Among the hottest new words in 2021, "meta universe" must occupy a place.
"Pretending to be mysterious" and "nonsense" -- but when referring to this high-frequency concept, the public's evaluation is quite complex, in sharp contrast to the upsurge of Internet technology companies investing heavily in the "meta universe".
In early December, the VR world "Horizon worlds" under meta (formerly Facebook) was officially opened to people over the age of 18 in the United States and Canada; Not long ago, baidu released the meta universe product "xirang" and held an AI developer conference in the meta universe... Tencent, byte beating, Xiaomi group, etc. almost all Internet technology companies with names are seizing industrial opportunities.
The government has also written the "meta universe" into its development plan. On December 30, Shanghai said that it would guide and strengthen the forward-looking research and development of the basic ability of the underlying core technology of the meta universe. Abroad, the Seoul municipal government of South Korea is also quite active. In early December, it stated that it would develop "meta universe Seoul" by the end of 2022 to provide public services to the public.
Is it a rare business opportunity or a false speculation? With such great momentum, will the meta universe be a flash in the pan? Recently, the reporter of daily economic news interviewed mobile phone manufacturers, Internet companies, VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) industrial chain enterprises and venture capital institutions. In the view of insiders, the popularity of metauniverse stems from the consensus of "next generation Internet", and the interface of metauniverse may not be a relatively familiar VR head display, and Apple's low-key glasses may also be a hardware breakthrough.
popularity comes from consensus
the Internet community needs metauniverse
Just like the rise of the Internet, the "storm" blew up from Silicon Valley. In March 2021, roblox, the "first stock of the yuan universe", landed in the capital market and was sought after. Since then, Facebook was renamed meta, Microsoft released enterprise metauniverse, and NVIDIA continued to invest in metauniverse.
Although Apple CEO Tim Cook does not recognize the "buzzword" metauniverse and only wants to call it augmented reality (AR), he said that AR will be Apple's next "node" with bright prospects. Even Apple's ar head is expected to replace the iPhone within a decade. At present, Apple has invested nearly a thousand R & D teams to explore this new field.
In the Chinese market, Tencent has intensively invested in several companies related to the concept of meta universe. Ma Huateng also publicly said that Tencent has a large number of technologies and capabilities to explore and develop meta universe; Netease focuses on the investment related to virtual people, and has registered trademarks such as "Netease metauniverse".
In addition, byte beat has successively acquired the game developer code Qiankun of "Chinese version roblox" and the VR hardware equipment manufacturer Pico; VR company co founded by Zhang Yimou and others is popular in Qitian soreal. Recently, it has won shares from affiliated companies of Xiaomi and Intel; Baidu is the first to launch the meta universe product "xirang", while emphasizing that the current version is - 6.0, which will take several years before the product is officially launched.
The meta universe is a highly interconnected virtual world parallel to the real world. To explore the reasons for the explosion of the meta universe, we should return to the familiar Internet.
"In terms of the development rhythm of technology, it is about once a decade (iteration). PC based Web1.0 and mobile phone based Web2.0 are limited to 2D space." Lin Qiong, founder of hermeneutic technology, who is deeply involved in the field of vSLAM (visual navigation), said that the pursuit of "meta universe" in the scientific and technological community comes from people's desire for "interaction", "The industry's pursuit of 'metauniverse' comes from people's desire for '3D interaction' because it is more realistic and immersive. Human demand for 3D has never stopped, but there is no very good highly immersive experience platform and equipment to realize 3D interaction".
The industry and capital circles are eager to find a technology export for the "next generation Internet platform". The epidemic has become a catalyst, and the meta universe came into being.
In fact, if you disassemble the metauniverse from a technical perspective, you will find that this is not a new concept. Whether it is virtual reality, blockchain or 5g, it is a well-known technology. However, with the evolution of display devices, low-cost computing power, end cloud combination, etc., the "meta universe" has a suitable soil.
"The evolution of various technologies has made some progress in the past period of time. Although it is still a little far from the final state, in the next one or two years, we will gradually see the rise of industrial applications and consumer applications. Some consumers are willing to pay, and some technologies have passed the critical point of input-output ratio." Wang Guangxi, a partner of Lenovo venture capital, said.
"We tend to overestimate the impact of a new technology on the near future and underestimate their impact on the future. This sentence applies to VR, metauniverse and all new technologies." Wang Xiaohui, managing partner of Shengjing Jiacheng, believes that the related industries of yuanuniverse are experiencing the Gartner curve (emerging technology maturity curve), "we must have one eye on the market development, otherwise we will not catch up when the market breaks out".
VR "rejuvenate"
but the venture capital market is no longer crazy
In the view of the outside world, as an "entrance", the emergence of metauniverse makes the VR industry "rejuvenated" - the shipment of VR equipment meta Quest 2 is expected to exceed 20 million units in Q3 in 2022. PwC predicts that by 2030, VR and AR technologies are expected to bring us $1.5 trillion in GDP increment to the global economy and 1.81% growth to the global economy.
However, according to the insiders, without the dormancy of VR industry, there will be no popular foundation of meta universe.
Wang Guangxi believes that, driven by the epidemic situation and the consumer side, all growth points in the VR industry chain converge into a snowball called "metauniverse". With the combination of more elements of sensory interactive experience, the snowball is rolling larger and larger. Compared with the VR industry, the long-term positioning and conjecture of the end of the "metauniverse" have not changed much, The core separation point is also an immersive virtual experience.
Although the first VR / AR wave came and went in a hurry, it catalyzed the investment of capital and industry in VR technology.
In 2016, in the first wave of AR / VR, Lin Qiong and several partners founded vision technology in Silicon Valley, focusing on the chip level deployment of space aware interactive core algorithms and algorithms. "At that time, we saw AR / VR as the future technology platform. We deployed a high-speed and high-precision vSLAM end processing interaction scheme for AR / VR. At that time, everyone thought it was an omnipotent platform in the post mobile era, and the capital and industry were very crazy.".
However, after admission, Lin Qiong soon realized the huge gap between ideal and reality, "both interactive experience and application scenarios are very immature". Because of this, the industry quickly calmed down, and the VR industry was caught off guard in the cold winter.
Fortunately, in 2018, one year after the return and landing of Quanshi technology, with the endorsement of Intel, Quanshi technology won the AR glasses system customization project of several well-known industry benchmark customers, thus laying the foundation for the AR core technology and product delivery of Quanshi technology.
Lin Qiong said that the company has also experienced the stage of "looking for nails with a hammer" - a landing scene with technology but not very suitable. Earlier, based on the deployment capability of module level vSLAM technology, hermeneutics technology also tried Siasun Robot&Automation Co.Ltd(300024) , AGV (automatic guided transport vehicle), UAV, floor sweeper and other fields. Later, it landed a Japanese family companion Siasun Robot&Automation Co.Ltd(300024) , and formed a continuous large-scale mass production and shipment.
"The scene of landing (referring to accompanying Siasun Robot&Automation Co.Ltd(300024) ) does not represent the ultimate capability of our technology platform. Our original intention is to build a technology platform for perceptual interaction around the popularization of wearable devices in the future." Lin Qiong said that the current solution delivery of Quanshi technology is based on an intelligent sensing unit called slimedge XR, which undertakes the end processing of sensing interaction tasks of high-performance XR.
"It is under the promotion of capital and the continuous investment and development of large companies such as Facebook and Microsoft that the industry has realized the growth from infancy to adolescence and laid the foundation for the formation of today's meta universe concept." Lin Qiong said.
The upsurge is rising again, but in the venture capital market, the madness five years ago has not reappeared. "Today's capital is also very calm. Unlike in 2016 and 2017, it sprouted with a word. Everyone has been educated by the market and has become calm. They are also looking at what kind of things can provide core value in the future and what exit path they have." Lin Qiong said.
"It is true that many projects are now rising again, but as investors, we still have to polish our eyes." Investor Wang Xiaohui has invested in VR industry companies such as Guanghui city and Nolo. She said that under the current situation, investors should carefully judge which products can be "realized" and which need to wait for the further maturity of technology, and pay attention to the development space of start-ups under the platform card.
dizziness experience
VR may not be the only solution
"We will officially release this product in about 2000 days." On December 27, baidu AI developer conference was held in the Greek soil of "meta cosmic products", and the creator city of Mobius ring shape attracted attention. Previously, in the advanced experience link, baidu Vice President Ma Jie repeatedly told the media that Xi soil is still in a very early stage.
The feedback from the on-site experience also confirms the "early stage" -- many experimenters still have a strong sense of dizziness after "walking" for 20 minutes in the meta universe.
"The main bottleneck is that the computing power provided by wearable devices is far from meeting our pursuit of experience, and human-computer interaction devices, such as AR display devices, are still in a very primary stage in the long run. At present, it is still the Warring States period, and a variety of paths coexist." Lin Qiong introduced that the low cost of VR equipment has become a way of "admission". Although the effect is not good, it gives people the opportunity to experience.
The current situation is that most of the links affecting the experience in wearable devices have clear theoretical or technical paths. VR head display, if multi lens combination is adopted, can reduce distortion and dispersion, and can also have a good experience, but the cost is too high. In addition, Lin Qiong introduced that taking people's visual habits as an example, fixation point rendering is a good technology, that is, places outside the viewpoint should be virtualized, and fixation points should be rendered with high precision. However, this technology depends on eye tracking, and its cost is far from being popularized.
The development of technology and the breakthrough of products are a tortuous process.
Wang Guangxi took the development of smart touch-screen mobile phones as an example. Before the emergence of smart touch-screen mobile phones, IBM combined the functional characteristics of mobile phones and PDAs, and built-in touch screens for the first time in "Simon" launched in 1993. Subsequently, mobile phone manufacturers such as Motorola, Samsung and HTC launched many transitional mobile phones in search of touch-screen designs that are really suitable for mobile phones, However, these intermediate products can only be promoted among a small number of people. It was not until Apple launched the iPhone with high-resolution and multi touch function in 2007 that it really established the standard of touch screen.
As the entrance to the meta universe, VR head display may be the most familiar, but it is not the only scheme.
"From the perspective of technology, I think the emergence of the meta universe must have a revolutionary thing of human-computer interaction. I think VR must not be." Beijing Kingsoft Office Software Inc(688111) CEO Zhang Qingyuan is worried about the difficulty of VR promotion and believes that it is difficult to become the mainstream entrance of the meta universe.
Lin Qiong believes that the vitality of AR may be stronger. "VR brings us an immersive visual experience platform, which improves from 2D to 3D. Ar brings us a new 3D human-computer interaction tool, which can provide value in all walks of life just like PC. the presentation ability of virtual reality combination provided by AR is the basis for human beings to efficiently connect the real world with the virtual world. We firmly believe that AR will play an important role in the future Yuan is the mainstay in the development of the universe and may be the ultimate platform ".
There are not a few people in the industry who hold the same view. "In 2021, through experiencing various ar devices, the content has been improved to a certain extent, but there is still a certain distance from Lbx Pharmacy Chain Joint Stock Company(603883) life or the trend of big business success, and continuous investment in technology is still needed." Vivo vice president and President of vivo AI Global Research Institute.
AR is not inferior to VR in technical difficulty. For example, "If you put a bottle of water on the table, the physical world can be perceived, but in the digital world, you need to know the plane and line, that is, things in the physical world should be mapped to the digital world, and the point, line and surface should be more accurate. It will take several years for current technologies to reach the state of accurate availability. In addition, the greater obstacles and challenges are related content and services Can't keep up.
"It took seven years for the industry to reach the turning point of VR in business, and it may take three to five years for ar. AR is considered to be one of the most challenging technologies in the next 10 years." Lin Qiong judged that the real take-off of AR may wait until the maturity of 6G technology characterized by the combination of sensing and transmission.
glasses are the future?
consumer explosives have yet to be unlocked
No matter what kind of form the Internet will be in the future, entrance devices are needed, which is the next epoch-making opportunity for consumer hardware.
"History will not repeat itself, but it will repeat itself in different forms." Wang Guangxi believes that, similar to the era of mobile Internet and PC, a revolutionary business behavior from relatively powerful players will become the explosive point of large-scale popularization. A product that can lead the industrial development needs at least three generations of iteration before it can truly become an industry pioneer and obtain high public acceptance, so as to drive the accelerated development of the overall track and the innovation of business model.
Many respondents believe that glasses are a more likely entry device, and mobile phones are a more natural computing support at present.
"Taking advantage of the current large-scale mobile phone stock market and the computing power of mobile phones to build a 3D immersive experience based on mobile phone ecology may be effective in the short and medium term. In the long run, mobile phones may be replaced by AR, or mobile phones and AR glasses may share the world, and ar glasses may become an independent hardware platform in the future." Lin Qiong thinks.
Although it never renders the meta universe, the outside world has outlined its strategic line from Apple's trend, and its betting equipment is glasses.
Earlier this month, Shenwan Hongyuan Group Co.Ltd(000166) analyst Luo Siyuan judged that Apple's AR / VR glasses may "match" with the iPhone 14 in 2022. Luo Siyuan believes that Apple's delay in launching glasses is largely due to the lightweight of the whole machine and the modularization of parts and components. Under the background that the cloud computing solution can not be realized, apple wants to launch a thin and short AR / VR glasses, so the iPhone, iPad and MacBook may become the computing carrier responsible for the operation of glasses and adopt the local solution. So Apple's AR / VR glasses may work with the iPhone 14.
Although Apple has not released ar smart glasses, it has launched a number of AR applications, including realitykit 2, object capture and AR maps. Apple's official website shows: "we have the world's largest ar platform, hundreds of millions of devices supporting AR, and thousands of AR applications on the app store."
In the industrial process leading to the meta universe, compared with the PC and mobile phone era, the technology gap outside China has narrowed, but by contrast, China's most advantageous is the industry reuse ability.
"In terms of manufacturing and production, in the era of PC and mobile phone, China has established the commanding height of the world factory." Wang Guangxi thinks.
Wang Xiaohui also holds similar views. She believes that compared with foreign technology giants, the layout advantage of China's VR / AR industrial chain lies in product iteration. China has a large population base, and the launch of new products into the market will produce a lot of feedback in a short time, which is undoubtedly the biggest help for manufacturers to promote the optimization and upgrading of products and technologies. In addition, China's integrated manufacturing capacity and content development capacity are also strong.
As for the core basic technology fields such as display chips, China has not broken through the restrictions of foreign patents, which is also the key direction in the future. On December 30, Shanghai Municipal Commission of economy and information technology issued the "14th five year plan" for the development of Shanghai's electronic information industry, which mentioned strengthening the forward-looking research and development of the basic capacity of the core technology at the bottom of the meta universe, promoting the development of new terminals for deepening perceptual interaction and the construction of systematic virtual content, and exploring industrial applications.
Wang Xiaohui said that with the guidance of the national "specialization and innovation" policy, the arrival of a new round of hard technology core outbreak time point and the maturity of the C-end business model, more and more teams will be committed to the field of "hard technology" in the future.
(Daily Economic News)
