#9 How to Predict the Future of Mixed Reality with Robert Scoble
For those immersed in the VR industry, Robert Scoble is a man who doesn’t need an introduction. Known for his tech blog Scobleizer, Scoble has taken part in just about every conference and panel and visited tons of companies in the game. His work takes him around the world, interviewing top tech execs and innovators and getting an insider look at R&D labs.
He’s shared his insights about VR, AR and mixed reality with the world, authoring the book The Fourth Transformation: How AR and AI Will Change Everything. For this interview, I asked him to share his insights with us. Scroll on to read through our discussion or listen below.
Click on any of the links on the left to listen to my talk with Robert on your favorite Podcasting platform or read a shortened version below!
Read the interview here!
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length, and this article has been updated for relevance.
Hayim Pinson: How did you come to be in this widely popular position?
RS: It took 40 years of hard work. My dad was an engineer, and he moved the family to Silicon Valley in 1971. This was before Apple had started making computers. I was lucky to be growing up in a place where so many tech companies have been born. I watched it all firsthand. When I was 13, I got a tour of Apple Computer when it was just in one building. Now I’m 52, and I’ve kept that same interest throughout my life and it’s led me to where I am today.
Would you say your current focus is exploring virtual, augmented and mixed reality?
RS.: Yeah, I’m highly focused on mixed reality (MR) because I see that it’s going to be huge. It’ll be much more important than VR — although VR is pretty cool. The problem with VR is that you’re not going to wear a headset to a shopping mall or sporting event, or even walking around town. But, you will wear AR glasses. Probably in the next 2–4 years you’re going to see a variety of mixed reality glasses come out. The industry is spending many, many billions of dollars on it. It’s going to be a pretty big wave of technology.
I decided to focus on this field because it’s too hard to keep up with everything. Mixed reality is going to be the user interface for self-driving cars, for smart cities, for the Internet of Things — for everything. Your robots, your drones and all the fun stuff that comes along — you’re going to control them with mixed reality glasses..
So I’ve noticed that you tend to speak a lot about mixed reality. I’ve noticed that a lot of people tend to refer to it as being the same thing as augmented reality. Could you explain?
RS:: Sure. Augmented reality has been on our phones for more than a decade now. It puts a virtual layer on top of the real world. Think: Pokemon Go. Mixed reality isn’t that. When you’re wearing mixed reality glasses, there are sensors that are constantly responding to your surroundings. It’ll map out your room, putting things the walls or tables or whatever you’re looking at.If you go back to the academic definitions by Milgram that came out 20-some years ago, you’ll see that the term defines a spectrum of stuff.
And how is that different from virtual reality? With virtual reality you’re only seeing virtual pixels. You’re not seeing the real world at all.
This is something we’re still arguing about. The problem is that marketers are messing around with the names, too. Microsoft calls their new VR headset “mixed reality” because it uses the same technology as the HoloLens. That’s a misnomer because the headset does not let you see the real world. It’s messy and it probably will be for a while. We’ll probably call it whatever Apple decides to call it when they bring out a new iPhone in September.
So you’ve been around technology for a very long time, when did you catch the VR bug?
RS: Well I don’t know if I caught it in a single day. My job brings me to interesting places all over the world. I remember visiting I remember visiting Metaio back in 2011 and they showed me [virtual] monsters on the sides of skyscrapers. Then later, I watched Zuckerberg buy Oculus and I thought: Why did Facebook buy a VR company? It didn’t make any sense to me. I went out and bought a headset and started doing my own research. About 2 or 3 years ago, It hit me that VR is going to be an important thing. This research led me to my book The Fourth Transformation.
Were you working on the book when you were at UploadVR?
RS: Yes. The company gave me the chance to have a front row seat on the industry. I met a lot of people at Upload. One now runs Twitter’s VR group, another runs Unity’s VR group and so on. Being in that company in the early days let me build a lot of relationships with people in the industry and further understand where VR was headed.
It seems like the book has been really popular. I can imagine that’s difficult with writing that makes predictions for the future. What has the reception been like for you personally?
RS: Really great. I mean we have mostly 5-star reviews on Amazon and the book keeps getting mentioned at conferences. It puts the AR industry into context. It’s a little weird being ahead of the industry, but after this book came out major companies like Facebook, Snap and Google announced AR strategies. And we’re expecting Apple to present a bunch of stuff at its developer conference, too. It’s one of those books that’s probably going to have some standing power, which is really cool.
What are your thoughts on Apple’s entrance into VR?
RS: Apple is going to be the one to bring VR into the mainstream and explain it to the world. It has all the necessary ingredients on the table to make a wonderful meal. First, it has a brand people want to wear. People would actually consider glasses made by Apple. The company also has stores in the biggest and richest markets — which is important because people will want to try this stuff out in a store before they buy it. Developers want to work for Apple because of its economic power; its the most profitable company in the world, Plus, Apple also has relationships with all the content people in Hollywood and in the music industry. The list goes on and on.
So only Apple has all the ingredients to really explain this technology to the world, but this doesn’t mean that Apple “wins.” If it doesn’t deliver there’s others willing to take its place. Google is spending billions of dollars on this. It just invested half a billion dollars in Magic Leap, which is a company building mixed reality glasses.
Everyone agrees that Apple is going to join the AR/VR game at some point, it’s just a matter of when they do it.
RS: A strategist at Google told me they know they’re trailing behind Apple. What they’re going to do is come in with a product after Apple that uses their self-driving technology.
That’s the other part of this. It’s not just the visual design of the augmented reality; it’s the AI that they need to focus on, too. They need to build AI that can navigate a car around and know the difference between a kid and a dog and a tumbleweed — even though they look similar on a camera. The car needs to accurately know which is which, and with that technology, your glasses are going to know the same thing. The more the AI knows about the room around you, the more virtual things can interact with the real things in your world.
For example the glasses need be able to recognize my bottle and the table around it, so that Skrillex can jump out of the bottle and give a performance right on my table. It’s going to be crazy — we’re going to see more new technology released in the next couple years than we’ve seen in the last decade.
I’ve heard your team at Transformation Group.io is developing a process to help companies deal with this disruption. What is the process and how can you help a company not become obsolete when it hits?
RS: Well with that there’s two separate parts. First, I’m building a supply chain for the companies. We work with several different companies who have different viewpoints for this future. For example we have a company that’s doing neuroscience research and we have another that builds marketing activations for companies like McDonald’s. Supply chains are important to building a brand’s future.
So the second part of the process is getting companies to start thinking about how they can incorporate new technology. For instance, if you’re Marriott or Hilton and you want an augmented hotel, every surface is going to need to be rethought. You have to think about the changes in infrastructure, customer service — as well as the act of finding, buying and walking around a hotel. On top of that you’ll have to have a cultural review team to make sure nothing objectionable finds its way on the walls of your hotell. Our work is to set up this process of how things get reviewed and who gets to review them.
We help clients figure this kind of stuff out. But a lot of it is much further down the road from today. Most companies simply need an education of what’s coming so that they can start dreaming about how VR is going to change their company in the next few years.
You’re really looking six steps aside…I guess that’s what makes you a good futurist. What’s are companies most surprised by when you teach them about VR?
RS: Companies struggle to understand how fast things are changing in the industry. They look at HoloLens today and they see glasses that weigh about 20 ounces and costs around $3,000. They don’t understand that next year there will be several glasses on the market that weigh around four ounces and cost much less.
We talk about this in Silicon Valley all the time. When you’re seeing technology that’s exponentially getting better, it really radically changes the world. You can see warning signs it if you’re looking for them. But so many people just don’t look for them. They don’t even think about it; they haven’t even had a demo of HoloLens. Hell — I just met a guy at a technology conference who runs partnerships for Websome and he’s never even worn a HoloLens. I have to credibly explain that this technology is about to really change his business. That’s what most people come away with. They just have no clue that this is already happening and how amazing the technology is. We’re about to see a radical new shift in user interface and it’s going to bring a lot of change to design, to product and to life.
Right now, do you think any industries have fully embraced VR in it’s basic form?
RS: No. VR is interesting because there are products out there: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Sony PlayStation VR, Samsung Gear VR, and Google daydream to name a few. But they’ve sold very little. Samsung has sold 3–5 million; Oculus around 1 million. Google Cardboard has given away 10 million. But the numbers are very small. Because very few people have it, it’s really hard for industries to go whole hog into it. That’ll change over the next 18 months. You’re going to see a lot more people have VR than today.
However, this second wave is going to be much bigger than VR. AR is much more useful in a wider array of places. With VR, you’re in a black box. You can’t see the real word. You can only play it in spaces that are safe, like your living room or maybe your office at work. You’re not going to walk into a shopping mall or sporting event with that thing. Many people even struggle to wear it on a plane — where it actually does make some sense to have it. But because you can’t see the person sitting next to you (and check to make sure he’s not making fun of you) it’s a retardant on adoption. Once AR glasses take off, you’ll be able to see the people around you and have some fun.
I feel like you were on an airplane recently and you really wanted to put a pair of Oculus on…
RS: I wear my HoloLens on planes. In fact, one of the airlines just announced that they’re building a HoloLens app for their employees. Even though it looks too dorky, it’s too big and it’s too expensive to make be a real thing — what they’re doing is building the teams and the software and the expertise. They’re starting to think through the cases in which they would use this technology, so they’re going to be ready when the glasses get much smaller in size.
Do you think that the technology we have now will allow the HoloLens to be significantly smaller?
RS: Oh yeah, you’re going to see a four-ounce HoloLens within the next year. It’s a huge drop in size and weight. Some people will say that it’s still too dorky. But for me, four ounces means I can wear it full time. Right now it’s just too big and heavy to wear at a shopping mall. Once it hits four ounces, I’ll take the dorky award.
I saw that you went to the Meta HQ with Meron Gribetz and you tried out the Meta.
RS: Yep. I liked the Meta because the field of view is really large. The problem with the HoloLens is that each eye has a 20-degree field of few of its augmented world. It’s lenses only let you see a very small piece of the augmented reality as you look around. With Meta you can see 90 degrees. The problem is Meta is that it uses a big-ass PC that you’re tethered to, so it’s not very useful in a lot of situations. We still haven’t seen the product that nails it. We’re seeing lots of good attempts, but over the next year you’ll see new products that are much more usable than either the Meta or the HoloLens today.
I’m really excited for the next year now that we’ve had this conversation. It seems like you’re very excited about the future. What’s not exciting you?
RS: Well, in our book we wrote about “dark sides” (or downsides) of this technology. It’s going to cause addiction problems and there may be other types of problems. My wife still gets sick when she uses it. So we’re still a ways away before I can say everyone in the world will adopt this technology. It might be five or seven years.
…So we’re still a few years away from Ready Player One.
RS: Yeah, the whole world is going to be massively different than it is today. We’re going to have self-driving cars, drones that fly around it on their own. We’ll also have robots that navigate around. And by the way robots will be real and virtual. (Most people haven’t seen a virtualized robot…I have because I’ve been inside the R&D labs.)
When people are joining the industry, the common thing they’re looking for is capital. They’re looking to have their incubation period, their seed — maybe a Series C. What advice do they need?
RS: If you’re going to build something for this industry you need to know Unity — at minimum. You need to either be a programmer or learn how to program. If you’re going to be a marketer in this world, then you’ve got to find one of these programmers who’s building a company in the space and get attached to it. You’ll need to be informed about the industry, so go to all the conferences. Be visible. Have a portfolio with work that matters — and find some angle to it.
I’m learning Unity and I’m never going to be a programmer. But if I am going to have a conversation with anyone, I’m going to need to have some basic knowledge of what this stuff is. Beginners will also need to get a VR machine that’s $1500 and then fork out the $600 for an HTC Vive.I don’t hang out with newbies, so it’s hard for me to give good feedback.
If you’re a programmer and you’re programming in Java, my advice is still the same: you need to learn unity. You need to learn how to build things in 3D, learn what the sensors are going to see, and learn about the AI that’s going to sense a person’s surroundings. You’ll need to understand how all this stuff is going to work and then find out how you’re going to layer stuff on top of it.
Then, you’re going to need to network. You’re going to need a portfolio of work that shows off what you can do and make sure your LinkedIn is up to date. Show off stuff you know by writing a Medium post every week about what you’re learning. In fact, go to Danny Bittman’s Facebook page right now. He’s an artist who’s learning about Unity and he’s writing about his process. It’s pretty cool. I bet he has a job in the next 30 days in the industry because someone is going to say “Hey, that guy’s a great artist and he knows Unity and he’s showing off his work.”
And he can write, and has some social intelligence.
RS: Yeah, you know — he gets along with people. I remember when I was at the first iPhone developer’s camp and people were just really happy about getting a ball that bounced around the screen. Now that’s not enough. Today you have to really learn the industry.
I may not be qualified to say this, but I think that was great advice. Put yourself out there, network and meet people, start sending your resume out and show that you’ve done something worthwhile.
Are there any specific niches in the industry that are really underserved?
RS: Today we have no industry. Even I don’t wear AR glasses yet. Now that’s going to change over the next four years, but right now we don’t have anything. The entire world looks undone to me, so any idea ideas you come up with sounds reasonable.
I don’t know who’s going to win yet, or what’s going to be the killer app. When the Macintosh came out in ’84 it took four more years before desktop publishing showed up. So it’ll take time before we know the best app for these glasses. We simply don’t know enough about their limitations, how many they’re going to sell — there’s honestly so many unknowns, which makes it fun right now. The whole world is open.
It’s like the Homestead Act. It’s going to be really cheap to start a company today compared to four years from now. The downside is: currently the market isn’t here yet — it’s not showing a “market fit” as they call it. It’ll be tougher to make profit today, but it’s cheaper to start than it’ll be years from now. In other words, you might have to keep your day job.
…we’re not exactly monetizing that stuff yet.
RS: Yeah it’s really hard to monetize, even when you have something great. Look at Alchemy Labs. They were the number one VR game. Then they got bought by Google. That’s how they monetized.
What are you working on right now?
RS: Tomorrow I have meetings with a bunch of people in the industry. I’m getting to talk with the camera company from China that’s making 360-degree cameras. They’re about to launch a new product. It’s called insta360, they make these $200 cameras
Cool. I’ve seen spoken with a different company who does similar stuff.
RS: Yeah there is Giroptics, GoPro, Ricoh — a whole bunch of them. But insta360 is the best one I’ve seen so far. So this is all brand-new stuff. It’s literally happening right now and keeping up with it requires doing what we spoke about earlier: networking your but off, having lots of meetings, going to lots of conferences and trying to get insight that nobody else has.
As we wrap this up, do you have any final words?
RS: If you haven’t thought about mixed reality yet, start thinking about it. This is going to change your future soon. The sooner you get into it, the better off you’re going to be. You may not get approval to spend the money for your company to start up a VR initiative, but take a little bit of time to explore the technology. Maybe buy a HoloLens or HTC Vive for your home or office. In doing so you’ll build a better, more well informed future for yourself.
Thanks, Robert. Can you tell our followers where they can find you and your work?
RS: The best place is on my Facebook page Robert Scoble — I’m pouring my energy into mixed reality, so you’ll see me do a lot there. You can also get The Fourth Transformation on Amazon or Kindle. It’s also sold as an audiobook on Audible. In a few words, it’s about how AR and AI is going to change your world.
You can read and listen at the same time — which is actually a very effective way of absorbing information. Robert thank you so much for your time!
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