Mixed reality is perfect for our innate multitasking habits
Keep an eye out for the potential of spatial computing.
Multitasking in a new hybrid world
To continue to improve workflow we need to improve multitasking itself.Spatial Computingoffers us a way past that edge into new more effective patterns of multitasking.
Increasingly, with the help of wearable mobile computers, like the Magic Leap One, my digital lifestyle is joining me in the real world. We are a strategic design partner for Magic Leap, and their device is creating a new pattern of computing that advances the power of multitask computing by creating new ways to assemble software into workflows. This promises to magnify the impact of computing in a very human way.
Wearable Mobile Computers like Magic Leap One or HoloLens 2 are capable of Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR), and Spatial Computing. They offer a new pattern of computing, with displays that feel vast when compared to screens because of their ability to project the digital into the physical space all around you.
But more than a simple heads-up display, they also possess a computer vision stack and software that allows the context of physical space you are in to participate in computing — a ‘placefullness’ if you will.
I am the creative lead on the Magic Leap project, so I use these devices every day. And while much is said about the amazing experiences one can have with AR and MR, we can also see a ton of value in how Spatial Computing as a pattern can improve Multitask Computing. Which means amplifying the ability of humans to put together productive workflows.
Goodbye screen edges, hello placefullness
The first advantage here is the display. The edge here turns out to be literal. We are literally running into the edge of our screens, even while the edges of our screen keep getting wider to accommodate more running apps.
With a wearable mobile computer, there is no edge to the screen. The entirety of the physical space around you can now hold running applications. On Magic Leap this new ‘desktop’ is called ‘The Landscape’ and in Landscape you can take a Google Meet and set it just off your left shoulder or scale it up to theatrical proportions. A trick that is much more useful for calendars… especially if you have seen my calendar.
The work of arranging and rearranging apps does not go away. In fact it picks up a new dimension of depth and accommodates physical objects. But within that emerges a new value that lends itself particularly well to workflows. You can put software in context next to the physical thing or in the physical place it represents.
I call this extra context ‘placefullness’, a concept first introduced to me by argo founderMark Rolston. For consumers, placefullness will be a lot of Pokemon Go-styled fun. Also because of the way our memories favor geography, placefullness will offer new organizational metaphors for computing. For businesses, placefullness means digital workflows can now follow physical workflows.
Imagine yourself as a facilities engineer at a small brewery. You have gone digital via the Internet of Things, so you have this room somewhere filled with gauges on screens that represent things happening elsewhere. The ability to permanently place a link or app into physical space means you can move the digital gauge or the control software or the digital repair ticket next to the tank, or valve, or repair job.
Frictionless digital world
This new kind of multitasking is free of the friction of finding a screen, then distracting yourself with that screen and all the steps of having to call up the right application. That traditional work feels like a small friction. But multiply that times the thousands of times this happens everyday and it is a huge impact to computing. However, to really use this pattern requires a human to wear the computer and then place the links and software into the space around them.
Right now the price and size of wearable mobile computers is such that adoption is limited to businesses that can capture the value of these new workflows, along with novel experiential activations and the bleeding edge adopters that have been waiting a generation for this hardware to come together into an approachable package.
For many businesses, the current iterations of devices are very deployable. We all know Moore’s Law, and these devices will very quickly reach the type of form factor, price, and platform support that brings early adopter and then general adoption.
For a spatial computer to work, it’s given sight and the sensing capabilities of a human. It also must adjust its interaction model to include a layer of gesture, voice, and other traditional controls. It sees and recognizes the human context. The computer itself becomes more human.
When you wear a computer, you are looking outward at humanity rather than inward into computing. It’s a pattern that suits the human and even though on the long tail you can imagine so many ways AI and computing will augment and amplify our capabilities, there’s no question in my view that humans are the last mile in computing.
Story byJared Ficklin
Jared is a designer and technologist with two decades of experience creating products and visions for major companies. He spent 14 years of(show all)Jared is a designer and technologist with two decades of experience creating products and visions for major companies. He spent 14 years of his career at frog design contributing to the visions, strategy, intellectual property, and products of clients including HP, Microsoft, AT&T, LG, SanDisk, and Motorola. His work integrating technology into the design process at frog led him to be named one of 4 frog fellows. Jared is an evangelist and co-creator of the cable car-based mass transport vision known as The Wire, and was the first to bring live fire to the TED stage. He speaks internationally as a creative technologist and futurist.
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