Apple insists that its $3,500 Vision Pro ski goggles, which officially debuted Friday, is not virtual reality but “spatial computing.” One problem: No one agrees on the definition ofspatial computing. Ask 10 people in technology and you might get 12 different answers. What Apple calls a spatial computer, some technologists call “mixed reality” — or possibly “augmented reality,” “holographic computing,” “the metaverse” or “XR,” which some people say is shorthand for “extended reality.”[…] “Even I can’t get my head on straight of what things mean all of the time,” said Alex Coulombe, co-founder of Agile Lens, which calls itself an XR company. Coulombe started to tell me thatspatial computing and XR are the same — but changed his mind midsentence.[…] What isspatial computing, anyway? I’m going to define it as an immersive video feed of the physical world plus the internet.[…] Some experts instead usespatial computing as a catchall term for a range of technologies, including 3D images, virtual reality and smartphone games such as “Pokémon Go.”
