42 | New Scientist | 8 January 2022Many of the technologies necessary
to make an immersive virtual version
of the physical world already exist to
at least some extent.AUGMENTED REALITY
This involves overlaying a virtual
environment on top of real life, often
using special glasses or a phone.
Google Glass, an attempt by the
search giant to do something
similar, flopped in the early 2010s.
Some primitive, but common,
examples now include Snapchat’s
Lenses that, for example, turn
you into a dog when you open your
mouth. Meta is developing a pair of
augmented reality glasses called
Nazaré that CEO Mark Zuckerberg
hopes will become as ubiquitous
as mobile phones are today.VIRTUAL REALITY
Plugging yourself into virtual reality
usually involves wearing a headset,
often accompanied by handheld
motion controllers, and seeing your
entire field of vision and other
elements of your senses overtaken by
a digital world. Your movements map
onto your digital avatar’s, allowing
you to traverse a virtual universe.
Entry into Meta’s version will probablyKEYSTONES OF
THE METAVERSE
real time to direct data to users more quickly.
Even with such advances, our ability to
make truly immersive metaverse experiences
is likely to be limited for the foreseeable future.
Producing realistic graphical representations,
particularly of other humans, is one persistent
sticking point in this (see “Funny-looking
things”, page 40).
Incorporating the full range of sensory
experience, including taste and smell, is
also yet to be addressed. Just as space-age
cartoons like The Jetsons envisaged a world
of flying cars and robot butlers in the year
2062 that seems unlikely to come to fruition,
so the most outlandish visions of the
metaverse still seem far away. “We’re seeing
glimpses of the metaverse,” says Hackl.
“It’s being built as we speak.”
What it is being built for is another open
question. At Meta’s virtual rebranding press
conference, reporters found themselves typing
at digital facsimiles of laptop keyboards at a
facsimile of a conference room desk, listening
to Zuckerberg’s digital avatar opining on a
facsimile of a desk chair. This world of work is
what one of the few firms big enough to match
Meta punch for punch, Microsoft, seems to
be aiming at with its own metaverse efforts.
Microsoft’s mixed reality system, called
Mesh, has been integrated into its Teams
collaboration and video conferencing app,
with a view to offering 3D virtual avatars of
meeting participants and computer-generated
meeting rooms in the first half of 2022.Physical disconnect
Many are sceptical about this vision, however:
the most common complaint heard about the
hybrid or fully remote working practices that
many office workers have adopted during
coronavirus lockdowns over the past two
years is the lack of physical connection. This
seems unlikely to be enhanced by a layer of
cartoonish graphics on top of a video call.
Other avenues might be more fruitful. “The
obvious wins for me are in entertainment and
socialising – stuff you want to do where you
hang out with people who are not nearby,”
says Benford. “A number of us now realise
you can do nice things with remote friends
and families online.” Digital concerts are a
case in point where the metaverse is alreadyMark Zuckerberg’s Meta is
developing tech for us all
to enter the metaverserequire a pair of virtual reality goggles
made by Oculus, a company Facebook
bought in 2014.HAPTICS
Touch is a big thing missing from many
extended virtual reality experiences.
Meta’s AI research department is one
of many trying to make the metaverse
more touch-responsive using haptic
technology, which applies force or
vibration to your skin to mimic real
physical touch.BLOCKCHAIN
A distributed, decentralised ledger
of information that is held across
multiple users, the blockchain could
be the digital key to the metaverse.
Its immutable records would allow
users to have the confidence to transact
their business online without worrying
about being scammed.MIXED REALITY
Combining elements of the real
world and the virtual, mixed reality
is a broad-brush term for things
that often don’t fit into augmented
or virtual reality.EXTENDED REALITY
Extended reality is a catch-all term to
cover the likes of augmented reality,
virtual reality and mixed reality. Taken
together, it is a key area of research for
academia and industry alike.ME
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