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Tom Cruise in »Minority Report«: Then it's better to wear it without glasses

Photo: 20th Century Fox Germany / INTERFOTO

The doorbell rang again this week. Outside stood the future and thought it would be there again. It's been ringing all the time lately. Sometimes as a whisper-quiet electric car, then as an AI that threatens to wipe out humanity. This time, she claimed that her name was Vision Pro and that she came from the Apple company. They are data glasses, and soon we will all no longer be staring at computer screens, but will use them to turn our entire home into a screen. Then she showed a promotional clip demonstrating what that looks like. It has to be said: it looks pretty stupid. Just like you look with a kind of diving mask in front of your face.

The future that the science fiction film »Minority Report« with Tom Cruise envisioned was then further on, it did not require glasses at all. But maybe you'll get used to it, like those headphones that hang out of ears like white toothpicks. The glasses are intended to enable an immersive experience, a fusion of the self with an outside that was previously dependent on computers. Or TVs and screens. Because that's what the future that is on the doorstep also promises: that with its help we will experience films and series like never before. Immersive, as if we were part of what we see. That's what a certain kind of film has always suggested, from "The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station" in 1895 to "Avatar: The Way of Water."

On the other hand, there are film enthusiasts who sit in the last rows of the cinema, as far away as possible from the screen. So that seeing does not distract them from thinking. Of course, Apple wants people to experience their own productions immersively, which they have made for their streaming service. However, most of them look like the advertising clip for the Vision Pro: pastel colors, with a lot of backlight, about as expressive as an Ikea shelf. It is doubtful whether immersion can remedy this.

In any case, the future was not invited in, an untidy living room was protected. First of all, you have to get to know each other better.