What is the Metaverse?

With Facebook’s new branding, everyone is talking about the Metaverse. But what is the metaverse? What does it mean for technology? How will it impact our day to day lives? Here are just a few of our answers to these questions.

Full Transcript Below: 

Cris:

VR and AR all of it, very hot topic. What’s the difference between AR and VR? How does that fit in the metaverse?

Andrew:

The idea is I am still in my reality but things are added to it.

Cris:

Of the virtual reality headsets and you’re holding hand chucks and they’re creating this whole reality, like you said virtually around you.

Differences between AR and VR

Cris:

We’re going to talk about the metaverse. VR, AR all of it, very hot topic. Not the store, but a hot topic. All the stuff. Let’s start with differences. What’s the difference between AR and VR? How does that fit in the metaverse? Is that the metaverse? Talk me through it.

Andrew:

They both fit into the metaverse.

Cris:

Okay.

Andrew:

AR is augmented reality. VR is virtual reality. The differences have to do with the devices that you would use to achieve these different things. Virtual reality is a complete replacement of my reality. Where I’m in a virtual reality, an alternative reality. AR augmented reality, the idea is I am still in my reality but things are added to it, right? Maybe I am looking at a blank wall, my physical blank wall and I make a monitor appear. That would be an augmented reality, something added to it.

Cris:

We’re familiar with because they’ve been around since the eighties, but have progressed a lot I think a lot in the last five to ten years of the virtual reality headsets, and you’re holding hand checks and they’re creating this whole reality, like you said, virtually around you. AR I think a lot of online shopping.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Cris:

It gives you that opportunity. You can pull out your smartphone and you can say, “Hey. That blank wall, I want to actually look at how that photo is going to look on that wall with that picture.”

Andrew:

How would this couch look in my-

Cris:

How this couch look in my house. Yeah, and you have the ability —

Andrew:

Looking through your cell phone.

Cris:

To literally use the camera lens and the view finder on your phone to actually be able to see in the real world.

Andrew:

Right.

Cris:

So you’re mixing that augmented reality of the real and the interesting.

Andrew:

Right, and then virtual would be using the Oculus or something like that.

Cris:

There we go.

Andrew:

Some sort of head set.

Cris:

Name drop.

Andrew:

Not sponsored by Oculus.

Cris:

Not sponsored Oculus, but we’re okay with that.

Andrew:

We are currently taking sponsorships.

Cris:

Yes.

Andrew:

And they’ll probably date us too.

Relationship to the Metaverse

Cris:

That’s fine. They’ll have a new version. The metaverse. We said AR VR fits in the metaverse. What is the metaverse? How does it fit in? What is it?

Andrew:

Yeah. The metaverse is a combination of virtual reality, augmented reality, video that allows me to live in a essentially a virtual universe.

Cris:

Okay. Where does Nick Fury and the Marvel team fit into all of this? Or do they not?

Andrew:

I don’t have an analogy for that in this particular video.

Cris:

Okay.

Andrew:

You’re going to make me sound like a Marvel fan, when I’m not really.

Challenges to the Metaverse

Cris:

No, it’s fine. What opportunities then I guess in challenges, are we seeing now as we’re trying to apply these technologies of AR and VR and just all these different mixed elements into our regular day to day lives. What’s kind of this impact on the industry that we’re seeing now and how are we seeing challenges and how are we overcoming some of these challenges with tech?

Andrew:

Well, I mean, trying to marry everything together and obviously try to get adoption of these technologies. I mean, it’s obviously very probably bleeding edge at this point in time. At the time this video is recorded, it can affect a whole lot of industries. I mean, the obvious one that comes to mind when you think of virtual reality is gaming.

Cris:

Okay.

Andrew:

I can shoot arrows and kill pirates and do beat sabers and all sorts of fun stuff like that. There’s also retail, which is a really fun one.

Cris:

Sure.

Andrew:

Where you’re talking about virtualizing stores or potentially getting information on a product, being able to see more than I look at the physical product and I see more information. Was it responsibly sourced?

Cris:

Yeah.

Andrew:

How does this lamp look in my room, all those kind of things. So obviously retail, there’s a lot of opportunities.

Cris:

Interesting.

Andrew:

Social.

Cris:

It makes me even think not to cut you off. It makes me even think of like they have those popup restaurants, or even we’ve seen popup stores happen. You could literally do a popup store in an empty warehouse with a bunch of virtual headsets and go around and shop. And then now with the ability to literally do a VPN into your wallet or account or whatever, actually digitally purchase things off of online stores in a digital environment, that’s actually in an empty warehouse, which is now a bit of AR and VR happening of shifting your actual reality to a new digital one.

Andrew:

Or I could be in that virtual store from my home.

Cris:

Sure.

Andrew:

Right.

Cris:

A hundred percent.

Andrew:

While I’m still in bed or I could be at a virtual after party with real people after a concert. They showed that in the keynote.

Cris:

Yeah.

Andrew:

Facebook did. I thought it was a pretty cool idea. It definitely has a cool social aspect to it too, where they gave the example of right now we look at everything through the screen of say our phone or monitor, and we’re staring through essentially through a window at something. Where my wife texts a picture of my dog or a video of my dog and I look at it through this window, as opposed to where in the metaverse I could be potentially standing there watching the dog do these things, right? It’s like the difference between being in the video and being there and just kind of watching it on a screen.

Cris:

Yeah.

Andrew:

Obviously social, it could change a lot. Work and just kind of the nature of remote work, right? We could be in the office. We could I think we’re so used to Zoom calls and Google Meet and things like that where we’re seeing everybody’s faces, but how much more engaging would it be to actually feel like I’m in the room with those people and I think it would really change the nature of remote work.

Downsides to the Metaverse

Cris:

That’s good. Are there downsides to the metaverse?

Andrew:

None whatsoever.

Cris:

None whatsoever. Yeah. Are there limitations? I mean, obviously there’s always limitations with a new burgeoning technology and we will continue to overcome those. But what are kind of the limitations that you’re seeing right now, or areas that maybe are not impacted by the metaverse at this point that you think should be impacted by it because there’s great use cases or what are some limitations with like, you just can’t really do this yet.

Andrew:

There’s a lot. Obviously sensory limitations,. If I’m at the virtual bar, I can’t have a real cocktail or whatever.

Cris:

Sure.

Andrew:

Or eat it. I can be in the virtual restaurant, but I can’t actually taste the sushi, that kind of thing. There is limitations like that but there’s other things that it’s just really going to be a really good fit for where we don’t know necessarily have where sensory limitations aren’t a problem.

Cris:

That’s good. Final thoughts as we kind of wrap up here, because we’ve talked a lot about video games, entertainment industry. I think that’s where this is going. I’m going to give you the moment to just kind of tee one up where do you think the metaverse is going to take us in a non-entertainment industry moving forward. If you have a thought, because I think it’s heavy there right now in entertainment and video games and so on and so forth and it’s killing it but what’s the thing? Yeah. What’s the thing is it education? Is it something else that really has some opportunities in your mind that maybe you’re seeing?

Andrew:

Well, I mean educational would be a great one.

Cris:

Yeah.

Andrew:

With students being remote or doing remote classes and things like that. I think you could take experiences that are remote and make them much more intimate as if you were in person. I think there’s a lot of opportunities with connecting people.

Andrew:

Something else we were talking about too, that I think is true is that it’ll be kind of incremental the adoption and that there’s so many physical things that we’re used to interacting with and we’ll probably recreate those physical things in the metaverse, right? Like a phone or something like that and we’re like, how do you call someone in the metaverse. You use a phone because that’s familiar and then after a while it’ll seem not necessary that it’d be a phone or a physical representation of a phone.

Cris:

Sure.

Andrew:

Right? It’ll be probably more Minority Report sort of thing where there’s just some way where we or-

Cris:

I want some gloves.

Andrew:

Right or they appear or we teleport to them, but I could see initially it being very let’s just recreate everything in the physical in the metaverse until we realize it’s not really necessary.

Cris:

Yeah. It’s so encouraging and it’s been a lot of fun for me in my lifetime to see things that as a child that you only saw in Star Wars and Star Trek and in Tron and just or even just going to Disneyland and seeing these animatronic things and now to get to a point where we’re marrying all of the physical world, the digital world, and basically having the ability to create something new and exciting and hopefully bring humanity closer together, not push us apart. I think that’s the risk that we always run, but I’m excited to see us continue to walk that line and marry these two worlds together.

Alexandra:

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Bixly Tech Tuesday with Andrew and Chris discussing all things VR, AR, the metaverse and the impact on the tech industry.

Alexandra:

If you have any questions of what they talk about today, go ahead and leave them in the comment section. Don’t forget to check out our description box down below. We have a bunch of really helpful links for you guys, including a link to our free custom software guide and a link to our website where you can actually access Cris for a free 60 minute conversation. You just hit that button. Start my roadmap right up at the top, to be able to have a conversation with him about your next app idea. Until next time, this has been an episode of Bixly Tech Tuesday.