Extended Reality & The Backbone: Towards a 3D Mirrorworld
Jolanda G. Tromp · 2022
Extended reality (XR) technologies are rapidly morphing together with Industry 4.0 cyberphysical twins, and multi-user games and game-engine developers' software, into a concept called the metaverse, enabled by the advancements of a breadth of graphics technology, including game engines, augmented reality (AR) wearables, real-world scans, and virtual reality (VR). The future XR metaverse runs on top of the internet backbone, similar to the world wide web, and connects and decentralizes AR and VR spaces and experiences. Whether this will be an open immersive network for entertainment, education, enterprise collaboration, group-gaming, and social gatherings, or a one-world walled garden, the XR metaverse will have to be built collaboratively by many developers and organizations, because it is to huge to be built by one organization alone. It has to be built in coordination, in order to make things interoperable, and the only way to achieve this is through collaboration and openness to create a shared innovation ecosystem. Open standards and open source are essential elements of the future of XR, enabling the future XR metaverse, which is so huge, and the implications of widespread adoption are so influential that we must create it together in cross-disciplinary, international collaboration and stay vigilant to mitigate the inherent risks to privacy and security.