Technologies

I Tried an AR Laptop. It’s Way Ahead of Its Time

The Spacetop is like a Chromebook for AR headsets. With Apple’s hardware looming, it also feels like a reminder of how computers could change.

A small keyboard and trackpad lies in my lap. But there’s no screen. Not that you can see, anyway. To me, I have a curved wraparound workspace with dozens of windows open. I’m seeing it on a pair of AR glasses (with prescription inserts) perched on my nose.

I first tried the Spacetop in Las Vegas back in January, but the company that developed it, Sightful, is finally announcing the early-access product experiment now. I’ve seen tons of AR and VR headsets, but very few unique peripherals designed to work together with these future goggles and glasses. Instead of gaming or social experiences, Spacetop’s main pitch is to turn laptops into AR-assisted devices with endless virtual displays.

If that sounds like a weird pitch, consider that I’ve already lived it. I’ve paired Meta’s Quest Pro to my laptop to extend its virtual monitors around my head, and plenty of solutions like this already exist using available apps. The interfaces can be clunky, and the hardware isn’t totally made to be mobile. Spacetop’s keyboard base, with its own Qualcomm processor inside, acts as a spatially tracked anchor that the AR glasses can follow and track the floating displays to. The tracking can work while in motion in a car or plane, and a button on the keyboard can make the floating displays vanish for an in-room conversation with someone, toggling the virtual screens on and off.

A visualization of someone working on a keyboard while screens hover in the air around them. — This visualization of working on Spacetop is actually very similar to the experience of using it, except the field of view at any time is smaller (imagine viewing through a narrower window).

Sightful

The Spacetop comes with a pair of NReal Light AR glasses as part of its package, which need to be physically tethered to the keyboard to work. Sightful’s founders are planning for wireless options eventually, but found the tethered option more reliable for consistent tracking right now. Also, the whole concept could eventually work with other AR and mixed-reality headset hardware down the road.

Hands on a keyboard that doesn't have a screen. A screenless laptop. — The Spacetop’s keyboard. No screen, just a base. There’s a cradle for the AR glasses.

Scott Stein/CNET

That would make sense, considering how many devices should be on their way: Apple’s, to start, and whatever Samsung, Google and Qualcomm are cooking up in the next year or so. NReal’s glasses are fine, but don’t work over my own glasses. Instead, I had to use prescription inserts, which Sightful will make for buyers of the hardware. The inserts I tried weren’t a perfect match, but were enough to appreciate that the display resolution was more than good enough for monitor readouts. The field of view, however, is narrower than most VR headsets: it can show something like a 40-inch TV screen as seen across a table, but I have to turn my head to see the other floating windows of other minimized browsers in the Spacetop’s Chrome-like software interface.

A man working on a screenless laptop with AR glasses on — Sightful’s co-founder, Tomer Kahan, demoing Spacetop with me. I worked on it, too.

Scott Stein/CNET

Zooming into displays, or scrolling around, is all done through trackpad and keyboard work. The keyboard itself is the interface.

Sightful’s team has experience in AR: Founders Tamir Berliner and Tomer Kahan came from Magic Leap, and Berliner also founded Primesense, the depth-sensing technology that powered Microsoft Kinect and which Apple acquired as the foundation to its Face ID TrueDepth camera.

As Apple’s headset begins to imagine how mixed reality could work with other devices — perhaps iPads, or the Apple Watch — upcoming glasses and goggles will start to imagine working better with phones or laptops, and other tools to come. It makes sense that new peripherals would arrive as well — not just controllers, but tracking rings, wearable trackers and a new wave of keyboards designed specifically for mixed reality.

I think Spacetop is a bit ahead of the curve here, and while it’s designed as a primary computer with its own headset, the future may belong to smart accessories that evolve from this idea to work with more headsets to come. If VR and AR are ever going to be more than just places for games, better work tools need to arrive. Spacetop is a pretty fascinating first step to what I imagine will be a lot more on this front.

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Technologies

Scary Survey Results: Teen Drivers Are Often Looking at Their Phones

New troubling research found that entertainment is the most common reason teens use their phones behind the wheel, followed by texting and navigation.

A new study reveals that teen drivers in the US are spending more than one-fifth of their driving time distracted by their phones, with many glances lasting long enough to significantly raise the risk of a crash. Published in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention and released on Thursday, the research found that, on average, teens reported looking at their phones during 21.1% of every driving trip. More than a quarter of those distractions lasted two seconds or longer, which is an amount of time widely recognized as dangerous at highway speeds.

Most distractions tied to entertainment, not emergencies

The top reason teens said they reached for their phones behind the wheel was for entertainment, cited by 65% of respondents. Texting (40%) and navigation (30%) were also common. Researchers emphasized that these distractions weren’t typically urgent, but rather habitual or social.

Teens know the risks

The study includes survey responses from 1,126 teen drivers across all four US regions, along with in-depth interviews with a smaller group of high schoolers. Most participants recognized that distracted driving is unsafe and believed their parents and peers disapproved of the behavior.

But many teens also assumed that their friends were doing it anyway, pointing to a disconnect between personal values and perceived social norms.

Teens think they can resist distractions

Interestingly, most teens expressed confidence in their ability to resist distractions. That belief, researchers suggest, could make it harder to change behavior unless future safety campaigns specifically target these attitudes.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Rebecca Robbins of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said interventions should aim to shift social norms while also emphasizing practical steps, such as enabling «Do Not Disturb» mode and physically separating drivers from their devices.

«Distracted driving is a serious public health threat and particularly concerning among young drivers,» Robbins said. «Driving distracted doesn’t just put the driver at risk of injury or death, it puts everyone else on the road in danger of an accident.»

What this means for parents and educators

The researchers say their findings can help guide educators and parents in developing more persuasive messaging about the dangers of distracted driving. One of the recommendations is that adults need to counter teens’ beliefs that phone use while driving is productive or harmless.

While the study’s qualitative component was limited by a small and non-urban sample, the authors believe the 38-question survey they developed can be used more broadly to assess beliefs, behaviors and the effectiveness of future safety efforts.

Technologies

Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Con Issues? It Might Just Be Your HDMI Cable

Make sure to use the Switch 2 cable included with the new gaming console.

As the Switch 2 continues to sell in the millions for Nintendo, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there’d be some issues with the console. It appears, however, that one problem Switch 2 owners are facing is actually just a matter of using the wrong cable.

Reddit users have posted about their Joy-Cons disconnecting when they’re playing on their Switch 2 while it’s docked, an issue spotted earlier by IGN. It does appear that, luckily, the issue can be resolved by using the included HDMI cable for the Switch 2 rather than an older, slower one — including the cable that came with the original Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo laid out the solution on its support page for when the Joy-Con 2 starts disconnecting from the console:

Confirm that you’re using an «Ultra High Speed» HDMI cable to connect the dock to the TV. If it’s not Ultra High Speed, your console won’t perform as expected when docked.
If you’re using a different cable than the one that came with the console, it should have printed on the cable that it’s «Ultra High Speed.»
The HDMI cable that came with the Nintendo Switch is not «Ultra High Speed» and should not be used with the Nintendo Switch 2 dock.

Nintendo didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the source of this issue.

Since the Switch 2 launch, many gamers have come to realize that Nintendo’s new console is very picky about what cables are connected to it. This goes for the HDMI cable as well as the power cable.

While the new and old Switch share the same name, they don’t share the same components. The Switch 2 is a huge upgrade in graphics power over the 2017 console, which means it needs the appropriate power supply. Not providing the Switch 2 with sufficient power could likely cause some issues, especially if the system has to do a lot of work to run a game.