OPINION - The metaverse might be unpopular, but haptics might change that

Tech giants are getting smaller. This month, Meta announced it would be cutting thousands of jobs, with its founder Mark Zuckerberg branding 2023 the “year of efficiency” for the Facebook parent company. While most of the moves involve a hollowing out of middle management, some roles from Reality Labs, Meta’s metaverse division, are likely to get the chop too.

The plan makes sense. Ad revenue is falling as brands scale back digital marketing budgets, or opt for younger networks such as TikTok or Twitch. Audiences are tired of the vapid content hawked on Instagram. Millions of young people wouldn’t go near Facebook. More telling is how Zuckerberg’s vision for the new digital frontier has been widely panned. Ideation meeting in an infinite VR boardroom, anyone? I didn’t think so. There are so many people who just do not care enough about the metaverse.

Feeling it at last

All this might change, of course. Audiences - it would appear - mostly don’t care about attending a diplomatic summit or suffering the banality of a virtual bank branch in Decentraland or the Roblox universe. But what about if you could taste food, feel surfaces, or experience pleasure (or pain) in these places? Haptics is the name given to the nascent form of tech interfaces that create feedback. Remember the Rumble Pack Nintendo released with the N64 console? That vibrating effect was an early form of it. Today, researchers are doing much more.

Some readers might remember the early version of virtual reality that appeared in the 1990s. In that iteration, users interacted with their surroundings with a glove. Today a company called HaptX is working on a similar interface, but unlike its predecessor the G1 gloves give out haptic feedback. The innovation uses a system called microfluidic actuators which physically displace the skin on your hand. This means that when you touch something in the metaverse, it will make the object feel as though you were in the real world too. It uses a web of tendons that create resistance should you decide to pick anything up in the digital realm.

Sniff-tech

The annual Consumer Electronics Show, which comes to Las Vegas each January, offers an indication of what’s around the corner when it comes to future interfaces. For the 2023 instalment, a company called OVR Technology demonstrated a headset with a set of cartridges that contained a set of eight scents that could combine to produce an array of different aromas. The company has its eye on a version of metaverse-enabled wellness, where you can check into a virtual spa and experience some calming olfactory sensations (perhaps to counter the hardships you’ve just endured in one of Zuckerberg’s infinite offices).

There are some researchers who think that haptics will one day be able to elicit emotional responses too. Scientists at the University of Sussex found evidence that stimulating different parts of the hand can spark the feeling of various emotions, from happiness and sadness to excitement and fear. For instance, the team reckon that a sharp burst of air around the base of the thumb creates excitement while the outer palm and the bottom of the pinky finger elicits sadness.

Those who have bet (and lost) big on the metaverse in recent years shouldn’t lose hope just yet. Boring, staid experiences in the digital frontier will falter as a raft of technologies puts the virtual on an even footing with the real.