Meta Predicts Virtual-Physical Reality Is Just a Few Years Away

Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, is betting that technology merging the virtual and physical worlds could be popular in the next few years, Reuters wrote Friday (Feb. 18).

Meta told ad agencies that mixed reality tech, as it’s called, could allow a person wearing an MR headset to use a real-world object to get a reaction in the virtual world.

One example was hitting a video game character with a real baseball bat.

That’s one of three types of technologies that could be used in the metaverse, along with augmented reality (think Pokemon Go) and virtual reality (think immersive headsets like Oculus). But neither of those two allow users to interact with the virtual world using a physical-world object.

Reuters writes that Meta’s comments were intended to help advertisers understand the metaverse.

The company’s estimate that mixed reality is just a few years away adds more detail to the company timeline of getting the metaverse into the mainstream.

While there are some mixed reality headsets available, they aren’t ready for the average customer.

Meta said that Project Cambria, a headset featuring mixed reality capabilities, will be released this year. Some of its capabilities include face and eye-tracking.

Read more: JPMorgan Opens Branch in Metaverse

The metaverse has been a hot topic as of late, with companies joining up and providing various services. One of those is JPMorgan, which opened up a lounge in Decentraland, the virtual world based on blockchain tech.

The bank’s lounge is called the Onyx Lounge and came along with a paper from the bank on how businesses could begin to thrive in the metaverse.

Christine Moy, head of crypto and metaverse for JPMorgan, said there was “a lot of client interest” in the virtual world.

She said JPMorgan’s intent was to highlight “what the current reality is and what needs to be built next in technology, commercial infrastructure, privacy/identity and workforce, in order to maximize the full potential of our lives in the metaverse.”