What an Augmented World
Uncanny Valley | WIRED
WIRED
4.1 • 570 Ratings
🗓️ 12 November 2021
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mark Zuckerberg may be busy pushing the idea of augmented and virtual reality worlds, but he is far from the first to start imaging them. Niantic CEO John Hanke heads the company that created Pokemon Go, the mobile game that was one of the first massive AR hits. Hanke has been augmenting reality for years now, and he says that his vision to bring people together in the real world is more egalitarian than Facebook's.
This week on Gadget Lab, we welcome WIRED editor at large Steven Levy, who spoke to Hanke about how Niantic is countering Facebook's vision of the metaverse. Then Lauren talks with Bobby Murphy, the cofounder and CTO of Snap, and AR and VR developer Brielle Garcia, who makes lenses for Snap Spectacles about their vision for our augmented future.
Show Notes
Read Steven’s interview with Niantic CEO John Hanke here. Visit the Augmented World Expo at awe.live, and watch videos of the 2021 expo on YouTube.
Recommendations
Steven recommends the Andover SpinBase, a $299 speaker made for use with record players. Mike recommends the YouTube cooking channel, “De Mi Rancho a Tu Cocina.” Lauren recommends the “Maybe You Should Go Outside” episode of The Cut podcast.
Steven Levy can be found on Twitter @StevenLevy. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Mike. |
| 0:01.1 | Lauren. |
| 0:01.8 | We've been talking a lot about Facebook lately, and I'm just wondering if maybe it's time for a break. |
| 0:07.3 | You do not have to twist my arm. |
| 0:10.1 | Here's the thing, though. |
| 0:11.7 | I can't promise we're not going to talk about the metaverse. |
| 0:15.2 | Maybe. |
| 0:16.0 | But like maybe from a slightly different perspective. |
| 0:19.0 | Should I say snap out of the Metaverse or something like that? |
| 0:23.5 | Yeah, that's that's a good one. We're going to get to that. |
| 0:32.9 | Hi everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior writer at Wired. And I am Michael |
| 0:37.8 | Kalori, a senior editor at Wired. And we're joined this week by Wired Editor at Large, Stephen |
| 0:42.7 | Levy. Steven, thanks for joining us. Oh, it's my pleasure. Your background on Zoom looks really |
| 0:47.8 | idyllic. It's like a fall foliage scene. Where are you? Well, it's actually where I'm not. It's a folion scene from my |
| 0:58.5 | house in western Massachusetts, but at the moment I'm in Palo Alto. Got it. Okay, so the |
| 1:03.4 | metaverse is the Berkshires. Yes. Okay, so there's been a lot of talk about the metaverse |
| 1:09.5 | lately, including on this podcast, but we promise we're going to make it worth your while. |
| 1:14.7 | Facebook, excuse me, meta, has been pitching this idea of a virtual reality experience where you strap on a headset. |
| 1:21.4 | You just completely caught off access to the real world, but you're supposed to have this really immersive computing experience. |
| 1:27.3 | Some technologists, though, |
| 1:28.4 | are seeing this as a step too far or a little too dystopian and have wanted to offer a different |
| 1:33.8 | vision of this hyper-futuristic world. So take SNAP, for example, yes, the maker of Snapchat, |
... |
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