Chapter 4: Emerging Technology
As we’ve stated many times throughout this book, the technology for the metaverse is still many years away, but that doesn’t mean that the technology isn’t coming faster than we think. The technology that will make the metaverse possible is already making some massive strides, and this chapter is going to look at some of the trends and advances in our technology that will lead to the foundation of the metaverse.
The definition of extended reality technology is a term that encompasses several aspects of the tech industry. Specifically, it’s the technology that melds the virtual worlds and the physical world. So you might be able to buy a house without ever leaving your couch, while virtually going inside the house and examining everything.
Of course, extended reality technology encompasses augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed realities. Let’s take a look at each of these technologies in greater detail.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality is the overlaying of the real world with virtual images to enhance the real world. For example your phone is a way to augment your reality, such as the popular video game Pokemon Go, which takes real world locations and then populates them with Pokemon that you can catch and interact with. Filters and other items that put digital objects on you are also the same.
In augmented reality, you can see all the real world and aren’t isolated from the people around you. You can look away from the screen, close the application, close the filter, and then get back into the real world and the people around you.
Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality is the typical headset where you are fully immersed in a digital environment, and you can get a 360 degree view of the world around you. This is typically done for gaming, and it is one of the core components of the Metaverse. The entire purpose of a VR system is to fool the user’s brain into thinking that they are someplace else, and the metaverse is going to do the same thing.
Virtual Reality is being adopted into all sorts of industries to help train people in different jobs before letting them go into the real world. VR is relatively new, but there's no doubt that the world is going to grow around it and the technology is going to improve.
Mixed Realities
Finally, another core component of what the metaverse will be is Mixed Reality. In Mixed Realities, digital and real-world items and objects will be able to interact with one another and form a hybrid reality. Mixed realities work with headsets, and they allow you to place objects from the digital world in the physical world and then have the ability to interact with it.
Mixed reality is a younger technology, but it is used in various technologies and businesses. For example some furniture outlets let you use your phone to place objects inside of your home. Some clothing companies will allow you to virtually try on clothes or glasses before making the purchase, and you can do all this from the comfort of your home!
Bridging the gap between our world and the virtual world is going to take a lot of brainpower, but for everything human inventors and programmers need to do to make the metaverse real, the load will also need to be shouldered by the Artificial intelligence that makes up the metaverse as well.
One of the first issues that will be solved by artificial intelligence is the facial recognition software. In order to make sure that your avatars are like you, and that any other non-human avatars that you meet are as realistic as possible, you need technology. Facial and voice recognition software are going to need to be used to ensure that your avatar is what you need.
If other digital humans (those not controlled by a human… Think of them like NPC’s) exist in the world, then they will be built entirely by AI and will need artificial intelligence to make themselves dynamic in the metaverse.
Additionally, AI will be able to scan different two dimensional and three dimensional items from the real world and then place them inside the metaverse. It will also be able to turn the English language into machine code, which is then turned back into English once the AI has a response. So, with high level artificial intelligence, you will be able to have ‘realistic conversations’ in the metaverse.
The field of Artificial Intelligence is growing even more as many companies and businesses take advantage of the benefits of AI, and the metaverse will have artificial intelligence running everything… both in front of the users and behind the scenes.
Finally, one of the largest pieces of technology that will come into the metaverse is the ‘Brain-Computer’ interface. Which is where the electrical data from your brain is attached to a computer and allows you to analyze what should be happening in the game. This is the closest that we are getting to the Metaverse, because the ideas of screens and such are going to be removed with brain computer interfaces.
Some of these are technologies that interlink your brain and body with the virtual world, but others require surgery to implant devices directly into your brain. The technology of brain computer interfaces is something that will be integral to the metaverse, and given the growing field of connecting the digital to our brains, the technology will certainly advance.