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The metaverse is, without a doubt, the center of all technology conversations this year, and as an inevitable consequence, the number of projects that will come to light will skyrocket in the coming months, even Telefónica will have its own version of the virtual universe. Qualcommthe San Diego chipmaker that puts a heart into most Android terminals, is another of those components of the ecosystem necessary for what they call “spatial computing” to become a reality. Hugo SwartVP and GM of extended reality and metaverse of Qualcomm tells us about the great transformation that will occur when moving from a 2D computational world, to one in 3D, or what is the same, from the flat screen of the computer or mobile to a world in three dimensions.
Probably, the applications and the internet that we know now will be developed for a three-dimensional environment, although it does not mean that the 2D will cease to exist, but that it will be a less immersive experience. “The metaverso It will be one of the great social changes that we are going to experience in the coming years, ”he says in conversation with ABC.
Nowadays, extended reality devices are divided into three groups, augmented reality glasses, virtual reality glasses and mixed reality glasses. Clearly, the ones that have had the most development, at the moment, are virtual reality for video games, although this is changing little by little. More social apps, sports apps like BoxVR, or event apps like the Foo Fighters concert are appearing. Virtual reality has also had a great impact in the corporate world, for example, they are widely used for training new employees, simulating dangerous environments, or in health, for example, they are used for the rehabilitation of patients who have suffered a heart attack.
The great hope of the metaverse in any case remains the augmented reality. Although the technology is still in a very early stage, and the closest thing we can find now is the smart glasses from Rayban, or OPPO, we are very far from a product that can reach a mass market, at the moment, they are only used in some companies to collaborate and seek remote assistance. According to Qualcomm, it takes 5 years to see augmented reality devices that connect through the mobile phone, and 10 years to replace it.
As part of the effort to strengthen the ecosystem, Qualcomm has created Snapdragon Spaces, where manufacturers can find blueprints and schematics on how to design extended reality glasses. Now they are going one step further with a platform that brings together extended reality developers with the aim of improving aspects such as hand and head tracking, spatial mapping, or device-independent object recognition. Manufacturers like OPPO, Xiaomi, Microsoft or Lenovo have already joined Snapdragon Spaces. Qualcomm’s new extended reality lab in Europe, XR Labs, will be part of this initiative, powered by its last three acquired companies Wikitude, Clay and Augmented Pixels. Hugo Swart points out that “the objective of XR Labs is to attract European talent by hiring new developers of extended reality”.
Right now there are more than 50 devices on the market with Qualcomm XR2 Gen 1 processors such as the Oculus Quest 2 and XR1 Gen 1. Both CPUs are already more than two years old, and Qualcomm, for the moment, has not renewed them as it has happened with Snapdragon mobile processors. It might seem like a lack of bet, but in reality, the problem is in the scale, the XR processors do not need to be renewed as frequently because there is not so much development on them, so their performance is still being improved as with the video, giving support for 7 cameras or image passthrough, which shows that they have not yet reached their limit.
Hugo Swart is of the opinion that the metaverse still has a lot to develop, and that we are at a time when its final form is unknown, but as a close parallel, we have the history of mobile phones, where no one imagined what they would be like a few years ago. New glasses will continue to come out, and they will continue to innovate, but the device that will give us access to the metaverse is still far from being a reality, it needs a minimum of 10 years to be ready. Specific cases in the health and education sectors, or corporate use are good indicators that the technology is useful, and that the metaverse is here to stay.