Will the computer of the future still have a screen?
The Spacetop developed by Sightful shows how working on a virtual screen, seen only by the wearer of augmented reality (AR) glasses, could be an alternative to the laptop PC as we know it today.
Its creators state that this is the world’s first augmented reality laptop PC, potentially paving the way for a new generation of personal computers. It could also provide one of the first practical mainstream applications of augmented reality. As such, the project is particularly ambitious.
In terms of hardware, all you have to carry is a keyboard unit and augmented reality glasses. The PC has its own operating system (Spacetop OS) and has a relatively low battery life, of just five hours. Note that it is, however, Wi-Fi 6 and 5G compatible. In fact, it works exactly like any other laptop, without any gesture controls.
The applications are superimposed on the real world, so the user is not completely disconnected from their environment. You can therefore work in complete privacy, away from prying eyes, wherever you may be — at home, on the move, in a café, or at the office.
As cool as the concept may be, there’s some room for improvement. At the heart of the Spacetop is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 365 mobile CPU, which is four years out of date at this point. That means Sighful’s device is about as powerful (and maybe even less so) than the smartphone in your pocket.
That all but assures us that it’s not ready to take on the Macbook Pros and Microsoft Surfaces of the world just yet. The hardware news isn’t all bad, though. Specs like 8 GB of ram and 256 GB of storage are pretty standard among today’s laptops, while a 2560×1920 pixel webcam and fingerprint reader are features you don’t see every day.
