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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Tomi Engdahl says:
Last week, Mark Zuckerberg posted an image of his Metaverse avatar on Facebook and social-media users were quick to mock it — and it caught the eye of musician Grimes too.
Grimes calls Mark Zuckerberg ‘under-qualified’ to oversee the Metaverse, and says if he does, it’s ‘dead’ before it’s even begun
https://www.businessinsider.com/grimes-calls-mark-zuckerberg-under-qualified-to-run-metaverse-dead-2022-8?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sf-bi-main&utm_source=facebook.com&r=US&IR=T
Grimes slammed Mark Zuckerberg’s plans for the Metaverse on Friday via Twitter.
The singer said the CEO is under-qualified for the job and his Metaverse avatar is “bad art.”
Last week, Zuckerberg was mocked after he shared a photo of his new avatar for the platform.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“If zuck ‘oversees the Metaverse’ it is dead and people who care about art and culture are building something else,” the singer tweeted.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Metaverse Is Familiar Territory for Manufacturers
https://www.designnews.com/automation/metaverse-familiar-territory-manufacturers?ADTRK=InformaMarkets&utm_source=eloqua&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=15_NL_DN_Daily_Edit_Sub_20220907&sp_cid=13124&utm_content=15_NL_DN_Daily%20A_Edit_Sub_20220907&sp_aid=23567&sp_rid=876648&sp_eh=8c474eb7053a476ec4d28e2dddd0c0568c13d8645ee5e9d4d4424df6e8a4551f
You could argue that manufacturing has been at the forefront of the metaverse for decades, long before the word showed up. Boeing was doing internet-based design collaboration in the last century. Connectivity that runs from the manufacturer to suppliers and customers is second nature. Virtual and augmented reality have long been part of training. And let’s not even get started on PLM, Industry 4.0, Big Data, digital twins, and simulation tools.
These are familiar tools for manufacturing. The accumulation of these tools into a metaverse is naturally to manufacturers. Here are some of the benefits of the metaverse as outlined by Jon Hirschtick, general manager of Onshape at PTC:
The metaverse will revolutionize product design, and the new concepts designers need to think about when they’re designing in and for the metaverse
The metaverse of the industry will make digital twins even more realistic and lifelike, allowing organizations to truly interact with a digital twin before creating it in real life
Manufacturers can better understand the “what ifs” and “how to’s” to improve their physical world in a more scalable, sustainable, and safer way
The Mix of Technologies in the Metaverse
While there are many technologies in the metaverse that are utilized by manufacturers, augmented reality is an important element. “For manufacturing, it’s not just about the metaverse, it’s about augmented reality. Digital info can be objects such as sensors in fixed locations with data about a physical machine,” Hirschtick from Onshape told Design News. “Augmented reality is where you’re after digital information over the real world.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Verge:
PlayStation VR2 hands-on: easy to set up, a joy to use, the OLED display looks great, refreshed Sense controllers are an improvement, gameplay is fun, and more
We finally got our hands and eyes on the PlayStation VR2
And it’s pretty good
https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/14/23351946/playstation-vr-psvr-2-hands-on-impressions-horizon-call-of-the-mountain-sony?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Sony’s PlayStation VR2 may not be coming out until next year, but after months of drip-feeding news, the company finally let press go eyes and hands-on with the VR headset. Even after just a little bit of time with the device, it seems like the new headset will be a major upgrade from the original PSVR in nearly every way.
Let’s start with the hardware, which we already know a lot about. For one thing, it has a much more modern look that closely matches the PS5’s design language, and you’ll only need to plug it into your PS5 with one USB-C cable. The headset itself has an OLED screen, offers a 110-degree field of view and 4K HDR, and supports frame rates of 90Hz and 120Hz for smoother gameplay. Unlike its predecessor, you won’t need to set up external cameras to follow your movements; instead, the headset has four cameras built into the front of the display. The new orb-shaped PSVR2 Sense controllers include adaptive triggers and haptic feedback (like the DualSense) and can also detect finger touches.
But what does it feel like to actually play games on the PSVR2, with all of its new bells and whistles? The actual PSVR2 hardware was a joy to use. Like most modern VR headsets, it lets you adjust the head strap to make sure everything rests comfortably on your noggin, and you can tweak the inter-pupillary distance (IPD) so that the actual lenses inside the headset are the right distance for you. The screens looked great, though things sometimes felt just a little bit hazy at the edges, which could also happen with the first PSVR.
Sony’s new Sense controllers were a marked improvement
Tomi Engdahl says:
Naomi Nix / Washington Post:
As Meta spends billions on VR, some developers worry over strict app store rules, using acquisitions to dominate the market and throttle competition, and more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/14/facebook-meta-virtual-reality-vr-competition/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Armeija ostaa taistelulaseja huimat 121 000 kappaletta seuraavan vuosikymmenen aikana.
Microsoftin taistelulasit toimivat loistavasti kentällä – Saamassa USA:n armeijalta aivan jäätävän tilauksen: 22 miljardia dollaria
https://www.tekniikkatalous.fi/uutiset/tt/e3082efe-470b-427c-84ea-465e03d4fd2f?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1663449104
Armeija ostaa taistelulaseja huimat 121 000 kappaletta seuraavan vuosikymmenen aikana.
Taistelulaseja. Lasit ovat muunnelma Microsoftin HoloLens-älylaseista
Microsoft toimittaa 5000 kappaleen erän taistelulaseja Yhdysvaltain armeijalle. Yhtiö valittiin toimittajaksi, sillä sen lasit menestyivät hyvin armeijan kenttätesteissä, uutisoi Bloomberg.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Nvidia unveils its first SaaS and IaaS offering, Omniverse Cloud, a services suite for artists, developers, and enterprise teams to build and run metaverse apps
Nvidia launches Omniverse cloud services in 100 countries to power the metaverse
https://venturebeat.com/games/nvidia-launches-omniverse-cloud-services-in-100-countries-to-power-the-metaverse/
Nvidia today announced its first software- and infrastructure-as-a-service offering — Nvidia Omniverse Cloud — a suite of cloud services for artists, developers and enterprise teams to design, publish, operate and experience metaverse applications anywhere.
The technology uses the cloud to tap the heavy-duty power of data centers to enable Omniverse tools wherever the users happen to be. More than 700 companies and 200,000 people are using Omniverse now.
Using Omniverse Cloud, individuals and teams can experience in one click the ability to design and collaborate on 3D workflows without the need for any local compute power. Omniverse Cloud will leverage Nvidia’s cloud gaming solution, GeForce Now, which has a global graphics delivery network.
“The next evolution of the internet called the metaverse will be extended with 3D,” said Richard Kerris, vice president of the Omniverse at Nvidia, in a press briefing. “Now to understand what the impact of that is going to be the traditional internet that we know today connects websites described in HTML and viewed through a browser. The metaverse is going to be the evolution of that internet connecting virtual 3D worlds using USD, or universal scene description.”
He added, “Think of it as the HTML of 3D that can be viewed to a real time virtual simulation engine. This means you’ll be able to interact with 3D objects, experience virtually things like that. It doesn’t mean that everybody’s going to be like Ready Player One, with the helmets and all. That’s simply a mechanism for experiencing things. It means that every device that you have today that interacts with the web will be able to interact with 3D, and that’s going to be game changing.”
Roboticists can train, simulate, test and deploy AI-enabled intelligent machines with increased scalability and accessibility. Autonomous vehicle engineers can generate physically based sensor data and simulate traffic scenarios to test a variety of road and weather conditions for safe self-driving deployment.
Omniverse Cloud is based on the open Universal Scene Description (USD) standard for interoperable 3D assets.
“The metaverse, the 3D internet, connects virtual 3D worlds described in USD and viewed through a simulation engine,” said Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO, in a statement. “With Omniverse in the cloud, we can connect teams worldwide to design, build, and operate virtual worlds and digital twins.”
Early supporters of Omniverse Cloud include RIMAC Group, WPP and Siemens. WPP happens to be the biggest marketing services organization in the world, and it is fully adopting Omniverse Cloud.
WPP is the first to launch automotive marketing services on Omniverse Cloud to deliver custom, advanced 3D content and experiences to automotive brands.
Developers, creators, and enterprises around the world are using Nvidia Omniverse to build virtual worlds and push the boundaries of the metaverse. Based on Universal Scene Description (USD) originally created by Pixar — an extensible, common language for virtual worlds — Omniverse is a scalable computing platform for full-design-fidelity 3D simulation workflows that developers across global industries are using to build out the 3D internet.
Nvidia’s first SaaS offering, Omniverse Cloud is an infrastructure-as-a-service that connects Omniverse applications running in the cloud, on premises, or on edge devices. Users can create and collaborate on any device with the Omniverse App Streaming feature, access and edit shared virtual worlds with Omniverse Nucleus Cloud, and scale 3D workloads across the cloud with Omniverse Farm.
Omniverse Cloud runs on the planetary-scale Omniverse Cloud Computer. It is powered by Nvidia OVX systems for graphics-rich virtual world simulation, Nvidia HGX for advanced AI workloads.
“Through GeForce Now, we’ve built a global GDN, a graphics delivery network,” Nvidia CEO Huang said in the GTC keynote today.
Huang believes the largest industries — retail, consumer and luxury goods, supply chain, logistics, and more — will use Omniverse to connect their teams, visualize their data in full fidelity, generate synthetic data to train AI models and simulate digital twins.
The foundations include RTX graphics, OVX servers, and Nvidia GPUs, he said.
Kerris said that many metaverse applications are already here and they’re growing at unprecedented rates. Fashion designers and furniture makers and retailers are offering virtual 3D products that you can try out with augmented reality.
Telcos are creating digital twins of their radio networks to optimize where to put radio towers, thanks to work being done by Heavy.AI.
“Using Omniverse they’re going to be able to save billions of dollars in how they’re deploying 5G networks,” Kerris said.
And companies like Siemens and BMW are creating digital twins of warehouses and factories to optimize their logistics.
“And we are building a digital twin of the Earth to predict the climate decades into the future,”
Nvidia has created its own Omniverse applications such as Isaac Sim, for testing robots, and Omniverse Replicator for synthetic data generation, and Drive for autonomous vehicle testing. And other apps are proliferating. Lowes is using Magic Leap 2’s augmented reality to enable warehouse workers to work more efficiently by seeing visual prompts in the warehouse while wearing the Magic Leap 2 AR glasses.
Omniverse will be powered by a new Nvidia OVX platform with new GPUs announced today. Nvidia has 150 partners for Omniverse. Deutsche Bahn, the second largest transport company in the world and operator of the national railway in Germany is using Omniverse to build and operate digital twins of more than 5,700 rail stations and 33,000 kilometers of track to optimize for capacity utilization, efficiency, and safety.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jorge Jimenez / PC Gamer:
Nvidia unveils RTX Remix, a free AI modding tool built on Omniverse that lets modders quickly create RTX mods for supported DirectX 8 and DirectX 9 games — RTX Remix just made modding a whole lot easier. — Audio player loading… Hear that? That’s the sound of modders applauding …
Nvidia’s new modding tools will add ray tracing to almost anything, even Morrowind
https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-rtx-remix/
Hear that? That’s the sound of modders applauding in unison because their jobs just got a bit easier. Nvidia announced RTX Remix, a free modding platform that lets quickly create RTX mods for “classic games” such as Portal and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. This allows for a more straightforward way to capture and mod content that takes advantage of all the Nvidia RTX goodness.
It lets you import game assets into the RTX Remix at the touch of the button (in compatible games) and converts the assets into commonly used USD (Universal Scene Description). This lets those assets easily be modified or replaced using apps like Unreal Engine, Blender, Nvidia’s own Omniverse apps. According to the blog post (opens in new tab), Remix makes it “easy to remaster supported DirectX 8 and DirectX 9 games with fixed function graphics pipelines.”
Or, as the CEO of Nvidia, Jen-Hsun Huang, put it, “Start the game, and capture the game into USD, which is loaded into Omniverse.” This makes one of the most complex parts of the modding process, the capturing of assets, a whole lot easier.
During the GeForce Beyond broadcast, we saw RTX Remix work its magic on Morrowind to up-res textures and assets. It also added AI-enhanced ray tracing, and textures to the 20-year-old RPG, essentially making it look like a brand new game.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Matthew Boyle / Bloomberg:
Disney, P&G, LVMH, and other large companies have hired chief metaverse officers to capitalize on Web3 trends, but it’s unclear how long they will be needed — Advertising giant Publicis Groupe SA introduced the newest member of its C-suite at a technology conference in Paris this year.
Chief Metaverse Officers Are Getting Million-Dollar Paydays. So What Do They Do All Day?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-22/what-is-a-chief-metaverse-officer-and-do-you-need-one?leadSource=uverify%20wall
Disney, P&G, LVMH and other big names have invested in chief metaverse officers to plot a course through the next chapter of the internet. Do companies really need them?
Advertising giant Publicis Groupe SA introduced the newest member of its C-suite at a technology conference in Paris this year. He goes by Leon. He’s the chief metaverse officer.
Publicis wants Leon to help blue-chip clients like Walmart Inc., UBS Group AG and Nestle SA understand what the blockchain, NFTs and a more immersive internet experience could mean for their businesses. The stakes are potentially big: McKinsey & Co. consultants estimate that annual global spending related to this virtual landscape could reach as much as $5 trillion by 2030.
Leon has a LinkedIn profile, an email address and a French accent. But he doesn’t get a paycheck: Leon is a lion-esque digital avatar.
While Leon isn’t human, companies are increasingly hiring real people to help them navigate the so-called “meta-jungle.” Firms as varied as consumer-products giant Procter & Gamble Co., talent manager Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Spanish telecom carrier Telefonica SA, luxury-goods maker LVMH and wedding-registry retailer Crate & Barrel have all decided they need a chief metaverse officer.
Though a recent tech-sector downturn has hit metaverse stalwarts like Meta Platforms Inc. and Roblox Corp. particularly hard, it hasn’t stopped firms from doling out million-dollar paydays to new executives as a down payment to secure their digital future. Gartner Inc. analysts say one in four people will spend at least an hour a day in the metaverse within a few years. What we’ll be doing there isn’t clear, but P&G, for one, hopes it will involve engagement with Crest toothpaste or Herbal Essences shampoo.
“Brands need to get closer to their customers, and the metaverse is a channel to do that,” said Hamza Khan, a McKinsey partner who co-leads the firm’s metaverse efforts. “Compared to the early days of e-commerce, this time around brands are a lot more active a lot earlier.”
Pressure to keep up with tech trends has spawned new C-suite titles for decades. The 1980s saw the rise of the chief information officer, who understood the inner workings of IT and how it applied to broader business strategy. Later, chief technology officers emerged as big-picture thinkers who could evaluate developing technologies and how they might be used in the long term. More recently, chief digital officers have sought to modernize outdated business practices so companies don’t get “Amazoned,” or steamrolled by a nimbler, more tech-savvy rival.
Digital FOMO
Chief metaverse officers first appeared at video-game makers, where immersion in a digital universe is central to the products. But the role has been popping up at more staid institutions dipping their toes into web3.
P&G launched a digital platform called BeautySPHERE this year and reimagined a popular TV ad from the 1980s into a video game. Nike Inc. bought a virtual sneaker company and created a world modeled on its real-life headquarters. Starbucks Corp. is introducing coffee-themed NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, linked to its customer-loyalty program. Walmart might create its own cryptocurrency. Luxury brands like Gucci, Balenciaga and Dolce & Gabbana have brought their fashions to virtual domains in the hopes of converting extremely online youth into real-world buyers of pricey handbags, watches and jewelry.
Few of these experiments have made money. But that’s not the point right now. Many big companies moved too slowly to embrace other technology, and history isn’t kind to latecomers. At Walmart in the late ’90s, e-commerce wasn’t taken seriously. Its website was initially set up under a stand-alone company.
Such dismissal and delay opened a window that Amazon.com Inc. exploited to become a giant.
Call it metaverse FOMO. Bosses feel it. Crate & Barrel Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Officer Janet Hayes said it’s “essential” that the company has “an impactful presence in the metaverse.” Walt Disney Co. chief Bob Chapek said the metaverse will “create an entirely new paradigm for how audiences experience and engage with our stories.” At CAA, it will influence “shifts in content creation, distribution and community engagement that drive significant opportunity for our clients,” President Jim Burtson said.
It’s common for now for newly named metaverse mavens to hold on to other responsibilities. Take Crate & Barrel’s Sebastian Brauer. His day job is leading product design and development, but he says he spends about 20% of his time on meta-duties like strategy, outreach, and finding ways to bridge physical and virtual domains.
Winning Over Metaverse Skeptics
The ideal metaverse chief can speak as fluently about AR and VR as she can about sales and marketing, according to Cathy Hackl, who helps companies set up their meta-business units and claims to be the “world’s first chief metaverse officer” — a title she bestowed upon herself.
“They’re not easy to find, but there are people who straddle both of these worlds,” she said.
Metaverse chiefs need to forge external partnerships and win over internal skeptics
Popper said her role is to “build a metaverse strategy” by making investments, partnerships and content on behalf of clients, while ensuring the entire 3,200-person agency understands how critical it is.
Popper’s unique skill set is the reason why chief metaverse officers can attract compensation packages upwards of $1.5 million, say those with knowledge of their contracts.
Another approach is to simply tap someone internally who gives the organization a bit of credibility in the metaverse, as Crate & Barrel did. Since being hired, Brauer has recruited a small “think tank” of like-minded colleagues who find time outside their regular duties to strategize about web3. “We’re not rushing into it,” he said. “We’re privately held, so we have no pressure.”
Early Innings of the Metaverse
He might not feel pressure, but the tech sector’s recent rout could prompt the metaverse’s biggest players to rethink their ambitions. Meta, the tech giant formerly known as Facebook that rebranded to emphasize its pivot to what CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls “the next frontier,” is slowing the pace of long-term investments after the company’s first-ever quarterly revenue decline.
Shares of computer-graphics chipmaker Nvidia Corp., which wants its Omniverse platform to undergird the metaverse, have fallen by more than half this year as demand for PCs declines. Roblox, the video-game platform that houses immersive experiences for brands including Gucci, Chipotle and Ralph Lauren, also delivered disappointing results, with daily users falling short of expectations.
Crypto winter is upon us, purchases of NFTs have slowed, and increasingly cost-conscious companies need to focus on what will actually make them money. Brauer acknowledges as much: “The last thing I want to do as we head into a potential recession is consume company resources,” he said. “But I see this as investing to grow. It’s R&D. This train is coming.”
CAA’s Popper said the downturn actually creates an “opportune time” to build. “This is early innings in a long extra-inning game.”
Whether these early evangelists will still be there in the later innings is unclear. Just because they got the role “does not mean they are prepared to lead it for the next 5 to 10 years,”
“When you start to scale, you have a different leader step in. The metaverse will continue to evolve, so the notion of a chief metaverse officer is also fairly dynamic.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Walmart introduces virtual try-on tech which uses customers’ own photos to model the clothing
https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/14/walmart-introduces-virtual-try-on-tech-which-uses-customers-own-photos-to-model-the-clothing/
Tomi Engdahl says:
David Heaney / UploadVR:
In a new paper, Meta researchers demonstrated a system that can reconstruct a user’s plausible pose from only the Quest 2′s sensors using reinforcement learning — Meta researchers demonstrated Quest 2 body tracking without extra trackers. — Current VR systems ship with a headset and held controllers …
Meta AI Research: Quest 2 Body Pose Estimation Without Trackers
https://uploadvr.com/meta-quest-2-body-tracking-without-trackers/
Meta researchers demonstrated Quest 2 body tracking without extra trackers.
Current VR systems ship with a headset and held controllers, so only track the position of your head and hands. The position of your elbows, torso, and legs can be estimated using a class of algorithms called inverse kinematics (IK), but this is only accurate sometimes for elbows and rarely correct for legs. There are just too many potential solutions for each given set of head and hand positions.
Given the limitations of IK, some VR apps today show only your hands, and many only give you an upper body. PC headsets using SteamVR tracking support worn extra trackers such as HTC’s Vive Tracker, but the three needed for body tracking cost north of $350 and thus this isn’t supported in most games.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kansallisgalleria ja Sitra pilotoivat metaversumia
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2022/10/04/kansallisgalleria-ja-sitra-pilotoivat-toimintaansa-metaversumissa/
Kansallisgalleria, Decentraland ja Sitra ovat toteuttaneet digitaalisen version vuoden 1900 Pariisin maailmannäyttelyn Suomen paviljongista. Hankkeen tavoitteena on innostaa taiteen ystäviä tutustumaan uusimpaan virtuaaliseen digitekniikkaan.
Virtuaalimaailma Decentralandiin noussut Finnish Metagallery -paviljonki on tutkimusmatka virtuaalimaailmojen mahdollisuuksiin. Vierailijat pääsevät vaikuttamaan myös paviljongissa esillä olevaan taiteeseen ja äänestämään lisättävistä teoksista.
Historiallinen Suomen paviljonki on herättänyt kiinnostusta ja innostusta aiemminkin. Aalto Media Lab on tehnyt professori Lily Diaz-Kommosen johdolla siitä 3D-mallinnoksen, jota voi ihailla Designmuseossa Helsingissä.
Digitaalisten mahdollisuuksien tutkiminen on taidemuseoille entistä tärkeämpää, koska ne voivat inspiroida käyttäjiä välittämättä maantieteellisestä sijainnista.
“Kasvava määrä ihmisiä käyttää digitaalisia palveluita ensisijaisesti, ei fyysisen maailman jatkeena’’, kertoo Digitaalinen Kansallisgalleria -ohjelman johtaja Johanna Eiramo.
Uusi Finnish Metagallery tuo myös monipuolista ja arvokasta tietoa seuraavan sukupolven internetistä ja edistää siten suomalaisen web 3.0 -ekosysteemin muovautumista. Jos Suomessa ei panosteta web 3.0:n kehitykseen, olemme vaarassa jäädä jälkeen seuraavan sukupolven internetin kehittämisestä ja hyödyntämisestä.
https://play.decentraland.org/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Your Metaverse or Mine?
Sept. 14, 2022
Where will you be collaborating in the future? It will likely depend on your depth of knowledge of these new worlds.
https://www.electronicdesign.com/blogs/altembedded/article/21250669/electronic-design-your-metaverse-or-mine
Remember cyberspace? It’s now called the metaverse. It can be used to look through a new house or building—virtually. Or to remotely design and debug an assembly line. The possibilities are endless.
The metaverse isn’t the ubiquitous and all-enveloping, realistic simulation of The Matrix or a Star Trek holodeck, but hardware and software have progressed to the point where augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are practical tools for collaboration.
Few of you use these tools for production work at this point. Nonetheless, the number is growing, and engineers and software developers should be aware of what’s possible so that they can determine when to take advantage of some amazing functionality.
A lot of parts have been coming together, from high-frame-rate, high-resolution GPUs to tiny displays that can fit into a pair of glasses without feeling like you’re wearing an iron mask. Collaboration software has been expanding to take advantage of the hardware. We’re almost to the point where software will become the determining factor of success.
The advent of video conferencing due to COVID-19, with almost everyone involved, is a good indication of potential adoption and challenges for AR/VR. There are a dozen different video-conferencing systems in general use, with Zoom and Microsoft Teams leading the way.
Each of those systems lives within its own walled garden, with most providing a browser-based interface in addition to dedicated applications. All that’s needed is a sufficiently powerful PC. Microphones, speakers, cameras, and even touchscreens are optional. All are required for the full effect.
Entering a metaverse is more of a challenge, because having the right hardware is mandatory. Plus, the level of sophistication of the hardware and matching software can significantly affect the experience. We haven’t reached the point where resolution, frame-rate differences, etc. are insignificant as they are with something like a car, where minimum standards are required.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alex Heath / The Verge:
In an internal memo, Meta’s VP of Metaverse said Horizon Worlds is suffering from too many quality issues and even the team building it isn’t using it very much — Meta’s VR social network Horizon Worlds — the company’s flagship “metaverse” app — is suffering from too many quality issues …
Meta’s flagship metaverse app is too buggy and employees are barely using it, says exec in charge
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/6/23391895/meta-facebook-horizon-worlds-vr-social-network-too-buggy-leaked-memo?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Meta’s Horizon Worlds has so many quality issues that even the team building it isn’t using it very much, according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge.
Meta’s VR social network Horizon Worlds — the company’s flagship “metaverse” app — is suffering from too many quality issues and even the team building it isn’t using it very much, according to internal memos obtained by The Verge.
In one of the memos to employees dated September 15th, Meta’s VP of Metaverse, Vishal Shah, said the team would remain in a “quality lockdown” for the rest of the year to “ensure that we fix our quality gaps and performance issues before we open up Horizon to more users.”
Horizon Worlds lets people build and interact in virtual worlds as legless avatars, sort of like Roblox meets Minecraft. It’s a key initiative following CEO Mark Zuckerberg rebranding of Facebook to Meta; the company is spending billions per year to build his vision of the metaverse. The multiplayer platform was released on Meta’s Quest headset in December of last year. It hit 300,000 users earlier this year and is supposed to be coming to mobile and desktop via a web version sometime soon, though Vishal’s memos imply a web launch could be pushed back.
“Simply put, for an experience to become delightful and retentive, it must first be usable and well crafted.”
“Since launching late last year, we have seen that the core thesis of Horizon Worlds — a synchronous social network where creators can build engaging worlds — is strong,” Shah wrote in a memo last month. “But currently feedback from our creators, users, playtesters, and many of us on the team is that the aggregate weight of papercuts, stability issues, and bugs is making it too hard for our community to experience the magic of Horizon. Simply put, for an experience to become delightful and retentive, it must first be usable and well crafted.”
Though Meta has teased its work on more lifelike avatars, the current quality of Horizon’s graphics pales in comparison to some of its non-VR competitors like Fortnite
“Why don’t we love the product we’ve built so much that we use it all the time?”
A key issue with Horizon’s development to date, according to Shah’s internal memos, is that the people building it inside Meta appear to not be using it that much. “For many of us, we don’t spend that much time in Horizon and our dogfooding dashboards show this pretty clearly,” he wrote to employees on September 15th. “Why is that? Why don’t we love the product we’ve built so much that we use it all the time? The simple truth is, if we don’t love it, how can we expect our users to love it?”
In a follow-up memo dated September 30th, Shah said that employees still weren’t using Horizon enough, writing that a plan was being made to “hold managers accountable” for having their teams use Horizon at least once a week. “Everyone in this organization should make it their mission to fall in love with Horizon Worlds. You can’t do that without using it. Get in there. Organize times to do it with your colleagues or friends, in both internal builds but also the public build so you can interact with our community.”
He went on to call out specific issues with Horizon, writing that “our onboarding experience is confusing and frustrating for users” and that the team needed to “introduce new users to top-notch worlds that will ensure their first visit is a success.”
Shah said the teams working on Horizon needed to collaborate better together and expect more changes to come. “Today, we are not operating with enough flexibility,” his memo reads. “I want to be clear on this point. We are working on a product that has not found product market fit. If you are on Horizon, I need you to fully embrace ambiguity and change.”
He said that employees working on Horizon will their targets for growing users in VR lowered and that the coming 2D version of Horizon for web wouldn’t likely have a user target but instead a “high quality bar.”
the company is “confident that the metaverse is the future of computing and that it should be built around people.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
A look at life in Meta’s VR social network Horizon Worlds, engaging with early adopters including gamers, preteens, parents, insomniacs, and aspiring comedians — Every hour of the day and night with the gamers, parents, insomniacs, preteens and aspiring comedians who are the earliest adopters …
More: The Verge, The Convivial Society, Fortune, Financial Times, and Forbes
This Is Life in the Metaverse
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/technology/metaverse-facebook-horizon-worlds.html
Every hour of the day and night with the gamers, parents, insomniacs, preteens and aspiring comedians who are the earliest adopters of the immersive, three-di
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Memo: Meta VP of Metaverse Vishal Shah says Horizon Worlds is suffering from too many quality issues and even the team building the app isn’t using it very much — Meta’s VR social network Horizon Worlds — the company’s flagship “metaverse” app — is suffering from too many quality issues …
Meta’s flagship metaverse app is too buggy and employees are barely using it, says exec in charge
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/6/23391895/meta-facebook-horizon-worlds-vr-social-network-too-buggy-leaked-memo?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kun päästään Metaverse-vaiheeseen, niin teknologiayhtiöiden johtajista tulee tavallaan uusia omien valtakuntiensa kuninkaita ja keisareita.
“– Amazonin, Applen, Microsoftin tai Metan kaltaiset yhtiöt ovat erittäin merkittäviä toimijoita, joilla on erittäin paljon valtaa nykypäivänä yhteiskunnassa ja kansainvälisessä politiikassa. Näiden yritysten johtajilla on monella mittapuulla paljon enemmän valtaa kuin useimmilla valtioiden päämiehillä, Lehdonvirta sanoo.”
Teknologiajätit loivat digitaalisen maailman, jonka säännöistä päättää pieni piiri – professori: “Netissä on jääty autoritääriseen vaiheeseen”
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12627532?origin=rss
Teknologiayhtiöt ovat ottaneet valtioiden roolin digitaalisessa maailmassa. Yhä suurempi osa niin työ- kuin yksityiselämästä tapahtuu alustoilla, joiden säännöt ovat osa teknologiajättien liiketoimintaa.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cameron Thompson / CoinDesk:
DappRadar: the largest number of DAUs on Decentraland was 675 and on The Sandbox was ~4,503; Messari: Decentraland and The Sandbox have market caps of ~$1.3B — While metaverse platforms Decentraland and The Sandbox both have below 1,000 daily active users, they each have over $1 billion in valuation.
It’s Lonely in the Metaverse: Decentraland’s 38 Daily Active Users in a $1.3B Ecosystem
https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2022/10/07/its-lonely-in-the-metaverse-decentralands-38-daily-active-users-in-a-13b-ecosystem/
While metaverse platforms Decentraland and The Sandbox both have below 1,000 daily active users, they each have over $1 billion in valuation. So who’s actually using the metaverse right now?
What’s going on in the metaverse these days, you might ask. Looking at two of the biggest companies with over $1 billion valuations, the answer is surprising: Not much, or at least not enough to bring users back every day. According to data from DappRadar, the Ethereum-based virtual world Decentraland had 38 active users in the past 24 hours, while competitor The Sandbox boasted 522 active users in that same time.
An active user, according to DappRadar, is defined as a unique wallet address’ interaction with the platform’s smart contract. For example, logging onto The Sandbox or Decentraland to make a purchase with SAND or MANA, each platform’s respective native utility token, is counted as an “active use.”
This means that DappRadar’s compilation of daily active users doesn’t account for people who log in and mosey around a metaverse platform or drop in briefly for an event, such as a virtual fashion week. It also likely means that these spaces are not where people are making transactions such as buying non-fungible tokens (NFT).
A developer might defend the low daily stats with the familiar phrase, “don’t hate the player, hate the game;” but it seems it’s not just one quiet day for the two metaverse platforms.
The largest number of daily users ever on Decentraland was 675, according to DappRadar. For The Sandbox, that number was larger at about 4,503.
Despite low user metrics, Decentraland and The Sandbox have high valuations. According to data from Messari, Decentraland and The Sandbox both have market caps of around $1.3 billion each. While the play-to-earn game Axie Infinity has a $1.16 billion market cap, its nearly 22,000 daily users reported on DappRadar suggest that open-ended metaverses that don’t provide incentives to stay, such as gaming or trading, may not see regular returning users at this point.
Although the metaverse may be enough of a buzzword for companies to rebrand their names around its concept, mass adoption will likely still take a while.
Sasha Fleyshman, portfolio manager at digital asset investment firm Arca, told CoinDesk that metaverse platforms will be much more valuable to users when they actually operate as intended.
“Anyone telling you that there’s a metaverse today that has worked is lying through their teeth,” said Fleyshman.
“In my opinion, we’re leaning towards a lack of product-market fit on that side … irrespective of their valuation,” said Fleyshman.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Steve Haske / Ars Technica:
A history of consumer VR since 2012, from the first Oculus developer kit and the 2016 hype cycle to Quest 2, and what mainstream success for VR could look like — VR hasn’t taken over the world, but that doesn’t mean it has failed. — Six years ago, consumer virtual reality seemed set to be the next major tech breakthrough.
What happened to the virtual reality gaming revolution?
VR hasn’t taken over the world, but that doesn’t mean it has failed.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/10/what-happened-to-the-virtual-reality-gaming-revolution/
Six years ago, consumer virtual reality seemed set to be the next major tech breakthrough.
With the demonstration of his impressive prototype Oculus Rift head-mounted display (HMD) in 2012, Palmer Luckey managed to instantly erase the poor image VR had garnered from ‘90s movies like The Lawnmower Man and woefully premature commercial curios like Nintendo’s Virtual Boy. This led the Kickstarter campaign for the first Oculus developer kit to balloon past its $250,000 funding goal on the way to a final haul of $2.4 million. Two years later, Oculus accepted a $2 billion buyout offer from Facebook.
Six years later, VR has yet to reach the stratospheric heights its cyberpunk fantasy promised. But the latest wave hasn’t been another high-profile failure, either. Meta’s Quest 2 headset has helped significantly revitalize consumer interest in the sector with its user-friendly experience and relatively low price (though it’s not as low as it once was), with its Oculus Store supporting a handful of bona fide VR-native hit games.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2022/10/04/kansallisgalleria-ja-sitra-pilotoivat-toimintaansa-metaversumissa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta’s next enterprise push is into the metaverse
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/11/metas-next-enterprise-push-is-into-the-metaverse/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
Earlier this year, when we covered the news that Meta had signed on with fast food giant McDonald’s as a customer for Workplace, the B2B service that was originally conceived as a Facebook for enterprises, we noted that Workplace the product had, curiously, been moved into a larger “Reality Labs” division to bring it closer to Meta’s VR business. Today Meta is announcing some new developments that speak to this pivot: a raft of enterprise services aimed at a new effort to get businesses using its new, high-spec $1,499 Meta Quest Pro VR headsets in the workplace.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/11/meta-announces-the-1499-quest-pro/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta announces legs
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/11/meta-announces-legs/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
As Facebook has done every year or so, the company is shaking up their avatar products. This year as Meta focuses more heavily on the metaverse, the company made a big addition to their updated higher-detail avatars: legs.
The announcement that the avatars, which were previously floating torsos with arms and heads, now have evolved to walk was something Zuckerberg was very excited about with his avatar jumping for joy during the keynote.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Meta unveils the $1,499 Quest Pro headset, offering eye and face tracking and color passthrough video for mixed reality, shipping on October 25 in 22 countries — Meta has finally announced the Meta Quest Pro: a $1,499 virtual reality headset it’s been teasing for the past year.
The Meta Quest Pro costs $1,499 and ships October 25th
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/11/23397328/meta-quest-pro-vr-headset-price-release-shipping?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Hands-on with Meta Quest Pro: feels like a sophisticated development kit with a thoughtful design, improved controllers, one to two hours of battery, and more — Meta’s new high-end headset introduces eye tracking and mixed reality for $1,499 … The first thing I notice with the Meta Quest Pro is the fit.
The Meta Quest Pro is a cutting-edge headset looking for an audience
Meta’s new high-end headset introduces eye tracking and mixed reality for $1,499
https://www.theverge.com/23393115/meta-quest-pro-vr-headset-hands-on-specs-price?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
“This is the highest-end VR device — for enthusiasts, the prosumer, the sort of people who are trying to get work done,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told The Verge and a small group of reporters during a recent demo at the company’s research division in Redmond, Washington. Meta will continue selling the Quest 2, putting the Quest Pro in a separate high-end category.
In practice, the Meta Quest Pro seems a bit like a very sophisticated development kit, more geared toward testing next-gen technology than filling specific needs. Maybe I’ll feel differently when the headset ships on October 25th. But it’s not clear how strong a case Meta will make for a $1,500 device whose pragmatic benefits for many businesses remain debatable. And there’s one major downgrade from the Quest 2: a hit to battery life that could make the Quest Pro less attractive for some of the customers it’s meant to reach.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Meta partners with Microsoft to bring Teams, Office, Windows 365, and Xbox Cloud Gaming to Quest VR headsets in the coming months; Teams will use Meta’s avatars — Microsoft and Meta looked like they were on a collision course last year, poised to compete heavily for the future of work in the metaverse.
Microsoft partners with Meta to bring Teams, Office, Windows, and Xbox to VR
/ The biggest Microsoft and Meta partnership since the Windows Phone days
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/11/23397251/meta-microsoft-partnership-quest-teams-office-windows-features-vr?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Microsoft and Meta looked like they were on a collision course last year, poised to compete heavily for the future of work in the metaverse. But today, both companies announced they are partnering to collaborate on how people will work and even game in virtual reality. That starts with Microsoft bringing its biggest services — Teams, Office, Windows, and even Xbox Cloud Gaming — to Meta’s Quest VR headsets.
It’s a surprise partnership that will see Microsoft and Meta combine their strengths. Microsoft sees an opportunity to bring Teams and its other productivity experiences to a capable VR headset, and Meta gets a key partner in its grand metaverse plan.
“We are bringing a Microsoft Teams immersive meeting experience to Meta Quest in order to give people new ways to connect with each other,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during Meta Connect today. “You can connect, share, collaborate as though you were together in person.”
The Teams experience the new Quest Pro and Quest 2 headsets will even include Microsoft adapting Meta’s avatar system for Teams and Teams getting support within Meta’s own Horizon Workrooms. “People will be able to join a Teams meeting directly from Workrooms,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the event. “We think that this cross-device, cross-screen experience will be the foundation of the virtual office of the future.”
This virtual office of the future won’t just be about meetings. Microsoft is bringing Windows 365 to Quest, the company’s platform for streaming full versions of Windows to devices.
“With Windows 365 coming to Quest, you’ll have a new way to securely stream the entire Windows experience, including all the personalized apps, content, and settings to your VR device with the full power of Windows and Windows applications,” Nadella said.
Microsoft is also bringing 2D versions of its Office apps to Quest through its Progressive Web Apps (PWA) technology.
box Cloud Gaming will even make its way to Meta’s Quest VR headsets, allowing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to stream games. It’s not going to be as immersive as a native VR experience for Xbox games, but you’ll be able to pick up an Xbox controller and play them on a giant screen projected inside a Quest headset.
The key here is this close and unusual partnership between Meta and Microsoft. While the pair have collaborated on Teams for Meta’s Portal devices and on some integrations for SharePoint and Outlook, this is the first big partnership since the deep Facebook integration in Windows Phone more than a decade ago.
Microsoft appears to be hedging its own bets on the future of work in VR and AR headsets, or as Microsoft likes to call them, mixed reality. Microsoft has previously experimented with Windows Mixed Reality VR headsets, but it never manufactured its own device, and the software work was lackluster compared to more established players like Oculus (now Meta Quest) or Valve and HTC. Microsoft had invested more heavily in HoloLens, its AR headset that it has pitched to businesses as the future of collaboration.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
NBCUniversal partners with Meta to bring VR experiences to Quest headsets in 2023, from The Office, DreamWorks, Blumhouse, the Peacock streaming app, and more
NBCUniversal Inks Deal With Meta to Bring Peacock, ‘The Office’ and More to Quest VR
Social media giant unveils new $1,500 Meta Quest Pro virtual-reality headset at developers conference
https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/nbcuniversal-meta-quest-peacock-office-vr-1235399306/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta on YouTube:
A video of Meta’s Connect 2022 keynote, showcasing the Quest Pro mixed reality headset, plans for the metaverse, new partnerships, and more — See how we’re building the future of the metaverse together, and catch the latest updates, announcements and key moments from Connect 2022.Pre-order Meta Que…
Meta Connect Keynote 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvfV-iGwYX8
Tomi Engdahl says:
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
The Meta Connect keynote felt overscripted and “incredibly thirsty”; the long pitch for VR and the metaverse came off as one of tech’s hardest sells in a decade
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/11/its-painful-how-hellbent-mark-zuckerberg-is-on-convincing-us-that-vr-is-a-thing/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta’s vision for the future of VR is a worse version of the past
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/11/metas-vision-for-the-future-of-vr-is-a-worse-version-of-the-past/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
Meta keeps saying VR is the future, but everything it shows us is an inferior rehash of the things we already have. Its event today was, between assurances that everything is great in the Metaverse, a collection of tacit admissions that the best they can hope to do is ape a reality we are all desperately trying to leave behind.
The silliest example of this is the new capability to enter a Meta VR environment through an embed on a website. This was described as perhaps the first way many people will experience a virtual environment.
It’s hard to know where to start with this notion. With the no doubt internally depressing acceptance that $1,000 VR hardware doesn’t scale well and most people can’t be bothered to try it? With the idea that a shared 3D environment is a new experience? Or that this is something that people actually want to do?
Of course people have shared virtual environments for decades.
The difference is those had a reason to exist: being a game you can progress and share hundreds of hours of unique experiences in, for instance.
Meta’s environment is just that: an environment. It’s hard to imagine why anyone would want to join via this web interface unless they had no other option, like if the meeting was only being held in VR. But of course Meta has had trouble even getting its own employees to do that.
Meanwhile most people in the world are waiting for VR to be worth the price of a gaming console or laptop. Today’s presentation didn’t really make much progress there.
In fact there was an alarming and baffling reiteration of an idea that I thought we left behind a long time ago: a virtual desk.
This concept has been cursed for decades, since the most notable failure in the domain: the infamous Microsoft Bob. Meta has very unwisely recreated Bob, a virtual desktop, in ways that have no benefits whatsoever. You can have a worse experience reading emails or a worse video call, or play games and watch movies on a worse screen.
Notably there was very little showing what working at a virtual desk would actually look like, because most of the things people take for granted — effortless multitasking, quick switching between cursor and typing, easy compatibility with apps and websites — don’t exist in VR. Sure, they’re partnering with Microsoft and Accenture and so on, but even so, would Slack or Teams be better in VR or worse? Like nearly everything, the answer is worse.
Virtual meetings with everyone around a virtual office table sound like a nightmare to me. The most telling piece was the admission that the subtleties of human expression are important to communication — someone’s unique smile or posture, a moment of eye contact when the boss flubs a line in a presentation.
Their solution is, like nearly everything Meta does, technically impressive and completely misguided. The new headset tracks facial expressions and gaze, meaning it can replicate these in a decent way in a virtual environment on your new avatars with legs and everything.
But it’s so plainly a poor recreation of the real thing, and video calls — for all the issues they have — are actually quite good at catching those little expressions and moments. VR meetings with the expression-tracking tech may be better than VR meetings without, but any VR meeting is still a huge pain in the ass that no one, including the faithful at Meta, would do regularly if they had a choice.
Not only that, but working long term within VR doesn’t make sense in most ways, as Meta again admitted without explicitly saying so. The new Quest Pro headset actually has removable eye cups so you can see the real world in your periphery, in order to take some notes, grab your coffee and so on. They literally cut holes in the headset so you could do normal things that ought to be possible with their much-vaunted mixed reality.
Fortunately you won’t have to worry about that because the battery life is very limited. Even if your boss wanted you to be in virtual meetings all day, the headset would conk out before lunch.
Isn’t the entire world trying to think past the idea of the office, of the meeting-filled workday, of the traditional form of work that’s essentially a relic of the postwar era? Why would anyone want to cling to these paradigms, unless they had no ideas about what actually comes next?
It’s funny because VR is such a powerful technology, as anyone who has used it even once can attest. But Meta, its biggest proponent, doesn’t seem to know what to do with it beyond “what you already do, but worse.” So little of what it showed today suggested the future, and so much clawed at the past to find a crack into which to inject VR — hoping someone, somewhere might agree with them that appearing as a VR avatar in Zoom is something that makes sense.
“Is it this? Is this the killer app for VR?” they seem to be asking. Needless to say it isn’t. And judging from the company’s inability to innovate at a large scale over the last several years, it may not be capable of finding it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta stock is a reflection of what users thing of their strategy and execution
wait, you watch a zoom screen at a table in VR?
So Meta is basically Sims VR
Well, metaverse concept is old as computer science. Then we all expect better than this.. what’s new here is that a billion $ company is focusing on the concept and moving forward step by step and, agree, re-inventing the wheel.
But it will come soon..
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta announces Horizon Worlds avatars are getting legs using an AI model to predict the body’s position, an avatar store, avatars are coming to Reels, and more — Meta’s Horizon avatars will be getting legs. So far, the company’s avatars have weirdly just hovered off the ground …
Meta figured out legs for its avatars
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/11/23390503/meta-quest-horizon-avatars-legs?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Meta’s Horizon avatars will be getting legs. So far, the company’s avatars have weirdly just hovered off the ground, but sometime later next year, Meta will let you add legs to your avatars on VR, mobile, and more as part of the company’s next generation of avatars.
Legs are “probably the most requested feature on our roadmap,”
According to Zuckerberg, the company started off with avatars that don’t feature an entire body because it has been challenging for a VR headset to accurately estimate where things like your elbow or legs actually are. If the system had them show up inaccurately in VR, that would break the immersion.
or arms, Meta has gotten better at figuring out what those body parts are doing as tracking and predictive technologies have improved. Legs can be tricky because of occlusion, Zuckerberg said. If your legs are under a desk, for example, it’s hard for a standalone VR headset to figure out what they might be doing because the desk is blocking the view of the on-headset cameras. Instead, to be able to represent legs, Meta has built an AI model to predict the position of your whole body
Avatar legs will be coming first to Meta’s Horizon social VR platform, though it’s unclear exactly when. They’ll be coming to “more and more experiences over time as we improve our technology stack,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scott Stein / CNET:
A look inside Meta’s Reality Labs, featuring demos of a neural input wristband, 3D audio, photorealistic avatars with Codec Avatars 2.0, and 3D object scanning — My visit to a future that isn’t quite here yet: neural wristbands, ghostly 3D audio and lifelike avatars. Plus, the new Meta Quest Pro.
Behind the Doors of Meta’s Top-Secret Reality Labs
https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/behind-the-doors-of-metas-top-secret-reality-labs/
My visit to a future that isn’t quite here yet: neural wristbands, ghostly 3D audio and lifelike avatars. Plus, the new Meta Quest Pro.
Mark Zuckerberg sat across from me, controlling objects on a screen with small motions of his fingers. Taps, glides, pinches. On his wrist was a chunky band that looked like an experimental smartwatch: It’s Meta’s vision of our future interactions with AR, VR, computers and just about everything else.
“It’ll work well for glasses…I think it’ll actually work for everything. I think in the future, people will use this to control their phones and computers, and other stuff…you’ll just have a little band around your wrist,” Zuckerberg said, right before he demoed the neural wristband. His hand and finger movements seemed subtle, almost fidgety. Sometimes nearly invisible.
Neural input devices are just one part of Meta’s strategy beyond VR, and these wristbands were among the tech I got to see and try during a first-ever visit to Meta’s Reality Labs headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
Meta’s newest Connect conference news is focused on the Quest Pro, and also on new work partnerships with companies like Microsoft, Zoom, Autodesk and Accenture, targeting ways for Meta to maybe dovetail with Microsoft’s mixed reality ambitions.
I also got to look at a handful of experimental research projects that aren’t anywhere near ready for everyday use but show glimpses of exactly what Meta’s shooting for next. These far-off projects, and a more-expensive Quest Pro headset, come at a strange time for Meta, a company that’s already spent billions investing in the future of the metaverse, and whose most popular VR headset, the Quest 2, still has less than 20 million devices sold. It feels like the future isn’t fully here yet, but companies like Meta are ready for it to be.
I experienced a number of mind-bending demos with a handful of other invited journalists. It felt like I was exploring Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. But I also came away with the message that, while the Quest Pro looks like the beginning of a new direction for Meta’s hardware, it’s nowhere close to the end goal.
“In the long run, we’re going to want to have an interface that is as natural and intuitive as dealing with the physical world,” Abrash said, describing where EMG and neural input tech is aiming.
Typing isn’t on the table yet. According to Zuckerberg, it would require more bandwidth to get to that speed and fidelity: “Right now the bit rate is below what you would get for typing quickly, but the first thing is just getting it to work right.
Zuckerberg says the wristbands are key for glasses, since we won’t want to carry controllers around, and voice and hand tracking aren’t good enough. But eventually he plans to make these types of controls work for any device at all, VR or otherwise.
The people using the Meta wristbands seemed to make their movements easily, but these were basic swiping game controls. How would it work for more mission-critical everyday use in everyday AR glasses? Meta’s not there yet: According to Zuckerberg, the goal for now is to just get the tech to work, and show how adaptive learning could eventually shrink down response movements. It may be a while before we see this tech in action on any everyday device, but I wonder how Meta could apply the principles to machine learning-assisted types of controls that aren’t neural input-based
Super-real 3D audio
A second set of demos I tried, demonstrating next-generation spatial audio, replicated research Meta talked about back in 2020 — and which it originally planned on showing off in-person before COVID-19 hit. Spatial audio is already widely used in VR headsets, game consoles and PCs, and on a variety of everyday earbuds such as AirPods. What Meta’s trying to do is not just have audio that seems like it’s coming from various directions, but to project that audio to make it seem like it’s literally coming from your physical room space.
According to Michael Abrash’s comments back in 2020, this tech isn’t far away from becoming a reality as neural wristbands. Meta’s plans are to have phone cameras eventually be able to help tune personal 3D audio, much like Apple just added to its newest AirPods, but with the added benefit of realistic room-mapping. Meta’s goal is to have AR projections eventually sound convincingly present in any space: It’s a goal that makes sense.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2022/10/12/metalta-virtuaalilasit-silmienseurannalla/
Facebook-yhtiö Meta laajentaa metaversumivisiotaan uusilla lisätyn todellisuuden Quest Pro -virtuaalilaseilla, jotka perustuvat Qualcommin XR2+-piirialustaan ja näytön silmienseurantaan. Uutuus julkistettiin Metan tämän vuoden kehittäjäkokouksen yhteydessä.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Mark Zuckerberg’s belief in an “open, interoperable metaverse” stands at odds with his vision being built on corporate partnerships and case-by-case permissions — Mark Zuckerberg wants to own the future of computing — but not alone. That’s the intended takeaway from this year’s Meta …
What does Mark Zuckerberg think ‘open’ means?
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/12/23398565/mark-zuckerberg-meta-connect-vr-open-ecosystem-metaverse?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
I would simply not compare the metaverse to monopoly-era Microsoft
Mark Zuckerberg wants to own the future of computing — but not alone. That’s the intended takeaway from this year’s Meta (formerly Facebook, formerlier Oculus) Connect, where the Meta CEO described his plans for a new computing platform. “In each generation of computing that I’ve seen so far — PCs, mobile — there’s basically an open ecosystem and there’s a closed ecosystem,” Zuckerberg said. “I strongly believe that an open, interoperable metaverse built by many different developers and companies is going to be better for everyone.”
“Openness” is typically considered a good thing in computing. It can promote competition and let people use tech in creative ways the designers didn’t expect. But Zuckerberg’s definition of an “open ecosystem” might surprise some people who support that ideal. For now, he’s not describing a world where people can use a new platform on their own terms rather than those of major companies. Instead, he’s promoting one built on corporate deals and case-by-case permissions — a system that might allow more big players than usual into a tech sandbox but often leaves software designers and ordinary users in the dust.
Zuckerberg elaborated on his definitions of “open” and “closed” in a conversation with my colleague, Alex Heath. “In the closed ecosystem, very tightly integrated, relatively insular, a lot of the value basically just flows toward the closed ecosystem over time,” he said. “In the open ecosystem, basically you have much broader partnerships. So Microsoft didn’t build the chips; they didn’t build the PCs; they didn’t build the App Store. It was all this key stuff that was developed around the ecosystem.”
This is meant as a comparison with Apple, which manages every piece of its supply chain — so you can’t buy an iOS or macOS-powered device from a non-Apple hardware maker. But it unintentionally casts Meta’s approach to VR in a less favorable light, too.
Microsoft was so far from meaningfully open that it was almost broken up by regulators.
When Zuckerberg contrasts Microsoft and Meta’s ecosystems with iOS, I want to give Meta full credit: the Quest is more open than the iPhone. Its Android-based operating system lets you sideload apps with some relatively simple settings changes, including a competing app store with SideQuest. Before Connect, Meta confirmed to reporters that the Quest Pro will continue this tradition.
Meta rarely advertises sideloading, though, and Zuckerberg didn’t discuss it yesterday.
Combing through the keynote for an “open metaverse” future, here are some of the highlights I found:
A multipronged partnership with Microsoft, including Windows 365 support and a crossover between Meta’s Horizon Workrooms and Microsoft Teams
Full-featured VR apps from companies like Adobe and Autodesk
Support for TypeScript code and externally created 3D models in Horizon Worlds
The ability to use Meta avatars in other applications, including Zoom
The hypothesized future ability to take purchased virtual items across different “metaverse” services (which is actually absurdly hard)
Soon-to-be-announced Quest 2 accessories from third-party hardware makers
An API that lets you export data from the Quest’s fitness tracker
Support for a limited version of the Horizon Worlds social experience on desktop and phones, not just Quest headsets
These announcements seem generally good (except Workrooms / Teams, which threatens to make two of my job’s least convenient conferencing options extra confusing), and I’m glad Meta is making them. In several places, it’s clearly going further than Apple
Even after yesterday’s Horizon Worlds expansion, Worlds doesn’t support competing headset platforms like SteamVR — an understandable gap when lots of headsets are niche and idiosyncratic but one that far smaller companies like VRChat have filled. You can import 3D models into Meta’s metaverse, but you can’t leave and easily take your friends list into another metaverse. It’s offering tools for outside developers to use, but they ultimately funnel into one big Meta-owned world, not a robust independent protocol like the web.
Meta doesn’t even pass that dubious Microsoft bar of unbundling hardware, firmware, and app sales. The company promotes its use of Qualcomm chips, but it hasn’t released a third-party-branded VR headset since the Samsung Gear VR and an abortive Xiaomi China partnership, both of which expired around 2019. It’s selling smart glasses with eyewear monopolist Luxottica in a very clear play to build trust using the famous Ray-Ban brand — not strike a blow for interoperability. It offers exclusive Quest games on a tightly curated store. Zuckerberg is treating cross-platform Horizon Worlds support as a major openness coup, but while plenty of people might love playing Meta exclusives like Resident Evil 4 VR on a competing headset, the company’s own employees don’t want to hang out in Worlds.
So far, huge parts of Meta’s “openness” happen on its terms and can evaporate the moment they become inconvenient.
And in the past, Meta has promoted the benefits of locking down its ecosystem. It’s described how strict app store standards help people have a positive first experience in VR, not a disorienting or nauseating one. It’s talked about how mandatory Facebook (and later Meta) accounts give you a single easy way to find friends across different apps. So maybe open versus closed is a smokescreen to try and hide the real issue, which is what’s best for the customer…
Wait, sorry, that’s not me. That’s Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple. He’s talking about the iPhone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Anthony Capaccio / Bloomberg:NEW
An internal Pentagon document says more than 80% of the US soldiers who used Microsoft’s HoloLens experienced “mission-affecting physical impairments”
Microsoft’s Army Goggles Left US Soldiers With Nausea, Headaches in Test
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-13/microsoft-s-us-army-version-of-hololens-goggles-gave-soldiers-nausea-headaches#xj4y7vzkg
Army must improve the ‘human factors’: Pentagon test office
On plus side, goggles aided navigation, mission coordination
US soldiers using Microsoft Corp.’s new goggles in their latest field test suffered “mission-affecting physical impairments” including headaches, eyestrain and nausea, according to a summary of the exercise compiled by the Pentagon’s testing office.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta Told Staff to Have Meetings in Horizon Worlds With VR Headsets They Didn’t Have
https://www.extremetech.com/internet/340170-meta-told-staff-to-have-meetings-in-horizon-worlds-with-vr-headsets-they-didnt-have?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
This was reportedly one of many directives coming down from the top of Meta aimed at increasing the use of the company’s VR products. Workers reportedly call these projects “make Mark happy” or MMH because of Zuckerberg’s conviction that the metaverse is the future of the internet. Whether or not that’s true, Meta is having a hard time getting even its own employees to use its proto-metaverse.
https://www.extremetech.com/internet/340170-meta-told-staff-to-have-meetings-in-horizon-worlds-with-vr-headsets-they-didnt-have?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta has burned $15 billion trying to build the metaverse — and nobody’s saying exactly where the money went
https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-lost-15-billion-building-the-metaverse-reality-labs-money-2022-10?r=US&IR=T
Meta has sunk more than $15 billion into its metaverse project since the start of last year.
The precise details of where that money has gone remain fuzzy.
Some experts expressed disappointment in updates Meta provided earlier this week and thought the technology would be farther along.
Meta has spent more than $15 billion on its Reality Labs metaverse venture since the beginning of last year, but so far, the company hasn’t shared on what, precisely, money is being spent.
Some experts are getting worried the company is spending good money after bad.
“The problem is that they spend the money, but the transparency with investors has been a disaster,” Dan Ives, a tech analyst at Wedbush Securities, said.
“This continues to be a risky bet by Zuckerberg and the team because, for now, they’re betting money on the future while they continue to have massive headwinds on their core business,” he added.
When Meta began to disclose financial information for Reality Labs last year, the company revealed that it had sunk more than $10 billion into the venture, with no end to the losses in sight. So far, the company has reported a more than $5 billion loss for the first six months of 2022, with some analysts predicting the total losses for this year will eclipse last year.
Ives said the amount of money Meta has spent on its metaverse venture so far is concerning, especially given the updates it provided this week, including a new $1,500 headset and a version of avatars with legs, that he called “underwhelming.”
estimates that at least 60% of operating expenses for Reality Labs are due to the massive research and development costs that go into building an entirely new world
“There is no real metaverse, at least from a scalable standpoint, until we all can wear glasses that don’t make us look like an alien or something,” he said.
Zgutowicz pointed out that Meta has legitimate reasons for trying to build everything themselves, though.
“It’s hard for them to go out and acquire other unique software companies because they’re so tied down with regulatory burdens that they have to stay within their house and build something organically,” he said.
Ivan Feinseth, a tech analyst at Tigress Financial Partners, said he believes in Mark Zuckerberg’s long-term vision and the promise of the metaverse.
“When Facebook first bought Instagram, people laughed at him and said he was crazy. They said, ‘this guy is just going to throw all this money away,’ and Instagram turned out to be one of the best acquisitions ever. Not [just] for Facebook — ever, in the world of acquisitions,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This $1.2 Billion Metaverse Reportedly Only Has 30 Active Users
https://wonderfulengineering.com/this-1-2-billion-metaverse-reportedly-only-has-30-active-users/#amp_tf=L%C3%A4hde%3A%20%251%24s&aoh=16656904736229&csi=1&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwonderfulengineering.com%2Fthis-1-2-billion-metaverse-reportedly-only-has-30-active-users%2F
Numerous cryptocurrency initiatives aren’t performing as well as expected. At the time of its launch, Decentraland, a metaverse project with a shitload of distinctive features, was lauded enthusiastically as the epicenter of metaverse technology and a component of the future of digital experiences. Unfortunately, analysis reveals that there are now only 38 active users, which limits the traction of their goal.
It’s worth noting that, according to DappRadar, an active user is defined as a unique wallet address interacting with the platform’s smart contract. So, for example, logging into Decentraland to make a purchase, the platform’s native utility token is an example of “active use.”
This means that DappRadar’s daily “active users” figure does not include people who log in and interact with other users on a metaverse platform or drop in temporarily for an event like virtual fashion week. It may also imply that fewer transactions, such as purchasing or selling a non-fungible token (NFT), occur on these platforms than the number of visitors.
According to Sam Hamilton, Creative Director of Decentraland, while they record 8,000 users on average each day, this includes everyone who passively engages with the metaverse. In addition, he stated that while traffic peaked in March, the number of “tourists and spectators” has declined.
Decentraland has high valuations despite low user metrics. Decentraland has a market cap of roughly $1.3 billion, according to Messari data.
Even though the idea of the metaverse has gained enough traction for businesses to reinvent themselves around it, it will probably take some time for it to gain global acceptance.
According to Sasha Fleyshman, portfolio manager at the digital asset investing firm Arca, users will benefit greatly when metaverse platforms operate as planned.
“Anyone telling you that there’s a metaverse today that has worked is lying through their teeth,” said Fleyshman.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Forbes: Mark Zuckerberg menetti vuodessa yli puolet omaisuudestaan – roima pudotus rikkaimpien ihmisten -listalla
https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/forbes-mark-zuckerberg-menetti-vuodessa-yli-puolet-omaisuudestaan-roima-pudotus-rikkaimpien-ihmisten-listalla/8532554#gs.f6n0ao
Facebookin perustaja ja nykyisen Metan toimitusjohtaja Mark Zuckerberg, 38, on menettänyt vuodessa yli puolet omaisuudestaan, kertoo talouslehti Forbes.
Vuosi sitten syyskuussa Forbes kertoi Zuckerbergin omaisuudeksi noin 134 miljardia dollaria. Tämän vuoden syyskuuhun mennessä hänen omaisuudestaan oli sulanut 76,8 miljardia dollaria.
Talouslehden mukaan Zuckerbergin nykyinen omaisuus on 57,7 miljardia dollaria. Dollari ja euro ovat tällä hetkellä lähes samanarvoisia.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MARK ZUCKERBERG’S NEW AND IMPROVED METAVERSE AVATAR STILL LOOKS LIKE CRAP
https://futurism.com/the-byte/mark-zuckerberg-metaverse-avatar-legs
WAKE UP BABE, A NEW CRINGEY ZUCKERBERG AVATAR JUST DROPPED.
Meta-formerly-Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled his new avatar for the company’s bespoke Metaverse — and unfortunately for him, it still looks like total crap.
During the company’s annual virtual reality conference, Zuckerberg unveiled his updated avatar — and let’s just say it still looks like something out of a video game from decades ago.
To be fair, his avatar does have legs now, which isn’t exactly setting the bar very high.
The creepy, legless avatars have garnered the company plenty of mockery online, which, according to the New York Times, “frustrated” Zuckerberg so much that he had his new bipedal avatar fast-tracked.
Money Walks
Despite reportedly spending $10 billion over the last year to flesh out its take on the metaverse, Meta still doesn’t have much to show as far as its Horizon Worlds avatars are concerned.
The newly-legged avatars still look like awkward video game characters from eons ago — and crappy ones at that, as many netizens have pointed out since the announcement.
“It’s really funny that each time the internet bullies Zuckerberg over his avatar he rebuilds his metaverse from the ground up just to make a new avatar only to get bullied again,” one user tweeted.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart launches metaverse shopping experience
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/17/indian-e-commerce-giant-flipkart-launches-metaverse-shopping-experience/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9sbS5mYWNlYm9vay5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAB53EcPXJhU7Jr-e3_ZrMCIDhf4jFJR_gEe_2t1gQTQRGKaW5uh9t-MbFwELDOrToiPbGzffdyG20uwEUkZ4l_nHPuoE_Qi9wZsWY92Dfnh_RomT7EPjFiR_dn-Au4tFK88On0XF2Qt69XbQdOt-wEryiiMH5p–aMyNiy4RKnr3
Flipkart has launched a metaverse offering for consumers to more interactively discover and shop new products, the latest bet from the Indian e-commerce giant as it experiments with web3 offerings to supercharge its customer experience.
The Walmart-backed Bengaluru-headquartered firm has partnered with eDAO, a Polygon-incubated firm, to launch the metaverse offering, which it is calling Flipverse. The offering is in the pilot stage and aimed to garner interest during the festive season this month.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia, having announced an unexpected entry into the field of metaverse-enabling software, brings a surprising focus on industrial applications to an emerging technology that has largely been garnering attention for novel consumer services, gaming and marketing.
Nvidia Fashions Industrial-Strength Metaverse-As-A-Service
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninabambysheva/2022/10/19/nvidia-fashions-industrial-strength-metaverse-as-a-service/?sh=46e1b2112d74&utm_medium=social&utm_source=ForbesMainFacebook&utm_campaign=socialflowForbesMainFB
Nvidia, having announced an unexpected entry into the field of metaverse-enabling software, brings a surprising focus on industrial applications to an emerging technology that has largely been garnering attention for novel consumer services, gaming and marketing.
With a significant revenue windfall from selling its graphics chips to EthereumETH 0.0% miners come and gone, the chipmaker now sees an opportunity for building out immersive manufacturing-design capabilities based on its computing systems into an industrial-oriented metaverse.
CEO Jensen Huang describes this as a “3D extension of the internet.” That may be at odds with the outlook for a decentralized, blockchain-based metaverse that shifts away from the current corporate-dominated model, a path championed by enthusiasts of so-called web3 technologies.
“A lot of people think that—when you say “metaverse,” they imagine putting on VR headsets, but it’s obviously not just that,” Huang told technology news publication VentureBeat. “You can do that, but you can also enjoy it in 2D. One of my favorite ways of enjoying the metaverse is a whole bunch of robots in the metaverse doing work and communicating with robots that are outside in the physical world,” he added. “The physical world and the metaverse can be connected in a lot of different ways. It doesn’t just have to be humans. It can be machine to machine.”
Nvidia’s industrial focus stands in contrast to that of Meta–the company that liked the thought of social media combining with the metaverse so much it changed its name–which signed up with partners like MicrosoftMSFT -0.5% and AccentureACN -0.3% to develop office-related functionality after a year in which its more leisurely approach flopped.
In fact, the glamorous 3D spaces where human avatars can shop, party and work are struggling to attract users. Most visitors to Meta’s Horizon Worlds generally don’t return after the first month, and the user base has steadily declined since the spring, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report.
DecentralandMANA 0.0%, a blockchain-based metaverse valued at $1 billion, where users can buy plots of virtual land, had been reported by CoinDesk to have a measly 38 daily active users, though the company disputed the claim last week, saying the number is 8,000.
Meanwhile, Nvidia is rolling out simulations for developing, testing and managing artificial-intelligence-based robots (Isaac Sim) and autonomous vehicles (DRIVEIVE -0.3% Sim). The platforms are part of the company’s suite of cloud services purpose-built for metaverse applications called Omniverse Cloud.
already being used by the likes of Siemens, Europe’s largest industrial manufacturer, and Croatian luxury carmaker Rimac.
While metaverse-enabling software is a relatively new market for the Santa Clara, California-based tech giant, its 3D collaborative tools under the Omniverse umbrella, based on Pixar’s Universal Scene Description standard, have attracted over 200,000 individual users and more than 700 companies since launch in 2019. In addition, they run on chips and hardware Nvidia is most famous for, including NVIDIANVDA +0.3%DIA +0.1% OVX, a computing system specifically designed to power large-scale digital twin simulations, which replicate real-world spaces in a metaverse environment.
The company has identified the potential market for Omniverse enterprise software at $150 billion. Lebaredian told Forbes the company has “hundreds of engineers” working on Omniverse and invested “many hundreds of millions of dollars into it,” but he declined to provide the specifics. “Our investment has been growing. This is a long-term play. We’re going to be doing this for decades,” said the executive.
Still, Lebaredian believes Nvidia has a role to play in whatever vision of the metaverse will prevail—be it enterprise-controlled applications or decentralized havens of web3. “History has shown that usually it’s not one or the other. We’re going to see some combination of these things,” he says. “I think our computers will be used regardless of which path you go from here.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
$1.2 BILLION METAVERSE HORRIFIED BY REPORT IT ONLY HAD 38 ACTIVE USERS
https://futurism.com/the-byte/metaverse-decentraland-report-active-users
“ANYONE TELLING YOU THAT THERE’S A METAVERSE TODAY THAT HAS WORKED IS LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH.”
Metaverse project Decentraland, a sandbox environment that allows users to buy and sell virtual real estate, isn’t exactly teeming with people. Despite billions of dollars in valuations, companies betting on a metaverse future simply haven’t made much headway.
In fact, according to data aggregator DappRadar, the Ethereum-based world Decentraland only had 38 “active users” over a period of 24 hours — a confoundingly low number, especially considering the company has a market cap of a whopping $1.2 billion.
Decentraland pushed back, though, saying that “active users” are defined as unique blockchain wallet addresses that interact with its system. As CoinDesk explains, that means users who simply log in to chat or interact with others aren’t being counted.
“DappRadar doesn’t track our users, only people interacting with our contracts,”
Hamilton told CoinDesk, adding that the platform averages around 8,000 users on an average day.
Of course, even 8,000 users on a given day is dismal for something that’s supposed to be the future of online communities. And if blockchain is the underlying economic mechanism of the endeavor, it’s outright embarrassing if only a few dozen transactions are happening per day.
In short, it’s a perfect example of the kind of massive disparity between market value and actual users that has been plaguing the Web3 world for years,
and could also be indicative of a serious slowdown in appetite for virtual real estate and other blockchain-related assets, including cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebookin emoyhtiön Metan kurssi on syöksynyt jo 70 prosenttia – ”Ylin johto on pihalla kuin lumiukko”
Facebookin emoyhtiö Meta kaataa miljardeja euroja metaversumin kehitykseen. Sijoittajat ovat menettäneet luottamuksensa niin yhtiöön kuin sen perustajaan Mark Zuckerbergiin.
https://www.hs.fi/talous/art-2000009143430.html
MARK ZUCKERBERG valloitti 15 vuodessa miltei koko internetin, mutta nyt iskuja satelee joka suunnasta.
Zuckerberg aloitti maailmanvalloituksensa vuonna 2004, kun hän perusti Facebookin opiskelijaystäviensä kanssa Harvardin yliopistolla.
Sen jälkeen Facebook sekä sen tytäryhtiöt Instagram ja Whatsapp ovat keränneet yli 3,5 miljardia käyttäjää ja vallanneet digitaaliset mainosmarkkinat. Siinä sivussa Mark Zuckerbergista on tullut yksi maailman rikkaimmista ihmisistä.
NYT tuo maailmanvalloitus on tullut tiensä päähän, tai niin ainakin sijoittajat pelkäävät.
Facebookin ja Instagramin käyttäjämäärien kasvu on tyrehtynyt. Emoyhtiö Metan liikevaihto polkee paikoillaan, ja osakekurssi on tippunut lähes 70 prosenttia viime vuoden huippulukemista.
Zuckerberg haluaa keskittyä jatkossa niin kutsutun metaversumin eli kolmiulotteisen virtuaalimaailman rakentamiseen. Mediatietojen mukaan Zuckerbergin yhtiö on investoinut jo kymmeniä miljardeja euroja metaversumiin.
Hanke on edennyt kangerrellen. Mediatietojen mukaan Metan virtuaalitodellisuus on edelleen hyvin keskeneräinen ja käyttäjäkokemus heikko.
Julkisuuteen jaetut kuvat ja tiedot metaversumista eivät ole keränneet juuri kiitosta. Kriitikkojen mukaan metaversumin graafinen ilme on köykäinen. Muun muassa The New York Times on kertonut Metan työntekijöiden suhtautuvan epäillen koko projektiin.
Kuittinen pitää Zuckerbergin metaversumi-innostusta monella tapaa erikoisena.
Ensinnäkin Meta kehittää virtuaalimaailmasta kohtaamispaikkaa yrityksille ja niiden työntekijöille. Se tarkoittaa merkittävää muutosta aiempiin somealustoihin
Harva yritys on vielä innostunut ajatuksesta siirtää työntekijänsä täysin virtuaalimaailmaan.
”En ymmärrä, miksi Zuckerberg on kiinnittänyt oman naamansa metaversumin keulakuvaksi.”
SAMAAN aikaan kun metaversumi imee miljardeja Metan kassasta, näyttää Metan syömähampaiden eli Facebookin ja Instagramin tulevaisuus aiempaa epävarmemmalta. Kilpailevat somepalvelut kuten Tiktok ja Snap
”Minusta nämä Meta ja metaversumi ovat aivan kuin Nokia ja N-Gage [Nokian flopannut pelipuhelin] vuonna 2003. Selkäpiitä karmii, kun iso menestyvä yhtiö yrittää mennä täysin uudelle alueelle. Ylin johto on pihalla kuin lumiukko.”
”Metan kurssilasku on aika klassinen esimerkki siitä, että harva yhtiö pysyy ikuisesti voittajana ja innovaattorina. Mutta yhtiössä on silti vielä hurjasti potentiaalia”
Metaversumistrategian lisäksi Metan kurssilasku johtuu ongelmista vanhoissa bisneksissä.
Gronblomin mukaan käyttäjät eivät luota Zuckerbergin somepalveluihin ja myös sijoittajat epäilevät yhtiön vastuullisuutta.
Facebook ja Instagram ovat rämpineet vuosien ajan skandaalien keskellä.
Facebookia ja Instagramia on muun muassa kritisoitu vaarallisiksi käyttäjiensä mielenterveydelle.
Kanteen mukaan Facebook ei puuttunut alustalla julkaistuun vihapuheeseen tarpeeksi päättäväisesti.
Tomi Engdahl says:
INTERPOL launches first global police Metaverse https://www.interpol.int/fr/Actualites-et-evenements/Actualites/2022/INTERPOL-launches-first-global-police-Metaverse
Fully operational, the INTERPOL Metaverse allows registered users to tour a virtual facsimile of the INTERPOL General Secretariat headquarters in Lyon, France without any geographical or physical boundaries, interact with other officers via their avatars, and even take immersive training courses in forensic investigation and other policing capabilities.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jessica Lyons Hardcastle / The Register:
Interpol unveils a metaverse for law enforcement around the world, letting agents tour the virtual version of its HQ, take training courses in VR, and more
Team Interpol: Metaverse Police
Attempted revival of virtual reality is only just beginning and already the cops just want to take a look around
https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/21/metaverse_interpol/
Interpol this week unveiled what it has called a Metaverse for police around the world while signalling a lawless virtual universe will not be tolerated.
The Interpol Metaverse is “fully operational” and available from the international police force’s cloud service, we’re told. To us, it seems to be a shared virtual reality space that you connect into using a suitable VR headset. Once in, you can visit a virtual version of the organization’s headquarters in Lyon, France; interact with other cops’ avatars just as they can interact with yours; and take training courses, such as learning all about forensic investigations.
The police have got themselves a 3D chat room. Well, at least it saves them a trip to France.
INTERPOL launches first global police Metaverse
https://www.interpol.int/fr/Actualites-et-evenements/Actualites/2022/INTERPOL-launches-first-global-police-Metaverse
The virtual world allows INTERPOL to offer immersive training courses to law enforcement across the globe
NEW DELHI, INDIA – The Metaverse isn’t coming soon. It’s already here.
At a surprise session of the 90th INTERPOL General Assembly in New Delhi, the global police organization unveiled the first ever Metaverse specifically designed for law enforcement worldwide.
Fully operational, the INTERPOL Metaverse allows registered users to tour a virtual facsimile of the INTERPOL General Secretariat headquarters in Lyon, France without any geographical or physical boundaries, interact with other officers via their avatars, and even take immersive training courses in forensic investigation and other policing capabilities.
The INTERPOL Metaverse is provided through the INTERPOL Secure Cloud, ensuring its neutrality.
During the interactive session, General Assembly delegates in New Delhi were able to digitally enter the Lyon building through avatars, using virtual reality headsets.
“For many, the Metaverse seems to herald an abstract future, but the issues it raises are those that have always motivated INTERPOL – supporting our member countries to fight crime and making the world, virtual or not, safer for those who inhabit it,” said INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock.
“We may be entering a new world, but our commitment remains the same,” the Secretary General added.
In a follow-up panel discussion, INTERPOL also announced the creation of an Expert Group on the Metaverse to represent the concerns of law enforcement on the global stage – ensuring this new virtual world is secure by design.
Not just for gamers
Far from being simply a gadget for gamers, the Metaverse is often discussed as the potential next stage in the development of the Internet. By 2026, one in every four people will spend at least an hour a day in the Metaverse to work, study, shop and socialize, according to technology research firm Gartner.
As the newly released INTERPOL Global Crime Trend report shows, crime has increasingly moved online as the pace of digitalization has increased. If the boundaries of our physical world move ever further into a digital – and seemingly borderless – realm, the panel discussion asked, ‘how can law enforcement continue to protect communities and guarantee the rule of law?’
How can police enhance their awareness of the threats but also harness the opportunities?
Criminals are already starting to exploit the Metaverse. The World Economic Forum, which has partnered with INTERPOL, Meta, Microsoft and others in an initiative to define and govern the Metaverse, has warned that social engineering scams, violent extremism and misinformation could be particular challenges.
As the number of Metaverse users grows and the technology further develops, the list of possible crimes will only expand to potentially include crimes against children, data theft, money laundering, financial fraud, counterfeiting, ransomware, phishing, and sexual assault and harassment.
For law enforcement, some of these threats are likely to present significant challenges, because not all acts that are criminalized in the physical world are considered crimes when committed in the virtual world.
“By identifying these risks from the outset, we can work with stakeholders to shape the necessary governance frameworks and cut off future criminal markets before they are fully formed,” said Madan Oberoi, INTERPOL’s Executive Director of Technology and Innovation. “Only by having these conversations now can we build an effective response.”
New world, same commitment
The Metaverse holds many benefits for law enforcement, notably in terms of remote work, networking, collecting and preserving evidence from crime scenes, and delivering training.
Capacity building in the Metaverse holds particular promise, offering students more opportunities to collaborate and network, ensuring a greater engagement through immersion and enabling hands-on activities.
In a live demonstration, experts from the INTERPOL Capacity Building and Training Directorate delivered a training course on travel document verification and passenger screening using INTERPOL capabilities in a Metaverse classroom. Students were then teleported to an airport where they were able to apply their newly-acquired skills at a virtual border point.
“The Metaverse has the potential to transform every aspect of our daily lives with enormous implications for law enforcement,” said Mr Oberoi, INTERPOL’s Executive Director of Technology and Innovation.
“But in order for police to understand the Metaverse, we need to experience it.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta Platforms’ recent announcements of corporate-oriented partnerships to lure big business into its vision of the metaverse are a positive for antsy shareholders, but what they really want is for the company to pay attention to its knitting and stay away from strange new virtual worlds.
Meta’s Metaverse Has Investors’ Heads Spinning Ahead Of Earnings, Not In A Good Way
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mariagraciasantillanalinares/2022/10/25/metas-metaverse-has-investors-heads-spinning-ahead-of-earnings-not-in-a-good-way/?sh=2765477c4218&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflowForbesMainFB&utm_source=ForbesMainFacebook
Earth to Zuckerberg: Abort.
Meta PlatformsFB +5.6%’ recent announcements of corporate-oriented partnerships to lure big business into its vision of the metaverse are a positive for antsy shareholders, but what they really want is for the company to pay attention to its knitting and stay away from strange new virtual worlds.
“There’s a healthy degree of skepticism among Wall Street on the magnitude of investments,” says Brent Thill, managing director at Jefferies, of Meta’s price focus on the metaverse. “Investors are absolutely 100% against this,” he adds, “because of the lack of payback in the short term,” coupled with recession worries and decreasing advertising revenue.
It is not the metaverse itself, says Thills, that is making investors wary. Rather it is the magnitude of investment, seemingly “too aggressive from the top,” compared with “the impact that is largely going to be fulfilling its core.” In other words, advertising.
In the year since Meta announced its name change from Facebook to reflect an investment shift to the as-yet undefined metaverse, the company has rolled out a series of products and applications to increase its popularity with users on its platforms—everything from nonfungible-token integrations on Facebook and Instagram to the creation of its own Horizon World metaverse. But with modest revenue of $2 billion in the ensuing three quarters despite all the investments, Meta has racked up a cumulative operating loss of $9.1 billion since Q3 2021, according to Meta’s second-quarter earnings presentation.
This has been a lousy year in the overall stock market, but for Meta it went from bad to worse. Its 10.75 price-to-earnings (PE) ratio is about the lowest it has been since the company went public in May 2012.
“There’s probably a view out there that says, look, the more they spend on the metaverse, the more they’re acknowledging that the decline of the core business is more imminent than we might have thought,”
There is also the question of how much of a metaverse Horizon World really is. During the company’s annual Connect conference, CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasized the project’s future as “open” and “interoperable.” But the technology that Meta uses is conventional and lacks elements of decentralization such as a blockchain or other distributed ledger base that would differentiate it from the so-called walled garden approach to social media. Though it has been approached in different ways, the metaverse is often seen as an immersive version of the internet with virtual- and augmented-reality components.
“You could still possibly have an open Metaverse depending on standards adopted,” says Cathy Hackl, Forbes contributor and founder and leader of the metaverse studio at Journey, a web design consultancy. “But you cannot have a decentralized Metaverse with true interoperability without the blockchain.”
In fact, the company’s latest attempt to goose its metaverse prospects was a series of tie-ups with traditional tech giants like MicrosoftMSFT +1.1% and AccentureACN +1.8% and the slightly less mainstream Zoom. These deals, aimed at increasing the adoption of the concept by large enterprises, are reassuring to investors, says Shmulik, even if it is at odds with the vision of a decentralized future.
“It’s the single biggest economic driver they announced”
Long-term perhaps. But today, profits of metaverse adaptations primarily aimed at consumers are bleak. Blockchain-based worlds including Decentraland and Sandbox, amongst metaverse enthusiast favorites, are still seeing yearly negative return on investment (21.92% and 6.71%, respectively) according to data from Messari. Meta’s pre-Microsoft Horizon Worlds is apparently doing no better when it comes to user activity. According to internal documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal, it currently has around 200,000 monthly active users, down from the 300,000 the company claimed in February.
Thill and Shmulik agree that a return to its core business—advertising—would be good for Meta.
Meta’s advertising has not been horrible over the past two quarters, with the company pulling in nearly $27 billion in Q1 and over $28 billion in Q2, similar to the corresponding 2021 levels. Still, ad revenue hasn’t been enough to battle rising expenses and net income for the first half was $14.2 billion, down from $19.9 billion in 2021.
“I actually don’t think the success or failure of the metaverse is really meaningful to the trajectory of the current stock price and how investors view the stock,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta posts another revenue decline as investors voice metaverse concerns
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/26/meta-revenue-decline-q3-2022-metaverse/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9sbS5mYWNlYm9vay5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJthp5lvYeQoXg9rBe4n2YQ4I_3uSujx0QYBqWzoESw14Uit08Q9Dig0TTJC1pi1vLDnJOw3EnX_dVlP9c1kz3sJFRq2mSJ3kOW7LZJShfGvagx8AargXPfwtKl6BsYG9OYF1Xa6DaKlKFNwQB7KxicBYV4gQwd8CcZ-1v-dWVak
Earlier this year, Meta posted its first quarterly revenue decline. Once again, Meta’s financials aren’t inspiring much faith in its investors this quarter. Meta’s revenue declined 4% year over year to hit $27.7 billion; but Meta CFO David Wehner pointed out on the earnings call today that some of this decline is owed to inflation. Meanwhile, net income was just $4.395 billion, down from $9.194 billion year over year.
This decline in income is mostly due to Meta’s huge investment in the metaverse.
Reality Labs, Meta’s virtual reality division, lost $3.672 billion this quarter. The same thing happened in Q1, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg justified a $3 billion loss by saying that the 2030s will be “exciting.”
“There’s still a long road ahead to build the next computing platform. But we’re clearly doing leading work here. This is a massive undertaking and it’s often gonna take a few versions of each product before they become mainstream,” Zuckerberg said on today’s earnings call. “But I think that our work here is going to be of historic importance and create the foundation for an entirely new way that we will interact with each other and blend technology into our lives, as well as the foundation for the long term of our business.”
Zuckerberg also elaborated on Meta’s overall plans for the metaverse. He’s now referring to Horizon Worlds, the company’s underwhelming social VR platform, as something that Meta is “iterating on out in the open.” He also called the platform an “early product.”
“Obviously it has a long way to go before it’s going to be what we aspire for it to be,”
He also emphasized Meta’s commitment to developing VR and AR technology in general.
When it comes to social media, Zuckerberg shared some updated figures. He said that there are now more than 140 billion Reels plays across Facebook and Instagram, which is a 50% increase from six months ago. Across all platforms, Reels has a $3 billion annual revenue run rate. As the company has stated in past earnings calls, Meta is investing heavily in AI content discovery to compete with platforms like TikTok.