News review: and meanwhile in the metaverse… (Microsoft, ByteDance, Valve, HTC, etc.)
The metaverse has been trending for a few months, and it’s an understatement to say so much here at KultureGeek we are overwhelmed with information related from near or far with this still vague concept launched by a Zuckerberg in a hurry that we are interested in something other than the business that taints FaceBook (sorry, Meta). The fact is that the announcements of projects, technologies and games around virtual, augmented or mixed reality have multiplied for some time, and to make an exhaustive treatment of them on our site would have interfered with the other categories of information (and it everyone needs it…). In order to miss almost nothing, we deliver you all the same here, in summary, the important announcements of these last days which had not yet been able to find their place:
1 – We start this tour of the Meals of the Metavers with Microsoftwho closed two weeks ago the social hubs of AltspaceVR, i.e. all VR spaces open to everyone. The reason for this twist? Several returns of acts of harassment, mainly against female avatars (and therefore often users behind). Microsoft has also activated the protection zone by default, which prevents an avatar-user from getting too close to another avatar. In addition, the Redmond firm has promised that within the next few weeks, new moderation systems will be implemented as well as parental controls that prohibit the area to minors for too long a period of time. Finally, you will soon ALSO need a Microsoft account to navigate in AltspaceVR
2 – According to MetaMetric Solutions, the virtual real estate market should weigh no less than 1 billion dollars in 2022 on the “metaverse” platforms concernedthat is Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels and Somnium. According to BrandEssence Market Research, this time, this market will grow another 31% by 2028 (we bet it will be much more than that…).
3 – disney named a few weeks ago Mike White as the big boss of his Metavers division. The leader was previously responsible, still at Disney, for consumer platforms. Bob Chapek, CEO of Disney: “ The Metaverse is the next great storytelling frontier and the place to pursue our strategic pillars of storytelling excellence, innovation and audience focus.” This is both clear… and very vague.
4 – LIVE still improves the system Rental Based Entertainment (LBE)which allows you to place VR elements on a real physical decor (the real pillar of a VR room can be covered with jungle, futuristic or other textures). “With arUco codes, it is also easy to integrate physical objects such as obstacles and walls into the game – the helmet camera sees the code on the object and imports the graphic textures. So players can physically lean on an object that looks like an empty wall in real life, but in VR is part of the bulkhead of a spaceship; simply stunning and exhilarating! “. The LBE is of course fully compatible with HTC Vive headsets.
5 – Gabe Newellthe CEO of Valve, told Edge Magazine that the Steam Deck will eventually allow to obtain a portable PCVR platform: “One of the things that [le Steam Deck] represents is a high-performance battery power that you could possibly use in VR applications as well. You can take the PC and build something much more portable. We are not really there yet, but it is a springboard. »
6 – Townscaper, a brilliant, super-intuitive city-building game available on all devices (including the iPhone) is being adapted for VR (and obviously for Meta Quest 2). This is extremely promising:
Looking at basic VR design. Current idea is to use a point on a stick for interaction (rather than a raycast) so that you can build in the air. Those points also serve as grabbig points for grab-navigation. Feels tactile. pic.twitter.com/QvqoJzkn9y
— Oskar Stålberg (@OskSta) March 3, 2022
7 – ByteDance, publisher of TikTok and recent owner of VR headset manufacturer Pico Interactive, took advantage of WMC 2022 to announce a partnership with Qualcomm. In other words, the next Pico VR headsets will be equipped with an XR chip from Qualcomm.
