While virtual reality devices, although still based on a niche technology, are starting to be used in different contexts and to be appreciated by tech-savvy consumers with high incomes, augmented reality as Meta understands it is still in its embryonic state.
As Mark Zuckerberg himself says, Meta's presentation conference was intended to share with the world the company's vision, which means the way it envisions the future of interconnectivity over the next ten years. At the moment, there are only a few building blocks of the Metaverse, but others still need to be created and then integrated with each other, in order to start laying the foundations and inhabiting it.
From a technical point of view, making devices that allow us to see digital elements superimposed and adapted to physical reality is more complex than creating virtual worlds from scratch. Today we experience augmented reality when we activate digital files on our smartphones by scanning a QR code or when, thanks to geolocation, virtual objects appear on the screen that overlap with specific places in the real world, as happens with the "Pokémon Go!" app.
The obstacle that Meta wants to overcome is the mediating role that the two-dimensional screen of our devices takes on in our experience of mixed reality. The Metaverso concept could in fact be exemplified as the next evolution of the Internet: an embedded Internet.
For this reason, the company will work on the miniaturization of very powerful processors that can be inserted inside 5mm thick glasses, which will look like normal prescription glasses or sunglasses with a sophisticated design.
These wearable devices, which could evolve into contact lenses and subcutaneous microchips in the future, need multiple functionalities to allow people to see and interact with digital elements overlaid on top of their physical environment, including activation via voice recognition and eye movement sensors, to name a couple.
Facebook not surprisingly launched smart glasses born from the collaboration with RayBan (Ray-Ban, for those who do not know, is a brand of sunglasses and eyeglasses designed for aviators by Bausch & Lomb. It is currently owned by the Italian megagroup Luxottica), equipped with a micro-camera and integrated speakers that allow you to take photos and videos to send to your phone, receive calls and listen to music. This model can be considered the progenitor of the augmented reality glasses that Meta has in mind for the future.
Moreover, current technology does not allow it to reach its full potential with the smartphone because 4G connections cannot handle hundreds of sensitive data streams at once. That's why companies interested in this revolutionary mechanism are investing billions to build 5G networks, and it's not certain that they won't need even 6G in that case. Some mobile operators are already creating their own metaverse platforms, aware that this could be an epochal change in the way value is perceived, just as the Internet was in the 1990s.
Meta's ultimate goal is also to drive mass adoption of Virtual Reality, making it more accessible to as many people as possible and improve the graphics of avatars, which already manage to mimic with great accuracy the gestures, body language and facial expressions of their real-life owners.