Little by little, the months that have passed since last summer, Meta (then Facebook) announced their most ambitious project to date, the metaverse. A proposal, as the company has endeavored to let us know, to create a virtual reality infrastructure never seen before, with interconnection of all kinds of services, digital assets that could be used throughout the platform, etc. A project so big that the group has even chosen to change its name and its main objective.
However, despite the fanfare with which Meta has sold us, from day one, its metaverse, the truth is that expectations have not been and are not up to what I would like in Menlo Park, not to mention that technology companies like Intel have pointed to the technological deficiencies, while others like Apple have already said that they have no intention of joining the party. A fairly decaffeinated start, to which we must add the low implementation of virtual reality today. The prospects are not too optimistic.
However, and as is fully understandable, Meta does not give up on its plans for the future, and is going to take several steps in a direction that, personally, seems to me the most intelligent if it intends to attract users to its metaverse, and that is that now part of its plans is to make it easier for users, and especially for people who may feel a certain curiosity, that can experience for themselves what the Meta virtual environment has to offer.
For this, on the one hand, Meta will open a store in Burlingame, California on May 9 (in a location quite close to the company’s facilities dedicated to virtual reality) especially dedicated to the Metaverse. In it, visitors will be able to experience Zuckerberg’s proposal in an environment specially designed for this purpose. In it, the company’s physical devices can be purchased, but it is clear that its main reason for being is to offer a test space.
And on the other hand, in a project that I must admit is particularly tempting to me, although of course not easily accessible, Meta and the more than prestigious Smithsonian, more specifically the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building (AIB), have reached a collaboration agreement through which the company will be the technological partner for the start-up of an exhibition based on virtual reality, in which attendees can participate in a recreation of a moon walk. The activity will be operational from May 4 to June 6.
With these two actions, Meta scores a good point in terms of bringing virtual reality and the metaverse closer to its potential users, no doubt in order to increase the interest on which their future plans depend. Now, of course, the key is that both experiences are satisfactory for its users, and that they represent only the beginning of a much more ambitious plan.
With information from Gizmodo and VentureBeat
