The Second Space Race

Auki Labs
3 min readAug 29, 2023

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Earlier this year, Apple demonstrated its position and direction as a spatial computing company with the introduction of the Vision Pro, its entry in the headset market, and its first spatial OS.

From personal, to mobile, to spatial computing.

Since everyday wearables may still be a few years away, you may be forgiven for not having noticed that augmented reality is already an industry worth tens of billions of dollars.

The transition from personal computers to mobile computers profoundly impacted how we interact with computers and relate with each other. New forms of connectedness and communication emerged, as well as new and alien depths of loneliness. Almost every industry has been touched by mobile, and an enormous percentage of the world’s population interact with computers and the internet mainly through their handheld device.

When Apple says that spatial computing is the next big thing, it’s hard to overstate the significance of what they are trying to tell you:

A shift as momentous as that from desktop to mobile is here and it is going to change the world.

Spatial computing is not the transition from phones to wearables, but a profound change in how we interact with information and each other. The next era is not a computer in your pocket, but experiencing the internet in physical space.

A spatial computer is one you look through.

Apple’s Vision Pro is the first device they designed to be spatial first, but many modern smartphones have spearheaded the technology. Your handheld is more than a phone today already: it’s a looking glass.

You can read more about how handheld spatial computing is having an impact today in our recent press release about Convergent, the spatial computing platform for retail we launched this week.

So spatial computing is not about transitioning from mobile to wearable, but rather the transition to experiencing digital information in physical space.

Just as mobile changed the way we interact and communicate, so too will spatial computing. Microsoft VP Lili Cheng recently said that mixed reality is the eyes and ears of AI, but I suspect the story runs even deeper than that.

Handheld spatial computing in a retail operations environment.

In previous eras, humanity has delved into digital worlds, but now we are inviting digital things to join us in ours. Spatial computing is the art of allowing the digital to inhabit the physical world, and our intent with building the posemesh is for it to be the collaborative proprioception of the machine.

— Nils Pihl, CEO of Auki Labs

Originally published on AukiLabs.com

About Auki Labs

Auki Labs is at the forefront of spatial computing, pioneering the convergence of the digital and physical to give people and their devices a shared understanding of space for seamless collaboration.

With a focus on user-centric design and privacy, Auki Labs empowers industries and individuals to embrace the transformative potential of spatial computing, enhancing productivity, engagement, and human connection.

Auki Labs is building the posemesh, a decentralized spatial computing protocol for AR, the metaverse, and smart cities.

AukiLabs | Twitter | Discord | LinkedIn | Medium | YouTube

About The Posemesh Foundation

The posemesh is an open-source protocol that powers a decentralized, blockchain-based spatial computing network.

The posemesh is designed for a future where spatial computing is both collaborative and privacy-preserving. It limits the surveillance capabilities of any organization and encourages sovereign ownership of private space maps.

The decentralization also offers a competitive advantage, especially in shared AR sessions where low latency is crucial. The posemesh is the next step in the decentralization movement, responding to the growing power of big tech.

The Posemesh Foundation has tasked Auki Labs with developing the software infrastructure of the posemesh.

Twitter | Discord | Medium | Updates | YouTube | Telegram | Posemesh.org

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Auki Labs
Auki Labs

Written by Auki Labs

Building the posemesh, a decentralized spatial computing protocol for AR, the metaverse, and smart cities. The proprioceptive sense of machine intelligence.

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