Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, many of those in the technology community have imagined a future state of, if not quasi-successor to, the Internet – called the “Metaverse”. Metverse is a vision of the future networking that sounds fantastical. The Metaverse is a collective virtual shared space[1] including the sum of all virtual worlds and the Internet. The idea is to create a space similar to the internet, but one that users (via digital avatars) can walk around inside of and where they can interact with one another in real time. Keeping it simple, the metaverse is a potentially vast three-dimensional online world where people can meet up and interact virtually.
The metaverse was originally conceived as the setting for dystopian science fiction novels, where virtual universes provide an escape from crumbling societies. Now, the idea has transformed into a moonshot goal for Silicon Valley, and become a favorite talking point among startups, venture capitalists and tech giants. Imagine a world where you could sit on the same couch as a friend who lives thousands of miles away, or conjure up a virtual version of your workplace while at the beach.
Tech titans like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg are betting on as the next great leap in the evolution of the internet. Although the full vision for the Metaverse remains hard to define, seemingly fantastical, and decades away, the pieces have started to feel very real. Metaverse has become the newest macro-goal for many of the world’s tech giants. Big companies joining the discussion now may simply want to reassure investors that they won’t miss out on what could be the next big thing, or that their investments in VR, which has yet to gain broad commercial appeal, will eventually pay off.
‘Metaverse’: the next internet revolution? article tells that metaverse is the stuff of science-fiction: the term was coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel “Snow Crash”, in which people don virtual reality headsets to interact inside a game-like digital world.
Facebook Wants Us to Live in the Metaverse. According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg “What is the metaverse? It’s a virtual environment where you can be present with people in digital spaces. You can kind of think of this as an embodied internet that you’re inside of rather than just looking at.” Metaverse vision was the driver behind Facebook’s purchase of Oculus VR and its newly announced Horizon virtual world/meeting space, among many, many other projects, such as AR glasses and brain-to-machine communications. In a high-tech plan to Facebookify the world advertisements will likely be a key source of revenue in the metaverse, just as they are for the company today.
Term Metaverse was created by sci-fi author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 dystopian novel “Snow Crash” to describe a virtual space where people interact with one another through user-controlled avatars. That “Snow Crash” novel coined the terms “Metaverse” and “Avatar”.
Venture capitalist Matthew Ball has also written extensively on what he believes are the main attributes of a metaverse: a full-functioning economy, real-time persistence (no pausing), and interoperability of digital “belongings” such as clothing across multiple platforms. Experts working in the space tend to agree on a few key aspects of the metaverse, including the idea that users will experience a sense of “embodiment” or “presence.”. Read more at The Metaverse: What It Is, Where to Find it, Who Will Build It, and Fortnite and Big Tech has its eyes set on the metaverse. Here’s what that means
Proponents of the metaverse say there could eventually be huge business potential — a whole new platform on which to sell digital goods and services. If metaverse could be properly realized and catches on some future year, it is believed that metaverse would revolutionize not just the infrastructure layer of the digital world, but also much of the physical one, as well as all the services and platforms atop them, how they work, and what they sell. It is believed that verifiable, immutable ownership of digital goods and currency will be an essential component of the metaverse.
Did you hear? Facebook Inc. is going to become a metaverse company. At least that’s the story its management wants everyone to believe after a flurry of interviews and announcements over the past couple of weeks. Zuckerberg is turning trillion-dollar Facebook into a ‘metaverse’ company, he tells investors article tells that after release of Facebook’s earnings CEO Mark Zuckerberg took a moment to zoom out and wax on the company’s future goals, specifically calling out his ambitions to turn Facebook into “a metaverse company.”
Some pieces of the metaverse already exist. Services like Fortnite, an online game in which users can compete, socialize and build virtual worlds with millions of other players, can give users an early sense of how it will work. And some people have already spent thousands of dollars on virtual homes, staking out their piece of metaverse real estate.
Who will be big if metaverse catches on. Bloomberg article Who Will Win the Metaverse? Not Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook article claims the social networking giant and its CEO have vast ambitions to dominate the next big thing in computing, but other tech giants are in a better position to turn the hype into reality. Facebook’s actual track record on VR tells a story that has not been very promising. The two critical components needed for companies to take advantage of the opportunities that may arise from any potential metaverse are advanced semiconductors and software tools. Facebook is not strong on either front.
There are many other companies with Metaverse visions. For example Oculus’s technology has been surpassed by smaller competitors such as Valve Index, which offers better fidelity. Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella said last week that his company is working on building the “enterprise metaverse.” Epic Games announced a $1 billion funding round in April to support its metaverse ambitions. Companies like graphics chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) and gaming platform Roblox (RBLX) are also playing Metaverse game.
Despite the current hype cycle, the idea is still amorphous, and a fully functioning metaverse is probably years and billions of dollars away — if it happens at all. Another question is are we emotionally evolved enough for it? There is a host of concerns about how the metaverse could be used or exploited. “Are we safe to start interacting at a more person-to-person level, or are the a**holes still going to ruin it for everybody?” “If you can now replace somebody’s entire reality with an alternate reality, you can make them believe almost anything,”
Keep in mind that the metaverse is a relatively old idea that seems to gain momentum every few years, only to fade from the conversation in lieu of more immediate opportunities. Though “Fortnite” and “Roblox” are often described as precursors to the Metaverse, the most significant precursor to the Metaverse is the internet itself.
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cookie clicker says:
Metaverse vision was the driver behind Facebook’s purchase of Oculus VR and its newly announced Horizon virtual world/meeting space and among many, many other projects, such as AR glasses and brain-to-machine communications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Sullivan / Fast Company:
Interview with Niantic CEO John Hanke about the company’s vision for the metaverse and how it could become a dystopian nightmare — The metaverse, the concept of an alternative, shared digital world that originated in sci-fi, has bubbled up to the surface of tech chatter during the later days of the pandemic.
Niantic’s CEO believes the metaverse could be a ‘dystopian nightmare’
https://www.fastcompany.com/90665234/niantic-ceo-john-hanke-metaverse-dystopia-pokemon-go
John Hanke, the head of the gaming company behind ‘Pokémon Go,’ says the so-called metaverse could be humans’ greatest creation—or its worst nightmare.
The metaverse, the concept of an alternative, shared digital world that originated in sci-fi, has bubbled up to the surface of tech chatter during the later days of the pandemic. It’s a concept that a number of Big Tech and gaming companies, most notably Facebook, Roblox, and Epic Games, are trying to make real.
One of the technologies that may be used to interact with a future metaverse is augmented reality, which intermingles digital content with the real world through a smartphone screen right now and AR glasses in the future. Niantic created the game that introduced many people to AR, Pokémon Go, which means that the company has a vested stake in its own version of a digital reality. Niantic said Tuesday it had acquired a 3D scanning app called Scaniverse, which it will use to crowdsource images from the smartphone cameras of game players. Those images will form a map that will allow Niantic to anchor digital objects to real-world places.
John Hanke: I think it’s a pretty important fork in the road between the metaverse as an über-VR escapist alternative to reality, and technology going down the road of wearables and things that support us when we’re out in the world being human beings. I really think it’s a big issue.
We’re squarely in the camp of technology becoming more invisible and less prominent. It’s just there supporting us and serving us and helping us. But it’s not the thing that is taking over our interactions.
Ubiquitous computing, which is a Xerox PARC concept from the ’80s, has been around for a long time, but the trajectory that was painted was one where computing would just melt into the surfaces around us.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Excited for the coming metaverse? Don’t hold your breath, says a rep from Epic Games — there are some major technical challenges.
Q&A: Why the Metaverse Needs to Be Open Making virtual worlds as interconnected as the internet will be tough
https://spectrum.ieee.org/q-a-why-the-metaverse-needs-to-be-open
Tomi Engdahl says:
Horizon Workrooms can be used with the company’s Oculus Quest 2 headsets and will allow workers to collaborate in a shared virtual space wherever they are.
Facebook Unveils Virtual Reality App For Remote Working
https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/08/19/facebook-unveils-virtual-reality-app-for-remote-working/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook wants companies to ditch Zoom, hold meetings in virtual reality
https://6abc.com/10961650/?ex_cid=TA_WPVI_FB&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
For those who don’t think Zoom meetings are a good enough substitute for the real thing, Facebook has another idea: a virtual reality app that lets you and your coworkers feel like you’re sitting around a table in a conference room.
On Thursday, Facebook unveiled Horizon Workrooms, a free app for users of its Oculus Quest 2 headset, a device that starts at $299. The app stands out as the company’s most ambitious effort yet to enable groups to socialize in VR and move the still niche medium beyond entertainment uses such as gaming.
Workrooms allows up to 16 VR headset users to meet in a virtual conference room, with each of them represented by a customizable cartoon-like avatar
Headset-wearing meeting participants can use their actual fingers and hands to gesticulate in VR, and their avatars’ mouths appear to move in lifelike ways while they speak. A virtual whiteboard lets people share pictures or make presentations.
“The pandemic in the last 18 months has only given us greater confidence in the importance of this as a technology,”
It’s not the first time Facebook and its subsidiary Oculus have tried to popularize social interaction via VR. The company launched virtual-hangout apps Oculus Rooms and Facebook Spaces in 2016 and 2017, respectively, which let small groups of users gather in VR. The company shut down both VR apps in October 2019, however. Instead, it announced a virtual social world called Horizon, which was set to be released in 2020. Horizon has yet to appear for most users and Facebook confirmed this week that the app remains in a private beta testing stage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Zuckerberg’s Oculus work metaverse looks painful. http://on.forbes.com/6183yqUyd
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Facebook offers a metaverse definition, will invest $50M over two years in programs and external research to “responsibly” build the “next computing platform” — It defines the metaverse and calls it the ‘next computing platform’ — Facebook has announced …
Facebook is spending $50 million to ‘responsibly’ build the metaverse
It defines the metaverse and calls it the ‘next computing platform’
https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/27/22696578/facebook-metaverse-ar-vr-fund-research-definition?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gene Park / Washington Post:
Tim Sweeney and Epic execs discuss Epic’s metaverse plans, contrasting it with Facebook’s “manicured” feed, and emphasizing the role of creators — Epic CEO Tim Sweeney and other executives detail their plan for the metaverse and how it differs from Facebook’s vision
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/09/28/epic-fortnite-metaverse-facebook/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook’s embrace of the metaverse comes as the company is mired in several controversies.
Facebook Will Hire 10,000 In Europe To Help Build Its ‘Metaverse’
https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2021/10/18/facebook-will-hire-10000-in-europe-to-help-build-its-metaverse/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Source: Facebook is planning to change its company name to reflect its focus on the metaverse as soon as next week at Connect, its annual AR/VR conference — Mark Zuckerberg wants to be known for building the metaverse — Facebook is planning to change its company name next week to reflect …
Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name
Mark Zuckerberg wants to be known for building the metaverse
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/19/22735612/facebook-change-company-name-metaverse?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Facebook is planning to change its company name next week to reflect its focus on building the metaverse, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
The coming name change, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to talk about at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28th, but could unveil sooner, is meant to signal the tech giant’s ambition to be known for more than social media and all the ills that entail. The rebrand would likely position the blue Facebook app as one of many products under a parent company overseeing groups like Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, and more. A spokesperson for Facebook declined to comment for this story.
Facebook already has more than 10,000 employees building consumer hardware like AR glasses that Zuckerberg believes will eventually be as ubiquitous as smartphones. In July, he told The Verge that, over the next several years, “we will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company.”
Facebook isn’t the first well-known tech company to change its company name as its ambitions expand. In 2015, Google reorganized entirely under a holding company called Alphabet, partly to signal that it was no longer just a search engine, but a sprawling conglomerate with companies making driverless cars and health tech. And Snapchat rebranded to Snap Inc. in 2016, the same year it started calling itself a “camera company” and debuted its first pair of Spectacles camera glasses.
I’m told that the new Facebook company name is a closely-guarded secret within its walls and not known widely, even among its full senior leadership.
Aside from Zuckerberg’s comments, Facebook has been steadily laying the groundwork for a greater focus on the next generation of technology. This past summer it set up a dedicated metaverse team. More recently, it announced that the head of AR and VR, Andrew Bosworth, will be promoted to chief technology officer. And just a couple of days ago Facebook announced plans to hire 10,000 more employees to work on the metaverse in Europe.
The metaverse is “going to be a big focus, and I think that this is just going to be a big part of the next chapter for the way that the internet evolves after the mobile internet,” Zuckerberg told The Verge’s Casey Newton this summer. “And I think it’s going to be the next big chapter for our company too, really doubling down in this area.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Metaverse Could Help Us Better Understand Reality
The killer app for ambitious virtual reality could be our world
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-metaverse-could-help-us-better-understand-reality
Certain neologisms seem to pop up, then disappear, only to return in another guise. William Gibson’s award-winning 1984 science fiction classic Neuromancer popularized the word cyberspace, a meaningless portmanteau that went viral and eventually became a shorthand expression describing the totality of the online world.
We’re now seeing something similar happen with the word metaverse, coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash where it referred to the successor of our two-dimensional Internet. The word resurfaced a short time later in the product road maps of a hundred failed startups and is returning now as the plaything of Big Tech.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook also reported in its investor digest that it will “break out Facebook Reality Labs, or FRL, as a separate reporting segment.” Citing that it expended “significant resources toward our augmented and virtual reality products and services,” the company thinks that it is time to have a second revenue category.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/25/facebook-reports-revenue-miss-plans-to-break-out-ar-vr-top-lines/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
Facebook plans to spend $10B+ on AR and VR this year, including metaverse apps and related hardware, and report FRL segment separately starting in Q4 — Facebook expects to spend more than $10 billion on AR, VR and related hardware as well as the development of metaverse apps and services this year …
Facebook’s metaverse spending will top $10 billion this year
https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/facebook-metaverse-10-billion-dollars
The company doesn’t expect to generate significant income with AR and VR for many more years.
Facebook expects to spend more than $10 billion on AR, VR and related hardware as well as the development of metaverse apps and services this year. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors during the company’s Q3 earnings call Monday that the company will ramp up investment in the area, and warned that it won’t see a return on that investment any time soon.
“I recognize the magnitude of this bet,” Zuckerberg said. “This is not an investment that will be profitable for us any time in the near future.”
Zuckerberg argued that Facebook had to build out a lot of fundamental technology first before it can rake in any meaningful returns with AR and VR. “Our goal is to help the metaverse reach a billion people,” he said, adding that he hoped to reach that goal by the end of the decade. That’s when it could also become “a real business story,” Zuckerberg said.
“The metaverse will be a successor to the mobile internet,” Zuckerberg said. “It will unlock a massively larger creative economy [...] than what exists today.”
Facebook disclosed its massive spending on AR/VR hardware and related software and services in its Q3 earnings release: “We expect our investment in Facebook Reality Labs to reduce our overall operating profit in 2021 by approximately $10 billion,” the company stated. “We are committed to bringing this long-term vision to life and we expect to increase our investments for the next several years.”
Starting with Q4, Facebook will break out Facebook Reality Labs as a separate reporting segment in its quarterly earnings reports.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Introducing Meta: A Social Technology Company
https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/facebook-company-is-now-meta/
Today at Connect 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Meta, which brings together our apps and technologies under one new company brand. Meta’s focus will be to bring the metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses.
The metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can’t be together — and do things together you couldn’t do in the physical world. It’s the next evolution in a long line of social technologies, and it’s ushering in a new chapter for our company. Mark shared more about this vision in a founder’s letter.
https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/founders-letter/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The company is likely trying to “divert the conversation from their current problems onto the metaverse, which is exciting and futuristic,” Anne Olderog — senior partner at the consulting firm Vivaldi with 20 years of brand strategy experience — told Insider. “And truly, nobody understands” the metaverse, which is “also a brilliant move.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-new-name-meta-rebrand-metaverse-zuckerberg-apps-2021-10
Tomi Engdahl says:
Everything Facebook revealed about the Metaverse in 11 minutes
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gElfIo6uw4g&feature=share
At Facebook Connect, Mark Zuckerberg revealed a new company name, Meta, plus new VR and AR technologies the company is developing for the future.
0:00 – Meta name change
0:37 – The Metaverse
2:23 – Privacy and Safety
3:11 – Horizon Home
4:09 – Work in the Metaverse
6:06 – Developer Services/Fees
6:56 – Presence Platform
7:49 – Project Cambria
9:42 – Nazare Glasses
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrew Bosworth says the Oculus brand is going away starting in early 2022, changing Oculus Quest to Meta Quest and Oculus App to Meta Quest App
https://www.techmeme.com/211028/p39#a211028p39
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/28/project-cambria-is-a-high-end-vr-headset-designed-for-facebooks-metaverse/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook changes its name to Meta in major rebrand
https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Ftechnology-59083601&h=AT105Y6cAFHUxjy1hagzgNGiHbE71DCDE9ridKqvcw-ilXoU-MTtGbqxzC424jbdeOEp6qytPZmMHsRCh2TQM-Y5Db3shJ4h0t9qqCVizi4cMJDnQJNYHs_gQNnudbyqILprO4Pi1lkD9ik1dQ
Facebook has changed its corporate name to Meta as part of a major rebrand.
The company said it would better “encompass” what it does, as it broadens its reach beyond social media into areas like virtual reality (VR).
The move follows a series of negative stories about Facebook, based on documents leaked by an ex-employee.
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg announced the new name as he unveiled plans to build a “metaverse” – an online world where people can game, work and communicate in a virtual environment, often using VR headsets.
He said the existing brand could not “possibly represent everything that we’re doing today, let alone in the future”, and needed to change.
Mr Zuckerberg said the new name reflects that over time, users will not need to use Facebook to use the company’s other services.
The word “meta” comes from the Greek word meaning “beyond”.
To an outsider, a metaverse may look like a version of VR, but some people believe it could be the future of the internet.
Instead of being on a computer, people in a metaverse might use a headset to enter a virtual world connecting all sorts of digital environments.
It is hoped the virtual world could be used for practically anything from work, play and concerts, to socialising with friends and family.
Facebook said it intends to start trading its shares under the new stock ticker MVRS from 1 December.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/28/tech/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-keynote-announcements/index.html
CNN Business)Facebook is changing its company name as it shifts its focus to the “metaverse” and confronts wide-ranging scrutiny of the real-world harms from its various platforms after a whistleblower leaked hundreds of internal documents.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/28/mark-zuckerberg-takes-thinly-veiled-shots-at-apple-for-stifling-innovation-via-its-platform-policies/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Interview with Mark Zuckerberg on rebranding the company to Meta to avoid the awkwardness of sharing the name of its main app, building the metaverse, and more — The company wants to move past the ‘confusion and awkwardness’ of sharing a name with its main app
Mark Zuckerberg on why Facebook is rebranding to Meta
The company wants to move past the ‘confusion and awkwardness’ of sharing a name with its main app
https://www.theverge.com/22749919/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-meta-company-rebrand?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Facebook’s Meta renaming is a bet on the power of founder control, and is about a future that doesn’t yet exist, but one that Zuckerberg believes needs to — The obvious analogy to Facebook’s announcement that it is renaming itself Meta and re-organizing its financials to separate …
https://stratechery.com/2021/meta/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrew Bosworth:
Andrew Bosworth says Facebook Reality Labs will become Reality Labs, Oculus brand will shift to Meta for hardware and Oculus Quest app starting in early 2022 — Well the cat’s (officially) out of the bag: Our company is now Meta to better reflect who we are and our ambitions to help build the metaverse.
https://www.facebook.com/boz/posts/10114026973983491
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube:
Video of Facebook Connect 2021, where VR updates, Project Cambria, and a new Meta brand name were announced — Tune in at 10:00am PT / 1:00pm ET on Thurs. Oct. 28 when Facebook holds its annual Facebook Connect. The company is expected to announce Oculus updates and o…
WATCH: Facebook Connect 2021 – Livestream
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKPNJ8sOU_M
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Facebook unveils Horizon Home social VR spaces, Messenger VR calls, fitness VR, Quest for Business, including Work Accounts support on Quest 2, and more — this upcoming November 9-10. Learn more about what comes next. — Facebook has turned its social media battleship toward the metaverse …
Facebook unveils Horizon Home social VR, Messenger VR calls, and fitness VR on road to metaverse
https://venturebeat.com/2021/10/28/facebook-unveils-horizon-home-social-vr-messenger-vr-calls-and-fitness-vr-on-road-to-metaverse/
Facebook has turned its social media battleship toward the metaverse, the universe of virtual worlds that are all interconnected, like in novels such as Snow Crash and Ready Player One. And that was evident at its Facebook Connect online event today, where CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced new stepping stones on its virtual reality and augmented reality journey toward the metaverse.
Zuckerberg is so serious about this journey that he changed the company’s name to Meta today. Yep.
As part of a broad effort that involves billions of dollars of research, Zuckerberg introduced social virtual reality with Horizon Home, which uses an Oculus Quest 2 VR headset to entertain people in connected VR spaces. You will also be able to make Messenger calls within VR. And he teased new augmented reality glasses (Azeray) and a high-end VR headset (Project Cambria) that are coming soon.
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“We see view this progression of technology as we’re constantly getting more natural ways to connect and communicate with each other,”
Zuckerberg said in a press briefing regarding the metaverse focus. “Through Facebook’s lifetime, we started off typing text into websites, and we got phones with cameras. So the internet became more visual and mobile. And then as connections got better, we now have a rich video which is more immersive as the main way that we share experiences.”
Image Credit: Facebook
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Facebook has turned its social media battleship toward the metaverse, the universe of virtual worlds that are all interconnected, like in novels such as Snow Crash and Ready Player One. And that was evident at its Facebook Connect online event today, where CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced new stepping stones on its virtual reality and augmented reality journey toward the metaverse.
Zuckerberg is so serious about this journey that he changed the company’s name to Meta today. Yep.
As part of a broad effort that involves billions of dollars of research, Zuckerberg introduced social virtual reality with Horizon Home, which uses an Oculus Quest 2 VR headset to entertain people in connected VR spaces. You will also be able to make Messenger calls within VR. And he teased new augmented reality glasses (Azeray) and a high-end VR headset (Project Cambria) that are coming soon.
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“We see view this progression of technology as we’re constantly getting more natural ways to connect and communicate with each other,” Zuckerberg said in a press briefing regarding the metaverse focus. “Through Facebook’s lifetime, we started off typing text into websites, and we got phones with cameras. So the internet became more visual and mobile. And then as connections got better, we now have a rich video which is more immersive as the main way that we share experiences.”
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Of course, Facebook faces a lot of issues now. Antitrust regulators are investigating it around the world, it faced some bad press for weeks from whistleblower leaks about putting profits ahead of the welfare of its users, and its financial performance slowed after Apple prioritized privacy over targeted advertising. Its social media business has entangled it with many issues, but it has also given the company an unprecedented financial engine with $29 billion in revenues in the September 30 quarter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jamie Feltham / UploadVR:
Facebook announces Project Nazare, the codename for its first consumer AR glasses, and showed a demo video while acknowledging Nazare is still “a few years out”
Meta Announces AR Glasses Prototype Project Nazare
https://uploadvr.com/meta-ar-glasses-project-nazare/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Verge:
Facebook announces Presence Platform, with three SDKs to help create mixed reality experiences for the Oculus Quest VR headset
Facebook is adding a mixed reality platform to Oculus Quest
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/28/22749567/facebook-presence-platform-oculus-quest-mixed-reality-api?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Facebook says the Presence Platform ‘will be key to feeling connected in the metaverse’
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Facebook teases Project Cambria, a high-end mixed reality headset coming next year with cameras that allow high-resolution passthrough
Facebook teases ‘Project Cambria’ high-end VR / AR headset
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/28/22749008/facebook-oculus-project-cambria-pro-vr-ar-headset?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
We’ll learn more next year
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Facebook to allow 2D PWAs into the Oculus Store, the first time 2D apps have been permitted, starting with Dropbox, Slack, Smartsheet, Pluto TV, Instagram, more
Facebook opens Oculus Store to 2D progressive web apps
https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/28/facebook-opens-oculus-store-to-2d-progressive-web-apps/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mikä Metaverse on? Se on Mark Zuckerbergin keino ohittaa Meta-yhtiön asemaa ja bisnestä uhkaavat ja rajoittavat Applen ja Googlen käyttöjärjestelmät ja sovelluskaupat. Ja voi olla, että kaupan päälle saamme kömpelön Second Life -kloonin, jossa voimme ostaa jalattomille avatareillemme NFT-saappaita.
https://karihaakana.medium.com/metaverse-on-mark-zuckerbergin-tie-itsen%C3%A4isyyteen-d7f23d00c985
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.theverge.com/22749919/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-meta-company-rebrand
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/29/meta-facebook-is-buying-within-creators-of-the-supernatural-vr-fitness-app/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
John Carmack Facebook Connect 2021 Keynote
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook-yhtiön uusi nimi on Meta – Zuckerbergin mukaan muutos korostaa yhtiön tulevaisuudensuunnitelmia virtuaalitodellisuudessa
Facebook uskoo, että ensi vuosikymmenen aikana sen luoma virtuaalisen todellisuuden “metaversumi” tavoittaa jopa miljardi ihmistä ja luo miljoonia työpaikkoja.
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12165402
Tomi Engdahl says:
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
In 2018, Oculus’ Jason Rubin sent a paper to Facebook executives laying the foundation for Meta’s ambitions and detailing the need to own the VR market — – In 2018, an Oculus executive named Jason Rubin wrote a 50-page document headlined “The Metaverse” that he sent to a Facebook board member and some top execs.
Facebook’s Meta mission was laid out in a 2018 paper declaring ‘The Metaverse is ours to lose’
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/30/facebooks-meta-mission-was-laid-out-in-a-2018-paper-on-the-metaverse.html
In 2018, an Oculus executive named Jason Rubin wrote a 50-page document headlined “The Metaverse” that he sent to a Facebook board member and some top execs.
The paper described in detail Facebook’s need to own the virtual reality market with a product that would shut out any future competition.
“If delivering the Metaverse we set out to build doesn’t scare the living hell out of us, then it is not the Metaverse we should be building,” Rubin wrote.
In June 2018, Oculus executive Jason Rubin sent an email to Facebook board member Marc Andreessen with the subject line “The Metaverse.”
“We believe that the right way to break through consumer indifference to VR is to deliver what they expect and want from the medium: THE METAVERSE,” reads the first slide of a 50-page document outlining a strategy for building a virtual world.
The three-year-old document, obtained by CNBC, laid the foundation for the futuristic ambitions of Meta, the company that until now was called Facebook. CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s hour-long demo on Thursday, which culminated in the announcement of the new company name, was designed to portray a very different world than the one we currently inhabit at a time when Facebook faces a non-stop barrage of negative headlines tied to the addictive nature of its social media products.
Zuckerberg told viewers that the company sees the metaverse, which will take five to 10 years to go mainstream, as the next frontier in technology — the place where people will live, work and play. His presentation came just days after the company announced in its earnings report that the Reality Labs hardware division will become its own financial reporting segment as of the fourth quarter.
The paper sent to Andreessen in 2018 now looks like the first draft of history. It imagined users floating through a digital universe of virtual ads, filled with virtual goods that people buy.
There would be virtual people that they marry, while spending as little time as possible in the so-called “meatverse” — referring to the real world because humans are flesh and blood. Rubin used the phrase “shock and awe” 12 times to describe the desired experience.
Andreessen was a critical recipient, not just because he’s been on Facebook’s board since 2008, but also due to his influence in this specific space. Through his firm, Andreessen was an early backer of Oculus and also put money into Roblox, the gaming platform for kids that’s focused on building its own metaverse.
Facebook acquired Oculus for $2 billion in 2014, and as of June 2018, the company’s VR headsets had amassed 250,000 monthly active players, according to the document. But despite hundreds of millions of dollars invested in content for “early adopters and pioneers,” Rubin wrote that the devices hadn’t caught on with non-hardcore gamers and “the average consumer is waiting for the day that VR is ‘fully baked.’”
“We believe that ‘fully baked’ means the metaverse,” Rubin wrote. “Only such a massive launch will be able to get the attention of VR doubter and VR-maybe-tomorrow crowd.”
Rubin, whose title at Meta is now vice president of metaverse content, told CNBC that his paper was read fairly widely, but it wasn’t the only one getting attention.
“A lot of people had visions of the metaverse at the time, and there were various documents that were floating around with various opinions,” Rubin said on Friday. “I wanted to get mine out there. That’s how we create things here at Facebook. There’s a lot of ideas, a lot of people and they kind of boil up. I’d like to think that some of it was useful.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gene Park / Washington Post:
Meta is just playing catch-up as Roblox, Steam VR, VRChat, and other platforms have already developed metaverse-like experiences — In addition to announcing Facebook’s rebranding to Meta on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg delivered a number of lofty promises about the metaverse and its features
Zuckerberg’s Meta promises a ‘future’ these video games delivered years ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/10/29/facebook-meta-rebrand-metaverse-video-games/
In addition to announcing Facebook’s rebranding to Meta on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg delivered a number of lofty promises about the metaverse and its features. It was billed as the company’s vision for the “future.” But much of what Zuckerberg promised about the metaverse exists today in video games.
While the metaverse isn’t here and doesn’t offer the interoperability Zuckerberg and many other gaming and tech CEOs aspire to realize in designing the next evolution of the Internet, building blocks and runways had been established years before Zuckerberg publicly announced his intent to turn Facebook into a “metaverse company” only a few months ago.
“I am dedicating our energy to this more than any other company in the world,” Zuckerberg declared at the end of his presentation Thursday. That may be true moving forward, but Chinese conglomerate Tencent has been pouring billions into investments into the metaverse for some time now. In this regard, Facebook/Meta is playing catch up.
A number of Zuckerberg’s promised future experiences can already be found in games, albeit separately. The metaverse vision is to unite them in ways that would make navigating everything as seamless as clicking a link on today’s Internet. That will be the challenge for game-making companies like Roblox and Epic Games. But as far as the experiences Zuckerberg aims to create, they’ve already accomplished that feat.
Zuckerberg: “Importantly, you should be able to bring your avatar and digital items across different apps and experiences in the metaverse.”
If you have children, you may have heard of “Roblox,” but “Roblox” is not just a kids game. It is an already robust internal metaverse-like platform where moving avatars and items across apps is already possible. Your “Roblox” avatar and belongings (bought by the game’s in-game currency, Robux) persist and stay with you no matter which game experiences you choose to enter while using “Roblox.”
That has been the huge appeal of “Roblox” for almost a decade.
What makes “Roblox” metaverse-like and not the metaverse is explained by what Zuckerberg said next: “You want to know that when you buy something or create something, that your items will be useful in a lot of contexts and you’re not going to be locked into one world or platform.”
Your avatar and items in “Roblox” are only useful in “Roblox.” A true metaverse means taking your “Roblox” personalized avatar and bringing it into Facebook … excuse me, Meta’s Horizon VR platform, or “Minecraft,” or “Fortnite,” or into a hypothetical Netflix virtual theater event online. No company or CEO can make this happen by themselves. This would require unprecedented coordination among many of the world’s tech companies for standardization. The key takeaway there? In order for Zuckerberg to deliver the metaverse, he’ll need other companies to work with him.
Zuckerberg: “Soon we’re going to be introducing a social version of [Horizon] Home, where you can invite your friends to join you as avatars. You’ll be able to hang out, watch videos together and jump into apps together.”
In 2017, Steam’s VR platform already had a “home” type experience that expanded into social features, including inviting your friends over. Much of these environments already look like the lush, billionaire-style, sunlit homes among mountain cliffs that Zuckerberg featured in his presentation.
Marne Levine (Meta chief business officer): “In the metaverse, you’ll be able to teleport not just to any place, but to any time as well. Ancient Rome. Imagine standing on the streets, hearing the sounds, visiting the markets, to get a sense of the rhythm of life over 2,000 years ago.”
Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed Origins” and “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey” already both offer convincing, well-researched facsimiles of life over 2,000 years ago in their historical tour features. Both games allow players to freely roam through meticulously designed representations of ancient Egypt and Greece, including standing in marketplaces, watching iconic monuments being built and even learning factual information about them. The historical environments are so detailed, in fact, that Ubisoft’s recreation of Notre Dame was offered up to help with restoration efforts after the famed cathedral caught fire.
Vishal Shah (Meta vice president of metaverse): “Businesses will be creators too, building out digital spaces or even digital worlds. They’ll sell both physical and digital goods as well as experiences and services.”
“Fortnite” is probably the most mainstream, business-adjacent, metaverse-like platform that exists today, as businesses have already partnered with Epic Games in creating assets within the game using the company’s Unreal Engine system. Companies from Disney, the NFL, the NBA, Netflix and Ferrari already offer digital goods, many of them player avatars, to be used persistently across the game’s developer- and creator-led worlds.
In fairness to Zuckerberg and Meta, there was much discussed in Thursday’s presentation that has not yet been built. Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, vice president of VR and AR at Meta, talked about its Presence Platform, which would power experiences mixing reality and virtual by understanding real environments as humans do: through detailed hand, eye and spatial voice and audio interactions.
Thursday’s presentation was likely many people’s first extended exposure to the metaverse concept, and so Zuckerberg spent much of it defining what it is, and he did it well. But throughout it, he also wove in what was essentially a video news release about a number of Meta/Facebook products, many of which might not necessarily constitute the metaverse.
Zuckerberg’s announcement of “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” in VR might have confused people. It was just a game announcement, not part of the metaverse. Zuckerberg is also aggressively pushing his vision of the metaverse as driven by virtual reality, a technology that has failed to gain mainstream appeal for decades.
To his credit, Zuckerberg did say that the metaverse would include experiences on computer and smartphone screens. He mentioned this in passing, but it’s important to note that Zuckerberg is not creating the metaverse, as much as the company’s name change and fancy, computer-generated trailers may have led audiences to believe.
In reality, this was a news release about a company rebrand to spin the fact that Zuckerberg and Co. are catching up to the concept of the metaverse. They just happen to be a little late in hopping on board. Video game companies have already been hard at work building it for years.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gene Park / Washington Post:
Meta is just playing catch-up as Roblox, Steam VR, VRChat, and other platforms have already developed metaverse-like experiences — In addition to announcing Facebook’s rebranding to Meta on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg delivered a number of lofty promises about the metaverse and its features
Zuckerberg’s Meta promises a ‘future’ these video games delivered years ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/10/29/facebook-meta-rebrand-metaverse-video-games/
In addition to announcing Facebook’s rebranding to Meta on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg delivered a number of lofty promises about the metaverse and its features. It was billed as the company’s vision for the “future.” But much of what Zuckerberg promised about the metaverse exists today in video games.
While the metaverse isn’t here and doesn’t offer the interoperability Zuckerberg and many other gaming and tech CEOs aspire to realize in designing the next evolution of the Internet, building blocks and runways had been established years before Zuckerberg publicly announced his intent to turn Facebook into a “metaverse company” only a few months ago.
“I am dedicating our energy to this more than any other company in the world,” Zuckerberg declared at the end of his presentation Thursday. That may be true moving forward, but Chinese conglomerate Tencent has been pouring billions into investments into the metaverse for some time now. In this regard, Facebook/Meta is playing catch up.
A number of Zuckerberg’s promised future experiences can already be found in games, albeit separately. The metaverse vision is to unite them in ways that would make navigating everything as seamless as clicking a link on today’s Internet. That will be the challenge for game-making companies like Roblox and Epic Games. But as far as the experiences Zuckerberg aims to create, they’ve already accomplished that feat.
Zuckerberg: “Importantly, you should be able to bring your avatar and digital items across different apps and experiences in the metaverse.”
If you have children, you may have heard of “Roblox,” but “Roblox” is not just a kids game. It is an already robust internal metaverse-like platform where moving avatars and items across apps is already possible. Your “Roblox” avatar and belongings (bought by the game’s in-game currency, Robux) persist and stay with you no matter which game experiences you choose to enter while using “Roblox.”
That has been the huge appeal of “Roblox” for almost a decade.
What makes “Roblox” metaverse-like and not the metaverse is explained by what Zuckerberg said next: “You want to know that when you buy something or create something, that your items will be useful in a lot of contexts and you’re not going to be locked into one world or platform.”
Your avatar and items in “Roblox” are only useful in “Roblox.” A true metaverse means taking your “Roblox” personalized avatar and bringing it into Facebook … excuse me, Meta’s Horizon VR platform, or “Minecraft,” or “Fortnite,” or into a hypothetical Netflix virtual theater event online. No company or CEO can make this happen by themselves. This would require unprecedented coordination among many of the world’s tech companies for standardization. The key takeaway there? In order for Zuckerberg to deliver the metaverse, he’ll need other companies to work with him.
Zuckerberg: “Soon we’re going to be introducing a social version of [Horizon] Home, where you can invite your friends to join you as avatars. You’ll be able to hang out, watch videos together and jump into apps together.”
In 2017, Steam’s VR platform already had a “home” type experience that expanded into social features, including inviting your friends over. Much of these environments already look like the lush, billionaire-style, sunlit homes among mountain cliffs that Zuckerberg featured in his presentation.
Marne Levine (Meta chief business officer): “In the metaverse, you’ll be able to teleport not just to any place, but to any time as well. Ancient Rome. Imagine standing on the streets, hearing the sounds, visiting the markets, to get a sense of the rhythm of life over 2,000 years ago.”
Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed Origins” and “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey” already both offer convincing, well-researched facsimiles of life over 2,000 years ago in their historical tour features. Both games allow players to freely roam through meticulously designed representations of ancient Egypt and Greece, including standing in marketplaces, watching iconic monuments being built and even learning factual information about them. The historical environments are so detailed, in fact, that Ubisoft’s recreation of Notre Dame was offered up to help with restoration efforts after the famed cathedral caught fire.
Vishal Shah (Meta vice president of metaverse): “Businesses will be creators too, building out digital spaces or even digital worlds. They’ll sell both physical and digital goods as well as experiences and services.”
“Fortnite” is probably the most mainstream, business-adjacent, metaverse-like platform that exists today, as businesses have already partnered with Epic Games in creating assets within the game using the company’s Unreal Engine system. Companies from Disney, the NFL, the NBA, Netflix and Ferrari already offer digital goods, many of them player avatars, to be used persistently across the game’s developer- and creator-led worlds.
In fairness to Zuckerberg and Meta, there was much discussed in Thursday’s presentation that has not yet been built. Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, vice president of VR and AR at Meta, talked about its Presence Platform, which would power experiences mixing reality and virtual by understanding real environments as humans do: through detailed hand, eye and spatial voice and audio interactions.
Thursday’s presentation was likely many people’s first extended exposure to the metaverse concept, and so Zuckerberg spent much of it defining what it is, and he did it well. But throughout it, he also wove in what was essentially a video news release about a number of Meta/Facebook products, many of which might not necessarily constitute the metaverse.
Zuckerberg’s announcement of “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” in VR might have confused people. It was just a game announcement, not part of the metaverse. Zuckerberg is also aggressively pushing his vision of the metaverse as driven by virtual reality, a technology that has failed to gain mainstream appeal for decades.
To his credit, Zuckerberg did say that the metaverse would include experiences on computer and smartphone screens. He mentioned this in passing, but it’s important to note that Zuckerberg is not creating the metaverse, as much as the company’s name change and fancy, computer-generated trailers may have led audiences to believe.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethan Zuckerman / The Atlantic:
Meta’s promised metaverse is going to be boring and is meant to distract us from the world that Facebook helped break
Hey, Facebook, I Made a Metaverse 27 Years Ago
It was terrible then, and it’s terrible now.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/10/facebook-metaverse-was-always-terrible/620546/?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
In a booth at Ted’s Fish Fry, in Troy, New York, my friend Daniel Beck and I sketched out our plans for the metaverse. It was November 1994, just as the graphical web was becoming a thing, and we thought that the 3-D web could be just a few tweaks down the road. In our version of the metaverse, a server would track the identity of objects and their location in virtual space, but you’d render the objects locally, loaded to your hard drive off of a CD-ROM. It made a certain sense: Most users were on sub-56k modems, and AOL was shipping out enough CD-ROMs to pave Los Angeles each week.
To be very clear, Daniel and I were in no way being original. We were hoping to re-create the vision that Neal Stephenson had outlined in his 1992 book, Snow Crash. We were both (barely) self-conscious enough to understand that Snow Crash took place in a dystopia, and that Stephenson was positing a beautiful virtual world because the outside world had become so shitty that no one wanted to live in it. But we were young and naive and believed that our metaverse would rock.
(Stephenson, of course, wasn’t being entirely original either. His vision of the metaverse owed a debt to Vernor Vinge’s 1981 True Names and to a series of William Gibson novels from the ’80s. Both of those authors owed a debt to Morton Heilig’s 1962 Sensorama machine, and on and on we go, back in time to Plato’s shadows on a cave wall.)
Daniel and I got a chance to actually build our metaverse about six months later, after we both joined Tripod as graphic designers and “webkeepers.” This was well before Tripod became a competitor to GeoCities, offering free webpages to all. (It was also before I accidentally invented pop-up ads. Sorry again about that.)
Instead, we were a lifestyle magazine for recent graduates, providing smart, edgy, but practical content—“tools for life”—while hawking mutual funds to 20-somethings. When that business model didn’t take off (can’t imagine why), the half-dozen folks in the “tech cave” revived the metaverse idea.
And so, we skinned a MOO—that is, an online environment meant for multiplayer games. Our friend Nathan Kurz hacked Pavel Curtis’s LambdaMOO code to turn an “object oriented multiplayer dungeon”—a multiplayer, text-based game—into a web-based, graphical experience. Each room in the MOO, which would normally have only a text-based description, was associated with six JPEG images representing directions you could go (up, down, north, south, east, west), each of which was an image map with objects you could click on and interact with.
We sold our CEO on the idea by telling him that the MOO could be a simulation of life in the big city postcollege, bringing onto the site new users who wanted to experience New York City
And remember, this was 1995: The photos we used to represent this metaverse of ours were taken on chemical film! Which we then developed at a photo-processing lab! And then scanned on a flatbed scanner!
The MOO was really cool, in theory. Most people weren’t building HTML-enabled multiplayer spaces in 1995. It got us our first round of venture-capital funding, demonstrating to our investors that we weren’t just kids translating mutual-fund propaganda into HTML. We were technology innovators. We were building things no one had ever seen before.
But here’s the thing: The MOO was garbage. On a good day, I could give a demo that made it look smooth, slick, and fun to use. But our CEO couldn’t. And that was a problem. It wasn’t his fault. The MOO was buggy and quirky and demanded that you think of the world as a set of six-sided cubes made up of webpages. Our boss pulled the plug on the project, telling us, “I know it’s the future, but if I can’t use it, I can’t sell it to investors.”
I watched other metaverses rise and fall. An Icelandic firm, OZ Virtual, introduced a metaverse with 3-D avatars in sexy streetwear dancing on an infinite dance floor, which felt like the future for a few days. OZ Virtual used VRML
And then there was Second Life. When Linden Lab launched this metaverse in 2003, there was a brief burst of enthusiasm where otherwise serious entities, such as businesses and universities, bought and built out their own islands in Linden’s proprietary world.
Second Life also needed rebranding. Its user base stabilized around 1 million monthly users, and a significant percentage of those users visited the metaverse to experience its thriving kink scene.
So, after watching metaverses spring up and crumble for 27 years, and after building one myself, I feel fairly well equipped to offer context for what Mark Zuckerberg is trying to do with his firm’s pivot to “Meta.” In his heavily produced keynote video for Facebook Reality Labs
But why bother with that mess? Or, as Zuckerberg put it: “Now, I know that some people will say that this isn’t a time to focus on the future. And I want to acknowledge that there are important issues to work on in the present. There always will be. So for many people, I’m just not sure there ever will be a good time to focus on the future.” Allow me to translate: Fuck you, haters.
Let’s be frank about this: Facebook’s metaverse sucks. From the first images in which legless torsos sit around a conference room, staring at a Zoom-like videoconferencing screen, to Zuckerberg’s tour of his virtual closet, filled with identical black outfits (see, he’s got a sense of humor!), Zuck’s metaverse looks pretty much like we imagined one would look like in 1994. Look, I’m playing cards with my friends and we’re in zero gravity! And one of my friends is a robot! You could do this in Second Life 10 years ago, and in somewhat angular vectors in VRML 20 years ago.
The graphics are a little better—though frankly, not that much better.
Your video games look marvelous in part because we can predict that the terrain is (roughly) going to stay on the ground and that your character is going to take (roughly) predictable paths through the scenery. But in an open, user-created metaverse, a lot of inefficient polygons are flying around, which is why dance parties in Second Life suffered from terrible frame rates. (Not to mention the orgies.)
The metaverse Zuckerberg shows off in his video doesn’t have to solve those problems. He’s promising future technologies that are five to 10 years off. But it still looks like junk.
Even with a bajillion dollars to invest in a video to relaunch and rename his company, Zuckerberg’s team is showing just how difficult it is to create a visually believable virtual world.
But that’s not the problem with Zuckerberg’s metaverse. The problem is that it’s boring. The futures it imagines have been imagined a thousand times before, and usually better.
Two old men chat over a chessboard, one in Barcelona, one in New York, much as they did on Minitel in the 1980s. There’s virtual Ping-Pong and surfing, you know, like on a Wii. You can watch David Attenborough nature documentaries, like you do on Netflix. You can videoconference with your workmates … you know, like you do every single day.
Zuckerberg isn’t building the metaverse because he has a remarkable new vision of how things could be. There’s not an original thought in his video, including the business model. Thirty-eight minutes in, Zuckerberg gets serious, talking about how humbling the past few years have been for him and his business. Remember, he’s not humbled by the problem of Russian disinformation, or the spread of anti-vax misinformation, or the challenge of how Instagram affects teen body image. No, he’s humbled by how hard it is to fight against Apple and Google.
Never fear, though: With a Facebook ecosystem, Facebook developer tools, and Facebook marketplaces, the custom skin you buy in one video game will be wearable in another video game, just like Mark’s black T-shirt. Just as long as that video game is in Facebook’s metaverse. (Meta’s metaverse? Meta’s verse?) And if you want Mark’s actual digital shirt, it will almost certainly be available as an NFT, which the launch video promises will be supported. Did I mention how dystopian this all is?
Facebook can claim originality in at least one thing. Its combination of scale and irresponsibility has unleashed a set of diverse and fascinating sociopolitical challenges that it will take lawmakers, scholars, and activists at least a generation to fix.
Neal Stephenson’s metaverse has been a lasting creation because it’s fictional. It doesn’t have to solve all the intricate problems of content moderation and extremism and interpersonal interaction to raise questions about what virtual worlds can give us and what our real world lacks. Today’s metaverse creators are missing the point, just like I missed the point back at Ted’s Fish Fry in 1994. The metaverse isn’t about building perfect virtual escape hatches—it’s about holding a mirror to our own broken, shared world. Facebook’s promised metaverse is about distracting us from the world it’s helped break.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Meta acquires Within, the company behind VR fitness game Supernatural; Within will continue working on the game and help Meta improve future VR hardware
Fitness app Supernatural is becoming part of Meta after Facebook touts VR fitness
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/29/22753403/supernatural-within-studio-facebook-meta-oculus-vr-fitness-experiences-metaverse?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
The company already owns Beat Saber
Meta has announced that the studio behind VR workout game Supernatural will be joining the company, adding to the roster of studios owned by what used to be known as Facebook’s Oculus division. The company says that Within, the company behind Supernatural, will continue to work on the popular fitness app and will also help Meta’s Reality Labs “enhance future hardware to support VR fitness apps.”
Meta scooping up Within isn’t necessarily a surprise move: it’s spent the last few years acquiring tons of popular VR studios, like Lone Echo devs Ready at Dawn, the team behind Beat Saber, and others working on projects that some have called the VR versions of Fortnite and Roblox.
Given Meta’s focus on its headsets as workout tools (Supernatural even got a callout in its Connect keynote on Thursday), it tracks that Zuckerberg’s company would want to add a popular VR fitness game to its roster. The move, however, doesn’t help with concerns that Meta is going to end up owning the entire virtual reality market.
While Supernatural is Within’s flagship app, according to the company’s site, it’s also been the host of VR experiences, too
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ Sauce Spotted on Zuckerberg’s Bookshelf Causes Social Media Craze
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/sweet-baby-rays-bbq-sauce-spotted-on-zuckerbergs-bookshelf-causes-social-media-craze/2660448/
Social media erupted Thursday as people began to spot a Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce bottle on Mark Zuckerberg’s bookshelf in a video he made detailing Facebook’s name change.
Thousands of people took to Twitter to post screenshots of the video, circling the sauce bottle in the background among books, vases and family photos.
Zuckerberg announced Thursday that Facebook would change its company name to Meta
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://meta.company/
Facebook Stole Our Name and Livelihood
Hello, World!
We are Meta Company.
Original Flavor.
For the last three months, Facebook lawyers have been hounding us to sell our name to them. We refused their offer on multiple bases. Namely, the low offer wouldn’t cover the costs of changing our name, and we insisted on knowing the client and intent, which they did not want to disclose.
At least two law firms were involved
On October 20th, 2021, during a phone call with Facebook attorneys, we declined their low offer and maintained our requirements. At this point, we presumed it was Facebook and identified them on the call. The attorney representing Facebook declared they would respect our existing right and registration.
On October 28th, 2021, Facebook decided to commit trademark infringement and call themselves “Meta”.
They couldn’t buy us, so they tried to bury us by force of media.
We have proceeded to file the necessary legal actions. This message may be regarded as a public cease and desist. We welcome your support.
One more thing: Our new product launch just got delayed because of Facebook. We must deal with these matters.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Teams gets 3D animated avatars, because metaverse
https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/02/microsoft-teams-gets-3d-animated-avatars-because-metaverse/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
Microsoft wants a piece of the metaverse, too, so at its Ignite conference today, the company announced 3D avatars for those Teams meetings where you don’t want to be on camera. Those animated personalized avatars are part of what Microsoft calls “Mesh for Teams,” which combines the company’s Mesh platform (not to be confused with Windows Live Mesh) for powering shared experiences in virtual reality, augmented reality and elsewhere, with Teams and its built-in productivity tools. It’s still the same meetings that should’ve been an email, but different.
To access Mesh for Teams, you will be able use anything from a smartphone to a VR headset or a HoloLens.
Microsoft is quite open about the fact that this is its metaverse play for productivity, “designed to make online meetings more personal, engaging and fun,” Microsoft’s John Roach writes in today’s announcement. “It’s also a gateway to the metaverse — a persistent digital world that is inhabited by digital twins of people, places and things. Think of the metaverse as a new version — or a new vision — of the internet, one where people gather to communicate, collaborate and share with personal virtual presence on any device.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Metaversumi saattaa pian muuttaa kaiken – ja itse asiassa muutos on jo alkanut
Metaversumi ei ole pakopaikka, vaan fyysisen todellisuuden jatke.
https://www.iltalehti.fi/digiuutiset/a/e98ad02b-e1e7-4216-b6eb-4f57bbd255b0
Metaversumi nousi esille, kun Facebook eli nykyinen Meta ilmoitti aikeistaan muovata yhtiöstä metaversumiyhtiön. Uudistuvaa yhtiötä kehittämään Meta kertoi palkkaavansa 10 000 työntekijää Euroopasta.
Metaversumi yhdistää eri todellisuuksia toisiinsa ja vapauttaa käyttäjän yhden laitteen näyttöpainotteisesta kaksiulotteisesta maailmasta. Käsitteen tiivistäminen lyhyesti on haastavaa, mutta sitä voisi kuvailla tilanteeksi, jossa virtuaalinen todellisuus sekä oikea todellisuus nivoutuvat jollakin tavalla yhteen. Yksinkertaistetusti metaversumia voisi kuvailla perinteisen internetin jatkajana.
Meta on yrittänyt kiteyttää metaversumin näin:
– Metaversumi on joukko virtuaalisia tiloja, joita voit luoda ja tutkia muiden ihmisten kanssa, jotka eivät ole samassa fyysisessä tilassa kuin sinä.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Facebook (Or Meta) Is Making Tactile Sensors for Robots Durable and affordable fingers and skin could help virtual agents understand their world
https://spectrum.ieee.org/robot-facebook
Facebook, or Meta as it’s now calling itself for some reason that I don’t entirely understand, is today announcing some new tactile sensing hardware for robots. Or, new-ish, at least—there’s a ruggedized and ultra low-cost GelSight-style fingertip sensor, plus a nifty new kind of tactile sensing skin based on suspended magnetic particles and machine learning. It’s cool stuff, but why?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Facebook (Or Meta) Is Making Tactile Sensors for Robots Durable and affordable fingers and skin could help virtual agents understand their world
https://spectrum.ieee.org/robot-facebook
Facebook, or Meta as it’s now calling itself for some reason that I don’t entirely understand, is today announcing some new tactile sensing hardware for robots. Or, new-ish, at least—there’s a ruggedized and ultra low-cost GelSight-style fingertip sensor, plus a nifty new kind of tactile sensing skin based on suspended magnetic particles and machine learning. It’s cool stuff, but why?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta is reportedly planning physical stores to showcase its products
https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/05/meta-is-reportedly-planning-physical-stores-to-showcase-its-products/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
The company formerly known as Facebook has been discussing the possibility of opening retail stores way before it rebranded itself as Meta, according to The New York Times. Apparently, discussions about opening brick-and-mortar shops started last year, though nothing has been finalized, and the project could still end up being scrapped. If Meta does open physical outlets, however, they will reportedly be more like experience stores introducing people to devices developed by its Reality Labs division rather than outright retail shops.
Those devices include the Oculus Quest (soon to be Meta Quest) virtual reality headsets and the Portal gadgets, which were designed primarily for video calling.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Varjo Introduces Varjo Aero Headset To Bring the Highest-Fidelity Virtual Reality For Professionals and Leading-Edge VR Users Alike
https://varjo.com/press-release/varjo-introduces-varjo-aero-headset-to-bring-the-highest-fidelity-virtual-reality-for-professionals-and-leading-edge-vr-users-alike/
The new VR headset, together with Varjo’s recently announced Reality Cloud platform, marks the next step toward enabling a true-to-life metaverse for all
Helsinki, Finland – October 21, 2021 – Varjo™, the leader in professional-grade VR/XR hardware and software, today announced the launch of Varjo Aero, the company’s newest virtual reality device in its portfolio. The headset expands the company’s reach beyond its traditional enterprise customer base to also advanced VR users like flight simulator enthusiasts. Varjo Aero offers industry-leading visual fidelity, featuring true-to-life, edge-to-edge clarity across 115 degrees field of view. The headset is available at an attainable price of $1,990 with no annual software subscription fee and lower PC hardware requirements.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Niantic launches Lightship, a platform to build “real-world metaverse” AR iOS and Android apps, and commits $20M to fund companies building AR apps — The maker of Pokémon Go wants to power future AR glasses. — Niantic is releasing a platform for building what it calls “real-world metaverse” apps.
Niantic launches platform to build ‘real-world metaverse’ apps
The maker of Pokémon Go wants to power future AR glasses.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/8/22768925/niantic-lightship-developer-platform-john-hanke-pokemon-go?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Niantic is releasing a platform for building what it calls “real-world metaverse” apps. Called Lightship, the platform is “built around the parts necessary to stitch together the digital and the real world,” CEO John Hanke tells me.
According to Hanke, Lightship will let mobile apps identify whether a user’s camera is pointed at the sky or water, map the surfaces and depth of an environment in real time, or place a virtual object behind a physical one.
Niantic is best known for creating one of the most successful mobile games ever, Pokémon Go. With Lightship, Hanke says the company is “opening the vault of tech that we’ve been using to build our products” to help others build “planet-scale AR apps.”
Lightship has been in development for quite some time. But starting Monday, it’s open for any developer to access. Most of the software toolkit is free, though Niantic will charge for a feature that can let multiple devices access shared AR experiences simultaneously. The company is also committing $20 million to fund new companies building AR apps.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“The state of the world today is sort of 50/50 between Android and iOS,” he says. “And I think it’s going to be much more diversified in the world of AR glasses. So a solution that actually solves the developer problem of being able to write something and create something that’s going to work across multiple platforms is really important.”
https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/8/22768925/niantic-lightship-developer-platform-john-hanke-pokemon-go?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4