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Since Facebook changed its name to Meta and Mark Zuckerberg showcased some examples of the virtual space, there has been a surge of interest in the metaverse. Not a day goes by since that October 28 without reading an article about how someone has made outrageous amounts of money selling virtual properties or opening businesses in the metaverse.
So how do you access the metaverse? The answer is you can't; this virtual space doesn't exist yet and perhaps won't exist for a very, very long time. So what are they selling? Nothing concrete, like selling plots of land on the Moon.
The problem is that despite the renewed interest, accessing virtual reality requires the use of devices like Oculus, which fail to attract interest, not due to cost, but because of usability and comfort issues. “The prospect of spending a lot of time wearing a heavy and uncomfortable headset, moving around in a virtual environment with unnatural controls, is far from appealing to users who are not very motivated.” As Dario Orlandi writes in PC Professionale (December 2021, p. 37).
It's not even a novelty; virtual reality returns with regularity, we can mention virtual worlds like Second Life, Mmorp, and Mud. Virtual worlds where the playful component reigns supreme.
In reality, Facebook no longer attracts teenagers; the loss over the last two years has been 13% (source: Facebook file). Some see, as reported in the article from PC Professionale, these announcements from the multinational as an attempt to divert attention from the scandals and problems of the social platform.
It is an outdated idea that will not withstand the real novelty that awaits us in the future: Augmented Reality.
The reality is that the metaverse does not exist, not even as a prototype, and it will not exist in the near future, the problems of virtual reality will not be solved during this decade and probably not even in the next one. Not to mention that although virtual reality is a theme also explored in science fiction, it is not the future.
Difference between Virtual Reality (Metaverse) and Augmented Reality
While virtual reality or the metaverse aims to have us spend part of our lives in a virtual space, augmented reality (abbreviated AR) aims for the exact opposite, enriching the human sensory experience through electronically generated information. Unlike virtual reality, where current applications are primarily recreational, augmented reality, to date, has its first applications in the professional field and soon, thanks to 5G connections and the introduction of IoT (Internet of Things), it is set to bring about a true technological and social revolution that has not been seen since the introduction of the WEB in 1990.
While the metaverse aims to alienate us from reality, AR aims to make us live in an expanded and more inclusive world.
The main problem is precisely the alienation from the outside world that surrounds us, it is not a problem that can be overcome, many of us already struggle to use headphones, as they prevent us from hearing what is happening around us. If there are people we know and interact with in the environment, the psychological difficulty of isolating ourselves becomes even stronger. Virtual reality, to achieve maximum engagement, must disconnect all our senses from the reality we are in, making us feel one hundred percent in another place, in another body. This will create anxiety, fears, and a sense of disorientation; on the contrary, AR aims for the exact opposite.
With augmented reality, it will be possible in the future, while visiting a foreign country, to receive tourist information and curiosities in our language and real-time translations, overcoming one of the greatest limitations of current communication: linguistic and cultural differences. Professional opportunities through wearable devices, which are less masochistic than those of virtual reality, are no less significant; we will be able to receive or give instructions remotely to handle an emergency correctly. The future will not be alienation from reality, but the fusion of the digital world with the analog one.
It is true, projects like Google Glass have failed, not due to a lack of interest but because of a technological problem. Recently, Ray-Ban and Luxottica have also launched smart glasses on the market, which do not have sufficient functions to allow us to live in AR, but they are a small and timid step towards the future that awaits us.
Will the metaverse one day exist? Yes, but as places of entertainment; the plural is not accidental, there will be multiple virtual worlds where one can have fun and even engage in some eSports. It will still be tied to the playful sphere, perhaps with some professional application in the world of simulations, but nothing more.
Author: Loris Modena
SENIOR DEVELOPER
Per Ind Loris Modena, owner of Arte e Informatica, started working in the IT sector in 1989 as a system administrator responsible for the maintenance and installation of computer systems. He began programming for the web in 1997, focusing on CGI programming in PERL and later transitioning to programming in PHP and JavaScript. During this time, he became familiar with the Open Source world and the management of Linux servers.