Weekly Metaverse #133: AR at the World Cup
Augmented reality will combine the best parts of watching the game at home and in the stadium
It’s time for the World Cup, and even though it’s an event that’s rife with the usual amount of bribery and corruption, plus a big ol’ dash of anti-LGBTQ bigotry and Europeans who are angry because they have to watch soccer sober, I have seen one compelling thing about it - the FIFA+ app AR view of games.
Here’s a Reddit post with a video: FIFA+ in-stadium augmented reality. It’s quick and worth a watch.
First, let me just say that I recognize that in its current form, it’s a pretty dumb experience - going to a game only to watch it through your phone screen so you can see an AR overlay is not something anyone’s going to do. But… AR glasses! They’re coming (see below), and what a great use case this will be.
A thing that you should know about me is that I’m a big Stanford football fan. When I was living in the Bay, I went to every home game. Now that I’ve moved away, I get back for one or two every year. Most of the time, though, I don’t actually go into the game - I get there early, tailgate, and then watch the game on the TV that’s set up at my tailgate.
Why? It’s not because Stanford tickets are expensive (trust me, nobody’s buying tickets these days). It’s because the experience of watching sports on TV surpassed the experience of going into the game long ago. When teams first started selling tickets to their games, the alternative was to read the score the next day in the newspaper or maybe listen to the game on the radio.
Now we’ve got SkyCam! And a goal line cam! HD so crystal clear I can see every zit on the QB’s face! Why go in when I’m going to spend a good portion of the game looking at the Jumbotron to see the result of the play, because it’s happening on the other side of the field from my seats? I recognize there’s the whole atmosphere component (I mean, not at Stanford games because fans don’t show up, but elsewhere), but what I really care about is seeing the actual football being played, and the TV experience is vastly superior for that.
AR glasses, though, might just take me back into the stadium. They’ll take that yellow first down line from the TV and put it right on the field. They’ll be able to give me a picture-in-picture view, so I can see if the ball crossed the goal line, even though it’s on the far side of the field. They can show me when players are being subbed in and out, so I don’t have to try to catch a glimpse of the back of someone’s jersey from a hundred feet away. (They won’t have convenient bathrooms and cheap beer, which are also great reasons to watch on TV, but some sacrifices must be made.)
If the metaverse is all about merging the physical and digital worlds, sports are a perfect application. They used to just be about sweaty dudes throwing balls, but now they’re all about data - volumes and volumes of information that matter to not just coaches, but also fans. AR will bring that data to us instead of making us go find it on TV. It’ll also be better data, because it’ll be personalized - if you’re at an NFL game, your glasses can highlight the players on your fantasy team and keep track of their points.
Of course, as I’ve said, this is all predicated on the existence of AR glasses, so to that end, let’s what our friends at Meta are up to…
Meta’s Making AR Glasses
Yeah, so it turns out that of the billions and billions of dollars that Meta’s investing in the Metaverse, only a relatively small percent is going to their much-maligned software products like Horizon Worlds - instead, it turns out that about half of their spending is going to AR glasses that won’t be here for a few years at least.
Upload VR also reports that “Meta’s glasses will reportedly be bundled with Meta’s neural wristband as the input device.” It really does seem like Zuck’s playing the long game here, and that he’s got a good playbook if he can keep burning cash to achieve the long-term vision. Oculus is establishing Meta as a leader in the general metaverse space with VR, but AR will move their products from interesting novelties to something core to how we interact with the world, akin to a smartphone today.
In that context, pouring in billions now doesn’t seem crazy - after all, if Meta could go back in time and pour billions into the smartphone market in order to establish dominance, with the benefit of hindsight it’s obvious that would have been a smart decision. AR is the next smartphone, but probably meaningfully more valuable commercially - whoever controls the OS on your AR glasses will literally control what you see.
Metaverse News
Downtown Boulder offering new augmented reality tour (Daily Camera): If you search “tours of <insert city>” you’ll find booking sites that have tons of options in any major city, many of which will be walking tours guided by locals. In the future, we may find lists of curated AR tours - instead of the tour guide taking each group around, she’ll just record her tour, and you can follow her with your glasses. Sprinkle in some AI, and you’ll be able to ask questions and interact with your digital guide.
With $2M funding, inCitu aims to democratize city planning using augmented reality (SiliconANGLE): An educated citizenry leads to better democracy, and AR is going to be a great way to educate people on how municipal changes will affect their lies. Have you ever seen a big poster that gives information about a city hearing for a building permit that a developer has requested? You probably ignored it, like 99.9% of other people. But what if you could see exactly what the building would look like if constructed? Might just get people to care.
World of Warcraft Players Can Get Dragons Early with Dragonflight Augmented Reality Phone Experience (GameRant): Is it cutesy and maybe a little dumb? Sure. But it’s one of the most important videogames (and more generally one of the most important live, collaborative digital experiences) taking a step into the real world - that’s what the metaverse is all about.
Get Ready for AR Glasses That You Might Actually Want to WearXRAI Glass launches its real-time Augmented Reality closed captioning app to users globally (Auganix): Currently built to work with Nreal Air glasses, but you can imagine this sort of functionality will be table stakes for all future AR glasses and will be a huge boon for accessibility.
CBRE built an office in the metaverse, where nobody will have a desk (The Dallas Morning News): We’ve talked about how the metaverse has a lot of really obvious use cases for real estate, and it’s good to see one of the giants in the space embracing it.
Sony Acquires Beyond Sports to Expand Metaverse Solutions (XR Today): Sony sees the opportunity for sports in the metaverse.