Spatial Signals | 7.29.2025
Weekly insights into the convergence of spatial computing + AI
Friends, we’re making some changes to the Spatial Signals format.
First, we’re moving this post to Tuesdays, opening up Thursdays for podcasts and Sundays for the occasional long form essay.
Second, we’re embracing ‘less is more’. This will now be a shorter/faster read, with just one strong industry signal, summarizing the insight and the impact (the ‘so what’).
Lastly, for those who like to read/fall down rabbit holes… I just published my deepest dive yet, exploring identity, consciousness, and our sense of self in the age of AI.
I also think it’s my best work yet…
In case you missed it, check out the series below. Part IV is releasing this coming Sunday.
With that… Here’s this weeks snapshot of what matters most in Spatial Computing + AI.
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XPANCEO raises $250M to commercialize smart contact lenses with AR, health sensing, and night vision by 2026
This isn’t another pixel-in-the-eye prototype. XPANCEO’s lens integrates AR display, biometric sensors, zoom, night vision, and health diagnostics into a transparent, wearable form factor — all without distorting natural vision.
This is a full spatial computing system on the surface of the eye.
A demo version is already working. The lens fuses advanced photonics, biomedical materials, and on-eye computing to create a platform that blends perception with interface. No bulky headset. No glass waveguides. Just direct input and output via the eye.
The funding round, led by a UAE-based investor consortium, makes XPANCEO one of the most well-capitalized players in next-gen spatial hardware. Based in Dubai, the company now joins a growing wave of frontier tech firms using the region as both funding base and testbed.
So what?
AR might skip over glasses: Smart lenses could leapfrog bulky headsets, bringing spatial computing directly to the eye.
Beyond a pure display: Includes biometrics, diagnostics, and sensory augmentation—not just screen replacement.
The UAE as a launchpad: Signals growing role of the Middle East in frontier tech funding and commercialization.
From sci-fi to shipping: A working prototype and big funding move the dream of "invisible computing" into real product territory.
A question for life…
Can technology vanish—without us vanishing along with it?
AR contact lenses represent quite the turning point… No screen. No headset. Just direct connection—between mind, body, and world.
It’s a profound promise: a future where the interface doesn’t distract or intrude, but dissolves. Where spatial computing doesn’t compete for our attention, but becomes part of how we attend. A world where the information we need finds us precisely when—and where—we need it.
But the hope comes with a challenge.
When effort disappears, so too can reflection. When the interface becomes seamless, so might our unconscious dependence on it. The danger isn’t dystopia—it’s drift. A subtle erosion of the spaces where silence lives. Of noticing. Of choice.
And yet, if we approach it wisely—this technology could give us back something we’ve been losing: not more information, but more presence. A way to live not behind a screen, but through the moment itself.
The goal isn’t to retreat from the future. It’s to make sure we’re fully here to meet it.
Favorite Content of the Week
Article | The Mind in the Wheel - If you’re interested in the pursuit of knowledge and truth… this one’s worth the read.