Why is computing history so important? Because it can teach us lessons about not just where we were, but where we are going. Here my family, along with Carlos Calva, get a tour through the DigiBarn, with its owner Bruce Damer (Carlos and Bruce are starting an asteroid mining company you will hear more about soon). I visited to do research on the beginnings of Spatial Computing for the book that Irena Cronin and I are writing as part of our research efforts at Infinite Retina.

Bruce is a special figure in Silicon Valley. Not only does he collect all sorts of computer history, but he’s been working for Nasa for years as an engineer but has been working on a variety of computers building many things, and is a pioneer in using 3D and avatars.

This tour is very special, so few will ever be able to visit his home and tour this collection. We were the first to visit with a 360-degree cameras so you get a real sense of this place for the first time. We split the tour up into two parts. The first part is of early Apple history and the second part is a walk through the barn itself.

As more companies build apps like Minecraft Earth, an augmented reality app coming soon to phones, they will need to manage servers and content. Think about it, if you have a 3D avatar that needs different clothing based on time of year, or region (like you might dress it up for Fourth of July in United States, while having the same avatar wearing something else in, say, Germany or Milan) you don’t want to have to figure out how to manage all those assets for your game, or for brands who you are building an app for.

EchoAR solves this problem so the Infinite Reality team, me and Marcelo, who edited this video, headed off to its Brooklyn, New York office to meet with its CEO and CTO and had a long conversation about how developer’s lives are soon to change.

They are located in the RLab, which is a very awesome Spatial Computing accelerator in Brooklyn. Tons of events are held there (Magic Leap will be doing one there soon).

We got caught up on what 5G, VR, and AR means for this space and how this company differentiates from others, like 6D.AI, who are building AR Clouds.

Today if you get a Magic Leap or an Oculus Quest you can view millions of different 3D objects and scenes by using Sketchfab’s service. That doesn’t sound that important, but for creators who work in VR or AR it’s hugely important, since it gives everyone a central place to share, search, sell, or buy these 3D items.

Here I visit with Alban Denoyel, CEO, and we have a wide ranging conversation about the future of Spatial Computing, and, even, the future of jobs, many of which will have to do with 3D objects.

Denoyel has a unique view of the industry, since he sees all the objects that educators, marketers, and other people are using, and, because he is a creator himself, he shares his workflow for how he captures things in the real world and uploads them to Sketchfab too.

Thanks to Marcelo Moyano for helping shoot this video and doing the editing on it.