Uncertainty about the metaverse is acceptable. For those of you who are pessimistic, refer to Mehta’s struggles over the past year to convince us that we’re all going to live in this immersive 3D world of his.

Optimists point to Meta’s new $499 Quest 3 virtual reality headgear and mixed reality headgear, as evidence that the tech giant is still championing the concept of immersive digital worlds, and that Apple could announce them in the next few days. A rival device with high potential can be mentioned.

Neil Stevenson is an optimist. The term “metaverse” was first used in his dark science fiction novel Snow Crash, published in 1992.

“A lot of things seem to have come together in the last few years,” Stevenson said during a talk at the Augmented Reality Expo on Wednesday. “We need to have these in place before we can actually start building the metaverse.”

Stevenson’s personal interests have nothing to do with his books. Since the 1990s, he has worked for several start-ups, including Magic Leap, which manufactures augmented reality headsets. His current company, Lamina1, is working on plumbing the metaverse and hopes it will lead to an open base for developers to use and people to visit.

Selling won’t be easy. The buzz around the 2021 metaverse has completely died down. Facebook changed its name to Meta, but investors don’t like the way Facebook tries to profit from the Metaverse. And his Web3 movement, which wanted to create a “decentralized” tool for the metaverse that would reward people for creating things they could sell in the metaverse, had a lot of trouble. This includes scams, security holes, and “lag pulls” where project leaders hype cryptocurrencies and then cash them out, leaving investors with a worthless asset.

Creative Strategies expert Olivier Blanchard is skeptical of the spread of computer-generated virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) that combines computer images with the real world, and mixed reality (XR). . Includes both VR and AR.

“After the AI ​​gold rush subsides and Apple gives AI some direction, if you want to attract mainstream consumers, you’re going to have to decide what you want to be when you grow up,” Blanchard said. ‘ said. “Metaverse and XR companies will need to make it clear to users how their solutions will improve their lives, rather than just being expensive and difficult.”

But it may not be too difficult to sell the metaverse right away.

Apple’s hoped-for headset has been in development for years and will likely be shown at the company’s WWDC developer conference, potentially convincing developers to create mixed reality apps. be. Apple was able to convince mobile app makers to create millions of apps for the iPhone and iPad. And the video passthrough mode on Meta’s Quest 3 XR device provides AR capabilities.

The metaverse still has a long way to go before it becomes as pervasive as the web or the book Snow Crash metaverse.

Snow Crash is an interesting and exciting book that depicts a bleak future in an interesting and exciting way. Although the Metaverse is a big part of the book, Stevenson notes that the cause of the nightmares is ordinary people. Stevenson wanted the Metaverse to be a place where people could do different things with technology.

“Our first experience with the Metaverse was kind of a very large market, the least common denominator, including the worst TV,” Stevenson said. “However, as you read further into this book, you will discover that it has been used to create beautiful works of art. Some spend their time and attention on

That metaverse was all about VR, but Stevenson now calls it a “three-dimensional shared space.” virtual environment” contains AR. “Snow Crash” is known for its Metaverse, but the “gargoyle” character also exists in the real world of this book. These are very high-tech people hiding behind AR goggles and constantly connected to data feeds.

Stephenson said he was amazed by the progress in game engine tools such as Unity and Unreal Engine, which are widely used for VR, AR, XR, especially 3D graphics and games. But for now, there’s nothing quite like hanging out in the Metaverse.

“If you’re going to create a metaverse that millions and billions of people will use all the time, you have to do good things with it,” Stevenson said. Lamina1’s goal is to improve the tools for the metaverse so that developers and other producers can create this kind of experience. This includes blockchain and NFT technology, which has largely lost its luster since 2021, when the coin was at its most valuable.

Lamina1 is building relationships to make the metaverse more real. One of them works with Mira, which scans the real world and creates a virtual version, while most others work with Game Maker.

Stevenson helped launch Lumina1 in 2022, but has since stepped down. He is still in charge, but will return to writing books in 2023.

There are a lot of AR fans at Augmented World Expo. The show’s organizer, AugmentedReality.org’s chief executive, Oli Invar, is on stage with a virtual version of himself displayed in his box, a telepresence made by ARHT Media, that appears to be about the same size as the real world. I participated in. Inver spent most of his 20 minutes onstage at the show supporting the technology, and despite everyone talking about artificial intelligence (AI), he said the technology still works.

“We won’t stop until XR is available to everyone, everywhere.”