GIant techs like Meta and Microsoft tiptoes to build the emerging metaverse concept have formed a group to stimulate the development of industry standards that would make the companies’ nascent digital worlds in tune with each other. The organization is called MetaverseStandards Forum, and its founding members include Meta, Microsoft, Huawei, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Epic Games, Unity, and Adobe. As Reuters notes, one company that’s conspicuously missing from the list is Apple. Multiple reports have shown out these past few years that Apple is releasing its virtual or augmented reality headset, and it’s expected to become a major player in the metaverse when the device becomes available.
Noticeably missing from the member list for now however is Apple, which analysts expect to become a dominant player in the metaverse race once it introduces a mixed reality headset this year or next? Gaming companies Roblox and Niantic also were not included among the forum’s participants, nor were emerging crypto-based metaverse platforms like The Sandbox or Decentraland.
Establishing such a compatible device would put Apple in direct competition with Meta, which has jeopardise its future on the growth of the metaverse and invested heavily in hardware to make its vision of interconnected virtual worlds a reality.
What is Metaverse?
Although the concept of the Metaverse has existed for more than a decade, it has become popular worldwide, with big companies such as Facebook and Microsoft announcing related projects. The speculation around this persistent shared virtual world grows as more people comprehend its exciting possibilities.
During the recent pandemic the Metaverse concept gain popularity when people preferred to avoid in-person interaction, companies implemented remote working policies and adopted digital modes of communication. As a result of such emergence, people wanted to learn about Metaverse and understand its utility.
The Metaverse represents a highly interactive three-dimensional virtual world. Like the real world, users can trade land, buildings, and other digital assets in the Metaverse and explore the space using their personalized avatars. These avatars are replicas of the user that can do everything a human can do in the real world.
Meta and Microsoft CoupleUp
Meta, known as Facebook has disclosed plans for a mixed-reality headset code-named “Cambria” to be released this year. Apple has been heavily involved in creating web standards such as HTML5 in the past. For three-dimensional content in the metaverse, Apple worked with Pixar on the “USDZ” file format and with Adobe to ensure it supported the format.
Neil Trevett, an executive at chip maker Nvidia who is chairing the Metaverse Standards Forum, said in a statement to Reuters that any company is welcome to join the group, including participants from the crypto world. The forum aims to facilitate communication between a variety of standards organizations and companies to bring about “real-world interoperability” in the metaverse, he said, without addressing how Apple’s absence would affect that goal.
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