Interview On Dijital Gündem
Click here to view the full piece in Turkish on Dijital Gündem.
Metaverse or Multiverse?
Ali Cumhur Hantal, CEO of XR Masters, Testbed Coordinator of the International Open AR Cloud (OARC) Association and founding member of Turkey’s first Metaverse Association, said that in the Metaverse era, where people will interact and communicate with other people and three-dimensional objects in the three-dimensional meta-universes, the current experiences should generally be called Multiverses as experiences belonging to different Metaverses instead of a ‘Metaverse’.
Stating that today’s Metaverse applications are similar to the intranet, which was the starting point of the internet in the past, Hantal said, “After the concept of Metaverse was introduced, everything virtual or augmented began to be defined as Metaverse. Although there is no consensus yet, experts state that for an experience to be called a real Metaverse experience, it must first be experienced by multiple users simultaneously. It will be possible to talk about a Metaverse instead of Multiverses, thanks to the fact that an AR object placed on the real world in an AR cloud-based Metaverse can be displayed in another Metaverse in the same place and in the same way with the approval of the user.”
Stating that Metaverse can be technically experienced in two different ways, one is based on Virtual Reality and the other is based on Augmented Reality Cloud, Hantal said, “In a Virtual Reality-based universe, users can use Virtual Reality glasses or two-dimensional screens. It can enter fully simulated meta-universes through it. In Augmented Reality Cloud-based universes, also defined as Real World Metaverse, users can experience the virtual universe intertwined with the real universe with Mobile Augmented Reality Cloud applications or Augmented Reality Cloud glasses. They enter a universe that is fully integrated with the virtual environment, without breaking away from the real space they are in, and they can experience the virtual and the real simultaneously, interact with each other. They can establish meaningful relationships with real location-based, face-to-face contacts.”
Emphasizing that in order for Multiverses to be a Metaverse and accessible to everyone, first of all, a Metaverse infrastructure should be created, and global standards and protocols should be developed, Hantal stated that they are working to develop Metaverse standards and protocols with the Open Augmented Reality Cloud Association, an international management team of 12 people, including himself, and more than 300 members of the association. Also, Hantal said that the standard developed by Open AR Cloud, which is authorized by the Open Geospatial Consortium, is currently at the approval stage, and added, “If this Geopose standard is used by all existing Multiverses, these multiverses will be able to work and talk to each other. Thus, content that is in one Metaverse will be viewable in other Metaverses as well.”