Unless you are living under a rock , you must be knowing about the long awaited revamp of Facebook’s name and image. News agencies have justified this is just a corporate maneuver and nothing else, but spoiler alert: ITS NOT!!!
Also I will be writing a briefed short twitter thread version of this article.
Mark Zuckerberg : META CEO
This is redefining moment for the whole internet and the mankind as a whole. But that statements seems vague as of now, but on zooming out anyone can see the direction we are heading to a possible Virtual and Metaverse future.
This is just my interpretation of the event held by Facebook …err Meta😂 , you can check the full event here :
Some personal opinions before you begin :-
This is a very futuristic and alienating to many folks , and can be frightening for some folks even I’ve tweeted on that part. But having an open mind is important.
Its an amalgamation of all new technologies and ideas , It sure is chaotic out here and sometimes confusing but hold on you will see light at the end of the tunnel.
This is not a Product based event , this event laid down the roadmap for the companies newly changed goals and the whole plan may take years before being completely realized.
Its a start of a journey and not the end of it ~ Nick
4. Almost every new announcement is directly or indirectly tied to Quest 2 the new product of Occulus (acquired by Meta).
META : The new Talk of the Town
So the more than hour long event was fully power packed with superb footage, both real life and virtual ones too. It discussed a various aspects of Metaverse.
**Social Connections **: Well that’s why the company is well known all over the world : bringing people together , for this Meta will be launching a platform that will have dedicated segments for different specifications. These Horizon Worlds are namely Horizon Home, Horizon Social , Horizon Workrooms. Also this year Meta will be releasing an Messenger AR calling service.
Entertainment : This segment was the most magical one. Imagine witnessing the live concert of your favorite artist live that too from your home in a totally immersive experience. The monetizing potential at this is MASSIVE and some of it is now being evaluated with the rise in NFTs and other Blockchain projects. Auctions and charities can now become more inclusive and transparent for all . Spark AR (3-D Objects) and Guided AR Tours are some use cases provided in the event.
3. Gaming : The most entertaining aspect for the new gen and the whole tech community. So it is given that most energy would obviously given to this part. Also Metaverse actually replicates and mirrors some of the aspects of some games and gamers can have an upper hand in the metaverse. This brings the very first guest speaker to come and it was Deb from the studios team , Some exciting announcements were made
Partnership with Vertigo Games — (that Billie Eilish soundtrack though 🥵)
Population One — (The futuristic battleground game)
WarpFrog : Blade and sorcery — NOMAD , A very realistic medieval Game
Rockstar GTA San Andreas in VR mode : tbh it was my dream.
4.** FITNESS** : Now this point would seem quite oxymoronic but the presentation was very convincing . Also the variety of sports (even fencing with an olympian seemed very far fetched yet near). The games of Boxing , Basketball , cycling, Fencing, table tennis and chess were shown as demo and truth be told its hella exciting with collaborations with Supernatural ,Fit-XR and player 22 looks promising.
5. **WORK **:This has to be one of the most sought after feature of the MetaVerse
This is everyone’s favourite topic ~ Mark Zukerberg
This has attributes like work, creates, meetings, VR presentations etc. The recently launched Horizon Workrooms has customizations for a very realistic real life AR/VR calls. This can be revolutionary considering face to face business meetings contribute to a 100 Billion USD industry.
The announced add-ons are:
2-D Progressive Web Apps in Quest store — Gateway to the Metaverse.
FB accounts put out of use: earlier all Meta products required a mandatory Facebook Account, now as the company grapples with security and privacy issues it is relaxing and going easy .
6. **Education : **It began with the introduction of Marnie Levine CBO. This part is filled with out of the world AR-VR application in the field of Education. The learner not only travels to different places in the globe and but in various timelines of our history. The applications are Schematics, and service manuals for vehicles and machines in VR , Med School in VR : No use of cadaver (Osso VR). Also the VR show in Occulus TV of Earth’s Mightiest Insects by David Attenborough its supported by Alchemy Immersive.
A new way to learn AR/ VR Technology : Meta Inc. will be providing 150 million USD for creators to build educational content on AR & VR. A professional curriculum for certification in Coursera and EdX is underway (Spark AR).
7. **Commerce: **This segment clearly demonstrated the changing stance of Meta and signaled that it is pseudo-acknowledging its failure in respecting peoples privacy and creators freedom . And are now gearing up to become more creator friendly.
Lack of choice is stifling innovation ~ Mark Zuckerberg
They now have very elaborate plans regarding commerce and creator economy.
subsidizing costs .
sideloading and linking to PCs.
3rd party choice for creators and developers rather compulsive Quest store Apps.
Some Apps will be billed in premium to support innovation and development (LOL!!!)
**This technology has the potential to reach a billion users in 10 years **(now that’s fast considering its such a conflicting technology ).
Now Vishal — Head of Metaverse products is introduced here along with Jackie Aina — A content creator and owner of Forvr Mood brand.
NFTs play a big part in this conversation with specific stress given to
Creators can sell** products/experiences/ services** and take profits.
Businesses can be creators too.
New revamped ownership models and entitlements.
sell digital as well as physical goods.
8**. Facebook Reality Labs** : It introduces one of the most fun teammate I have seen in this event , from being a Robot in the beginning to having a cringeworthy moment with his virtual pet is laughable. But Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth gave much technical learnings too. All of it relates to how the Metaverse can be fine tuned to a much better place.
Environment for AR/VR development
Gestures SDK
Voice SDK
Passthrough API
Persistent State Virtual object (imagine your PUBG companion)
After this Sue the Product director of Facebook Reality Labs and Spark AR (hybrid of both AR and VR ) explains how Spark AR democratizes AR creation.
Some stats:-
600K + creators
700 million users
80 Billion+ AR/VR effects (imagine Snap Chat filter but better)
They also announced a Polar -AR creator , A paint through numbers type tool to create AR/VR content (imagine the Crypto Zombies game) .
9.** Building Responsibly** : This has to be one of the most unique aspect of the whole FB connect events I have ever seen. The Meta team was seen in a guilt ridden phase and was redundant in its manner of delivering the message . The company also mentioned the conflict between the fast paced tech developments and the slow regulation. But since this technology is in its very beginning stages , so a little innovation takes years to be replicated in scale at the moment so it catches up with regulation.
Also some **Responsible Innovation Principles **by Boz :-
Never surprise people : Transparency in products/services/corporate decisions etc.
Provide controls that matters.
Consider Everyone.
Put people first.
Project Aria : Its a research device , i.e. glasses which are required to research for AR/VR projects , these record the visuals and sounds of the wearer.
A new Fund is launched : XR program & Research Fund [50 million USD] to make the Metaverse more inclusive and collaborative.
“Metaverse isn’t something we are building , it is something which we are building for ”
10. **Hardware : **This is the essence of the whole connect event of Facebook. If you haven’ t read / watched the whole article/Event then this point is the real goldmine !!!
This segment was spearheaded by Angela — Head of VR devices. There was also the announcement of the much awaited ambitious project called Project Cambria. P.S. Its a high end product and has high end price spectrum . And to make it better new measures are being taken to include :-
Natural eye contact and facial expressions
Body Language.
Diversity in skin tones.
Minimizing the size of VR set and making it into a spectacle size.
Passthrough API : representation of the combination of real world and virtual world.
Pancake optics : folding light multiple times in order to get a slimmer lens (range of 5mm)
A new product was recently launched Ray ban Stories which is a revolutionary semi VR product that takes pictures, videos and enables users to take a call on the go being truly handsfree.
There is also the very ambitious project called Project Nazare which has :
Hologram Displays.
Sensors
Speakers
Cameras
Scanners all inside a 5 mm glass.
Michael Abrash — Research Team Lead also laid down various aspects Meta Inc is working on :-
Display
Audio
Input
Haptics
Hand Tracking
Eye Tracking
Mixed Reality
Sensors
Graphics
Computer Vision
Avatars
Perceptional Science
Artificial Intelligence
Out of all these aspects He talked extensively on Avatars, further proving that the company still doesn’t have something tangible to present in its entirety.
For Avatars they are working on Realistic and stylish Codec avatars, with excellent skin and hair rendering . Admirable clothing simulation is also an attribute. Realistic Virtual Spaces can replicate and project certain places in real time. The full body Codec avatar was brilliantly explained (in limited time) by Yaseer Sheikh of Facebook Reality Labs. This will be ultimately used for the virtual reconstruction of people and eventually a new world consisting of the same image of humans is created by us artificially which will mirror the actions of the real world (hella scary innit??).
This development brought forth the much needed attention to be given to this highly potential development in various aspects of :-
Easy & Intuitive AR glasses , also economical for larger adoption.
better Neural interfaces for better true handsfree control(control through our brains neuron movement)
Wrist based Neural interfaces (click, scroll, select, Full typing keyboard)
This is definitely a very imaginative , exciting announcement from Facebook. From changing its name to Meta and creating a full blown event to mark the beginning of the futuristic Metaverse, this was an historical event. Although people are skeptical of this adrenaline gushed Technological advancement (remember T-Rex??) but I believe that they’ll all see the logic and the positives behind this Tech.
Also the event was just laying a roadmap of what they’re willing to do in this space and the real scalable implementation is years ahead , but due to the rapid interest and development in this Tech, we can expect some pilot programs launching by mid 2022.
This was just a simplification of Meta’s event if you want to have another read on this topic which explains the basic building blocks easily , I will recommend Srinath Hariharan’s article on this same topic
until next time
Adios
Jackson Mathew