The New 3D Apple Arriving at WWDC

> When I worked at Microsoft I got in trouble with the lawyers over patents so they made me sleep with a lawyer (true story, that was my punishment).

From the evidence, it was the lawyer who was being punished

Apple has registered wild 3D related patents since forever; for example https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.macrumors.com/2012/01/12/ap...

So the newer one on the front page just got flagged, I guess because of this one? I missed it though and thought this was interesting, so transplanting my comment:

Neat piece, and interesting to start to see some numbers attached to Apple working on it. The disruption that wearable displays will bring has been so obvious for 5-10 years now that I've been assuming that of course Apple and other players just have to see it coming, but established businesses have managed to be caught off guard plenty of times before or refused to kill their existing cash cows to go after the future. Wearable displays will ultimately mean the end of the iPhone (and other form factors) in the same way the iPhone ended the iPod, and Apple in particular is heavily dependent on the stuff that will become obsolete. They're in principle in a good place to navigate it, but the massive investment is certainly necessary and justified anyway.

It is a bit worrying though that the vertical integration might get even worse. There is no inherent reason there shouldn't be industry standards for at least some lowest common denominator of generalized screen replacement, but so far we're seeing a lot of silos which stinks. It's sobering how much of the openness and standardization of the PC industry essentially came down to luck and certain moments in history. It'll take real work to bring that through this next shift.

> Next year, when the VR/AR headset comes out, I will be buying one for each member of my family. As we wear these devices in our living room, playing new kinds of games or watching a new kind of TV together, we will also be able to talk to each other (and, because of the high bandwidth, even send full 3D meshes back and forth) in the real world due to this new network.

I 'm pretty sure they can do that without glasses too.

Of all those speculative products, none of them can be carried around for social signaling so i dunno.