Trends in Spatial Computing Technology

Spatial computing just had its most important month in a while. Hardware's heating back up. Enterprise blockers are falling. And memory itself? It just became... a place to be explored. Here are the 5 signals that matter most 🧵: 1/ Meta + Anduril: AR goes to war (and then to work). Meta is partnering with Anduril to deliver EagleEye, a rugged XR headset for the U.S. military—blending Meta’s optics + AI with Anduril’s battlefield OS. This isn’t about combat. It’s a blueprint for industrial AR—built for field work, logistics, energy, and more. The frontline interface for digital twins just got real. 2/ Apple Vision Pro quietly filled major enterprise gaps With visionOS 26, Vision Pro now supports Team Device Sharing. Your calibration & settings follow your iPhone—making shared headsets practical. More importantly: Shared Spatial Experiences means real-time, multi-user collaboration is now native. Apple didn’t shout about it—but this should accelerate enterprise adoption 3/ Snap + Niantic are building the AR Cloud. Snap’s new Specs (2026) will run Snap OS, feature OpenAI/Gemini AI, and support real-time contextual experiences. They also announced a multi-year partnership with Niantic Spatial to map the real world with centimeter precision. The result: persistent AR that everyone can see, everywhere. 4/ Real-time avatars just took a major leap. Apple’s new Personas look… eerily human. Google’s Project Beam? It uses Gemini AI to animate your likeness—so it can speak as you. Soon, your avatar could pitch, train, or meet… without you. This isn’t about avatars. It’s about the performance of self. 5/ 4D GSplats: Your memories just became places. A breakthrough from 4DV.ai turns regular videos into 3D scenes you can explore—with time as a dimension. Pause. Scrub. Walk around. All in your browser. It’s like stepping into a memory, not just watching it. And it hints at a future where our past is spatial, explorable, and alive. So what does all this mean? Check out the latest Dream Machines post here: https://lnkd.in/gUyDpRZe And if you enjoy, be sure to subscribe! Much more to come on spatial, AI, and the future of being human.

🚀 Just dropped a new episode of Connected in 3D and this one’s a powerhouse: I had the honor of speaking with Ziad Asghar, SVP & GM of XR & Spatial Computing at Qualcomm, to unpack how they’re powering the future of spatial computing through AI, 5G, and their Snapdragon platforms. We dive into: 🔹 The real roadblocks to all-day AR wearables 🔹 How AI is reshaping real-time scene understanding and rendering 🔹 Why 5G is the backbone for untethered XR experiences 🔹 The future of digital twins and enterprise XR Ziad also shares his journey from designing the first UMTS chipset to leading Qualcomm’s global XR strategy—an inspiring path that underscores just how much innovation is driving this space. If you're building in XR, curious about AI's role in immersive tech, or just want to understand where the next 5 years of spatial computing are headed—this one’s for you. 🎧 Episode 21: Powering the Future of XR: How Qualcomm is Driving Spatial Computing & AI-Powered Immersion Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gm3gc2Bz Apple: https://lnkd.in/g9EthpJr YouTube: https://lnkd.in/g-7Q64ki Let me know your thoughts—what are you most excited about for the future of XR? #XR #SpatialComputing #AI #Qualcomm #DigitalTwins #Connectedin3D #Metaverse #Snapdragon #AR #VR

Niantic’s GDC Power Move: Spatial Computing, VPS, and a New Era Beyond Pokémon GO If you’ve been to GDC, you know the real action isn’t in Moscone. It’s offsite, in the private events, the pop-ups, the executive dinners where the next decade of gaming gets shaped over cocktails and handshakes. And this year, Niantic made a power move. Fresh off selling Pokémon GO to Scopely for $3.5B, Niantic just hosted their own mini-conference, laying out a vision that could make them one of the most important XR players of the decade. Forget just AR games—this is geospatial AI, real-world mapping at an unprecedented scale, and a spatial computing platform that enterprises should be paying attention to. Why This Matters for XR • 1 million activated VPS locations – They aren’t just building maps, they’re owning reality. • Scaniverse + Photon – A 3D scanning pipeline for businesses that can digitize the world in minutes. • AI-enhanced geospatial intelligence – Think Google Maps on steroids, with centimeter-level accuracy. • Enterprise play incoming – Smart cities, logistics, retail, real-world navigation—Niantic isn’t just in gaming anymore. What’s happening here is data gravity—Niantic has the largest real-world dataset of scanned locations, and they’re turning it into an infrastructure play. This isn’t just a pivot, it’s a takeover move. Most of XR’s biggest players are still figuring out their long-term play—Apple’s Vision Pro is still niche, Meta’s pushing AI hard, and Snap is Snap. But Niantic? They have the real-world data no one else does. If they execute, they could be the geospatial backbone of XR, AI, and the spatial internet. Swipe through the slides and tell me—does this change how you see Niantic? #Niantic #XR #GDC #SpatialComputing #AI #AugmentedReality #FutureOfTech

🚀 Game-changing moment for 3D graphics! Niantic, Inc. just open-sourced .SPZ - the first purpose-built file format for Gaussian Splats that's about to revolutionize how we create and share 3D experiences. 🔥 Why this is massive: • Slashes file sizes by 90% (250MB → 25MB) with virtually zero quality loss • Lightning-fast uploads/downloads, especially on mobile • Dramatically reduced memory footprint • Enables real-time processing right on your phone 🤳 Think of .SPZ as the JPEG of 3D scanning - a universal format optimized specifically for the mind-blowing potential of Gaussian Splats. ⚡️ Tech breakthrough: • Smart compression of position, rotation, color & scale data • Column-based organization for maximum efficiency • Innovative fixed-point quantization & log encoding 🌟 Best part? It's all open source under MIT license. This is how we accelerate the future of spatial computing together. 👉 Code: https://lnkd.in/gWEfMmZE 👉 Blog: https://lnkd.in/gTEGB_J4 Can't wait to see what the community builds with this! Drop a comment if you're working on anything cool with .SPZ 👇 #3DGraphics #OpenSource #AR #SpatialComputing #AWE #WebAR

The expansion of computing is not limited to just a device, and it is not a trend. It is a paradigm shift in human to human communication and human-computer interaction. Thinking otherwise would be reductive. If personal computing was about technology coming into our homes, offices and our desks, and mobile technology was about devices that we could carry with us on the go and allow us always to be connected and access information by typing on or talking to our phones, spatial computing is about expanding technology to new interfaces, accessing information anywhere in 3D form, and being able to communicate in whichever way we want, while these devices understand our world and start to have perception.  As the images, sounds, accelerations, and data processed by a device are contributing to the real-time perceptions of an individual human, spatial computing will blend virtual experiences into a user’s experience of the physical world. To allow a user to treat any surface in the immediate environment as a touchscreen or display is merely the most obvious extension of the existing paradigm of UI in mobile computing to spatial computing. Volumetric rendering, holographic processing, sensor fusion, and more will enable interfaces to data and applications that we cannot yet imagine. Therein lies the opportunity and the challenge ahead of us. A challenge and an opportunity that I am tackling head on in my consulting, advisory, and development work. My hope is that many of you will read this and share it with your communities with attribution. I read so many articles this weekend on the launch of the Apple Vision Pro, but very few are really grasping what spatial computing is about. I felt compelled to reach out to many already and share what it is that we're really talking about here. As someone who has worked inside the industry for years, and speaks from practice and not just theory, I hope this article can help many understand what we're talking about when we're talking about spatial computing. I try to share content with you that is of value to my community, that is why I'm posting this on LinkedIn first so that more people can have access to this information. As my work at Spatial Dynamics ramps up and we work with more organizations, companies and governments to deeply understand spatial computing, plan for it, and builld for it, I think it's important that we have a grasp on what this expansion of computing is and what it is not. I hope you find this article useful. #tech #business #spatialcomputing #spatialcomputer #AI #XR #gaming #tech #fashion #culture #technology #telecommunications

👓 Smart glasses are no longer experimental. They’re essential — and this is their “iPhone moment.” What was once a novel idea is now a critical tool — not just for creators or early adopters, but for frontline workers, military teams, industrial operators, and healthcare professionals. We’re witnessing a shift: From gadget to infrastructure From cool demos to mission-critical deployments From screen-based UX to spatial interaction Smart glasses are fast becoming the new interface layer for real-world problem-solving. 🔦 This morning I came across a post from Sean Ong about Rivet Industries — one of the companies actively contributing to this shift. And I have to say it made my day. Their work is a powerful example of where the industry is headed. Rivet isn’t just building glasses — they’re reimagining how people engage with their environment, make decisions, and execute high-stakes tasks. These four phrases from their approach say it all: 🪖 “Every Soldier deserves tools they can trust in tough conditions.” 🏗️ “Complete tools for complex problems.” 🛠️ “Tasks wired from the factory to the field.” 🚀 “Personnel are the platform.” These aren’t just slogans — they reflect the new reality for those of us building in AR/XR. 👉 To everyone pushing spatial computing forward: This is your iPhone moment. Let’s build like it. #AR #SmartGlasses #XR #SpatialComputing #Innovation

❓ Have you heard about the new Apple Vision Pro? This mixed-reality headset is making waves with its potential to completely transform our interaction with documents and data. 📰 In my latest article for the ABA GPSolo Magazine, I dive into the exciting possibilities this technology holds for our field. The Vision Pro promises a future where spatial computing can revolutionize daily workflows, offering immersive Zoom meetings, intuitive large-screen displays, and seamless hand-tracking for an unparalleled computing experience. ☑ However, as with all new tech, it comes with a hefty price tag and some limitations. While early adopters might want to jump in and explore, I recommend most lawyers hold off for now as the app ecosystem and ergonomic issues are still developing. Curious to learn more about how this could impact your practice? Check out the full article below!👇 #legaltech #innovation #AppleVisionPro #augmentedreality #virtualreality #spatialcomputing 📈 Let's stay ahead of the curve together. 💡 I'm Niki Black, SME and External Education at AffiniPay legal brands, including MyCase and LawPay, where I proudly serve as the bridge between lawyers and technology. 👉 If you'd like to keep up with my legaltech news roundups, make sure to follow this hashtag, #nbroundups, and also click on the bell 🔔 next to my name to receive updates on all of my posts. 👈

Meta just unveiled the next evolution of Project Aria, and while these aren’t consumer AR glasses, they’re an exciting glimpse into the future of spatial computing, AI, and robotics. This new research hardware has some fascinating updates: 📷 More powerful sensors – Higher-res cameras, an improved depth sensor, and advanced IMU for better spatial awareness 🍪 Custom-built Qualcomm chip – Boosts on-device AI processing for real-time egocentric research 🤖 Tighter integration with AI & robotics – Paving the way for AI-powered spatial experiences 😎 New design & improved comfort – Sleeker form factor for long-term use While these are not AR consumer glasses, they showcase tech that could easily find its way into future Meta XR headsets. Enhanced AI-powered scene understanding, improved hand tracking, and real-world object interaction are all stepping stones toward the next generation of AI-infused AR experiences. This is another sign that Meta is playing the long game with AR—bridging AI, XR, and robotics to push spatial computing forward. Exciting times ahead! What do you think? Could AI-powered vision be a game-changer for future XR devices? #Meta #ProjectAria #AugmentedReality #XR #AI #SpatialComputing