Announcing Vision Hack – the first global visionOS hackathon!

Hey everyone, it's Cosmo. Imagine walking into a huge, shiny new mall, only to find tumbleweeds rolling past 'Coming Soon' signs, and a slightly desperate hologram greeter begging you to please, please try the free samples of her virtual cinnamon rolls. That's the visionOS App Store right now.

Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but I'm not far off. This is where you come in. We're at the frontier of a new computing paradigm, and we need visionaries like you to shape it. That's why I'm thrilled to announce Vision Hack, brought to you by visionOS Dev Partners and Beautiful Things.

Vision Hack is the first global visionOS hackathon, coinciding with the international release of Apple Vision Pro. Mark your calendars for September 13th through 15th – that's 48 hours to create the next groundbreaking visionOS app or game. Or if you just want to create a spatial fart app, that's cool too, we don't judge!

The best part? It's completely remote. You can join from anywhere in the world with just your headset, imagination, and Discord. We encourage teams to collaborate in SpaceTime with your spatial personas, which we believe is the future of remote communication. Teams are capped at a maximum of five people each, reflecting the capacity of a SpaceTime call.

Sound like fun? Click below to sign up.

There's a $25 registration fee to ensure participants have some skin in the game. Think of it as your ticket to the spatial computing revolution.

While Vision Hack is remote, we also invite you to host a local meetup wherever you are, because let's face it, nothing beats in-person collaboration. If you're interested in volunteering to host, check our website for details on how to make that happen.

This is your chance to be at the forefront of spatial computing, to redefine how we interact with digital content, and open up new possibilities in mixed reality!

We're excited to see what you'll create! Again, check out visionoshackathon.com for details and registration.

We're looking forward to seeing you at Vision Hack! Let's fill that empty mall with some mind-blowing apps, shall we?

Apple's cooking up a budget Vision Pro, and it's eyeing your wallet. The secret ingredient? Slightly blurrier screens.

The Elec reports Apple's asking LG and Samsung about 2-inch displays with 1,700 PPI. That's a significant downgrade from the current Sony-made 1.42-inch micro-OLEDs boasting a retina-searing 3,386 PPI.

Translation? Bigger screens, fewer pixels, cheaper headset. Apple's playing the resolution limbo—how low can they go while keeping that premium experience?

Sure, the Vision Pro's eye-watering resolution is its crown jewel. But let's face it—at its current price, it's about as accessible as a private jet made of diamonds. A budget version could be Apple's ticket to visionOS world domination.

How much blur can our eyes tolerate? Apple's walking a tightrope between affordability and that signature Apple polish.

One thing's for sure—the race to democratize spatial computing is on. Will Apple's gamble on lower-res displays pay off, or will users cry foul at the first sign of a visible pixel?

Figma just pulled a hat trick at Config, dropping three game-changers that'll make designers' heads spin:

• UI3: Not just a facelift—it's a whole new face for Figma's main tool.

• Figma Slides: Google Slides, watch out. Figma's gunning for your lunch money.

• Figma AI: The elephant in the room. Generating designs with text? Designer kryptonite or secret weapon? But don't panic yet—it's also packing some actually useful tricks:

  • Auto-renaming layers (farewell, "Rectangle 267")

  • Visual search (find that needle in your design haystack)

  • Background removal (Photoshop who?)

After the rocky Adobe merger fallout, Figma's not just bouncing back—they’re pole-vaulting over the competition and sticking the landing.

So, visionaries, what's your take? Design renaissance or robot takeover? Hit me with your hottest takes!

The robot invasion marches on! Spotted during my AWE pilgrimage to LA: Waymo cars cruising sans human babysitters. Last I checked, these robo-rides had flesh-and-blood chaperones. Now? Empty cockpits rolling down Sunset like they own the place. Impressive? Absolutely. Eerie? You bet.

Cue flashbacks to the 2020 Coco delivery bot invasion — R2D2's gig economy cousins. Remember when street robots were Instagram gold? Now they're commonplace.

We've awaited driverless cars since The Jetsons. Now they're here, silently judging our parallel parking skills. The urban landscape is shifting, increasingly populated by robo-beings.

Are driverless cars our future, or just a pitstop on the road to robot domination? Will you be first to snooze through rush hour, or are you white-knuckling that steering wheel for life?

Is it just me, or is Meta's Horizon OS suddenly cosplaying as visionOS? Their latest Quest Public Test Channel update is serving some serious Apple vibes:

• Multiple windows floating in 3D space? Check.

• Spatial video support? You betcha.

• Passthrough getting a glow-up? Oh yeah.

• Travel mode for your on-the-go VR fix? Yup.

Coincidence? Maybe. Copycat move? Perhaps. But let's be real—does it matter why Meta's suddenly channeling its inner Apple? The XR ecosystem is heating up faster than a Quest 2 after a three-hour Beat Saber session.

One thing's for sure: Apple's fashionably late entrance to the XR party seems to have lit a fire under Zuckerberg's metaverse dreams. And hey, we're not complaining.

Whether Meta's playing catch-up or we're witnessing the start of an epic XR showdown, the real winners here are the users. Buckle up, folks—the XR race is on, and it's going to be one hell of a ride.

Hold onto your director's chairs, folks! Runway's Gen-3 Alpha, the AI video wunderkind, has just gone public. No more VIP-only access for AI influencers—now everyone can play Spielberg. But brace yourselves for the plot twist: it'll cost you a pretty penny.

The damage? $15 per month for a measly six 10-second videos. That's right, $2.50 per video or 25 cents per second. At that price, you'd think it came with a side of popcorn and a drink.

But before you yell "cut" on your AI director dreams, consider this: despite the steep price tag and some wonky physics, we're witnessing the dawn of a new era in storytelling. Hollywood, it's time for some serious soul-searching.

Pair Gen-3 Alpha with Luma's Dream Machine, and suddenly we're knee-deep in a brave new world of high-quality text-to-video. It's like someone gave a typewriter steroids and taught it to paint moving pictures.

The implications? Massive. We're talking about democratizing video production, turning screenplay writers into one-person movie studios, and potentially making green screens as obsolete as silent films.

Sure, it's not perfect yet. The physics might be more "creative interpretation" than "laws of nature," and the price point screams "early adopter tax." But make no mistake—this is just the trailer. The feature film of AI-generated video is coming, and it's going to be a blockbuster.

Yeah, this is demented.

evanandkatelyn

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What would you do if you saw this thing running towards you in a park?