Leonard Burton
banner
atomworks.bsky.social
Leonard Burton
@atomworks.bsky.social
Product designer addicted to making things. Brit based out of Tokyo. Occasional #VR / #AR evangelist.

Also on Mastodon: http://hci.social/web/@burton
Just saw the release email drop in Steam for this. Been following the development for a couple of years now and I'm so excited to play it.

Other games are going back on the shelf for now, this once has jumped the line. Can't wait to clock out and fire this up!🤘
November 5, 2025 at 3:18 AM
Fun fact: .co domains are expensive to help ward off domain squatters and make them feel more prestigious.

And nothing says prestige quite like constantly being asked if you meant .com or if you missed the .uk, by people and forms alike. 👍
October 23, 2025 at 4:52 AM
Seeing a lot if AI hype saying designers in the future should all be vibe coding, shipping and supporting what they make.

If you’ve ever tried to balance design and engineering at the same time, you’ll know why this is nightmare and how design time will be pushed out.
October 22, 2025 at 7:35 AM
Reposted by Leonard Burton
This Friday (24th Oct), we’re collaborating with Tokyo Game Bridge for our Community Link-Up event, an evening of networking and demos.

#XR demos include: VR Ring Fit Shooting and Spatial Glass (details in the thread).

Limited RSVPs still available:
www.meetup.com/xrtokyo/eve...
XR Tokyo + Tokyo Game Bridge - Community Link Up, Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 7:00 PM | Meetup
[日本語は下に記載しています] With the Tokyo Game Show recently wrapping up for another year, we’re keeping that energy going! For our next event, we’re teaming up with Tokyo Game Bridg
www.meetup.com
October 22, 2025 at 6:26 AM
Reposted by Leonard Burton
Visiting the TOKYO NODE “XR PARADE” in Toranomon Hills today and blown away by the creativity on display. Their summer hackathon has fostered some amazing #XR projects which are well worth checking out.

It runs until Friday 24th October. Details at:
www.tokyonode.jp/lab/events/...
TOKYO NODE OPEN LAB 2025 | TOKYO NODE
「新しい都市体験」の研究開発チーム「TOKYO NODE LAB」の今を街に開放し、技術や思考を未来へと解放する、年に一度の8日間の祭典。
www.tokyonode.jp
October 19, 2025 at 9:14 AM
My favourite recurring theme this #DesignMattersTokyo has really been the design leadership insights people have been sharing

Even with all the talk of AI changing design, the big challenge in good design is the systems and collaborations we facilitate. And that’s entirely human
September 14, 2025 at 4:39 AM
It’s Design Matters Tokyo 2025! It’s cool to be back for an annual injection of new ideas and perspectives from the design world.

And I’ve already enjoyed some great conversations.
September 13, 2025 at 4:41 AM
You know it’s been a hot summer when you check the temperature, see it’s 31c out and think “ah, some cooler weather at last”. #tokyo
September 7, 2025 at 2:58 AM
Sometimes what seems like a trivial feature request from a customer, when you look into it actually shows itself to be symptomatic of a much deeper beast of an issue hiding away.

Gotta validate those problems and connect those dots! #productdesign
September 5, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Critical and systems thinking, always own these.

#AI can help your productivity in a ton of ways but once you give it control of those things you've sold yourself out.
August 21, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Yesterday I visited Space Travelium TeNQ courtesy of STYLY to see The Moon Cruise experience they created for installation there. 🌒

It’s free roaming #VR, and so well designed and executed. Absolutely one of my all time favourite #XR experiences. Highly recommended!🧵
August 21, 2025 at 3:00 AM
Reposted by Leonard Burton
gAI art is bad because it's stealing labor.

stealing labor from art is easy because no one sees art as labor, they see it as talent.

they see it as talent because it's easier to believe they have a right to hate you because they can't stand they gave up and you didn't.

fuck them, pay labor.
August 17, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Both Genie 3 and Hunyuan’s GameCraft are opening the door for a potential metaverse more than anything we’ve seen so far.

The ability for anyone to easily create compelling personalised worlds will amplify the draw to consumer #XR. Any "metaverse" adoption will be #AI driven.

It's holodeck tech.
August 18, 2025 at 8:00 AM
With Adobe’s #AR tool Aero being abandoned, despite it being free I have to wonder if the anticipation of an inevitable steep subscription cost stops people even trying it in the first place, let alone want to build a product on it.
August 12, 2025 at 1:07 PM
I’ve managed to port some of the basic Gaussian Splatting VFX experiments I did last year from Unreal to Unity. Looks great!

VFXGraph made it an absolute pleasure, totally enabled by @_kzr’s open source packages.

Next step is to see what limitations I hit in #VR & #AR.
August 10, 2025 at 9:07 AM
Hold up. Why
August 9, 2025 at 9:38 AM
Back at TOKYO NODE LAB tonight, this time getting to use their Volumetric Video Studio as part of their resource offerings for their #XR hackathon.

Getting access to this kind of setup is insane.
August 7, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Niantic Spacial just released their v3.15 SDK which now has Meta Quest 3 support. I’ve just started to experiment with the SDK and it couldn’t have dropped at a more perfect time.

Perhaps the reason I needed to finally upgrade my Quest. #XR
August 7, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Reposted by Leonard Burton
Thank you everyone who came to our event at TOKYO NODE LAB last night. It was a milestone event made possible by our speakers Degly Pava and Fabrice Matulic; the event and venue teams; and our amazing growing #XR community.

We’ll see you again in September! #XRTokyoMeetup
August 1, 2025 at 10:45 AM
I’m considering a place to openly declare my personal policy on using AI.

As I’ve got mixed feelings on AI overall ranging from productive to problematic, I feel like it’s important to be fully transparent on where I use it and what goes against my ethics.

Is anyone else doing this?
July 13, 2025 at 11:05 AM
While I see a real value and potential in AI, it feels like 90% of what I see people post boils down to "abandon humanity, chase the algorithm or die".
July 7, 2025 at 2:55 AM
Reposted by Leonard Burton
The TOKYO NODE "XR HACKATHON" has been announced. With its "Urban Culture Reimagined with #XR & #AI" theme and welcoming many kinds of projects, it's set to be an exciting summer event - starting July 11th

Check out the full details in our press release.

www.linkedin.com/posts/xrtoky...
The urban XR/AI hackathon event TOKYO NODE “XR HACKATHON” supported by Niantic Spatial will be held at Toranomon Hills — and XR Tokyo is proud to support the event as a community partner. | XR Tokyo
The urban XR/AI hackathon event TOKYO NODE “XR HACKATHON” supported by Niantic Spatial will be held at Toranomon Hills — and XR Tokyo is proud to support the event as a community partner.…
www.linkedin.com
June 27, 2025 at 7:42 AM
“Why is there a gap on your resume?”

Me: It’s not a gap… it’s called whitespace. I’m a designer.
June 27, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Reposted by Leonard Burton
Last night we had another great XR Tokyo meetup; with big thanks to our speaker @fewerwrong.org for sharing with us her really engaging and insightful dissection of the XR runtime.

Thank you also to everyone who attended. The community energy is really growing and it's an exciting time for XR.
June 3, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Who should I be following on Bluesky to grow out my following feed?

I'd love to follow more designers, artists, creative people and technologists here.
May 26, 2025 at 10:27 AM