Experience 24 hours living in the virtual universe Metaverse

Here's a one-day experience in a virtual universe by WSJ journalist Joanna Stern. After 24 hours, wearing VR glasses and immersed in the metaverse Stern has had interesting experiences but mixed with skepticism.

Stern's first impressions in the virtual universe were amazed at his avatars in the metaverse. In it, her face looks like a Lego Minifigure, her arms are detachable and her legless torso can be moved.

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Online meetings become more interesting

Stern begins his day in the metaverse with an online meeting in Meta's Horizon virtual conference room. If they use VR glasses, they can appear as an avatar or can also choose a traditional screen interface with the other person's virtual space and character.

Stern couldn't help but laugh when he heard the difficult boss's voice coming from a cartoon character like the amputated Milhouse in The Simpsons.

But after just a few minutes, meeting participants in this virtual universe had far more interesting experiences than boring meetings on Zoom.

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Stern said she had the feeling that her boss was actually sitting across from her and making direct eye contact. However, when she needed to take notes of the meeting, her eyes were covered by VR glasses and couldn't type on a real computer.

However, until now avatars in the virtual world still have no legs. This is a technical challenge that developers are trying to overcome so that users get the most authentic experience.

The problem of the virtual universe

Stern does a lot of meetings in the metaverse and finds them all interesting. There, she can control who is invited. However, when users participate in public events, the sense of privacy is lost immediately.

When participating in a virtual concert on Microsoft's AltspaceVR platform, Stern sees a lot of avatars around and can hear people talking. Users can mute or block someone by clicking on their profile picture.

In the virtual space, there are also "online policemen" who 'roam' or blend into the crowd and look for vandals.

In the metaverse, users can also play games and listen to music, but these services are quite expensive.

Stern created four different avatars in the virtual universe to participate in multiple activities at the same time such as playing games, joining a workout app, and meetings. Both Meta and Microsoft allow users to "clone" in the metaverse to be able to do multiple things at the same time.

Hardware limitation

Virtual reality glasses still have many physical limitations such as too bulky design, low battery capacity, so they can only be used for a few hours and then suddenly turn off, the glasses will be hot if used for a long time.

According to Stern, in the metaverse AR glasses need to be improved to help users see three-dimensional images in the most natural way. However, to solve these problems we will have to wait another 5-10 years.

After using the virtual reality glasses for 24 hours, Stern said she felt a headache when wearing the glasses for a long time and had to take medicine.

After a day living in the metaverse, Joanna Stern said that for people to really live in the virtual universe, there will be many problems to be solved.