What an Augmented World

What an Augmented World

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.

If you have feedback about the show, or just want to enter to win a $50 gift card, take our brief listener survey here.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jaksot(426)

Thinking Different About Apple AI

Thinking Different About Apple AI

This week, Apple executives used the keynote address of the company’s annual developers conference to debut all of the artificial intelligence capabilities that are coming to iPhones, iPads, and Macs....

13 Kesä 202442min

Learning to Live With Google's AI Overviews

Learning to Live With Google's AI Overviews

Google has spent the past year lustily rolling out AI features across its platforms. But with each launch, it is becoming more clear that some of these so-called enhancements should have simmered a li...

6 Kesä 202431min

The Weird World of an AI Clickbait King

The Weird World of an AI Clickbait King

Domain names have value, even when the websites that were once hosted there are shut down or abandoned. Prospectors will often swoop in and snatch up an unused domain, then erect a new website filled ...

30 Touko 202438min

Everyone's Pumped About Heat Pumps

Everyone's Pumped About Heat Pumps

People everywhere are hot for heat pumps. These electric appliances—which perform the same heating and cooling tasks as traditional HVAC systems, just much more efficiently—have been outselling gas fu...

23 Touko 202437min

The End of Google Search As We Know It

The End of Google Search As We Know It

Google held its annual I/O developer event this week. The company gathered software developers, business partners, and folks from the technology press at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, Calif...

16 Touko 202436min

How Black Twitter Defined Culture

How Black Twitter Defined Culture

For all the influence Twitter has had on our culture, no community there has made quite as much impact as Black Twitter. The virtual community grew from a loose online hangout to an influential cultur...

9 Touko 202435min

Thinking About Buying a Hybrid Car? Listen Up

Thinking About Buying a Hybrid Car? Listen Up

Back in March, the US Environmental Protection Agency finalized a long in the works rule requiring automakers here to dramatically increase the number of battery-powered vehicles they’re putting on th...

2 Touko 202429min

We Demystify the Internet's Acronyms

We Demystify the Internet's Acronyms

Do you know what TCP/IP means? (Hint: you’re using it right now.) What about CDMA? Or GPT? While the concepts and the execution of these technologies are clear to most of us who have been on the inter...

25 Huhti 202446min