This year alone, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has invested over $10 billion in metaverse research. What is he investing in, and what is he hoping to achieve by creating virtual worlds?
Zuckerberg talked about his terrible morning routine throughout the nearly three-hour-long program. However, the conversation also provided insight into his strategy for constructing a precarious, much-mocked metaverse empire. Last week, he offered some hints on The Joe Rogan Experience, which is, by some measures, the most popular podcast in the world.
Here are the most important takeaways.
In October, a new VR headset will be available.
Zuckerberg stated that the successor to the Meta Quest 2 virtual reality headset would be released in October. It will be the company’s first significant VR release following the fall rebranding from Facebook to Meta.
According to Zuckerberg, one of the headset’s primary goals was to make the user “feel like you’re right there with another person.” The business has enhanced face tracking, allowing your avatar to grin or grimace in tandem with you.
Eventually, Zuckerberg intends for the metaverse to permeate our environment.
According to Zuckerberg, Meta’s new virtual reality (VR) headgear is but one step on a “long road map” leading to an augmented reality (AR) glasses-dominated future. According to Zuckerberg, the objective is to compress headsets to the size of regular eyewear and enable users to interact with the world through augmented reality or digital overlays. Instead of staring at a smartphone screen for map directions, your smart glasses will draw a line in the order of the correct route.
However, actual AR consumer items are not yet available. According to Zuckerberg, three to five years from now, the first goods will be released, and they will “start off extremely pricey. “It will take some time to reach hundreds of dollars,” he remarked.
The Metaverse and Holograms
According to Zuckerberg, holograms reminiscent of Star Wars will be the standard when augmented reality technology arrives. He thinks that many people will “teleport to the office in the morning and appear as holograms instead of moving to large cities.” This future, according to Zuckerberg, will be “quite wonderful” and “open many economic opportunities for many people.”
Zuckerberg also daydreamed to Rogan about virtual poker nights, where some people sit at a physical table while others are beamed in, and everyone uses hologram cards.
Privacy concerns in the Metaverse
If a society controlled by augmented reality is realized, Meta will have access to a frightening amount of film and real-time data. Every action you take in public may potentially be monitored. When Rogan asked if AR glasses would allow a “creep” to record people without their agreement, Zuckerberg admitted it would be possible “in theory.” (He defended the product by stating that a bright red light illuminates every time a user presses “record”)
People hate avatars and Zuckerberg knows it.
Mid-August, Zuckerberg posted a selfie of his digital avatar within Facebook’s Horizon Worlds metaverse platform. It was often ridiculed for being of poor quality or “soulless.”
Zuckerberg admitted to Rogan that Meta’s avatars are “clearly not incredibly realistic just yet.” Although their quality will improve with time, he does not intend to create a metaverse identical to the real world. “I am not persuaded that consumers will favor photo-realistic avatars over emotive ones,” he stated.
His ambition for the near future is for VR to “eat TV.”
If Zuckerberg had his way, the rise of the metaverse would come at the expense of the television industry. He stated that people would ultimately be able to watch their favorite television programs and films through smart glasses rather than on a screen.
Zuckerberg also attacked the cultural domination of the television industry and expressed his wish that people would spend more time interacting in virtual worlds rather than watching television.
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