Lenovo

Strange, unique, and otherwise noteworthy PCs and PC accessories from CES 2025

Acer, ASUS, cases, CES 2025, inwin, Lenovo, NUC, PCs, steam deck, Tech / Rejus Almole / January 10, 2025

i respect and applaud the effort

Most of these experiments don’t stick around for long, but who knows.

Acer’s Nitro Blaze 11, which takes the “portable” out of “portable handheld gaming PC.” Credit: Acer

The Consumer Electronics Show is a reliable source of announcements about iterative updates to PCs and PC components. A few of those announcements are significant enough in some way that they break through all that noise—Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs and their lofty promises about AI-generated frames did that this year, as did Dell’s decision to kill multiple decades-old PC brands and replace them with a bland series of “Pro/Premium/Plus” tiers.

But CES is also a place where PC companies and accessory makers get a little weird, taking some bigger (and occasionally questionable) swings alongside a big batch of more predictable incremental refreshes. As we’ve covered the show from afar this year, here are some of the more notable things we’ve seen.

Put an E-Ink screen on it: Asus NUC 14 Pro AI+

The NUC 14 Pro AI+ finds a way to combine E-Ink, AI, and turn-of-the-millennium translucent plastic into a single device. Credit: Asus

The strangest CES PCs are usually the ones that try to pull away from “a single screen attached to a keyboard” in some way. Sometimes, those PCs have a second screen stashed somewhere; sometimes, they have a screen that stretches; sometimes, they get rid of the keyboard part and extend the screen down where you expect that keyboard to be.

Asus is currently the keeper of Intel’s old NUC mini PC line, and this year it’s updating the NUCs mostly by putting new processors in them. But the Asus NUC 14 Pro AI+ also decides to spice things up by adding a color E-Ink display on top, one with images that can display persistently even when the device is off.

While other PCs with shoehorned-in E-Ink displays have at least tried to do something functional—older laptops in Lenovo’s ThinkBook Plus series could be used as E-Ink tablets when they were closed—the screen on the NUC 14 Pro AI+ seems strictly ornamental. Asus offers few details about how it works: “users can generate AI images through the built-in app, allowing them to create unique personal identification designs that continuously display content without being plugged in, consuming no power.”

All of Asus’ product shots show the NUC with the same pattern of abstract triangles displayed on the top, so it’s unclear whether users will have the option to use custom non-AI-generated images, or if they’ll be able to use the screen to display any other kind of system information. It’s unique, at least.

Stretching out: Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

We wrote about the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable already this week, so we won’t dedicate a ton of extra space to it here. But its stretchable screen, which expands vertically from 14 inches to 16.7 inches, is an interesting riff on the “one laptop, multiple screens” idea. Some pictures of the laptop look vaguely Photoshopped, like someone grabbed the top of the screen and stretched it out.

Other laptops have put a second screen beneath the hinge under a removable keyboard and a second screen that folds out horizontally. The new ThinkBook keeps the portrait orientation, but it has a traditional non-removable keyboard in the base. One day, maybe Lenovo will hit a ThinkBook Plus screen idea that it likes well enough to keep for more than a generation or two.

A time for reflection: InWin Prism PC case

The InWin Prism case has mirrored glass side panels, so you can see everything inside your PC and also everything outside your PC.

Seeing what pre-built weirdness the PC companies can come up with is always fun, but I live for the PC case ideas that companies bring to CES. Maybe you’re using weird materials like fabric or wood paneling. Maybe you’re making a case that looks like a shark, or a giant shoe. I probably won’t buy any of these things, but I sure do like looking at them.

The most eye-catching entry into this genre from CES 2025 is from InWin, which has also given us hits like this case with addressable RGB lights all over its entire front panel. The InWin Prism midtower uses two-way mirror panels on its sides—if you’ve already got a PC filled with busy RGB lights, the Prism makes things look even busier by also reflecting everything in your room back at you.

The pristine press shots of this one don’t really do it justice; photos from Tom’s Hardware of the case on the show floor do a better job of conveying just how chaotic this thing looks in person.

Feeling exposed: MSI Project Zero X case

MSI’s Project Zero X concept case achieves a clean look by using back-connect motherboards. It’s very glassy. Credit: MSI

If the Prism is a PC case that looks a little too visible, MSI’s Project Zero X is the opposite, with glass that wraps around the back, front, left side, and top of the case to show off everything inside to an even greater degree than most windowed cases.

This is a follow-up to the original Project Zero concept case, which wasn’t quite as glassy. The (relatively) unique thing about both cases is that they’re designed around motherboards with all their various connectors on the back side—often referred to as “back-connect” motherboards. The power plugs, fan and USB headers, power button, and everything else you need to plug cables into when you install a motherboard are all facing the opposite direction from your CPU socket, RAM slots, and PCI Express cards.

The point is to make it easier to create clean, show-off-able builds without as much cable management hassle, which is why you’d combine it with a case that shows your motherboard off from every side but the back.

A roommate for your gaming PC: MSI MEG MAESTRO 900L PZ

The MSI MEG MAESTRO 900L PZ can fit a full-size E-ATX build and a mini ITX build into the same case at the same time? Because why not? Credit: MSI

MSI also makes the cut for the MEG MAESTRO 900L PZ. This is a hulking monstrosity of a PC case that can, for some reason, fit an E-ATX motherboard, an ITX motherboard, and the power supplies, fans, and GPUs for both systems in the same case at the same time.

Maybe it’s a nice way to bring a spare or loaner system with you to a LAN party or an e-sports competition? But it looks and sounds like the kind of thing that requires team lifting to move around.

Building a bigger Steam Deck

Acer’s Nitro Blaze 11, which takes the “portable” out of “portable handheld gaming PC.” Credit: Acer

Clones of Valve’s handheld Steam Deck gaming PC have become a product category unto themselves, and companies like Asus and Lenovo are already a couple of generations deep into their own versions. One of Lenovo’s is the first non-Steam Deck to officially run Steam OS, a sign that Valve could once again be ready to make a move against Windows.

And when the PC companies see what they think of as a new market opportunity, the race for differentiation begins, with occasionally silly results.

Enter the Acer Nitro Blaze 11, which looks like a mostly conventional handheld with Nintendo Switch-style detachable controllers but with a huge 11-inch screen (the OLED Steam Deck is 7.4 inches, and other Deck-alikes mostly land between seven and nine inches). At 2.3 pounds, the Blaze 11 pushes the boundaries of what can reasonably be considered “handheld.” It also has a Switch-style kickstand for propping it up on a desk or table, which feels like an admission that you might not want to be holding the thing all the time.

All of that said, “take a thing people already like and make it bigger/smaller” has been a fairly reliable path to success in PCs, phones, and other tech over the last couple of decades. Maybe an 11-inch “handheld” won’t seem so weird a few years from now.

A “keyboard for writers”

The Wordrunner is “the first mechanical keyboard for writers,” or at least it will be if its Kickstarter takes off. Credit: Freewrite

This one’s for all the writers out there who believe that they’re just one equipment purchase away from having a perfect, productive, distraction-free writing setup.

Freewrite is known primarily for its smart typewriters, keyboards that are attached to small monochrome LCD or E-Ink displays that promise to be “dedicated drafting tools” that “maximize your productivity.

This year, they’ve unveiled a PC keyboard billed as “the first mechanical keyboard designed for writers.” The Wordrunner has a function row of shortcut keys that will be useful to writers navigating their way through a document, plus a built-in timer and word counter for the times when you just need to pull words out of your brain and you can go back and edit them into cohesive thoughts later.

I do enjoy a keyboard with extraneous knobs and doodads, which makes the mechanical “wordometer” particularly appealing to me. Unfortunately, as of this writing the Wordrunner is still in a primordial, pre-Kickstarter state of development. If you’re interested, you can put down $1 now, so you can get early bird Kickstarter pricing in February, and you might get a keyboard at some point several months or years in the future. Freewrite is, at least, an established company with several products under its belt, so we wouldn’t be too worried about this project vanishing without a trace as so many Kickstarter efforts do.

Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue.

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Lenovo laptop’s rollable screen uses motors to grow from 14 to 16.7 inches

CES, CES 2025, foldable, laptops, Lenovo, oled, Tech / Kris Guyer / January 7, 2025

Lenovo announced a laptop today that experiments with a new way to offer laptop users more screen space than the typical clamshell design. The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable has a screen that can roll up vertically to expand from 14 inches diagonally to 16.7 inches, presenting an alternative to prior foldable-screen and dual-screen laptops.

Here you can see the PC’s backside when the screen is extended. Lenovo

The laptop, which Lenovo says is coming out in June, builds on a concept that Lenovo demoed in February 2023. That prototype had a Sharp-made panel that initially measured 12.7 inches but could unroll to present a total screen size of 15.3 inches. Lenovo’s final product is working with a bigger display from Samsung Display, The Verge reported. Resolution-wise you’re going from 2,000×1,600 pixels (about 183 pixels per inch) to 2,000×2,350 (184.8 ppi), the publication said.

Users make the screen expand by pressing a dedicated button on the keyboard or by making a hand gesture at the PC’s webcam. Expansion entails about 10 seconds of loud whirring from the laptop’s motors. Lenovo executives told The Verge that the laptop was rated for at least 20,000 rolls up and down and 30,000 hinge openings and closings.

The system can also treat the expanded screens as two different 16:9 displays.

This is a clever way to offer a dual-screen experience without the flaws inherent to current dual-screen laptops, including distracting hinges and designs with questionable durability. However, 16.7 inches is a bit small for two displays. The dual-screen Lenovo Yoga Book 9i, for comparison, previously had two 13.3-inch displays for a total of 26.6 inches, and this year’s model has two 14-inch screens. Still, the ThinkBook, when its screen is fully expanded, is the rare laptop to offer a screen that’s taller than it is wide.

Still foldable OLED

At first, you might think that since the screen is described as “rollable” it may not have the same visible creases that have tormented foldable-screen devices since their inception. But the screen, reportedly from Samsung Display, still shows “little curls visible in the display, which are more obvious when it’s moving and there’s something darker onscreen,” as well as “plenty of smaller creases along its lower half” that aren’t too noticeable when using the laptop but that are clear when looking at the screen closely or when staring at it “from steeper angles,” The Verge reported.

Lenovo laptop’s rollable screen uses motors to grow from 14 to 16.7 inches Read More »

Meta debuts Horizon OS, with Asus, Lenovo, and Microsoft on board

ASUS, Horizon OS, Instagram, Lenovo, mark zuckerberg, Meta, meta quest, Mixed Reality, Republic of Gamers, rog, Tech, xbox, Xbox Cloud Streaming, Xbox Game Pass / Mike M. / April 23, 2024

Face Operating Systems —

Rivalry with Apple now mirrors the Android/iOS competition more than ever.

Samuel Axon – Apr 22, 2024 9: 19 pm UTC

Enlarge / The Meta Quest Pro at a Best Buy demo station in October 2022.

Meta will open up the operating system that runs on its Quest mixed reality headsets to other technology companies, it announced today.

What was previously simply called Quest software will be called Horizon OS, and the goal will be to move beyond the general-use Quest devices to more purpose-specific devices, according to an Instagram video from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

There will be headsets focused purely on watching TV and movies on virtual screens, with the emphasis on high-end OLED displays. There will also be headsets that are designed to be as light as possible at the expense of performance for productivity and exercise uses. And there will be gaming-oriented ones.

The announcement named three partners to start. Asus will produce a gaming headset under its Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand, Lenovo will make general purpose headsets with an emphasize on “productivity, learning, and entertainment,” and Xbox and Meta will team up to deliver a special edition of the Meta Quest that will come bundled with an Xbox controller and Xbox Cloud Gaming and Game Pass.

Users running Horizon OS devices from different manufacturers will be able to stay connected in the operating system’s social layer of “identities, avatars, social graphs, and friend groups” and will be able to enjoy shared virtual spaces together across devices.

The announcement comes after Meta became an early leader in the relatively small but interesting consumer mixed reality space but with diminishing returns on new devices as the market saturates.

Further, Apple recently entered the fray with its Vision Pro headset. The Vision Pro is not really a direct competitor to Meta’s Quest devices today—it’s far more expensive and loaded with higher-end tech—but it may only be the opening volley in a long competition between the companies.

Meta’s decision to make Horizon OS a more open platform for partner OEMs in the face of Apple’s usual focus on owning and integrating as much of the software, hardware, and services in its device as it can mirrors the smartphone market. There, Google’s Android (on which Horizon OS is based) runs on a variety of devices from a wide range of companies, while Apple’s iOS runs only on Apple’s own iPhones.

Meta also says it is working on a new spatial app framework to make it easier for developers with experience on mobile to start making mixed reality apps for Horizon OS and that it will start “removing the barriers between the Meta Horizon Store and App Lab, which lets any developer who meets basic technical and content requirements release software on the platform.”

Pricing, specs, and release dates have not been announced for any of the new devices. Zuckerberg admitted it’s “probably going to take a couple of years” for this ecosystem of hardware devices to roll out.

Meta debuts Horizon OS, with Asus, Lenovo, and Microsoft on board Read More »

Laptops’ 2023 quantum leap: 5 computers we’ll still be talking about in 2024

Apple, ASUS, Features, laptops, Lenovo, Tech / Paul Patrick / December 23, 2023

hand reaching for laptop, with blue swirls in the background

You’ll never uncover The Next Great Thing if you don’t deviate from the norm. When looking back at 2023’s laptops, we can see that many were merely refreshed designs—approaches that already work. But what happens when a company explores a design that, though not the most appealing today, might lead us to a new trend tomorrow?

You might end up with some computers that many, or even most, people aren’t currently interested in buying. But you could also end up glimpsing the designs that influence future laptops.

The laptops we’re about to look at all defied trends in some way, and we’re curious to see if they impact the laptop industry beyond 2023. We’ll also look at the challenges these ideas might face in the future—and some ways they could improve.

Lenovo’s laptop with dual 13.3-inch screens

A company called SZBOX is already selling a similar design, and I don’t think it’ll be the last.

Scharon Harding
I was able to multitask like never before on a 13-inch-size laptop.

Scharon Harding
Lenovo’s depiction of the Yoga Book 9i’s various forms. There has to be a useful idea somewhere in there, right?

Lenovo

With the number of secondary screens already being built into laptops, Lenovo’s Yoga Book 9i, as striking as it appears, was a somewhat expected progression. But Lenovo actually pulled it off with a legitimate PC featuring most of the bells and whistles found among traditional premium laptops. With the design serving practical use cases in an improved form factor, I expect it to not only be imitated (one small firm is already selling a laptop like this) but to also give the concept of foldable-screen laptops a good run for their money.

The Yoga Book 9i, with its pair of 13.3-inch OLED screens, isn’t kicking off this list solely because it’s creative, flashy, or unique. It’s because, as detailed in our Lenovo Yoga Book 9i review, it proved itself an effective way to boost the amount of multitasking one can reasonably do on a 13-inch-size laptop. Lenovo’s revision of how to use a 13-inch chassis could improve options down the line for the many people seeking that golden area between ultra-portability and productivity potential.

On the Lenovo laptop’s 26.6 inches of cumulative screen, I was able to do the types of things that would only bring me frustration, if not a headache, on a single 13.3-inch panel. Want to take notes on a video call while monitoring your news feeds, having a chat window open, and keeping an eye on your email? That’s all remarkably manageable on a laptop with two full-size screens. And that PC is easier to lug around than a laptop and portable monitor.

What’s next?

The dual-screen setup worked well for small-laptop multitasking. But the polarizing lack of an integrated physical keyboard and touchpad challenge this form factor’s longevity. Easily accessible touchscreen controls are handy, but you can’t really replicate the reliable tactility and comfort of a keyboard and touchpad with touchscreens. A super portable laptop suddenly feels less portable when you have to remember to bring its accessories.

Still, I think this design has a place in the increasingly mobile world of computing. Future designs could improve with less reflective screens, given that reflectivity is especially distracting on a dual-screen laptop where one screen can cast reflections on the other.

Moving from OLED could help improve battery life to some degree. But, as you might have guessed, a laptop with two 13.3-inch OLED displays won’t be winning any laptop battery-life contests. Further, I wonder what price improvements could be made by foregoing OLED.

But many of the creative laptop designs these days opt for OLED, due to its high image quality, flexibility, and broad market appeal from more mainstream tech implementations, like OLED smartphones and TVs. This presents an ongoing price obstacle for a laptop design that already leans niche.

Laptops’ 2023 quantum leap: 5 computers we’ll still be talking about in 2024 Read More »

AWE USA 2023 Day Two: More Keynotes, More Panels, and the Open Expo Floor

8th wall, AR/VR events, augmented reality, Events, extended reality, featured, Lenovo, magic leap, metaverse, niantic, trending, XR Safety Initiative / Rejus Almole / June 3, 2023

The second day of AWE is the day that the expo floor opens. That is always thrilling, and we’ll get there, but first – more keynotes and conversations.

AWE Day Two Keynotes

Day One kickstarted the keynotes, but AWE Day Two saw exciting presentations and announcements from Magic Leap and Niantic. Both affirmed a theme from the day before: meaningful XR is already here.

Magic Leap: Let’s Get to Work

“The vision of AR that some legacy tech companies are promising is still years out, is not years or months or days out,” Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson said in her keynote. “The small team at Magic Leap has made something that many larger companies are still struggling to achieve.”

Peggy Johnson, Magic Leap's CEO AWE Day 2 — *Peggy Johnson*

Johnson also continued another theme from AWE Day One: AI and XR aren’t in competition – they help each other. Inbar’s opening talk included a line that quickly became a motto for almost the whole event: “XR is the interface for AI.”

“I honestly believe AR systems are going to become the endpoints for a lot of AI,” said Johnson. “The ability to provide contract input and get contextual output will really be a game changer.”

Magic Leap’s big announcement wasn’t to do with AI, but it will still be thrilling to developers: an Unreal Engine plugin is coming in August.

“AR Everywhere” With Niantic

While enterprise companies and hardware manufacturers are still struggling with adoption to since degree, few companies have done as much for AR consumer adoption as Niantic.

Brian McClendon Niantic Labs AWE Day 2 — *Brian McClendon*

In his AWE keynote, “Empowering AR Everywhere”, Niantic Senior Vice President of Engineering, Brian McClendon, laid out a number of major updates coming to the company – as well as coming to or through 8th Wall.

First, ARDK 3.0 will allow developers using Niantic tools to also use outside AR asset libraries. It will also enable a QR code-triggered “lobby system” for multi-user shared AR experiences. The updated ARDK will enter a beta phase later this month. A new maps SDK compatible with Unity is also coming to 8th Wall.

Further, 8th Wall’s “Metaversal Deployment” announced at AWE 2021 is now compatible with mixed reality via Quest 2, Quest Pro, “and probably all future MR headsets.”

Big Picture Panel Discussions

One of the things that really makes AWE special is its ability to bring together the industry’s big thinkers. A number of insightful panel discussions from Day Two explored some of the biggest topics in XR today.

XR’s Inflection Point

The panel discussion “How Immersive Storytelling Can Deepen Human Understanding of Critical Issues” brought together Unity CEO John Riccitiello, journalist Ashlan Cousteau, and TRIPP CEO and co-founder Nanea Reeves. The talk included further affirmations that, contrary to some media pieces, XR as an industry is thriving.

John Riccitiello, Ashlan Cousteau, Nanea Reeves - AWE Day 2 — *From left to right: John Riccitiello, Ashlan Cousteau, and Nanea Reeves*

“I now cancel what I said seven years ago about this not being a good time to build a business in this space,” said Riccitiello. “We’re at a time right now where it makes a lot of sense to look forward with optimism around XR. … Companies are born around technology transitions.”

Reeves echoed the sentiment, but included some of the cautious caveats expressed by XR ethicist Kent Bye during a panel discussion yesterday.

“We’re at such an interesting point of technology and the evolution of it, especially with AI and XR,” said Reeves. “What’s the next level of storytelling and what should we be aware of as we bring AI into it?”

Building Open Standards for the Metaverse

The good news is that the metaverse isn’t dead. The bad news is that it arguably hasn’t been born yet either. One of the most important features of the metaverse is also one of its most elusive.

It was also the crux of a panel discussion bringing together XR Safety Initiative founder and CEO Kavya Pearlman, XRSI Advisor Elizabeth Rothman, and Khronos Group President Neil Trevett, moderated by Moor Insights and Strategy Senior Analyst Anshel Sag.

Kavya Pearlman, Neil Trevett, Elizabeth Rothman, and Anshel Sag - AWE 2023 Day 2 — *From left to right: Kavya Pearlman, Neil Trevett, Elizabeth Rothman, and Anshel Sag*

“Whichever way you come to the metaverse, you need interoperability,” said Trevett. “It’s foundational.”

The panel also addresses the lasting and fleeting effects of the wave of attention that has seemingly passed over the metaverse.

“We go through these hype cycles and bubbles,” said Rothman. “There are always technological innovations that come out of them.”

The panel also addressed AI, an overarching theme of the conference. However, the panel brought up one concern with the technology that had not been addressed elsewhere.

“This convergence has a way more visceral impact on children’s brains even than social media,” said Pearlman.

So far, the “solution” to this problem has been for content publishers to age-restrict experiences. However, this approach has crucial shortcomings. First, most approaches to age restrictions aren’t foolproof. Second, when they are, this measure excludes young users rather than protecting them.

“We run the risk of regulating children right out of the metaverse,” said Rothman. “We need to strike a balance.”

Hitting the AWE Floor

I first started covering AWE during the pandemic when the entire conference was virtual. AWE is a lot more fun in-person but, practically speaking, the demos are the only component that can’t really happen remotely.

Meeting Wol

I actually met Wol in the Niantic Lounge before the very first session on Day One. While this is where arranging this content makes sense to me, Wol was possibly my first impression of AWE. And it was a good one. But wait, who’s Wol?

Niantic Lounge AWE 2023 — *Niantic Lounge*

Wol is a collaboration between 8th Wall, Liquid City, and InWorld AI. He’s an artificially intelligent character virtually embodied as an owl. His only job is to educate people about the Redwood Forest but he’s also passionate about mushrooms, fairies, and, well, you just have to meet him.

“Wol has a lot of personal knowledge about his own life, and he can talk to you about the forest through his own experience,” explained Liquid City Director Keiichi Matsuda. “Ultimately, Wol has a mind of its own and we can only provide parameters for it.”

Wol

I met Wol through the Quest Pro in passthrough AR via a portal that appeared in the room directly into the Redwoods – and, now that I think about it, this was the day before Niantic announced that 8th Wall supported Quest Pro MR. In any case, the whole experience was magical, and I can’t wait to get home and show it to the family.

Visiting Orlando via Santa Clara

Largely thanks to a group called the Orlando Economic Partnership, Orlando is quickly becoming a global epicenter of metaverse development. Just one of their many initiatives is an 800-square-mile virtual twin of the Orlando area. The digital twin has its own in-person viewing room in Orlando but it also exists in a more bite-size iteration that runs on a Quest 2.

“The idea was to showcase the entire region – all of its assets in terms of data points that we could present,” explained the OEP’s Director of Marketing and Communications Justin Braun. “It’s going to become a platform for the city to build on.”

I was able to see at AWE featured photorealistic 3D models of Orlando landmarks, complete with informational slides and quiz questions. The full version, which took 11 months, is a lot more fully featured. It just doesn’t fit in Braun’s backpack.

“At some point, this will be able to do things that are beneficial for the city and its utilities, like shower power outages,” said the OEP’s Chief Information Officer David Adelson. “It’s community-driven.”

Gathering Around the Campfire

I opened by saying that demos can’t be done remotely. I remotely demoed Campfire recently, but that was their desktop view. Campfire also offers tabletop and room-scale 3D interactions that require the company’s custom-made headset and markers. I got to try these solutions out hands-on when I reconnected with CEO and co-founder Jay Wright on the AWE floor.

campfire at AWE 2023 Day 2 — *Campfire at AWE USA 2023*

“The perception system is designed to do one thing very well, and that’s to make multi-user AR as high-fidelity as desktop,” said Wright. And they’ve done it.

Models and mockups that I viewed in mixed reality using Campfire’s hardware were beautifully rendered. The internet connectivity at AWE is notoriously spotty and, while the controller disconnected a few times, the display never skipped a beat.

Wright demonstrated the visor that switches Campfire from MR to VR on a virtually reconstructed art museum that I could view from above in a “dollhouse mode” or travel through in a 1:1 model. In addition to showcasing more hardware and software ease-of-use, it might have been the most graphically impressive showcase I’ve seen from XR hardware ever.

The Lenovo VRX

With Lenovo ThinkReality’s new headset announced the day before AWE started, this might be the record for the shortest passage of time between a headset releasing and my putting it on – and it’s all thanks to ARPost’s longtime Lenovo contact Bill Adams.

“We think we have one of the best passthrough headsets and most comfortable headsets in the industry,” said Adams, who made a gentleman’s wager that I would (finally) be able to see my notes through the Lenovo VRX.

I couldn’t read my writing, but I could tell where the writing was on the page – which, honestly, is enough. Having tried the same experiment on the Quest Pro earlier that day, I can back up what Adams said about the headset’s passthrough quality.

As for comfort, ditto. The headset features a removable overhead strap, but it was so comfortable that I forgot that the strap was there anyway. Switching from VR to passthrough is a simple button press.

Catching Up With Snap

The average user can have a great AR experience with just a phone, and the average creator can make a really advanced experience without creating their own app, according to Snap Senior Product Communications Manager Cassie Bumgarner.

Snap AR at AWE 2023 — *Snap at AWE 2023*

“There’s a lot of chatter on the hardware front, but what we want to show is that there’s so much more left to unlock on the mobile front,” said Bumgarner.

A Snap Lense made with QReal uses AI to identify LEGO bricks in a tub. A quick scan, and the lens recommends small models that can be made with the available pieces. Bumgarner and I still get the fun of digging out the pieces and assembling them, and then the app creates a virtual LEGO set to match our creation – in this case, a bathtub to go with the duck we made.

Snap bricks AWE 2023 Day 2

Of course, Snap has hardware too. On display at AWE, the company showed off the virtual try-on mirrors debuted at the Snap Partner Summit that took place in April.

One More Day of AWE

Two days down and there’s still so much to look forward to from AWE. The expo floor is still open tomorrow. There are no more keynotes, but that just means that there’s more time for panel discussions and insightful conversations. And don’t think we forgot about the Auggies. While most of the Auggies were awarded last evening, there are still three to be awarded.

AWE USA 2023 Day Two: More Keynotes, More Panels, and the Open Expo Floor Read More »

AWE USA 2023 Day One: XR, AI, Metaverse, and More

AI, AR/VR events, augmented reality, digilens, Events, extended reality, featured, Lenovo, metaverse, nreal, qualcomm, webXR / Rejus Almole / June 2, 2023

AWE USA 2023 saw a blossoming industry defending itself from negative press and a perceived rivalry with other emerging technologies. Fortunately, Day One also brought big announcements, great discussions, and a little help from AI itself.

Ori Inbar’s Welcome Address

Historically, AWE has started with an address from founder Ori Inbar. This time, it started with an address from a hologram of Ori Inbar appearing on an ARHT display.

Ori Inbar hologram at AWE USA 2023 Day 1 — *Ori Inbar hologram*

The hologram waxed on for a few minutes about progress in the industry and XR’s incredible journey. Then the human Ori Inbar appeared and told the audience that everything that the hologram said was written by ChatGPT.

While (the real) Inbar quipped that he uses artificial intelligence to show him how not to talk, he addressed recent media claims that AI is taking attention and funding away from XR. He has a different view.

it’s ON !!!

Ori Inbar just started his opening key note at #AWE2023

Holo-Ori was here thanks to our friends from @arht_tech.@como pic.twitter.com/Do23hjIkST

— AWE (@ARealityEvent) May 31, 2023

“We industry insiders know this is not exactly true … AI is a good thing for XR. AI accelerates XR,” said Inbar. “XR is the interface for AI … our interactions [with AI] will become a lot less about text and prompts and a lot more about spatial context.”

“Metaverse, Shmetaverse” Returns With a Very Special Guest

Inbar has always been bullish on XR. He has been skeptical of the metaverse.

At the end of his welcome address last year, Inbar praised himself for not saying “the M word” a single time. The year before that, he opened the conference with a joke game show called “Metaverse, Shmetaverse.” Attendees this year were curious to see Inbar share the stage with a special guest: Neal Stephenson.

Neal Stephenson at AWE USA 2023 Day 1 — *Neal Stephenson*

Stephenson’s 1992 book, Snow Crash, introduced the world to the word “metaverse” – though Stephenson said that he wasn’t the first one to imagine the concept. He also addressed the common concern that the term for shared virtual spaces came from a dystopian novel.

“The metaverse described in Snow Crash was my best guess about what spatial computing as a mass medium might look like,” said Stephenson. “The metaverse itself is neither dystopian nor utopian.”

Stephenson then commented that the last five years or so have seen the emergence of the core technologies necessary to create the metaverse, though it still suffers from a lack of compelling content. That’s something that his company, Lamina1, hopes to address through a blockchain-based system for rewarding creators.

“There have to be experiences in the metaverse that are worth having,” said Stephenson. “For me, there’s a kind of glaring and frustrating lack of support for the people who make those experiences.”

AWE 2023 Keynotes and Follow-Ups

Both Day One and Day Two of AWE start out with blocks of keynotes on the main stage. On Day One, following Inbar’s welcome address and conversation with Stephenson, we heard from Qualcomm and XREAL (formerly Nreal). Both talks kicked off themes that would be taken up in other sessions throughout the day.

Qualcomm

From the main stage, Qualcomm Vice President and General Manager of XR, Hugo Swart, presented “Accelerating the XR Ecosystem: The Future Is Open.” He commented on the challenge of developing AR headsets, but mentioned the half-dozen or so Qualcomm-enabled headsets released in the last year, including the Lenovo ThinkReality VRX announced Tuesday.

Swart was joined on the stage by OPPO Director of XR Technology, Yi Xu, who announced a new Qualcomm-powered MR headset that would become available as a developer edition in the second half of this year.

As exciting as those announcements were, it was a software announcement that really made a stir. It’s a new Snapdragon Spaces tool called “Dual Render Fusion.”

“We have been working very hard to reimagine smartphone XR when used with AR glasses,” said Swart. “The idea is that mobile developers designing apps for 2D expand those apps to world-scale apps without any knowledge of XR.”

Keeping the Conversation Going

Another talk, “XR’s Inflection Point” presented by Qualcomm Director of Product Management Steve Lukas, provided a deeper dive into Dual Render Fusion. The tool allows an experience to use a mobile phone camera and a headworn device’s camera simultaneously. Existing app development tools hadn’t allowed this because (until now) it didn’t make sense.

Steve Lukas at AWE 2023 Day 1 — *Steve Lukas*

“To increase XR’s adoption curve, we must first flatten its learning curve, and that’s what Qualcomm just did,” said Lukas. “We’re not ready to give up on mobile phones so why don’t we stop talking about how to replace them and start talking about how to leverage them?”

A panel discussion, “Creating a New Reality With Snapdragon Today” moderated by Qualcomm Senior Director of Product Management XR Said Bakadir, brought together Xu, Lenovo General Manager of XR and Metaverse Vishal Shah, and DigiLens Vice President of Sales and Marketing Brian Hamilton. They largely addressed the need to rethink AR content and delivery.

Vishal Shah, Brian Hamilton, Yi Xu, and Said Bakadir at AWE USA 2023 Day 1 — *From left to right: Vishal Shah, Brian Hamilton, Yi Xu, and Said Bakadir*

“When I talk to the developers, they say, ‘Well there’s no hardware.’ When I talk to the hardware guys, they say, ‘There’s no content.’ And we’re kind of stuck in that space,” said Bakadir.

Hamilton and Shah both said, in their own words, that Qualcomm is creating “an all-in-one platform” and “an end-to-end solution” that solves the content/delivery dilemma that Bakadir opened with.

XREAL

In case you blinked and missed it, Nreal is now XREAL. According to a release shared with ARPost, the name change had to do with “disputes regarding the Nreal mark” (probably how similar it was to “Unreal”). But, “the disputes were solved amicably.”

The only change is the name – the hardware and software are still the hardware and software that we know and love. So, when CEO Chi Xu took the stage to present “Unleashing the Potential of Consumer AR” he just focused on progress.

From one angle, that progress looks like a version of XREAL’s AR operating system for Steam Deck, which Xu said is “coming soon.” From another angle, it looked like the partnership with Sightful which recently resulted in “Spacetop” – the world’s first AR laptop.

XREAL also announced Beam, a controller and compute box that can connect wirelessly or via hard connection to XREAL glasses specifically for streaming media. Beam also allows comfort and usability settings for the virtual screen that aren’t currently supported by the company’s current console and app integrations. Xu called it “the best TV innovation since TV.”

AI and XR

A number of panels and talks also picked up on Inbar’s theme of AI and XR. And they all (as far as I saw) unanimously agreed with Inbar’s assessment that there is no actual competition between the two technologies.

The most in-depth discussion on the topic was “The Intersection of AI and XR” a panel discussion between XR ethicist Kent Bye, Lamina1 CPO Tony Parisi, HTC Global VP of Corporate Development Alvin Graylin, and moderated by WXR Fund Managing Partner Amy LaMeyer.

Amy LaMeyer, Tony Parisi, Alvin Graylin, Kent Bye AWE 2023 Day 1 — *From left to right: Amy LaMeyer, Tony Parisi, Alvin Graylin, Kent Bye*

“There’s this myth that AI is here so now XR’s dead, but it’s the complete opposite,” said Graylin. Graylin pointed out that most forms of tracking and input as well as approaches to scene understanding are all driven by AI. “AI has been part of XR for a long time.”

While they all agreed that AI is a part of XR, the group disagreed on the extent to which AI could take over content creation.

“A lot of people think AI is the solution to all of their content creation and authoring needs in XR, but that’s not the whole equation,” said Parisi.

Graylin countered that AI will increasingly be able to replace human developers. Bye in particular was vocal that we should be reluctant and suspicious of handing over too much creative power to AI in the first place.

“The differentiating factor is going to be storytelling,” said Bye. “I’m seeing a lot of XR theater that has live actors doing things that AI could never do.”

Web3, WebXR, and the Metaverse

The conversation is still continuing regarding the relationship between the metaverse and Web3. With both the metaverse and Web3 focusing on the ideas of openness and interoperability, WebXR has become a common ground between the two. WebXR is also the most accessible from a hardware perspective.

“VR headsets will remain a niche tech like game consoles: some people will have them and use them and swear by them and won’t be able to live without them, but not everyone will have one,” Nokia Head of Trends and Innovation Scouting, Leslie Shannon, said in her talk “What Problem Does the Metaverse Solve?”

Leslie Shannon AWE 2023 Day 1 — *Leslie Shannon*

“The majority of metaverse experiences are happening on mobile phones,” said Shannon. “Presence is more important than immersion.”

Wonderland Engine CEO Jonathan Hale asked “Will WebXR Replace Native XR” with The Fitness Resort COO Lydia Berry. Berry commented that the availability of WebXR across devices helps developers make their content accessible as well as discoverable.

Lydia Berry and Jonathan Hale AWE 2023 Day 1 — *Lydia Berry and Jonathan Hale*

“The adoption challenges around glasses are there. We’re still in the really early adoption phase,” said Berry. “We need as many headsets out there as possible.”

Hale also added that WebXR is being taken more seriously as a delivery method by hardware manufacturers who were previously mainly interested in pursuing native apps.

“More and more interest is coming from hardware manufacturers every day,” said Hale. “We just announced that we’re working with Qualcomm to bring Wonderland Engine to Snapdragon Spaces.”

Keep Coming Back

AWE Day One was a riot but there’s a lot more where that came from. Day Two kicks off with keynotes by Magic Leap and Niantic, there are more talks, more panels, more AI, and the Expo Floor opens up for demos. We’ll see you tomorrow.

AWE USA 2023 Day One: XR, AI, Metaverse, and More Read More »

The inevitable Moto ThinkPhone leaks with all the fake carbon fiber you’d expect

Highlights, Lenovo, Motorola, Motorola ThinkPhone, News, Phones / Rejus Almole / December 16, 2022

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How Different XR Companies Approach Cloud Services

Amazon, cloud technology, extended reality, featured, Lenovo, magic leap, microsoft, NVIDIA, Snap Inc., Software, varjo / Mike M. / December 11, 2022

XR hardware is on the move. But, software is important too. The bigger your XR needs are, the larger your software needs are. So, more and more XR providers are providing cloud services in addition to their hardware and platform offerings. But, what is the cloud anyway?

Generally, “the cloud” refers to remote servers that do work off of a device. This allows devices to become smaller while running more robust software. For example, some of the cloud services that we’ll look at are cloud storage solutions. Cloud storage is increasingly important because 3D assets can take up a lot of space. Others run computations on the cloud.

Other solutions make up “local clouds.” These are networks of devices managed from a central portal all on location. This kind of solution is usually used by organizations managing a large number of devices from one central computer.

Varjo’s Reality Cloud

“Cloud” takes on yet another meaning for Varjo. For Varjo clients, a lot of the management and IT solutions that make up cloud services for other developers are handled through software subscriptions bundled with almost all Varjo hardware. Varjo’s “Reality Cloud” allows users to join XR meetings including remotely present coworkers and virtual assets.

Varjo Reality Cloud - XR cloud services

“Varjo Reality Cloud is our platform that will allow the ultimate science fiction dream – photo-realistic teleportation – to come true,” CTO Urho Konttori said in a launch event last summer. “What this means, in practice, is true virtual teleportation – sharing your reality, your environment, with other people in real time so that others can experience your world.”

At the beginning of this year, Varjo announced that XR content will soon stream through Reality Cloud services as well. Just like streaming other forms of media, XR streaming aims to provide more content to smaller devices by hosting that content remotely and serving it to users on demand.

“These scalability opportunities that the cloud provides are significantly meaningful when we talk about XR deployment in the corporate world,” Konttori told ARPost in January. “We are now at the level that we are super happy with the latency and deployments.”

In a recent funding announcement, Varjo announced the most recent development in their cloud services. Patrick Wyatt, a C-suite veteran, has been appointed the company’s new CPO and “will be the primary lead for Varjo’s software and cloud development initiatives.” As this article was being written, Varjo further expanded its cloud with Unreal and Unity engine integrations.

CloudXR From NVIDIA

XR streaming is already a reality on other cloud platforms. NVIDIA offers CloudXR that streams XR content to Android and Windows devices. (Remember that Android isn’t a hardware manufacturer, but an operating system. While almost all non-Apple mobile devices run Android, it is also the backbone of many XR headsets.)

NVIDIA CloudXR - XR cloud services

According to NVIDIA, “CloudXR lets you leverage NVIDIA RTX-powered servers with GPU virtualization software to stream stunning augmented and virtual reality experiences from any OpenVR application. This means you can run the most complex VR and AR experiences from a remote server across 5G and Wi-Fi networks to any device, while embracing the freedom to move—no wires, no limits.”

This can be a “pure” cloud application, but it can also be an “edge” application that does some lifting on the device and some remotely. While NVIDIA promotes their cloud services for use cases like location-based experiences and virtual production, edge computing is being embraced by enterprises who may want to keep sensitive content offline.

RealWear’s New Cloud Services

Enterprise XR hardware manufacturer RealWear recently launched their own cloud. This is of the last kind of cloud discussed above. The solution allows IT specialists to “easily control and manage their entire RealWear device fleet from one easy-to-use interface.” That includes content, but it also includes managing updates.

If you own one headset, you know that installing software and updates can be a chore. Now, imagine owning a dozen headsets, or even a hundred or more. Putting on each headset individually to add content and install updates quickly becomes unscalable. The RealWear Cloud also allows real-time tech support, which wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

RealWear Cloud

The RealWear Cloud also allows data analysis across headsets. This is vital in enterprise applications which may be tracking items as they move through a supply chain or tracking employees as they move through tasks or training modules. Handling this data for an individual on an individual headset is possible but, again, becomes unbearable at scale sans cloud.

Cloud Storage in Lens Studio

As for cloud storage, Snapchat recently announced a solution in a Lens Studio update that gives creators up to 25MB of remote storage. While the file size is still capped per asset (you can’t have one 25MB asset), it drastically increases the abilities of Lens Creators working with large or complex models.

Snap Lens Cloud

“Prior to the launch of Remote Assets, if a project was over the Lens size limit, you only had two options: either remove the asset if it wasn’t critical to the experience or resize the image to lower its RAM usage and re-submit,” reads the release. “Now you can utilize our Lens Cloud service to host assets of larger sizes outside of the Lens, and then load them in at run time.”

This is significant because Snap Lenses run on mobile devices that not only have limited space but also share that computing power with a slew of non-XR applications. At least, until Snapchat makes a consumer version of Spectacles.

“At first, we were just building for the phone and porting to the glasses,” Lens Creator Alex Bradt told me when I got to demo Snap’s Spectacles at AWE. “Now we’re like, ‘what can we actually do with these that will solve problems for people that they didn’t know they had?’”

Parents and Partners

Not all XR companies offer their own cloud services. For example, Magic Leap has had a partnership with Google Cloud for the past year now. Likewise, AutoDesk offers its XR cloud services through a partnership with Amazon.

Similarly, ThinkReality cloud services are offered through parent company Lenovo. A similar relationship exists between Azure and Microsoft’s MR hardware.

Partnerships like these help each company get the most out of their existing offerings without needing to build services from the ground up. As enterprises explore entering XR, these offerings also help them integrate into cloud services offered by suppliers that they may already be working with, like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, or Lenovo.

Your Forecast: Cloudy

Right now, a lot of cloud services serve industry – where it is doing very impactful things for industry. That doesn’t mean that people with just one headset (or a phone) shouldn’t be taking note. Developments in XR cloud development (for enterprise or for consumer applications) are making smoother, faster, lighter-weight, and more robust XR applications possible for everyone.

How Different XR Companies Approach Cloud Services Read More »