YWT Interview
I made this up, it never happened.
The following is an interview with your host by an imaginary podcast, that asks just the right questions at just the right time…
YWT: Welcome to the YWT - “You Want This?” - podcast - the channel where we explore innovative technology, and then ask you, do "You Want This?"
We don't focus on problems here, just solutions, and we won't blind you with technobabble! We simply focus on how the new technology looks and feels, and how it differs from similar experiences.
We're joined today by Duncan Cragg, who is a future computing researcher based in England. Welcome to the show, Duncan!
DBC: Thank you, it's a pleasure to be with you today!
YWT: So, let's start with some background, who are you and what do you do?
DBC: Well, I started off my career with electronics and computing degrees, then became a software developer and an IT consultant. I'm now semi-retired and, as you say, a future computing researcher!
YWT: So, what are you working on?
DBC: I call it the “Reality Network Computer”, or RNC. RNCs don’t run Android or Windows, they run a completely new operating system. All RNCs work together to manifest a virtual world - a shared 3D digital universe - where we can do all the same things that we currently do with our mobiles and desktop PCs.
YWT: Wow OK. Sounds similar to what Apple call "Spatial Computing"?
DBC: Ah, no, Spatial Computing gives you multiple large virtual application windows around you. But you still have all of your 2D content arranged inside their corresponding windows, just like in a normal flat-screen operating system.
However, in the Reality Network there are no apps, application programs or windows!
YWT: Um, no applications? Sounds quite radical! What do you have then?
DBC: Well, all that 2D content thrown together within this 3D space instead!
All of our digital stuff, our social posts, media, text, photos, messages, articles, calendar events, tasks and so-on, are no longer wrapped by their apps and online services, like Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, etc.
Instead, they’re all out in the open in this virtual world, ready to be picked up, pinned up on your virtual wall and shared with others there.
YWT: OK, so it is very radical!
DBC: It's a completely new experience in computing terms, yet at the same time a completely familiar and mundane experience in everyday terms.
YWT: Mundane?
DBC: In the sense that, in the Reality Network everything works just like it does in our everyday 3D life!
With all our digital objects thrown into the same 3D space, we can interact with them and work with them in the same way that we would in our everyday 3D physical reality.
In our physical reality we organise ourselves and our stuff instinctively within the 3D space. We know which room to look in for any given item, everything is (usually!) where we left it and can be stacked, placed, pinned and dropped.
In our physical reality, people have presence and body language.
It's how we, how our minds, evolved.
In the Reality Network that is manifested by all of our RNCs, we can also interact with our digital objects in the same way.
YWT: Sounds both radical and obvious at the same time!
DBC: It’s like we’re taking computers and flipping them inside-out, to pop out all of our digital property! In fact, doing this is such a significant design choice with such far-reaching consequences, that I call it “The Inversion”!
YWT: Could you describe the experience of this through some simple examples?
DBC: Sure! In the Reality Network, just like in our physical reality, if you like a photo you can simply pin it to a pinboard up on the wall. You can pin a note or description text underneath. You may have your calendar pinned up next to all that. You can pin a reminder note to tomorrow's space on that calendar. If you drop a photo or someone's virtual contact card, it falls to the floor, just as you'd expect!
YWT: How about social interactions?
DBC: Right: I can meet you in your virtual gallery room for a chat, then get your digital contact card and a photo, then go home to pin them both up together on my calendar on the wall to remind me of our next meeting. I can make notes about the photo and clip that object to the photo, then write a message to you and go back and pin it up on the message board in your gallery.
The Reality Network is a single shared space that shows you all of your own digital stuff intermingled with the shared digital stuff of everyone else. Sharing is now as intuitive as in normal life: we’ll simply bump into friends within some virtual space and hand things to them!
We can meet in a public square or virtual cafe and chat with voice, or text messages in bubbles that fade or float away after a few seconds.
YWT: Bubble messages doesn't sound very realistic; that’s more like magic!
DBC: As in any virtual world, there are many examples of world objects that both interact intuitively and have beyond-real or magical behaviours.
For example, in the Reality Network you won't be forced to move at walking speed, you can fly or teleport around. A book may be designed to work with literally flipping pages in 3D, or you could open it and have a magical scrolling page - as we're used to with the traditional 2D computer interface. You'll be able to pick up unreasonably large amounts of objects that would weigh tons in reality, and so-on.
YWT: This Reality Network sounds a bit like Neal Stephenson’s sci-fi virtual universe, “The Metaverse”?
DBC: Well, like The Metaverse, there will only be one Reality Network, just like there's only one World-Wide Web and only one Internet!
But this is a complete 3D operating system, not just a single app or application - or a game. It prioritises our traditional 2D operating system content, like text and images, over 3D items.
When you power up your Reality Network Computer, you’re right back in the virtual universe where you left off, so it offers smooth “ambient engagement”.
YWT: Is it like a 3D version of the Web, then?
DBC: Yes, in many ways; you could see it as an enhancement of the Web that can build on both the Web's abstract architecture and much of its content.
The Reality Network takes the Web's URLs - its links - and does a "triple upgrade" on them to bring them up to speed with the demands of a live, global 3D virtual world, with avatars alongside all the other world objects.
YWT: The whole universe is built out of these upgraded URLs or links, then, like the Web?
DBC: Yes, links are used to pin notes to pinboards, to join walls into houses, paragraphs into books and books into libraries, then libraries into cities.
If a children’s book has a link to a 3D castle, it will show as a small embedded object in there, but you can also jump magically in to the book and be standing right in front of the huge castle. Similarly, a social media post can embed an entire document within it, using just its link. This will show a panel in its place with just the document title. Then you’ll be able to magically pull out that entire document alongside in 3D space to view it properly.
YWT: That's a lot of different types of world object, both 2D and 3D, in your universe, isn't this a huge undertaking?
DBC: Of course, but one thing on our side is the ability to use links to objects and object sequences and collections to mash up or aggregate smaller world objects into bigger objects.
We only need one basic type of paragraph and one type of wall panel, and these elemental objects can be linked, pinned and clicked together or dropped into sequences and collections to make bigger objects.
For example, you could just build your own "dashboard" panel on the virtual wall containing links to some related objects like an event flyer document, the event's calendar entry, a link to the location on a map, and a to-do list to prepare for it. You can collect a bunch of photos or contact cards in a virtual container just like in reality, like the "good ole' days", when we had physical photo albums and address books!
You can throw the link to any object with a location onto a map of your own, the link to any object with a date onto a calendar of your own. Create numerous maps and calendars for any purpose you like.
YWT: So, you say there are no apps or application programs in this virtual universe, so I presume there are no files and folders either?
DBC: Exactly! Links form a much more flexible and natural way of organising our digital stuff.
For example, instead of a folder, you can have a sequence of links to documents and media objects.
And indeed, instead of a large document file, you just get a sequence of links to the paragraphs!
You can now reuse any paragraph elsewhere when you grab its link - you can even pin a choice paragraph or quote up on your pinboard, or grab a to-do task from a list and pin that on the diary!
YWT: In traditional operating systems files have read and write permissions and can be owned by different people. But this is all one continuous universe, so what do you do about ownership there?
DBC: If you made an object, you can share it with specific people or make it publicly visible. But you are still the only one that can change or edit it. However, you can further allow others to interact with it and enable them to change it.
YWT: Does that mean that some people visiting a place you created may not be able to see everything that's in there if they don’t have permission?
DBC: Exactly, and further, some visitors may be privileged to interact with stuff there. If so, they'll be visible to others, but if not, they'll also be invisible!
YWT: Is the Reality Network experienced through Augmented Reality, or Virtual Reality, headwear?
DBC: Well in future it'll be best experienced through something like Augmented Reality glasses for casual engagement, and through chunkier VR headsets for more focused engagement, but there'll always be a place for flat screens to access it, including phone, tablet, gaming handheld, PC, TV and wall-sized screen formats.
YWT: So you see us all wearing AR glasses all the time in future?
DBC: Possibly: imagine a compact portable device roughly similar to your smartphone, but you never take it out of your pocket to look down to see its tiny screen, losing focus on your surroundings. Instead you see the Reality Network merged with your physical surroundings, with your head facing forwards.
YWT: This could take a little getting used to!
DBC: So did having a glass slab with us, 24x7!
RNCs are a new category of computer, really. An RNC can be not just this portable AR device, but any device or server on the internet running a Reality Network operating system: any device size.
It does mean building computers again from “the metal” up, along with the network technologies needed.
I’m building the RNC as open source software - so everyone can see the code and build on it - and open network protocols - like the Web, so everyone can freely join in. Plus the operating system will be targeted at the most open RNC hardware underneath so that we’re always up-to-date with innovations there, and security, and free to code what we like.
YWT: The name “Reality Network” implies that this universe isn’t separate from our physical reality. You mentioned AR glasses where you can be “in” both realities at the same time.
DBC: The name "Reality Network" is indeed meant to convey the idea that this is the global 3D digital overlay to our 3D physical reality, merging them both seamlessly.
YWT: Can you give an example of how that would work in practice?
DBC: Of course! For example, why not have it arranged that your virtual alarm is in the physical bedroom, and the virtual shopping list is pinned to the physical fridge in the kitchen? Your family photos can be seen up the stair's wall, and so-on.
You could look around in your living room wearing your AR glasses and see your smartlamp's virtual control panel, hovering next to it. Then pan across to an AR 3D game you've made, where you have to roll a ball into a hole.
For a bit of fun, place a virtual pressure mat inside the hole, and then look back to the smartlamp and pull a link over and fix it onto that mat. Now, if anyone gets the ball in the hole in the virtual game, the physical light will turn on in the living room!
YWT: So the Reality Network also embraces the Internet of Things?
DBC: Absolutely. Even tiny devices can be RNCs if they are running the RNC operating system and can then join in to take their places within the Reality Network, and contribute content to it.
YWT: So when you throw out the Facebook app, do you also throw out the Facebook internet services that back it? In other words, will all of this work alongside our current online services and applications, like Facebook, email, the Web, etc?
DBC: Ah, well, the Reality Network is a good test of the openness of current computer and network systems!
Any open file format will be importable and viewable broken up into its parts. For example a Word document will be imported as a sequence of its paragraph objects.
Email and the Web's static content - such as Wikipedia - are in open standards so can be easily represented in the Reality Network and interacted with there.
We can also interact with any online service that has an open network interface - meaning data sockets that we can plug into to connect that system into the Reality Network, to bring 2D stuff in and to push our stuff back out again.
But, no, this probably won’t be possible with closed, walled garden, silo systems like Facebook.
YWT: So just like the Web, no one single entity will own or control the Reality Network?
DBC: Precisely. Something that’s potentially as important and global as the Reality Network cannot be left to a single company, it has to be open and free to join, just like the Internet and the Web.
YWT: This has been extremely interesting, and to be honest, what you’re proposing seems so natural and obvious now, that I’m wondering why it’s not been suggested before!
DBC: Indeed, once you allow yourself to imagine working with virtual or digital stuff this way, it’s hard to see how else it should be done, and hard to have to go back to having scores of arbitrarily isolating applications and the operating systems that underlie them.
The Reality Network presents the digital universe alongside the physical universe, allowing all of our 2D digital objects to feel tangibly real and part of our natural experience.
The virtual world of the RNC offers casual “ambient” engagement with our shared digital lives. I hope it will be a simple, intuitive, freeing and empowering experience, a digital universe for doing all the usual co-creative stuff: chatting, sharing, writing, sketching, thinking, playing and so-on.
YWT: Thank you so much, Duncan, for this stimulating conversation, I’m sure our listeners will have their eyes opened to a very exciting future for computers and their operating systems!
DBC: Thank you for hosting me today.
What do you think? Is our online future within the Reality Net? Drop your thoughts into the comments below.
For further reading, you could start with a detailed list of mashup examples! Or read about managing a day out using RNCs.
Love the interview. This should have happened. Maybe it happened in the PR? If it happened there, it should be 'real' enough, being the PR.
Hope a lot of people read this and also get enthusiastic about it! Go Duncan!