WEBVTT - Could 3D Holograms Replace Your Computer Screen? 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.920 Stephanie Rosenberg works at a secretive Silicon Valley company called 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:11.800 Meta in San Mateo, California. Meta is working on a 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:15.800 new kind of technology called augmented reality. It essentially turns 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:19.520 a pair of goggles into a projector for holograms. A 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:22.959 few months ago, Meta decided to do something drastic. The 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:26.480 company began ripping out its employees desktop computers, making them 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:30.400 switch to using the company's own headsets. Stephanie was off 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:32.400 on a work trip at the time, and she was 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:34.879 in for a big surprise when she returned to the office. 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:40.760 And I walked in next morning and put my laptop 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:43.639 bag down and looked up at my desk and realized 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:46.959 something was missing. Like all of us, Stephanie is used 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.479 to having a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. There was no 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.479 more computer screen on my past i pad. It was 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:58.160 sitting there. Now. All of Stephanie's daily work, like writing emails, 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:02.600 making presentations, and monitoring social media happen inside an augmented 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:07.319 reality headset. Then I looked around and other members of 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:11.880 my team were, uh, you know, reaching out and moving 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.920 things around in the air there in the headset. Stephanie 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:18.120 had no choice but to get used to the change 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:22.360 since those desktop monitors aren't coming back. That's because Meta 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.120 believes its headsets are going to radically change how we 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:27.759 spend our time at work, spending on a future where 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:40.520 your desktop will be as obsolete as a typewriter. Hi, 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:44.360 I'm Bradstone and I'm Selena Way, and this week on Decrypted, 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:46.399 we'll take a look into what the future of work 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:50.360 might look like through one startups experiments with augmented reality. 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:53.920 Augmented reality is still at a very early stage of development, 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:56.480 and Meta is up against tech giants like Microsoft and 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.760 Apple that are investing heavily and developing their own headsets 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:03.440 that compete with metas product one forecast as the global 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.080 a R market could be worth a hundred and sixty 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:09.679 five billion dollars by two thousand and twenty four. I'll 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.000 go behind the scenes to see how the transition has 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.080 gone at Meta and see for myself what it's like 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:25.560 to work with three D holograms. Stay with us, so, Selena, 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:28.040 I remember the first time I came across Meta. It 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:32.200 was February two thousand sixteen at the TED conference in Vancouver, 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:34.360 and I have to say this has only happened to 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.360 me a few times. In my career covering technology. I 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.720 put on the Meta glasses, I saw you a virtual 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:42.440 monitor in front of me. I think they had the 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:46.079 Bloomberg terminal on the screen, and I was like, Wow, this, 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:49.800 if it works, will change everything. And I remember shortly 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:51.960 after that conference, you told me to start digging into 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:54.320 this company. And I went back and listened to that 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.040 TED conference and I noticed it was then that may 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:01.960 Ron Gribbets, the CEO, made this very daring promise, which 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.960 is why all hundred of us at Meta, including the 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:11.480 administrative staff, the executives, the designers and engineers before, we're 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:15.080 all going to be throwing away our external monitors and 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:21.320 replacing them with a truly and profoundly more natural machine. 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.480 And Meta has seriously followed through on that goal. Marone 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.000 is only thirty one years old and he founded Meta 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:33.880 in after studying neuroscience and computer science at Columbia University. 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.160 He made the first Meta prototype with an oven heated 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:39.400 knife and hot glue gun the same year that he 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.200 founded the startup, and last year, Meta raised fifty million 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:47.120 dollars from investors like Lenovo and ten Cent. Today, Meta 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:50.640 is targeting its headsets at developers and companies and industries 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:54.800 like design and manufacturing. The current headset costs ninety nine 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.840 dollars and they're expecting more than ten thousand people to 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:00.160 be using it by the end of the year. A 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:05.840 R will eventually supplant replace the phone and the tablet 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.240 and the computer entirely. Here my own standing in his 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.560 futuristic looking office with tall glass windows in a thin 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:15.320 slap of wood as his standing desk. He's wearing his 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:19.120 usual jeans, T shirt and blazer. People will have strips 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.120 of glass that from the front perspective will look very 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:24.680 much like the glasses I have on. That will be 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:28.320 able to do everything that a computer, a tablet or 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:30.120 a phone will be able to do, and a whole 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:38.680 lot more so. Augmented reality is a new frontier for computing. Now, 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:41.719 this is not virtual reality. When you put the goggles on, 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.400 you still see the world around you, but you can 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:48.200 also see images that are generated inside the headset overlaid 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:51.120 on top of reality. That's why it's also sometimes called 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:54.320 mixed reality. And this experiment going on at met At 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.880 the company calls it dog footing. In fact, John Signs, 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.360 who's the company CFO, did the nearly forty years ago 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.200 at a different company. Back then, he was making people 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:08.200 switch from typewriters to desktops. The idea is that by 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:10.880 using its own product, Meta will work through bugs and 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:15.080 kinks and improve its product faster than competitors, So you're 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:17.880 gonna get ten x more of the feedback then you 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.840 would have otherwise gotten through from your customers before your 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.920 customers even get it, which is important because there are 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:27.320 much bigger companies like Microsoft and Apple working on their 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:31.560 own augmented reality products. But the much bigger idea was, 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:34.400 if we're all going to use the spatial office, the 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:36.800 holographic office first, we were going to find those killer 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.240 apps and build them and refine them way before anyone. 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.479 And by the way, the concept of the spatial office 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:45.800 is something will come back to later because working with 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.719 the three D holograms means a physical office could look 0:05:48.800 --> 0:06:00.560 totally different that his office looks like your typical startup. 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.760 There's plenty of snacks and every type of drink imaginable, 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:06.919 from kombucha on tap to coconut water. There's even a 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:11.240 band area set up in the cafeteria from Promptu performances. Still, 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:13.159 it was startling to see a room full of people 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.720 wearing these futuristic looking headsets going about their work as 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:20.800 if it's totally ordinary. One very new employee, Liz o Wart, 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:25.560 says she felt the same way. We've all seen Minority Report, 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.080 and we've seen people interacting with holograms, and it was 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.520 really such an interesting experience to walk into an office 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:35.159 environment and see people in my future colleagues actually in 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.560 the headset doing the things that they would be doing 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.000 every day. I wasn't expecting to see so much physical movement. 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.520 People were grabbing empty space, rotating their hands in the air, 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:47.880 and pushing air with their arms. Some people were even 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:52.520 turning all the way around them, placing holographic objects behind them. Yeah. 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:55.080 I saw the video that our colleague David Nicholson shot 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.440 at Meta's offices. It looks totally bizarre. I mean, without 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.000 any context, you would think that you're watching some kind 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.159 of performance. Are there something from a sci fi movie? Yeah? 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.080 And the MET headset itself wraps all the way around 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:11.040 your head and at the front has this sort of visor. Right, 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:13.440 the optical element as they call it, sits in the 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.520 headset and is projected onto the visor. The sides of 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.080 the headset are embossed in brown leather, and there's a 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.120 strap over the top of your head to kind of 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:23.760 balance out the weight. Their sensors on the headset and 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.080 a front facing camera, but it's pretty light, not too heavy, 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:32.040 about a pound. It's a different world going from the 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:34.000 two D rail to the three D world. That was 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.840 Liz again. I was shot three that I would be 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:39.000 wearing it. I had the chance to try the headset 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:41.600 myself with Ryan Pamplin, whose main role at META is 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:45.200 to get people more interested in using augmented reality. He's 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:48.800 twenty nine. He takes the headset everywhere, even on the airplane. 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:52.640 His office is also impeccably clean, a white desk with 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.800 nothing on it except the headset and a keyboard. But 0:07:55.960 --> 0:08:01.080 inside the headset, his office looks much different. There's a 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:04.520 lot more decoration in my version of my office than 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:08.480 in yours. Brian's holographic office was full of personal photos 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.040 scattered all around in the air, in front of multiple 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:15.720 floating screens and little three D holographic figurines around his desk. 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:18.840 There's also things I wouldn't put in my real office 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:21.720 that I have in here, Like I I wouldn't have 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:25.720 all the pictures of my girlfriend and I like plastered everywhere. 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.560 And I probably wouldn't have a bust of Steve jobs 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:30.480 because I don't know where to buy one of those. 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:34.240 And can you hear anything? Yes, there was actually Katie 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.839 Perry music playing, but I couldn't tell where it was 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:39.560 coming from. But then I swiveled the chair around and 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:42.680 saw that Ryan had placed the YouTube music video web 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:45.360 page right behind me. Turns out there were also many 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:49.280 other strange holographic objects behind me as well. And then 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:51.960 over here you have the workspace, which is the shelf 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:55.800 you see, so why don't you try and grab the instrument. 0:08:55.880 --> 0:09:00.000 It's the sort of rainbow ball that shelf I saw 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.640 part of metas workspace. It's the equivalent of what you 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.320 see when you first power on your computer. It's the 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:08.520 desktop setting that's typically a bunch of icons and folders 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.040 you click into to access your work. So you can 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:14.360 take your hand to put that and just put it 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:15.880 flat in front of you. See a We'll circle around 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:17.800 your hand when it's in the right place. Maybe you 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:22.200 need to be a little closer m and just close 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:23.880 your fist on it, and now you can pull it out. 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:28.040 Oh got it? Interesting? It's in colorful or and now 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:30.839 go ahead and play it with your fingers. So this 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.560 is how I relieve stress and make beautiful music. This 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:38.079 is wild. Everyone I spoke to at Metasine, the biggest 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.120 productivity gain was being able to have an unlimited number 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:43.760 of screens that you could scale as large as you 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.600 wanted to. It's kind of like having your own command 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.880 center where you arrange things three D sixty degrees around 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.120 you and pull objects to your attention right when you 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:54.480 need them. Interesting, So how easy is it to move 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:57.720 these three D objects around? It definitely took me if 0:09:57.760 --> 0:09:59.520 you tries to figure out how to move them around, 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:02.319 how to learned how to position my hands so that 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.000 the technology would track my hands and allow me to 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:09.040 enlarge and move or rotate the holographic object. But I'm 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.760 sure the demo you tested fixed many of the kinks 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.839 that employees must have suffered through in the early days. Right, definitely, 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.920 and Meta is transition across the workplace has been far 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:24.000 from smooth. I was extremely nervous about this. I was 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:28.400 extremely I mean it's it's you're going against fifty years 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:33.040 of computing tools in one year, as with any major 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.200 change at work, meta Is transition to three D headsets 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:40.000 has at times been challenging. Meta started giving out the 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:42.360 headsets at the end of March, and they started with 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.240 the engineers. They make up one of the largest teams 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:49.280 with the highest pressure deadlines. In retrospect, it may have 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:52.920 been a mistake to start there, so that rollout went 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:55.920 a little out of hand. This is Cecilia, a body 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.720 a product manager, like, we didn't get as much used 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.480 as we wanted. The feedback was a little segmented, like 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.640 people will find one problem and put it down. Basically, 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.719 the engineers complained and we're frustrated that they couldn't get 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:12.760 their work done on time without their regular PC monitors. 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:15.920 We know there's a heat on productivity at the beginnings, 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:19.000 and it's okay, Like, it's completely okay that the first 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:22.079 days that you use the workspace and the environment on 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.199 a r you're going to be less productive than your 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.800 normal work. It's an investment. It's something you have to 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:30.960 do so that you find all the problems, so that 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:32.840 you build all the things that you need to have. 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:37.520 The transition caused so many issues eventually that Meta decided 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:41.000 to give the engineers back their desktop computers and transition 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:45.440 smaller groups at a slower pace. They started with the marketing, sales, 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.120 and general and administrative departments, so they're the guinea pigs. 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.720 So what were their experiences like? So I've been regularly 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.040 checking in with a few of the employees trying to 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:58.520 track their experiences. They've raised a pretty interesting set of issues. 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:02.360 Wanted the complain was maneuvering the floating screen so that 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.480 they were in just the perfect places, or dealing with 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:09.280 how natural light affects the viewability of the holograms. Not 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:17.199 your normal set of workplace complaints. I don't think at 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:20.000 the beginning, it was very simple things that were pretty frustrating. 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:24.240 I found, for instance, that Ergo headset didn't match my 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:27.560 particular head shape, so I actually just attached the weight 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:29.839 onto the back to make it so it was more 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.200 comfortable to me. It's just a new way of dealing 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.280 with issues. I found reading for long period of time 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:41.960 to be difficult for me personally. So Selena, how is 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.600 meta measuring whether or not this workplace switched to augmented 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.840 reality headsets is actually helping the company. They have a 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:52.280 team of neuroscientists that are collecting data points and productivity 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:56.480 changes like visual perception, speed of interaction, and physical comfort. 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.680 That is also encouraging employees to write daily logs. I 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:02.560 give feedback on this whole experience, and clearly there was 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:05.000 a lot of feedback. So how fast are they fixing 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.839 these problems? It really just depends on how complicated it is, 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.920 but for most things it's actually very fast since there's 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:16.160 this constant interaction between the teams. When I first started 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:17.720 my role out, there was a little bit of jitter, 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:20.280 which means it kind of sort of shakes a little 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:22.680 bit in the spot. But then with the last update 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:24.800 that I got about a week in a hospital that 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:28.920 was gone, they just kissed updating that algorithms. Esther lee 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:31.800 Q is an industrial designer whose job is to create 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:34.000 what the next generation of the headset is going to 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.440 look like. So she's actually one of the employees who 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:40.640 found the transition quite helpful. Very early on, I really 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:45.440 enjoyed using the headset for reviews with our CEO Moron, 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:48.520 and that's just been like nine and day of being 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:53.600 able to communicate my ideas. Having a physical, three dimensional 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:56.959 hologram that we can all look at and review. It's 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.720 just taken away so much confusion from looking at a 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.640 two drawing. According to Mayro and the CEO, the hardest 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:06.080 part of the transition actually had nothing to do with 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:09.880 the technology. The technology is probably the easiest thing to 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:12.760 get done. We got the photo realism, we got most 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.000 of the kinks of the ergonomics. Guess what the hardest 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:18.360 part was. It was to get people to want to 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.920 give up the tools that they love, especially software engineers 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:25.200 and and folks that have habituated to be surrounded by 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:29.600 these these monitors. Um, they've grown connected to them, and 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.359 now parting with them was It was a real emotional 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:39.880 journey for a lot of people. Once employees got over 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.280 that initial hurdle, they told me that work became a 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:46.680 whole new kind of immersion they've never experienced before. You 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.120 definitely forget about it off the first sort of five 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.600 minutes of having it all That was Karas O'Connell met 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:57.960 as director of User Experience, and I found myself for 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:02.160 getting I've gotten on and leaning in towards, um, you 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.160 know something, I'm trying to look out on my desk 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:08.400 and accidentally head pupping the desk. So this was an 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:12.240 interesting thing to hear about. The challenge is going back 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:14.840 to the normal world. You sort of have to go 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:19.640 through a decompression almost to go back to these rectangles. 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:22.640 Adjusting to the real world after you've been inside the 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:26.560 headset for some time can be very difficult. Suddenly everything 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:30.000 seems very small. With that. I pick up my iPhone 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.040 and I sort of squinting at it after being in 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.480 the headset for a while, and suddenly the irony is 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:40.520 the old things don't make sense anymore, and You're like, Wow, 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:43.080 why is this so small? I can't believe we have 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:48.200 such small rectangles around us all the time. Liz, who 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:50.320 has only been using the headset for a few weeks 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:52.280 at this point, is that being in the headset all 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:54.600 day I started to affect her movement in the real 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.080 world as well. I went to lunch and I tried 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:00.120 to grasp the tongs because we always have salad at 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:02.280 the front of the salad bar, and I was like 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.280 trying to grasp it like it was a hologram. It's 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:15.400 not that it's not hologram. This is real life. So Selena, 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:19.240 what's the verdict so far? Thus far? Pretty invaluable. I mean, 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.680 many of the new features in the headset software and 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.360 hardware were actually developed as a result of this whole 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:28.280 spatial rollout. In dog fooding process, they fixed issues ranging 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.440 from simple bugs set up an installation to actually creating 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:34.640 completely new applications. I spoke to the head of legal 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.880 who said that the companies filed several patents since starting 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.960 this whole process, but clearly Meta had to slow down 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.400 when I got rid of its computer monitors. Was the 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.360 productivity hit worth it on balance? I think it's a 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.080 definite yes. I mean pretty early in the process, they 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:53.680 realized there actually weren't enough applications in three D, specifically 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.320 for the holograms. So Meta did this company wide hackathon 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:00.400 where they divided everyone into teams and for days did 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:04.080 nothing else but brainstorm and create new applications for the headset. 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.560 So from that keem ideas like the holographic instrument and 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:10.480 three D data plotting tools. And this is only the beginning. 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:12.880 I mean, Meta is going to encounter many, many more 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.240 hurdles as it tries to commercialize as entirely new way 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.760 to work. Hardware is difficult for startups to get right, definitely, 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.719 and Met has already experienced some of the struggles. Just 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:24.800 a few months ago, the company said it ran into 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.959 manufacturing delays because of issues scaling at production and processing procedures. 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.040 And then there's Apple, which is moving forward with its 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.560 own competing device. A R has become so big for Apple. 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.280 Tim Cook, the CEO, recently said to our colleagues at 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:41.679 Bloomberg Business Week that he's so excited about the technology 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.040 he just wants to yell out and scream. Definitely something 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.080 you don't want to take lightly. And Plus, a big 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:49.920 company like Apple is on an advantage with way more 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:52.600 cash and many more employees, right, as well as an 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:56.560 established network of suppliers and an existing ecosystem of developers. 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:00.000 Any new computing platform will need developers to make new 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.440 apps and services. Plus, PC sales have been slowing for 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:07.040 several years, and even smartphone sales are reaching saturation. So 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:09.640 the large tech companies have more at stake than ever 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:16.080 to dominate this next wave of computing. So if you 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:18.479 don't need monitors, if you can just make do with 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.160 a R headsets, you probably don't need the same kind 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.480 of desks we used today either. Right, Medic's actually thinking 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:27.840 about doing a pretty major overhaul at the offices. Instead 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:30.320 of a desk, there will be slabs of wood as 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.480 standing desks. They'd be long but narrow, wide enough for 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:37.240 just a keyboard and headset. Wow. So no more cubicles 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.280 in the offices of the future right ma Room calls 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:43.320 them the tyranny of the modern workplace. Meta wants to 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:47.240 get rid of chairs to Actually, it's going to look 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.280 a lot more like a group of people organically huddling 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:54.719 around one hologram and discussing it um a group of 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:57.080 people on the other side of the office looking at 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:01.000 code collaboratively in a in a group, and not these 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:07.160 desks that are separating us. So, Selena, are you excited 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.120 for the day when we start huddling around holograms instead 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:13.720 of sitting behind our monitors. Well, I think it will 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:16.520 be great when the technology actually gets to the place 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:20.480 where it's ten times easier than an iPhone. But as 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:23.240 the technology is right now, I think I still feel 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:26.240 comfortable with the monitor I have today for the type 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:28.840 of work that we do as journalists, I don't see 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:31.680 it as being exponentially more productive for me to work 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.520 with all of these floating monitors. I mean, it would 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:37.800 be great for expanding my screens and being able to 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:42.399 write this long podcast with unlimited space, but it's definitely 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.560 still an odd feeling, and I still feel quite attached 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.040 to my monitors and my laptop. I guess the question is, 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:51.520 will one day it become just cheaper to put on 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:53.960 a pair of glasses instead of to buy buy a 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.880 monitor for for your cubicle but also for your home, 0:19:57.000 --> 0:19:59.800 right instead of these big flat TVs that can cost 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:02.200 on hundreds of dollars, we might just have these floating 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.440 virtual screens all around us one day, definitely. I mean 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.719 Maybrone talks about these headsets being merely strips of glass 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.280 in just the next few years, So he's definitely expecting 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:15.480 this hardware to become commoditized in the very near future. 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:17.520 And I mean he thinks it's going to get to 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:20.639 a place where it's so much easier and more intuitive 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:22.760 to use that you'd want to use it and you'd 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:25.560 want to ditch these old devices. I mean, now it's 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:28.480 still attached to a chord, but even the next generation 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:31.000 device is supposed to be more mobile, right, it definitely 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:32.800 has to become more portable. Do you have any idea 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:35.800 when Meta will start selling those headsets in regular stores. 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:38.880 I think it's still going to be several years Maybrone 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.399 is definitely aiming for less than five, but probably not 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:51.600 for the next couple of years. And that's it for 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:55.199 this week's Decrypted. Thanks for listening. We always like to 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:57.080 hear what you think of the show. You can record 0:20:57.119 --> 0:20:59.640 a voice message and send it to us that Decrypted 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:03.720 at Bloomberg dot net or I'm on Twitter at Selena, 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:08.160 Underscore Why, Underscore Way, and I'm at brad Stone. If 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:11.040 you haven't already, please subscribe to our show wherever you 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:14.119 get your podcasts. While you're there, please leave us a 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:17.320 rating in the review. It really helps more listeners find 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:21.560 the show. This episode was produced by Pia Gatkari, Liz Smith, 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:24.919 and Magnus Hendrickson. Thanks to Niko Grant first help on 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:28.480 today's show. Robin and Yellow edited my print story about Meta, 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:31.879 which you can read at Bloomberg dot com slash Tech. 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:34.520 Once you're there, you should also check out the video 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:37.000 my colleague David Nicholson shot at met his office is 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:39.879 to get the full impact of what this technology is like. 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:43.919 Alec McCabe is head of Bloomberg Podcasts. We'll see you 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:45.000 next week.