Category Archives: Virtual Reality

When someone pulls on a virtual reality headset, theyre ready to dive into a simulated world. They might be hanging out in VRChat or slashing beats in Beat Saber. Regardless, interacting with that world usually involves hand controllers. But new virtual reality or VR technology out of Australia is hands-free. Facial expressions allow users to interact with the virtual environment.

This setup could make virtual worlds more accessible to people who cant use their hands, says Arindam Dey. He studies human-computer interaction at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. Other hands-free VR tech has let people move through virtual worlds by using treadmills and eye-trackers. But not all people can walk on a treadmill. And most people find it a challenge to stare at one spot long enough for the VR system to register the action. Simply making faces may be an easier way for those who are disabled to navigate VR.

Facial expressions could enhance the VR experience for people who can use hand controllers, too, Dey adds. They can allow special interactions that we do with our faces, such as smiling, kissing and blowing bubbles.

Deys team shared its findings in the April International Journal of Human Computer Studies.

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In the researchers new system, VR users wear a cap studded with sensors. Those sensors record brain activity. The sensors can also pick up facial movements that signal certain expressions. Facial data can then be used to control the users movement through a virtual world.

Facial expressions usually signal emotions. So Deys team designed three virtual environments for users to explore. An environment called happy required participants to catch butterflies with a virtual net. Neutral had them picking up items in a workshop. And in the scary one, they had to shoot zombies. These environments allowed the researchers to see whether situations designed to provoke certain emotions affected someones ability to control VR through expressions.

Eighteen young adults tested out the technology. Half of them learned to use three facial expressions to move through the virtual worlds. A smile walked them forward. A frown brought them to a stop. And to perform a task, they clenched their teeth. In the happy world, that task was swooping a net. In the neutral environment, it was picking up an item. In the scary world, it was shooting a zombie.

The other half of participants interacted with the virtual worlds using hand controllers. This was the control group. It allowed the researchers to compare use of facial expressions with the more common form of VR interaction.

After some training, participants spent four minutes in each of the virtual worlds. After visiting each world, participants answered questions about their experience: How easy was their controller to use? How present did they feel in that world? How real did it seem? And so on.

Using facial expressions made participants feel more present inside the virtual worlds. But expressions were more challenging to use than hand controllers. Recordings from the sensor-laden cap showed that the brains of people using facial expressions were working harder than those who used hand controllers. But that could just be because these people were learning a new way to interact in VR. Perhaps the facial expression method would get easier with time. Importantly, virtual settings meant to trigger different emotions did not affect someones ability to control their VR using facial expressions.

This research pushes the boundary of hands-free interaction in VR, says Wenge Xu. He studies human-computer interactions at Birmingham City University in England. He was not involved with the study. Its novel and exciting, he says. But further research is needed to improve the usability of facial expressionbased input.

The researchers are planning more tests and improvements. For instance, everyone in this study was able-bodied. In the future, Dey hopes to test the tech with people who are disabled.

He also plans to explore ways to make interacting through facial expressions easier. That may involve swapping out the sensor-laden caps for some other face-reading technology. One idea: Use cameras that capture face movements or facial gestures, he says. Or sensors could be embedded in the foam cushion of a VR headset. Dey imagines one day people will train VR systems using their own sets of expressions.

Technology has helped me along the way [in a] world that wasnt necessarily made for me, says Tylia Flores. As a person with cerebral palsy, standard methods of interaction arent always available to her. She feels the new technology could make VR more accessible for people whose physical movements are limited.

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Facial expressions could be used to interact in virtual reality - Science News for Students

Lt. Governor hails efforts made to curb COVID-19

Lt. Governor hails efforts made to curb COVID-19

Lt. Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan commended the role played by the medical fraternity, the supporting departments and the public for bringing the COVID-19 pandemic under control in the Union Territory, at a time when it was rearing its head in many other States.Inaugurating a fully automated VR simulation lab at Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Ms. Soundararajan revealed that Raj Nivas had convened a meeting of the COVID-19 task force every Thursday for 30 consecutive weeks to bring the disease under control.The coordinated efforts helped the Union Territory reach zero COVID-19 case status a few weeks ago, she added.Hailing the revolutionary role of technology in modern medicine, the Lt. Governor exhorted medical students to keep themselves updated on the latest developments and engage more in research.According to a press note from PIMS, this was the first fully automated VR simulation lab in the country, installed by MediSimVR, a homegrown medical technology company based out of IIT-Madras, and Johnson & Johnson Innovation Labs.The VR lab, which was a marvel of cutting-edge technology and human engineering, would enhance the traditional training methodologies and provide institutions with Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered competency assessment tools to understand and improve student performance.S. Mohan, Vice-Chancellor, Puducherry Technological University, M.M. Philip, chairman, Babu Daniel, principal advisor, PIMS managing committee and Renu G. Boy Varghese, Director-Principal, participated in the event.

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Virtual Reality lab launched in hospital - The Hindu

Image: Kotaku / ShutterStock / Kevin Dietsch (Getty Images)

A metaverse filled with digital worlds and avatars might be coming someday, but it wont be cheap. Facebook parent company Meta has released its financial results for the first quarter of 2022 and it shows that this year alone, the companys virtual reality-focused department has lost $2.96 billion so far. This continues a trend of operating heavily in the red, with the same division having lost nearly $20 billion since 2020.

As reported by VentureBeat, Meta released its 2022 Q1 financial results yesterday and revealed that Reality Labs, the companys virtual reality-focused group, had lost just around $3 billion. During that same time period, the division brought in just $695 million in revenue. Now, in most cases I wouldnt be saying just before a number as disgustingly huge as 695 million.

However, thats a drop in the bucket compared to what Mark Zuckerbergs company has spent on VR. In 2021 alone, Meta lost $10 billion via its VR business. In that same year, it brought in revenue of $2.3 billion, less than what its lost in just the first quarter of this year. And remember, in 2020 Metas VR division burned an additional $6 billion.

Todays new numbers arent shocking. It aint cheap to create virtual reality headsets or software. Meta and Facebook are continuing to spend a lot of money on advertising, researching, building, and developing virtual reality headsets, apps, and social spaces. It also has hired more folks to work in its VR division, hitting a reported 17,000 employees as of 2022. So it makes sense that paying that many people to build something as expensive as our collective virtual reality future is going to cost some money.

And the companys flagship headset, the Meta Quest 2 (formerly know as the Oculus Quest 2) is selling great. But these new numbers make it clear that virtual reality and the metaverse continue to be a costly venture for Meta.

It should be noted that Meta will be fine, even as it burns money on building the VR-powered metaverse of tomorrow. The companys overall Q1 revenue for 2022 exceeded $25 billion. And last year it brought in a staggering $117 billion in total revenue across all divisions and apps. So Zuck can continue to to spend all this money to build his own metaverse. (Hopefully it gets better than the mostly boring and sterile world that currently exists)

Read More:2021 Saw A 31% Increase In VR-Related Insurance Claims

Of course, the question remains: Does VR ever escape from being a niche interest and niche market that takes billions of dollars to support year after year? Sure, some companies like Valve and Sony have continued to show interest, investing in and building out their own VR experiences and devices. But it seems like the future of VR is as a tool to access the metaverse, whatever that (maybe) ends up becoming.

Now I wonder, how many years and billions of dollars will it take for us to get to the metaverse, and do most people even want it? Zuckerberg and Meta are betting billions that the answer to that question is yes. But Im not so sure about that.

Correction 04/28/2022 9:05 p.m. ET: Revised several statements to clarify that they refer to the companys revenue, rather than profits.

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Facebooks Latest Financial Results Show It Has Lost Nearly $20 Billion To VR Since 2020 - Kotaku

Woman using a Samsung VR headset at South by Southwest in Austin in 2015. (Nan Palmero / Flickr)

People often focus on the positives of virtual reality (VR): It can provide more immersive experiences. Players can visit outer space or a foreign country without ever leaving their couches. They can interact with other gamers in those virtual worlds. But VR enthusiasts often overlook, or never know about, VRs darker sides: namely, the risk of unwanted interactions, which falls disproportionately on women and people of color.

Concern around the metaverse buzzed recently after a female beta tester said a stranger groped her while interacting on Virtual Horizons, a metaverse platform operated by Meta, Facebooks umbrella company. Metas internal review indicated the woman should have used the built-in Safe Zone security features.

In another case, researchers examined 11.5 hours of footage from VR chat, an application used in Facebooks metaverse. Researchers identified 100 possible violations of the companys VR policies in that span. They included bullying and sexual harassment, as well as the grooming of minors. The team concluded these incidents happened about every seven minutes.

But while the metaverse is a new horizon for most online gamers, virtual sexual harassment is not a new issue. In one firsthand account of VR harassment from 2016, a woman reported that while she navigated a virtual world, another player groped her chest and crotch, and chased her around the game, even after she told him to stop.

Another woman who tested the metaverse for Facebook said that while she did not get harassed, she felt uncomfortable in the virtual world. She also believed itd be difficult to moderate what happened in it. Instead of only screening text or images, moderators would have to look at aspects like in-game gestures and how peoples avatars moved.

In a recent poll, 65 percent of online gamers experienced severe online harassment. The amount rose to 74 percent for people engaging in multiplayer games. Of those, more than half received targeted harassment, including related to their gender or identitystressing the importance in particular to create safe spaces for trans women who play VR, especially since virtual environments can have benefits for trans people. Many find it empowering because they can make avatars that reflect their true selves, even before coming out. However, bullying would outweigh any uplifting experiences.

One way to ensure womens safety in the metaverse is to encourage women to enter the tech field, helping close the gender gap. Dr. Tarika Barrett is the CEO of Girls Who Code, which has served more than 450,000 students worldwide. We want to empower girls to shift the status quo, said Barrett, to pursue careers in tech and wield them as a force for good in the world, while also proudly building an exciting future for themselves.

Women may even be at a disadvantage in VR due to the required headsets. An informal survey found female VR players much more likely to experience nausea than their male counterparts: While 22.6 percent of women felt nauseated frequently while playing VR, only 7.2 percent of men reported the same. An academic paper showed many VR headsets do not offer enough adjustments for the distance between a players eyes, known as interpupillary distance (IPD). VR headsets allow people to alter the IPD by changing the distance between each VR lens they look through while playing.The author suggested the headsets may not accommodate female face structures, causing sickness while playing.

Despite the dark sides of VR, many people are working to make virtual reality more gender-balanced and safer for everyone. Maria Korolov is the founder and president of Women in Virtual Reality (WiVR), a networking and industry resource focused on females in the sector.

Jenn Duong is another enduring supporter of improved diversity in VR. She was a co-founder for SH//FT, an organization that supports equality and inclusion in future technologies. While discussing VR creativity and inspiration, Duong said, Do not be afraid to experiment, and do not be afraid to fail. If we dont do projects because were worried about the technology not being there or that what we are making isnt good, we failed automatically because we didnt even try. There is a lesson to be learned in every effort in VR. So if you have something you want to make, just do it.

Theres also Equal Reality, an organization that uses VR simulations to run diversity inclusion training sessions and encourage more empathy in participants.

Theres certainly impressive progress in making VR more supportive of and accessible for women. However, people must continue to raise awareness of the darker matters and put pressure on those who have the power to enact change. Only then can we make sustained improvements that change the tech and the world for good.

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The Dark Side of Virtual Reality: Sexual Harassment and the Lack of Body Agency - Ms. Magazine

Attendees look at NReal's augmented reality glasses, on the last day of CES 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Robyn Beck | AFP | Getty Images

Nreal, a Chinese augmented reality start-up, is planning to bring its smart glasses to the U.K.

The Beijing-based company said Tuesday it will launch its Nreal Air AR glasses in Britain later this spring through an exclusive deal with local carrier EE, which is owned by telecoms group BT.

Nreal's glasses allow users to watch movies or play games on large virtual displays. Users can do so by connecting the glasses to their smartphone through a cable. They're designed to look like sunglasses, similar to Snap's Spectacles line of smart glasses.

The Nreal Air has two main modes: "Air Casting" and "MR Space." Air Casting lets users view their phone screen on a 130-inch virtual display when standing four meters away, while MR Space combines digital objects with a user's surrounding space.

Nreal did not give an exact release date or price for the device. A spokesperson said more details will be revealed "at a later date."

Nreal is one of countless companies hoping to bring augmented reality which blends three-dimensional digital objects with the real world to a more mainstream audience. The tech has been around for years but, like virtual reality, it has struggled to find commercial success.

Now, with the tech world abuzz with talk about the so-called "metaverse," it's given technologies like AR and VR a new lease on life. Companies like Microsoft and Facebook, or Meta as it's now known, want to build vast digital worlds in which millions of users can interact and transact with one another.

Peng Jin, co-founder of Nreal, said he believes AR "will start a revolutionary transformation just as the internet once did."

"AR will transcend the current mobile experience, especially when it comes to watching videos, exercising, and playing PC and cloud video games," he added.

Founded in 2017, the company has created two AR headsets to date: the Nreal Light and Nreal Air, the latter of which it debuted last year. The company has raised over $230 million to date from investors including Alibaba, Nio and Sequoia Capital China. It was most recently valued at $700 million.

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Chinese start-up Nreal is launching its augmented reality glasses in the UK this spring - CNBC

The highly anticipated Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC)s metaverse land sale Otherside is premiering today after weeks of anticipation. Its billed as the metaverse land sale to crown them all and its success might as well define the performance of future web 3 games.

The Otherside is Yuga Labs open metaverse role-playing game (RPG) that has generated a great deal of excitement in the Web 3.0 community. The game is compatible with all NFTs, including the major and more familiar NFT projects such as World of Women, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, CryptoToadz, Meebits, and CryptoPunks.

Although Yuga Labs is yet to give the specifics of Otherside, it has released a teaser showing a Bored Ape drinking some serum which brings the Ape into an entirely new world. Inside the new metaverse, you can see an ice landscape, a crystal landscape, a lava landscape, a sand scene, a purple mystic landscape as well as a unique earthlike landscape.

In the pitch deck of Otherside, Yuga Labs states that its main aim in creating Otherside was to build a metaverse project that transcends the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) universe and which incorporates the greater NFT community. It is expected that Otherside will be interoperable and will let users across NFT worlds to interact with different kinds of NFT projects and brands at the same time within the metaverse.

To create Otherside metaverse, Yuga Labs partnered with Animoca Brands which is the key Sandbox developer. The Otherside appears to be a multiland metaverse and it is expected that it will be widely interoperable and will support different kinds of NFT projects as well as NFT ecosystems.

Yuga Labs has also been attracting institutional investment for its Othereside metaverse project. In a recent $450 million funding round which was led by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz where Yuga Labs was valued at $4 billion. Other investors that participated in the funding round included Google, Animoca Brands, Sound Ventures, Google, and MoonPay. Yuga Labs is planning to use the infusion of cash to scale up its team, rope in more creative, operations and engineering talent as well as build strategic alliances and joint ventures.

Yuga Labs announcement of Otherside came on the heels of the ApeCoin trading debut. ApeCoin is the official utility coin for the APE ecosystem and was created to strengthen the BAYC community. ApeCoin maximum supply stands at 1 billion and it currently has a circulating supply of 284.8 million. ApeCoin was launched just a few weeks back and it is already ranked 29th in terms of market capitalization. ApeCoin has affected the prices of other NFT collections.

Even before the announcement of the Otherside, Yuga Labs NFTs have always been lucrative and it is therefore expected that the Otherdeeds will just be as lucrative.

Apart from the utility of holding these NFTs, there are also the bragging rights that come with owning an NFT that is linked to the highly vibrant BAYC ecosystem.

Although details are yet to be divulged about Otherside, there have been reports that the metaverse land will feature some valuable items for the landowners in the metaverse such as natural resources, unique effects, and even a Koda.

There is speculation that the Kodas is the last of a celestial race that will bring Bored Apes along with other interoperable nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to the strange new land of Otherside. The Kodas will allegedly be assigned to 10% of the Otherside land plots and buyers who will get the Kodas will be able to trade them separately.

While there is a great deal of buzz surrounding the Otherside, it has serious competitors in the other metaverse and ecosystems in terms of functionality, team expertise, and utility.

Formidable metaverse projects such as Decentaland, The Sandbox, and NFT Worlds will pose serious competition. The Sandbox is particularly robust and will be a serious competitor to Otherside due to its gargantuan market capitalization and plenty of industry connections.

Otherside is set to launch on Saturday and there is still limited information on the buying process for this metaverse drop. However, there is speculation that a new website, https://somethingisbrewing.xyz/ will be used in the Otherside land sales. The purchasing process will involve know-your-customer (KYC) verifications. For the first sale, it might be too late for many metaverse land buyers to join in on the landrush.

There is also a leaked BAYC investor roadmap that suggests two land sales with the second sale scheduled for August.

The reputable Yuga Labs ecosystem is behind Otherside metaverse land so there is a great deal of social capital behind the NFT as well as lots of perks for investors. However, in spite of the BAYC and Yuga Labs reputation in the community, investing in any NFT carries with it some risks as there is always a considerable upside and downside potential.

The lack of information in the run-up to the Otherside drop also means that some of the more prudent investors might adopt a wait-and-see posture before they decide to throw money at the Otherside metaverse land.

However, the popularity of BAYC along with the high demand for NFT from price-sensitive investors means that the Otherside drop will still be huge, particularly in the short term. In the first few days and weeks, we can expect some volatility and FOMO effects following the launch on Saturday.

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A Rundown of the Otherside (Ape Metaverse) Virtual Reality Times - Virtual Reality Times

The Smithsonians Arts and Industries Building (AIB) and Meta Immersive Learning will debut FUTURES x Meta: Moonwalk May 4, a new immersive virtual reality (VR) experience that will bring visitors as close to the lunar surface as possible with todays technologies. Inspired by the real-life experiences of Apollo astronauts, Moonwalk combines thousands of rarely seen archival images, 3D scans of Smithsonian collections and NASA mission audio recordings with pioneering VR technology, and it recreates the world of the moon and allows visitors to explore the lunar landscape as it has seldom been seen before.

Timed with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo missions, the experience will be on view exclusively at FUTURES, the Smithsonians first major exhibition about the future, through June 6. A special free public evening Thursday, May 19, We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Panel: Future Journeys at Your Fingertips, will take audiences on a deep dive into not only Moonwalk but also an undersea coral reef and augmented reality (AR) artworks, while hearing from experts shaping the future of the field.

Using a Meta Quest 2 VR headset, visitors will be able to land on the moon and see the lunar surface for the first time as the astronauts did, through the window of the Apollo 11 landing capsule. They can then embark on their own adventure and experience some of the most famous and heart-stopping moments of lunar exploration: listening in on conversations between Apollo astronauts and Mission Control, kicking around moon dust, watching the rover explore the landscape and being awed by lunar views before heading back to Earth.

Moonwalk serves as a possible preview to what learning could be like in the future metaverse, a concept for the next phase of the internet. As a shared social space, the metaverse would bridge the physical and digital worldsallowing people to co-exist and interactand can combine multiple 3D-digital experiences to bring history, science, art and more to life.

Researchers and filmmakers used cutting-edge photogrammetrya way of extracting 3D information from 2D imagesto stitch together more than 7,000 archival images taken by NASA missions. This was combined with inspiring, emotional and at times hilarious archival audio recordings from Apollo lunar landings and detailed 3D scans of the Apollo 11 command module from the Smithsonians National Air and Space Museum. Combined together for the first time, audiences will be able to feel like they are truly on a mission to the moon.

The historic Arts and Industries Building was the first place most people ever saw a rock from the moon, and later the historic Apollo 11 that made that epic journey, said Rachel Goslins, director of the Arts and Industries Building. Its so exciting that more than 50 years later we are able, through this collaboration with Meta, to give visitors a new groundbreaking experience of moon travel. Experiencing Moonwalk is going to ignite future dreams of adventure and space travel in our next generation of budding scientists and space explorers.

AIB and Meta will also be launching custom-built AR effects on Instagram to let anyone, anywhere, go on a trip through time to discover more about AIBs unique history with space travel, examine the Apollo command module in detail and even take a lunar selfie as an astronaut.

Like space exploration, the future of learning is limitless, said Monica Ars, head of Meta Immersive Learning. Partnering with the Smithsonians Arts and Industries Building allows us to showcase how immersive technology can transform the way we learn by exploring simulated environments. Through a combination of in-person, virtual and immersive experiences in the metaverse, we can increase access to education and help build a more connected and curious world.

Through its Meta Immersive Learning initiatives, Meta is working to increase access to learning through technology and develop the next generation of creators and high-quality immersive experiences to help transform the way people learn.

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Panel: Future Journeys at Your Fingertips will kick off at 6:30 p.m. ET, in-person and online, and is free, but registration is required. Visitors can go deep-sea diving with an oceanographer, step on the surface of the moon with an astronaut, see statues and paintings come to life, all with a group of experts exploring the possibilities of immersive learning and VR and AR.

Moonwalk is produced by Meta Immersive Learning partners Meridian Treehouse, award-winning nonfiction storytelling and experiential agency specializing in multi-platform experiences that educate and entertain, Black Dot Films, an Emmy award-winning pioneer in VR storytelling and production, and Sparks, exhibit designer, and brand experience agency. The 3D-digitized scan of the Apollo 11 command module was created by the Smithsonian Digitization Program office, which uses cutting-edge technologies to enhance the access, use, and impact of Smithsonian collections.

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Smithsonian and Meta Invite Visitors To Walk on the Moon in Exclusive New Virtual Reality Experience at the FUTURES Exhibition - The Southern Maryland...

Animayo Gran Canaria, Spains foremost Canary Islands-based animation festival, is venturing deep into the metaverse with experts in artificial intelligence, virtual reality and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) joining leading voices in animation from major studios, including DreamWorks, Walt Disney, Skydance, Sony Pictures and Platige Image.

Some 23 guests will be participating across 14 master classes, three debate panels, three workshops, 10 recruitment sessions and other events at the in-person 17th edition held over May 4-7 in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria.

An online edition is slated to launch in October. This year the debates are a novelty because its a must to create a meeting forum in this increasingly polarized society, said Damian Perea, founder-director of the festival, which also encompasses VFX and video gaming.

The festivals impact on local production continues to grow as the Canary Islands now boasts at least 20 animation and VFX companies, Perea told Variety.

Among the other firsts for the Canary Islands and its festival: an augmented reality exhibition and NFT sales related to the acclaimed 2D animated short film Amanece la Noche Larga, with all proceeds to go towards fundraising efforts to help Ukrainian refugees.

The festival trailer presents highlights of the more than 60 animation shorts hailing from some 20 countries that will compete at the festival. The winner of the international grand prize will have a chance to be preselected for best animated short film at the Oscars. Animayo remains the only festival in Spain designated a qualifying festival by the Academy for this category.

Participating luminaries from the world of animation include Danish animation exec Claus Toksvig, producer of the Oscar-nominated toon Song of the Sea; Disney Animation Studios Luis Labrador, one of the creators of the Oscar-winning Encanto; Matt Tokarz, a visual effects creator on the acclaimed Netflix-produced The Witcher; and Aurora Jimnez, a visual development artist at DreamWorks Animation with such credits as The Bad Guys, Vivo, Hotel Transylvania 3 and The Emoji Movie.

Guests from the world of technology include Yuan Yinzi, Ubisoft project manager and founder-president of the Metaverse Summit in Paris; Edgar Martn-Blas, CEO and creative director of Virtual Voyagers, the Madrid-based pioneer in virtual, augmented and mixed reality; and Isidro Quintana, CEO of Triple O Games, Metaverse and Play2earn Experiences.

The festival will again offer a scholarship program valued at 500,000 ($528,000) for online and in-person studies in Madrid and other major cities.

I founded Animayo to give aspirants all the opportunities that I never had when I started, said Perea, adding: That is why the festival centers on training, education, motivation and finally, helping people find jobs through our recruiters.

We are proud to once again celebrate life and unite in person all young and not so young people with the experts of this community as well as give more opportunities to the new generation, Perea stated.

Animayo is a luxury for Gran Canaria. Its a great international showcase for training and employment in the audiovisual sector, concurred Teodoro Sosa, minister of the presidency of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, a major sponsor of the annual event.

Animayo Festival 2022Courtesy of Animayo Festival

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Spains Animayo Ventures Into the Metaverse - Variety

Ryan Epps, Tech Times 29 April 2022, 12:04 pm

Buzzwords are aplenty these days. NFT, crypto, Elon Musk - these words all stack to inherently make something seem and feel far more interesting or important than they generally need to be. That's why Snap's CEO, Evan Spiegel, isn't too keen on utilizing the rather overused and seemingly overhyped metaverse term regarding various Snapchat products.

In a recent interview withThe Guardian, Spiegel relayed his various thoughts on the so-called metaverse, which he termed as but a "hypothetical" entity. Within Snap, says Spiegel, this term "metaverse" isn't used due to the fact that everyday humans "actually love the real world." To Snap, augmented reality, a concept it has largely championed over the years, is not only its main driver but its own metaverse to Facebook's Meta.

"The reason why we don't use that word is because it's pretty ambiguous and hypothetical. Just ask a room of people how to define it, and everyone's definition is totally different," says Spiegel. "Our fundamental bet is that people actually love the real world: they want to be together in person with their friends."

It only makes sense, given Snap's long history in the field and its seamless interconnectivity with AR technology. When most think of the heights that AR capabilities can provide, the majority turn to the 2016 smash hit Pokmon GO, whichbroke multiple recordswith a whopping $207 million revenue in its very first month. While Snap's tech may not be on par with the likes of Niantic's just yet, AR and Snapchat itself still fit like a glove, given the various photo filters, animated backgrounds, stickers, and more the platform provides.

Related Article:Snap Says it's Recovering From the Impact of Apple's App Tracking Transparency

Beyond that, Snap even released its own AR sunglasses, aptly coined Spectacles by Snap. The company's first-ever foray into AR support wouldn't be met until theSpectacles' fourth generation, and while the tech-fueled sunglasses aren't exactly the most foolproof - or even, for that matter, up for sale to the general public - they still act as proving ground for the company in an era wherein Web3 and metaverse real estate reign supreme.

Although Snap's Spectacles aren't the best point to make in terms of its current standing in the AR space, they are evidence that Snap is peering into more engaging avenues with long-term goals. InThe Verge'sreview of the Spectacles, published in December of last year, Snap's head of AR platform partnerships, Sophia Dominguez, says, "We're building this really insane distribution system of augmented reality that doesn't exist anywhere else."

"There's now like 250 million people engaging with AR everyday on the smartphone alone," Spiegel explains to The Guardian. "And that's on this tiny little screen that you're looking through and you're using your thumbs on. So we believe that trying to break some of those constraints, and go into a truly immersive and interactive AR experience, will be really important for the future."

Snap's CEO isn't the only one to be hypercritical of the metaverse, evidenced best by the inventor of the PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi, who explained toBloomberg"the metaverse is about making quasi-real in the virtual world." Even Phil Libin of Evernote fame called the digital space of the future "uncreative" and an "old idea."

Still, while the metaverse certainly has its many critics, the metrics somewhat prove otherwise. According to statistics viaTechjury, virtual reality itself is only on the cusp of an ever-expansive integration, with VR headset demand growing 16 times between 2018 and 2022. The report also posits that a total of 171 million VR devices currently live out in the wild, highlighting that while the metaverse may not have its roots based in the real world, more than most seem adamant about escaping anyway.

Read Also:Snapchat Bans Anonymous Messages Sent From Third-Party Apps | Here's Why

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Snap Hedges Bets on Augmented Reality Over the Hypothetical Metaverse, Says CEO - Tech Times

Approximately half of all 18-34 year olds now use dating apps. (online)

One night, nearly a decade ago, I watched a science fiction (sci-fi) romance. Sci-fi is not my preferred genre, but a friend recommended it, so I decided to indulge in something different.

The movie Her depicts a lonely man, Theodore, in the near future who struggles to navigate real-world dating; instead, he develops an intense emotional relationship, through virtual reality (VR), with an artificially intelligent virtual assistant. Heres the bizarre part, he interacts with her, Samantha, through a female voice.

As Theodores attachment grows, Samantha begins to go missing, leading Theodore to become anxious and agitated. Samantha reveals to him that she is interacting with 8,316 other people and is actually in love with 641 of them. Ultimately, Samantha tells Theodore that she needs to disengage from their relationship permanently and that all operating systems were disconnecting from human interactions.

I found the movie impactful, mainly through the lens of a human beings future dependence on digital technology for human interaction. After all, technology has become indispensable for many of our daily tasks. But still, I could never imagine that human beings could ever get to a stage where they could have a love affair with a digital operating system.

Fast-forward to a news headline this week: Fictosexual man married 16-year-old hologram bride, but now struggles to bond with her (Techno Charger, April 2022).

Thirty-eight-year-old Akihiko Kondo was dating Hatsune Miku, a computer-synthesized pop culture 16-year-old, for a decade before they had an unofficial wedding ceremony in 2018. Kondo was able to interact with Miku for the first time in 2017 due to Gatebox, a machine that allows owners to interact with characters via holograms and even unofficially marry them. He spent 2 million yen on his wedding. Now married for four years, Kondo said he could no longer speak with his wife due to a technological hurdle.

In 2018 the Science Advances journal argued that Internet dating was the third most popular means of meeting a long-term partner for romance and around half of all 18-34 year olds now use dating apps. Currently, there are over 323 million people worldwide using dating apps for personal matchmaking purposes, resulting in revenues of US$5.61 billion in 2021 for the industry. Eharmony, Match, Tinder, Bumble, and Christian Mingle are just a few apps people use. Most dating or match transactions occur with mobile devices; Tinder is the top dating app in North America and Badoo in Europe and South America.

However, Web 3.0 and the metaverse are changing the dynamics of online dating with three-dimensional virtual reality dating, allowing people to meet, talk, and physically interact. VR dating apps like Planet Theta and Nevermet are shattering the norms of the traditional model of dating apps by providing what is termed a multisensory experience. Virtual first dates can take place anywhere in this world and can take many forms, from peoples avatars moving around and participating in different activities, to joining others in diverse virtual locations, to the possibility of private connections.

Possibilities that once seemed incredible and wildly imaginary are no longer stranger than fiction as, indeed, there is an app for them. Now Tinder and Bumble are significantly reinventing their online platforms in order to establish a relationship with the metaverse ecosystem. Their plan is to revamp the traditional way people will interact with each other by utilising avatars, virtual piano bars, restaurants, and digital coins to redefine future love connections beyond in-person meetings, focusing more on virtual experiences, which give people the opportunity to connect as avatars.

Tinder is currently testing Singletown on college campuses in Seoul, South Korea. This platform would allow someones digital self to go out as a real-time audio-powered avatar to meet others in virtual spaces, like a bar or a park, where they can sit with someone to have a one-on-one or group conversation. You can tap into the digital avatars to see more of that profile, and you have basically a richer set of signals to help connect with someone. It is metaverse experiences coming to life in a way that is transformative to how people meet and get to know each other on a dating or social discovery platform and is much more akin to how people interact in the real world. (Shar Dubey, CEO Tinder)

CANT BUY ME LOVE HAS A DIFFERENT MEANING IN THE METAVERSE

CEO of Jambb, a non-fungible tokens (NFT) marketplace for comedy and comedians, Alex DiNunzio speculates that with people having more access to cryptocurrency, and the minting of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has become easier, individuals could make money from their expressions of affection. In other words, love letters could be minted into NFTs that users on metaverse dating platforms could utilise and earn from. According to DiNunzio, from profiles to recorded videos of the date, specially created moments, or clothes, blockchain-based social dating offers key elements missing from current dating applications, like trust, transparency, data security, and fraud protection against nefarious actors or catfishes.

Katch, an events-based video dating app, integrates and promotes NFTs on its platform to provide a mix of entertainment and financial opportunities to its users. NFTs can be bought and swapped within the app, akin to liking someone. On Katch, registered members receive the money from the sale of the NFT and 10 per cent on subsequent resales of the NFT.

Whether we want to accept this new reality, or not, the fact is that digital technologies are changing all our interactions daily. Unwittingly we speak with robots on the telephone and online to reserve a rental car, pay our utility bills, order our groceries, and troubleshoot some of our health-care concerns. For example, Watson, the IBM artificial intelligence (AI) system, which gained global fame when it beat two long-standing Jeopardy champions, was created for oncology and trained to provide diagnosis and support for 13 types of cancers.

No doubt the metaverse will rapidly alter our social mores and cultural practices as more and more people choose a virtual reality as their preferred option to real life. After all, you can travel, work, play sports, attend fashion shows, and go on family vacations without leaving your living room. So if people can have this form of powerful social satisfaction, is it that difficult to imagine they could enjoy virtual reality love and romance too?

Lisa Hanna

Lisa Hanna is Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern, Peoples National Party spokesperson on foreign affairs and foreign trade, and a former Cabinet member.

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The reality of digital dating stranger than fiction? - Jamaica Observer