Ken's Blog

There seems to be a lot of debate these days about which is “better” — the Apple Vision Pro or the Meta Quest 3. To me it seems odd to compare a $3500 device and a $500 device.

On the other hand, there is an argument to be made that the low end device is categorically more important than the high end device. Consider a rough analogy.

In the 1950s one could ask which was “better” — a new-fangled high end stereo hi-fi system or a new-fangled transistor radio. Both were technologies for delivering music to music lovers, but other than that, they couldn’t have been more different.

To me the answer is obvious. One was a fancy toy for rich people. The other got into the hands of young people everywhere, and changed everything.

I usually travel on a budget airline. You can get in-flight Internet, but you need to pay for it. I never do.

If the Internet were free, I would likely spend the entire time answering emails and working on various on-line documents. Most of the time this is an obligation, and not particularly enjoyable.

So instead, since I am off the grid for a few hours, I program, which is something I really love to do. I usually end up creating something cool and fun, and also productive, in that uninterrupted alone time.

What I save by taking a budget airline cannot be counted in dollars. Having time free from obligations is in many ways more valuable than money.

As Thoreau said, “The world is too much with us.” And he didn’t even have the Internet.

Three great writers — P.G. Wodehouse, Mario Puzo and Italo Calvino — were all born on this day, October 15. All were brilliant, yet they were as different as different could be.

Which gets me to wondering: If the three of them had collaborated, what novelistic work of mad genius would they have produced together?

The irony is not lost on me. While my current research is in mixed reality, I spent most of today happily organizing the literally thousands of books in my new office — books that I have accumulated over the course of decades.

Yet it will all come together in future reality. One day, not too long from now, I will be looking at all of those books on my bookshelves, while wearing my mixed reality glasses.

I will be able to mention an author, or topic, or favorite literary phrase, or an abstract concept. And then I will see various books on the shelf light up in response, letting me know that they contain the answers I seek.

I will have the option to take a book down from the shelf and flip to the page that my A.I. assistant suggests. Or I can opt to simply see the relevant contents of the book floating in front of me, perhaps in the form of an A.I. created animation.

This will all seem perfectly normal. And we will wonder how people in earlier times managed to live without it.

The 13th of Friday’s supposed to be spooky
But the whole superstition is just kind of kooky
Why should a day of the week like a Friday
Be treated like it’s something special like PI Day?
My Fridays are chill, they are kind of like Sundays
The scariest days of my work week are Mondays
Being scared of a Friday is just not my scene
I think I will wait till we reach Halloween

Today I thought of two classic movies. In A Face in the Crowd the true character of Lonesome Rhodes is eventually revealed, and the world discovers what a shallow, egotistical, self-centered jerk their hero is.

In The Dead Zone we eventually learn that charismatic presidential candidate Greg Stillson is a coward. In both cases, it took a situation of crisis for the truth to come out.

The horrific mass slaughter of civilians in Israel by Hamas this week seems to have had a similar effect of revealing true character here in the United States. President Joe Biden rose to the occasion with sensitivity and intelligence, delivering a brilliant speech of support for our ally in the Middle East, and following it up with action.

The former guy, not so much. Trump’s response was ugly, divisive, sneeringly insulting, and shockingly tone deaf, given the horror and tragedy of the situation.

It was as though he was auditioning for the role of Lonesome Rhodes. Then again, he’s been doing that for years.

The events of the last week in Israel were horrific and tragic. Yet in the way that they revealed the true character of these U.S. presidential candidates, they may also very well swing the outcome of our own coming election.

This evening I started developing on the Quest 3 at home. Seeing virtual objects in my apartment, with decent video passthrough, was a revelation.

As I walked around my living room, I could see the things that I had created from all different directions. From a sensory perspective, this definitely kicked things up a notch.

I can easily imagine a time, not too long from now, when virtual things will simply live with us at home. We will take for granted that they are there, the way we take for granted that our couch or bookshelf is there.

And then the possibilities will be endless. It’s going to be a whole new ballgame.

Today I unpacked my new Met Quest 3, and started playing with it. It is even better than I had thought it would be, in every way.

Coincidentally, about an hour before the Quest 3 arrived, I was meeting with one of my students, and the topic of extended reality came up. I told him about something that I used to say in talks I gave about 20 years ago.

I would say back then that one day we would be able to seamlessly integrate CGI into our everyday lives. And I would add that whenever that day finally game, it would be the beginning of the age of computer graphics.

Welcome to the dawn of the age of computer graphics.

Today I was flying into LaGuardia airport, and on a whim I took out my smartphone and opened up Google maps. From that point until landing, I happily tracked all the locations that we were flying over, identifying many interesting places in the vicinity of New York City that I had never before thought about.

It was definitely an enriching experience. I only wonder why I had never thought to do it before.

I realize that in a few years the smartphone won’t be necessary. I will just be able to look out of the window of a plane while wearing my smart glasses, and the map, with the style and filters of my choosing, will be superimposed directly on reality itself.

Currently there is a general idea that either you are conversing with a human or else you are conversing with a chatBot that is faking being a human. But what will happen after that binary distinction no longer makes sense?

Eventually, people will use A.I. to augment their conversation in more granular ways. I may start a thought but then let my A.I., which has been trained on my writings and thought processes, fill out the details.

This is already happening to some extent. Students are using ChatGPT as a helper when writing essays. The resulting essay isn’t entirely written by either student or computer, but rather by a combination of the two.

At some point, when the technology is there to support it, this mode of operation will begin to work its way into even the most casual and spontaneous conversations. I wonder whether that will be a good thing or a bad thing.