Pioneers of the new wave of VR reveal how they immerse you in other worlds, but "presence" doesn't come easily. "It's like a small bird you can very easily kill," one filmmaker says.
One moment I'm in a room full of people, the next I'm in the sun-scorched Australian Outback. But it takes more than the fancy graphics of the Samsung Gear VR virtual-reality headset I've just lowered over my head to convince me I'm really hanging out with aborigines.
The Samsung Gear VR is one of the first headsets you can actually buy to immerse yourself in virtual-reality experiences. Nate Ralph/CNET
What it takes, says Richard Marks of Sony's VR arm, PlayStation Magic Lab, is something virtual-reality pros call "presence."
"Presence starts with the image being right," Marks says. "We're getting very good at making the images look good. Add in spatialized audio and you become even more convinced that you're present somewhere."
Marks was one of the filmmakers and content creators discussing VR at last month's Sundance Film Festival, which saw an explosion of interest in the topic and many festival-goers trying Gear VR, Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard VR headsets for the first time.
How do you make them want to return for a second, a third and a 50th time?
It's a question of great importance to high-tech companies looking for the next big thing and already banking on virtual reality taking off in 2016. Investments in VR by the likes of Facebook, Google, Samsung and Sony, along with well-funded startups like Jaunt, NextVR and Magic Leap, are expected to change the way we play video games, take field trips, and watch sports and movies.
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Jason Rubin, head of Oculus Story Studio, points to demos in which people are asked to step into what looks like a yawning abyss. "I could reach out and grab the hand of somebody I know well," Rubin said, "holding their hand in the real world -- and they won't do it. And you know you have them. That's presence."
Another VR expert, Caecilia Charbonnier, who is working on experimental multiuser VR, outlined her "four pillars" of presence:
Illusion of being in a stable space
That is, being able to see the world around you. Today's headsets and displays have that cracked.
Illusion of self-embodiment
This involves tracking the movements of your body and playing them back within the virtual world so you can see yourself in the virtual space when you have the helmet on. This is in the early stages with, for example, Oculus Touch controllers you hold in your hands.
Illusion of physical interaction
This involves holding physical props in your hands in the real world and seeing them interact with the virtual space. Charbonnier's team has developed a simple stick you hold that looks like something different in the virtual world, such as a torch you can use to light your way.
Illusion of social collaboration
This involves interacting with other headset wearers in the virtual world. It's real cutting-edge stuff, but Charbonnier's team is using motion tracking to let two people interact in the same space. For example, if one person walks off with the torch, the environment goes dark for the other person. They can even throw physical props to each other.
In the video below, two users interact with each other in a demo.
When it comes to presence, less is often more. "If you can whisper in somebody's ear, that's the most powerful form of presence I've ever had in VR," said Oculus' Rubin. A character is "in my personal space and it evokes a very powerful emotion."
Sound is also important to help you locate yourself in the virtual environment. In this video, the creators of "Collisions," the VR experience I watched, discuss using the Dolby Atmos sound-mixing system to help place you in the Australian Outback.
The fragility of presence
Paul Raphaël of Felix and Paul Studios compares presence with mindfulness, the concept of focusing on the present moment.
"We're rarely actually present in the real world," he said. "One of the beauties of VR is that it takes someone who's never even thought about meditating and almost by default puts them in a meditating state...That's something people train their whole lives to accomplish."
As important as presence is in a successful VR experience, it's also fragile, Raphaël said. "It's like a small bird you can very easily kill."
Mike Woods, formerly of noted special effects company Framestore and later a co-founder of VR company White Rabbit, lays out some of the many difficulties of evoking presence.
A frame of 360-degree VR experience "Perspective 2: Chapter 2 - The Misdemeanor" by Specular Theory, which would wrap around you so you can look up, down and behind you as the story unfolds. Jaunt
"Having humans close to you, talking to you -- we tried every which way to get that right," Woods said. "There are so many things that we don't realize we're perceiving when we're having a conversation with someone. If I'm talking to you, your face and all the muscles in your face change, which is something we inherently understand. It's really hard to get that right."
Conversely, inducing a sense of presence too successfully can create a new set of problems.
"I've done some of those demos with the jump scares or the horror themes that are really terrifying," said YouTube star Matthew Patrick, aka MatPat, who is now creating VR experiences. "It feels like that murderer is coming at you or that ghost is jumping out right in your face. And if you're someone with a bad heart, that poses a very significant threat."
Established forms of media such as movies and video games have faced controversy over whether viewers can distinguish between fiction and reality. With its heightened sense of immersion, that's likely to be an ethical question facing VR too.
"As with any evolving medium, there are ethical considerations that we're going to have to take into account," Patrick said, "whether it's ratings systems or parental guidance or lockouts. That should be a high priority, as these [VR systems] are entering homes this year."
Or as Woods puts it, "There is a part of the brain that knows you have a headset on. Disabling that part of the brain is the really hard part. But do we want to go down the path where we disable that part of the brain?"
Nissan Motor and DeNA announced today that field tests of Easy Ride, the self-driving taxi service they developed together, will begin next month in Japan. This means that Nissan and DeNA now rank among Uber, Lyft, GM, Didi Chuxing and other companies pioneering self-driving taxi pilots, with the goal of launching commercially within the next few years.
DeNA is a Tokyo-headquartered online services company that is probably best known outside of Japan for a partnership with Nintendo that has produced mobile games like “Fire Emblem Heroes.” Its other services, however, encompass a wide range of verticals, including e-commerce, entertainment, healthcare, social networking and automotive tech. Two years ago, DeNA launched its first production vehicles with French autonomous vehicle company EasyMile, which are used to provide a driverless shuttle service called Robot Shuttle in Japanese cities.
Easy Ride’s first field test will begin on March 5 in Yokohama, the city to the south of Tokyo where Nissan’s global headquarters are located. Its self-driving taxis, which the companies call “robo-vehicles,” will take passengers along a 4.5 kilometer set route between the Yokohama World Porters shopping center and Nissan’s corporate complex. During the ride, passengers can try out Easy Ride’s concierge features by using a mobile app to ask for suggestions about local sightseeing destinations, which are then displayed on an in-car tablet screen, with coupons available for download. A remote monitoring center will oversee the cars during the field test and passengers will be asked after their ride to complete a survey about their experiences and how much they would be willing to pay for Easy Ride when it launches.
Nissan is one of several Japanese automakers that want to get self-driving vehicles on the road by the beginning of the next decade, motivated by the country’s aging population, which needs more transportation options, and the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said he wants self-driving vehicles to help with transportation during the games and also serve as a showcase for Japan’s manufacturing and technological prowess. The government is currently in the process of drawing up laws meant to make the process of testing and commercializing autonomous vehicle systems more efficient.
Nissan and DeNA say they plan to launch full service of Easy Ride in the early 2020s, after a limited rollout. The fields tests will be used to “develop service designs for driverless environments, expanded service routes, vehicle distribution logic, pick-up/drop-off processes and multilingual support,” the companies said in a release.
The taxi industry in major Japanese cities like Tokyo is heavily regulated and cab drivers are required to have special licenses, so companies there must focus on other services instead of ride-sharing. For example, earlier this week Sony announced that it will launch an AI-based taxi-calling app, while Uber chief executive officer Dara Khosrowshahi said the company wants to form partnerships with a taxi companies to put new life into its Japanese expansion strategy.
Sphero continues its partnership with Disney today, with the launch of a new toy based on the Marvel superhero Spider-Man. But where BB-8 and Lightning McQueen could move around the room, Spider-Man is more stationary — his real power involves holding conversations.
The simplest thing this Spider-Man can do is tell jokes — he seems to have an infinite simply of eye-rollers. If you just ask him to chat, he’ll start a conversation about random topics like school or dating. And as Sphero co-founder and Chief Software Architect Adam Wilson put it, he’s also “a storyteller,” describing his adventures to kids and asking them to participate in key moments.
You can see a few of my interactions with Spider-Man in the video above. Users are encouraged to try out different prompts and discover new modes of interaction — though there were plenty of times where Spider-Man would answer a different question from the one I asked, or he would just sit there silently.
The toy includes expressive LCD eyes, a microphone, a speaker and an accelerometer — so he’ll offer enthusiastic commentary if you pick him up and pretend to fight with him. There’s even an infrared sensor, allowing Spider-Man to go into “guard mode,” warning off any intruders who enter his owner’s bedroom.
Aside from using third-party speech recognition technology, Wilson said Spider-Man’s conversational engine was built “from scratch” — in essence, he’s “a full Android device” inside a superhero-shaped toy. (While your main interactions will be through voice, you’ll also need either an iOS or an Android app to control him.)
Wilson also emphasized the importance of privacy and security. He said Spider-Man is only listening when the spider on his chest lights up, and the user’s voice is never stored or shared. (The security measures are certified by AppliedTrust.)
It’s worth noting that while Spider-Man’s launch is timed to just a few weeks before the release of Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 7, he isn’t supposed to represent the movie version of the character, and he’s not voiced by Homecoming actor Tom Holland. (The fact that Homecoming will be distributed by Sony Pictures, not Disney, may have something to do with the toy’s lack of movie ties.) Still, Wilson said this Spider-Man comes with more than “100 comic books worth of content” and will also offer “tons of Easter Eggs.”
You’ll soon be able to trap Ghostbusters ghosts in augmented reality à la Pokémon Go.
A short demo of the game Ghostbusters World was showcased at Google’s MWC booth, highlighting functionality made possible by the public release of Google’s ARCoreaugmented reality platform. Details are pretty slim for a wide release date other than it’s “coming 2018”.
The title will call on ghosts from the franchise’s “films, TV shows, comic books, theme parks, and video games” according to a press release. Ghostbusters is obviously no Pokémon when it comes to the cult following behind it, but the game does seem like it could have some pretty similar gameplay to Pokeémon Go when it launches.
The studio behind the title, South Korea-based publisher FourThirtyThree Inc. has launched a number of popular games including Blade for Kakao, Monster Super League and Seven Guardians. The studio primarily seems to dabble in RPG style video games, and early footage makes it seem as though this mechanic will be present in Ghostbusters World. The title was also developed in conjunction with Sony Pictures Entertainment Consumer Products and Ghost Corps.
For what it’s worth from the short video they’ve shown it does really showcase what AR can add to the game, and how much more integrated with the environment the game is than past AR titles. Whether the title will embrace the location-based community style which made Pokémon Go a bit of a cultural phenomenon is unclear.
Though the announcement was made in conjunction with Google, the game will also be coming to iOS. The developers will be making more announcements about the game at next month’s Game Developers Conference.
Google is bringing gadget maker Nest back under its control as the search giant battles rivals Amazon and Apple in the rapidly expanding smart home market. A big part of the change: Making it easier to add Google's artificial intelligence technology and Assistant -- a digital helper that competes against Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri -- into new Nest products.
The world's largest search engine has staked its future on building Google smarts into devices beyond smartphones. On Wednesday, Google said Nest was part of its plans and would no longer operate as a separate division that lived in the outer orbit of parent company Alphabet's "Other Bets" group of projects.
Instead, Nest rejoins the Google mothership -- the part of Alphabet that houses search, YouTube, Android mobile software and other moneymakers. Nest, acquired by Google in 2014, had been operating outside of Google, the only profitable division of Alphabet, for the past three years.
Under the new org structure, Nest CEO Marwan Fawaz reports to Google's hardware chief, Rick Osterloh, a former Motorola executive who took charge of all Google's consumer devices in 2016. That includes Google Home smart speakers, Pixel smartphones and Chromecast streaming devices.
Nest CEO Marwan Fawaz says the company has shipped 11 million products to date. James Martin/CNET
"All of Google's investments in machine learning and AI, they can very clearly benefit Nest products. It just makes sense to be developing them together," Osterloh said in an interview Tuesday, which included Fawaz and took place in a meeting room designed to look like a home, complete with a kitchen and a washer-dryer setup. "It's the natural thing to evolve to."
Nest's brand, known for its 2011 internet-connected thermostat, isn't going anywhere, Osterloh and Fawaz said. In fact, the two drilled home the message that the reunion of the teams will "supercharge Nest's mission," as Fawaz put it. They used the word "supercharge" at least five times during our 40-minute interview at Nest headquarters in Palo Alto, California.
Fawaz said Nest has shipped more than 11 million products since its first thermostat went on sale in 2011. Since it's been part of "Other Bets," Alphabet doesn't call out how much money Nest makes or loses.
The biggest change: Making Google's AI technology a staple in future Nest products. I asked if that means making every new Nest device an access point for the Google Assistant. That integration is "core to the strategy," said Fawaz, but nothing is set in stone. Nest has already begun building the Assistant into devices like its Nest Cam IQ indoor camera.
Nest and Google have already plotted out and finalized their hardware roadmaps for 2018, but in the next two years, they'll start co-developing products. Google also plans to offer more bundled packages for Nest and Google devices, like one deal last year that paired Nest products over $100 with a free Google Home Mini. Fawaz said people could also eventually use their Google accounts with their Nest app.
One thing that isn't changing: Nest, which won't say how many employees it has, will keep its offices in Palo Alto, instead of moving to the Googleplex in nearby Mountain View.
The decision to merge Nest with Google comes as tech's biggest companies work to infuse their software into every aspect of people's lives, from their cars to homes. People will spend $1 trillion on the so-called "internet of things" by 2020, according to Gartner. And they'll spend over $50 billion on smart home tech in 2022 -- up from $31 billion this year -- according to Statista.
But right now the gateway drug is smart speakers. Amazon dominates that world with its Echo devices, owning 69 percent of the market. Google is far behind with 31 percent, according to a report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Apple, meanwhile, officially enters the market when its new HomePod speaker goes on sale Feb. 9.
Nest was previously a semi-independent unit of Alphabet, Google's parent company. CNET
Nest's reunion with Google isn't a complete surprise. In November, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google was considering bringing Nest back into the fold. Osterloh and Fawaz said the merger has been in the works for the last few months. Since the two groups already partner on supply chain operations, packaging and event launches, it made sense for them to be one unit, they said.
Being under the same org chart also makes it easier for Nest to use Google's AI technology, the foundation for its Assistant and the key to new products like its Google Lens and Google Photos services.
"We've leveraged AI capabilities from Google in the past, especially in the computer vision space and facial recognition," Fawaz said. "Being part of the Google family, we get closer to that."
'The whole world is shifting'
A lot has changed since Google bought Nest for $3 billion nearly four years ago. That same year, Amazon introduced its Echo smart speaker, a surprise hit and a big slap to Google and Apple, which were already working on voice search. Google followed in 2016 with Home, a smart speaker that promised to put Google's leading search engine a few voice commands away. And this week, reviews went up for Apple's HomePod, a $350 Siri-enabled smart speaker that Apple touts as having better audio quality than its rivals.
Google has bulked up its hardware efforts in other areas too. Osterloh, former president of Motorola, was tapped two years ago by Google CEO Sundar Pichai to create a new consumer device effort. Though Google has always dabbled in hardware -- think the Nexus Q media player or Chromebook laptops -- Pichai wanted to prove the company was all-in this time around. Under Osterloh, Google unveiled its first branded phone, the Pixel, in October 2016 to rival Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy. It also added a virtual reality headset, a Wi-Fi router and new Chromecast video and audio streamers to its "Made by Google" product lineup.
Maybe the biggest sign that Google no longer considers hardware a hobby is its $1 billion investment in smartphone manufacturer HTC, which brings to Google over 2,000 HTC engineers -- many of whom already worked on the Pixel phone. The deal officially closed last week.
Google also put on a show last month in Las Vegas at CES, the world's largest consumer electronics conference. In past years, Google has typically laid low while its manufacturing partners, including Samsung and LG, made all the noise. But this year, the company set up a massive stage to showcase its gadgets and plastered the words "Hey Google" -- one of the trigger phrases for the Google Assistant -- over the Las Vegas Monorail. White-suited Google workers greeted showgoers in booths across the conference floor with the sole aim of telling them about how Google Assistant worked with various gadgets, from TVs to headphones.
Nest will be joining Google's hardware division, led by former Motorola executive Rick Osterloh. James Martin/CNET
Meanwhile, after a two-year slump in which it didn't enter new product categories, Nest in September added devices and services, including the Nest Hello smart doorbell and the Nest Secure alarm system.
"It's just a logical move," said Bob O'Donnell, an analyst with Technalysis. "The whole world is shifting. Amazon did a good job of recognizing an opportunity. Others are recognizing it and adjusting accordingly."
Hey, Alexa
When it comes to their smart home rivalry, Google and Amazon haven't been afraid to play hardball -- sometimes at the expense of customers.
Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, doesn't sell Google Home. Instead, searching for that product on Amazon brings results for other products, including the e-commerce giant's rival Echo speaker. Amazon sells some Nest products, like the smart thermostat and smoke detector, but not others, such as the Nest E, a cheaper $170 version of its thermostat, or the Nest Secure alarm system. Also, after banning sales of Google's Chromecast streamers two years ago, in December Amazon agreed to bring them back.
Google, meanwhile, cut off YouTube from working on Amazon's Echo Show video device and Fire TV. And at CES, Google tapped partners including Sony to introduce four new video devices with the Assistant built-in to compete with the Echo Show.
Google has made big investments in hardware with its Google Home line of products. CNET
Google, Amazon and Apple know getting adoption for their voice assistants is the key to future riches. Over 5 billion devices that support digital assistants, including Alexa and Google Assistant, will be in use by consumers in 2018, according to IHS Markit, with nearly 3 billion more added by 2021. Of those devices, 39 million will be smart speakers, up from about 27 million units sold in 2017.
That all raises the question: Will Nest's closer relationship with Google mean Nest products stop working with Amazon Alexa?
"This announcement doesn't change that," Fawaz said. "If there are any changes in the future, we'll certainly make sure it's the right decision for consumers."
I pressed them again about the potential for this new arrangement to change the relationship with Amazon.
"I would call Amazon and ask them," Osterloh said. "We don't know. We want to work with Amazon in an open, transparent, symmetrical way. Hopefully they want to do the same. We're continuing discussions with them on that."
(We're checking with Amazon and will update this story when we get a response.)
A rocky tenure
When Nest appeared in 2011, it was a novel enterprise from a leader with a storied pedigree. Nest co-founder and former CEO Tony Fadell became known as the Godfather of the iPod after he played a key role, with Steve Jobs, in developing the seminal music player. Following Fadell's departure from Apple in 2010, he and Nest co-founder Matt Rogers focused on reinventing another market. The answer: a smart remake of home thermostats. The idea was to create a whole suite of forgotten household products that had been reimagined for the internet era. The startup announced its second product, the Nest Protect smoke detector, in 2013.
In 2014, Google bought Nest. That was, in part, to inject the search giant with some of the product magic Fadell brought with him from Apple. But Nest's tenure at Google has been rocky. There was public drama after Nest paid $555 million for Dropcam, maker of the security camera it eventually turned into the Nest Cam. After the buyout, Dropcam CEO Greg Duffy left the company and has since called the acquisition a "mistake." Under Nest, more than 50 Dropcam employees resigned. Duffy has said Dropcam's product roadmap was derailed.
When Google created Alphabet in August 2015, Nest became its own division, alongside other units including Google, the moonshot factory X and health tech company Verily.
It was Nest, though, with its own brand, team and offices, that was supposed to be the model for how the new Alphabet structure would work. But instead of becoming the Platonic ideal for an Alphabet company, Nest underwent more scrutiny. Meanwhile, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat tightened spending at the "Other Bets."
Fadell stepped down in 2016, and Fawaz took his place. Fawaz and Osterloh met in 2012 while both working at Motorola. Google briefly owned Motorola before selling it off to Lenovo for $3 billion in 2012, but neither executive came to Google as a direct result of that acquisition.
Today, all Fawaz will say about Nest's past is that the stories were "a bit exaggerated."
As for the way Alphabet is set up, Fawaz defended it. "Each bet is different. We have different journeys," he said. "In this particular case, Rick and I came together and said, '[Nest rejoining Google] makes sense.'"
"Other bets will have different journeys. They can have a different outcome," Fawaz added. "There's not one size that fits all in the model."
Commentary: Harmony still rules the roost, but that can't last forever. Will the category change drastically or just go away?
Sarah Tew/CNET
I use a $130 Harmony universal remote at home and I tell everyone who has a complex-enough system to do the same. And I've been a happy Harmony camper for more than a decade.
But after spending the last week reviewing Caavo, a $400 universal remote, I've come to view the category in a different way. Yes, Caavo is fatally flawed since it doesn't work with the highest-quality video format available today (HDR), but what it succeeds at is really interesting.
Caavo basically makes a new TV home page for all your entertainment gear, one that's simpler to understand and use than a bunch of different menu systems spread across myriad devices.
When I described the Caavo universal remote to Jeremy Toeman, my CNET colleague and former VP of product at Sling Media, he nodded sagely and said "Yeah, that whole category is ripe for disruption." I agree. Harmony has been doing basically the same thing for years, and while challengers like Caavo and the Ray Super Remote have tried to challenge the king, they've largely failed. So far.
I still recommend Harmony to everyone, but in the next few years, I wouldn't be surprised to see that changing. Here's how.
Caavo wood like to be your universal remote
Disruption
In this scenario a product like Caavo, or its presumed successor -- one that actually supports HDR and costs less, say $200 -- becomes popular among AV enthusiasts sick of the complexity of the various apps, devices and services needed to watch TV and movies today. If you have a bunch of devices and a surround system and a nice TV, that's a small price to pay for a single, simple set of on-screen menus, along with Alexa voice control, to command it all.
Take it a step further and Caavo partners with a real AV receiver maker, say Sony or Denon, and basically takes over their user interface. I also agree with Dan Jacobsen, who replied to a Twitter thread on my review: Caavo would be better off built into a receiver. That single hub/box would handle all the switching, interface and audio goodness required of a big system.
No TV apps is an issue too as that is the only way to get Dolby vision for many. Can't help but thinking this would be better off as a $1000 receiver
In the near future Caavo could sell itself to the receiver makers of the world in the same way Roku appeals to TV makers: We'll handle the software, updates and interface, you stick with the hardware. Roku has been very successful in reclaiming the appeal of Smart TV, providing as much disruption as that category has ever seen. It's no wonder the company is getting into audio.
Roku will soon license audio gear too. The goal? "Simplify." Roku
Irrelevance
If you think about it, a universal remote is just a solution to the problem of home theater gear devices not being "Smart" enough in the first place. And by smart, I also mean working together in a way that makes sense. But it's getting smarter, and more to the point, you need less gear these days to enjoy awesome audio and video.
The less gear you have, the less you need a universal remote, which is why I can see the whole category fading into niche high-end-dom, a.k.a. irrelevance, soon enough.
Samsung TVs can replace a universal remote and control your gear directly. Sarah Tew/CNET
Samsung's Smart TVs basically mimic a universal remote, allowing control of game consoles and cable boxes for example, and also include a solid selection of streaming apps built-in. Add a nice sound bar, maybe one with surround sound speakers and/or Dolby Atmos, and you've got a complete system, easily commanded by a single clicker, that sounds as good as some receiver-based systems.
For more modest systems, Roku's newest streamers, starting with the $50 streaming stick, come with remotes that can control volume and power on a connected TV. If you've cut the cord and don't need a cable box and its requisite remote, you're set. And both Samsung and Roku's systems are cake to set up because, like Caavo, they automatically recognize connected devices and program the remote keys accordingly.
With a power button at the top and volume on the side, Roku's remote is ready to control your TV too. Sarah Tew / CNET
With the increasing popularity of alternatives to cable, including live streaming services like YouTube TV, Sling TV, Hulu with Live TV, PlayStation Vue, DirecTV Now, that cable box remote is becoming less and less necessary for people. You'll still need the TV remote, but with many devices you can turn it on and control volume and mute (and really, what more do you need) with protocols like HDMI-CEC.
Watch out, Harmony
Look, the Harmony Companion remote / hub system is still great, and easily worth the money if you have a lot of stuff to control. The alternatives I mentioned above are all more limited, and flawed in their own ways, in comparison.
Harmony hasn't changed much in five years. Sarah Tew
But recent trends -- a renewed focus on ease-of-use, particularly voice control; a move away from cable boxes and toward streaming; and the increasing popularity of systems like Roku that focus on affordability and function -- could spell the beginning of the end for Logitech's remotes.
The first Harmony hub / remote system came out in 2013, and is pretty much the same today. I'd say it's ripe for at least a new model.
Sure wearables have been having a tough go of it lately, but maybe the problem is just a general lack of tiny projectors jammed into the products. It’s an idea a few folks have flirted with in the past, and it’s one the folks at Haier are ready to deliver in the future.
The Asu is a gigantic new smartwatch from the company that regularly brings you things like transparent and brain controllable televisions, in addition to the usual array of appliances . Never let it be said the company isn’t willing to take a risk with a bizarre and probably misguided idea. The idea here is the essentially augment the 1.54-inch display with a 480 x 854 projection directly onto the wearer’s screen. You can then interact with the projected image with touch.
The projector offers a much larger surface area than you get on a standard smartwatch (though that’s somewhat counteracted by the massive footprint required to house the technology), so there’s that. It can project things like workout stats and phone numbers as you’re typing them.
Novel? Kind of. Useful? Not especially. Mostly though, it seems like an a company doing whatever it takes to stand out in an overcrowded and somewhat flagging market. The company says it plans to start selling the product in China this year. It will be joined by a small tabletop projector that displays touchscreen surfaces, similar to Sony’s Xperia Touch.
