Des géants de la tech s'associent autour du métatavers
L'actu
Meta, Microsoft and other tech giants racing to build the emerging metaverse concept have formed a group to foster development of industry standards that would make the companies' nascent digital worlds compatible with each other.
Participants in the Metaverse Standards Forum include many of the biggest companies working in the space, from chip makers to gaming companies, as well as established standards-setting bodies like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the group said in an statement announcing its creation on Tuesday.
Conspicuously missing from the member list for now however is Apple, which analysts expect to become a dominant player in the metaverse race once it introduces a mixed reality headset this year or next. Lire l'article complet sur le site de Reuters
Un forum centré sur des projets pragmatiques
L'ambition
According to a press release, the Metaverse Standards Forum will focus on "pragmatic, action-based projects" like hackathons and prototyping tools for supporting common standards. It’s also interested in developing "consistent terminology" for the space — where many players can’t even agree on what a "metaverse" is.
"Industry leaders have stated that the potential of the metaverse will be best realized if it is built on a foundation of open standards, the group says in a press release. Building an open and inclusive metaverse at pervasive scale will demand a constellation of open interoperability standards."
The forum suggests an interest in formalizing "metaverse" development as a unified field. And it hints at which companies are most interested in creating accepted standards for it — or at the very least, which ones want to be perceived as supporting these standards. Lire l'article complet sur le site de The Verge
Quel métavers demain ?
Les visions
Autant dire que ce forum va accentuer l'écart entre les deux grandes visions des métavers. La première, celle des géants de la tech actuels dont Meta et son Horizon Worlds sont en tête de gondole. La seconde, celle de la nuée de start-up utilisant blockchain, cryptos et NFT, comme The Sandbox , et appelant de leurs vœux l'ère du Web3.
Alors que le web 2.0 est devenu multipolaire, avec un Huawei honni aux États-Unis ou un Facebook interdit en Chine, ou même TikTok, un temps au cœur de la guerre commerciale sino-américaine, ce forum a le mérite de mettre autour de la même table des acteurs de tous bords. En particulier, les Chinois Huawei et Alibaba. Lire l'article complet sur le site des Échos
La modération n'est pas une priorité
La sécurité
Consortiums like these are only effective if enough companies adopt their standards, though.
Tiffany Xingyu Wang, chief security officer at AI content moderation company Spectrum Labs, launched the Oasis Consortium earlier this year. In an effort to promote greater commitments to safety from gaming and social companies, the Oasis Consortium developed a list of user safety standards, which it hopes will become an industry standard. "If the metaverse is going to survive, it has to have safety in it" , Wang told the Technology Review.
Content moderation is especially tricky in virtual reality, when online harassment or abuse can feel even more frightening due to the immersive nature of the technology. And in some cases, it seems like companies are prioritizing product development over robust safety tools. Lire l'article complet sur le site de TechCrunch
