This document discusses the history and future of extended reality (XR) technologies. It begins with an overview of previous industrial revolutions and the emerging "fourth wave" of XR, augmented reality (AR), and artificial intelligence. The rest of the document summarizes the most important XR topics and events of 2019, predicts focus areas and technologies that may see growth from 2020 to 2025, and concludes by stating that many people will get rich from these emerging technologies as enterprise adoption increases, smartphones continue powering AR, and the industry iterates quickly on AR head-mounted displays.

1. The Past Is Prologue
What Comes Next In XR?
AIS On The Lot
December 17, 2019
Charlie Fink, XR Consultant, Author, Columnist
@charliefink

2. AR Enabled Books

3. AR Enabled Charlie

4. First Industrial Revolution
The Modern Age
(Age of Science)
The Digital Age
The Fourth Wave
(“The Photonic Era”)
Steam Engine
 Factory, Transportation
Electricity
Telephone, Appliances,
Radio, Television
Combustion Engine
 Cars, Airplanes
PC, Internet, Mobile
 Apple, Microsoft,
Google, Facebook,
Amazon
AR Cloud, Mirrorworld,
Magicverse
 ???
The History of Convergence

5. 2019 XR Topics of the Year
• See through vs. pass through
• Rise of enterprise XR
• Hearables
• Wearables & Sensors
• Mirrorworlds (the invisible world mesh)
• Convergence of AR, AI, 5G, etc.

6. 2019 Watershed Events
• Oculus Quest Released
• HoloLens 2 released
• Apple announces 2022 Target for its AR HMD
• Magic Leap gets down to business (ML2 pushed to 2021)
• Qualcomm X2 865 platform for MR
• First 5G activations
• RIP ODG, Meta, Blippar

7. Wild Cards
• Sony – The Leader in VR
• Snap Specs – Still sexy the third time
• nReal – Impressive hardware at the price, but content …?
• Facebook AR – Lot of ways this can go
• Huawei – 2021 device announced
• Samsung – They will try to keep up with Apple.

8. A wealth creation event larger
than the internet.
Introducing Charlie’s Pretend Venture Fund

9. “North Stars”
• Technology succeeds when it takes what we’re already
doing and makes it better, faster and less expensive.
• People are the killer app.
• We overestimate the short term, and underestimate
the long term.

10. Focus Areas
• Volumetric Content, Capture, Photogrammetry
• Training and Simulation
• AR Cloud, Mirrorworlds
• Cameras, Sensors, IoT
• Hearables, Wearables. Audio
• Web XR & Tools

11. Volumetric Content, Capture,
Photogrammetry, Telepresence
• Platforms need content
• Display Tech
• Capture
• Compression
• Spatial Telepresence
• Enterprise

12. Training and Simulation
• Knowledge Capture
• Training, Simulation
• Remote Experts
• Work Instructions
• Warehousing & Logistics
• Medicine

13. AR Cloud & Mirrorworlds
• AR Cloud
• Universal Visual Browser
• World Mesh (Painted with Data)
• Digital Twins
• Maps, SLAM

14. Iot, Sensors, Cameras
• Cameras, Sensors
• Hearables
• Wearables
• Fitbit
• 3D Displays

15. Hearables, Wearables, Audio
• AR does not have to be seen to be heard
• Don’t underestimate sound
• Voice UX
• Alexa, Google
• Audio + sensors

16. Web XR & Tools
• 3D scans of everything and everyone
• 3D CMS systems
• Web XR tools
• Codeless programming

17. What to expect from the 2020 - 2025
• Still the beginning
• These are all preliminary, interim devices
• Enterprise hits inflection point
• Smartphones continue to dominate AR
• Games & Ads will dominate consumer content revenue
• AR HMDs for consumers start slow, iterate fast
• A lot of people are going to get rich

18. OTL Exclusive: Free e book and 50% off paper
Use Code FINK3 at Convergencear.com

19. Thank you!!
Follow me @charliefink