Interconnected Realities

9Metaverse Game‐Changers

What do we need to build now to eventually bring an enjoyable, affordable, problem‐solving Metaverse experience to everyone on the planet? The answer involves multiple companies across multiple industries, and we're going to see a lot of innovation, experimentation, trial and error, and sheer guesswork in the process.

Let's consider the question of hardware. PCs, tablets, and smartphones, with their 2D screens, are the dominant hardware form factor for Internet access. If we're to move our digital content off these screens and into our world, we necessarily need a type of hardware that we can look through so that we can see both our world and these digital additions at the same time. We can do this with tablets and smartphones now, but only by occupying one of our hands with holding the device. That's not practical for either work or play; being able to have full use of both of our hands while we receive digital information is the ideal.

Okay, so a headset. I'm a huge fan of virtual reality, but even I have to acknowledge that there's limited appeal in putting something that's relatively heavy on your head for long periods of time. If you have a (relatively) affordable VR headset without effective pass‐through video, then being in VR is like going to the movie theater. You can have amazing experiences there, but you're completely cut off from the physical world while you're there, and you won't spend more than a couple of hours there at a time. If you ...