When the web is no longer flat – Building the Spatial Web for the Tony Stark in all of us

Editor’s note: This is the latest in our UpTech series, a partnership between YourLocalStudio.com and WRAL TechWire that features conversations with thought leaders in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. In this report, YourLocalStudio.com CEO Alexander Ferguson talks about the emerging Spatial Web – a new dimension for the Web, from flat to immersive experience.

So what do we mean by spatial? Here’s how the Singularity Hub defines it: “The boundaries between digital and physical space are disappearing at a breakneck pace. This magical future ahead is called the Spatial Web and will transform every aspect of our lives, from retail and advertising, to work and education, to entertainment and social interaction.”

UpTech

Welcom to UpTech. I’m Alexander Ferguson.

In this episode of UpTech Report, I interview Gabriel René, executive director at VERSES, a revolutionary organization applying the underlying concepts of the World Wide Web to the real world around us—laying the foundation in which, everyone can be Tony Stark.

The interview

Thank you so much Gabriel for joining us to share your thoughts on upcoming tech knowledge, where we’re going, and VERSES. Tell me first off, there’s VERSES Foundation and VERSES Labs. How did it start; what was the concept there?

Ironically, the concept is the outgrowth of a lot of sci-fi that happened in the ‘80s and ‘90s. That was around the cyberpunk era, which started to discuss things like The Metaverse, which is more or less—as the Web was really emerging—there was an idea of a three-dimensional version of the Web.

You’ve seen this in sort of like Ready Player One, The Oasis. The Matrix is kind of another version of that, but this is the idea of the sort of kinder, gentler version of those—both sort of an AR version of our information. Instead of being behind screens, it’s in the world. It’s placed on objects, it’s related to people, and then all the sort of interactions and transactions that happen around that.

And then I would say the instructions themselves—the sort of the how to, the wiki—both like the…If you think of like a wiki earth for every person, place, and thing, the information isn’t on a screen. It’s kind of like the thing that you’re looking at or interacting with and then all the permissions and interaction rules.

So, in a way, it’s an evolution of the web in the world where we take the concept of HTTP linking pages and media in text, and instead, we link people, places, and things in transactions. And we call this the Spatial Web.

So, the idea of VERSES was really spawned from work we started doing in the early ‘90s. And in the last two and a half years, as blockchain and other technologies, including a lot of spatial computing, emerged, we saw this convergence of these technologies with AI and IoT and suddenly realized it was quite possible to do and then invented a way to do it.

So you say you’ve invented a way to do it. Okay, the concept of in the ‘80s you saw this future where all these things could be connected. Technology is here now. What is “it” that you have invented?

Everyone recognizes there’s problems with the Web, everyone who uses the Web recognizes there’s problems. What they don’t quite understand is that some of those problems have to do with the emergence of a new interface—an interface that is more intuitive than the initial interfaces.

So, when you’re interfacing with computing, in the beginning it took specialists that were engineers—that were the only ones who could work with these massive, room-scale computers. Well, now computers are getting down to micro-sized and nano-sized—but very small. And there are computers of today—a one-year-old can use an iPad or an iPhone without any training.

So, the intuitive nature speeds up our ability to interact with computing. When it becomes spatial—and we recognize this with Siri, you know, voice, and gesture, and content itself becoming spatial—then it’s much more natural.

So, our ability to speed up our interactions is going to increase—that’s at the interface layer.

The next level is sort of logic layer, and the logic layer for the Web is more or less based on sort of JavaScript and HTML, and those technologies are about linking pages. But the problem is: really what we want to do is link information to things in the world.

And what we do is: we see something in the world and we go, “Oh, what is that tree?” “How do I build a deck?” “How do I, um, who’s that person?” “What is the background or history on this thing?” And we go to a screen, and we ask the screen for that information.

And so, the cost is that it requires to shift back and forth, and the information about the world isn’t in the world—it’s in the screens. But then the instructions about how to do things we type up in the screens, and we go, “here’s your instructions Alexander: go find this box in the warehouse and move it over here, and when you’re done with that, make sure you fill out this form.” All of that moves into the world itself.

So, it’s a little less of solving, specifically, problems and more about optimizing our relationship with computing in the most natural way—in the way that’s most logically intuitive and automatable—and finally, by adding blockchain, the ability to then have integrity and trust around that. And when we talk about one of the big problems of Web 2.0, it’s fake news, fake information, and hacking.

Well in Web 3.0, that turns into biohacking and fake reality—the ability to really trust data and even holographic, hyper realistic information—where the world and a video game look identical. We need to be able to solve these future problems, and we can’t solve it with the technologies of yesterday.

It’s both the ability to interact with computing in a new way as well as being able to trust what you see by linking it to real world things. Am I, did I–

That was beautiful, and I would like to use that.

Okay, but it’s an interesting point. So, you’re trying to create a new standard. If I look at your website, I see VERSES Foundation trying to create a new protocol and standard that people will follow.

HTTP is one of the most widely adopted standards—it’s an open standard. The World Wide Web Foundation then supports that standard and maintains–

So you’re trying to compete with the World Wide Web, you could say?

No, what I’m saying is that the World Wide Web doesn’t compete with ICANN, who sets up the domain names.

But HTTP you are?

No, HTTP is about linking pages. We talked about linking people, places, and things in the physical world. So, HTTP is literally Hypertext Transfer Protocol. We’ve come up with this Hyperspace Transaction Protocol—it’s about interactions in space.

So, the Internet is here, World Wide Web sits on top, the Spatial Web sits on top of that. They’re entirely compatible; they can be used together, but they serve different functions—connecting computers, connecting pages, connecting things in the world.

Note: For previous stories in this series, search UpTech at WRALTechWire.com

Next: What industries are primed for this?