<b>Zhi Dongxi (public number: zhidxcom).</b>
<b>Author | Xu Shan</b>
<b>Edited by | Yunpeng</b>
Since ByteDance acquired the VR headset company Pico, the domestic VR/AR industry has been fried, and Companies such as Tencent and Huawei have begun to frantically register trademarks related to the meta-universe, and everyone has stared at the cake of the meta-universe.
Who will be the next Facebook? Who will be the first domestic manufacturer to release the domestic "Oculus Quest 2"? How will the metacosm eventually form? Manufacturers participating in the 2021 Qualcomm XR Ecosystem Cooperation Conference are also paying close attention to this trend.
Chip giant Qualcomm, XR equipment manufacturing head player Goertek and heads of a number of domestic and foreign companies shared their views on the development of XR and discussed their views on the metaverse.
The XR we discussed at this conference mainly refers to the two major areas of AR and VR. Among them, AR refers to augmented reality, that is, the real world is the mainstay, and some digital information is displayed through the device; VR refers to virtual reality, that is, everything seen is digitally generated.
How far has the global XR industry evolved? What are the new opportunities now? How exactly should people define the metacosm? We listened to a number of industry insiders, experienced VR/AR-related products for ourselves, and dug deeper to try to find answers.
<h2>First, VR headset fight, AR glasses compete for favors, the strongest domestic products are here! </h2>
How to experience VR/AR products in China, I ran to the product experience area to personally experience the Pico Neo 3 Pro, iQIYI Adventure 3 headset and different types of smart glasses.
1, after the improper experience, I found that my favorite VR headset was actually Adventure 3!
After trying a few VR headsets, I found that the consumer VR headsets currently on the market are similar.
After putting on the headset, the user will first see a virtual "desktop" page with a program bar at the bottom of the page. Your handle will emit a long laser line like a laser pointer. Move your handle like a wireless mouse, aim the ray at the favorite software, press Confirm with your handle, and you'll be taken to the submenu page.
Pico staff are demonstrating their gameplay effects
Games are an indispensable part of VR headset application scenarios. I tried playing a similar game with Pico's Neo 3 Pro product and iQiyi's Adventure 3, respectively.
Users need to set a "fence" area to ensure the display effect of VR. If you're outside the fence, there will be arrows that will help you adjust the position in time or re-establish a new "fence" area based on where the user is standing.
In the gaming experience, the response in terms of gamepad operation and display is more sensitive, and the two products are not much different.
However, when I move the handle over the specific option when selecting the menu, a click gesture will appear on the display page of Adventure 3, and the vibration of the handle can be felt when selecting. I was pleasantly surprised by this, as if my hand was choosing.
iQIYI chose to open more than 30 VR games this time, allowing users to have a 6-month free experience period, but also to expand the user's market. For the current high cost of VR games, it is indeed very exciting.
2. Consumer-grade smart glasses and industrial-grade glasses are different
Industrial-grade smart glasses are often more inclined to assist reality due to the impact of the construction environment. Consumer-grade smart glasses are currently more focused on augmented reality.
The former is mostly monocular, and when the user wears glasses, he can go to the background expert to add annotation information for the product. The latter will be connected to the mobile phone, using the mobile phone as a trackpad to control the movement of the mouse, which is also a green laser line.
In fact, consumer-grade AR glasses are to put the video played on the screen of the phone to your glasses in a different way.
After trying several different smart glasses, I clearly felt that the current consumer-grade AR glasses were delayed in response, and page loading was far less time-consuming than VR headsets.
In addition, the real virtual display area in AR glasses is small, and the real scene can still be clearly seen at the lower frame, but it is a version of sunglasses, which makes people feel a sense of separation.
However, some people said that AR glasses themselves add information to the real world, rather than erasing the entire real world.
3. How can myopia play VR/AR equipment? Don't be afraid, domestic manufacturers provide 3 kinds of solutions
How people with glasses should play the VR/AR world of the future will be curious about this. In the field, I found that there are three more common solutions.
Like HTC's Vive series, you can wear glasses directly with their device, although the page rendering has no impact, but wearing two glasses will feel obviously heavy, and it is difficult to withstand such a load on the bridge of the nose for a long time.
Rokid's glasses are also one of the mainstream choices in the industry. It will have a hinge that can be turned directly according to your degree, and you can see a sharper image rendering.
There is also a scheme to suck the appropriate lenses on the glasses through the magnetic suction method, directly replacing your glasses, nreal's smart glasses are used in this scheme.
<h2>Second, the executives of the eight major companies are hot to discuss the yuan universe speech dry goods</h2>
Recently, the concept stock of the meta-universe has soared, and Internet companies, game companies, and solution companies are all hoping to take the lead in creating their own product advantages and trying to seize this future market with unlimited potential.
Laymen may see the metaverse as a farce, and the players involved in it have found their way forward in this boom.
1, AR/XR/VR, who is the next outlet at your fingertips?
The metacosm is the result of the future development of the Internet, and it is far from the present. In today's market, AR and VR have become two mainstream development directions. At the same time, some people believe that Assisted reality in industrial scenarios also has great room for development. In fact, the metaverse has a certain threshold in terms of content, product form and technology, and it is not an important part of the metaverse as long as it is related to AR/VR.
Yu Dachao, senior vice president of Goertek: XR hardware revenue has quadrupled, and the VR/AR industry is growing rapidly
"The VR/AR industry is breaking through the inflection point and entering the fast lane of development." Yu Dachao, senior vice president of Goertek, analyzed the current situation of XR.
According to IDC forecasts, the global XR headset market shipments are expected to reach 12 million units this year. In the first half of 2021, Goertek's smart hardware revenue led by XR business increased by 210.83% year-on-year.
As wearable products, XR products need to put user experience first, and have higher requirements for acoustic experience and optical design. Goertek also continuously optimizes the user experience from the aspects of XR core components and complete machine solutions, and automated precision manufacturing capabilities.
<b>Rokid CEO Misa Zhu</b>: <b>AR will strengthen human connections</b>
Rokid CEO Misa Zhu said that new technologies will separate people's lives into two different worlds, virtual and real, while AR will promote the gradual integration of people, virtual worlds and physical worlds.
AR glasses are undergoing a transition from dedicated scenes to everyday wear, tool attributes to content attributes. And based on the needs of different scenarios, Rokid launched the corresponding AR products.
At present, Rokid has new AR glasses application scenarios in many fields such as global cultural tourism exhibitions, industrial scenes, and automotive applications.
WANG Wei, product director of OPPO AR: AR split machine or into the future development direction
"AR is a new way of interaction between the physical world and the digital world," said Wang Wei, product director of OPPO AR, because AR has two major characteristics: AR drive, three-dimensional information and three-dimensional scene interaction.
He found that the application scenarios of mobile phones are gradually undergoing AR migration, and mobile phones are also becoming an incubation platform for AR content ecology and the ability center of AR glasses. Therefore, he gave advice - the design of the MOBILE PHONE-based AR split machine may be a good development choice at present.
Wang Wei believes that if manufacturers want to create excellent perception and interaction capabilities to determine the advantages of experience, they not only need to pay attention to perception capabilities and interaction technologies, but also need to consider the overlap of scenes. "Only by balancing the three can we create a great AR experience."
2. The shortcomings of domestic VR/AR are revealed, and the content ecology has become the biggest problem
In fact, entering the hologram does not mean entering the metaverse, but also needs to enrich the ecological content, and even needs to consider legal, financial, medical and cultural aspects.
Domestic VR/AR has a hundred flowers in the content ecology, but various manufacturers are committed to making their content platforms bigger, and there are serious barriers between different content platforms, and Qualcomm is also concerned about this deficiency.
Qualcomm Guo Peng: The physical screen will disappear completely, and the domestic content ecology is slightly insufficient
At the conference, Meng Pu, chairman of Qualcomm China, said that Qualcomm has been deeply engaged in XR technology for many years, and he believes that the commercial use of 5G has brought new opportunities for XR, and the high speed, low latency and high reliability supported by 5G will provide users with a new XR experience, which will have a profound impact on education, medical and other industries.
Guo Peng, head of XR business in Qualcomm China, also mentioned, "The physical screen disappears, and the whole world will become your screen." He believes that XR will upgrade the function of glasses from three aspects: field of view, degrees of freedom and environmental perception, for example, XR glasses can improve environmental perception and make the world the final screen terminal.
According to IDC statistics, it is expected that by 2024, sales of XR hardware will reach $31 billion, and sales of XR devices will reach 57 million units. XR is divided into two forms according to the form of the product, the all-in-one machine and the smart headset, Guo Peng said that XR's all-in-one machine and smart headset products will be integrated in the next 5 to 10 years.
Guo Peng feels that the current domestic XR market, compared with the algorithm iteration, chip capabilities and battery life and other technical capabilities, the content ecology is slightly insufficient, the entry of ByteDance may bring new opportunities for the XR content ecological industry.
He also mentioned that for the ecological fragmentation of the domestic market, Qualcomm is making some new attempts to promote market unification, but the specific details cannot be disclosed.
3. Everything is a metacosm, when does the metacosm define?
Each of the vendors involved has their own unique view of the definition of the metacosm. At present, most people think that the metacosm will be the next generation of Internet revolution, and at the same time is the "3D version" of the current Internet. At the summit, manufacturers from the communication industry, content ecology and hardware shared their understanding of the metaverse.
Microsoft Huang: The enterprise metacosm is a subset of the metacosm
Enterprise metaversia is a concept proposed by Microsoft President Satya Nadella, and Huang Wei, director of mixed reality industry solutions at Microsoft Greater China, said that the enterprise metacosm in the device layer, user layer, application layer and data layer will be different from the metaverse often said. Among them, at the user level, the enterprise metacosm is mainly in three aspects: enterprise employees, partners and customers.
"Hololens will promote the integration of the physical and digital worlds, allowing users to interact with the virtual world without leaving the real world." The metacosm should not be completely detached from the real world. Huang Said.
He also felt that enterprise users will go through multiple processes such as digital transformation, collaborative office, design discussion, and process optimization in the face of the development of the metacosm.
Wang Congqing, President of HTC China: If you want a big one, it is not suitable for the metacosm
Wang Congqing, president of HTC China, said that the metaverse is not a new concept, and it will be involved in previous books and movies. He gave six definitions of the metaverse and said that after the concept of the metacosm is clear, everyone can have a clearer development direction.
The six definitions are: (1) there is only one metacosm; (2) the metacosm does not belong to a person, company, or country; (3) the metacosm will be open to everyone; (4) the metacosm is a separate device; (5) any one person can enter the metacosm; and (6) the metacosm will be the next generation of Internet revolution.
Wang Congqing feels that the screen will gradually disappear, and the future display device will be from smart glasses to contact lenses, and even to the final brain-computer chip. Therefore, the arrival of the metaverse will fully affect people's way of life.
But at the same time, the metacosm will also bring many development opportunities, and the metacosm will bring new opportunities in tool manufacturing, software, devices, products and services, payment methods, social methods, human fairness, opportunity fairness and climate impact.
Chen Zhichao, general manager of China Telecom New National Pulse: 5G is the basis for realizing the metacosm
Chen Zhichao, general manager of China Telecom New National Pulse, proposed that the 5G network is the guarantee of 5G applications and the basis for the rapid landing of meta-universe scenarios.
"XR is an important part of the metaverse," Chen Zhichao talked about the future development of XR from the perspective of running a company. "We think these are the best times," he said of the government's micro and macro policies that are providing a good opportunity for the XR industry to grow.
China Telecom has built the Tianyi Cloud XR platform, which is supported by technologies such as cloud-network integration, edge computing, and ultra-low latency, providing a variety of XR experiences for government and enterprise users, consumer-level users, and Internet VR users. For example, during the 14th Games, China Telecom used XR live broadcast shooting technology to conduct multi-angle video display.
iQIYI CEO Xiong Wen: Provide 30+ free VR games to create a variety of application scenarios
"The metacosm completes the last piece of the puzzle for VR development. And the metaverse will replace the app, expanding the application scenarios extensively. Xiong Wen, CEO of Chongqing iQIYI Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., believes that meta-universe is the next generation of Internet, and VR will be the next generation of intelligent terminals.
He talked about the hardware can have sales, software can be profitable is a necessary condition for the good development of the industry, such as Facebook's Oculus Quest 2 product in the ease of use, good content and cheap three major advantages, to achieve the user "out of the circle".
iQIYI has gradually established its own advantages in the content ecology, and iQIYI has provided more than 30 free game content for different users such as trend users and hardcore gamers. In the face of family application scenarios, iQIYI has launched games such as Adventure Party and Adventure Show to expand the application scenarios of VR.
<h2>Conclusion: XR manufacturers need to find their own metaverse "key"</h2>
For the outbreak of the entire XR industry, Guo Peng, head of Qualcomm's XR business in China, said that unlike the outbreak around 2016, the new industry outbreak is based on the technological precipitation of the entire industry in recent years, which will be a new opportunity for the whole industry.
According to statistics from IDC and other institutions, the global XR market size in 2020 is about 90 billion yuan, of which the VR market is 62 billion yuan and the AR market is 28 billion yuan, and it is expected that the XR market size will reach nearly 500 billion yuan by 2024.
Different manufacturers need to seize their own development opportunities in this boom according to market changes and future trends, that is, their "key" to the meta-universe. At the same time, manufacturers need to pay attention to the bubble in the market and do not blindly follow the investment.