The American startup Sightful launched on Thursday a new generation portable computer called Spacetop with an unprecedented visual feature: it has no screen. Instead, Spacetop is equipped with a pair of augmented reality glasses that project information onto a large 100-inch (254 centimeter) virtual screen directly in front of what the user is looking at. The rest of the gear includes a hardware platform and a full-size keyboard. However, the technical specifications of the Spacetop place it in the same category as certain smartphones already capable of driving augmented reality glasses.
Sightful is an HCI (human-computer interaction) startup founded by Tamir Berliner and Tomer Kahan, Apple, Microsoft and Magic Leap veterans who work on spatial computing. The company counts among its investors Corner Ventures, Aleph and many others. Its headquarters are in Tel Aviv, Israel, and it has offices in Palo Alto, Los Angeles, Taiwan and Singapore. It unveiled its newest product, the Spacetop, this week and claims to have invented the world’s first augmented reality (AR) laptop computer. This is intended to eliminate the physical constraints of standard laptops.
The Spacetop uses augmented reality to eliminate the physical constraints of standard laptops. The result is a one-of-a-kind product that allows users to take a massive, private, virtual workspace with them, designed and customized by the user to be as creative as possible, wherever they go. found, all in a familiar laptop form factor,” the company said. The Spacetop is designed specifically for the home or on-the-go work market and takes full advantage of augmented reality to transform the world around users into a portable home office.
Just put on the glasses and a massive, curved virtual screen appears in front of you, extending above, below and to the sides. You can pin and resize applications in window: Gmail, YouTube, Word, Microsoft Teams. Spacetop is a device you could use while flying on a plane (if you don’t mind the weird looks), in a business or airport lounge (ditto), or even for working in a conference room where you wish you had a bigger notch. Indeed, when the glasses are on, a set of tiny 1080P notches gives your eyes the illusion of a big 2K notch.
As the user looks around, the screens follow the software which creates a virtual screen of 100 inches. The glasses also include two small speakers located near the ears, but not above them, like the Bose Frame glasses. In terms of specs, Spacetop uses a Snapdragon 865 paired with an Adreno 650 GPU, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which puts it in the same category as some phones already capable of driving augmented reality glasses. It is not the size of a smartphone, however, as it measures 3.98 cm high, 25.4 cm wide and 8.8 inches deep, and 1.49 kg.
With a virtual star of over 100 inches, Spacetop users design their ideal work environment – unobstructed and organized in exactly the way that helps them focus and perform at their best. Freed from the constraints of 13″ to 16″ screens that result in endless tabs, buried apps, and constant window switching, Spacetop users can focus, with their key apps visible and accessible at all times, all layered with the real world, while remaining present in the real world, says Sightful in a press release.
Naturally, wireless (5G NR Sub-6, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1) is very present. You also get a 25601920 webcam, which is slightly better than what other laptops offer, as well as a fingerprint reader. There’s a pair of 10Gb/s USB-C ports with DisplayPort 1.4 capabilities, so you can hook up an external display. The Spacetop has another unique function. You can touch the small Spacetop logo (located in the upper left corner of the keyboard) to dismiss the UI and return to “reality mode” to pay attention to a co-worker.
But the logo can also change, turning into a glyph that others can scan with their phone to share files or possibly join a collaborative whiteboard session. There is still a major weakness: the battery life. It’s just over five hours, which is pretty low for an Arm laptop and for laptops in general. The Spacetop recharges to 85% in less than 2 hours. Also, the sound from the speakers is low and muffled. Tamir Berliner, CEO of Sightful, said the low volume of the speakers was meant to preserve privacy.
The Spacetop’s software, built on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), offers a single interface with windows containing various applications and web pages. And while the images are crisp and vibrant, the device is limited to web apps and doesn’t have access to the Google Play Store or other app marketplaces. This restriction could deter potential buyers looking for a wider range of software capabilities. Also, navigating this giant virtual screen requires zooming with three fingers on the mouse touchpad and turning your head to see different sections due to the limited field of view.
For now, Sightful’s Spacetop is only available for purchase for 1,000 early adopters through an app-based program. Once the application is approved, customers can purchase the Spacetop for $2,000. Despite its innovative concept, people the company has invited to test the hardware say the Spacetop faces stability issues and crashes during demos. The Spacetop will be featured at the Augmented World Expo (AWE) conference for Extended Reality (XR) enthusiasts in Santa Clara, Calif., starting May 31.
Furthermore, the Spacetop comes at a time when augmented reality materials intended for professionals are meeting with little success. Google announced last month it stopped selling its Glass Enterprise Edition smart glasses and added that software support will end on September 15. The move marks the end of one of the first lines of smart glasses from a major tech company, which remains one of the most recognised. The company has not mentioned the reasons behind this decision, but speculation is rife on the subject, in particular the very low demand for gadgets.
This is actually the second time the project has failed, after it failed once as a consumer product (Google Glass) before becoming a business tool. Thank you for over a decade of innovation and partnership. Effective March 15, 2023, we will no longer sell Glass Enterprise Edition. We will continue to provide support for Glass Enterprise Edition devices until September 15, 2023, says an update to the Glass Enterprise Edition FAQ posted by Google. The company is in the midst of restructuring and has laid off at least 12,000 employees in a bid to cut costs.
Google’s pushback comes as rivals, including Meta and Apple, invest heavily in augmented reality and virtual reality technologies that could lead to devices far more sophisticated than Glass. Meta has released “Ray-Ban” smart glasses with cameras but no screen, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has spoken publicly of a final Google Glass-like form for the product line. Apple prepare a virtual reality headset capable of using video from outward-facing cameras to display the outside world, like a transparent lens.
Microsoft has its own augmented reality glasses for businesses, HoloLens, but the company reportedly laid off part of the team working on it earlier this year, and the device’s creator, Alex Kipman, quit there. company in 2022. In addition, the most important use of HoloLens technology in the world is the project of the American army which aims deploy thousands of HoloLens devices to equip its soldiers. But the project ran into delays and had its funding cut by Congress after user acceptance tests failed, with soldiers becoming physically ill while using it.
Finally, Sightful is launching the Spacetop at a time when many tech companies and consumers are tightening their purse strings. It will take some time with the new helmet to know if the investment is justified. The Spacetop could be a completely new, game-changing product that could rewrite the market, or it could be another expensive venture that clashes with the existing status quo in the virtual/augmented reality market. We will see.
Source : Sightful press release
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