Acer Interview: Leads Jane Hsu, Wayne Ma and Jerry Kao Talk About SpatialLabs and The Future of 3D and VR

While exploring the vast network of Computex 2023, we were lucky enough to be invited to an interview with the heads of Acer including Jane Hsu – Director, Business Development, Spatial Computing Product Business, Jerry Kao – President of IT Products Business, and Wayne Ma – General Manager, IoB Business who told us more about the company’s latest strives into the VR and 3D market with SpatialLabs.

Acer subsidiary SpatialLabs has been experimenting with new technology in peripheral free 3D, and VR which was what they talked about during the interview.

How Long Should You Game in VR?

We agreed that gaming was probably the best place to take VR technology but people often play games for long periods of time which may not be healthy for their eyes. We asked what they believed was the maximum amount of time people should game in VR in one sitting.

Jane says that Acer says the maximum time depends on the person but they recommend gamers take regular 30-minute breaks while playing in VR or 3D. They also say it’s not best to play with pitch black with the lights off, even while not using VR or 3D.

“We did a round of testing, from person to person. Some people needed to stop after 30 minutes but, we also had people that played for three hours straight and he wanted to go on and we were like “Okay you’re done, take a rest”.

“One thing with VR or 3D in particular, is that it’s actually your brain, not your eye strength. It’s your brain that’s processing them, so sometimes it’s like more people would say if they feel tired, that’s because it’s your brain that’s doing extra processing. It can be trained, I’m so well trained now so I can play games for three hours straight but still, always take a break. We’d say for at least half an hour”.

Working With Different Engines

One of the most important aspects of game development is working with different engines like Unreal or Unity. We asked if Acer was working with developers so that they can better understand and make use of these engines for their games.

Jane said that they actually already made a start by announcing engine and unity templates at GDC 2023.

“Those templates are great because a lot of games are developed on Unreal Engine So those have actually helped us when we wanted to support a specific title, let’s go with unreal/unity to shorten our time to develop 3D profiles”. 

She says they hope to release the templates soon but there’s a lot of “testing and then tweaking” to ensure the products are high quality.

“Some of the games that we even have to play from the beginning to the end to make that the 3D profile is a great experience. It’s something we’ve been talking about, but at the moment we feel like it’s more responsible to make sure the experience, I wouldn’t say 100% but at least 95% there”.

The Demand For Glassless 3D Gaming

The 3DS may be gone but SpatialLabs have continued to implement 3D into their gaming laptops. Jane told us more about the appeal of 3D gaming without glasses.

“We believe that 3D is a very intuitive thing. With technology back then, we didn’t have such affordable 4K hardware, and we didn’t have the processing power for real-time rendering and then there was eye tracking, the AI technology. We now have all of this and it makes for a great experience”.  

“I mean back then some people were like, it’s a little blurry or a little bit heavy but I think we’re delivering pretty good quality that would benefit anyone that wants a more immersive experience”.

Driving The Adoption of 3D

From here we asked them to go into more detail about their attempts to drive the adoption of peripheral-free 3D despite the fact that 3D tends to not be so popular nowadays in comparison to VR/AR. According to Jane, Acer has already done a lot of work on VR, and that 3D is very different.

“It’s a different kind of immersion. We still think about VR or AR overall, and we’re still looking at the technology. Our team is pushing 3D, and we’re also looking at VR/AR/XR”.Overall experience, technology, and ergonomics still have limitations, and we are continuously looking for new solutions and technology to see how to bring it to the general consumer. We want to make it to consumers affordable and really great gear.   

“But as for 3D, as I previously mention, I think it’s time to do it. We have all the technology to bring it together. Is it expensive? Yes, at the moment, but do I think we’ll see more people come in on it? Yes, I think so. Recently at CES 2023, we’ve seen others attempt to adapt to 3D, we’re really welcome because it’ll advance the technology even further and bring in more players”.

Jerry further added that the company was named “Spatial” Labs for a reason they wanted to develop technology related to all “spatial things” including VR, AR, and 3D.

Licensing To Other Vendors?

For our final question of the interview, we asked the Acer developers if SpatialLabs has seen any interest from other manufacturers and if they foresee themselves licensing their 3D, or other kinds of new technology to these other vendors.

“Let me answer this, the answer will be yes,” says Jerry. “Because as I mentioned before, I want to further build our ecosystem. For some areas where Acer has market dominance, we would like to further innovate on the technology so the ecosystem may thrive, which will also help our business as well. 

Wayne also explained that they’ve come a long way since they started their “connectivity product line” one and a half years ago and have almost 10 products out on retail including Wi-Fi routers as well as 5G CPE, 5G Wifi, and Dongles. With that in mind, it makes sense for them to keep expanding and doing more with the new tech they’ve developed especially with how competitive tech markets have become.

We thank Jane, Jerry, and Wayne for speaking with us and wish them the best of luck, and Acer and SpatialLabs continue to bring the world of VR to a whole new level.

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