Holograms & The Metaverse With Shawn Frayne

Founded in 2014, Looking Glass Factory Inc is headquartered in Greenpoint, Brooklyn with additional operations in Hong Kong. In 2018 the company launched the world's first desktop holographic display dev kit; in 2019, started shipping the world's first 8K light field display; and in 2020, launched Looking Glass Portrait, a personal holographic display. Today, Looking Glass Factory is building a world in which everyone from LiDAR photographers to Unity developers to Fortune 500 companies can leave Flatland and enter the third dimension.

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🌐 Website: https://lookingglassfactory.com/

FOLLOW SHAWN FRAYNE, CEO & Co-Founder

➡️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/haddockinvent
➡️ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawn-frayne-411b651/


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Chapters

• 0:39 The Looking Glass Factory & The Metaverse
• 2:10 No Dystopian Future Allowed
• 3:23 Decentralisation. Own Your Data
• 4:01 Holograms & The Metaverse
• 7:05 Follow The Money

Transcript

Ina O'Murchu  0:04  
Hi, guys. And it's that time again for another podcast show. So welcome. Welcome. Welcome to podcast number 13. And in this episode, I got the wonderful chance to speak to Shawn Frayne, The CEO and co-founder of the Looking Glass Factory, a Brooklyn based startup that makes the looking glass, a desktop, holographic display for 3D creators, the groups of people can see and touch without VR or AR headgear. Shawn has a BS in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And Shawn is absolutely internationally dedicated to building the holographic future ahead of us.

Shawn Frayne  0:39  
It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. My name is Shawn Frayne. And I'm one of the co-founders and the CEO of a company called Looking Glass Factory based in Brooklyn, in Hong Kong, we're chasing this long held dream, what we call internally the dream of the hologram, the idea that you could represent reality with a field of light and do that in a way that a group of people could sit around and experience and interact with without them having to put on a VR AR headset to do so. So a lot of folks have chased this over the last I mean, almost a century and then with a lot of vigor over the last 30 years or so. So we're very, very fortunate to be the company that's been able to bring to market some of the first holographic interfaces, which are called the Looking Glass actually named after our company. Personally, I've been longing for this moment since I was a little kid and saw the holograms and movies like Star Wars are the one that got me was the holographic shark that gobbled up Marty McFly in Back to the Future Part II. And so it's really wonderful to see this thing I dreamed about as a kid when I was seven or eight actually real now. And folks were using these systems.

Ina O'Murchu  1:46  
It's great. The timing is now you're taking a very different approach. Are you to Hollywood holograms to the metaverse, can you talk about what you see to be the main difference? You spoke there about not having headsets involved.

Shawn Frayne  2:00  
We used to have our old workshop we had a the door to the office and the workshop had something scrawled on the front. And I can't even remember who scrawled this on the front door. But it said "No Dystopian Future Is Allowed". And that's the reason that we started the company because we saw even seven years ago when we started this thing that there were folks who were starting to imagine this land grab, that they could execute with VR, AR headsets that sort of trap people into their own reality, and really gave a lot of ownership over that reality to a single company. And we see that coming to fruition now, at least their dreams of that coming that sort of dystopian future coming to fruition from what Facebook's announced recently, and others. So from day one, we were building an alternative way to access this universe of 3D content, and you had to be able to look away from it. And that's it. It's something that you wouldn't have to strap on your head, but that your entire field of view, your entire reality wouldn't be owned by a single company. In some ways we are complementary to the access points that folks are exploring with mobile or AR VR. But we're also counterweight we hope to future in which you can only access the metaverse through a Facebook owned headset, which to me is one of the most horrifying things I can possibly imagine.

Shawn Frayne  3:23  
Totally, absolutely agreed. I mean, I know how much also when you spend too much time in these headsets that you get exhausted. It's bad for your side if there's loads of pros and cons with everything. But I also read recently that meta is actually one of 16 million Metaverse projects this year. So I think that's wonderful. And I'm really looking forward to the decentralised projects that get developed. Because I think if we didn't have the decentralised technologies coming fast at us Web 3.0, it would be very bleak indeed. So your hologram project. I mean, the videos are fantastic. Can you talk a little bit about how you got into developing them and how they came to be?

Shawn Frayne  4:01
Sure, I promise it's better in person. So it's kind of when we post videos online or share them on a Zoom call or whatnot. It's kind of like describing the telephone over telegraph wire. But hopefully, we can show you some of our systems in the not so distant future. How I got into this and how the rest of the team got into it is I mean, I've dreamed of this for a long time. And it was not clear how a holographic interface or this controllable field of light that could represent reality that didn't require you to gear up in any way wasn't clear how that would come to pass, it was clear that it was physically possible. So if it was physically impossible, then just couldn't get started, but wasn't clear how the engineered system would need to be put together. So after realizing at the MIT Media Lab and other places that no one had really cracked the code on this type of non headset based field of light controllable hologram graphics system, a small team of us, about seven years ago started to prototype and made many, many dozens of very distinct prototypes, hundreds of prototypes if you add all the variations up over the years that just explored different ways to generate 3D stuff that you could see in a group without having to gear up. And there's a lot of ways to try to do that. So we tried spinning LEDs flapping platens, with high speed projectors on them, and all sorts of crazy stuff. And then in 2018, we ended up figuring it out and landing on this configuration that we call the Looking Glass. Now, we definitely got laughed at a lot, six or seven years ago, because that was the moment where there was tons of money going into headsets. So Magic Leap had just raised tons of money, the headset company out of Florida, and Facebook was on the cusp of acquiring Oculus. And so when we said, Well, no, we think that there's this other way to do this. Most folks, unless they were extremely contrarian by nature, are not interested in talking with us. And we did literally get laughed out of a number of meetings with prototype systems that we had. And I thought I think the tides turning and folks are going to realize and have already started to realize over the last year or so that there are different ways that you have to access what now folks are calling the Metaverse and holographic interfaces that you don't have to gear up for are maybe unimportant part of that, again, we take the extreme view that it's going to be the primary way that folks access that stuff. The term hologram has evolved so much over the years, and even over the last year to it. Now when folks say holograms, I think they are sort of referring to almost a media format that is living persistent 3D stuff. So the thing that makes what we're doing distinct is that we can pull that media format of holographic video or holographic representation of something into the real world through the Looking Glass. And so that's just on the term in terms of how this is going to impact folks' lives. I think it's the next step in many millennia sort of journey, from figuring out ways that we can relive our memories of moments and have people that we that are important to us in more realistic ways, having different ways to connect with one another across great distances, and ways to create with each other again, at great distances. And obviously, with what's happening in the world, the pressure to figure out new ways to do that has increased a lot more than anyone expected, certainly a lot more than we expected.

Ina O'Murchu  7:40  
Yeah, I think with the vast number of projects that are being developed, it's fantastic. It really is. And it's actually a breath of fresh air really, because what has to come next is the education of normal people who don't operate in tech. They're just consumers of the product. I think that will come with an awareness of owning your own data, which is coming in your opinion, and you tell the listeners why it's so important. We have these different perspectives, and how we can ensure the metaverse is a place where we can invest our time and resources, why there must be a multitude of perspectives in your opinion. Hi, guys, Ina here. Just wanted to let you know that this episode was brought to you by Oriels Magnesium Ionic Drops called Magnesium Mineral Balance. Oriels Ionic Magnesium Drops, happy to get that deep sleep and boost your energy and immune system. I've got a 10% off discount code called INA10 that you can use at their checkout, go through the link in the podcast description the podcast description below.

Shawn Frayne  7:40  
Yeah, I mean, imagine if you're someone like me, who believes that the way companies have leveraged companies like Facebook have leveraged tools like mobile devices to put folks in different bubbles of reality. And that's bad for discourse. That's bad for connecting folks who are unlike you with one another. If that's bad for democracy, then just imagine how bad it's going to be if a company like that, or companies like that ended up controlling your entire field of view, literally the entire overlay on your reality for 16 hours a day. And that is why companies like Facebook are investing so heavily in this because it is the land grab of all land grabs, it's far more as far more real estate than a continent because it is everyone's reality. And the horrifying potential of that is that everyone will be in their little bubble and we will fracture as a group of people as a social species into these small pockets. And it will be hard to recover from that. So I think there's a whole lot that needs to be done to counter that mechanism at work right now from companies like Facebook slash Mehta. One of them is different ways to access that new More advanced three dimensional content in this new universe on the web, the metaverse or whatever you want to call it. So that's the danger. And I think folks can just follow the money. Companies only invest, big companies like this only invest the amount of money that they're putting into these Metaverse projects, if they think they can own something at scale, and what they want to own are your eyes what you're interested in, in what you see, and that's bad. I think if there are ways to access that content that you can look away from, then we'll end up being okay. Yeah, it's not only folks can say, Ah, well, it's VR folks are never going to be doing that at scale. And that's true. But that's not that's not a company like Facebook's endgame or plan. They're planning to do the AR jump.

Ina O'Murchu  10:44  
Yeah, they've got investors and the investors have to be satisfied. And that's the challenging thing, when you've already committed to having a 20 or 200 times return, you know, thank God for databases like CrunchBase. That's how you couldn't follow the money. Yeah, you want to see the truth? You just go in there. And you see who's invested in what tells you the truth. So no misinformation on CrunchBase.

Shawn Frayne  11:04  
That's right, exactly. 

Ina O'Murchu  11:06  
I'm very interested in how do artists use your holograms, Shawn? Can you give us an example of how they use the hologram?

Shawn Frayne  11:13  
Oh, yeah, I mean, for us, it's 3D artists. And that means a whole lot of different things, folks take different types of three dimensional or light field photography, videography, sculpting and 3D, etc. So that's a big umbrella of 10s of millions of folks. But 3D artists have been making incredible pieces, some that they made for other platforms that then they just pulled into the Looking Glass. So there's tools like Blender and Maya and other 3D sculpting and modeling tools that folks have been using millions of folks for many, many years. And they can pull those creations they've made into the real world in the Looking Glass, almost as if they have a new place to live. So in some cases, folks are making new stuff for this very particular medium of holographic interface. But in a lot of other cases, folks are making pulling in things that they've already created. That also includes interactive applications, games, ways to explore different concepts, like what is it like to view four dimensional structures in three dimensional canvas, like the Looking Glass, so it's all over the place in a great way. And there's over 10,000, folks now who have a Looking Glass sitting on their desk, and they're making stuff all the time and sharing it on our Discord and on Twitter and elsewhere. And that's the I think the most joyous thing for most of us in the company is just seeing the unexpected creations that are coming out of the community. 

Ina O'Murchu  12:38  
Yeah, it's no limits on the imagination at all. Do you have any examples of let's say, you're Looking Glass, the 8K Generation II has been used by a team of people. Can you give us any example? That's really interesting.

Shawn Frayne  12:49  
Sure. So those just started shipping very, very recently. So these are early days, but folks are using them in museums, imagine if you could have a way to represent a rare artifact in multiple locations as real as the real thing, but without having to ship that artifact around the world. So there's a lot of utility, when there's something very scarce or very rare, and representing that holographically, that some folks who are getting 8K spent exploring computational chemistry and drug discovery, designing new drugs that are very complex, three dimensional locking key mechanisms, and very difficult to design or explain in a team of folks on 2D or flat monitors. Now they can do that, and are doing that in the Looking Glass. So there's a company called Schrodinger in New York, that's been a great partner in that field with the larger scale units. Let's see medical education, different artists created a piece where he went out into a forest and recorded a number of videos, and then pulled that into different 3D software, in this case, Unity and Unreal, which are these engines that can add interactivity and what not to 3D content. And he created these amazingly beautiful experiences in the Looking Glass 8k. So it's similar to what's happening on the individual creator level. But for the 8k, of course, it's a more expensive, larger format system. So in that case, it's mostly organizations that are exploring but it's also very, very fertile, exploratory ground, 

Ina O'Murchu  14:19  
Kind of cutting back on the need to travel to see things also. Yeah, which is always more effective business. It's more efficient. 

Shawn Frayne  14:25  
Well, I mean, yeah, it that's our nothing is ever going to replace in person, no matter what anybody says. I think that being there with someone physically in the same space is an irreplaceable feeling. But there may be something in between a Zoom call and being there in person with someone. So there are a lot of explorations on communication and collaboration in that respect that are happening now.

Ina O'Murchu  14:49  
It's great that you're doing this because it is an alternative and it's great that they're there. And this should inspire other people to think outside the box as well when it comes to the metaphor, but a lot of people also don't realize that the Metaverse can built into the browsers, they just think it's the headset. So it's good. There's different approaches to coming.

Shawn Frayne  15:05  
Yeah, I think most folks don't actually believe what we're doing is possible. So we're, we're right there in Brooklyn and in Hong Kong, and it's not like we have security guards keeping folks at bay. It's just we've kind of been very quietly and working on this over the last seven years. And that's kind of the what we've built into our company by design. We didn't want to overhype something, we just wanted to deliver it to the world and now probably the time for us to get out and tell more folks about it.

Ina O'Murchu  15:35  
Thanks for listening to my podcast show. For more information, please visit my website www.inaom.io or head over to Facebook Group Technologies Impacting Society. Why not follow me on Twitter @Ina? See you next time.