This Week in the Metaverse for October 31, 2022

0 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:38,000 Script: October 24, 2022 1 00:00:39,000 --> 00:01:07,000 Hi, it’s Mike Stiles and this is This Week in the Metaverse, your weekly newscast that keeps you up to date on everything that isn’t real, and yet is. It’s Halloween, October 31st, and I am dressed like a sexy cat. Let’s see if the metaverse got any scarier. 2 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:36,000 Let’s face it, this was the week for open metaverse bashing. Actually, it was the week for Mark Zuckerberg and Meta bashing, but many mistakenly equate what Meta’s doing in the metaverse with the entire metaverse movement. The two are not equal and Meta is but one builder of it. Still, market research firm Canalys predicts most business projects in the metaverse will have failed and closed up shop by 2025. Remember when people mocked social media when it first started? But who knows? Canalys’ proclamation of doom might be right. Meta’s Reality Labs has lost about $16 billion. But apparently Meta has some resources, and Zuck thinks the metaverse will work and make trillions of dollars eventually. Canalys’ Matthew Ball doesn’t think you can take optimism to the bank and asks, "Is the metaverse the next digital frontier or an overhyped money pit?" He does think gaming and porn might find success in the metaverse. But big non-porn companies are hedging their bets. An estimated $5-13 trillion is expected to have been invested in the metaverse by 2030. 3 00:01:37,000 --> 00:02:05,000 Another company that is not ignoring the metaverse is Apple, just don’t call it the metaverse though. Rob Thubron at Techspot reports Apple’s reportedly been working on its own virtual universe and plans to introduce a new mixed reality headset. However, Apple’s VP of Worldwide Marketing Greg Joswiak told the Wall Street Journal he’ll never use the word “metaverse.” That word will be like Rumpelstiltskin to him. Or for those of you who don’t know that story, it’ll be like Voldemort. So why won’t he say it? Well Meta and Apple have kind of been taking digs at each other, with Meta making fun of Apple’s closed systems and Apple CEO Tim Cook saying the average person doesn’t know what the metaverse is. It’s a tech giant cage match! Either way, it looks like Apple might introduce an advanced and pricey headset next year that will integrate with their other products. I’ll bet you a box of doughnuts they call it the iVerse. 4 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:34,000 Want some more Meta bashing? Well, we’ve got it for you. Will McCurdy at Decrypt tell us what Phil Spencer has to say about it. He’s Microsoft’s CEO of gaming and he describes Meta’s Horizon Worlds as “a poorly built video game.” Mostly he thinks it looks like crap, especially when you compare it to the near photo-realism of today’s video games. He said “video game creators have an amazing ability to build compelling worlds we want to spend time in, like Minecraft. For me, building a metaverse that looks like a meeting room, that's not where I want to spend most of my time." To be clear, he’s not saying the metaverse will never work, it’s just that if it ever does work, it will look a whole lot different than Mark’s scary face in front of a weird Eiffel Tower with no legs. He said, “There are engagement models where you can really have productive interactions and get things done in 3D virtual spaces.” Palmer Luckey, who founded Occulus Rift at 19, was even more brutal. “It’s not fun, it’s not good.” 5 00:02:35,000 --> 00:03:03,000 If the metaverse is doomed, the Japanese have not gotten the message. One city there is ready to infuse it into its education sector as a way of eliminating absenteeism. The city is Toda, and it wants students to be able to access classes and campuses in the metaverse even before they join real world classes. Your first question is, “Is avoiding school really that big of a problem in Japan?” It is. A recent survey shows more than 240,000 students were absent from school a minimum of 30 days. They think it’s an after-effect of the pandemic. Another survey shows fifth graders got used to interacting online and now prefer that to interacting with real kids in person, which is sad. So the idea is virtual classes in the metaverse will be a safe place to learn that will help ease kids back into the real world, which is even sadder. Whether all this happens depends on the say-so of principals in schools across the city. They could just say shut up and go to school. But things are happening at the college level. Tokyo University is going to allow students to take courses in the metaverse. 6 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:32,000 We talked about Apple a second ago and whether or not they’re into metaverse things and if so, how. Well, it looks like they’re no friend of NFTs. RT Watson at The Block writes that Apple is restricting apps from using NFTs so their users can do business with that app company outside of Apple’s watchful eyes. Why does Apple keep their watchful eye on app transactions? Because Apple takes up to 30% commission on them. So, at least for now, they don’t want NFT buyers and sellers to do business in apps and they updated their App Store policy to reflect that. We’re sure you curled up by the fire with a wine and read the App Store policy, didn’t you? You think taking a 30% cut is a lot? You’re right. NFT marketplaces charge about a tenth of that. But Apple’s policy is you can’t use NFTs that include “buttons, external links or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms other than in-app purchase.” Mostly what you can do is use marketplace apps to look at your NFTs. 7 00:03:33,000 --> 00:04:01,000 Okay, last Meta story. Sure a lot of people are laughing at Mark Zuckerberg right now but at least one person isn’t. In fact, he’s saying laugh all you want but Zuckerberg will “own your eyeballs in 5 years.” The person who said that is none other than famous letting-cats-out-of-the-bag practitioner Edward Snowden. Shanthi Rexaline at Benzinga Editor reports Snowden made the comments after shares of Meta took a dive. Is Snowden a fan of the metaverse? Not necessarily. In August of 2021, he tweeted that Facebook’s vision of the future is seen in how they steal and repackage the VRchat concept, adding the company traps you in a ‘low-rez workplace and cuts off your legs.’ He does think there’s a strong place for VR/AR meetings, but “Facebook has gone to extreme lengths to prove it can’t be trusted to respect the boundaries required for private meetings.” You may remember, Snowden’s big on privacy. He ruined his life over it. Other critics have pointed out that many current MR prototype systems have face, eye, body and hand tracking tech and most have sophisticated cameras, with some even incorporating “electroencephalogram technology” to pick up brainwave patterns. You know that phrase “keep your thoughts to yourself”? You won’t be able to. 8 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:30,000 That’s all we have for you this week. Subscribe to the show now that you know we don’t ask for much of your time, tell somebody about it, and we’ll be back next week. 9 00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:33,000 In this short episode you’ll learn: 10 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:36,000 Why it’s predicted most business projects in the metaverse will fail by 2025. 11 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:39,000 Why Apple won’t even use the word “metaverse”. 12 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:42,000 Why graphics in the metaverse have to get as good as today’s video games. 13 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:45,000 How one city in Japan is applying the metaverse to their education system. 14 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:48,000 Why Apple is being antagonistic about NFTs. 15 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:51,000 And a warning about the metaverse from privacy fan Edward Snowden. 16 00:04:52,000 --> 00:05:00,000 https://thisweekinthemetaverse.podbean.com/e/this-week-in-the-metaverse-for-october-24-2022/