Today's topic:
At the annual Ignite conference, Microsoft officially announced its entry into the "Metaverse" and integrated its mixed reality conference platform Mesh into Teams. CEO Nadella said that the Xbox gaming platform will also join the "Metaverse" in the future. Now, Microsoft's market value has exceeded 2.5 trillion US dollars, regaining the number one in the world.
After Facebook changed its name to Meta, Microsoft couldn't sit still...
Microsoft officially announced: fully enter the "Metaverse"!
On November 2, at the annual Ignite conference, Microsoft announced plans to turn its Microsoft Teams into a "Metaverse" and integrate the MR platform Mesh into Teams.
CEO Nadella shared about the experience scene in Mesh, a mixed reality conference platform, where people can meet and interact in the form of virtual avatars, and can also share Office files.
In addition, Nadella said that the Xbox gaming platform will also join the "Metaverse" in the future.
At the close of trading on Tuesday, Microsoft’s share price climbed 1.14% to US$333.13 per share. The company’s market value exceeded US$2.5 trillion, surpassing Apple and becoming the world’s largest listed company in market value!
After the market value peaked this time, based on the latest stock price calculations, three of the top ten companies in the world by market value exceeded US$2 trillion (Microsoft, Apple, and Aramco). Eight of the top ten are tech giants.
It is worth noting that TSMC has caught the top ten "last train" with a market value of US$591.77 billion, and is also the only Asian technology giant in the top ten list.
No headsets, 3D avatars for meetings
In March of this year, Microsoft launched this new product Mesh, which aims to create applications that allow people to collaborate remotely through AR/VR technology.
It's a virtual platform with 3D avatars and other XR capabilities, and leverages the Azure cloud platform to facilitate shared collaboration experiences for remote participants via HoloLens 2 and other devices.
Microsoft Teams will launch a new 3D virtual avatar, and users no longer need a VR headset to use the new features.
So if you don't want to turn on the camera, you can choose to use an animated character instead of yourself. The characteristic is that the platform will move your face according to the voice prompts.
Jared Spataro, head of Teams, said, “250 million people use Teams around the world, and the introduction of avatars will be the first metaverse element that looks real.”
Language barriers can also be broken down in the future. Microsoft is currently building translation and transcription support, and people can meet colleagues from around the world in virtual Teams spaces.
Mesh for Teams can pre-build a series of immersive spaces to support various environments for meetings and social activities.
Like playing ping pong, or using a whiteboard for color coding tasks, or even displaying product prototypes on a table.
Katie Kelly, principal product manager of Microsoft Mesh, said that this is not binary, so people can choose how they want to display, whether it is video or virtual avatar, and there are various customization options to choose how they want to attend the meeting.
Currently, this version of the app is currently in testing and will be launched in the first half of 2022.
A year ago, Microsoft launched the first-ever shared holographic experience in Barcelona. 200 people brought Hololens and experienced holographic images around them.
After the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, various large-scale conferences around the world were canceled due to the epidemic. The Microsoft Ignite conference was not canceled due to the epidemic, but participated in the conference through Microsoft Mesh.
Metaverse + Games: Are the paintings beautiful?
At this Ignite conference, in addition to Mesh, which is mainly used for work and teamwork, Microsoft's ambitions for the metaverse have also spread to other areas, such as games.
When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (Satya Nadella) was interviewed by Bloomberg at the event, he made no secret of Microsoft's confidence in the game platform and the Xbox series consoles to embrace the Metaverse.
Microsoft is currently one of the top three game console manufacturers in the world and an important player in the PC game market. Microsoft's combination with the "metaverse" in games is not surprising.
In fact, the Xbox has become home to a "metaverse" in some platform games.
"You can definitely expect something new from us in gaming," Nadella said. "In fact, many of our current games are themselves a metaverse. For example, "Halo", it is actually a metaverse. "Minecraft" and "Flight Simulator" are also metaverses."
"In a sense, these games are still 2D today, and the question is, can you take them into a full 3D world now. Now, that's our future plan," Nadella said.
What Nadella said was true.
In fact, as early as the 2015 E3 Game Show, Microsoft used an AR headset HoloLens to "move" the pixel sandbox game "Minecraft" from the screen to reality.
This is a special version of "Minecraft" created by Microsoft for HoloLens glasses. From today's point of view, many immersive game experiences are very similar to the settings of "Metaverse".
In 2019, Microsoft launched "Minecraft Earth" on the mobile platform, further enhancing the original AR/VR experience. However, the game was discontinued at the end of June this year.
It is an ambitious project to completely transform games that support AR expansion technology such as Minecraft, Halo, and Flight Simulator into a complete 3D world.
It is worth mentioning that Microsoft's "Flight Simulator" may have gone ahead. Players fly aircraft in multiplayer environments that simulate real-world weather and locations.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is the most realistic flight simulation game with the widest range of objects in history. The game includes 2 trillion individually rendered trees, 1.5 billion buildings, and nearly every road, mountain, city, and airport in the world. All of these look like "the real thing".
This may be the closest game to the "Metaverse" that we can actually play.
Although Microsoft has not disclosed which "Metaverse" games will be launched on the Xbox platform in the future, with Nadella's firm attitude and Microsoft's emphasis on the game console and platform business, it is likely to be on the "Metaverse" game. Take the big step first.
Yuan universe, who is in charge of ups and downs?
The metaverse war of digital avatars has just begun.
Last week, Facebook, which changed its name to Meta, officially announced its efforts to build the Metaverse, and immediately acquired the studio behind the VR fitness app Within.
Facebook has been focusing on the layout of the four metaverse components of hardware entry, underlying technology, artificial intelligence, and content.
A number of updates have also been rolled out, including Horizon Worlds, Horizon Homes, Horizon Workrooms, Messenger VR and fitness VR, platforms where users can create virtual worlds, meeting rooms and home spaces of their own design.
Microsoft announced its joining at this time, and for Facebook, there is no doubt that there is another strong competitor.
Over the past few years, Microsoft has not fared behind in the layout of the VR field, including the acquisition of HoloLens and AltspaceVR.
For Meta, with billions of daily users on Facebook and Instagram to fulfill its Metaverse ambitions,
Microsoft now has 145 million people using its Teams app, with more than 13 million daily active users.
Now, tech giants like Microsoft and Facebook are chasing interconnected virtual worlds.
Facebook highlighted the investment needed to make this happen, predicting that spending on Metaverse-related technologies will exceed $10 billion by 2021.
Bloomberg estimates that if current trends continue, the Metaverse market could reach $800 billion by 2024.
"For years, we've been talking about how to create this digital world, but now we have the opportunity to actually go into that world and participate in it," Nadella said.
Most importantly, we are able to bring our individuality and choose how we want to experience the world and who we want to interact with. "
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