The Metaverse matters: The immersive future vision and why to get excited about it

As you can probably see by just reading the intro, the current experience in the Metaverse is quite different from the future vision of it. Gigantic innovations and technical developments take us closer than ever before to connected digital worlds and blur the boundaries between physical and digital spaces.

The current experience in the metaverse is still in its early stages and can vary depending on the platform or virtual world being used. While some virtual environments offer immersive experiences with impressive graphics and interactivity, others are more limited and feel more like the first video games. The current metaverses also lack some of the key features that are part of the future vision, such as the seamless integration with the physical world and advanced artificial intelligence.

Additionally, the current metaverses are still a niche experience that is primarily accessed by early adopters and enthusiasts. It has yet to achieve the mainstream adoption necessary to exploit its full potential and become a true digital counterpart to the physical world. To get a picture of the current experience, take a look at our video on YouTube showcasing our lounge on Decentraland.

Decomposing the metaverse

There are countless technical developments and innovations currently taking place in the metaverse space to enable the future vision to become reality. To better understand where we need more innovation, we dissect the metaverse into its six layers.

1. The innermost layer is the core of the metaverse, enabled by high connectivity and fast internet. At the beginning of 2023, a total of 5.16 billion people around the world were connected to the internet, over 65% of the total world population. However, to create the digital twins of the physical world, we still require innovation in network technology. One promising and major innovation is 6G technology. 6G is distinguished from previous mobile phone generations utilizing Joint Communication and Sensing – this is intended to integrate positioning, environmental sensing and communication into a future 6G standard. All these capabilities are needed to bring digital twins to life.
2. To enable a blend of physical and virtual worlds, augmented reality and virtual reality play a key role in creating the future metaverse user experience. These technologies support the vision of the full metaverse experience by aiding in creating the 3D virtual world. There are two essential technologies necessary. Virtual Reality (VR) makes it possible to experience computer-generated worlds and to interact in them. Augmented reality (AR), on the other hand, describes the integration of digital information into the user’s environment in real time. With VR and AR, users can immerse themselves in interactive experiences that are hard to access in the physical environment. As this layer is essential to the immersive future of the metaverse, we are taking a closer look at the newest technological developments in the next section. To get more knowledge about AR and VR, take a look at our first article about the metaverse.
3. Essential to the metaverse is the concept of decentralization and blockchain technology. On one side, blockchain technology serves as a repository, for users to store data anywhere in the metaverse. On the other side, blockchain technology can provide a complete economic system to connect the virtual world of the metaverse with the real world. Especially, NFTs allow physical objects to become virtual goods. Users are allowed to trade virtual items in the same way as in the real world. Hence, blockchain bridges the real world and the metaverse. It enables the IoT devices to communicate data through cross-chain networks, which in turn produce tamper-resistant records of shared transactions in virtual worlds. As a result, applications and users will be able to share and access IoT data without the need for centralized management or control.
4. Spatial computing is the virtualization of activities and interactions between machines, people, objects, and the environments in which they take place to enable and optimize actions and interactions. This is an essential technological development to make sure that an immersive future of the metaverse can be created. In easier words, spatial computing defines the relative location of different physical and digital objects – leading to a seamless integration of the physical and digital world. To check out how spatial computing works, take a look at this website and the videos here!
5. A big part of the future of the metaverse is the community aspect. Of significant importance are Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is an organization whose essential operations are automated by agreeing to rules and principles assigned in code without human involvement. A DAO is a novel scalable, self-organizing coordination on the blockchain, controlled by smart contracts. In other words, a DAO can be defined as people with common goals that join under a blockchain infrastructure that enforces a set of shared rules. Typically, the members of a DAO are registered, each with a unique address. Furthermore, more generic community tools like Discord, Twitter, and Instagram play a crucial role in connecting users of the metaverse.
6. There are many instances already that highlight the benefits of brands being active in the metaverse. One great example is the collaboration between Roblox and Gucci. Gucci started investing in the future of the metaverse in May 2021 when they opened Gucci Garden on Roblox to celebrate their 100th anniversary. During this event, users could purchase NFT collectibles. Later that year, they sold their Dionysus bag for 350,000 Robux, which equals about $4,115. To discover more brands in the metaverse, just take a look here.

Technological development to enable an immersive future of the metaverse

The future of the metaverse is an exciting space. With tools like Oculus Rift, Valve’s Steam VR, Microsoft’s HoloLens, and Google AR Core all vying for supremacy in this new market, the competition is fierce and not one company can come out on top unilaterally.

Oculus Rift
Most people know Oculus as the company that originally popularized its Oculus Rift VR headset. However, Oculus has been taking steps to branch out into other metaverse related technologies with the purchase of Surreal Vision, an AI company focused on building a virtual human. The input from this development allows Oculus to move from a single player experience to an interactive multiplayer one. In addition, Facebook’s acquisition of the company has allowed for the expansion of Oculus’ reach and resources which will be crucial for their future success. Meta itself offers the Quest 2, the second version of their VR glasses, focused on gaming.

Steam VR
Beginning with their Steam Digital Video (SDV) store, Valve has built a native platform for gaming content to be downloaded and viewed. However, the future is only just beginning with Valve introducing VR technology into their new ‘SteamOS’ which is their newest Linux based operating system. It enables users to turn on a PC and immediately access content from across all of its available devices such as TVs, game consoles, desktops, and mobile devices. With this acquisition of VXS, Valve is also looking to create virtual reality scenarios for home entertainment.

Microsoft Hololens
The HoloLens is Microsoft’s vision for the next generation of computing and with it, is looking to create a holographic computer that allows users to interact with it and manipulate its environment. The technology Microsoft has created will also allow users a seamless transition from the real world to the digital. Allowing them to seamlessly transition from their current surroundings into virtual environments, going from one to another as if they were two sides of a door. HoloLens will be primarily focused on the business sector and as such will be marketed at companies that wish to use this technology in their own business operations. It is also being advertised as a great solution for medical, architectural and industrial design fields as well as for entertainment purposes.

Google AR Core
At first glance, Google’s Project AR Core technology appears to be far more limited in its scope than Microsoft’s HoloLens. However, Google has been making strides into the Metaverse space with the launch of the program, which allows the creation of AR mobile apps to project computer-generated environments onto their real-world surroundings. Using different APIs, ARCore enables your phone to sense its environment, understand the world and interact with information. Some APIs are available across Android and iOS to enable shared AR experiences.

Persistence

This relates to the metaverse’s ability to remember a user and their environment from one session to the next, and is strongly determined by the nature of the metaverse platform. Essentially related to the technical background of the metaverse built on the blockchain, a persistent metaverse makes sure that your data is saved and stored over time. Whether this is your cryptocurrency, NFTs or company data.

Trustworthiness

Trust is a crucial element for the future of the metaverse. With users sharing personal information and conducting transactions in this virtual space, trust in the platform and its underlying technology is paramount. The decentralized, blockchain-based infrastructure of the metaverse can provide a high level of security and transparency, but it’s essential that users have confidence in the integrity of the system. Additionally, trust between users is vital for creating a vibrant and engaging community within the metaverse.

Interoperability

The accessibility of the metaverse to various providers plays a significant role in shaping its evolution. The extent to which the metaverse is open and decentralized can vary depending on the platform being used. At its most basic level, the metaverse may be delivered by a single provider in a centralized, closed environment. The fullest expression of the metaverse allows users to easily transfer any asset, such as their avatar, NFTs, skin, or tokens, between different platforms without central authorities restricting asset transfer.

Immersivity

The future of the metaverse is all about immersivity and the degree of digital-physical fusion it can offer. As the technology advances, we can expect to see increasingly immersive experiences that blur the lines between the digital and physical worlds. At its most basic level, the metaverse experience might be something like a car’s navigation overlay, which provides minimal alteration to the real world the driver is seeing and operating in. A fully immersive metaverse experience could involve a user wearing a VR headset and bodysuit that fully transports them into a hyper-realistic digital environment, experienced through multiple senses just like real-world objects.

Mobility

In rudimentary stages, the physical user is limited to sitting or standing in one spot, as is the case with most current VR-based experiences. We can expect to see increased mobility, both indoors and outdoors, as users move freely through the digital and physical worlds. The extent of this mobility will be determined by the capabilities of the devices used and the quality of the connectivity. The aspect of mobility ultimately is deeply connected to the innovations and making sure that devices to “enter” the metaverse become smaller and more portable.

Interactivity

The level of interactivity will primarily be determined by the device and platform used, but connectivity will also play a role. As the technology evolves, we can expect to see increasingly immersive and interactive metaverse experiences, enabling users to engage with each other and with virtual objects in ways that were previously unimaginable. From attending virtual events to working collaboratively on projects, the potential for interactivity in the metaverse is vast.

What will the future metaverse experience create?

With other core technologies – namely Artificial Intelligence, AR, Blockchain, Drones, IoT, Robotics, VR and 3D printing – the metaverse can create an entirely new space for the future of interactions and business.

AR, VR and mixed reality (MR) are a continuum of immersive technologies housed under the umbrella term extended reality (XR), which can merge the physical and virtual worlds. Collaborative VR environments enable people to come together and interact, especially in remote environments. XR technology can benefit virtually all industries by creating more efficient processes, enhancing training and offering ways for people to collaborate and interact.

Automating trust and increasing trustworthiness of digital spaces is a critical challenge for the future of the metaverse. Especially blockchain, IoT and AI can work together to ensure the authenticity of data, verify identities and enable secure multiparty transactions. Converged technologies can provide ways to automate trust in physical, digital and human assets.

As we already highlighted the element of immersivity, the interfaces of the future will leverage this part of the metaverse user experience. Immersive interfaces are defined as interfaces that heavily involve users by bringing them into the world of the interface both conceptually and perceptually. Virtual Reality technologies accomplish this by surrounding the users with their visual senses (as with VR glasses), giving them stereo sound, and providing an as natural input technique and automatic as possible. Immersive interfaces will be able to offer insights and augment workflows, allowing users to intuitively interact with the physical-digital world. A great example for immersive interfaces are haptic gloves. They could be used to manipulate and control objects for medical training that is experienced through a virtual reality headset.

Automation involves transitioning manual processes into digital ones by integrating robotics and intelligent systems, so they operate in unison. Intelligent automation gives systems the ability to learn from prior decisions and data patterns to make intelligent decisions on their own, freeing people to focus on important work or free-time activities.

Digital reflection is a virtual representation of complex, interdependent physical processes and interactions. The ability to digitize the world around us has increased dramatically recently thanks to advances in IoT, simulation modeling and analytical tools. Developing digital replicas is essential because it enables organizations to create safe testing spaces. In a digital reflection, you can model different scenarios and explore different outcomes.

The metaverse already offers countless opportunities for companies to be active and to do business. We give you insights into the biggest benefits of moving your company to the metaverse and how to choose the right metaverse. Additionally, we are also sharing insights from consumer psychology to highlight how your business should interact and create opportunities in the metaverse.

Benefits of moving your company to the metaverse

The metaverse presents new marketing opportunities for businesses. As a hot topic, the metaverse attracts attention from both consumers and businesses, providing a unique opportunity for companies to showcase their innovative and modern approaches by creating solutions in this niche.

The metaverse, together with VR, offers an evolution in remote work, providing a virtual space where people can meet, work, brainstorm ideas, and carry out most professional activities. VR in the metaverse creates a more natural way of interacting compared to just sitting in front of a screen communicating through video calls. This establishes an opportunity for businesses to create digital assets in a more natural and visual way without being constrained by limitations of video calls.

One of the most significant advantages of the metaverse is the potential for cost reduction. With metaverse simulation capabilities, many business costs such as rent, staff, building, and equipment maintenance can be eliminated or reduced.

Another considerable benefit of the metaverse is the intense visualization improvements it offers. VR used in metaverse solutions enables users to experience things up close and with an unprecedented level of immersion and realism. This feature is a game-changer for brainstorming, presentations, and learning programs. Ultimately offering new ways of testing products, or creating new chances for learning and development of skills.

Near-term actions

What are the near-term actions you can take to get ready for the metaverse? What do you need to consider? And how can you take the first steps towards moving your company into the metaverse?

Get up to speed
Most companies and individuals lack the technical skills, but also the knowledge about the metaverse ecosystem, including blockchain, smart contracts, VR & AR, and AI. The first steps to take to move your company forward to the future of the metaverse is education. Assign at least some part of your company to understand key concepts such as cryptocurrencies, current virtual worlds, and decentralized autonomous organizations and their relevance to your company, and to follow the metaverse as it evolves.

Develop a strategy
The first questions you may ask yourself to create a strategy are quite basic at first: Why should the company enter the metaverse? What do you actually want to do in the metaverse? Are there existing use cases highlighting the feasibility of your idea? Your main task will be to identify gaps to close and long-term opportunities. As the first metaverse hype is over, now it is about creating real customer value. It is critical to develop and understand technical measures such as making services extensible, developing plans for security and identity, and publishing application programming interfaces (APIs) to core systems, so others can connect to your future metaverse.
If your team does not have a lot of technical knowledge about the important core technical concepts, you will likely benefit from recruiting employees with a gaming background.

Test the waters
As we have already highlighted, testing in the metaverse is easier compared to the way to the metaverse. Lower-risk use cases of testing include selling digital versions of physical goods, offering virtual tours of virtual products or facilities, and launching NFTs to enhance brand awareness and connections to customers. As getting to the metaverse is still the most complex step on the way, neosfer offers a new service for companies and start-ups wanting to be active in the metaverse. With our help, your company can enter the metaverse in an uncomplicated, fast and cost-effective way.

As we have now introduced you to the future of the metaverse and the essential metaverse user experience created partially through advancements in AR and VR technology, we are not stopping here! You just got a first idea of what the metaverse can be in the future and what first three near-term actions are you can take to get your company metaverse-ready.

Our next article will provide a step-by-step guide and strategy of how to get to the metaverse. Filled with actionable information and hacks from our journey to the metaverse, we are not only talking about the roadmap but also what we are doing in the metaverse.