Author: John Dolmetsch, CIO, Business Information Group
Well, in a recent Metaverse presentation I had given only back in June 2022, I indicated that the real game changer for adoption of the Metaverse and integration into the human society would be a replacement of the clunky 3D goggles available today with contact lenses we wear to move “in and out” of the virtual world. I warned everyone in my audience that this next step was not years away…but months. I was correct…
One day we will all wake up and there will be an announcement from the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. that a new product is available to ship immediately and thousands, if not millions, will line up, wait hours or days, just to get this game changing technology. Just like mainstream adoption of the Web Browser or Google Search this will be the next evolution in a major life changing event for our society.
I personally have watched YouTube 360 videos with my son’s AR goggles, including one he made during a hang-gliding trip to Brazil, and I must say the experience is super cool and super real. I just can’t stand having to wear some 3-pound device on my head that eliminates my “real world” while immersing me in the “virtual world”. Now, give me a device that I can wear all day, every day, without pain or discomfort that allows me to experience the real world and the virtual world, seamlessly, together and I am going all in.
Like it or not Augmented Reality and the Metaverse WILL become integral in the lives of society and will be a must use technology or be left behind. I have the benefit of being old enough to remember a few times when society attempted to reject and downplay technology and each and every time their efforts just fell on deaf ears. The “Personal Computer is just a fad”, “The Internet will always be for geeks, there is no value in it”, “Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies will never become mainstream”. Sound familiar? Let’s go back a little further before my lifetime and listen to this one, “Who would ever need or want a television?”
I am never one to say I told you so…but…I told you so. The day when AR Contact Lenses are available on Amazon for less than the cost of a one-way plane ticket is just around the corner and it is in society’s best interest to embrace the Virtual World, stay ahead of it and make it beneficial to the human race. Too many times the bad actors embrace new technology faster than the rest of society to gain an upper hand on society and take advantage of the naiveness that exists for a period of time. This time let’s stay ahead of it and make good use of it for the betterment of our world.