“Currently, the metaverse is not personal enough. We have no eye contact and there is no emotional connection,” says Remco Sikkema, Movella. According to him, this is a condition for the development of the metaverse. At the same time, we don’t really know where things are going: “In the 1990s, we didn’t know how deprived we would feel without a mobile phone.”
“We just don’t know what the metaverse is going to bring about.” Remco Sikkema, Senior MarCom Manager at Movella, is speaking. He describes the metaverse as a moment in time when the virtual and physical worlds become less and less distinguishable. So he has an idea, but how exactly that will take shape is still unclear. But Sikkema is convinced that it will have an impact.
Be available 24/7? Rather not!
“I compare it to how people viewed mobile phones in the 1990s,” he says. He cites a film showing people talking about mobile phones in the 1990s. “People didn’t want to be available 24/7, but now you’re really out of your hands without a phone. That development could not be predicted and that is also what we are seeing now.”
“The way we now talk via Teams can change completely. Maybe we will soon be talking to each other in a digital room, while one of us is walking in the woods. To do this, technology and how we use it must change. For example, I can now see your facial expression and you can see that I talk with my hands. That should also be added. It all has to become much more personal and real.”
Mark Zückerberg is not understood
How Sikkema thinks about how the metaverse should evolve ties in with how Mark Zückerberg, the CEO of Meta, talked about the metaverse in his first presentation. “I think Mark is not understood. I thought it was quite a good story, because he wanted to create a world where we can converse in a personal way. That it is a world where people feel safe and can personally connect with each other.”
At the moment, the metaverse is not yet personal enough, says Sikkema: “The digital world now feels quite fake and flat. There is no emotional connection. There is no eye contact. For example, if you lift your arm, it goes right through your head. That should all be better. So when Horizon (from Meta) added legs to their avatars, it was a big thing. It seems small, but a lot of money and time has been invested to make it possible.”
Declining investments and mass layoffs
Because we don’t know where it’s going, it’s not helpful how the media reports about the mass layoffs and declining investments, says Sikkema: “At Disney, for example, an entire team of fifty people is fired where maybe only five people actually worked on the metaverse. . That is news, while the round of layoffs involved 7,000 people. It’s not fair that the focus is now on those layoffs in the metaverse, when the picture is much bigger.”
The developments may be less visible, but certainly no less valuable, says Sikkema. For example: where it used to cost a ton to have a virtual character made of yourself, you can now do it very easily with an app on your phone. It is therefore accessible to everyone. At the same time, VR and AR are increasingly being used on the business side, for example to carry out maintenance or to practice for calamities.
Developments in the automotive industry
“In the automotive industry, for example, they make a digital twin of factories. Thanks to sensors and cameras, they can see where people walk and how they work with millimeter precision. That information can be used to improve workplace safety. For example, it can be detected if an employee bends too often or reaches too far. By using this information, absenteeism can be reduced.”
BMW, among others, is also developing the car of the future, such as racing in a virtual world or adding AR elements during the ride. “I am therefore a big fan of AR. I think that’s really cool that it can become normal that you get value from your environment. But I also think it would be nice if I had a virtual buddy sitting next to me in the car during a long journey.”
