It is no secret that mixed reality glasses have not yet become a mass product like the telephone. Although we find increasingly attractive proposals in this market, such as the Meta Quest 3 and the Apple Vision Pro, their sales figures remain relatively discreet. This reality could be analyzed from different perspectives, but it is clear that this world that combines virtual reality and augmented reality has not yet conquered the general public.

As part of its effort to advance technologies that combine virtual reality and augmented reality, Meta has announced several programs with university institutions. In Europe, together with VictoryXR, it is developing what it calls "digital twin metaversities", an initiative that creates virtual replicas of real environments to offer students and educators an immersive experience. The University of the Basque Country is part of this commitment.

UPV/EHU and Meta's mixed reality

The company led by Mark Zuckerberg says in a blog post that the UPV/EHU will use immersive technologies in physiotherapy and anatomy classes. Participants in this activity will use Meta Quest devices and will be able to move around in a digital environment that represents their physical campus. One of the advantages of metaversities is that students can attend their university classes remotely from anywhere.

Before landing in Europe, metaversities have begun to be implemented in some universities in the United States. This allows us to see some examples of the work that has been done. For example, users have been able to immerse themselves in virtual environments for fire safety training, crime scene investigations, drone operations, nursing training and virtual human resources manager interviews powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

At the moment, the graphic quality is presented as a mix between Second Life and a video game from the last decades. However, Meta says that several academic studies (PwC, International Society for Technology in Education) have shown that virtual reality can positively improve various learning outcomes, such as comprehension, knowledge retention, student engagement, students, attention span and motivation.

It is worth noting that metaverses are also reaching other universities in Europe. Specifically, the University of Leeds in the UK and the University of Hannover in Germany. "We look forward to seeing how these initiatives and resources will inspire new sources of learning and collaboration in Europe," they say.

Education is one of the sectors where mixed reality devices seem to have a bright future. And we say future, because as we have indicated above, they still have a lot to evolve. Meta's metaverse division has been a cash-burning machine for three years, and it looks like it will remain so for several more quarters until the business finally takes off.

Apple, Meta's main competitor in the mixed reality market, is in a similar situation. We don't know exactly how much money was invested in creating the Vision Pro, but Tim Cook has stated that it is a first-class product, "a way to have the technology of tomorrow today." Mark Zuckerberg, remember, said that the Metaverse will be "exciting" in 2030.

MetaQuest3

Meta announced new mixed reality glasses. The Meta Quest 3 was presented as a direct evolution of the Meta Quest 2 with a clear goal: to offer a significant leap in the experience in virtual and augmented reality. To achieve this, it was known that the company focused on implementing improvements at the design, hardware and software levels. Now more details have become known.

At last year's Meta Connect event, Mark Zuckerberg spoke again about the new generation of its mixed reality glasses. From what we could see, the device evolves significantly and incorporates some of the very expensive and high-end technologies implemented in the Meta Quest Pro, making it a device with greater capabilities. The first step towards the metaverse.

Meta is clear that the vision for the metaverse will take years to develop, but it seems they are committed to moving forward in this direction. Zuckerberg himself said that at the aforementioned event, friends will one day gather, some physically present, others digitally represented in the form of high-definition holographic avatars.