Sightful puts its AR laptop, Spacetop G1, up for preorder
AR has been with us for quite a long time now. The term was coined in 1990 by Thomas Caudell, a Boeing Computer Services, Research and Technology employee. Through the years, augmented reality as a technology found use in industrial settings, warehouses, etc., but never really made it big for the masses. Attempts have been made to build apps around this tech, though you still can't say that AR is everywhere. Chances are, this is about to change.
Sightful, a company founded by Tamir Berliner and Tomer Kahan, both with startups acquired by Apple and Microsoft (respectively) under their belts, have been working on a world-first AR laptop for some time now. Recently, the device, which did receive its share of hype when first announced, was made available for preorder.
The name of the device is Spacetop G1, and it is a laptop that has the screen replaced with AR glasses housing OLED display panels, 1920x1080 pixels per eye. The glasses are not a helmet, so you don’t lose connection to the outside world. The active field, according to the designer (and the videos posted on Sightful’s website), is much wider and taller than ever possible with a screen of a portable device. Plus, you don’t need to be concerned about privacy: it’s only you who can see the app windows, no one can peek and spy over your shoulder.
Many news outlets claim Spacetop G1 is the first computing device of its kind, but it feels like Apple’s Vision Pro, dubbed by the company a “spatial computer,” is something along similar lines. Competition is a healthy thing, so if the two products do have overlapping applications, we’ll see rapid development and, hopefully, a price war making them readily available to wider audiences.
Sightful built a special operating system for its product, Space OS, designed “for the modern Web,” which leads us to believe that so far, the device is feasibly usable with applications working in your browser. This isn’t a bad thing, since numerous tasks can actually be tackled in an online workspace environment. Moreover, the OS is really just a newborn. We’ve contacted Sightful for details about Space OS; stay tuned for updates if the subject is of interest to you.
Old story?
We've seen it before: tech is introduced, hyped up, doesn't really get traction, and goes to the backburner. Then, when the time and the conditions are right, it makes a comeback (routinely, without fanfares), and becomes ubiquitous. What are we on about? QR codes. Didn't catch on when first given to the world, spent some time in oblivion, and then, they're everywhere.
Will this be the case of AR? Time will tell, but Spacetop G1 – Qualcomm Snapdragon QCS8550, Adreno 740 GPU, 16 GB of RAM, 128 GB of storage – sure looks promising.
