Companies pushing into the metaverse

I climbed into the front seat of the air taxi, fastened my seat belt, and braced myself for takeoff. The futuristic cityscape of Busan, South Korea, is gone and a digital avatar pops up on the windshield with a message.

I couldn’t answer because a wave of motion sickness hit me. The virtual reality The goggles combined with the chair simulate the movement of tilting back and forth, making me feel like I am really floating and moving in the air. They also made me so nauseous that I had to close my eyes for the rest of the three minutes.

Welcome to metaverse– type.

The air taxi model of the Korean company SK Telecom is one of the eye-catching performance at MWC, or Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest telecommunications industry trade show. Technology companies and wireless network In Expo this week in Barcelona show advances to connect people and businesses online, more and more in the new virtual reality world dubbed as inverse.

Traveler Mark Varahona also felt dizzy after trying out the flight but still considered buying one. virtual reality headsethardware needed to step into any immersive digital universe.

“I thought to buy it before I came here. And maybe now I will,” he said. “They look pretty good.”

Metaverse exploded in popularity after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in late 2021 declared it the next big thing for the internet, rebranding his social media empire and investing tens of billions dollars on this idea.

He describes it as a 3D community where people can meet, work and play—do everything from digitally try on clothes, host a virtual meeting or take an online trip. .

But doubts about the metaverse’s viability grew as the initial hype wore off. According to NPD Research, virtual reality headset sales in the US fell 2% in December from the previous year. The actual lab, where the Meta Quest headsets are made, announced an operating loss of $13.7 billion in 2022.

Meta says it plans to hire 10,000 engineers in Europe to work on the metaverse. When asked for an update, the company said: “Our expansion in Europe has always been a long-term plan planned for many years. We remain committed to Europe.”

“The supermarket is not gone yet,” said Ben Wood, principal analyst at CCS Insight. “But I think there’s more skepticism about its role, especially in the consumer sector beyond the obvious ones like gaming.”

The definition of the metaverse is difficult to define, adding to the skepticism. Tuong Nguyen, an analyst specializing in emerging technologies at Gartner, says it’s not like virtual reality and its cousin, augmented reality.

“So AR and VR are very closely related to the metaverse in the same way that computers are related to the Internet,” he said. “Instead, think of it as the evolution of the Internet, which changed the way we interact with the world.”

So how should SK Telecom’s flight simulator be defined?

“Technically, it’s not a metaverse, it’s a kind of metaverse,” said Ken Wohn, the company’s director.

South Korea’s largest telecommunications service provider teamed up last year with California’s Joby Aviation to develop an electric air taxi service to the country.

Wohn said that one day, flying taxis could operate autonomously, using high-speed 5G wireless connections.

It’s a different experience at French wireless company Orange’s performing metaversewhere the user is transported to a neon-colored futuristic tech scene with lightning bolts, giant robots, and a falcon carrying a green orb in its talons.

A dancing figure appears, representing the movements of a real-life dancer wearing a motion capture device. It’s a brilliant display, though its purpose isn’t immediately obvious.

Miguel Angel Almonacid, director of network strategy for Orange in Spain, says it demonstrates how new 5G network will eliminate latency for metaverse users watching something happen in the distance.

Analysts say the metaverse may be better suited for practical purposes in the workplace.

“That’s where we’ll see the first traction because the barriers aren’t as high,” said Gartner’s Nguyen. For example, a worker might use augmented reality glasses to show diagnostics or manuals.

Spanish startup La Frontera uses metadata to provide virtual meetings with “realistic avatars,” said Marta Ortiz de Lucas-Baquero, business development executive, as she guide me on company metadata.

We arrived first on a beach, with rocks, palm trees and light blue sea. Her avatar appears, a head and shoulders with monstrous hands hovering over her chest. We walked into a nearby conference room with a conference room table, where I used the handheld controller to pick up 3D objects like a toy ray gun and a bottle of champagne.

Other metaverse applications include training for risky, repetitive, or highly detailed procedures, such as surgery.

The beach disappeared, replaced by a tank truck that overturned and caught fire. A fire extinguisher hangs in midair. Ortiz de Lucas-Baquero told me to take it with my virtual hand and spray it on the flames that were beginning to go out.

Virtual worlds can also be useful for showcasing products that are too large to move easily, such as private jets. She said La Frontera has digitally cataloged the fleet of NetJets so that customers can check out different models online.

Or they may be too small for humans.

The scene shifts into a sci-fi setting, with crimson walls rising up around us, representing the inside of a blood vessel. Red-brown donut-shaped blood cells pass by, followed by spiked spheres. The walls of the blood vessels open up, revealing white streaks that vibrate against a blue background, depicting nerve cells in the brain.

La Frontera works with pharmaceutical companies to “show how a drug works in the body at the cellular level,” says Ortiz de Lucas-Baquero. In this case, it’s a drug to treat multiple sclerosis that attacks brain neurons.

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