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:
Then, Now and Next: Immersive Technology
https://www.mouser.com/empowering-innovation/more-topics/immersive-technologies?utm_source=endeavor&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=ed-personifai-eit2022-#video-immersivetech
Catch up on the tech landscape of Immersive Technologies – where we were, where we are, and where we are going.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Universal Scene Description (#openUSD), referred to as the HTML of 3D, is an interchange format that’s competing to become the open standard of the metaverse by bringing consistency and interoperability to the virtual world. Discover how companies like NVIDIA and Adobe are using it as the foundation behind its new Omniverse content creation environment, the push for a USD #metaverse standard, and how this will impact the future of 3D: https://bit.ly/3YXTPiM
(Sponsored)
How USD can become an open 3D standard of the metaverse
https://venturebeat.com/games/how-usd-can-become-an-open-3d-standard-of-the-metaverse/
As CES 2023 approaches with a lot of metaverse talk, one of the technologies that is coming to the forefront of standards discussions is Universal Scene Description, or USD.
The metaverse has many definitions, but many view it as a 3D version of the web, a network or universe of virtual worlds and destinations that represent the next generation of the internet.
In an ideal world, the metaverse will be open — not owned by any single company — and it will be interoperable so that platforms, developers and users can reuse their 3D assets and carry them across the virtual worlds that might be as plentiful as websites.
While game companies like Roblox, Microsoft (Minecraft) and Epic Games (Fortnite) have created the most metaverse-like experiences to date, just about every industry will likely invest in the metaverse, the same way that all companies did so with the Web.
Among enterprises, companies such as Nvidia have galvanized interest in creating digital twins, where companies like BMW can design a factory in a digital space and then build that factory in the real world. As the companies operate the real factories, they can collect sensor data that can be used to make the digital twin better, resulting in improvements to the real factories. There are many such applications possible with the metaverse, and that’s why reusing assets — and setting metaverse standards — is so important.
“It’s probably one of the biggest things that has ever happened for computer graphics. Because if we can get this kind of standardization, what it essentially does is unlock the potential progress we can make,”
“Today, there’s a lot of effort that’s made to create 3D tools, 3D datasets, 3D experiences, where there’s a lot of redundant work happening. We’re not building on the same foundation. Everybody has to redo everything every time.”
USD is a 3D file format that can be like a lingua franca that makes those assets compatible, with a chance to unify both user experiences and developer workflows. It could be a standard that enables the metaverse — which many see as the next version of the internet — just like HTML enabled the Web.
Richard Kerris, vice president of the Omniverse platform at Nvidia, said at our recent MetaBeat event, “We think of USD as the HTML of 3D. The connective tissue that we experience the web through today is HTML. That’s what makes it seamless from website to website, device to device. It wasn’t always that way. But those of us that are old enough to remember [things like] what extension do you have loaded? What browser?”
He added, “Once that got remedied with HTML, everything’s been smooth sailing. USD is going to do that for 3D so that we can go from virtual world to virtual world seamlessly.”
“I think every 3D company out there today either supports USD or has a plan to support USD in one way or another, whether it’s exporting out to it or creating a live bidirectional connector to the platform. But that takes time.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
Meta acquires Netherlands-based Luxexcel, which 3D prints prescription lenses for smart glasses; Meta and Luxexcel reportedly worked together on Project Aria — As Meta faces antitrust scrutiny over its acquisition of VR fitness developers Within, the tech giant is making another acquisition.
Meta acquires Luxexcel, a smart eyewear company
https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/30/meta-acquires-luxexcel-a-smart-eyewear-company/
As Meta faces antitrust scrutiny over its acquisition of VR fitness developers Within, the tech giant is making another acquisition. Meta confirmed to TechCrunch that it is purchasing Luxexcel, a smart eyewear company headquartered in the Netherlands. The terms of the deal, which was first reported in the Belgian paper De Tijd, have not been disclosed.
Founded in 2009, Luxexcel uses 3D printing to make prescription lenses for glasses. More recently, the company has focused its efforts on smart lenses, which can be printed with integrated technology like LCD displays and holographic film.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Washington Post:
Sources: Meta is struggling to move hardware manufacturing out of China; after abandoning its smartwatch plans, the company is still working on a wrist wearable — The company needs China’s factories as it pushes to become a hardware producer — SAN FRANCISCO — For more than a year …
Made-in-China labels become a problem for Meta’s anti-China stance
The company needs China’s factories as it pushes to become a hardware producer
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/31/facebook-china-label/
SAN FRANCISCO — For more than a year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made a point of stoking fears about China. He’s told U.S. lawmakers that China “steals” American technology and played up nationalist concerns about threats from Chinese-owned rival TikTok.
But now Meta has a growing problem: The social media service wants to transform itself into a powerhouse in hardware, and it makes virtually all of it in China.
So the company is racing to get out.
That transition has been harder than expected. While hardware giants like Apple have moved some production to places like India and Vietnam in recent years — responding to growing tariffs, former president Donald Trump’s trade war, and rising wages in China — Facebook has hit walls, say three people familiar with the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Inside Zuckerberg’s $1,500 headset, the metaverse is still out of reach
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/11/meta-quest-pro-metaverse/
The new Meta Quest Pro adds ‘mixed reality’ and face-tracking capabilities. But even with the upgrade, what makes the metaverse better than the internet we already have on phones and laptops?
If Mark Zuckerberg had his way, we’d all be doing Zoom calls as 3D avatars through computers on our faces.
I recently got to try out the newest and best experience of what the Facebook co-founder calls the metaverse. It felt more like a meh-taverse.
I got a sneak peek at the Quest Pro headset, unveiled Tuesday by Meta as the culmination of billions in hardware development. Most people will likely never own a Quest Pro headset, in part because they’re selling it for $1,499.99 — nearly four times the cost of its predecessor. But more than seven years after it unveiled its first Oculus virtual reality rig, its state-of-the-art headset lets us reflect on a big question for the future of everyone’s use of personal technology: When might the metaverse actually become part of how lots of people communicate, work and create? After spending two hours with the Quest Pro, that’s never felt further away.
The metaverse is supposed to be a way to interact online in ways that let us feel closer and do away with boundaries between the physical and virtual worlds. The Quest Pro pushes beyond the VR goggles we’ve seen before, by layering digital images into what’s actually in front of you. And it tracks your eyeballs and facial muscles to help you express emotion through a virtual avatar.
These are difficult technical challenges, but the Quest Pro didn’t seem to do either of them particularly well. It also introduced new kinds of peril: Should you trust the company behind Facebook’s privacy pirates with tracking every twitch of your face?
Meta says the Quest Pro is just the next step to achieve its full-fledged metaverse vision and is intended for first adopters, artists and businesses. Yet Zuckerberg last year literally bet the farm on the idea it was the next big thing, changing the name of his company from Facebook to Meta. Even Apple wants a piece of that and is expected to unveil its own competing headset in the coming months.
Meta’s hardware last got updated in 2020 with the Quest 2 headset, which is still being sold for $399.99. During the pandemic, some found them useful for games, fitness and joining niche communities. The company has sold at least 10 million VR devices, but that is far shy of the billions Meta’s other products reach.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/14426-vuoden-2022-parhaat-ultrapieni-laser-kutistaa-vr-lasit
Tomi Engdahl says:
Evelyn Cheng / CNBC:
A look at China’s growing, Beijing-endorsed “virtual people” industry, including scandal-free influencers, performers, and customer service representatives — – Tech company Baidu said the number of virtual people projects it’s worked on for clients has doubled since last year …
Companies can ‘hire’ a virtual person for about $14k a year in China
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/02/companies-can-hire-a-virtual-person-for-about-14k-a-year-in-china.html
Tech company Baidu said the number of virtual people projects it’s worked on for clients has doubled since 2021, with a wide price range of as little as $2,800 to a whopping $14,300 per year.
Beijing city announced in August a plan to build up the municipal virtual people industry into one valued at more than 50 billion yuan in 2025.
Many of China’s large tech companies have already been developing products in the virtual people industry.
Looking ahead to 2023, 45% of advertisers said they might sponsor a virtual influencer’s performance or invite a virtual person to join a brand’s event, according to the Kantar report.
Virtual people are a combination of animation, sound tech and machine learning that create digitized human beings who can sing and even interact on a livestream. While these digital beings have appeared on the fringes of the U.S. internet, they’ve been popping up more and more in China’s cyberspace.
Some buyers of virtual people include financial services companies, local tourism boards and state media, said Li Shiyan, who heads Baidu’s virtual people and robotics business.
As the tech improves, costs have dropped by about 80% since last year, he said. It costs about 100,000 yuan ($14,300) a year for a three-dimensional virtual person, and 20,000 yuan for a two-dimensional one.
Li expects the virtual person industry overall will keep growing by 50% annually through 2025.
Searching for scandal-free icons
From a business perspective, much of the focus is on how virtual people can generate content.
Brands in China are looking for alternative spokespeople after many celebrities recently ran into negative press about tax evasion or personal scandals, said Sirius Wang, chief product officer and head of marketplace Greater China at Kantar.
At least 36% of consumers had watched a virtual influencer or digital celebrity perform in the last year, according to a survey published by Kantar this fall. Twenty-one percent had watched a virtual person host an event or broadcast the news, the report said.
Looking ahead to 2023, 45% of advertisers said they might sponsor a virtual influencer’s performance or invite a virtual person to join a brand’s event, according to the Kantar report.
Growing development of virtual people
Many of China’s large tech companies have already been developing products in the virtual humans industry.
Video and game streaming app Bilibili
was one of the earliest to take the concept of virtual people mainstream.
Launched in 2012, Luo Tianyi has nearly 3 million fans and even performed at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing last year.
Bilibili also hosts many so-called virtual anchors, which are the direct avatars of people using special technology to reach their audience. The company said 230,000 virtual anchors started broadcasting on its platform since 2019, and the virtual anchors’ broadcasting time in 2022 surged by about 200% from a year ago.
Tencent said in its latest earnings call that Tencent Cloud AI Digital Humans provide chatbots to sectors such as financial services and tourism for automated customer support. The company’s Next Studios also developed a virtual singer and virtual sign language interpreter.
Far smaller companies are also getting into the industry.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hartley Charlton / MacRumors:
A report details Apple’s work on its AR/VR headset, which could cost ~$3,000, says manufacturer Pegatron assembled initial testing units in 2022, and more — Apple’s mixed-reality headset will feature a physical dial for switching to a view of the real-world, a waist-mounted battery pack …
Report Reveals Wave of New Features for Apple’s Mixed-Reality Headset, Including Digital Crown for Switching to Real-World View, Waist-Mounted Battery Pack, and More
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/01/03/report-reveals-wave-of-features-for-apple-headset/
Apple’s mixed-reality headset will feature a physical dial for switching to a view of the real-world, a waist-mounted battery pack, small motors to automatically adjust its lenses, and much more, according to The Information.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How many companies does it take to create a consumer-friendly metaverse? Eight, if you take the route being followed by Futureverse, a rollup that is trying to create the foundation for an immersive version of the Internet. https://trib.al/iFOaCsu
Tomi Engdahl says:
Virtual Insanity: Protecting the Immersive Online World
https://www.securityweek.com/virtual-insanity-protecting-immersive-online-world
As a result of the intersection of humans and technology, many social engineering attacks aimed at exploiting unsophisticated users will occur
The concept of a virtual world in which people live, work, and interact with others without leaving their living room in the physical world gained more momentum during the pandemic. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2026, a quarter of the population will spend a minimum of an hour each day in some type of immersive virtual environment for work, shopping, education, social media and/or entertainment.
Cities are among the first to enter this new iteration of the internet powered by virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) technology. These virtual cities—Dubai being the first—promise to replicate real-life experiences and places. Individuals create avatars that can then work, shop, play and more in a virtual space. While these new virtual spaces will provide untold opportunities, they also set the stage for an unparalleled rise in cybercrime.
Tomi Engdahl says:
With Kokomo VR meeting software, Canon takes a step away from its hardware roots
https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/04/canon-kokomo-ces/?tpcc=ecfb2020
At CES 2023, the company showed off its vision for the future — a vision that seems a lot less hardware-y than you would expect from the 85-year-old company that has traditionally made all of its money from making things with buttons.
A rag-tag bunch of Canon veterans took on the challenge and created Kokomo, a VR meeting software package that, in essence, makes real-time 3D video calling a reality.
Users don a VR headset and point a smartphone at themselves. The software scans your face, and creates a photo-real 3D avatar of you and the person you are calling. It uses the motion sensors in the headset and the camera to capture your avatar, moving you into a photo-realistic space, and boom, you are virtually present with a colleague, family member or friend.
The most interesting thing to note about the above paragraph is the lack of Canon products.
“This is representing a very exciting new innovation for Canon – but also a very new business direction for Canon, as well,” said Jon Lorentz, one of the co-creators of the Kokomo solution. “As you know, traditionally, Canon is very much tied to our hardware products.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://venturebeat.com/virtual/why-you-should-embrace-the-extended-reality-continuum/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/05/meetkai-launches-new-room-scanning-tech-and-metaverse-builder/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://blog.arduino.cc/2023/01/03/this-project-facilitates-augmented-reality-minecraft-gaming/
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
Tomi Engdahl says:
Massive Apple headset leak reveals new details!
“Apple’s possible XR headset reportedly has a quick dial for changing realities and many other features. The killer app is said to make realistic avatar XR video calls.”
#experience #future #technology #entertainment #immersive #socialmedia
Massive Apple headset leak reveals new details and confirms earlier rumors
https://mixed–news-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/mixed-news.com/en/massive-apple-headset-leak-reveals-new-details-and-confirms-earlier-rumors/?amp=1
Apple’s possible XR headset reportedly has a quick dial for changing realities and many other features. The killer app is said to be realistic avatar XR video calls.
The most important points in the overview:
Apple’s XR headset is said to be built from aluminum, glass and carbon fiber and is compact and lightweight.
The headset draws power from a waist mounted battery, which can be replaced during operation. This design is said to have been thought up by Apple’s former chief designer Jony Ive.
Built in are two processors, a main SoC (M2) and for video processing (ISP), both made in a 5 nm process and offering a proprietary streaming codec.
The ISP is said to stream and de-warp the distorted external image from the integrated cameras into the headset with low latency. This is crucial for high-quality mixed reality applications. Here, Apple’s acquisition of NextVR could pay off; there have been similar rumors before. The chip is supposed to use a custom-built, fast working memory from SK Hynix.
Additionally, an H2 chip is integrated for ultra-low latency audio transmission to Apple’s AirPod Pros. Conventional Bluetooth headphones are not supposed to work optimally, and there is no jack plug.
However, the headband has integrated speakers, but their sound is audible to outsiders, which can be a problem in terms of privacy. It is said to be made of a similar material to that of the Apple Watch’s sports wristbands. For developers, there is supposed to be an alternative headband that can be connected to a Mac.
A quick dial comparable to the Apple Watch is supposed to enable a quick switch between the virtual and physical world. The button does not offer haptic feedback.
Corrective lenses can be inserted into the headset via magnets if the user is visually impaired.
The lens distance is automatically adjusted to the eye distance of the headset wearer via an integrated motor.
The field of view is said to be 120 degrees, which would be slightly wider than the Meta Quest Pro’s 106 degrees and significantly wider than open AR headsets like Magic Leap 2 or Hololens (around 50 degrees).
Apple is said to prefer hand tracking as an interface, but is experimenting with alternative input devices such as a wand and a kind of thimble.
Games are not the focus for Apple, and a gaming controller is not included. Pure VR experiences are to be offered via the game engine Unity as a partner company.
The Apple headset can display existing iOS apps in 2D.
Apple bets on XR video calls as ‘killer app’ and offers outsiders headset face
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple plans to unveil its “Reality Pro” headset this spring, before WWDC; the new Mac Pro will look like the 2019 model but lose user-upgradeable RAM — 2023 is set to be the year of Apple’s mixed-reality headset and not much else. Also: The company hikes battery-replacement costs …
Apple Will Talk Up Its Mixed-Reality Headset in 2023 But Not Much Else
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-01-08/when-will-apple-launch-the-reality-pro-mixed-reality-headset-apple-2023-devices-lcnfzkc7
2023 is set to be the year of Apple’s mixed-reality headset and not much else. Also: The company hikes battery-replacement costs, plans a retail augmented-reality experience and suffers more delays with its new fintech products.
Apple Inc., after seven years of development, is nearly ready to launch its first mixed-reality headset. But the focus on this new product will lead to an otherwise muted 2023.
I first wrote in 2017 about Apple’s ambition to launch a high-performance AR-based headset — complete with its own operating system, App Store and dedicated chips. Back then, Apple had aimed to get it to market by 2019. Over time, the delays stacked up. Apple had plans to launch the device in 2020, then 2021 and then 2022.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mercedes-Benz Works with NVIDIA to Create Digital Twins of Its Factories
Jan. 12, 2023
The automaker’s plan is to use NVIDIA’s Omniverse software to create virtual versions of its physical facilities.
https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/embedded-revolution/article/21257989/electronic-design-mercedesbenz-works-with-nvidia-to-create-digital-twins-of-its-factories
Tomi Engdahl says:
MUROPAKETIN ENSITUNTUMAT: PLAYSTATION VR2 -VIRTUAALILASIT
https://tekniikanmaailma.fi/lehti/2b-2023/muropaketti-paasi-kokeilemaan-playstation-vr2-virtuaalilaseja-on-ilo-tormata-tallaisiin-kokemuksiin-vaikka-jo-luulee-kaiken-nahneensa/
PlayStation VR2 -lasien kokeileminen herätti aitoa pelkoa ja sai adrenaliinin virtaamaan
Sonyn uudet VR-lasit eivät jättäneet kylmäksi. Kokeilu tarjosi aidosti jotain aivan muuta kuin osasi odottaa. Realistisuus nosti aidon pelon tunteen, mutta halu jatkaa oli kyltymätön.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mice explore virtual worlds with a Raspberry Pi-powered VR headset
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/mice-explore-virtual-worlds-with-a-raspberry-pi-powered-vr-headset/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://futurism.com/the-byte/ar-glasses-translate-conversations-real-time
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/07/htcs-global-head-of-product-on-vrs-race-to-the-bottom/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta ends support for original Quest headset after less than 4 years
Quest 2 and Quest Pro will be unaffected, for now.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/01/meta-ends-support-for-original-quest-headset-after-less-than-4-years/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hana Kiros / MIT Technology Review:
A look at VR support groups and communities helping members process cancer diagnoses and death, question their marriages, turn over childhood traumas, and more — Welcome to “Death Q&A,” a space with a unique combination of anonymity and togetherness, where avatars discuss what weighs on them most heavily.
Inside the metaverse meetups that let people share on death, grief, and pain
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/12/1066694/evolvr-saying-goodbye-death-vr-metaverse-community-grieving/
Welcome to “Death Q&A,” a space with a unique combination of anonymity and togetherness, where avatars discuss what weighs on them most heavily.
Days after learning that her husband, Ted, had only months to live, Claire Matte found herself telling strangers about it in VR.
The 62-year-old retiree had bought a virtual-reality headset in 2021 as a social getaway. Ted had late-stage cancer, and the intense responsibility of caring for him had shrunk her daily reality. With the Oculus, she’d travel the world in VR and sing karaoke.
But last January, after 32 failed rounds of radiation, a doctor had told Matte and her husband that it was time to give up on treating his cancer.
“[Ted] did not want to know how long he had,” she tells me. “He left the room.” But Matte felt that, as his caretaker, she had to know. When Ted was out of earshot, the doctors told her he had four to six months to live.
Matte still had the virtual world, though she says, “After the death sentence, I didn’t exactly feel like singing.” Later that month, as she checked out a calendar of live meetups to attend in VR, one event caught her attention: “What’s this Death Q&A?”
A virtual destination where conversation can veer from the abstract to the incredibly intimate, Death Q&A is a weekly hour-long session built around grappling with mortality, where attendees often open up about experiences and feelings they’ve shared with no one else. Bright, cartoon-like avatars represent the dozen or so people who attend each meetup, freed by VR’s combination of anonymity and togetherness to engage strangers with an earnestness we typically reserve for rare moments, if we reveal it at all.
During my four months sitting in on Death Q&A and similar sessions, I’ve heard people process cancer diagnoses, question their marriages, share treasured memories of parents and friends who’d passed hours before, turn over childhood traumas, and question openly how we can stare down our own mortality.
Despite the perception that they’re just for gaming, more people like Matte are putting on VR headsets to talk through deep pain in their day-to-day lives. The people attending VR meetups like Death Q&A are test-driving a new type of 360° digital community: one much more visceral and consuming than Zoom or the online forums that came before, and untethered to the complex social network that grounds and creates tension in traditional, face-to-face experiences.
“These relationships that we make in VR can become very intimate and deep and vulnerable,” says Tom Nickel, the 73-year-old former hospice volunteer who runs the virtual meetups with co-host Ryan Astheimer. “But they’re not complicated. Our lives don’t depend on each other.”
About 20% log on from computers, which deliver only a 2D experience; the rest attend using VR headsets, so I put one on too. Wearing it, you hear other attendees so close up—the tremble in their voices, and a bouquet of accents. It’s as if they’re in your ear, whispering. Laughter and tears seem equally common.
The atmosphere in the sessions feels nostalgic and confessional—spectating has often felt like crashing a church service or family reunion. The crowd brings a palpable curiosity about the lives of the other attendees.
Saying goodbye during a pandemic
Death Q&A and a similar evening session called Saying Goodbye, which is focused on loss, are just two of the 40 or so live events offered each week by EvolVR, a virtual spiritual community that was founded in 2017 by Tom Nickel’s son, Jeremy.
Before starting EvolVR, Jeremy Nickel led an interfaith church congregation in the Bay Area that was “very liberal in theology,” he says. He was looking for new ways to minister, untethered to the conventions of mainstream religion, when he first tried on a VR headset in 2015.
“The lightbulb went off in my head—people feel like they’re really together in VR,” Jeremy says.
Then the pandemic hit. Both Saying Goodbye and Death Q&A began in early 2020—“our response to understanding that people would be losing a lot,” Tom Nickel says. They knew “that maybe people would need places to talk about it,” especially as covid precautions took away hospital-bed goodbyes and shrank people’s social circles.
Covid-19 also triggered a wave of what psychologists call mortality salience—the realization that death isn’t only possible, but inevitable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple indefinitely postpones its lightweight AR glasses due to technical difficulties and is instead planning a lower-cost MR headset for 2024 or 2025 — Apple Inc. is still planning to unveil its first mixed-reality headset this year, but an even more important follow-up product …
Apple Delays AR Glasses, Plans Cheaper Mixed-Reality Headset
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-18/apple-postpones-ar-glasses-plans-cheaper-mixed-reality-headset?leadSource=uverify%20wall
AR glasses were meant to be follow-up to this year’s headset
Lower-cost version of mixed-reality headset now in development
Apple Inc. is still planning to unveil its first mixed-reality headset this year, but an even more important follow-up product — lightweight augmented-reality glasses — has been postponed due to technical challenges.
The company had originally hoped to release the AR glasses after the debut of its mixed-reality headset, which combines both AR and virtual reality, but that part of the plan is now on hold. Instead, Apple will follow up with a lower-cost version of the mixed-reality headset as soon as 2024 or early 2025, according to people familia
Tomi Engdahl says:
If you were hoping VR had a future at Microsoft … umm …
https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/microsoft-has-laid-off-entire-teams-behind-virtual-mixed-reality-and-hololens
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jez Corden / Windows Central:
Microsoft laid off the entire teams behind its virtual reality platform AltspaceVR, which will shut down in March 2023, and its Mixed Reality Tool Kit framework — HoloLens, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality are all but dead at Microsoft. — What you need to know
Jez Corden / Windows Central:
Microsoft laid off the entire teams behind its virtual reality platform AltspaceVR, which will shut down in March 2023, and its Mixed Reality Tool Kit framework — HoloLens, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality are all but dead at Microsoft. — What you need to know
https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/microsoft-has-laid-off-entire-teams-behind-virtual-mixed-reality-and-hololens
What you need to know
In the latest update in the massive Microsoft layoffs, we now have a better idea of how deep the cuts run in Microsoft’s Mixed Reality team.
The team behind AltSpaceVR and also the Mixed Reality Tool Kit have been laid off in their entireties.
Potentially, these layoffs throw serious doubt on the future of HoloLens, which is currently struggling to retain its military contract with the U.S. government.
The scale of the Microsoft layoffs keeps revealing itself through social media posts, as we get to grips with just how deep and broad Microsoft is looking to restructure.
This past week, Microsoft revealed its joining Amazon, Google, and others in laying off thousands of employees. The cuts reduces Microsoft’s global workforce by 5%, which grew rapidly to take advantage of opportunities that were presented during the pandemic. With work-from-home culture ending, inflation spiraling, and Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine disrupting energy markets, Big Tech is scaling back to keep shareholders happy in a tough economic environment.
Microsoft is rearranging its bets for the future of the company as a result. Despite having acquired AltSpaceVR back in 2017, Microsoft culled the entire team behind the virtual reality workspace project this past week. As a result, AltSpaceVR will shutter for good in March, effectively ending Microsoft’s “metaverse” efforts with it. Supposedly, Microsoft Mesh will be AltSpaceVR’s successor, but it remains to be seen just how serious the company is about the so-called “metaverse,” despite CEO Satya Nadella’s buzzword-laden speeches on the topic at recent events.
In addition to the death of AltSpaceVR, Microsoft has also culled the entire team behind the popular MRTK framework. MRTK (opens in new tab) is Microsoft’s “Mixed Reality Tool Kit,” which is a cross-platform framework for spatial anchors in virtual reality spaces. MRTK was built for Unity VR integrations, and works with Meta’s headsets with a focus on HoloLens.
Tomi Engdahl says:
I sold one of my 20 metaverse properties for $30,000. The rest are getting me perks, like citizenship on a real-life island, and will be bringing me passive income.
https://www.businessinsider.com/metaverse-virtual-real-estate-how-to-make-passive-income-2022-5?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sf-bi-main&utm_source=facebook.com&r=US&IR=T
Angelica Saldaña is a full-time crypto investor who owns more than 20 virtual properties.
One of her investments is now worth 15 times what she originally paid.
This is her story, as told to reporter Jenna Gyimesi.
I’m a former day trader who now invests in crypto as my full-time job.
In five to ten years, I believe that we’ll all have to enter the metaverse at some point to conduct our everyday lives — either to do something social like attending a party or run errands like going to the bank. JP Morgan Chase has already opened a bank branch in the metaverse, and I’ve also entered the metaverse — I own more than 20 properties in different metaverses.
Digital real estate is simply property that exists in the metaverse
Virtual properties are plots of land that exist in virtual reality spaces. Digital avatars can interact with them and they’re useful in a number of ways, such as hosting virtual events like when Samsung launched a news phone in the metaverse.
There are many different virtual worlds and some of the most popular ones are Decentraland and The Sandbox. Each world looks different — for example, some may look pixelated while others look like realistic video games.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apparently Mark Zuckerberg’s big legs announcement didn’t sway anyone.
Game developers have even less faith in the metaverse than they did a year ago
By Tyler Wilde published 6 days ago
https://www.pcgamer.com/gdc-survey-2023-metaverse-blockchain/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow
The promises of tech execs and crypto evangelists aren’t winning over the games industry.
“Metaverse” was such a potent pandemic buzzword that Facebook went so far as to change its name to “Meta” in 2021. And then, last year, Meta laid off over 11,000 employees. That may be one reason for a decline in games industry confidence that all this metaverse talk is going to amount to anything. In a yearly survey of videogame professionals published by the Game Developers Conference(opens in new tab)—a big industry event coming up in March—answers to questions about the metaverse and blockchain showed a small but notable increase in skepticism over last year.
Like last year, survey participants picked Fortnite as the most likely candidate to deliver on the promise of the metaverse, followed by Meta, Minecraft, and Roblox. But 45% didn’t predict any metaverse winner, and instead said that “the metaverse concept will never deliver on its promise.” 33% of respondents said the same thing when asked the question last year. Metaverse doubt is on the rise.
It’s not clear what the metaverse even is: “The ‘metaverse promise,’ as it stands, is nothing. The people trying to sell it have no idea what it is, and neither do the consumers.”
VR games need “environments dense with small interactables,” but that’s a new challenge for the games industry, which has historically focused on “core gameplay, graphical fidelity, networking, etc.”
VR headsets are still too expensive.
VR needs better control standardization.
It takes more energy to play VR games, so “overbearing” monetization strategies such as loot boxes and battle passes will be more likely to “exhaust” users.
Recent advances in VR and motion control hardware have been huge, but the tech still isn’t good enough: “Long load times, blurry text, sticky polygons; the hardware needs to be better, or developers need to get better at optimizing their games for the platform.”
Games industry opinions on the related topic of cryptocurrency and NFTs have shifted a little less, according to this year’s survey. 5% of the surveyed developers said they used to be in favor of using blockchain tech in games, but are now opposed, and 2% said the opposite. 25% offered no opinion, and the rest said that they hold the same view they did a year ago: 12% remain in favor of using blockchain tech in games, and 56% remain opposed.
In the write-in replies, one videogame professional said that blockchain is “a textbook example of a solution looking for a problem,” and another said that after spending three months researching blockchain use-cases for games, they “concluded firmly that there aren’t any worth pursuing.”
A more positive respondent wondered if that could really be true: “Now that the hype has died down and the scammers have moved on I think now is a good time to seriously investigate [blockchain's] utility for any positive player experiences. I don’t believe something as large as blockchain is entirely without use.”
The majority views of GDC’s 2,300 survey respondents reflect the same skepticism I and lots of PC gamers feel about metaverse and blockchain promises. Meta’s job cuts can’t precisely be blamed on CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s fondness for buzzwords—he attributed the layoffs in part to his incorrect prediction that the early-pandemic internet use frenzy would never die down, and other tech companies are also shrinking—but alongside the rough-looking Meta Horizon demos we’ve seen, the company’s downturn has bolstered our feeling that “the metaverse” right now is at best corporate wishfulness: a vision of future profits more than anything else. Or, as Wes so astutely put it in 2021: bullshit. (I still think VR itself is exciting, though! After a years-long break, I’ve started using my old Oculus Rift CV1 every week.)
NFTs, meanwhile, have yet to become essential to any games we actually want to play
my intuition is that machine learning, not cryptocurrency or NFTs, is actually the most significant emerging technology right now, and will become a bigger and bigger part of the games we play over the next decade
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens
By Jez Corden last updated 4 days ago
HoloLens, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality are all but dead at Microsoft.
https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/microsoft-has-laid-off-entire-teams-behind-virtual-mixed-reality-and-hololens
Tomi Engdahl says:
New York Times:
South Korea’s K-pop industry is embracing the metaverse, expanding on commonplace virtual counterparts for artists, including by creating the virtual band Mave
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/29/business/metaverse-k-pop-south-korea.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Takashi Mochizuki / Bloomberg:
Sources: Sony halves its Q1 PlayStation VR2 shipment forecast to ~1M units after disappointing early preorders; the headset will be launched on February 22 — Sony Group Corp. reduced projections for the initial launch of its PlayStation VR2 headset dramatically after early pre-orders disappointed …
Sony Slashes PlayStation VR2 Headset Output After Pre-Orders Disappoint
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-31/sony-playstation-vr2-headset-pre-order-disappointment-leads-to-production-cut
High price seen as a limiting factor for wider adoption
Sluggish demand exacerbates lackluster momentum for VR sector
Sony Group Corp. reduced projections for the initial launch of its PlayStation VR2 headset dramatically after early pre-orders disappointed, signaling little improvement for the hyped-but-unproven virtual reality sector.
The company halved its forecast for shipments of the PSVR2, which is set for a Feb. 22 release, this quarter to about a million units, said people familiar with its deliberations. Sony had previously aimed to have 2 million headsets ready for the launch quarter and leverage its second-generation headset to drive user growth and adoption for VR.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Erin Mulvaney / Wall Street Journal:
A look at MetaBirkins, 100 NFTs created by a self-described entrepreneur and artist in 2021, as Hermès goes to court in NYC seeking to stop the use of its brand
Virtual Birkin Bags on Trial in Hermès Case Testing IP Rights
https://www.wsj.com/articles/virtual-birkin-bags-on-trial-in-hermes-case-testing-ip-rights-11674962955?mod=djemalertNEWS
Lawsuit is an early test of how a company can exercise its rights against virtual assets it didn’t authorize
The Birkin handbag, made by French luxury brand Hermès, for decades has been a symbol of wealth, sold through exclusive shops and mysterious wait-lists at prices that reach tens of thousands of dollars or more.
A self-described entrepreneur and artist in 2021 set out to offer another way to own a Birkin, with a digital nonfungible token. Mason Rothschild created a series of 100 digital images he called MetaBirkins, depicting fur-covered purses in the same shape and style as the Hermès RMS -0.03% luxury product, which he sold as digital tokens on virtual marketplaces. The NFTs sometimes have sold at prices similar to the real handbags.
Beginning Monday, Mr. Rothschild’s MetaBirkins go on trial in New York in a case at the intersection of trademark law and constitutional protections for freedom of expression. Hermès is seeking to stop Mr. Rothschild from using its brand, the destruction of the NFTs and his profits plus other financial damages. Mr. Rothschild says his MetaBirkins are artwork protected by the First Amendment.
Neither Hermès nor its lawyers responded to requests for comment. Mr. Rothschild declined to comment.
Legal analysts say the trial represents an important early test of how a company can exercise its rights against virtual assets it didn’t authorize.
The specter of the unregulated metaverse is top of mind for companies that worry their brands will be used—and abused—as virtual reality expands, said Thomas Brooke, an intellectual property lawyer with Holland & Knight LLP.
The case “will give us more guideposts for what to do with NFTs,” Mr. Brooke said. “With any new technology the courts are often having to apply existing law and figure out what works.”
NFTs, blockchain-based unique assets that can be collected and traded, exploded in recent years as investors have flocked to marketplaces where tokens are sold. Lawsuits have followed, with retail brands and other companies claiming trademark and copyright infringement.
Among other pending cases, Nike Inc. is suing online marketplace StockX over virtual sneakers depicting the brand’s well-known swoosh that it sold as NFTs in combination with the resale of Nike sneakers. StockX denied the claims and said the introduction of the tokens expedites the process of authenticating and processing the physical items it sells
Nike Accuses StockX of Trademark Infringement in Sales of NFTs
https://www.wsj.com/articles/nike-accuses-stockx-of-trademark-infringement-in-sales-of-nfts-11644001287?mod=article_inline
The online resale marketplace offers customers the chance to buy digital tokens associated with limited-edition sneakers
Tomi Engdahl says:
AltspaceVR to Sunset the Platform on March 10, 2023
January 20, 2023 by Team AltspaceVR
https://altvr.com/sunset/
When AltspaceVR first launched, our vision was to create a place where people from around the world could connect and socialize in real time. We knew virtual reality (VR) could be a fun place for immersive games, and much more importantly, we believed in the power of social VR to bring people together, build connections, and create share experiences. It was a bold vision, and with the help of our passionate community, the platform became a place where users made lifelong memories, formed cherished friendships, found love — and even married in IRL (in real life).
As we look to the future, we see the opportunity for VR expanding beyond consumer into business and now have an even greater goal: a more open, accessible, and secure version of immersive experiences in the metaverse. To achieve that we have made the difficult decision to sunset the AltpaceVR platform on March 10, 2023, and shift our focus to support immersive experiences powered by Microsoft Mesh.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mesh
Tomi Engdahl says:
THE METAVERSE INDUSTRY IS ALREADY GOING BELLY-UP, FOR REASONS WE CAN’T IMAGINE
https://futurism.com/the-byte/metaverse-belly-up
SURELY NO ONE COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING.
A spate of layoffs and closures in the burgeoning Metaverse Industrial Complex is proving what many critics have said all along — that over-investment was never going to be enough to breathe life into the hype-poisoned space.
As Insider reports, recent virtual reality-related layoffs and division closures are indicative of a larger trend that almost everyone saw coming from the start: that the tech itself wasn’t advancing anywhere near as fast as the billions of dollars of speculative investments, and that the whole house of e-cards was doomed to collapse, especially in the face of economic headwinds.
As Bloomberg reported last week, Microsoft’s sacking of a whopping 10,000 people included deep cuts at the company’s notorious mixed-reality HoloLens division, which has in recent months garnered bad press because the Army officials who tested the $6,000-a-pop goggles said that they were dangerous and poorly designed.
Along with the layoffs that affected roughly five percent of its entire workforce, Microsoft also announced that it’s shuttering AltspaceVR, a social media virtual reality platform that was launched almost a decade ago and purchased by the tech giant in 2017.
Annihilated Reality
Besides Microsoft’s woes, rumors swirled via Bloomberg last week that Apple is backburning sophisticated augmented reality glasses in favor of pushing forward on a cheaper version.
Perhaps most jarringly, these Big Tech shutterings and layoffs were predicated in November by the company formerly known as Facebook, which quite literally changed its name to “Meta” in 2021, laying off 11,000 workers, including some from its Reality Labs VR division.
Since Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg first began talking openly about his metaverse moonshot, all evidence has indicated that it both looked and operated like crap. Just a few months after the name change, Meta set the record for the biggest single-day selloff ever as investors became overwhelmingly spooked by how much bad press the company was getting for its shoddy VR platform.
While it’s easy to lay all the blame on Zuckerberg’s metaverse obsession, he didn’t create the entire speculative bubble in a vacuum. Perhaps more than anything else, this ripple effect is indicative more of investors’ repeated failure to look through Big Tech’s smoke and mirrors
Those same investors are certainly paying the price now — and reader, we can’t help but laugh at the folly of it all.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ben Lang / Road to VR:
Meta’s Ready at Dawn studio plans to shutter Echo VR, one of the best-rated and most popular free Quest games, after layoffs, to focus on “our next project”
Meta Plans to Shut Down One of Its Most Popular and Long-standing Multiplayer VR Games
https://www.roadtovr.com/meta-echo-vr-shut-down-announcement-ready-at-dawn/
As a parting gift, players can claim lots of premium cosmetic items for free
Meta and its child-studio Ready at Dawn today announced plans to shut down the popular free-to-play multiplayer game Echo VR, with plans to turn off severs come August 1st.
Echo VR has had a storied journey, having originally launched as an Oculus Rift exclusive title all the way back in 2017. In 2020 the game made the leap to Quest, allowing cross-play multiplayer between Rift and Quest players. Shortly thereafter, Meta announced that it had acquired the game’s developer, Ready at Dawn.
And though it stands as one of the best-rated and most popular free titles on the Quest store, Meta has announced it plans to shut the game down for good on August 1st. According to the announcement from Ready at Dawn, the main reason behind the planned shuttering is because the studio is “coming together to focus on our next project.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Report: Meta wins ruling against FTC to move forward with purchase of VR startup Within
https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/01/report-meta-wins-ruling-against-ftc-to-move-forward-with-purchase-of-vr-startup-within/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9sbS5mYWNlYm9vay5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABWpmXs8Z5NIz1vFPBzLF7TvqcR0u0Af0lXKQWrdyCtQLXIUH_VKJEUYno4rKyueOzIdS1pG34_tXakUbWL9nGr3-HwNjcurbBTNI2Fh8upJRS4w9e22l0NNT-x2demyePRdVrmnhj0UZ_zKNKdEHg7aTa81kH46zuLefMuqlksO
Meta can move forward with its acquisition of virtual reality startup Within, a report from Bloomberg says. According to the report, Judge Edward Davila submitted a sealed decision that denied the FTC’s request to take next steps in blocking the transaction.
The FTC sued Meta in July to block the purchase of Within, the creators of the VR fitness app Supernatural, alleging that the acquisition would be anti-competitive. Indeed, Meta has a history of buying up promising VR technology to power its mutli-billion dollar bet on the metaverse.
In court in December, FTC argued that Within’s Supernatural app is a direct competitor to Beat Saber, a popular VR rhythm game that some people use to work out.
Meta bought Beat Games, the studio behind Beat Saber, in 2019.
Zuckerberg also said that fitness is not his priority in the VR space — rather, he’s focused on social, gaming and productivity use cases. Meta recently released its Quest Pro, a powerful headset that’s specifically designed for remote work.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CNBC:
Meta reports $727M Reality Labs revenue in Q4, vs. $715.1M est., a $4.28B operating loss, vs. $4.36B est., a $13.72B loss in 2022, and expects a wider 2023 loss — – Meta’s Reality Labs unit recorded a $4.28 billion loss in the fourth quarter, bringing its total operating loss for the year to $13.72 billion.
Meta lost $13.7 billion on Reality Labs in 2022 as Zuckerberg’s metaverse bet gets pricier
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/01/meta-lost-13point7-billion-on-reality-labs-in-2022-after-metaverse-pivot.html
Meta’s Reality Labs unit recorded a $4.28 billion operating loss in the fourth quarter, bringing its total for 2022 to $13.72 billion.
The business houses Meta’s ambitious metaverse technologies, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said will be the company’s future.
Facebook changed its name to Meta in late 2021, but the company still relies on advertising for substantially all of its revenue.
Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of a future in the metaverse is costing investors a boatload of money.
In its earnings report after the bell on Wednesday, Meta
said its Reality Labs division, home to the company’s virtual reality technologies and projects, posted a $4.28 billion operating loss in the fourth quarter, bringing its total for 2022 to $13.72 billion.
It was a tough first full year for the new Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook. In late 2021, Zuckerberg changed the company’s name and said its future would be in the metaverse, a digital universe where people will work, shop, play and learn.
But for now, it’s just a cost center, and Meta is still an online ad company.
Reality Labs generated $727 million in the fourth quarter, and $2.16 billion in revenue for all of 2022 — a decline from $2.27 billion in 2021 — including sales of Quest headsets. In other words, the division lost more than six times the amount of money it generated in revenue last year, while accounting for less than 2% of total sales at Meta.
Analysts were expecting Reality Labs to record an quarterly operating loss of $4.36 billion on revenue of $715.1 million, according to StreetAccount.
Sales of VR headsets in the U.S. declined 2% in 2022 from the prior year as of early December, according to data shared with CNBC by research firm NPD Group.
In July, Meta announced it was raising the price of its Quest 2 VR headset by $100. The company said at the time that the price hike was necessary to account for inflationary pressures.
Zuckerberg told CNBC’s Jim Cramer last summer that he hopes to “get to around a billion people in the metaverse doing hundreds of dollars of commerce” by the second half of the decade.
But before the Facebook founder’s dreams become a reality, Meta has to spend many billions of dollars developing the VR and augmented-reality technologies that underpin the metaverse concept.
The company said last year that it expects “Reality Labs operating losses in 2023 will grow significantly year-over-year.”
“Beyond 2023, we expect to pace Reality Labs investments such that we can achieve our goal of growing overall company operating income in the long run,” Meta said at the time.
Shareholders have been less than thrilled with the results so far. Meta lost almost two-thirds of its value last year as metaverse costs soared and the company’s core online ad business suffered from a struggling economy, increased competition from TikTok and Apple’s
privacy update, limiting ad targeting.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chris Velazco / Washington Post:
Samsung is working with Google and Qualcomm to produce XR products and experiences running an unannounced Android version for devices such as wearable displays — The company is working with Google and Qualcomm on new products and the ecosystem to nurture them
Looking beyond phones, Samsung plans to make ‘extended reality’ devices
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/02/01/samsung-headset-qualcomm-google-android/
The company is working with Google and Qualcomm on new products and the ecosystem to nurture them
For the most part, Samsung Electronics is staging its Unpacked product launch event in Northern California to reveal a trio of new Galaxy S23 smartphones, plus a handful of laptops. But that’s not all.
Beyond updating some of its core product lines, the company also unveiled plans to develop new “extended reality” products and experiences with help from key partners including Google and Qualcomm.
Extended reality, or XR, is a blanket term to describe a handful of related technologies that include virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality. And because these technologies reflect different ways of physically looking at your software, services and the world around you, Samsung’s announcement all but confirms the company is developing a new wearable display or headset.
“Many different companies … have been making these announcements about different realities,” TM Roh, the president and head of Samsung’s mobile experience business, told The Washington Post in an interview. “So we have also been making similar preparations, no less than any others.”
“For the chipset, it is going to be a strategic collaboration with Qualcomm. The hardware will be us,” Roh said. And the software, he added, will be provided by Google.
“For the ecosystem, we were trying to determine which platform to work with,” Roh said. “And in the end, we decided that it was going to be Google,” he added, referring to a new, previously unannounced version of the Android operating system meant specifically to power devices such as wearable displays.
Google and Qualcomm separately confirmed the partnership on XR.
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said at the launch event that with the shared expertise from its partners, “we have the foundation to make these opportunities a reality and drive the future of the spatial internet.”
Roh also said Samsung’s venture into extended reality would involve service partnerships with Meta and Microsoft, although he declined to elaborate on specifics.
Creating reasons to use — and continue using — these kinds of extended reality devices is arguably more important than word of a new gadget, which is why Samsung played up its partnerships instead of a concrete product announcement at its launch event.
“We believe that the ecosystem has to be somewhat ready for the product to be launched and for the product to be successful as well,” Roh said. “And as you know, there have been many attempts by other companies so far, but not as successful as had been hoped because perhaps the ecosystem was not as ready as it should have been.”
That Samsung is working on a head-worn computing gadget should not be a surprise — it has a lot of history there. In 2015, it offered people an affordable first taste of virtual reality with the Gear VR headset, into which users inserted their smartphones. (The company periodically updated the headset’s design until it stopped developing new ones a few years later.) Then, in 2017, it debuted the Odyssey — a headset meant for use with Windows PCs — and released a revised model the following year.
After that, Samsung backed away from building such products while companies including Facebook owner Meta made immersive computing devices the cornerstone of their corporate strategies. Since then, however, layoffs have recently forced Meta and other companies, including Microsoft, to scale back their extended-reality teams, in the process casting some doubt on their visions of the metaverse.
Meanwhile, Apple is widely expected to reveal its first XR device as early as this spring. That product — a reportedly pricey mixed reality headset
Although much of the extended-reality hype has been focused on Meta and Apple, a tie-up of three companies with collective expertise in screens, software and chip design may help this new endeavor find its footing in a soon-to-be crowded market. And that could mean more options for consumers as the devices we use to be productive and stay connected change in shape and scope.
But this first peek into Samsung’s next frontier comes at a critical time for the company. Smartphone shipments shrank by 12 percent globally in 2022, according to the research firm Canalys, and depressed demand for consumer gadgets recently led to Samsung’s lowest quarterly profit in years.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will 2023 be the year of AI and metaverse actualisation? Five experts weigh in
Will 2023 be the year of AI and metaverse actualisation? Five experts weigh in
We asked five experts whether AI and the metaverse will become a bigger part of life this year
https://sifted.eu/articles/ai-metaverse-web3-brnd/?utm_medium=paid-social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=bc_inhouse&utm_content=bcgx_30012023&fbclid=IwAR0LDan_wHTpTCKRCM6yQCnrlHwJHUHAg4Jcd70I-p-aKRt5kHAPqWcwtOw
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://blog.arduino.cc/2023/01/31/augmented-reality-fire-drills-make-training-more-effective/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Linux-kehittäjät alkavat rakentaa omaa metaversumia – Internetin ”seuraavaa vaihetta” ei haluta jättää suuryhtiöiden leikkikentäksi
Suvi Korhonen28.1.202320:00AVOIN LÄHDEKOODIVIRTUAALITODELLISUUSTYÖELÄMÄ
Linux-säätiö on perustanut oman säätiönsä virittelemään yhteistyötä ja rakentamaan perustaa metaversumiyhteistyölle.
https://www.tekniikkatalous.fi/uutiset/linux-kehittajat-alkavat-rakentaa-omaa-metaversumia-internetin-seuraavaa-vaihetta-ei-haluta-jattaa-suuryhtioiden-leikkikentaksi/1a3fdb6d-5350-49be-b1f9-bd5096800f3e
Tomi Engdahl says:
MIT Researchers Stack Red, Green, and Blue Micro-LEDs to Build “Completely Immersive” VR Displays
https://www.hackster.io/news/mit-researchers-stack-red-green-and-blue-micro-leds-to-build-completely-immersive-vr-displays-67eb34ff4f0c
By stacking micro-LED subpixels vertically, rather than putting them side-by-side, this new display could reach a resolution of 5,000 PPI.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top 10 Programming Languages for AR and VR Developers in 2023
https://www.analyticsinsight.net/top-10-programming-languages-for-ar-and-vr-developers-in-2023/
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Honestly, it is progressing faster than even we anticipated.”
Metaverse CEO Says ChatGPT Is Speeding Up Timeline for Emulating Dead People
“Honestly, it is progressing faster than even we anticipated.”
https://futurism.com/chatgpt-emulating-dead-people
Tomi Engdahl says:
Interpol hyppää metaversumiin näin virtuaalirötösten torjumiseen valmistaudutaan
https://www.tivi.fi/uutiset/tv/3d691efd-db12-4285-b246-a89723209226
Internetin tulevaisuutena nähty metaversumi on herättänyt myös kansainvälisen poliisijärjestö Interpolin huomion. Järjestön pääsihteeri Jurgen Stock sanoo Interpolin selvittävän, miten metaversumin rikollisuutta pystyttäisiin torjumaan. BBC:lle puhunut Stock näkee, ettei poliisijärjestö voi jäädä kehityksessä jälkeen.
Hänen mukaansa rikolliset ovat nopeita ottamaan uusia teknologioita käyttöönsä. [...] Virtuaalitodellisuuden ongelmia on alkanut nousta esille jo nyt. Julkisuudessa puidut tapaukset koskevat muun muassa erilaista seksuaalista häirintää Metan Horizon Worldissa.
Virtuaalitodellisuuden voi katsoa oleva tietynlainen metaversumin esiaste, mutta metaversumille ei toistaiseksi ole olemassa tiettyä yksittäistä määritelmää. Interpolin teknologia- ja innovaatiojohtaja, tohtori Madan Oberoi katsoo, ettei metaversumirikosten määrittely ole yksiselitteistä. Hänen mukaansa fyysisen maailman rikoksien määrittely metaversumissa on haastavaa.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Salvador Rodriguez / Wall Street Journal:
Internal memo: Meta plans to revamp Horizon Worlds, including opening the app to users aged 13-17, seeking to improve user retention as competition intensifies
Meta to Revamp Horizon Metaverse App, Plans to Open for Teen Use as Soon as March
Memo highlights social-media giant’s plan to revitalize app, boost users in 2023
https://www.wsj.com/articles/meta-to-revamp-horizon-metaverse-app-plans-to-open-for-teen-use-as-soon-as-march-11675749223?mod=djemalertNEWS
Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. META -0.25% is revamping its fledgling Horizon Worlds metaverse app, seeking to draw in more teen and young-adult users after working to improve the service’s design, according to a memo sent to the team working on the initiative.
The new strategy includes opening up Horizon to teens aged 13 to 17, the memo says. The app is currently available to people 18 and older. A teen launch for Horizon could happen as soon as March, according to people familiar with the matter.
In the memo, titled “Horizon 2023 Goals and Strategy,” Meta META -0.25% Vice President of Horizon Gabriel Aul outlines the team’s objectives for the first half of 2023, with the top task being to improve user retention, particularly among teens and young adults. These are the generations that in many ways will be the true digital citizens of the metaverse and have grown up seamlessly interfacing with the technology and connecting with people remotely, Mr. Aul wrote.
Meta’s Quest virtual-reality headsets were designed for people aged 13 and up, so it makes sense that the company would plan to introduce experiences for that audience in Horizon, Meta spokesman Joe Osborne said.
“Teens are already spending time in a variety of VR experiences on Quest, and we want to ensure that we can provide them with a great experience in Horizon Worlds as well, with age-appropriate tools and protections in place,“ Mr. Osborne said.
Meta has spent billions of dollars building out the metaverse, which is a vision for the internet in which users interact in virtual worlds. In 2022 alone, the company spent $15.9 billion in cost and expenses for its Reality Labs division, the unit tasked with building the hardware and software necessary for the metaverse. Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has said he views the metaverse as the next frontier for computing technology.
Among Horizon’s biggest problems is its inability to keep users. Players download the game on their Quest virtual-reality headsets, try it out and fail to find any experiences or fellow gamers that motivate them to return, according to people familiar with the matter. Horizon’s weekly retention rate sat at 11% in January, meaning that only about one in nine users play again the following month, the people said. The company has made it a goal to increase that figure to 20%, according to the memo.
Improving retention is crucial for Meta. More players help light up the service’s various worlds and keep them from feeling like ghost towns, people familiar with the matter said.
Besides improving retention, Meta has also tasked the team with growing Horizon’s user base. The company has set 500,000 monthly active users as the unit’s goal for the first half of 2023, with 1 million as the goal for the full year, according to the memo.
As part of this push for growth, the company has set goals for the Horizon team to improve the reliability of the service and maintain high performance. The team went into lockdown in October after many users complained about a high number of bugs affecting the user experience, according to documents reviewed by the Journal.
The team has also been given the goal of ensuring that Horizon provides a safe and equitable experience, the memo said.
Meta has previously experienced blowback over zeroing in on young users with some of its other services. The company paused its effort to build an Instagram for children in 2021 after the Journal reported that Meta’s own internal research showed that its Instagram service was toxic for some teen girls. Meta has previously experienced blowback over zeroing in on young users with some of its other services. The company paused its effort to build an Instagram for children in 2021 after the Journal reported that Meta’s own internal research showed that its Instagram service was toxic for some teen girls.
Meta has identified working with outside studios to build new worlds and experiences for Horizon as a vital part of its strategy for improving user growth and retention, according to the memo.
The company has asked the team to launch at least 20 new Horizon experiences built by second-party studios, with the goal of having five become medium hits and at least one a major hit, according to the memo.
The company is also pushing the team to expand Horizon beyond virtual reality.
Meta wants the Horizon team to launch a so-called 2-D version of the metaverse that can run on mobile and desktops, according to the memo. The company has previously talked about bringing Horizon to these types of devices. Meta missed its initial goal of launching this version by the end of 2022, and the new target is the first half of 2023, according to the memo.
The company is also pushing for more integration between Horizon and other services within Meta’s family of apps, which include Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. M
The company has set a goal of 150,000 monthly cross-screen Horizon users by the end of the first half of 2023, according to the memo.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yle-uutiset: “Metaversumi voi tarjota muunmuassa etätyömahdollisuuksia teollisuustyöntekijöille.” Nyt on taidettu taas puijata projektirahoitusta sopivilla keywordeilla rahoitushakemuksissa.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Reason Behind Microsoft’s Layoffs in Industrial Metaverse Division
https://analyticsindiamag.com/the-reason-behind-microsofts-layoffs-in-industrial-metaverse-division/
Big tech corporations like Microsoft, Meta, and Google had a forgetful past few quarters consisting of thousands of layoffs and termination of many product and service vertices—one example of which is Microsoft’s much-publicised industrial metaverse project. All this while they are simultaneously holding on to the profit potential that large language models (LLMs) such as AI chatbots are providing. It appears as if the focus is to be ahead of the curve, in the now, no matter where the curve is going. An idea like metaverse seems to be years away to deserve any of their attention, mainly due to one problem—the hardware.
Merely two weeks ago, AIM published an article suggesting that Microsoft’s decision to lay off its VR and MR teams—while simultaneously promoting its AR/MR headset Hololens for digital twin applications at numerous events—indicates that the company is heavily investing in metaverse enterprise use cases.
And, in recent news, Microsoft made the unexpected decision to shut down even its industrial metaverse team, leading to the layoff of nearly 100 employees. This news came as a shock, highlighting how the growing success of AI—with models like ChatGPT and Dall-E—is eating into the space of metaverse. One person familiar with the matter said that the company wants to prioritise shorter-term projects over those needing longer to generate meaningful revenue.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:
Kuo: Apple plans a cheaper second-gen AR/MR headset with two high-end and low-end models built by Luxcaseict and Foxconn, respectively, likely launching in 2025
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/02/24/kuo-ar-vr-headset-2nd-gen-two-models/