According to reports, on Wednesday local time, Nick Clegg, head of global affairs at Meta, reiterated that he will continue to develop the metaverse, and that the future of computing will take place in this still not fully defined space. in the virtual world.
The metaverse Clegg logged into was Meta’s Horizon Workrooms, and he himself logged in from London, while many journalists logged in from Washington using borrowed Meta Quest headsets. However, the avatars of this group of reporters in the metaverse only have the upper body, and only Craig’s avatar closely resembles himself.
While the Metaverse app experience today isn’t smooth enough, he promises that it will eventually be replaced by a more convenient experience that not only uses a lightweight device but also has legs for an avatar.
“We’re going to stick with this technology because we really think the early evidence points to this type of technology being at the heart of future computing platforms,” Clegg said. “But it’s going to take time.”
Clegg’s commitment to the Metaverse stands in stark contrast to the attitudes of other tech companies. The tech industry’s enthusiasm for the development of the Metaverse has shifted to the field of artificial intelligence, and the startup community has also focused on artificial intelligence. Some companies have scaled back spending on virtual experiences as tighter economic conditions have forced the tech industry to pool resources.
In February of this year, Microsoft canceled the Industrial Metaverse project in a mass layoff of 10,000 people. Microsoft has long been an ally of Meta, with CEO Satya Nadella appearing at the social media giant’s product event, announcing that it will co-develop virtual reality technology, as well as Microsoft’s productivity technology. Tools Teams, Word and Excel. Just this week, Disney also cut a department working on metaverse strategy in a major layoff.
Clegg said Wednesday that there are two main ways Meta can monetize its Metaverse investment: advertising and e-commerce. In fact, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram are making huge profits by using user data to send targeted ads to them, but how much time people are willing to invest in virtual goods, or whether they are willing to use VR tools for shopping, is still unclear. Know.
Meta has a delicate relationship with investors when it comes to its commitment to the Metaverse. Meta was originally named Facebook, and it was in order to vigorously develop the metaverse that the company was renamed Meta. In 2022, when facing three consecutive quarters of declining revenue, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg) insisted on investing heavily in the Metaverse. But investors chose to vote with their feet, sending the stock on track for its worst year ever.
Zuckerberg changed his attitude completely in February, declaring that 2023 is the “Year of Efficiency” and will focus on solving short-term problems. As a result, on the basis of layoffs of 11,000 last year, Meta laid off another 10,000 employees. The layoffs affect all teams, including the Reality Labs division that works on the Metaverse. Boosted by this, Facebook’s stock price rose rapidly instead, hitting a new one-year high.
The gaming and fitness industries have been quicker to embrace the Metaverse, but Clegg sees great potential in the education and healthcare industries as well. He also emphasized that the company is committed to involving researchers, civic organizations, and other companies in the development of the Metaverse to create an experience of “true creativity, real ingenuity, and real joy, so that we can all enjoy happy development.” .
In the virtual room on Wednesday, when a reporter asked a question, all three avatars on the screen moved their mouths, because in the physical room in Washington, three different headsets all detected the same voice. The scenery outside the virtual room is very beautiful, creating a beautiful scenery of green water and green mountains. Although in a virtual world, reporters still use physical notebooks to record on the spot, but when they try to peek at the physical notebook in front of them through the gap under the headset, a virtual arm flashes from the avatar.
“What I want to emphasize is that someday, when we look back at today’s headsets, it’s going to be like, ‘Oh my god, do you remember when we had the Quest Pro?'” Clegg said. “We have always been very clear that freezing three feet does not happen in a day.”
