The AR Show: 2022 Kickoff: The Quest for Wearability in AR Glasses to Meet Consumer Acceptance | Otter.ai

The AR Show: 2022 Kickoff: The Quest for Wearability in AR Glasses to Meet Consumer Acceptance

Jason McDowall31min

Jason McDowall

00:02

Welcome to the AR show right dive deep into augmented reality with a focus on the technology, the use cases and the people behind them. I'm your host Jason McDowall.

Jason McDowall

00:14

Today I'm kicking off 2021 with another annual monologue. Hope you and your family are able to have a safe and relaxing holiday even in the face of another wave of COVID.

Jason McDowall

00:23

This is the fifth such annual kickoff episode and when looking back at my notes from last year, the big surprise from 2021 was Facebook's parent company changing its name to Meta Platforms, and popularizing the term metaverse. But while the hype spread like wildfire, the progress and adoption of AR hardware crept along at a much slower pace.

Jason McDowall

00:42

I'm going to share my take on some of the highlights of 2021 and what we might see in 2022 as it relates to augmented reality. For those that are newer to the show, let me reintroduce myself in for those that are already familiar. Please skip ahead at least 90 seconds.

Jason McDowall

00:56

I studied electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon, where I earned a BS and MS. I also studied business at UCLA Anderson where I received my MBA. Following my time at CMU, I spent four years as an active duty officer in the US Air Force and a part that is now the US Space Force. Working on the development and deployment of large scale computer and communication systems in support of satellites flown by the Department of Defense and other agencies. I got to travel the world and work on some really fun projects. After my service in the Air Force. I began my entrepreneurial journey through the early days of the smartphone revolution. And by early I mean very early, well before the iPhone before Facebook even and in that time before the iPhone I was the co founder and CEO of two startups before joining the mobile product management team@salesforce.com. Four years later, I was drawn back to entrepreneurship and co founded a mobile focused enterprise software startup that was acquired by another CRM company. Then more than five years ago, I took a step back and reassess how I want to spend the back half of my career. Since my days at CMU, I've been enamored with the idea of having a computer in our pocket connected to the internet. And so much of my career has been around making that device contextually aware and supportive, helping the user become more informed, more effective or more entertained. When I looked ahead, the next frontier that embodied the same principles was AR glasses. Knowing my proclivity to jump into things way too early, I joined a very promising hardware technology company that is solving one of the biggest hurdles for AR glasses, delivering a high quality visual experience within a truly wearable device. That company is a Ostendo, which I anticipate you hear a lot more about in 2022. On the side, I'm also an angel investor and a venture partner at WXR fund, a female founder focused early stage VC investing in AR VR and AI. And of course, I also get to do this podcast. I feel so fortunate to engage and learn from the world. In this way. I'm grateful you take the time to listen.

Jason McDowall

02:43

Rather than an interview. Today I'm going to share my flawed, incomplete and biased perspective on what happened in 2021. And what to expect in 2022. With that, let's dive in.

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