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Snapchat’s Evan Spiegel dismisses Facebook’s metaverse as ‘hypothetical’

Snapchat’s Evan Spiegel dismisses Facebook’s metaverse as ‘hypothetical’

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founder says his company is committed to augmenting the real world rather than replacing

it as new augmented reality features are coming to phones and experimental Snap AR Spectacles over the next year.

Speaking ahead of the Snap Partner Summit, the company’s flagship annual event, Spiegel argued that Snapchat was in a unique position to guide the next decade of technology thanks to the company’s wide range of augmented reality services, such as “glasses.” used by millions of people every day.

With 332 million daily users and a market capitalization of $46.95 billion (£38 billion), Snap is comfortably larger than Twitter, even after the latter’s takeover bid by Elon Musk, but receives a fraction of the attention. “That’s something that comes along with them being the ‘public square of the city,'” says Spiegel. “We are pleased with the value we bring to our community and to society.”

He cites statistics that “over 90% of Snapchat users say they feel comfortable, happy, and connected when using Snapchat,” which is “ranked the #1 happiest platform compared to other apps.”

“There are now like 250 million people interacting with AR every day on the smartphone alone,” Spiegel said. “And that’s on this little little screen that you’re looking through and you’re using your thumbs. So we think that trying to break some of those limitations and get into a truly immersive and interactive AR experience is going to be very important in the future.”

Snap’s latest Spectacles have only been shipped in prototype form to creators around the world: with 15-30 minute battery life and a severely restricted screen, they’re bound to inspire creators with the possibility of future releases. of the same hardware. But, Spiegel says, the next generation is already in development.

“It just changes the way you interact when you can walk around and use your hands, and see computing come to life. The strength of our AR glasses is the AR platform behind them, brought together with hundreds of hundreds of thousands of developers, millions of glasses, and very, very advanced tools that continue to evolve rapidly.”

At the core of that evolution is an update called Lens Cloud that lets developers from Snapchat and Spectacles create AR experiences that are firmly rooted in the real world. A set of tools allows Lenses to be anchored anywhere in the world: Lego has used it to build virtual Ferris wheels, roller coasters and slides on the streets of central London.

Another feature allows two users of the same AR lens to interact with each other for the first time, occupying the same virtual spaces and playing the same games.

It sounds like the updates could be the foundation for a shared virtual universe of the kind that Facebook recently decided was so central to its future that it even changed the company’s name to Meta. But, says Spiegel, the word “metaverse” is never uttered in Snap’s offices.

“The reason we don’t use that word is because it’s quite ambiguous and hypothetical. Just ask a room of people how to define it, and everyone’s definition is totally different.

“But one of the big overarching concepts that people have is that a lot of those tools are designed to replace reality. Whereas when we talk about AR, we are trying to augment the real world around you. So our fundamental bet is that people really love the real world: they want to be together in person with their friends.

“And of course our vision is real today, with glasses you can wear today and a platform that works at scale today. So we try to stay away from those assumptions, because we’re focused on what we’re building right now.”

Pixy

Spiegel also revealed Pixy, “the world’s friendliest flying camera,” a palm-sized autonomous drone that can be used to capture outdoor activities. With a single button to control, users simply hold Pixy in their hand and select one of five modes, including “follow” – the drone will recognize and follow its owner by taking a video along the way, and “reveal” the drone will fly to its maximum height and shoot the reverse panorama as you go.

“Everything you need to capture the spontaneity and fun of the moment from new perspectives is right in the palm of your hand,” Spiegel said. “There are no controllers. There is no complex setup. Simply select a flight path and let Pixy take it from there, hovering above you as you capture photos and videos. And it knows when and where to return, landing softly in the palm of your hand.”

The device is available for purchase starting Thursday for $229.99 for customers in the US and France.

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Snapchat’s Evan Spiegel dismisses Facebook’s metaverse as ‘hypothetical’

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