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by macrolime 1771 days ago
A lot of this new Metaverse hypes stems from the idea that AR glasses will be the next mobile and with AR you need 3D space.

Interconnectedness is really just a hyperlink, but instead of going to the link by clicking a link, you go through a space. That space could be a portal or it could just be moving from one area to another, a web equivalent would be that you're scrolling a website and after scrolling for a while the content is loaded from another server.

2 comments

AR I have less difficulty understanding, the benefits of a real world HUD seem fairly obvious. That said, most of the projects held up as "metaverse" seem to involve "opaque" 3D worlds: Fortnite, VRChat, Neos VR, etc.

>Interconnectedness is really just a hyperlink, but instead of going to the link by clicking a link, you go through a space.

Hyperlinks are much easier to implement. There's no requirement to have your game engines interoperable and translate seamlessly between the two as the transition takes place. And even then traveling via hyperlink between websites is hardly a seamless experience already. Inter-site hyperlinks are also not that popular. Social websites of course deal in them in large quantities, but your average business website avoids them like the plague. I don't think there's a single hyperlink on Amazon's website that leads out of their ecosystem.

VR isn't AR. AR is just the real world, but when you shop you also see the current price of the same product on Amazon[0]. When you see your coworker you get the same floating name-tag that you see when you Zoom them.

All that has real world value. You also get the more advanced stuff, like seeing what your living room would look like with that IKEA couch before you buy it. Maybe you don't even need a computer screen, since your AR device can just show one whenever and whereever - great for movie nights with friends when you don't have a projector.

VR is great for gaming, porn and video. Maybe interactive learning too, idk.

[0]: Allowing the app maker to make a fortune by stealing your shopping habits, which most people will not care about.