This week the old Facebook lost the 600 billion market capitalization value. Currently, it is worth less than Nvidia (maker of graphics memory cards).
We have not seen this value in Meta or the old Facebook since May 2020, when we were imbued in the midst of the pandemic.
Facebook and the European Union
It turns out that Facebook has choked on its relationship with the European Union, and with its 400 million users on its different platforms.
So much so that Meta has just published a statement saying that: «It does not want, nor does it threaten to leave Europe. The information in this line is false.»
Actually, if it leaves Europe, it would be left without its users. And, the most problematic for the company: without the advertising, and without the data.
Meta and its metaverse
The tremendous mistake of Meta is associating the metaverse with a virtual or mixed reality device.
In Meta’s first announcement to promote «Horizon Worlds» in the US, which is its platform for the metaverse, it was clear that it will never succeed. And, it’s because of the glasses. To use the free application (app) it is necessary to use the Oculus Quest 2 glasses.
The tremendous failure of the glasses
Sometimes people get so wrapped up in an idea that they come full circle until they get stuck at one point.
Microsoft has already realized this.
Microsoft cancels its HoloLens 3 glasses
Microsoft recently signed a $21.9 billion contract to equip the US military with its HoloLens glasses.
Microsoft is deadlocked on this project as they «have not proven to have the ability to perform in combat.» In addition to consuming a huge amount of company resources.
Later, Microsoft developed the HoloLens 2, they offered to break the barriers of distance (fix an incident or repair a certain piece of equipment by directly seeing the projected indications). This characteristic made Microsoft sign succulent contracts with Ford and ThyssenKrupp.
But, the price of such glasses is very high 3500 dollars. At this price, the Redmond company has only sold between 40,000 and 60,000 units. These figures are far from their commercial expectations.
Microsoft, analyzing the previous scenarios, has chosen to focus on the software, and cancel everything related to the hardware (the glasses in this case).
Microsoft is focusing on artificial intelligence, cloud and services.
They aspire to achieve success in the metaverse, a clear example is the purchase of Activision Blizzard a few dates ago for 68.7 billion dollars.
It has also just partnered with Qualcomm to develop chips specially designed for virtual reality and augmented reality.
The final solution of forgoing the development of your own AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) hardware is a complete success.
That’s why he cancels his HoloLens 3 glasses.
Listen to your references, and have as global a vision as possible
I wanted to focus on this point, and especially on my students. They must understand the importance of not making their gaze converge, their gaze always has to diverge: sweep the widest possible field.
Mark Zuckerberg is focusing on a single point, without contemplating the horizon that surrounds us.
Seeing what’s going on with Microsoft, you should take note.
But, the most important thing is that he turned a deaf ear to one of our references: Ken Kutaragi.
Ken Kutaragi and his vision of the metaverse
Ken Kutagari is 71 years old, and is a benchmark in the world of technology. He is the father of the PlayStation, and the metaverse seems like «sovereign nonsense» to him.
He rightly thinks that virtual reality glasses are insufferable. Instead of creating a link between virtual reality and alternate virtual dimensions, they are a barrier.
Holograms
What Kutaragi is looking for is to merge virtual reality and physical reality without using gadgets of any kind. Not using any gadgets, bridging the spaces (cyberspace and real space) with holograms, like the ones you see in the sci-fi movies Star Wars or Star Trek.
Everything from scratch
Kutagari uses a very interesting idea that I always propose in any reasoning or project that is carried out: everything from scratch.
Currently Kutagari no longer works in the video game world, but in robotics at Ascent Robotics, a company he founded in 2016 in Tokyo.
He is still a visionary, he is starting to create components from scratch instead of using existing ones. This work philosophy was the same that he used at the time to create the original PlayStation. It was a master move that swept Sega and Nintendo away.
The idea of the Japanese visionary is to remove all barriers so that everyone wants to jump headfirst into the metaverse. No glasses, no suits, nothing. It’s the only way for the metaverse to truly surround us.
The hologram: the definitive solution.
Google’s Project Starline, the immediate future
Google also realized the value of the hologram, and jumped right into its Starline project.
This service makes it possible to talk to a person who is in another physical location as if they were in front of us, and all this thanks to a real-size hologram.
Project Starline is not just an application (app), it is actually a set of hardware and software made up of multiple cameras and sensors along with a huge frame.
The frame makes us see the other person in their real size and in three dimensions. The framework in turn collects our three-dimensional images to send them to the other person.
The triumph of the Google framework will reside not only in the image with great detail of the person in 3D, it will reside in the absence of pixelation in the video call. Although in current video calls we see the other person for moments pixelated, the normal thing would be to think that the same thing will happen with more reason in a three-dimensional image. But, it won’t be like that. Those of the multinational created in a garage in Menlo Park (California, USA) have made an internal system that is responsible for compressing the data in a huge way to send it and decompress it on the other side. All this in… real time.
Once seen the promotional video everything is perfect, bordering on magic. Two people in the same room and talking in three dimensions.
The problem that Google is going to run into is going to be its enormous size to have it in common houses. If it is finally marketed, it will be mainly for professionals, and for offices.
The race for the conquest of the metaverse
The race has just begun, we don’t know who will be the winner of this succulent new world.
Meta has bet 100% on the metaverse, the company is going to spend about 10 billion dollars throughout 2022.
Apart from its software development, Microsoft is going to create a virtual space through 3D avatars, which will be available from 2022.
Announced at the annual Ignite 2021 event, Teams integration is now underway with the option to create a 3D avatar and connect to meetings or display our 3D avatar.
The presence of avatars is expected to help combat virtual meeting fatigue and reduce the tediousness of staying live on video calls for several hours a day.
In the realm of fashion, Ralph Lauren has partnered with the 3D avatar platform Zepeto, focused on generation Z.
The collection features 12 looks, made up of more than 50 unique garments that include both vintage Polo Ralph Lauren styles and pieces from the current Polo Ralph Lauren collection. There are also a number of special and exclusive items, such as two limited edition skateboards.
Zepeto members will be able to purchase items to wear and complement their 3D avatars, which are created from selfies and allow users to socialize and interact with the platform’s immersive virtual world.
Zepeto has about 10 million monthly active users. The platform has previously signed collaborations with major global brands like Disney and Nike, as well as K-Pop stars like BTS and Blackpink.
The dating app Tinder will have its own metaverse called «Tinderverse», according to the company’s CEO, Renate Nyborg. Not everything is left here, but it comes with a virtual currency «Tinder coin».
The «Tinder coin» is already in the testing process and in 2022 it will be available to all users to be used in the purchase of Tinder a la carte products, such as Boost and Super Like, which are tools that help users who date to have a better match.
Miscellany
This week Meta lost $230 billion in valuation, after results suggesting its current model is running out of steam.
His mistake is betting everything on a metaverse so virtual that, as imagined by Mark Zuckerberg, it will not come.
Perhaps it is that this new, highly individualized society does not make people see more than their own horizon. There are as many horizons as ways of reasoning.
The ego prevents you from not seeing the forest. Analyzing your environment, and starting to create reasoning from scratch is the key to success. Trying to eliminate «pre-created» ideas in your mind.
And, as always, what never fails in any area of life is Ockham’s razor, the principle of economy or the principle of parsimony (lex parsimoniae), according to which «other things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the most probable».
It is most likely that the metaverse will arrive sooner or later, but for it to really be established in society, the barriers between the physical world and the virtual world must be eliminated.
«The only way
to generate air
is
open the hand fan. David EPC
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