Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1501472
8 OPINION 15.6.2023 Stepping into virtual or augmented reality George Mangion George Mangion is a senior partner at PKF, an audit and consultancy firm, and has over 25 years' experience in accounting, taxation, financial and consultancy services. His efforts have made PKF instrumental in establishing many companies in Malta and established PKF as a leading professional financial service provider on the Island A pple has announced the long-awaited headset, which will be called Vision Pro. e first model is expensive but many expect that one day in the not-so-distant future we will see a cheaper headset. is is expect- ed to arrive in 2025. Apple is referring to the headset as its "first spatial computer" with a big emphasis on how a user will be able to stay present in the physical world while wearing it. Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke about how the Vision Pro ushers in "the beginning of a new era for computing." Apple's first headset costs several thousand dollars but children are not the only ones excit- ed about "extended reality", a category which includes both fully immersive vir- tual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), in which computer imagery is su- perimposed onto users' view of the world around them. Nearly every big technology firm is rushing to develop a VR or ar headset, convinced that what has long been a niche market may be on the brink of becoming something much larger. e initial mar- ket for VR sets, though, is corporate, rath- er than retail. Early customers are expect- ed to include organisations that already use VR for training and want to improve the experience: medical schools teaching operating techniques to surgeons, for ex- ample, estate agents, or workshops that repair jet engines. Another use might be to permit collab- oration between engineers living in dif- ferent parts of the world. People working on a new car, say, could meet in a virtual laboratory, tinker with virtual compo- nents, and pass around virtual copies of their designs. Smartphones, computers and the touchscreens now proliferating in vehicles, fast-food venues and so on could all benefit from a bit of haptic feedback. One notable example is Aito, a firm based in Amsterdam. It produces haptic systems for laptops and other digital de- vices. ese employ actuators based on piezoelectric materials, which shrink or expand in response to a voltage, produc- ing a slight movement. is means piezo materials can be employed both as actua- tors and as sensors. Competitors of Apple include Meta and Microsoft. Meta, has sold 10m or so Quest 2 devices in the past 18 months; Cambria, with its more advanced head- set, is coming this year. Microsoft is pitch- ing its pricier HoloLens 2 to businesses. Google is working on a set of goggles known as Iris. Since buying Oculus, a headset-maker, for $2bn in 2014, Meta has captured the market, with 80% of VR sales by volume in 2021. Pico, a headset-maker owned by ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese owner, is doing well in its home market, where Meta is banned. Meta's VR strategy still revolves around adverts. Quoting George Jijiashvili of Omdia, a firm of analysts, Meta is selling headsets as fast as it can in order to build an au- dience for advertisers. e downside of their slender styling is a battery life of 30 minutes and a tendency to overheat. e top seller in 2021 was Microsoft's HoloLens 2, a $3,500 device used by big clients including America's armed forces (whose order for 100,000 pairs provoked complaints from Microsoft staff that they "did not sign up to develop weapons"). Despite VR's dominance of the headset space, ar sparks more excitement about mass adoption. Even with Meta's relentless promotion of virtual concerts, office meet- ings and more, few people use VR for an- ything other than gaming. Apple's recent unveiling of its VR headset will give a taste of the ar experience. ese first products are said to be aimed at designers and other creative professionals, rather like its high- end Macintosh computers. "Apple's ability to drive adoption is prob- ably unparalleled in the market," says Mark Shmulik of Bernstein, a broker. It will hope to do brisk business in China, giving it an edge over Meta. e big ques- tion is whether headsets can go beyond gamers and professionals, and become a true tech platform rather than just an ac- cessory. Today's ar and VR gear is good at solving "very specific pain-points", says Tony Fadell, a former Apple execu- tive who helped develop the iPhone. Mr Fadell thinks, headsets will be a bit like smart watches, popular but not revolu- tionary in the way the smartphone has been. Experts agree that headsets will not fully replace phones, just as phones have not done away with desktop computers. But, computing has become more per- sonal and over thirty years has moved from the mainframe, to the desktop, to the palm of the hand. e next step, he believes, is for computing to be "overlaid on the world around you" by ar. Desktop computing was mainly about information processing, and smartphones were main- ly about communication. In this scenario, headsets could be part of a broader ecosystem of wearable technology that draws consumers' at- tention — and spending power—away from the smartphones that have mo- nopolized them for the past years. With smart watches, smart earphones and, soon, smart spectacles, the phone could become personal computing's back office rather than its primary interface. How can we as a small country contrib- ute to this technological advance? e problem with us is we are peripheral to the software world. We lost many oppor- tunities when our national contribution to research and development is weak and sporadic. e setting of MCST 10 years ago was a right step headed by a chairperson ( a dentist- now retired ) and little contribu- tion was registered on any international scientific breakthrough. Again, Malta Enterprise does not oblige assisted companies which settled locally to bring their IP. In this way, little or no top research is captured in our shores. But it is not all doom and gloom. Research in and production of electron- ic components have been identified as areas that need public support to ensure that the entire microelectronics value chain is reliably available to all Europe- an players. It is good news indeed that a Malta-based international company has qualified for substantial financial support at the EU levels. STMicroelectronics (ST) is a global semiconductor company making micro- chips embedded in a host of advanced products from giant machines used in factories to the ordinary toothbrush you use every night. It operates manufactur- ing sites in several countries, having first set foot in Malta more than 40 years ago. e EU is doing the right thing by adopt- ing similar US strategies to build excellent microelectronics facilities in the Union. Can we join the band wagon of revolu- tionary countries that have given us the likes of augmented and/or virtual reality marvels.