Welcome back to Spatial Beats, where we round up all the top news and happenings from around the spatial computing spectrum, including its escalating infusions with AI and other emerging tech. Let’s dive in…

The Lede

TikTok Survives The Week. Last Sunday, January 19th, ByteDance shuttered TikTok in the U.S. to comply with PAFACA, which mandated its sale to an American company. Hours later, President-elect Donald Trump announced plans for an executive order allowing ByteDance more time to negotiate a solution, and it was back online. Despite this, Apple and Google are keeping the app out of their stores, wary of billion-dollar penalties if the order is overturned. Meanwhile, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts are aggressively courting TikTok influencers with cash incentives.

Feeling Spatial

Google is acquiring HTC VIVE VR engineering talent and licensing its intellectual property in a deal worth $250M. This whole thing makes no sense to me and the parties aren’t helping, so let’s speculate. Google released Android XR, a new operating system for headsets and smart glasses, in December 2024. Developed in collaboration with Samsung and Qualcomm, the new OS integrates Google’s Gemini AI into upcoming XR headsets like Samsung’s new pass-through mixed reality headset, Project Moohan, which was officially unveiled by Samsung yesterday. It will use Google’s new Android XR OS, which will counter Apple and Meta’s XR operating systems. With the Meta Quest 3’s disappointing holiday sales, and the disheartening sales of Apple Vision Pro, why would Google, which has never met an XR project it could not kill (Google Glass, Google Daydream, Poly, etc.), need to buy anything from HTC? The details of the deal aren’t public, including where this leaves HTC.

Virbela Founder Alex Howland re-acquires his Metaverse platform from EXP Realty. Six short years ago, EXP Realty CEO Glenn Stanford liked what Virbela did for his fledging real estate business so much, he bought the company. This was prescient, as Virbela went on to become one of the big Covid lockdown remote collaboration solutions. Howland and his co-founder, CTO Erik Hill, plan to launch a new web-based version of Virbela in Q2 2025, finally freeing the platform from software downloads that corporate networks hate.

The Whole Story of How NFL QB Jayden Daniels Trains  With VR Is In This Twitter thread. It’s not exactly breaking news. The NY Times wrote about it in October. The “flight simulator for QBs” the star QB relies upon has resurfaced in the news this week, as Daniels leads the Washington Commanders into the NFC Championship game Sunday, January 22nd. In 2015, QB Carson Palmer of the Arizona Cardinals used a VR system from SRTRIVR that utilized 360 video. This simulation is more like a video game. It’s from a European company, Cognilize, that was previously focused on soccer training.

The AI Desk

The day after taking office, US President Donald Trump announced Project Stargate, a $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative backed by OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle. The companies pledged an initial $100 billion investment, which they say will create 100,000 U.S. jobs and build 20 massive data centers, starting in Texas. Presumably, the $500 Billion will also fund their power needs as well, but the parties did not address that. SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son credited Trump’s reelection for the deal while OpenAI’s Sam Altman praised Trump’s role. Altman later sparred with the notably absent techbro-in-chief, Elon Musk, who was dismissive of the deal. “They don’t actually have the money,” Musk wrote on X. He is trying to prevent OpenAI, which he co-founded, from transitioning from a not-for-profit to a for-profit company, which would compete with Musk’s own Xai. Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest investor, and its principal cloud partner, is losing its designation as exclusive provider of computing capacity for the artificial intelligence startup.

DeepSeek’s AI Model Challenges OpenAI’s o1. Chinese AI research firm DeepSeek has unveiled DeepSeek-R1, an open-source reasoning model that reportedly matches the performance of OpenAI’s o1 on specific benchmarks using much less compute. Despite U.S. export restrictions on advanced AI chips, Chinese firms have rapidly advanced their AI capabilities. Tech CEOs have argued the imposition of AI regulations would cause them to fall behind their Chinese and other foreign competitors who face no such constraints.

Mistral AI to Go Public, Leading a New Wave of Tech IPOs. With a valuation of around $2 billion after its December funding round, the French company’s IPO could be the first of many in what’s shaping up to be a strong year for tech public offerings. The ongoing AI boom, coupled with improving market conditions, suggests that other high-growth startups may soon follow suit. As the industry pivots toward commercialization, Mistral’s success—or struggles—on the public market could set a precedent for the next generation of AI firms. In a bull market, this may just be the beginning of a wave of AI and tech IPOs.

Created using Google Veo 2, this AI short film delivers visuals so realistic, you’ll think you’re watching a Hollywood blockbuster. The results are genuinely jaw-dropping!

https://youtu.be/7RT9G-P9IhE

Spatial Audio

For more spatial commentary & insights, check out the AI/XR Podcast, hosted by the author of this column, Charlie Fink, Ted Schilowitz, former studio executive and co-founder of Red Camera, and Rony Abovitz, founder of Magic Leap. This week our guest is Elizabeth Baron, Founder, Immersionary Enterprises, LLC, Senior Advisor, Intelligent Immersive Simulation, UNMC iEXCEL. Formerly Global Lead, Immersive Reality for Ford Motor Company Product Development. You can find it on podcasting platforms Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.

Charlie Fink is an author and futurist focused on spatial computing. See his books here. Spatial Beats contains insights and inputs from Fink’s collaborators including Paramount Pictures futurist Ted Shilowitz.

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