The metaverse is the largest buzzword in know-how at present, eclipsing NFTs, which loved the limelight in 2021. Fb altering its title to replicate its shift in focus to this new know-how is all of the proof you want for simply how huge the metaverse is. Robert Rice, nevertheless, believes that the majority corporations seemingly within the lead might be gone in a couple of years, and solely those who build a metaverse that impacts people’s real lives will survive.

Rice is the founding father of Transmira, the corporate behind the experiential reality (XR) platform Omniscape. CoinGeek Backstage host Jon Southurst caught up with him in Dubai on the sidelines of the BSV Global Blockchain Convention, the place he was one of the biggest stars.

“The metaverse is really exciting right now,” he famous, including that his workforce’s method units them aside as they deal with marrying the metaverse with the actual world.

People don’t need one other VR game, he added. “We want the Matrix, something that’s going to impact the real world and our real lives.”

At present, it’s virtually unimaginable to speak concerning the metaverse with out mentioning Fb, now Meta (NASDAQ: META), and Mark Zuckerberg’s try and monopolize this technology as he has with social media. Rice, nevertheless, believes that Zuck’s method is mistaken. Reasonably than making an attempt emigrate small features of the present know-how to the metaverse, he believes we should rethink your complete know-how and construct afresh.

“You’ve got a lot of smart people that are still thinking in old ways,” Rice identified.

Whereas he provides a few of the most captivating presentations, Rice has been recognized to introduce new options throughout each different CoinGeek Convention. This time, he didn’t, and as he advised CoinGeek Backstage, it’s because his workforce has been absolutely centered on giving customers a seamless transition between its AR options and VR options.

The ‘Snow Crash’ metaverse might be right here in 5 years

For most individuals, the metaverse is a futuristic idea. Not for Rice. He believes that we are going to be dwelling in a ‘Snow Crash’ type of metaverse in three to 5 years. 

Snow Crash is the well-known 1992 sci-fi novel by creator Neal Stephenson which coined the time period “metaverse,” referring to a VR type of successor to the Web as we all know it at present. Within the novel, folks use their digital avatars to discover the digital world and work together with one another. Nonetheless, for them, the VR world was primarily an escape from a dystopian world the place the worldwide economic system had collapsed.

Nonetheless, the metaverse for Rice won’t be as bleak because the one predicted three many years in the past.

“I think the technology is there for it, mostly now, but there’s not a lot of the tools for it, the interfaces. The tech is there but the wrappings for it aren’t quite there,” Rice mentioned.

The transition into this digital world might be a lot quicker if it weren’t for these within the lead taking the mistaken path, Rice believes, pointing particularly at Meta. Even with an thought like Horizon Worlds, its VR recreation which is increasing right into a VR workspace, the corporate has nonetheless managed to come out with egg on its face. 

“They haven’t really got [their mindset] out of Web 1 and Web 2,” he mentioned.

Rice revealed that there had been two defining occasions which have thrust the metaverse onto the limelight—Fb altering its title to Meta and the pandemic, with the latter forcing folks to discover progressive makes use of of know-how to compensate for the misplaced bodily interplay.

“These were the two events that shaved ten years off the timeline. And now, there this huge momentum, like a tidal wave has been building,” Rice remarked.

And whereas Meta is the largest title within the business at present, Rice believes that it gained’t final one other two-three years, not less than not as a metaverse firm. 

Watch: The BSV International Blockchain Conference presentation, Masters of the Metaverse

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