of rules for developers, the company insists the new headset is not to be referred to as a “headset”.
- Spatial computing, as sketched out in the 2003 PhD thesis of US software engineer Simon Greenwold, is: “human interaction with a machine in which the machine retains and manipulates referents to real objects and spaces”.
- The iPhone’s initial “killer apps” were clear: the internet in your pocket (including portable access to Google Maps), all your music on a touch screen, and “visual voicemail”.
- Apple has sold billions of iPhones, and some 80% of humans now use a smartphone.
Killer apps
- We don’t yet know what the killer apps of spatial computing might be – if any – but here is where Apple is pointing our attention.
- The second is an attempt to solve the social problem of walking around with a weird headset covering half your face.
- Reviewers have found it striking:
this was stuff from my own life, my own memories.
- I was playing back experiences I had already lived.
- These memories are files, and potentially products, to be shared in “spatial videos” recorded on the latest iPhones.
Biospatial surveillance
- Recent research found Facebook, for example, receives data from an average of around 2,300 companies on each individual user.
- Read more:
Explainer: what is surveillance capitalism and how does it shape our economy?
Your face tomorrow
- For instance, analysing a person’s unconscious movements can reveal their emotional state or even predict neurodegenerative disease.
- This is called “biometrically inferred data” as users are unaware their bodies are giving it up.
- Apple suggests it won’t share this type of data with anyone, and Apple has proven better than most companies on privacy.
Social questions
Biospatial surveillance is also the key to Apple’s attempt to solve the social problems created by wearing a headset in public. The external screen showing a simulated approximation of the user’s gaze relies on constant measurement of the user’s expression and eye movement with multiple sensors.
- Apple’s new vision of us – and those that surround us – shows how the requirements and benefits of spatial computing will pose new privacy concerns and social questions.
- The extensive biospatial surveillance that captures intimate biometric and environmental data redefines what personal data and social interactions are possible for exploitation.
Luke Heemsbergen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
