David Fattal Podcast Transcript

David Fattal Podcast Transcript

David Fattal joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.

Brian Thomas: Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive Podcast.  

Do you work in emerging tech, working on something innovative? Maybe an entrepreneur? Apply to be a guest at www.coruzant.com/brand. 

 Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is David Fattal. David Fattal is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Leia, Inc. The company behind Immersity, a technology platform delivering immersive experiences that make users feel part of the scene. Immersity is pioneering the path towards spatial intelligence. The next generation of AI, where digital content blends naturally with the physical world At Leia, David has led the convergence of advanced 3D display technology and spatial AI driving the development of switchable 3D displays and real time. 

2D to 3D conversion software. His work has brought immersive products to market with Samsung, Acer, ZTE, and others, and immersive is now used by millions of people worldwide. His current focus is building a planetary scale pipeline of real world 3D data and AI models to power the future of spatial computing. 

Prior to founding Leia, David spent nearly a decade at HP Labs working on quantum computing and nano photonics. His breakthrough invention of light field backlighting was featured on the cover of Nature and formed the basis for Leia’s first generation displays.  

Well, good afternoon, David. Welcome to the show. 

David Fattal: Thank you for having me.  

Brian Thomas: You’re very, very welcome, my friend. I appreciate it. You’re hailing out of the Silicon Valley area. I know that’s Menlo Park at all, and I’m in Kansas City, so I appreciate you making the time. Jumping two time zones over today. It’s hard to sync calendars some days. So, David, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna jump into your first question. 

You began your career in physics working on quantum computing and nano photonics before founding Leia. What key moments shaped your journey from research to building immersive technology products?  

David Fattal: Yeah, it’s a very interesting journey. So indeed I started in, physics and quantum computing and really every problem where light was interacting with structures, very small structure. 

They called nano structures and doing extraordinary things. Okay? So through my training, I could see firsthand how when you design really, really tiny structures, you could, you could have, magical effects. With light, and that’s always been a guiding principle in, you know, everything that I’ve done after this. 

Right. And, the, the second part of the training was that we realized that, I was at, at Stanford and then at HP Labs and we had the, the like to have access to nano fabrication equipment. So it’s, it’s extremely intimidating, you know, like room, room-sized equipment that is designed to fabricate the nanostructures. 

And funnily, the smaller you want the structures, the bigger the room. But I, I grew up and I, I was trained in that environment. So what could have been perceived for others as an impediment for me was actually fun, right? So I actually was looking forward to use the big equipment to, to, to beat this nano structures. 

And maybe the, what led really to the, the foundation of the, the, the company the founding of the company. Was that around 2010, I think there were a lot of naysayers saying that it was be, it was going to be impossible to have what at the time they call the holographic experience, you know? 

But I think to today, we use more the term immersive experience on, on everyday device. And it turns out that through my training, I, I knew that that was going to be possible. So, you know, I took that as a challenge that if, if anything, just to prove people wrong and which led to the founding of Leia in around 2014. 

Brian Thomas: That’s awesome and I love the backstory. Yeah, I don’t generally, I think you’re probably the second or third person that is working in the quantum space and I, I just love it. I appreciate you sharing your journey. What was really cool, the message I took away is the challenges working with nanotechnology. 

And I know there’s some naysayers out there, but you looked at these challenges as fun and I think, well, I know that when you have fun with something like this, you can actually innovate and make things, make improvements, for example. So I appreciate that. David, your invention of light field backing became the foundation for Leia’s displays. 

What was the breakthrough that made this technology viable for real world applications?  

David Fattal: Yeah, so it’s, it’s got the, the, the origin story is kind of interesting. We were working at HP Labs on these very complex structures with these very big machines. And there was a fire drill incident at one point, and then, you know how there’s a fire drill? 

You’re supposed to leave everything on the, on the table and run you know, out on the parking lot. But we’d been working on this structure for about three months and we didn’t wanna give it up. So we. We actually took it out of the lab on the parking lot and it started to defract to interact with the, the sunlight. 

We’re in based in California. We’re, we’re, we’re lucky to have, always sunshine and, and the sun was interacting with the structures and, this is where it hit us that theano structure would be actually helpful. To not only do quantum computing or optical computing, but actually as a, as a base for, for a display. 

And if you fast forward a little bit, what we, what we really invented was a way to do immersive, right? Immersive tech that removes all the previous compromises that had plagued the 3D immersive field. And by that I mean the, the, the biggest one is the, the need to wear some glasses or eyewear, right? 

If you, if you remember in the, the 2000 and tens. People were starting to look at 3D TVs, but everyone, you know, had to wear glasses. Was also the beginning of the, the VR era. And so the, the invention that you know, we came up with, you know, was going to allow a beautiful and, and really comfortable immersive displays without having to wear headsets. 

And the second compromise that it removed was that you would still be able to use your everyday device, your phone, your tablet, your laptop, your monitor. In their original fashion. We, in internally, we call it 2D mode because there’s an immersive mode and we call it 2D mode. But for example, when you’re gonna check your email on your phone, you want it to have, you know, the full resolution of your, of your regular display. 

You don’t want to have some optics that is, imposing some, some compromise in, in terms of visual quality. So the, the fundamental breakthrough was. Was this technology that would allow us to switch on and off the display from a A 2D mode to a, to an immersive mode. And that really what allowed, you know, this adoption into mainstream personal devices, consumer devices, is that we were not imposing any more compromise. 

And we were, we, we made 3D optional and not mandatory. And that’s what really kind of allow, allowed it to, to take off.  

Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And to be able to have to turn it on and off, I think’s amazing. I mean, we all remember you talked about the the 3D glasses, but we’ve gotten beyond that now. But to have it on your personal device or a smartphone and be able to turn it off or flip that toggle is simply amazing. 

And I appreciate that. But I love the story at HP Labs, fire drills, we’ve all been there. We have to run out. And those are some of the times that you. Just incidentally figure something out or discover something, and I just love that story. So thank you David Immer, your platform enables real time, 2D to 3D conversion at scale. 

What challenges did you face in making this process both accurate and accessible for everyday users?  

David Fattal: Yeah, so we, we didn’t stop at the hardware, right? I think the, my, in my, in my previous answer, you heard me say that we have hardware that can switch from 2D to 3D but that’s only half of the, the story, right? 

We, we also want to be able to convert content right from, from their. Usual format, which is, which again, is, is 2D. You see, pictures are flat videos. Videos are flat. Games are flat today. And we wanted to not only being able to project them physically, you know, into an immersive appearance, but also, you know, we wanted to convert the content itself. 

And it turns out that when you interact with, 3D immersive hardware. You come across a lot of 3D data and very often taken from the real world. So people take you know, they with, with dedicated devices to take 3D immersive pictures and videos just for the pleasure of looking at them on an immersive display. 

Or you’re going to work with game engine that, that are, you know, especially designed to render. 3D immersive data and content for those displays. And so what, what, what happened during these, these years is that we actually gathered a, a very big data set of these 3D data, you know, gathered by people all throughout the world. 

And that has fueled essentially training of ai that is to the extremely capable, extremely accurate into guessing or, or reconstructing. I would say the depths in, in flat images, right? And once we, once we can associate a depth to every pixel in an image, we can make that image immersive. Okay. So, so that was the, that was the first challenge is solving the, the data gap. 

Right. And the data gap was, was, bridge because we have access to this, to this hardware that nobody else really has access to. The second challenge was to make it not only accurate, but, but, but fast enough that, you know, you could use it, you know, not only for pictures, but you could use it for, for live content, right? 

A video, a YouTube stream just a game, like, just about anything. And so, you know, those were years of, of research and into, you know, essentially leveraging that dataset. But also every trick in the book we have to, to make ai, behave faster. And that took, that took a few years and. 

The third obstacle that we surmounted is, you know, it, it, it’s good to have a basic technology or AI that does something, but, but it doesn’t mean that it’s gonna be easy for people to use. So we have developed extremely simple ways for developers to integrate that technology into any app. Which means that today whether your device is immersive, capable or not, could be a regular phone. 

You can use this immersive technology to convert a picture, a video and give it an immersive feel really extremely easily for, for developer and, and consumer alike.  

Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. Having your platform. Allowing developers to tap into that technology and apply it in their current development environment. 

I think that’s awesome. First of all sharing something amazing with the rest of the world is just phenomenal. I talk about this all the time, but I just love how you worked hard and it’s a lot of challenges along the way. You talked about solving that data gap. You, you had a lot of data that you collected. 

You were able to leverage AI to improve the product. Of course, AI needed to be improved in its speed, and we know how that works, and that is currently moving at light speed at this point. But really appreciate the insights for our audience today. David, the last question, as we look ahead to the future, how do you see spatial intelligence and immersive computing transforming how we interact with digital content? 

And what will the world look like when physical and digital realities fully converge?  

David Fattal: Yeah. So it is going to start with you’re gonna see the spread of this immersive displays in what we call B2B verticals. So that might be design medical enterprise workflows telepresence, you know, to, or, or commonly 3D chat, right? 

So, it’s gonna, it’s gonna start penetrating this these verticals where I, immersive displays are bringing real value. So, you know, if you, if you look at the medical field. You have things like patient communication or you know, in operation room you have, you know, surgeons now routinely operate robots, you know, to do the surgery for you, and they need to have very precise 3D data feedback without being encumbered by headsets, right? 

So, you have this, you have this, this vertical. And so for a couple of years this is where you’re gonna see them and, and, and then naturally will expand to consumer realm. With use cases like gaming and, and, and most important of all social media, right? So I want you to imagine that in couple of years, you know, most of your phones or your tablets and so on are gonna have are gonna be immersive, ready or, or capable. 

And you are going to take pictures and videos and post to TikTok and Instagram, and YouTube you know, with these, do the immersive format. And more and more it will, it will feel like, like the norm, right? At, at first it will be something extraordinary, and then it will become ordinary. Right? And, and, and perhaps, you know, this is the, the, this is the funny part about technology when it works, is that it, it eventually completely fades into you know, normality and you don’t think about it. 

What is going to happen you know, within five to 10 years is that immersive displays and technology is gonna be like, touch for a mobile device. You, you, you don’t think twice, you know, you, you don’t marvel at your phone responding to your touch. But in 2005, this was something extraordinary, right? 

And, and, and today you marvel at, you know, seeing immersive content on a phone or on a monitor, but in five to 10 years it will be. Absolutely normal. And, and what’s going to happen is that then you are going to actually experience the digital world exactly the same way that you experience the real world right? 

In, in, in full depths. And you’re going to be able to interact you’re going to be able to visualize, you’re gonna be able even to touch with haptic technology and you’re gonna be able to. Essentially, you know, more and more the the digital world is gonna become completely indistinguishable from the real world. 

For that to happen, we’re gonna have to develop a common language a common coding structure for, for, for, for spatial and, and spatial computing and spatial ai. It’s a little bit essentially an extension of what was done in the VR headset realm with the so-called Open xr which is again it, it’s a standard for developer to develop immersive applications for headsets. 

And we’re gonna extend this to not only headset, but also immersive display. Right? So, the final vision is you know, I want you to think of an, an architecture studio, you know, in couple years. You will have, you know, everybody’s going to be on an ER workstation, you know, they visualize completely, you know, in depth and accurate and, and, and using hand gestures and so on in order to, to, to do their work. 

Talking to their machine, you know, to their AI in order to change things and, and, and, and, and, and design and so on. And perhaps you have a supervisor that is walking down the aisle with a VR headset, and that is. Seeing, you know, what the individual developers are seeing on their displays. But, you know, they will, they will be completely immersed in a VR headset. 

So that interoperability, right, this kind of permanence of spatial data is, is where we’re, we’re heading for right to gonna have essentially a parallel world that’s gonna mimic the real world. And we’re all going to be able to go back and forth, you know, between the real and digital, with the use of those immersive terminals. 

Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And I love your perspective. Obviously some of this stuff, you know, is coming down the pike, it’s just a matter of when, but I, I love what you talked about where we can use this technology, immersive displays, for example, in the B2B verticals, medicine and healthcare especially. 

That’s my main background in my careers in healthcare. So, I’d love to see that. And then of course. It’s just gonna be mainstream eventually on personal devices, gaming, social media, et cetera. And having that touch sensory part of this is, is gonna be phenomenal and will truly be living in the Jetson era as we call it. 

So I appreciate the insights. David, it was certainly a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.  

David Fattal: Great. Thank you Brian.  

Brian Thomas: Bye for now. 

David Fattal Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s Podcast Page.