Augmented reality has long promised to change our digital experiences, but performance and cost have always delayed its arrival. Now, the team behind the Spacetop computer is proposing to reintroduce AR as a direct replacement for a traditional panel. Their main advantage? The virtual projection creates a 100-inch screen, removing any natural restriction of the laptop format.
Modern laptops face a design crisis. Users want lightweight systems, fast hardware, huge screens, and good battery life, but those parameters lead to a balancing nightmare. Finding that balance is a very complex task, and major manufacturers have failed more than once.
With that in mind, we meet Sightful, a company founded by Tamir Berliner (current CEO) and Tomer Kahan (COO), both former Magic Leap employees. If that name sounds familiar, it's because Magic Leap is one of the most important players in augmented reality, and that's definitely Sightful's bet for its first product: the Spacetop laptop. What's different? Basically, it replaces the traditional screen with augmented reality glasses, generating a virtual 100-inch panel.
Berliner is convinced that people want larger screens, but they end up buying 14-inch laptops for the compact format. Spacetop aims to offer the best of both worlds with a design very similar to other headless computers. The device includes a webcam, and the glasses connect via cable. The reported resolution is 1080p per eye, lower than what we find in VR headsets, but it should be enough for a "desktop experience".
What do we know about the laptop's hardware? For now, it will use an ARM platform based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 with built-in 5G connectivity, and five hours of battery. The operating system is AOSP (Android), and apparently there are no plans to adopt Windows. In fact, the Spacetop will have a relatively limited launch, with a total of one thousand units distributed via invitation/early access.
The Spacetop is certainly different, and the idea of generating a 100-inch screen in front of our eyes is very attention-grabbing, but will it be enough to turn augmented reality into mainstream? The $2,000 price is undoubtedly an obstacle, however, we hope to see more about this project.
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