adminWhat once started as a communication revolution in the form of text, images, and two-dimensional formatting has now begun to evolve into new dimensions.
The metaverse has been part of our lives in some way or another for a certain time, but the advancement of critical technologies has considerably driven how to define and use the web. As business owners are working hard to remain on top of the competition, one needs to stay aware of the technologies of this space if one wishes to develop applications and even entire digital worlds for their customers.
Let’s discuss the technologies used in metaverse app development and how businesses can make their metaverse applications.
The Metaverse for Business in detail
Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash coined the phrase that turned out to be the name for the metaverse, and executives like Mark Zuckerberg are pivoting the book’s prognostic forecasts of business, the economy, and society into a reality. As defined in modern business, the metaverse is a mesmerizing next step of the Internet where users can participate in virtual, immersive worlds.
As per Bloomberg, metaverse technologies will expand to the $800 billion market by the end of 2022. If businesses wish to stay pertinent throughout the evolution, they must stay on top of the technologies steering the growth of ‘web 3’ forward.
Technology Route for the Metaverse Development
Several technologies support metaverse expansion. Comprehending each of them and identifying where they intersect is integral to innovation.
What is the Role of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in the Metaverse
Today, Virtual Reality is addressed as one of the most innovative technologies pushing the metaverse forward, but it has several constraints. Since these are rising technologies, the world isn’t very welcoming of this easily accessible Virtual Reality. This is due to limited mobility. To experience Virtual Reality, the user must have a bulky VR headset that restricts the head or body movements required to get the whole experience. Additionally, the cost of VR devices is high, and there are yet to be standards for Virtual Reality, so content developed for one platform may not work with another.
Another way Augmented Reality can be used for a more intensified experience is through the ‘try before you buy’ retail strategy. With virtual fitting room technology or similar technologies, buyers can try on items virtually with AR before deciding to purchase.
For this- IKEA is the best example of how this functionality extends to interior design and furniture, as it allows shoppers to place virtual furniture in their house to see how it may look before buying it.
Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Natural language processing is a subdivision of artificial intelligence necessary for the growth of the metaverse. It is an advanced way for AI to interpret and imitate human speech. It will be an excellent way for users and AI to communicate through customer service chatbots and virtual assistants. Not just this, but it will also make the metaverse more accessible to different groups of people. For instance, conversational artificial intelligence allows rich real-time language translation, even if challenging.
Also, a non-monotonic relationship exists between the source speech and target translations. It indicates that the words at the end of the speech can impact words at the beginning of the translations. This implies that there is no actual real-time speech translation because there is always the need to check the translated text’s consistency against the original speech. There is a slight delay even when we cannot see it.
Therefore, you require developed algorithms to stabilize live speech translation, as Google accomplishes in its Google Translate to lower the number of re-translations.
Internally, real-time speech translations can be organized as follows: the user says something, the user’s speech converts into a text, and the text is further translated into another language. Once the speech is ended or paused and the final re-translation is completed, the text converts into a speech using speech-to-text technologies.
Natural language processing also offers live captions for users having hearing impairments. For example, AI technology can immediately transcribe the conversation of a group of people, making communication within a metaverse application available to users with hearing disabilities.
Virtual Assistant Technology
NLP also develops digital voice assistants and AI avatars that can enable users to the hand-free operations of their devices and provide targeted recommendations. Meta is already designing a voice assistant that will be used in the metaverse applications in the coming years.
Virtual assistants can conduct language translation, financial management, and many other things. The picture of users in the metaverse as AI avatars or digital humans also depends on NLP. Conversational AI lets avatars process and comprehend human language and respond to voice commands. Last year, NVIDIA introduced the Omniverse Avatar modeling platform, which permits the development of virtual versions of people who identify speech and capture emotions on users’ faces.
Customer service is one crucial role virtual assistants can help with in the metaverse. The shopping experiences in the metaverse will be highly captivating, and conversational AI will be beneficial for letting shoppers ask virtual customer service avatars about the attributes of the goods, payment terms, discounts, and the like.
Computer Vision
Computer vision allows machines to develop better digital copies of objects, identify images and patterns, and even determine the expressions and perspectives of users. One of the constraints of VR and AR experiences is control. Hardware controllers, gloves, or other kinds of physical devices are used to input into the device.
However, the computer can make this experience more natural by using hand tracking. Users can interact with their devices more naturally and freely by remembering gestures and finger positions. This is how it can work. AR execution includes coordinating the cell phone’s video camera and LiDAR.
A video camera captures the video/image of the real world and the user’s hand. LiDAR calculates the distance between the natural world and the user’s hand. Using this information, one can correctly place virtual objects on the phone screen. Therefore, from the user’s perspective, the virtual objects look like a part of the real world.
With computer vision technologies, we can identify if the user tries communicating with the virtual object with the hand. For example- Placing the virtual object in a cart in a virtual shop or animating objects( useful, especially for AR-interactive games).
Computer vision in the metaverse is not limited to this; ReadyPlayerMe utilizes face recognition to produce a virtual avatar using a user’s selfie. Most video games and platforms need users to produce a brand-new avatar for each service. However, these avatars made by computer vision are designed to be utilized across thousands of different platforms.
Internet of Things (IoT) and the Metaverse
Artificial Intelligence is just a component of the metaverse story, and it is not the answer to every question and challenge that developers face while developing metaverse projects. AI demands high-quality data, and data needs to be collected from somewhere. Internet of Things devices and sensors are essential for getting high-quality real-time data to AI systems for analysis.
One of the most valuable uses of IoT in the metaverse is digital twins; This technique uses IoT sensors to develop a digital version of an environment or system. VR depends on virtual environments and can develop a virtual picture of an environment using sensors.
The metaverse is not just a new thing to the digital world but a junction and uniform crossover between the real and digital worlds. Integrating augmented reality technologies with IoT sensors can bring the real world into the digital and turn digital into the real world. This merger will revolutionize metaverse technologies.
The Blockchain’s Role in the Metaverse
Blockchain platforms, a global and decentralized system, are in demand for their use in metaverse projects. Centralized data storage is a challenge in the metaverse because of the obstacles to the flow of information. Open solutions such as blockchain enable a more fluid flow of information and assurance of ownership for digital assets. This causes high demand for developing systems that aid cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens.
Today, Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are one of the most promising ways to create the metaverse economy. Since every token is unique, it is a dependable proof of digital ownership registered in the blockchain. For instance, users can purchase in-game assets and digital real estate as non-fungible tokens that symbolize the privilege of owning these items.
3D Modeling
We all know that the metaverse depends on virtual worlds, and today 3D Modeling is a skill in demand. It begins with decorating homes to creating skins for avatars; Modeling is something virtual worlds can only do with. Today, a large number of objects need to be digitized, and IoT sensors need to be used to develop digital twins of environments.
Large databases must be made of real-world objects that have been ‘3D captured’ and digitized.
However, this is not easy as there are challenges to digitizing the real world. The higher resolution of an object means the more excellent memory it will use. Therefore finding space for these objects and rendering them on lower-end hardware is not also feasible. This is challenging for VR support as VR experiences have to be set at higher frame rates to manage immersion.
However, when all the objects in a scene have high poly counts, their performance is next level. Handling this is essential for providing successful metaverse experiences.
Metaverse Software Development: How to initiate a Project
As we resume the wild west of the development of the metaverse and web 3.0, there are limitless opportunities for ideas to turn into reality. The most important thing is that a business should stay competitive at any cost, even if these technologies bloom the ideas that raise the wave of disruption or if these ideas enhance the potential of your business to reach the untouched markets.
For example: Let’s say your team wants to create an immersive retail store using metaverse technology. To execute, the project would require a fully 3D VR environment for objects to serve as products. This virtual store would also require digital customer service agents to assist users in finding their needs.
The metaverse use cases don’t limit there. It is used in the virtual meeting room where you and your colleagues can communicate as avatars. Not just this, imagine a designer could decorate, decide and change the color of walls and furniture in the VR metaverse. Yes, Modern technology can make all these things possible.