Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday talked up his company's efforts to build the metaverse, an immersive virtual world he has billed as the Facebook parent's future.
Doubts have swirled about whether the major metaverse
investments will pay off for Meta, which changed its name from Facebook last
year to highlight its shifting focus -- though critics claim it was to distract
from negative media reports.
Meanwhile, formidable rivals such as Apple, Google and
Microsoft seem poised to compete with Meta on the new virtual terrain.
The metaverse is a 3D virtual world where people will be
able to interact using sensors, head gear and other gadgets.
Meta's early metaverse platform, called Horizon Worlds,
already allows people to socialize virtually while represented by avatars.
"The kinds of experiences you'll have in the metaverse
are beyond what's possible today," Zuckerberg said as he opened a
conference aiming to offer a glimpse inside Meta's development labs.
"That's going to require advances in a whole range of
areas from hardware devices to software for building and exploring
worlds."
Artificial intelligence is key to unlocking those advances,
according to Zuckerberg, who noted that future platforms will need to be able
to understand virtual worlds, and provide translation services for the many
languages used in them.
Hit global video games such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and
Roblox, which run on traditional gaming platforms, are seen as precursors to
the metaverse.
But rivals are not letting Meta's claim to the metaverse go
unchallenged.
Google, which stumbled early with augmented reality glasses,
has a team of engineers, designers, and scientists "building the
foundations for great immersive computing," according to an online job
posting.
Apple, meanwhile, has bought start-ups specializing in the
field and is rumored to be working on its own mixed-reality headgear.
Microsoft, a video game industry powerhouse through its Xbox
system and titles such as "Minecraft," has made a $69 billion deal to
buy Activision Blizzard, mentioning the metaverse as part of its motivation for
the merger.
Meta's stock price has plummeted since its most recent
quarterly earnings showed growth slipping and its revenue taking a major hit
due to Apple's changes to its ad targeting rules.
In addition to Facebook, Meta's products include Instagram,
WhatsApp, Messenger, and virtual reality headset Oculus.
On Wednesday, Meta shares sank lower than $200 for the first
time in nearly two years.
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