Facebook parent company Meta recently unveiled its latest innovation, Orion, the company’s first “true augmented reality glasses” at a glitzy product event hosted by CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Orion’s demonstration was impressive. Not only because of the glasses’ technical capabilities, but also because they actually looked cool. At least you can plausibly imagine that you don’t have to be embarrassed to wear glasses.
Augmented reality (AR) wearables may finally be going mainstream. And there are many reasons to be excited about this technology.
Mark Zuckerberg tries on Meta’s new Orion “augmented reality” glasses. This is the company’s most stylish bet yet on the Metaverse. Reuters
Twenty years ago, desktop computers and web browsers ushered in Web1 and the dot-com era.
Then smartphones and mobile applications led to Web2 and the social web.
Now, AR/VR, along with digital wallets that allow people to easily manage their digital data and goods, could become the portal to the next web era known as Web3.
Wearables are also the gateway to the metaverse, commonly understood as an immersive new shared online reality.
In addition, wearables make it easier for people with limited abilities to use technology to monitor and improve our health.
Zuckerberg believes wearable glasses could even replace smartphones by the end of the century.
He also believes Facebook’s wearables will lead users into the company’s own metaverse, and he’s spending a lot of money to explore it.
Facebook’s Reality Labs division, responsible for software and hardware research and development for VR/AR technology, remains fully committed to the Metaverse vision.
Last quarter, the division lost a staggering $4.5 billion.
Mr. Mehta spent billions of dollars on Metaverse technology and helped grow his net worth to more than $200 billion, although he suffered huge losses along the way. AP
As Zuckerberg has previously said, “The Metaverse is not something companies build. It’s the next chapter of the entire Internet.”
The stock market finally appears to be rewarding Zuckerberg’s long-term vision after punishing him over the past few years for spending extravagantly on wearable technology and Metaverse ambitions. Today, Facebook’s stock price is at an all-time high, and Zuckerberg’s fortune has ballooned to more than $200 billion.
This should give you pause. Do we really want Facebook and other tech giants to create the standards and technology interfaces to access the next era of the web?
Facebook’s business is a walled garden, designed to collect and resell data to advertisers while locking us into an ecosystem that prioritizes the interests of the platform over individual rights and freedoms. I am. It’s web2 again.
Yat Siu, founder of Animoca Brands, said the Metaverse will primarily benefit large companies if users have no real stake. Bloomberg via Getty Images
There are two problems here. First, we want our hardware platforms to be open. So we won’t replicate the same controls that Apple and Google have on smartphones, charging rent and stifling innovation.
Next, the virtual environments you access using AR and VR can be hardcoded with fundamental rights such as privacy, property rights, and freedom of trade to ensure your data is protected and, in turn, give you more control. I am thinking of doing so.
This is called an “open metaverse.” Driven by Web3 principles, decentralized ownership and digital rights are at the heart of it.
Yat Siu, founder of Web3 metaverse pioneer Animoca Brands, says the corporate metaverse envisioned by Facebook and other Web2 giants is more like a theme park than a true online economy or humanity’s new shared reality. Masu. “Disneyland is fun…but you have no ownership in it. You have no stake in it. So it has no meaning to anyone but the person who owns it.”
Andreessen Horowitz’s Arianna Simpson argues that digital property rights are severely lacking in today’s digital economy. Bloomberg via Getty Images
In countries such as Canada and the United States, we are guaranteed certain rights by law.
For example, the right to own property, the right to privacy, and the freedom to engage in trade and commerce in a lawful manner.
Why shouldn’t these rights extend to online and virtual spaces?
An “open metaverse,” a decentralized network of virtual worlds and environments, allows users to freely buy and sell digital goods between platforms without the risk of losing them, even if a company closes down or changes its terms of service. , you will be able to transfer. Another hidden risk.
It looks like the high bet on the Metaverse is finally starting to pay off, with Meta stock reaching an all-time high. AFP (via Getty Images)
Andreessen Horowitz’s Arianna Simpson argues that digital property rights are severely lacking in today’s digital economy. “You have no ownership. You have no property rights. They exist in someone else’s universe with that privilege.”
OMA3 is one of the groups trying to get this right.
They are a coalition of about 100 Web3 companies (including Siu’s Animoca brand) working to build a decentralized and interoperable metaverse.
OMA3’s mission is to ensure that the Metaverse is no longer controlled by a few large corporations, but instead becomes an open ecosystem where users have full control over their data, identities, and digital assets.
Inside Facebook Reality Labs, where next-generation products like Orion are being developed. Meta
This partnership is focused on creating shared protocols and standards that enable seamless connectivity of different metaverse environments.
This interoperability is critical to the future of the metaverse.
Alfred Thom, executive director of OM3, said that an open metaverse allows users to move digital products, such as virtual lands, avatars, and works of art, between different virtual worlds while retaining their value and functionality. . throughout.
VR and AR may allow you to experience the Metaverse, but they alone are not enough to make it a reality.
Alex Tapscott is the author of Web3: Charting the Internet’s Next Economy and Culture Frontier and managing director of Digital Asset Group, a division of Ninepoint Partners LP.
