Meta future according to Facebook | duty

meta, lex facebook, It will spend $10 billion to lay the foundation for an immersive virtual world called the Metaverse. And this is just one of the new products that will be launched in the next few years from Reality Labs. On the list: smartwatch, connected speaker, augmented reality glasses…lark!

In an exclusive interview with Portal, he said that the connected display and connected glasses co-manufactured with the Ray Ban brand are just the beginning. duty Andrew “Bose” Bosworth, who, after 15 years at Facebook, will reach the main position as chief technology officer by 2022 at … Meta, the name the California company chose to denote its future development.

“Meta, that’s it: we are going to be more than just a social network. On the hardware side, we make a lot of prototypes to test some very specific functionality and when that prototype gets too complex, we might put it up for sale.” Obviously, the next big product fits right in: a mixed reality headset, called Project Cambria. It is expected next year.

Mixed reality is what you see when you wear a headset with cameras that can recreate an image of the physical environment in front of your eyes, and when you add fully virtual digital content to it. This definition also applies to “metaverse,” a word that was repeated frequently last Thursday by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, to indicate where he wants to lead his company.

Most of all, we rely on our belief that the metaverse will eventually be larger than the web today.

“It’s going to be a whole ecosystem. We’re going to trade there, we’ll be able to exchange items virtually, and it’s going to be a place where workers can go to be more productive. And it’s going to be very different from what we’re currently doing with the phone. The metaverse is the next big growth curve for technology.”

Obviously, this virtual reality will also help keep it fit: Facebook just announced at the end of Friday the acquisition of subscription format app publisher Supernatural to better integrate it into its virtual platform.

A world we build…or acquire

Other digital environments already exist: Microsoft and HoloLens are very close to what’s happening at Meta Reality Labs. If we consider that open video game platforms are Roblox And It is an electronic game (Epic Games), the list can go on and on.

But the metaverse is neither a game nor a business app. What is this ? “It’s an immersive environment that you don’t need to explore with a VR headset, but it’s much more rich and immersive if it is. It brings together in one place all these little worlds created by each of the everyday apps you now use separately,” says Andrew Bosworth .

“It is the evolution of the social network towards a virtual world where the users avatar is no longer just a name and image. It is a 3D character who can explore the physical environment and can interact with other people or with companies,” adds Nadia Serayoko, lecturer at UQAM School of Media and Digital Technology Specialist.

What Zuckerberg wants to create is reminiscent of Second Life, according to her, a virtual world that reached its peak between 2003 and 2013. This concept has attracted many companies. Canadian Telus had its own store in Second Life, providing remote customer service.

Its best days are long overdue, but Second Life is still there… Besides, if Meta fails to take off its own digital world, it can always try to gain one of its rival environments, adds M^I Syrayoko. This is how Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012…

“Second Life is a great technology that came out very early on,” Andrew Bosworth says. The future Meta CTO doesn’t see his environment suffer the same fate, even if, for now, Oculus headphones are mostly attracting younger video game fans.

“Yes, that’s right, we mostly rely on our belief that the metaverse will eventually be bigger than the web is now. Remember, a lot of technology in its early days seemed like a game, but that’s how we end up today with smartphones in our hands.”

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