Sunday, May 03, 2026
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No commentsSunday, May 03, 2026System EngineerTech CENTRALNo commentsSunday, May 03, 2026LiveStreamTechNo commentsSaturday, May 02, 2026LiveStreamLifehacker, The Newest Echo Show Is $50 Off Right NowNo commentsWe may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
The Echo Show has come a long way since its humble beginnings. The latest smart display from Amazon came out in the winter of 2025 and, for the first time, brings Fire TV integrated into the display, so you can stream your shows directly on it, as well as Alexa+ AI voice control, among other improvements. Right now, the 11-inch Echo Show 11 is $169.99 (originally $219.99) and the 8-inch Echo Show 8 is $139.99 (originally $179.99), both at their lowest prices according to price-tracking tools.
The Amazon Echo Show 11 replaced the 3rd Generation Echo Show 10. One of the obvious differences is the smaller size, but the screen is actually bigger since the bezels are much smaller, giving it a more modern look. The sound is much better as well, with forward-facing speakers and a subwoofer that can fill up a room with sound. The resolution on the display has been bumped to 1,920 by 1,200 pixels, which is better but still underwhelming considering it's not 4K. Some of the more subtle upgrades are the new support for Matter, Thread, and Zigbee, essentially covering almost every smart home device.
If you had the 3rd Gen Echo Show 10, you'll notice the physical camera shutter is gone (you can still disable the camera in settings), as well as the swivel camera feature that follows you around (it is now mounted in place). Amazon's new Alexa+ generative AI is free for Prime members, otherwise, it'll be $19.99 per month. Alexa+ can do anything you'd expect it to; it's conversational, can control your devices without needing to say the exact words in the right order, and will remember past conversations. You can check out more details on PCMag's "excellent" review.
The Echo Show 11 and 8 are the same device, even in audio; the only difference is the screen size and the price.
Saturday, May 02, 2026LiveStreamTechnical storiesNo commentsAmazon’s cloud customers will need to wait several more months before the US tech company can repair war-damaged data centers and restore normal operations in the Middle East. The announcement comes two months after Iranian drone strikes targeted three Amazon data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—meaning that full recovery from the cloud disruption could take nearly half a year in all.
The Amazon Web Services (AWS) dashboard posted an April 30 update describing how its UAE and Bahrain cloud regions “suffered damage as a result of the conflict in the Middle East” and are unable to support customer applications. The update also said that “relevant billing operations are currently suspended while we restore normal operations” in a process that “is expected to take several months.”
That wording suggests Amazon will continue to avoid billing AWS customers in the affected regions—ME-CENTRAL-1 and ME-SOUTH-1—after it initially waived all usage-related charges for March 2026 at an estimated cost of $150 million.
Friday, May 01, 2026System EngineerTech CENTRALNo commentsFriday, May 01, 2026System EngineerregisterNo commentsIf you thought 800 Gbps Ethernet was fast, just wait. Celestica's latest switches cram 64 1.6 Tbps ports into a single chassis.…
Thursday, April 30, 2026LiveStreamTechnical storiesNo commentsMotorola is crazy about foldables. With each passing year, the company has beefed up its folding phone lineup, and in 2026, there will be four devices launching on May 21. At the top end is the company's first tablet-style foldable, the Razr Fold. Below that, Motorola will again offer three flip-style foldables: the Razr Ultra, Razr+, and Razr. These phones get a few modest upgrades over last year's phones, along with price increases. Motorola is unfortunately not immune to the rising cost of components.
| Specs at a glance: 2026 Motorola Razr series | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Razr 2026 ($800) | Razr+ 2026 ($1,100) | Razr Ultra 2026 ($1,500) | Razr Fold ($1,900) | |
| SoC | MediaTek Dimensity 7450X | Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 | Snapdragon 8 Elite "Pro" | Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 |
| Memory | 8GB | 12GB | 16GB | 16GB |
| Storage | 128GB | 256GB | 512GB | 512GB |
| Display | External: 3.6-inch 1056 x 1066 OLED, 90 Hz, 1700 nits; Internal: 6.9-inch 1080 x 2640 OLED, 120 Hz, 3000 nits | External: 4-inch 1272 x 1080 OLED, 165 Hz, 2400 nits; Internal: 6.9-inch 1080 x 2640 OLED, 165 Hz, 3000 nits | External: 4-inch 1272 x 1080 OLED, 165 Hz, 3000 nits; Internal: 7-inch 1224 x 2992 OLED, 165 Hz, 5000 nits | External: 6.6-inch 2520 x 1080 pOLED, 165 Hz, 6000 nits; Internal: 8.1-inch 2484 x 2232 LTPO OLED, 120 Hz, 6,200 nits |
| Cameras | 50 MP wide, f/1.7; 50 MP ultrawide, f/2.0; 32 MP selfie, f/2.4 |
50 MP wide, f/1.8; 50 MP ultrawide, f/2.0; 32 MP selfie, f/2.4 |
50 MP wide, f/1.8; 50 MP ultrawide, f/2.0; 50 MP selfie, f/2.0 |
50 MP wide, F/1.6; 50 MP ultrawide with Macro, f/2.2; 50 MP 3x telephoto; 32 MP outer selfie, f/2.4; 20 MP inner selfie, f/2.4 |
| Software | Android 16 | Android 16 | Android 16 | Android 16 |
| Battery | 4800 mAh, up to 30 W wired charging, wireless charging | 4500 mAh, up to 45 W wired charging, wireless charging | 5,000 mAh, up to 68 W wired, wireless charging | 6000 mAh, up to 80 W wired charging, 50 W wireless charging |
| Connectivity | Sub-6 GHz 5G | Sub-6 GHz 5G | Sub-6 GHz 5G | Sub-6 GHz 5G |
| Measurements | Open: 171.30 × 73.99 × 7.25 mm Closed: 88.08 × 73.99 × 15.85 mm, 188g |
Open: 171.42 × 73.99 × 7.09 mm Closed: 88.09 × 73.99 × 15.32 mm, 189g |
Open: 171.48 × 73.99 × 7.19 mm Closed: 88.12 × 73.99 × 15.69 mm, 199g |
Open: 160 height × 144.4 width × 4.55 depth (mm); Closed: 160 height × 73.6 width × 9.89 depth (mm), 243g |
| Colors | Hematite, Violet Ice, Sporting Green, Bright White | Mountain View | Orient Blue, Cocoa | Blackened Blue, Lily White |
The Razr Fold represents a big step for Moto. Its foldable flip phones have revived the Razr name and offered a good alternative to Samsung's Z Flip line, but people buying foldables are generally more interested in the large format. As prices at the lower end of the spectrum ratchet up, there's less and less distance between premium flip phones and bigger foldables. At $1,900, the Razr Fold is not a cheap phone, but it's roughly in line with the pricing of 2025 foldables (right between Google and Samsung). Given the current state of things, that's a small win for 512GB of storage and 16GB of RAM.
Moto's first big foldable is almost here. Credit: Motorola
Motorola is not reinventing the wheel with the Fold, so you can expect a device that looks and feels similar to other big foldables like the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. It's about the same size as Google's foldable but slightly thinner and lighter. Samsung's Z Fold 7, however, is much thinner and lighter. Motorola does have the advantage of stylus input, which Samsung has dropped from its foldables. The Moto Stylus will launch at $99 alongside the Razr Fold on May 21.
Wednesday, April 29, 2026System EngineerregisterNo commentsAs the Iran war pushes up energy prices, the Trump administration is paying offshore wind developers to walk away from projects and invest instead in fossil fuel infrastructure.…
Wednesday, April 29, 2026LiveStream These Are the Cheap Running Watches Worn by the London Marathon Winners, LifehackerNo commentsWe may earn a commission from links on this page.
This weekend’s London Marathon was a phenomenal event, with not one but two men (Sabastian Sawe and Yomif Kejelcha) breaking the sub-two-hour barrier that people used to say would never be broken. The women’s winner, Tigst Assefa, also smashed her own world record. So what kind of running watches do these elite marathoners wear? Mostly cheap ones, including older Garmins.
I was able to confirm some of these runners’ specific watch models with Garmin and Coros. Since fans seem to be wondering whether the runners are sponsored by their respective watch companies, I also asked Garmin and Coros about sponsorships. Only two of the six appear to be sponsored. Here are the top three men and women:
Sabastian Sawe, with a world record time of 1:59:30: Garmin Forerunner 55 ($167). I confirmed this with Garmin. He is not sponsored by Garmin, though.
Yomif Kejelcha, the second person ever to run sub-2 with a time of 1:59:41: Coros Pace 3 ($199). He is not sponsored by Coros.
Jacob Kiplimo, 2:00:28: Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 ($349-$239 - unclear exactly which model, but not the Classic). He seems to be a sponsored athlete—here’s a Samsung article about how he uses the watch in his training.
Tigst Assefa, with a new women’s world record at 2:15:41: Garmin Forerunner 255 ($243). I also confirmed this with Garmin, and they do not sponsor her either.
Hellen Obiri, 2:15:5: Coros Pace 4 ($249). I confirmed this with Coros; she is a sponsored athlete, newly signed just before the race.
Joyciline Jepkosgei, 2:15:55: another older Garmin, which Ivan Jovin at Gadgets and Wearables identified as possibly the Forerunner 955 ($449). She is not sponsored by Garmin.
Of the six, four are wearing older models (released 2021-2023) with reflective MIP screens. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 and the Coros Pace 4 are the only watches in this group that were released in the past year (and they are the only two with the more modern style AMOLED screen). Most of these watches cost less than $250.
That may be surprising if you think of running watches as a cutting-edge tool where newest is always best. But even though watch manufacturers keep coming out with new features, that doesn’t mean those features are necessary to support training and racing, even for elite runners. Ever since I started reviewing and writing about fitness watches, I’ve been asking every runner I meet what kind of watch they have. Most of the time, it’s an older Garmin. Sometimes they don’t even know what model. Basic watches make perfectly good workhorses, even for elite runners.
These mostly budget picks don't surprise me, because elites need to focus on what their body is doing, not what’s going on inside their watch. The most important job of a running watch on race day is letting you know what pace you’re running—especially if you’re betting everything on being able to break a certain world record. Even the most basic digital watches can tell you how long it’s been since the starting gun went off, but a modern GPS-enabled watch can also give you a reasonably accurate sense of how many miles you’ve gone and how far it is until the next mile marker. (That said, it’s the official race timing and distance that counts; your watch just gives an estimate.)
I haven’t spoken to these athletes myself, so what follows are my opinions based on knowing what running watches offer to the people who wear them. In short: Everything besides your time and pace is icing on the cake.
Elites don’t need the training scores and statuses that some watches offer; they have coaches handling that stuff. They don’t decide the day’s training based on how many steps they’re getting; again, they and their coaches, not tech, are in control. It doesn’t matter if the watch has 150+ activity modes if your only job is to run.
So why do newer watches have those features in the first place? A lot of the features are there to help you feel a little more elite. For example, you may not have a coach, but your watch can coach you by suggesting a workout. Watch features also aim to keep you interacting with the watch—checking your scores, tracking other activities besides running—which helps the watch company’s bottom line by getting more engagement from you and keeping you excited about the brand.
As I’ve mentioned before, companies keep adding features to justify new models and higher prices—just look at Garmin’s Forerunner 570, which has one athletically meaningful upgrade from the 265 (a more accurate heart rate sensor) and otherwise tacked on a lot of bells and whistles to justify what was, at the time, a $200 price hike. Meanwhile, I've loudly proclaimed that the Forerunner 255, which you can still buy new, is probably the best value Garmin out there.
None of the top-tier features actually help you run faster, unless it’s by keeping you more interested in the hobby of running. So it should be no surprise that professional runners don’t prioritize extra features. And I may be a mere recreational runner, but I’m quite happy to run with a basic watch, as well. How excited I get about fancy features really depends on how much I’m relying on the watch to structure the way I train. If you aren’t looking to the watch to make decisions for you, a basic watch is just fine.
Tuesday, April 28, 2026LiveStream The New M5 MacBook Air Is on Sale for $950 Right Now, LifehackerNo commentsWe may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
Apple announced a slew of new products in March, including updated MacBook Airs with the M5 chip. These MacBooks come in both 13-inch and 15-inch sizes, and if you're interested in either, it's a good time to buy: Amazon is selling both at a $150 discount. That brings the 13-inch MacBook Air to $950 (down from $1,100) and the 15-inch MacBook Air to $1,150 (originally $1,300), matching their lowest prices ever, according to tracking tools.
The M5 MacBook Air is tempting, especially for under $1,000. In comparison to the already excellent M4 Airs, the M5 base model has double the storage at 512GB, making up for the $100 bump in the list price. The M5 chip is powerful and makes the performance even smoother, according to Mashable's review. The aluminum design is as good as you'd expect from Apple's most popular portable laptop, keeping it lightweight and thin. It comes with a Liquid Retina display, Touch ID, a 12MP Center Stage Camera, and the Magic Keyboard.
Typically, the question would be whether to go for the slightly older M4 MacBook Air or pay a bit more for the newer M5 chip—but with the current discount, the 13-inch M5 with 512GB of storage is actually cheaper than a comparably equipped M4 from Amazon, making the choice a no-brainer.
Tuesday, April 28, 2026LiveStreamTechnical storiesNo commentsSince time immemorial, serious PC gamers have proselytized about the superiority of mouse and keyboard control schemes over the more input-limited handheld controllers used by most console gamers (and others). In recent years, though, many PC gamers have started keeping a spare Xbox controller (or similar) nearby for the increasing number of PC games designed primarily or exclusively with thumbsticks and buttons in mind.
Valve's upcoming Steam Controller (not to be confused with the 2015 controller of the same name) is the Steam maker's effort to replace those controllers with something more explicitly designed for the PC, and for the upcoming Steam Machine. After spending a few weeks with the controller, though, we're not quite sure it sets itself apart from the competition enough to justify its high $99 asking price.
From the first time you hold a Steam Controller in your hands, it's clear that this is a well-made piece of hardware. There's a sturdy build quality to all the pieces that makes the controller feel solid in the hand, with just enough heft to feel substantial without being too heavy.
Monday, April 27, 2026System EngineerregisterNo commentsWho, Me? Welcome to another instalment of Who, Me? It's The Register's Monday column that shares your stories of mistakes, occasional malice, and how you came out the other side.…
Monday, April 27, 2026System EngineerregisterNo commentsKETTLE If you needed further evidence that AI comes first in pretty much everything nowadays, look no further than this year's Google Cloud Next show, which happened last week.…
Monday, April 27, 2026LiveStreamTechnical storiesNo commentsParamount+ unveiled a new teaser for the upcoming fourth season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds at CCXP in Mexico City over the weekend.
(Some spoilers for prior seasons below.)
The third season of Strange New Worlds was admittedly a bit uneven, with serious plot lines mixed in with some downright silly ones that divided fans. Arguably the most significant moment was bidding farewell to Melanie Scrofano's Marie Batel, Pike's (Anson Mount) love interest. Her parting gift to Pike: an illusory alternate life where she and Pike got to grow old together. So expect Pike to be dealing with her loss in the upcoming season, among other challenges.
Monday, April 27, 2026LiveStreamTechnical storiesNo commentsIf your spider-sense is tingling, perhaps it's because Prime Video released the official full trailer for its upcoming live action series, Spider-Noir, at CCXPMX26 in Mexico City over the weekend. As it did with the first teaser back in February, the streaming platform released the trailer in two formats: one in black and white (above)—very Raymond Chandler-esque—and another in color (below), which the showrunners are calling “True Hue.”
As previously reported, Marvel Comics created its “noir” line in 2009, reinterpreting familiar Marvel characters in an alternate universe, usually set during the Great Depression in the US. A version of the Spider-Noir character, voiced by Cage, briefly appeared in the animated masterpieces, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and Across the Spider-Verse (2023). (He is set to reprise that role in the upcoming Beyond the Spider-Verse.)
Co-showrunner (with Steve Lightfoot) Oren Uziel is a film noir fan, so that Marvel series naturally appealed to him. The live-action series is still set in 1930s New York, but the spidery superhero is not Peter Parker. (Uziel thought the Parker character was too associated with a boyish high school type, which didn’t really fit the noir vibe.) So Cage is playing Ben Reilly, a hard-boiled PI with a secret superhero identity, The Spider. Per the official premise: “Spider-Noir tells the story of Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage), a seasoned, down on his luck private investigator in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life, following a deeply personal tragedy, as the city’s one and only superhero.”
Sunday, April 26, 2026LiveStreamTechNo commentsSunday, April 26, 2026System EngineerregisterNo commentsopinion You’ve had your laptop for months, and you’ve always made sure it installed Microsoft updates. Then one day you boot up, and Windows 11 greets you with a confusing message: “You’re almost done setting up your PC.”…
Sunday, April 26, 2026System EngineerregisterNo commentsOpinion Cal.com has closed its commercial codebase, abandoning years of AGPL-3.0 licensing in a move that has alarmed the developer community that helped build it and sent ripples through the broader open source world.…
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I've been covering e-readers and e-ink tablets for Lifehacker for a few years now, and I haven't ever encountered a product with as many enthusiastic fans as the Xteink X4, a teeny tiny, bare bones e-reader from China that has replaced my beloved phone-shaped Boox Palma 2 as my distraction-free reading device of choice—not the least because it's a heck of a lot cheaper, around $70 to the Palma 2's $250. And if you act fast, right now you can score an X4 for less than $60 during an Amazon flash sale.
As I explain in my review, the X4 is a little fiddily, a little janky, and not for everyone—but it has a huge cult following of tinkerers who share tips and tricks on Reddit, and have even written their own custom firmware to replace the (admittedly underwhelming) stock operating system. With minimal effort, you can transform it into a truly excellent, stripped-down e-reader perfect for carrying it with you everywhere you go—seriously, it's small enough that I often forget it's in my pocket.
Amazon's flash sale only lasts for a few more hours, so act fast if you're interested. But even if you miss out, the Xteink X4 is still a great buy at the regular $69 price. (Though you might want to wait for the forthcoming Xteink S4, which will add some quality -of-life improvements like a touch screen, a front light, and Android support.)
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My question about virtual reality has always been, "But what is it for?" I finally have an answer: Guassian Splatting. We've always tried to capture our past, whether it's through physical photographs, VHS tapes, or every picture you have stored in the cloud, but we've been limited to viewing our personal histories in flat media, usually from a behind a screen, and always from a single angle. But Gaussian Splatting changes that. This technology allows you to create volumetric 3D models of objects, people, or spaces, so instead of a picture of your child's favorite toy, you can have a realistic scan of it that you can examine from every angle; instead of a snapshot of Thanksgiving dinner, you can have a photorealistic diorama of the dining room that you can walk around.
Gaussian Splatting is a technological newborn. It was first theoretically introduced in a 2023 research paper by Bernhard Kerbl, Georgios Kopanas, Thomas Leimkühler, and George Drettakis. The paper details a new rendering technique that builds 3D models out of millions of semi-transparent blobs called "Gaussians" instead of the solid triangles used in traditional computer graphics. Once calculated, the Gaussians are "Splatted" onto a 2D plane by your computer, and that is arranged and layered based on how they should look from any viewpoint within the Splat. Because the blobs are semi-transparent, they don't block each other. They blend together like brushstrokes in a painting.
Another bonus: Splatting provides a much higher level of detail for its file size compared to traditional methods of scanning. Older scans work on a the geometric principle of stretching a virtual skin made of triangles over an object. For a detailed scan, that could be billions of triangles, resulting in PC-choking file sizes. Splatting is based on mathematical probability rather than rigid geometry. Instead of a solid edge, each "blob" is a tiny cloud that tells the computer how likely a color is to exist in that spot. It only stores the position, color, and transparency of millions of relevant areas in space, as well as how they should reflect light from different angles. The result is files that are big compared to Word documents, but not so huge that you can't work with them on a phone.
Gaussian Splatting quickly went from theory to practice, and now Splats can be created and rendered with only a decent smartphone, making it more accessible than older methods that sometimes required laser scanners or specialized equipment.
3D scanning is already in use professionally in things like mapping real estate for virtual tours and creating photorealistic assets for video games, but Gaussian Splatting is accessible enough that anyone can future-proof their nostalgia.
Splatting gives your future self (or your kids) the ability to "visit" your current life with a level of realism that's breathtaking. It lets you digitally "bottle" the exact layout and volume of a moment in time and preserve it. If your parents had this, you'd be able to walk around your childhood bedroom, or check out every angle and detail of the first car you ever bought.
"Digital preservation" and "3D modeling" sound clinical, but the results of Gaussian Splats are anything but sterile. While photography captures a single angle of light in a room, Gaussian Splats capture the behavior of light from all angles, so the result isn't what the past looks like, but what the past feels like. It's hard to describe, but capturing the quality of light on an object or location puts you in touch with it in a way you didn't think possible. That combined with the haziness of Spats and your own memories adds up to a ethereal, dreamlike experience that isn't like anything else. (I like Splats a lot.)
The barrier to entry for Splatting is just a little time to figure out how it works. You don't need a specialized LiDAR scanner or an overpowered PC, just a relatively recent smartphone. Here's how to get started:
Pick an app: Though the technology is new, a few apps are making it very user-friendly. Here are the two I've tried:
Scaniverse: Excellent for iPhone users, Scaniverse is free, and it processes Splats entirely on your device in only a minute or two.
Luma 3D Capture: Available on both Android and iPhone, Luma is great for beginners, with a scanning process that walks you through creating your first Splat.
Make a capture: Here are some things to think about when making your capture.
Before you start scanning locations or bigger objects, pick something small and simple so you get the concepts down. But not pets: Your subject has to remain perfectly still through the process. (Make an exception for your child. They won't hold still enough, but having even a blurry model of your kid is vital for future you.)
Place your subject in an evenly lit room with enough space to walk all the way around it.
Hit record and walk in a slow, steady circle around your object, keeping your camera pointed at its center.
Do two passes, one from a high angle looking down, another from a low angle, looking up.
Gaussian Splats hate uniformity. They struggle with plain white walls, so think in terms of textures. Also, avoid clear glass and mirrors that confuse the depth calculations.
Have a banana: Now that you've captured your Splat, take a break so the computer can do its thing. How long it will take depends on the app you're using, your phone, and how detailed your scan is. Scaniverse processes Splats right on your phone. For something simple like the guitar below, it took about two minutes of rendering on an iPhone 17 Pro. Luma 3D Capture processes files in the cloud, so how long it takes depends on how many people are in front of you in the queue. It might be a couple minutes. It might be a couple hours—the app sends an alert when your image is finished cooking. The video below took several hours.
Enjoy your creation: Once the math is finished mathing, you can view your creation right on your smartphone screen or computer. Pinch to zoom, drag to rotate, and marvel at how perfectly the scan captured the vibe of the object or space.
Share your creation: These apps give you a couple of easy ways to share your volumetric memory:
Video: You can plot a camera path through your Splat to export a smooth, 2D "fly-through" video. Below is my first scan on YouTube using Scaniverse (it's sloppy; I was new), and my second try with Luma.
Web Link: You can generate a simple web link and text it to your friends or family through both apps. When they tap it, it opens an interactive 3D viewer in their browser—no special apps, accounts, or heavy downloads required.
Viewing a 3D scan on your phone or PC is kind of cool, but you can't really understand how mind-blowing these things are until you check them out in a virtual reality device, where you can physically walk around that Thanksgiving table or lean in to inspect the texture on the couch. Here is how you can do it on the two biggest headsets right now.
The powerful Apple Vision Pro was built to do this. Apple included "Spatial Scenes" right in the OS. It gives a slight 3D pop to 2D photos, but you can take that a little further with apps like Splat Studio that will generate a deeper 3D scene from 2D photos and let you change settings to improve it. But you can get deeper with Spatial Media Toolkit. It lets you make 2D videos into stereoscopic 3D videos. But the final boss is viewing full Splats you made yourself with apps like Luma 3D Capture or Polycam.
If you follow the steps above, you should be able to export the Splat file you created (.ply or .spz) right from your phone to your Vision Pro and step inside the Splat or walk around the object you scanned. You can also check out Splats other users have uploaded.
Meta has embraced the Gaussian Splat revolution. Apps like AirVis (also on the Vision Pro) let you check out Splats you made on your phone, and there are even 4D Splats available on the Quest (more on that below). Meta is also taking the first steps toward cutting out the middleman of your phone altogether. Hyperscape Capture is a still-in-beta app that uses the Quest's existing cameras to scan your room, then save a 3D version of your space. Meta promises that soon you'll be able to send a link to a friend with a headset so they can "come visit."
As hyped as I am for Gaussian Splatting, the technology is in its "version 1.0 era." Capturing a decent Splat takes time and patience and requires the subject to stay absolutely still, and the result isn't always perfect, but the technology is evolving fast enough that the next thing is emerging already. The cutting-Gaussian-edge is 4D Splatting—the fourth dimension is time. 4D Splats are 3D volumetric videos, moving scenes you can view from any point inside or outside the scene. Unlike stereoscopic 3D movies that let you watch from a single point, these are true holographs. At least they are inside a VR rig.
The technology is already in use commercially, most notably in A$AP Rocky's music video "Helicopter," in which performers were captured by 56 cameras and the footage converted to 4D Splats, allowing any angle or impossible camera movement to be used. Check it out:
And there are some 4D Splats you can check out in your headset too. Quest 3 app Gracia has a few volumetric videos that are very impressive. Gracia lets you stream or download 4D Splats of people, and place them anywhere you like in augmented reality. Then you can hit "play" and look at them from any angle, or even move all the way around them. To see what I mean, check out this video I made showing my view from within a Quest 3 headset, of singer Amy May performing a song on my front lawn (with a cameo from my no-doubt confused neighbor).
You probably don't have an array of 20 or so GoPros to create content like Gracia's, but there are some experimental tools out there for consumers to create 4D Splats. KIRI Engine uses Apple's open-source ML-Sharp tool to turn a standard single-lens video into a 4D splat. It doesn't create an AI-aided approximation of stereoscopic 3D like Splat Studio, but converts each individual frame into a separate Splat. It's too technical for me to really mess with and the 3D is guesswork not actual 3D, but I would be surprised if a way of taking volumetric video with only a few smart phone angles wasn't in the works somewhere.
Gaussian Splats are as much of a revelation as I imagine instantly developing snapshots were in the 1960s. Like early Polaroids, it's a bit of a pain, and the results are sometimes grainy, "dreamy" and reminiscent of pointillism, but the emotional impact of a new way of seeing the past is so strong. So get started Splatting now; your future self will thank you.
