On 28th October, Facebook rocked the world with its 80-minute keynote in the Connect Conference, an annual congregation of creators, designers, and engineers of Facebook (now Meta). Beyond the headline-grabbing change in branding – and the speculation of this change is a smokescreen for the social media giant’s recent slew of controversy – the metaverse envisioned by Meta foretells a wide variety of VR use cases in the near future.
The announcement covered a wide-ranging list of topics, starting from what the Metaverse will be like, upgrades and additions to the Oculus inventory of applications, new headgear releases, and improving tools for VR developers. Given the impact of Meta’s developments on the field of virtual conferencing – and the indisputable impact that the evolution of the metaverse is set to have on the world at large – we tuned in to the keynote to get a clear picture of what the megacorporation has in store for us all.
Here’s a shortlist of what to expect from Meta:
Meta and the change of Vision
Beyond the name change, there has also been a shift in the way the company is organizing itself, with two separate wings for Family of Apps and Reality Labs (representing Oculus as well as the R&D, assets, and human resources dedicated to AR/VR tech). The company’s financial reporting styles will follow suit with these two broad categorizations – a shift that highlights Meta’s shift in focus from social platforms to XR tech.
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The Metaverse Graphic Presentation
Mark Zuckerberg, past the 3-minute mark, entered a CGI generated metaverse presentation, largely receiving confused looks from the audience on the internet. In this section of the keynote, he described how the metaverse can serve as a pseudo-reality which one can use to perform even the most basic tasks, like working out. He described the metaverse as a place to play, rest, work, socialise with friends and learn in a VR environment – perfectly customised for each user. If a user wants to spend their entire day in the metaverse, they can.
In his vision, the metaverse will shape up to be similar to the internet, stitched together by different websites that are accessible to all. This brings to focus that Meta is working towards a set base of standardised tools for creators, accompanied by construction guidelines to help make an interoperable space. In the earlier stages of the metaverse, everyone will be represented by fully customizable virtual avatars.
Zuckerberg has also revealed that Meta plans to induct the usage of NFTs into the metaverse to enable the trade of virtual commodities. This has huge implications for designers and artists, promising them a future revenue stream from a potentially gigantic market. However, no direct information has been provided so far about what kind of security system metaverse will be built on.
Image Credits: sofiko14 from Adobe Stock
Horizon Home and Workrooms
Walking the talk of making the metaverse an alternate reality for all-day usage, Meta revealed their new Oculus app feature – Horizon Home, which gives every user their own personal space in the growing metaverse. Just like visiting a group of friends, users in a Horizon Home can sit around, watch videos together, and just ‘hang’. Each home is customizable, making the experience even more personalised.
Horizon Workrooms on the other hand has significantly updated their user experience to cater specifically to corporate needs. With more customization options than ever, corporations can brand their virtual workspaces and up their visual appeal with virtual design schemes. Workrooms are also set to introduce work accounts and integrate video calling apps, making it easier to induct VR into workspaces without compromising the interoperability of commonly used tools.
Horizon Worlds
Initially released as Facebook Horizon in 2019, Horizon Worlds has since undergone several changes in vision and direction. Currently, it is being pioneered as a social video game for Oculus users, wherein the main agenda is to design, explore and collaborate in building one’s own VR universe à la Minecraft. Facebook has also replaced Unity, the game’s graphic engine, with its own creator tools.
Image Credits: golubovy from Adobe Stock
Meta’s pivot away from Unity, which is considered one of the best VR graphic engines, is accompanied by the announcement of a $10 million resource pool earmarked for VR designers and creators. The bounty is meant to facilitate creators in using Meta’s platform and custom tools for designing the first wave of VR worlds.
Horizon Venues
Rounding out the Horizon Metaverse, the final component of the platform is Horizon Venues. Earlier known only as ‘Venues’, the new and improved Horizon Venues indicate the growing popularity of VR entertainment across the world. 3D, graphical and unchained by VR, Venues can encapsulate anything from a broadcast replication of live sports events to fully-fledged music festivals designed by artists themselves.
Project Cambria Revealed
Following several vision-level changes, core updates for VR apps, and the introduction of a new range of applications, Meta had even more announcements in the bag. They revealed their newest VR headgear in the conference, named Project Cambria. With a probable release date set in the next year, the new headsets promise improved eye sight and facial recognition. With Project Cambria, users’ avatars can reflect accurate expressions and even maintain eye contact. The glasses can also project graphical objects onto the user’s display with field of depth and perspective, greatly improving the product’s mixed reality capabilities.
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First Fully-Fledged AR: Project Nazare Revealed
With the increased focus on XR, Meta has entered the AR glasses race as well, joining the ranks of Snapchat and Apple. In the conference, Zuckerberg revealed the company’s progress on their first ever AR glasses, called Project Nazare. While no concrete information about the product was shared, Zuckerberg talked instead about the hurdles incumbent to the process of perfecting a set of AR glasses. With the market release of Project Nazare being a few years away, it is clear that the announcement indicates Meta’s wishes to control both ends of XR technology.
Increased Developer Tools
Following several meaty announcements for consumers, Meta discussed the new developments made for the benefit of metaverse designers and engineers. The company is revamping its VR developer tookit with additions aimed at improving speech recognition, keyboard tracking and hand interactions. With the goal of fostering a community of engineers and designers on the Facebook platform, Meta is making it possible for experts the world over to participate in the creation of new and improved VR experiences.
Image Credits: Have a nice day from Adobe Stock
While we anticipated massive changes from Meta, the list was surprisingly extensive by any metric. It is clear that one of the world’s largest corporations has made a perennial commitment to AR/VR technology – and by extension, every sector that comes in contact with it. We at NextMeet are excited to see what the future brings, for our users as well as the world at large.
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