I interviewed Aidan Wolf at the Snap Partner Summit about the Snap Spectacles. See more context in the rough transcript below.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So continuing our series of looking at different announcements around Snap Spectacles, as well as the broader AR ecosystem for Snap, today's episode is with Aidan Wolfe, who has been developing an application for the Snap Spectacles that is this RPG type of game where you're going out in the world and going on different quests and being able to have social dynamics as well. So it's kind of like a location-based experience that hasn't been launched yet, but is still in the works as there's going to be more and more integrations with other APIs that haven't quite launched yet. Aiden is someone who's been a longtime member of the XR community. I first met Aiden at Magic Leap LeapCon back in 2018, which as we talked about in this episode, he says is the greatest AR event that's happened yet. And it was kind of like this coming out party for Magic Leap where they were showing lots of different demos from the community, allowing people to get some of their first hands-on experience with their hardware. And yeah, it was basically like all the interesting cross-section of XR artistic immersive storytelling and some enterprisey stuff as well and so one thing that just to comment on magic leap is that you know they were trying to create this consumer-facing ar device and it was like three thousand dollars or something like that so when they launched it they didn't necessarily call it explicitly a developer kit but it was essentially a developer kit and they had magic leap too but you know essentially the price point was so high that it wasn't something that was viable for consumers especially in the absence of having like a really robust software ecosystem eventually magically had to pivot back into enterprise because that was the only sectors that would be willing to pay the amount of money to actually have some of these different devices. And now they're not even producing any headsets at all and they're just taking their IP and doing different consulting services. So I kind of see a similar thing with Snap, where they're similarly trying to skip the enterprise steps and to go straight to the consumer market, you know, taking what is essentially like a $1,200 device that you have to rent for $9 a month for a year, at least, you know, this is just for developers. If they're planning on having that same type of model for consumers, and if they're expecting consumers to rent their hardware without, you know, is it rent to own? There's all these open questions around like what this actually means. And They're trying to be unorthodox in the way that they're doing it. There's all these questions, I think, from like, okay, is this going to actually be a thing? There's a lot of the potentialities that this hardware is enabling and that in my process of my coverage, I'm covering all of what the developers are excited about, what the features they're really interested in. implementing and exploring new affordances of this device to do this type of novel outdoor adventure type of experiences that we haven't had so far. But to me, there's this kind of like nagging feeling in the back of my mind of like, okay, this is all great, but how does this actually go to the next steps without having this interim step of figuring out how they're going to have revenue for the types of enterprise or businesses that are willing to pay these high prices and to facilitate these different emergent experiences more of like a location-based entertainment or museums i suspect that there's going to have to be some sort of interim step that hasn't been fully fleshed out yet in order to really make this make sense to continue to develop and evolve into future generations Because Snap is a publicly traded company. They don't have infinite amounts of money to dump into it. They've had some layoffs. So, yeah, there's all these questions around like, what's the long term viability for this venture? But at least right now, the hardware is legit and it seems to be enabling all sorts of new use cases and excitement for independent developers. So anyway, we're going to dive into another perspective from Aiden Wolf just to get a little bit more of his journey into working with this ecosystem. Again, Snap has been really great with supporting independent developers to start to prototype and experiment. And they're going to continue that into this next phase of this development phase. And they did announce they're going to have another creator fund to support a number of different independent projects and really push what's even possible with this platform. So that's what we're coming on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Aiden happened on Tuesday, September 17th, 2024. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:04:26.505] Aidan Wolf: My name is Aiden Wolf. I'm an AR developer and I started a studio called SmileyCab. And we've recently been working with Snapchat to make some next generation games for the real world on their new platform Spectacles.
[00:04:39.668] Kent Bye: Maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into the space.
[00:04:43.371] Aidan Wolf: Yeah, I've been in AR since 2015. I was passionate about the idea of a technology that could bring people together in the real world, potentially unite strangers. So I dropped out of school. I started a company that turned the real world into kind of social network for neighbors and strangers. And from there, the AR bug has continued, and that's taken me into all my interest areas. Social, games, people, real world, connection, all together. So in the last couple of years, I started something called AR House with another developer, Lucas. We ran a community for 100 creators. It was an incredible experience. And in that, I've just felt like I've been on the cusp of the wave of this new technology, always just trying to put another dimple in the cool stuff happening. So you can check out my apps, Doodle Lens, Blue Sky Paint, things that maybe did something cool with the medium.
[00:05:34.815] Kent Bye: I think I had a first chance to meet you, I think it was at LeapCon in 2018, where you were there with a bunch of other developers that were like a part of a pack of people that were really experimenting with the platform. So maybe you could take me back to the early beginnings for what really drew you into the medium of augmented reality.
[00:05:50.672] Aidan Wolf: Yeah, LeapCon, by the way, was like the best AR conference that ever happened. And it only happened once. So it was the special thing in this small world and community we have. I think I'm an imaginative person. And sometimes in my most bored days, I would stare out the window as a kid and just try to imagine what could be out there, whether it was dinosaurs crossing my front yard. And just basically, I grew up rural in a very kind of boring farm town. And so when you grow up in that, you kind of have to let your mind fill in the details. So I just wanted a more interesting world around me that maybe got people outside playing together. And maybe that just came from my introverted self wanting better excuses to go play that weren't like basketball or something, maybe something that I wasn't as good at. So something that worked with me, something creative. So I think there's always been something there. Then once I saw the technology and saw that it's literally a technology that enables that type of imaginative play, I think we just saw that here. One of the coolest experiences, I think it's Imagine Together, is that what it's called? They demoed it on stage. That's exactly it. It's like, I want a cowboy frog, and it appears, and then that's a character we can start to play with and work with. Yeah, that's what drew me in. I haven't stopped doing it pretty much every day for the last 10 years. I think I do AR every day. It's just a habit.
[00:07:11.052] Kent Bye: Well, I know I got into VR back in 2014. The DK1 had come out in 2013. And so it's been over 10 years now that VR has been there. Then there was kind of like a whole wave of AR that happened even before I got into VR, more phone-based AR and other kind of augmented world expo. I think that community has been fostering the vision for AR. To me, it's always been a little bit more utilitarian and more enterprise-y type of applications. And we've had Microsoft with the HoloLens come and go in some ways, and then Magic Leap come and go with these different AR HMDs. Snapchat with something that is a little bit more consumer facing, but yet at the same time taking a different type of strategy than we've seen before. So I'd love to hear some of your reflections of the previous iterations of what you've seen and being involved with this for a number of years, and then what you see is different now.
[00:08:02.170] Aidan Wolf: Yeah, it's funny because some people put AR, VR in the same bucket, and I see them as opposite ends of a spectrum that only attach maybe in hardware in some cases now. Because I believe they exist for different reasons. VR is an incredibly immersive medium. I find it excites the part of me that loves games like Half-Life and Immersive Sims. I want to be in a world, I want to be completely engrossed. When I think of AR and why I think it found its way to phones first and how I came into it wanting to build new types of social networks, it was like, oh, this is a new medium for connection that enables different types of content that weren't possible before because we never had a window in. So an example that I think excites a lot of people in AR is history, the living history of the places around you. Okay, we're in a place, but we didn't know a hundred years ago this happens. And then that's a connection point for us to come together as a community. So then when I think of all these platforms that we've seen come that have dipped their toes in Magic Leap and HoloLens, we've seen things that focused on the immersion of VR without making any considerations for what AR is amazing for. They've tried to compete in VR. You can't compete with VR. It's all about the social connections you enable. And then it kind of makes sense that the company that has been interested in creating friendships is maybe also creating the device to do that with AR. And we're seeing that. I mean, the commercial that they made is exciting. There's a bunch of people in headsets and then a couple of people hanging out with glasses. So they've really just ripped all the parts away that confuse that. They're like, we're not a VR headset. We're not going to give you the ultimate immersive gaming experience, but we are going to put a chessboard between you and a stranger on a train and you might make a friend now in a way that wasn't open to you previously because there wasn't a way to communicate that interest. So that's what I feel is different. It's a company that has a philosophy and vision that is finding itself in the hardware rather than a hardware problem trying to find its philosophy and vision and solution and all that. So, yeah. That's the long of it. I hope it's okay. I'm really long on this.
[00:10:11.787] Kent Bye: No, no, it's a great explanation. I think it really makes a lot of sense. And it made me think of your very first experiences that you had mentioned briefly, which is that you were trying to create that type of social dynamics within the context of a neighborhood. Maybe you could elaborate a little bit about how you were using the technology to mediate these types of emergent social dynamics in certain contexts.
[00:10:30.746] Aidan Wolf: Absolutely. So I had a couple failures on my way to some small successes. And the one that I'm just think is worth talking about is Blue Sky Paint, because it was the first time I think I saw everything come together in an app. that articulated that vision. And so Blue Sky Paint is an app that enables you to draw in the sky in real time with everyone around you, and it stays up there in the sky. And so when this app went out, it luckily got picked up in a bunch of places, went viral, went onto the front page of the App Store. It got used in every country with internet and App Store access, which is, I think, everyone but a handful. People all over the world created a collaborative art piece that covered the entire sky around the Earth. And it was like, for the first time, I was like, I took this medium of AR, allowing you to change the world as you see it, and then used it as a method to communicate. And the use cases I saw were amazing. In Japan, people used it as messaging boards between office floors. just to write messages to each other because everyone at every different floor could now have a canvas to write to each other. Or nice hello messages on the train ride. And maybe some worse things I saw for happy birthdays or friend-to-friend things where you wanted to do something funny above your friend's house and have them see it.
[00:11:50.850] Kent Bye: And I won't go into detail on that, but it's... Leave it up to the listener's imagination.
[00:11:55.473] Aidan Wolf: Exactly. So that's what I'm excited about. And now I just like blue sky paint, but now it's ground level. And I think the impact of that is, you know, a thousand times greater than what I created then. But given the technology that was possible. So, yeah, that's the long on that.
[00:12:11.809] Kent Bye: Okay, and so the AR house is also something that was kind of an interesting experiment where you were able to find enough support or have, it was kind of like a residency program in some way. People were coming there. So it felt like a real hotbed of creativity and innovation when it comes to AR. So maybe you just give a little bit more of the backstory for the AR house and what it was able to generate.
[00:12:31.024] Aidan Wolf: Yeah, absolutely. So Luca and I, when we started it, we just knew and witnessed the magic of bringing really incredible people together under the same roof for an extended amount of time. Whether it was a week or a month, as we did at Airhouse, it's all the hallway conversations, kitchen chats, everything that lead to the best ideas. And we just wanted to make sure we brought developers from 20 countries around the globe. We were able to bring them in. and then give them access to that LA community where they stayed for free, were fed, and then we threw all these amazing events that gave them an opportunity to show off their work, meet people. But yeah, it's a thing that needed to exist. We saw that it didn't really exist anywhere and not without the corporate ties that we saw kind of corrupt certain spaces. So if you know anything about Arrow House, we did it all on donations and sponsorships. No strings attached sponsorships too. And I think we proved that you could do incredible work just by giving creators the bare minimum of like food, water, sustenance and a bed. And we had a whole lot of fun doing it. I mean, I look back on that time as some of the best years. I hope that when they make a movie about our industry, there'll be a scene that takes place in our house, even if it's just the background, because I think some of the most special things happened there, things you can't just articulate in a newsletter easily. So yeah, it was amazing.
[00:13:58.752] Kent Bye: Well, since the SNAP is based here in L.A., were they involved at all in supporting or donating to the cause of supporting this creative innovation residency program at AR House?
[00:14:09.454] Aidan Wolf: Yeah, absolutely. On all fronts. Not only were they there in attendance and support, but we also did a fashion week and a fashion cohort that they supported directly. And they also even gave us tools and workshops and instruction to our creators. They were a huge help. throughout. And also they gave us a bunch of spectacles way back when, the 2021s, which we did a bunch of experiments and give a shout out to Alan. Alan made Wanduul at AR House just because those specs, you know, were there and were able to create something. And that project has taken sales into many different platforms, Quest, everything like that, just starting from that support from Snap. So, yeah, it's like They get it, I think, more than a lot of others, what it means to work with creators, help creators. And they're really cool about it. I think they're the kind that you tell them an idea and they're like, okay, cool. Like, how can we help you make it? As opposed to like, that's cool, but what if you did it this way? Like, they're never that. So anyways, and I think that's unique in the ecosystem.
[00:15:14.161] Kent Bye: Yeah, so when I start to think about the Snapchat spectacles and try to contextualize it within the larger XR industry, it's hard for me to dissociate the hardware and the technology from the ecosystem and the company and what they're able to do in trying to really kickstart and foster this community of developers. And so it feels like that they've more than any other company, have really invested into cultivating an ecosystem. And it sounds weird, but it feels like with Meta, they've really tried to own the ecosystem and try to buy and own the top apps. And then even on the App Store, when you open up, it's all about self-promoting their own horizon worlds. Whereas here, it feels like with Snap, they're trying to actually cultivate and invest in the developer community in a way that feels exciting to see some of the most interesting and creative immersive artists are involved with Snap in some fashion. So I'd love to hear some of your reflections on what Snap's doing that may be different than what's happening from the rest of the XR industry.
[00:16:08.313] Aidan Wolf: Yeah, I think there's probably something different at the core. One thing I was just reflecting with my co-founder about is how There's a level of diversity you see at events like this, but it's not in a kind of made-up or canned way because you see the team themselves are a great variety of different types of people. The people we work with directly aren't the typical, let's be real, developer dudes or biz exec dudes, which I think you get at a lot of different companies. You feel like they're different types of clubs. This feels a little more open. And so I think people really realize that, reflect on that, even if it's subconscious, that this is a wide open place for everyone. And then that creates a sense of belonging and things that as just a fundamental community thing allows you, hopefully, to build all the other awesome stuff. So let's be real. Is Snap a great platform to make money? I don't know. I don't think so. Meta, you could release on the Quest store and potentially sell a bunch of units. You don't have that here. But what you do have is the ecosystem of support to take those risks. And we are then waiting to see if Snap's going to match the metal of these bigger platforms. That's at least what we're hoping to see. yeah i'm hoping to see i want to put something up there for five bucks or ten dollars and see if anyone buys it i think we should be able to do that so snap you know just let us try that and um and we'll see how that turns out so yeah it's a fundamentally friendly community ecosystem yeah yeah community first
[00:17:48.630] Kent Bye: And they're going to be seeding all the developers that are attending the Lens Fest with the Spectacles hardware as well. So that feels like that's going to be another kickstarting of this community to see where it goes. But maybe take me back to the moment where you decided to go from all the artistic innovations and creations and being at the AR house to the point where you wanted to actually formalize it into your company that you have. And what was the turning point in vision and mission that you have?
[00:18:13.123] Aidan Wolf: Yeah, I feel like this has just been a long, slow wind-up approach because I've been making games with Snapchat for the last four years, different residencies, projects, things like that. But when they reached out to me probably a year ago now, or a year and a half ago, and were saying, we are going to do something big. We can't tell you what it is yet, but we want real games, real products, and we're going to take some developers with us and do this. My interest was obviously very piqued because as much fun as it was to do lenses and then they go in the Snapchat app and ecosystem, I wasn't kind of that like subscriber chaser, Snapchatter kind of person. So I was just happy to be making games that I thought were cool with some support from a company that I like to work with. But things changed. And now with this latest project, the game we're working on, it's called Dream Dungeon. It'll come out next year. It's like a real game. It's a full-fledged Clash of Clans style pet sim dungeon raiding game that you play all across the real world. You go to your local coffee shop and you raid a dungeon. You go to your friend's house and you can adventure together. You can collect stuff. It's really cool and it's expansive and it's a world map game. And taking an ambitious leap at a project like that is pretty much like a death sentence, usually. You know, I'm not Niantic. I don't have a Niantic-sized team, but with Snap's support, it's like, all right, you know, we're doing this together and we can try something big. And if your platform works and your glasses are cool, we're going to have an awesome game. And so I was like, let's take the leap. And that's what really changed recently. That's why we have a studio now that's not just my name on the lens. It required more people to come on board and work on it and build it. So yeah. MARK MANDELBACHER- OK.
[00:20:05.624] Kent Bye: And so talk about getting early access to the hardware and if there's more API features that you need in order to actually launch this. But yeah, just give me a little bit of your experience of this, of getting into it, and then where you see it go in the future.
[00:20:18.143] Aidan Wolf: Yeah, absolutely. So we're already familiar that Snapchat has a Snap Map. It's a very big, comprehensive map of interesting things going on in the world. We're using that. So that's an API that's sitting out there for Spectacles that, hey, we can place some content at a coffee shop. That's a possibility now. And then from there, Snap has its entire own multiplayer SDK called Connected Lenses and now they have Snap Cloud and all this stuff. So what that allows us to do as developers is instead of trying to figure out how to start up our own backend servers or what API we're gonna use, we're just like, cool, we just use Connected Lenses and that lets us do matchmaking and bring players together and do leaderboards and things. So we basically have these out of the box features But those are also some of the features that are making our game release a little after the other ones, because we are actively integrating those new technologies as they come to us, because this is a rapidly iterating platform right now. And yeah, that's, I would say, are the two major APIs for us.
[00:21:26.294] Kent Bye: And so as I've talked to different people, talking about the 45-minute battery limitation and constraint, a lot of people have said, well, if you're doing it with a lens that you may only be using it for a small amount of time, you might put it into sleep and go in and out. And so do you imagine, with the gameplay loop of this game, if it's going to be in these short bursts of 10, 15 minutes? Or it may be a two or three hour session, but they're maybe turning it off and sleeping while they're in transit or moving around? Yeah, I'd love to hear a little bit more context for how you imagine the battery life management to do this type of vast scale of game and experience.
[00:22:01.891] Aidan Wolf: Yeah, I love this question because I think it decides who can understand and build something great for Spectacles and then who's going to really have a hard time is if they get caught up on the battery. I like to think of it as a Game Boy. A Game Boy, you had to throw a couple batteries in and maybe you got a couple hours out of it before you had to buy a whole pack of batteries and that was just to play, you know, Mario on the go and things like that. So when it comes to our game design, this is like a paramount consideration is how much time do people play at every given time? And one great thing when you build a location based experience is you can use location as a mechanism to cue players. So As people are exploring the world in a device that is essentially a pair of sunglasses, right? So you can wear them even when they're not on. That's a problem you get with any pass-through headset, right? You can't just turn your quest off and walk on the sidewalk. You might fall over because you can't see anything. They're just sunglasses when they're not on. So for our game, we cue people when they're at the location they need to be at. the experience comes on, they play it for a minute, and then they collect their reward, treasure, everything, and then it turns off, and they can go on to the next objective.
[00:23:11.707] Kent Bye: And that's sort of also mediated by their phone, is also giving them additional context?
[00:23:15.575] Aidan Wolf: Exactly. So the way that the devices interface, the phone works as a great companion to the device. It's doing a lot of the cellular networking. It can do the GPS queuing, all that kind of stuff. So it piggybacks really well off of what you already use. And honestly, things that people already kind of used to, people get geofenced notifications all the time, you know, even if they don't realize it. So, yeah, it's the same tech. And then we've really focused on what experience do we provide at home, and then what experience do we provide on the go, and then how we use the battery effectively in those moments to give people exactly what they want. Don't waste their time, don't waste the screen time. Build something and cue the exact experience they're looking for when they're sitting on their couch versus out on Santa Monica Pier and playing our games. Yeah, you got to be smart about it. And I think you'll struggle if you're still thinking of the VR mindset of like, I'm going to make a five hour narrative experience and the 45 minute thing is going to ruin it. It's like, no, no, you got to think about the fact that this is just someone living their daily life and you're asking a lot of them to put a game within it. That's hopefully really good. And that's only going to be a couple of minutes of their walking life anyways, because they're checking their fitness app. They're checking their grocery list. They're actively talking to a friend. Your game shouldn't be there when they're doing all these kind of things. But Snap gives us the tools to be smart about it kind of thing.
[00:24:41.927] Kent Bye: Well, one thing as I'm listening to you talk about your experience, it reminds me of some of the ethical dilemmas of augmented reality when it comes to consent around spaces. The paradigmatic example is like Pokemon Go players playing Pokemon Go at the Holocaust Museum. So there's kind of like an existing context and then you have an augmentation that may bump up against the physical realities and tension for space and what's the process of getting consent of those physical spaces so that when you say something like we're going to raid a coffee shop like is that something that they're going to be enjoying or having other people that are actually disrupting the experience of people that are already a part of that coffee shop of people who are
[00:25:20.758] Aidan Wolf: doing what i imagine this kind of live action role play but mediated through the augmented reality so i'm wondering how you start to manage some of those ethical considerations absolutely that's a great one to bring up i think the way we have to look at this is the user themselves the player is the advocate and the pioneer walking in that space they're already going to be scared a lot to probably be playing a game around other people that they can't see i think From one perspective, you would go, oh, you know, everyone will just have phones and glasses and whatever, and they can all share in the same world. But that's not going to happen for a really long time. So I think the way that we've taken the approach to our game is that we're very aware of the space the player takes up and how they play the game. and it's something that can be enjoyed even just sitting at the coffee shop with your coffee and playing it there and that kind of thing. So we save a lot of the crazy action for the couch experience that we have for our game. We enable a really cool type of dungeon raiding from the couch, and that might be the place someone is yelling or screaming about you know, whether they're winning or losing. And then the outdoor experience is much more the I'm going to collect and get my treasure and reward. And it's ambient and casual. And yeah, but we basically got warnings about this, maybe from them of like, yeah, maybe we shouldn't build it this way, where someone might jump up on the countertop of a coffee shop. And we're like, OK, yeah, yeah, that's what we want. But we get it like this is this is going to be a huge problem. So but I you know, I'm I'm I'm also kind of excited just to see how people get crazy with it obviously within reason but uh i think play specifically when you just think of it in a general sense is this amazing thing that unlocks who we are out of just the rut of being, you know, hey, I'm Ken, I do interviews. And then suddenly you're playing and suddenly you're a dancer and a hero and all these other things. And so I am excited to unlock play within the confines of someone's daily mundane life and see how infectious that could be. so if someone's having a lot of fun in the park or in the coffee shop and i want the reaction not to be who's this buffoon who's you know swatting their hands all around and breaking stuff it'll be like huh i kind of want to join with that i want to join with the dance i want to join with the play and that's the positive effect i could see in the world with this tech is that we all just stop taking things so seriously and and start to realize that we're in this big game that has room for everyone So that's what I hope to see, honestly. Now, that's very optimistic. And not everyone's as optimistic as me. So, yeah.
[00:28:04.223] Kent Bye: You had a chance to talk to the team who did the Capture the Flag experience. Have you had a chance to play that social game in AR?
[00:28:09.925] Aidan Wolf: I haven't gotten to play it, but that was the one during the keynote that I was like, what is this? This looks so much fun. I got to try this. So I think it's Wasabi Games made it, and I hope you got to talk to them as well.
[00:28:20.851] Kent Bye: Yeah, I talked to them. I haven't had a chance to try it at all, but yeah.
[00:28:23.672] Aidan Wolf: Yeah, I'm a competitive type of gamer and I saw shooting and capture the flag and it brought me right back to Team Fortress Classic days, you know, I wanted to play.
[00:28:33.859] Kent Bye: They said it's going to be launched when the platform launches and there's going to be a bunch of developers that have the actual hardware tomorrow, so I'll be curious to see if people will start emergently playing it.
[00:28:42.785] Aidan Wolf: Absolutely, I will be downloading it. Hopefully it's right there on my home screen already to play, you know, on the device that I have. So yeah, I'll be there.
[00:28:51.630] Kent Bye: Are there any other experiences that you had a chance to check out that you think point to what some of the new affordances of this device might be?
[00:28:58.146] Aidan Wolf: Yeah, I think one to call out is DB Games. And I don't know what it's actually called, but it's essentially a bunch of remote control AR vehicles. And what I think is really special about what they're doing is it's highlighting the fact that toys, you know, as a category can exist within this medium and what that might enable for all the different types of creatives out there who I think, you know, plenty of talented 3D artists and things like that, but then they go, where does my art live? I think games like that show that there's room for art, toys, whole different categories that aren't explicitly game games that now can have life and maybe do well for the creators who make them. So yeah, I'm like, I love RC cars. Now I can just bring them anywhere with me. This is awesome. So and I want to like bring it to Venice Skate Park and see if the car can like do the bowl and do jumps, right? Like it just unlocks whole new possibilities.
[00:29:53.980] Kent Bye: I had a chance to play that and talk to them as well earlier. So yeah, just the way that they transform the phone into a controller I think is also interesting as well.
[00:30:01.471] Aidan Wolf: And I think that goes along with it, yeah. It's like you're holding the remote. You have that physical connection point into the experience, which I think is really important for what we're doing.
[00:30:11.800] Kent Bye: Great. And finally, what do you think the ultimate potential of spatial computing might be, and what it might be able to enable?
[00:30:19.406] Aidan Wolf: The real magic, I think, of this medium breaks down the barriers between everyone. That there is not a conversation you can't have, interaction you can't make, idea you can't share. Once we can all interface in this medium, you'll be able to talk in every different language. You'll be able to share the hardest articulate ideas in your head. And we'll be able to live in that kind of meta space together. And I think that's world changing. you know i would hate to say it's as bold as it could bring world peace you know like our you know greater ability to communicate and that's where i find myself in the niche that i love is games because games for me have always been a way to meet new people and make new friends and my best online friends who became my best friends i just met through games so i'm excited to do that in the real world i just think of a playground you know and there's jocks and music nerds and kids who love to draw and then they all put on the glasses and the kid who's drawing is building an obstacle course for the athletic kids to run through while the band kids are making music and narrating it and everything like that and just seeing that boundary break in a playground full of kids is basically if I was to paint an image of what I believe in and care about it would be that.
[00:31:36.880] Kent Bye: Did you have a chance to see Council by S. Deflin, which is in this big geogestic dome that we're standing next to?
[00:31:41.824] Aidan Wolf: No. I kept asking, what's in there? And they said a spectacles experience. I didn't get to try it. And I'm an idiot for not trying it.
[00:31:48.889] Kent Bye: Well, just because I had a chance to do it, I got access through the press liaison to give me a slot. But it's essentially a community ritual where you're getting some interactive components to see the technology, but there's this kind of really beautiful part where at the end where people are standing in a circle and have like a talking stick that's going around, but it's a moon and people stick their hand on it and they express their intentions for what they want to see as the future of humanity. So it kind of goes along the lines with some of the stuff you're talking about, but the way that the technology can facilitate these new types of community rituals.
[00:32:20.157] Aidan Wolf: Yeah, I mean, that sounds amazing. I wish I got to try it. It reminds me of some of my favorite VR experiences that I've heard of, the ability to bring stuff out of people they don't often talk about and then do it in a shared way. So yeah, I think that sounds awesome.
[00:32:36.543] Kent Bye: Any other final thoughts or anything that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community?
[00:32:40.600] Aidan Wolf: Yeah, I almost want to turn it to you. Kent, are you paying the $99 a month and getting one of these? I'm not, no. Yeah. Would you want to come over and play some things sometime?
[00:32:52.351] Kent Bye: Potentially, yeah. I think mostly because I'm more into VR than AR. But I think also, I think I just suffer from a level of social anxiety that makes me more biased towards the VR than the AR. But also, like, I mean, it does sound interesting, but if they were to give me a pair, I would certainly use them. But I'm not going to pay $100 a month for something that I'm likely not going to use all that much.
[00:33:14.087] Aidan Wolf: Absolutely. I think time will tell then. And you're almost like the perfect tough cookie to crack is what it sounds like. You know, hey, you don't know if this is for you and the social reservation, but maybe that's exactly what you need to start connecting in the way that you want to connect. I don't know. I mean, again, I'm the optimist. And so we'll wait and see.
[00:33:34.236] Kent Bye: I live in Portland, Oregon. So if there was like a big thriving community of people that were doing something that felt like something that would be fun to go do, like I used to go to do werewolf that people played and kind of the social deduction games that are all the rage, you know, there was communities like that, but yeah, I don't know if there was some kind of like augmented reality adventure team group or something that felt compelling than I might, but a hundred dollars is still a lot for a month. So, you know, I bought a Apple vision pro and it like, I don't know if there'd be enough,
[00:34:04.216] Aidan Wolf: content to justify covering it or for me to just experience it as a personal device so i have a lot of xr equipment that i buy and don't use as much as i probably should and i know that if i bought it i probably wouldn't use it yeah and uh so then i i will formally invite you so in months time we're opening a pop-up in santa monica to show off some of our latest multiplayer mixed reality fun stuff and i'll extend the invite to you because what is it but a Giant room for people to get weird in and play fantasy games and mixed reality So if that sounds up your alley, I'm happy to invite you and play with you there. Yeah, let you know more
[00:34:43.143] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, I'm certainly interested in seeing where this continues to develop and evolve. And I feel like Snap's doing something completely different with how they're relating to the developer ecosystem. So, yeah, it still feels like very early days, and I don't quite understand where it's going to go. But I feel like they've invested enough into it and that they see it's a core part of the values of their company, that they'll continue to invest in it despite the fact that it may not make sense from any number of other perspectives. quantitative numbers perspective. It just feels like something that's really cool and I'm a fan of, but we'll see where it goes in the future. But I very much appreciate you taking the time to share a little bit more about your journey and to see your vision for what you see as some of the more compelling parts for what makes the Snapchat spectacles and augmented reality compelling in terms of bringing people together in new contexts and having new ways of engaging with each other. So thanks again for joining me to help break it all down.
[00:35:29.562] Aidan Wolf: Yeah, I appreciate you wanting to, you know, hear my thoughts. It's always nice to talk. And finally, on the other side of the microphone, as I said, I've seen you a hundred times doing this. And so I hope it was good and first of many as we venture into this new thing. So thank you. Thank you, Kent. Yep, for sure.
[00:35:47.128] Kent Bye: Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Voices of VR podcast. That's a part of my larger series of doing a deep dive into both the announcements around Snap Spectacles, as well as the AR ecosystem at Snap. What I do here at the Voices of VR podcast is fairly unique. I really like to lean into oral history, so to capture the stories of people who are on the front lines, but also to have my own experiences and to try to give a holistic picture of what's happening, not only with the company, but also the ecosystem of developers that they've been able to cultivate. And so for me, I find the most valuable information that comes from the independent artists and creators and developers who are at the front lines of pushing the edges of what this technology can do and listening to what their dreams and aspirations are for where this technology is going to go in the future. So I feel like that's a little bit different approach than what anybody else is doing. But it also takes a lot of time and energy to go to these places and to do these interviews and put it together in this type of production. So if you find value in that, then please do consider becoming a member of the Patreon. Just $5 a month will go a long way of helping me to sustain this type of coverage. And if you could give more $10 or $20 or $50 a month, that has also been a huge help for allowing me to continue to bring this coverage. So you can become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.
