Wednesday, 2 November, 2022 UTC
Summary
The incredible thing about technology is that you feel like you’re actually present in another place with other people. People who try it say it’s different from anything they’ve ever experienced in their lives.”
Mark Zuckerberg
Meta is spending around $13Billion every year on creating Metaverse.
What is Metaverse?
A metaverse is a user-created virtual world that exists on a persistent online network. In many ways, it is similar to the physical world, with land that can be bought and sold, and businesses that can be started and operated. However, the metaverse also has its own unique elements, such as the ability to create and alter one’s avatar, and the ability to teleport from one location to another.
The term “metaverse” was first coined by Neal Stephenson in his science fiction novel Snow Crash. In the book, the metaverse is a virtual world that is used by humans as an alternative to the physical world. Stephenson described the metaverse as “a graphical representation of cyberspace”, and he predicted that it would one day become a reality.
Since the publication of Snow Crash, the term “metaverse” has been used to describe a variety of different concepts, including the virtual world of Second Life, the global network of computers known as the Internet, and even the real world itself. However, the most common use of the term “metaverse” is to refer to a virtual world that is similar to Snow Crash’s fictional metaverse.
The metaverse is still in its early stages of development, and it is constantly evolving. As more and more people begin to use metaverses for work, play, and social interaction, the possibilities for what the metaverse can become are endless.
Metaverse Vs. Virtual Reality
There is a lot of debate going on for understanding the differences between both which we are covering here one by one before understanding the tech.
- The Metaverse is an open, shared, and permanent virtual world that provides access to user-created 3D virtual locations, solutions, and surroundings. On the other hand, virtual reality is the technology for constructing three-dimensional virtual worlds with specified functionality.
- When you use a VR system, you are essentially experiencing a system that a brand owns, while MetaVerse is an entirely different ballgame in that it enables people to own virtual goods and experiences. Everything you create and possess in the Metaverse belongs to you, whether virtual real estate or an item. Users have full ownership rights in the Metaverse.
- In the case of VR, you may get the impression that you are wearing a headset or other device that allows you to experience the virtual world. By merging AR and VR technology, the Metaverse creates a virtual reality comparable to the actual world. As a result, you may move about in virtual environments as if you were in the real world, although as a digital avatar.
There could be many more key comparisons between the two pieces of technology. Both of technology wants to create a heightened illusion of virtual reality for its user and the Human senses are much dependent on the Power of Smell.
Smell
In the past, computer games have focused mostly on what we can see — moving images on screens. Other senses have not been present in it. The possibility to move on from a passive to a more active sense of smell in the game world paves the way for the development of completely new smell-based game mechanics based on the players’ movements and judgments.
“We hope that the new technical possibilities will lead to scents having a more important role in game development,” says Jonas Olofsson, professor of psychology and leader of the research project at Stockholm University.
To achieve this Scientists have built a device called an “olfactometer” to help VR users with the Power to smell.
Olfactometer
An odor machine, a so-called olfactometer, makes it possible to smell in VR environments. First up is a “wine tasting game” where the user smells wine in a virtual wine cellar and gets points if the guess on aromas in each wine is correct.
The research, funded by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, was recently published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies.
Technology
The olfactometer consists of four different valves each connected to a channel. In the middle, there is a fan sucking the air into a tube. With the help of the computer, the player can control the four channels so that they open to different degrees and provide different mixtures of scents. Scent blends that can mimic the complexity of a real wine glass. The game has different levels of difficulty with increasing levels of complexity.
In its present form, the tool is mounted on the underside of an off-the-shelf HTC Vive handheld game controller. It incorporates four vertically oriented scent reservoirs, each one containing a different scented liquid absorbed into a sponge-like material. Additionally, each reservoir is sealed by one stepless valve at the top and another at the bottom.
As long as both of those valves remain closed, the user can’t smell the liquid within. When the Olfactometer is activated, however, the valves on the reservoirs open to varying degrees. An onboard fan then draws air up through the bottom of the reservoirs and out the top into a single shared tube, which wafts the combined scents up to the user’s nose.
It’s possible to simulate various odors by mixing different scents in different ratios — a linked gaming computer determines which odors are released at which points in the game. The Olfactometer can be manually activated via the controller, or it can be set to self-activate whenever it gets within close range of the user’s VR headset.
In a demonstration of the technology, the scientists created a game in which users are in a virtual wine cellar where they pick up wine glasses and try to identify the type of wine in each one, based on its aroma. Along with adding a new dimension to VR gaming, it is believed that such technology could also be used to help retrain the brains of people who have temporarily lost their sense of smell due to Covid-19 or otherwise.
Medical use
Smell training is a method recommended by doctors for those who lose their sense of smell after colds and other viruses, but according to Jonas Olofsson, many people stop training because it becomes too boring.
Nosewise Handheld Olfactometer
For decades, inventors have pursued the concept of adding “smell-o-vision” to movies or TV shows. Swedish scientists have now created such a system for use in VR gaming, and it could actually help people regain their lost sense of smell.
Led by Stockholm University’s Prof. Jonas Olofsson, researchers from that institution and Malmö University recently developed a 3D-printed prototype device known as the Nosewise Handheld Olfactometer.
NoiseThe code for both the device and the game is freely available online, for anyone interested in utilizing and further developing the system. According to the researchers, the total materials cost of the prototype is approximately US$150.
References :
Smelling in VR environment possible with new gaming technology
Nosewise Handheld Olfactometer
Check out this video of NoseWise Wine Game as a demonstration of Technology.
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https://arvrjourney.com/Smelling in VR/Metaverse was originally published in AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.