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Google Metaverse Google’s Take on the Digital Universe

MetaVerse Marketing

Google metaverse, the name alone conjures up images of a truly expansive future. The company that shaped the modern Internet obviously has plans for where it’ll go. However, the company can be a little cagey about its metaverse plans. But you’ll soon see the past, present, and what might happen in the future of Google’s metaverse.

The Metaverse as a Foundation of the Google Metaverse

The Google metaverse stems from the significance of the metaverse itself. It’s best to look at the metaverse as a fully digital world, or even universe, that exists alongside physical reality. An architect’s devotion to something can lead to the creation of unique venues in the physical world. And a company’s view of a deeper metaverse meaning can lead to excellent digital results. You can experience those creations just as you would a physical edifice because the metaverse is a truly immersive and interactive 3D world.

 

And similarly, you can invite friends and family to join you in that exploration. How you go about it will vary depending on what you use to access the metaverse. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are the most immersive options. But computers, phones, and even video game consoles can access part of the metaverse. The metaverse is continually growing, so no one knows what it’ll be in the future. But we know that the metaverse, in some form, is the future. In the article “Metaverse Meaning; Different Ways of Defining the Metaverse,” you can see how different personal metaverse meanings can shape that medium.

What is Google?

Many of the specifics of the upcoming Google metaverse are still under wraps. But Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently sat down to discuss the metaverse with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang. Pichai put particular emphasis on the way people relate to computers. He states that computing adapts to people rather than people adapting to computers. The CEO emphasized that the interaction between humans and computers isn’t always going to come in the form of someone talking to a black rectangle in front of them.

 

Instead, Pichai believes computers will become more immersive so that people can speak to them just as they would other human being. Moreover, he highlighted that computer interfaces will always be there when people need them. This future will come in the form of ambient computing and AR. Ambient, in this context, refers to one’s immediate surroundings. And AR refers to augmented reality that can interlay digital information into analog environments. This means that people can have an always-on computing platform that melds the physical and digital world. Various metaverse implementations tend to stress this idea to one degree or another.

And it seems that Google, in particular, wants to blur the distinction between the physical and digital worlds. Though Pichai also emphasized that different people often mean other things when talking about the metaverse. The metaverse meaning will usually differ enormously in various contexts when discussing the subject. Chang pressed the CEO for more details about what he thinks the metaverse will be. Pichai was unsurprisingly tight-lipped about the specifics of Gooogle’s metaverse plans but noted that he envisions computers evolving in an immersive way through augmented reality. As you’ll soon see, this aligns with many public projects involving the Google metaverse.

Google Metaverse: What We Know

Any implementation of the metaverse borrows from the underlying ethos of its creators. So to understand the Google metaverse, you need to understand Google. People often think of Google as a search engine. And Google Search was indeed Google’s first significant service when it launched in 1998. As it’s known today, Google began in 2004 with the launch of Gmail. The service was pretty exclusive at the time. Users needed the invitation to sign up for the service. This allowed Google slowly scale up to meet the needs of users. Google eventually reached a point where its infrastructure could efficiently serve as a web-based platform. The company quickly popularized the idea of applications that run in a browser.

 

Services like Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Drive, and many others demonstrated that a browser could act like a computing platform in and of itself. And Google would further enhance this experience by creating the Chrome browser using a highly optimized Javascript engine especially tailored for web apps. Google’s next major leap forward came in 2008 when it participated in the launch of the first Android-powered phone. At that point, Google had a significant influence on most computing platforms.

And it seems that Google, in particular, wants to blur the distinction between the physical and digital worlds. Though Pichai also emphasized that different people often mean other things when talking about the metaverse. The metaverse meaning will usually differ enormously in various contexts when discussing the subject. Chang pressed the CEO for more details about what he thinks the metaverse will be. Pichai was unsurprisingly tight-lipped about the specifics of Gooogle’s metaverse plans but noted that he envisions computers evolving in an immersive way through augmented reality. As you’ll soon see, this aligns with many public projects involving the Google metaverse.

Video: Introducing ARCore

Google Metaverse Past and Future Products & Acquisitions

A metaverse Google style can be challenging to pin down because the company’s output can be prolific. Google has never been shy about experimentation. The company develops and acquires various technologies that often radically change over time. But the following projects worked on or acquired by Google provide some strong hints about what might be coming in the future.

Google Glass

Google Glass is something of an oddity in the Google metaverse. It was first announced to the public in 2013 amid many misconceptions. Many thought it offered advanced augmented reality features in today’s cutting-edge devices. And when people learned that Google Glass was more focused on recording images and videos, it led to widespread public concern over covert surveillance.

 

In the end, the original version of Google Glass never had a full widespread release to the public. But Google Glass succeeded in professional spaces to warrant a second edition – Google Glass Enterprise Edition. Enterprise Edition saw even more varied use in fields such as medicine. And in 2019, Google announced the Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 with far more advanced features than the original. Glass didn’t catch on with the public. However, it’s still going strong with specialized enterprise-level users.

Video: Glass Enterprise Edition 2

Google Daydream

Google Daydream was a follow-up of sorts to Google Cardboard. Like Cardboard, Daydream worked by essentially turning your Android phone into a VR display. The main difference is that Daydream featured dedicated hardware. Daydream consists of a headset with a bay to hold your phone and a VR controller.

 

The technology was innovative. But Google believes the main point of failure came from the fact that people instantly lost the use of their phones when using Daydream. When someone uses a dedicated VR headset, they can still grab their phone to make a call or check an app. But Daydream required people to choose between using their phone as a VR device or using their phone as they were accustomed. On top of that, Daydream’s $100 price didn’t deliver much more than could be had with Google Cardboard. And Google Cardboard was, quite literally, something you could make from cardboard.

Video: Meet Google Daydream View

Google Project Iris

Google’s Project Iris offers an unusual and unique take on augmented reality. The most challenging part of augmented reality has always been the display. It’s tough to render the kind of graphics you see on a high-resolution display when working with something the size of a pair of glasses. Google’s trying something new as a way to get around the problem. The experiment isn’t using glasses. Google Project Iris forgoes the glasses form factor typically seen in AR systems and instead goes for a VR-style headset.

 

Google is keeping most details related to Project Iris secret. Only about 300 people work with Project Iris, hidden behind a strict security system. But it seems to leverage Google’s powerful supercomputers to do remote graphical processing. If that’s true, it may offer the best possible view of a physical world combined with the larger Google metaverse.

Google Project Starline

Augmented reality typically focuses on melding the metaverse and the physical world. Massive projects like that often come with equal technical hurdles. But what if you only needed to work with a single data point? Say, rendering a single individual rather than an entire metaverse? That’s the premise of Google Project Starline. It’s a different take on a Google metaverse intended to bring two people together.

 

Google describes it as a magic mirror of sorts. It’s a two-way display that acts like a window into another linked Google Project Starline device. In some ways, it’s not too different than a video chat. The main differentiating factor for the end user is size. Starline uses a lifesize display that renders the other person at their actual size. But on a technical level, Project Starline uses advanced computing to simulate volume and depth to make people look three-dimensional.

Video: Project Starline: Feel like you’re there, together