What is Spatial Computing and why is everyone from Tesla, Apple, and Facebook investing heavily in it?

In The Infinite Retina, authors Irena Cronin and Robert Scoble attempt to answer that question by helping you understand where Spatial Computing - an augmented reality where humans and machines can interact in a physical space - came from, where it's going, and why it's so fundamentally different from the computers or mobile phones that came before.

They present seven visions of the future and the industry verticals in which Spatial Computing has the most influence - Transportation; Technology, Media, and Telecommunications; Manufacturing; Retail; Healthcare; Finance; and Education. The book also shares insights about the past, present, and future from leading experts an other industry veterans and innovators, including Sebastian Thrun, Ken Bretschneider, and Hugo Swart. They dive into what they think will happen in Spatial Computing in the near and medium term, and also explore what it could mean for humanity in the long term. The Infinite Retina then leaves it up to you to decide whether Spatial Computing is truly where the future of technology is heading or whether it's just an exciting, but passing, phase.

What you will learn:

• Look back at historical paradigms that changed the face of technology
• Consider how Spatial Computing could be the new technology that changes our lives
• See how Virtual and Augmented Reality will change the way we do healthcare
• Learn how Spatial Computing technology will lead to fully automated transportation
• Think about how Spatial Computing will change the manufacturing industry
• Explore how finance and retail are going to be impacted through Spatial Computing devices
• Hear accounts from industry experts on what they expect Spatial Computing to bring to their sectors

In 2006, co-authors Robert Scoble and Shel Israel wrote Naked Conversations, a book that persuaded businesses to embrace what we now call social media. Six years later they have teamed up again to report that social media is but one of five converging forces that promise to change virtually every aspect of our lives. You know these other forces already: mobile, data, sensors and location-based technology. Combined with social media they form a new generation of personalized technology that knows us better than our closest friends. Armed with that knowledge our personal devices can anticipate what we'll need next and serve us better than a butler or an executive assistant. The resulting convergent superforce is so powerful that it is ushering in a era the authors call the Age of Context. In this new era, our devices know when to wake us up early because it snowed last night; they contact the people we are supposed to meet with to warn them we're running late. They even find content worth watching on television. They also promise to cure cancer and make it harder for terrorists to do their damage. Astoundingly, in the coming age you may only receive ads you want to see. Scoble and Israel have spent more than a year researching this book. They report what they have learned from interviewing more than a hundred pioneers of the new technology and by examining hundreds of contextual products. What does it all mean? How will it change society in the future? The authors are unabashed tech enthusiasts, but as they write, an elephant sits in the living room of our book and it is called privacy. We are entering a time when our technology serves us best because it watches us; collecting data on what we do, who we speak with, what we look at. There is no doubt about it: Big Data is watching you. The time to lament the loss of privacy is over. The authors argue that the time is right to demand options that enable people to reclaim some portions of that privacy.