Again, this is a text version and quite a long summary of the podcast rather than a transcript. I (Jim Love) edited it, but it was created by Doug Sparkes PhD and me. It relies heavily on the work of Michael Ball. Ball, for those unfamiliar with him, has written extensively on the metaverse and is one of the undisputed experts in the field.
Some will say that we have years and maybe even decades of development before we have a functioning metaverse. Others might say it’s already there. To some extent, they may both be right.
Which brings us to the work of Mathew Ball. Ball has written one of the best “blueprint” papers on the metaverse, which he calls the “Metaverse Primer.”
Without hype and with amazing clarity, Ball makes it clear how important the metaverse will be. He likens it to transformative technology – an example of this is the electrification of our world.
Electrification took place over decades, but it has truly transformed every aspect of our lives. Ball’s essay on this is long and complicated, but worth a read for anyone interested in understanding how technology has changed our world. That transformation took almost a century, so it is possible to analyze every step in detail.
But it really makes its point.
“We can identify when a specific technology was created, tested or implemented, but not when exactly an era occurred.”
For a more modern example, Ball looks at another transformation – one that was much faster and one that most of us have experienced – the mobile internet.
Ball even argues that the metaverse “is best understood as “a quasi successor to the mobile Internet.” This is because the Metaverse will not fundamentally replace the Internet, but will instead build upon and transform it iteratively.”
He goes on to claim that “the mobile internet has not changed the underlying architecture of the internet” – “the vast majority of internet traffic today is still sent over and managed by fixed infrastructure” – we still recognize it as iteratively different”.
Ball says: “This is because the mobile internet has brought about changes in the way we access the internet, where, when and why, as well as the devices we use, the companies we buy from, the products and services we buy. , the technologies we use, our culture, our business model and our politics.
But when did the ‘mobile era’ really begin? Was it with the BlackBerry? It had a huge impact, but on a relatively small part of the population. Was it the iPhone? Again it was extraordinary, but was that the dawn of the new age?
It really wasn’t until all apps, all technological advancements and you could even argue – not until we had 3G or even 4G networks before the real mobile era started. Many different technological developments have to take place before we can say that an “era” has begun.
It is likely that, as with any other age, we do not recognize that it has arrived until we are well into that new age.
But we can reach into the future and imagine what it takes to really be in the age of the metavers. Ball gives us such a definition:
“The Metaverse is a massively scaled and Iinteroperable network from real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds which can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an effective unlimited number of users Immediately individual sense of presenceand with continuity of data, such as identity, history, rights, objects, communication and payments.”
When will arrive as complete? Again, if we consider Ball as an authority, his prediction is that “the full vision of the Metaverse is decades away. It requires extraordinary technical progress (we are far from being able to produce shared, sustained simulations that millions of users have in real time. synchronized), and perhaps regulatory involvement as well, and requires a review of corporate policies and changes in consumer behavior.”
But perhaps the most interesting thing about Ball’s Primer is what the metaverse is NOT:
He says: “Usually the Metaverse is misdescribed as virtual reality. In reality, virtual reality is just a way to experience the Metaverse. To say that VR is the Metaverse is like saying that mobile internet is an app. As a corollary of it above, VR headsets are no more the Metaverse than smartphones are the mobile internet.”
It’s also not just “a user-generated virtual world or virtual world platform”. Ball says, “This is like saying the Internet is Facebook or Geocities. Facebook is a UGC-focused social network on the Internet, while Geocities made it easy to create web pages that lived on the Internet. UGC experiences are just one of many experiences on the internet.”
And it’s not a video game. Yes, we will be playing games in the Metaverse, but those are games in the Metaverse, not the Metaverse itself.
Finally, the Metaverse is not tools like Unreal or Unity or WebXR or WebGPU. This is like saying the Internet is TCP/IP, HTTP, or web browser. These are protocols on which the Internet depends and the software used to display it.
The metaverse is not one development. It’s when these things come together to create virtual worlds, sustained experiences that change behavior, culture, and worldview on a massive scale. To get there, developments are needed in a number of areas:
- Hardware
- Networking
- Calculate
- Virtual platforms
- Exchange Tools and Standards
- Metaverse content services and resources
- User behavior
To answer the question – when does the era of the metaverse really start, you have to look at the maturity of all these components.
Much of what Ball is talking about may be given today’s hardware. But it would be a big mistake to think that with mobile devices and VR headsets we are almost there?
Even if you could convince everyone to wear a headset – and that’s a point of contention with many, there would still be challenges with our current technology.
Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life, made it his mission to come back to develop a metaverse that doesn’t require VR headsets. Cook at Apple actually said the same thing.
But even if you CAN get past the resistance. There are still technical problems. We’ll talk about latency later, but the hardware challenges alone are incredible.
Humans can see a range of 210 degrees on average. Look straight ahead and imagine a circle around you. Now we all know what 90 degrees is — so that would be a straight line going through your waist — or if you had your arms out to your sides. That’s 180 degrees. Now push your arms, keeping them stretched as far back as possible. And unless you’re a yoga guru, you still haven’t reached the 210-degree peripheral vision range.
The average headset – even the high-end can handle a maximum of 52 degrees. That creates real problems for people. So before we can have a truly immersive world, we need to solve this technical problem.
Therefore, the headset is not a slam dunk. In fact, even Zuckerberg, who has staked the farm on virtual reality, admits that making a wearable headset that is comfortable enough is a huge technical challenge. Power, computing power – optics.
We’re not even sure that these VR goggles will be the ultimate winners. Apple is working on its own augmented reality glasses – and that has proved challenging to even release a first version. And Google was burned with the first release of Google Glass
But we shouldn’t ignore Google here. They bought North – a Waterloo startup in 2020, and withdrew their current glasses from the market. But Google also has “Google Booth” a 3D life-size calling booth.
This could be “version 1 of the holodeck in Star Trek”, but a lot still needs to be done to make it a reality.
Networking
Finally, we need phenomenal bandwidth. 5G is not enough. We need a minimum of 5G speeds, not just in specific locations, but everywhere. These virtual worlds consume bandwidth. Ball points out that Microsoft Flight Simulator needs more than 2.5 petabytes of data – 2,500,000 gigabytes.
In games, there are tricks you can use to fool the users, but a huge metaverse has several challenges. Using ‘flight simulator’ as an example of a virtual world, what would it take if we were all flying in the same plane? How much data is used and sent if 10,000 people want to fly an airplane? Or what if a million do?
Finally, it’s not just sheer speed or computing power, there’s latency too. We looked at this in our Deeper Dive into 5G.
Latency is the time it takes for signals to go back and forth. It’s a huge problem today. If you’re watching a video, you won’t be disturbed if the video and audio sync up 45 milliseconds early or 125 milliseconds late. That’s still less than the “blink of an eye” – the average blink is 400 milliseconds – 4 to 8 times faster.
Even if we get perfect 5G everywhere, or full fiber home, there’s still the physics – if you go through North America, east coast to west coast – Halifax to Vancouver, New York to Los Angeles, then you have about 65 milliseconds need live with it. Forget network congestion, rerouting, inefficient networks, the challenge is real.
To do this in multiple virtual worlds and experiences is beyond the networks and even the computing power we have today. Even if we replace all the copper in the world with fiber and perfect 5G, we will still have a computing challenge that makes cryptocurrency mining seem like a walk in the park.
Another one of the problems with virtual worlds – how to make them persistent, have currencies, and be able to be “owned” as unique properties – is provided by another energy and processing hog – blockchain.
Finally, there is the challenge of interchangeability and standards. This could be solved by having one metaverse provider, but that is extremely unlikely.
To conclude:
The metaverse is not a thing. It really is an “age” – like the electricity age or the mobile internet.
It consists of huge 3D worlds that are synchronous and persistent. It should accommodate an unlimited number of users and provide a continuous and consistent experience.
We’ve fixed some technological changes, but if there’s a comparison, we’re on the level of pong or simple video games versus today’s 3D games. There are real challenges to get to the point where we will really feel the real impact. And those are huge challenges.
There’s a wide variety of elements that need to be developed and perfected before they can converge to really take us to the age of the metaverse – because it’s not one part. It’s not:
- VR is not an app any more than mobile internet – and the idea of virtual versus augmented reality is not yet a foregone conclusion
- A game or games – even if we play games
- The tools that make it
And with what might be bad news for Mark Zuckerberg, it’s unlikely to be a single, dominant virtual world
That’s the content of episode two in a nutshell. In episode three we look at the ‘map of the metaverse’. Where are we now and what could we become?
0 Comments