When I think about great XR journalists, one of the first names that come to my mind is always Charlie Fink. He doesn’t only write with a great style on important magazines like Forbes, but he is also always able to find great content to talk about, like innovative AR startups or interviews to big names of the immersive industry like Rony Abovitz. When I have been able to talk with him, I also loved his passion for immersive technologies.
Charlie is also a book author and after the success of his previous book Metaverse, now he’s launching his new book, “Convergence”, that is all about the present and the future of augmented reality. I’ve not been able to read the book yet (I’m preparing for the VEC!), but I can expect from it the same high quality of its predecessor. Convergence features great contributions from prestigious people of the immersive field like Robert Scoble, Kathy Hackl, Tony Parisi, Rob Crasco just to name a few. And I’m sure that, exactly as the previous book, the special sauce of Convergence will be the great experience that Charlie has in the field. He has worked in the past with big companies like AOL and Disney and has lived in first person a lot of technological revolutions like the advent of personal PCs, mainstream internet and smartphones. This gives him a deeper look on the revolution that we are living now, the one that will bring the PCs on our faces and will blend our real senses with the virtual ones.
This is why I am so excited that I have been able to have a short interview with him, asking him more information about his book and his vision of the XR revolution (even if he hates the term “XR”… :D)
Hello Charlie and welcome to my blog! Is it true that you invented the Lion King? How have you managed to have the idea for such a masterpiece?
When I was a junior executive at Disney I pitched my boss Jeff Katzenberg the idea this way: “Bambi in Africa”. Bambi begins with the Great Stag on a bluff overlooking the forest where his son is born. In the last shot of the movie, Bambi, now grown, replaces his father on the bluff. The Lion King starts with the king of the beasts on a cliff overlooking the Serenghetti… ”
My boss, studio Chair Jeff Katzenberg said “Figure out why Bambi eats the other animals,” he said, “and you just might have a picture”. The rest, as they say, is history.
Who knew I’d do the most consequential thing of my life when I was 27? I’d like to think my best work is still ahead of me, but there is no way to top nurturing that seed and what it has grown into in the last 30 years.
Your new book Convergence is now out. Tell us about it and make us fall in love with it!
This is a historic moment. We are on the cusp of a new generation of mobile computing. Latency-free 5G broadband networks, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies will converge in the next five years to change the world as we know it. Our devices will change dramatically and change us in ways no one can fully predict.
In my new book, Convergence, we tell the story of Augmented Reality, a new technology that’s seeping into every smartphone and every workplace. But the smartphone is just the beginning. We will soon wonder how we put up with its miserable form for so long. The convergence will lead to head-worn, interoperable AR/VR glasses and, ultimately, to wearable, invisible, computing. More than a book about technology, this is about an evolutionary change in humankind.
Like my first book, Metaverse, this is also AR-enabled.
The catchphrase of the book is “How the world will be painted with data”. So, what can we expect from the future of AR in the short, medium and long term?
AR is going to be a fundamentally location-based experience. Buildings, streets, and business will all have a geolocated data layer that can be revealed by mobile AR. Facial recognition means I’ll never forget a name. Computer vision will recognize objects, and they will be clickable. What kind of data? Wikipedia, Google, Yelp, selfies, other forms of social media. Geolocation is a much better way to connect with people in your network than the newsfeed, which goes by at the speed of light. Instead, you’ll leave pictures of food and selfies where they were taken.
What are the differences between this new book Convergence and the previous one Metaverse?
In addition to the much deeper and specific focus on AR, the book is more than twice as long and has twice as many augmentations.
What are some important people that you have interviewed there?
Wowser. That is a hard question. There were over 40 contributions to the book, including yourself. Dozens more were involved in making the 50 AR scenes. And still dozens more are sponsors. I couldn’t possibly single anyone out.
Among these ones, who is one with whom is really a true pleasure to sit down and chat about XR?
I’ve made so many friends and built so many relationships covering immersive media for the past three years I will limit my answers to people who are not in the book and with whom I don’t have any kind of a relationship: Apple, Google, and Facebook.
So that’s who I’d like to sit down with and can’t.
What is the biggest lessons about XR that you have learned while interviewing all these important people?
No one really knows how the next ten years are going to play out.
What has been the technology that has astonished you the most from the ones that you have tried for this book?
I’m still a stage-struck kid. I love any kind of AR, from the simple marker-based mobile AR in the book to advanced systems like the Magic Leap One.
How will people be able to buy your book and for what price?
The best prices are at http://convergencear.com.
You are a really amazing XR journalist and writer. What pieces of advice can you give us about how to write a great piece about XR?
First and foremost, be a truth teller. Second, get third-party validation of what people tell you. It makes a better story. Third, I am not a critic, but an evangelist. My revenge on a negative person or story is not to write about them. Telling people this puts subjects at ease. Also, since we’re talking mostly about online writing, it’s important to understand the reader is most probably looking at a smartphone screen which emphasizes grazing over reading. Therefore, the first paragraph and second paragraph are the most important. You have to accept that 90% of your readers won’t make it to the end. Finally, write great headlines. I wish I was better at writing headlines.
In the introduction to your previous book Metaverse, you told us that you have already lived the internet revolution with AOL and then the smartphone revolution. As one of the wise men of the industry, can you tell us what can we learn from the past revolutions regarding this VR renaissance?
These things remain true immutable facts:
- Technology succeeds when it makes what we’re doing better, cheaper and faster
- People are the killer app
- We always overestimate the short term and underestimate the long term.
Can we really compare the XR revolution to the advent of mainstream internet?
No, not yet, and when I’ve said that, it’s an exaggeration to make a point. However, this is a highly fluid moment. I’m not going to rule it out. Still, everything we’re talking about is based on the Internet, so how could it be bigger?
Are you still convinced that “people” will be the killer application for VR?
Yes, of course.
In your opinion, when VR and AR will really take off?
VR, perhaps 2020, or 2021. I think free roam world scale VR devices (which also do AR) is a game changer.
Sophisticated location-based AR, that you could wear all day and would be useful for interacting with the world requires a robust 5G mesh and for AI to be a bit more advanced. Others are more optimistic than I about when this would happen. I would say 2023, but it could be much longer. There is no proof people will wear something on their face. Yet. The benefits have to be obvious and substantial, and the form similar to today’s sunglasses.
Something else that you want to add to my readers?
Follow me on Twitter: @charliefink
I’m also on Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/charliefink
I really loved of this interview the objective look that Charlie has on the technology. The sentence “No one really knows how the next ten years are going to play out.” made me laugh because it is true: we really don’t know what is going to happen: what kind of brand will succeed, what will be the technologies that will be used… we are not even sure if AR and VR will take foot! We all believe and hope so, but, as Charlie said, there is no proof that people want to wear something on their face… and for sure it will be hard to convince anyone to wear a connected electronic device on his/her head. The provided value will be the key: these gadgets will have to provide substantial benefits for the users and win against the shortcomings and the social distrust. And for sure the possibility of connecting people in a better way will be one of those additional values that will convince people to do so… as it has convinced anyone of us to live always with a smartphone in our hands.
Another interesting point of the interview is the remark that it won’t be an XR-only revolution. The XR revolution will happen because of the convergence of the evolution of many technologies, like artificial intelligence, communication (5G), image analysis, AR and VR. Only all these technologies together will be able to change completely how we will live our lives and let us live in a completely mixed-reality world.
And while we wait for this XR revolution to happen in the next 10 years, I invite you to check out Convergence and use it as your personal guide to understand how our future can be.
(Header image by JJ Castillo, @JJCastilloVR)