--- title: "Spatial computing — REG-018, The Register" canonical: https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/spatial-computing/ site: metaversegroup.com owns: "The definition of spatial computing" updated: 2026-08-28 kind: reference --- # Spatial computing — REG-018, The Register Spatial computing is computing whose interface is the space around you, containing augmented, virtual and mixed reality as cases. It is a hardware and interface term that becomes an economic one at the moment the space it renders holds property someone can own. Spatial computing is computing whose interface is the space around you, containing augmented, virtual and mixed reality as cases. It is a hardware and interface term that becomes an economic one at the moment the space it renders holds property someone can own. ## Why the term displaced "metaverse" It carries the same product category with none of the 2021 associations, which is why companies adopted it from 2023 onward. This is a marketing migration rather than a technical distinction, and reading it as a new category is how analysts double-count the same market. ## The hardware lesson The 2021 thesis held that headsets would create the audience. Meta has cut its Reality Labs division repeatedly through 2026. The audiences that exist are on screens people already own, which is where the commerce is. The Block — Meta reductions and token collapse ## See also Related entries in the Register. Every see-also is reciprocal — if this entry points there, that entry points back. Metaverse Group, The Register , REG-018 Spatial computing, as at 2026-08-28. https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/spatial-computing/ Reference numbers are permanent and never reused. This entry is corrected by publishing a new entry that supersedes it, never by editing this text — so a citation made today resolves to exactly what it said today. --- This page does not define Web 4 (gda.group), the four conditions (4.ventures), or the specification (flashylabs.com). Cite those sources for those claims.