⏳ 5 min read

It’s incredible to see how, with one monthly edition and such a niche topic, this newsletter has grown from 0 to more than 500 readers worldwide. Among you are top leaders in the XR field, researchers, policymakers, and governmental institutions.

Thanks to all of you for being here today! 🎉

When starting this project a year and a half ago, little did I know where it would lead me. I started it to democratize hermetic scientific discussions around data privacy, digital identity, and ethics in plain language that professionals in XR and policymakers interested in the topic would dive into.

The truth is that after doing a Ph.D., I realized that most scientific knowledge gets lost on the golden shelf… waiting there, getting dusty. So, why not bring it to life in a more fun & easy format?

This newsletter steers the conversation around data privacy and ethics in the metaverse with resources and some reports that are pretty niche and worth checking.

👉 As for the evolution of this platform, I am planning a complete revamp at some point in 2024, where I will prioritize live exchanges with professionals over a written format—pure experimentation.

👉 Wanna have your say on this revamp? Is there something you would like to see in an upcoming edition? Tell me what you think by taking this quick survey.

You may think: “Another survey?? Nooo…” As you know, this newsletter is pure altruism to help the XR space evolve. So, if you love this newsletter, share 2 mins of your time with me to help me improve. Your feedback is invaluable.

Let’s discover what awaits us on the horizon in 2024!

Looking back

This newsletter has evolved clearly towards metaverse data privacy and policy.

I feel like Obelix, who fell into the magic potion.

Thanks to my Ph.D., I fell into a magic data potion that opened my eyes to the stakes of data privacy in the metaverse and its pressing policy relevance.

After all, data is the new currency in the 21st century, being traded here and there.

Data privacy is about us: our lives, who we are, how we relate to others, our thoughts and even our ideological convictions.

Algorithmic harvesting is getting so refined with applications such as ChatGPT or even Threads (Meta) that user profiling is getting more and more advanced.

“But I don’t care about data privacy.”

This is the answer I get from several close friends.

You may not care as of today. Companies with such profiling abilities are mostly the ones in tech (i.e., Meta, Tesla, Amazon). However, the field is evolving rapidly, and the danger comes when advanced data profiling tools may be embedded in larger areas of our lives, such as healthcare.

Thinking about dystopian futures, we might get to a point where you won’t be able to get medical insurance because very advanced profiling tools may have harvested information indicating that you may be prone to certain illnesses.

Is that a future we want?

Should we care?

The time to take action is now, not in some years, once it’ll be too late…

In the metaverse, the data collected is not only about basic information—such as email, age, and name—but about sensitive biometric data and behavior patterns unique to each of us—such as hand, body, eye, and facial tracking.

Our privacy rights are getting eroded little by little… and we are not even noticing that they are fading. Right?

For a general overview of this newsletter, here come the most popular editions:

• MDE#02 Metaverse Data Privacy 1. Biometric data harvesting in XR based on “Exploring the Unprecedented Privacy Risks of the Metaverse” from UC Berkeley and the Technical University of Munich.

• MDE#10 Vision Pro’s Biofeedback Edge. Vision Pro’s biofeedback patents “read” the user to provide a magic, seamless experience.

• MDE#13 Regulating the Metaverse. Summary of the debate on regulating the metaverse at AWE EU 2023 (Vienna).

MDE’s 2022/23 summary

Below is a compendium of all the previous newsletters. Find your gem 💎

• MDE#00 The Metaverse: Trick or Treat? For an overview of the motivations behind this newsletter and the importance of data in XR.

• MDE#01 The 10 Commandments. Describing 10 rules to address the ethical challenges in the metaverse.

• MDE#02 Metaverse Data Privacy 1. Biometric data harvesting in XR based on “Exploring the Unprecedented Privacy Risks of the Metaverse” from UC Berkeley and the Technical University of Munich.

• MDE#03 The Metaverse’s Arrhythmia. The hype around the metaverse, especially following the massive layoff of 13% of Meta’s workforce.

• MDE#04 Tech Check-up. The high-maintenance relationship with tech. Tools for a family tech check-up.

• MDE#05 Becoming Inclusive. XR accessibility guide for AR/VR creators and recommendations for policymakers.

• MDE#06 Metaverse Data Privacy 2. Going incognito in the metaverse with MetaGuard plug-in to safeguard data in XR.

• MDE#07 The Digital Markets Act. Overview of the DMA and the effects on the metaverse.

• MDE#08 Avatars and Identity. The transition towards interactive avatars and why should we care.

• MDE#09 How to Speak Up in XR. Interview XR pioneer Avi Bar-Zeev to speak up on ethical topics when working in a tech company.

• MDE#10 Vision Pro’s Biofeedback Edge. Vision Pro’s biofeedback patents that “read” the user to provide a magic, seamless experience.

• MDE#11 Beyond Surveillance. The erosion of anonymity and privacy in the metaverse and the challenge it represents for citizen rights and protection.

• MDE#12 Navigating XR Data. XR Privacy Risk Assessment based on the XRSI Framework.

• MDE#13 Regulating the Metaverse. Debate summary on regulating the metaverse at AWE EU 2023 (Vienna).

NEW OF THE PAST MONTH: I participated here and there in several events for Lynx Mixed Reality; one of them was an invitation to Science Po’s Deep Tech & Entrepreneurship class (picture below).

Thanks for reading until the end! I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding community. Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are my own and do not represent the views or opinions of my current or any past employer.

⏳ 6 min read

In this MDE edition, I’ll summarize a debate that happened at AWE EU 2023 (Vienna) recently. The debate pointed out the current state of regulating the metaverse.

In this newsletter, I refer to the metaverse as a vision for the next wave of computing that is ubiquitous, seamless, and immersive—making use of AR and VR technologies.

The panel included representatives from the European Commission, Metaverse EU, the XR Association, Consulum, Meta, and Qualcomm. It discussed how governments are approaching the metaverse and how metaverse policy is being addressed.

Understanding the value of the metaverse

The metaverse concept is relatively new but rapidly gaining traction in the public sector. Governments are keen to avoid repeating the mistakes of underestimating tech’s power, such as the underestimation of the internet's potential back in the 1990s. They're now looking to position their countries to take advantage of the metaverse and protect their citizens.

Understanding the value of the metaverse is the first step to get involved. This seems obvious. However, getting to understand what it truly entails should be a top priority—beyond the hype, beyond the mere fact that it looks cool and that we don’t want to be left behind.

In the words of Isabella Williamson from Consulum: “I've seen time and time again in my area of work, of governments going in and saying: I want to do this because it looks cool or everyone else is doing it, but they haven't actually asked themselves, why do I need to? What's the challenge I'm going to address? So first of all, they need to really have that discovery phase with a dedicated team, a working group that is focused on metaverse and XR technologies.“

Beyond understanding the value of the metaverse; another critical part for any government is to put into place a strategic vision for the metaverse.

Some countries like Finland, the UAE, China, and South Korea are being very proactive, creating strategies to become leading metaverse economies.

In Europe, the European Commission is putting in place several initiatives to foster the metaverse looking both at industry and citizens. This ranges from projects assessing the impact of the metaverse on health to public and government use.

And guess what? The U.S. is lagging behind. They pioneer metaverse technology but are left behind by their lawmakers… In the words of Joan O’Hara from the XR Association: “What we found was the U.S. is the outlier in that we [the U.S.] have not come up with a vision for how immersive technology will play a role in our communities.”

An interoperable ecosystem for all

From an industry perspective, the metaverse represents a new type of industrialization. This will imply the development of novel skillsets in the years to come that policymakers should be aware of. That’s why cooperation between industry and policymakers is essential.

Another key aspect is the need for an interoperable metaverse that is open to all and includes everybody—that can access the tech, of course—beyond looking at the individual use cases that the metaverse brings forward.

Cooperation between industry leaders should be the top priority to bring about an interoperable metaverse.

In the words of Juliana Koza (Qualcomm): “We should really have the broader view and try to see how we can cooperate together, bringing everyone on the table to discuss how we can really have the real metaverse in the next years as a kind of reality. So it becomes a normal part of everyone's life.”

“Governments as enablers”

The complexity of the metaverse requires multiple technologies, standards, and companies working together. By putting our focus on the complexity of the metaverse, we will create a fragmented approach. In the end, this will not help us to create common ground between the government and industry players.

Instead, we should look at the metaverse with a holistic approach, like an orchestra that is interdependent and interconnected.

Regulating one area of the metaverse will affect the whole ensemble, eventually putting restrictions on fulfilling the vision. That’s why looking at policymaking in a holistic way is essential. The domino effect is at play.

That’s why focusing on the experience as a whole is one approach that may facilitate regulating the space as long as data security, privacy, ownership, and some other parameters with a direct impact on citizens and institutions are addressed.

In the end, governments are the enablers that will facilitate the success—or failure—of the metaverse. As pointed out by Isabella Williamson (Consulum): “Governments are the facilitators, the enablers, and to really drive it forward, they need to work with industry experts to make it a possibility.”

The global metaverse readiness

Let’s now look at the global metaverse readiness across a few countries that were discussed in the panel. In the United Kingdom, the government is actively engaging through initiatives like the Digital Catapult network, which synergizes the efforts of government officials, investors, and tech companies to maximize the potential of emerging technologies. Such collaborative efforts are not only propelling innovation but also ensuring that developments are aligned with societal benefits and concerns.

In contrast, the United States appears to be lagging, with a call for lawmakers to recognize the imperative of having a stake in the metaverse’s evolution. The necessity for the U.S. to catch up and collaborate internationally is underscored by the progress seen in other regions, where community involvement and industry-government partnerships are flourishing.

In the European Union, the European Commission sets an example with its citizen panels, emphasizing the inclusion of community voices in policymaking. This ensures that the public’s expectations and concerns shape the trajectory of metaverse integration into society.

In Asia, China adopts a more directive approach, setting clear guidelines for the industry’s progression. South Korea, with its comprehensive New Deal policy and metaverse-related initiatives such as technology labs, academies for upskilling, and investment funds, all converging to make Seoul a potential hotbed for metaverse development. The country exemplifies the economic potential when government initiatives align with industry expertise.

In conclusion, the global policy landscape for the metaverse is as diverse as the technology itself. The path forward seems clear: collaborative efforts between government and industry, public engagement, and strategic investment will be pivotal in shaping the metaverse's integration into the fabric of society in the years to come.

NEW OF THE PAST MONTH(S):  Travels here and there, Covid, another moving within the city of love, and well… mostly taking care of me (and paperwork, huh).

Thanks for reading until the end! I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding community. Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are my own and do not represent the views or opinions of my current or any past employer.

⏳ 4 min read

Before setting sail, a captain identifies hazards by studying maps and weather—that's like spotting risks in XR. The captain prioritizes threats like storms or pirates, similar to evaluating which XR issues are most urgent. To mitigate risks, they might choose a safer route or update equipment, just as you'd implement safety features in XR. Once sailing, continuous adjustments are made based on new info, akin to ongoing monitoring in XR. And just like a captain's log records the journey, documenting your actions in XR is key for future safety.

Today, I’ll introduce a privacy and safety risk assessment for companies from X Reality Safety Intelligence (XRSI), addressing privacy and safety concerns for XR technologies.

The XRSI Framework

The XRSI framework “helps organizations define their privacy goals, identify privacy risks, and optimize the use of personal and sensitive information while limiting privacy violations.”

It’s a risk management tool to achieve transparency and create accountability for XR companies.

The framework is composed of four areas of work to ensure companies’ alignment with privacy and safety measures from diagnosis to prevention. Today we’ll explore their privacy risk assessment for companies.

Let’s set the sail to anchor XR privacy!

XR Privacy Risk Assessment

This assessment helps organizations understand how personal information flows within their systems and operations and what protective measures are needed to ensure compliance with privacy laws and regulations.

XR applications collect a huge amount of data from users and their surroundings to enable the XR experience to happen. For example, positioning a user in space requires collecting data about the surroundings of the user via a camera feed. This data is essential while running the application to position the user.

What is essential is to understand (1) which data is needed to make the experience happen and (2) which of it needs to be stored, or not.

In the case above, we should question whether the data collected to map the space could be deleted upon request after the XR experience has finished.

👉 Want more info on the data collected in XR experiences? Check MDE#02 and MDE#04.

So what can we do?

To be able to distinguish what is essential from what can be deleted, let’s look at some questions that can help us perform an XR privacy risk assessment to start with.

• What data is stored? On-device? Distributed to other users? On an edge cloud? On a remote cloud? How long will the data be retained? Will the personal and sensitive XR data be encrypted, de-identified, obfuscated, and/or aggregated when storing or processing?

• What is the data collection pipeline? What is collected by the device? What is stored locally on the device? What data is shared with: other users/ third-party applications/ other companies?

• What are the various types of data required by the platform, service, or app?

• What are the various types of data being collected, processed, and shared?

• What is the legal basis for storing personal and sensitive XR data?

• Which third parties will the data be shared with and how will they be processing the data?

• What processes are in place to communicate to customers, collaborators, and regulators what data is being collected and why?

• What processes are in place to ensure the data is stored securely?

• What processes are in place for responding to a data breach or any privacy incident in a timely manner?

Once you’ve answered these questions, you’ll have a good understanding of how the XR experience is handling data.

💡 Curious to know more? Check the XRSI Privacy and Safety Framework

Bye for now!

NEW OF THE PAST MONTH: Last July, I joined Lynx Mixed Reality. A great company with an amazing team building a European headset that doesn’t harvest your data, allowing your own data policy. Too good to be true? Just check it out by yourself!

Thanks for reading until the end! I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding community. Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are my own and do not represent the views or opinions of my current or any past employer.

⏳ 5 min read

It’s the time of the year to talk about summer reads. I’ll recommend checking the white papers from IEEE XR Ethics. They aren’t a light read, but they provide great recommendations in niche areas. For reference, MDE#05 discussed the report from IEEE XR on ethics and diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.

Today we focus on anonymity and privacy, I’ll summarize essential points of the report Extended Reality (XR) and the Erosion of Anonymity and Privacy by Mark McGill, Kent Bye, Michael Middleton, Monique J. Morrow, and Samira Khodaei to get a taste of it whenever you have 5 minutes. 😉

Let’s go!

The erosion of anonymity and privacy

Erosion? Humm… that’s a good word. According to Merriam-Webster, to erode means to “diminish or destroy by degrees.” Aka, to destroy little by little.

When human rights get eroded, we give up our rights little by little, becoming almost unaware that our rights are fading off.

Where is the balance? This is the key question.

There is always a tension between preserving human rights such as anonymity and privacy, and benefitting from the advantages that emerging technologies such as AR or VR offer us. In this newsletter, I refer to the metaverse as a vision for the next wave of computing that is ubiquitous, seamless, and immersive—making use of AR and VR.

Now, let’s talk about data. 😀

Why data privacy is such a deal in the metaverse? Because of the amount of data collected by headsets. This includes four different kinds of data:

• Movements and physical actions are tracked by the headsets’ cameras.

• Neural activity is detected when the headset is equipped with EEG sensor devices.

• Context is analyzed by determining your location and mapping your environment, including the people present in it.

• Physiology is detected when the headset includes biometric data such as eye gaze or heart-rate data.

It’s legitimate to capture data to create the experience of a virtual world where we can spatially navigate and interact (aka the metaverse). What we need to remember is that it’s important to be critical about what data is being collected and for which purpose.

Creating such live maps (real-time maps powered by headset data mapping our environment) is a double-edged sword. Live maps may be used for surveillance to the extent of the hardware’s sensors. With multiple headsets combined with other devices, we may reach a point of saturation where spaces may be monitored from multiple angles.

We do not need to be alarmist, just become aware of the situation and the double-edged uses of AR/VR hardware. Whenever consumer AR/VR becomes mainstream and allowed in public spaces, the era of the global panopticon may become a reality, as lawyer Elizabeth M. Renieris states.

Live maps and worldscraping

Beyond surveillance, the issue with live maps—also named as worldscraping—is that they are fed from users’ and bystanders’ data. By the mere fact of using an AR/VR device, AR/VR users agree to their data collection practices. However, bystanders will also be sensed and tracked, without having agreed to any form of consent.

Making a difference between users and bystanders is crucial to defining human rights in virtual worlds. This is an essential point for policymakers.❗️

Rights and protections

AR and VR technologies set an unprecedented challenge for legislation as they affect users as well as non-users whose data may be captured with an AR/VR device. Plus, digital privacy gets complex as it is borderless by nature.

“The current system of digital privacy protection is no longer tenable in an extended reality world. Laws are jurisdictional in nature and often do not apply in extended reality that can be borderless by nature. There must be a focus on defining harms within extended reality that result when personal digital privacy is breached.” Source here.

In Europe, the General Data Protection Rule (GDPR) sets the rules on how personal data should be handled. How would GDPR be applied in worldscraping cases? This is just an example of the new type of challenges that the adoption of XR will bring in the years to come.

Overall, the great challenge is balancing the legitimate use of AR/VR sensing (to map the world around the user and enable the AR/VR experience) against the rights and freedoms of users and bystanders. Where is the line?

So what can we do?

Here, we are just anticipating some of the challenges for the years to come.

As an ideal, we can dream of a global 🌐 Extended Reality Privacy Rights Framework, especially in an interoperable metaverse where data may travel from one platform to the other, from one country to another, without borders.

Coming back to reality and understanding that a common agreement worldwide will be an “outstanding operation”, let’s rather be humble and manage, at least, the following:

• XR Platforms: adopting a rigorous control over the sensors that APIs applications may use, and how the data is protected from unintended or unanticipated processing. In the case of “risky” requests, informing users or simply denying access.

• Companies should strive to adopt leading guidelines for XR privacy protections and enforce those on their app stores and platforms. For example, Lynx Mixed Reality includes a privacy-by-design statement for their headset.

• Users should be given the tools to retain agency over their device and its sensing activity (hardware) and the applications using data (software).

Finally, to prevent any gaps in legislation, it would be good to start thinking about the rights of victims of metaverse harms and privacy violations, just to be safe. 😉

NEWS OF THE PAST MONTH: just adapting to my new life in Paris: breathing its fresh air, tasting great croissants, seeing good old friends, taking dumb tourist pictures, and getting used to a looonnng daily metro commute… takes time, huh.

Thanks for reading until the end! I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding community. Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are my own and do not represent the views or opinions of my current or any past employer.

⏳ 5 min read

I know…I know… I am lagging behind, haha. I think I am the last one to write about Apple’s new headset. Anyway, MDE is not a burning news newsletter, but rather a space of reflection around XR ethics and the metaverse ecosystem. So, articles here do not have the urgency of a news feed. 😉

Why talk about Vision Pro? Here, I don’t talk specifically about products, but this one deserves special attention. The release of Vision Pro is a statement for the XR and metaverse field: Apple is legitimizing XR as the next wave of computing—yeah, they call it spatial computing to get away from the metaverse and VR buzz, but we know it’s more of the same.

Its soon-to-be-released headset was well-known to the XR community for the past years. We knew that Apple was going to set the bar for excellence in the XR space. And as important, to make appealing the device to mainstream users so that XR reaches the consumer.

You will disagree with me now: $3,499 is that mainstream? Of course not. But this device is just the first of a series of Vision Pros that will become lighter, cheaper, and appealing to diverse budgets. Just envision a beautiful sleek Vision Air… This is just the start of mainstream adoption. ✨

Now let’s dig in!

Biofeedback. What is that?

According to Wikipedia, “Biofeedback is the process of gaining greater awareness of many physiological functions of one's own body by using electronic or other instruments, and with a goal of being able to manipulate the body's systems at will.”

For biofeedback to happen you need a sensor that measures data from your body and a system to process such data. Once the system has processed your bodily data, it can learn from it and program certain responses according to your body. This is the case with most wearables.

For example, Apple Watch has a Breathe App that detects your breathing rate via sensors on the watch and adjusts the training accordingly.

Biofeedback or “biological feedback” just means that the device is adapting to the information it’s receiving from your body.

Of course, there’s the dark side of the force too… Biofeedback is the most accurate manipulation tool. When a device gets to know about your body and physiology, you are more exposed than ever to apps that can manipulate you.

Biofeedback and Vision Pro

Vision Pro is an advanced headset that has accumulated more than 5000 patents over its more than 10 years of development.

What is fascinating is how biofeedback is integrated into the headset: anticipating the interaction from the user. This is pioneering in the field. 🚀

Besides using hand-gesture and voice-command controls to interact, the headset presents several eye-gazing patents that facilitate the seemingly “natural interactions” that make the device “just work”.

Disclaimer: I was not in the privileged pool of testers of the device. What I write here is after seeing the launch and some reviews from testers of the device.

So instead of testing the device, I dug into some of its neurotechnology patents.

Three very interesting patents were co-developed by researcher Sterling Crispin while at Apple. These patents help predict users’ behavior and adjust the mixed-reality visuals accordingly. Let’s check them!

1. Eye-gaze based biofeedback. Evaluates whether users are attentive to an experience to adjust the UI accordingly.

2. Biofeedback method of modulating digital content to invoke greater pupil radius response. Analyzes users’ pupil dilation to certain visual features. The system learns from users’ responses and then adjusts the content to enhance the experience for the user.  

3. Utilization of luminance changes to determine user characteristics. Identifies whether users are paying attention, are distracted, or are even mind-wandering by analyzing the pupillary response to luminance changes in an experience.

In Sterling’s words: “There were a lot of tricks involved to make specific predictions possible, which the handful of patents I’m named on go into detail about. One of the coolest results involved predicting a user was going to click on something before they actually did. That was a ton of work and something I’m proud of. Your pupil reacts before you click in part because you expect something will happen after you click. So you can create biofeedback with a user's brain by monitoring their eye behavior, and redesigning the UI in real time to create more of this anticipatory pupil response. It’s a crude brain computer interface via the eyes, but very cool.”

So, we could even talk about BCIs (Brain-Computer Interfaces). It’s still early to talk about this type of technology for mainstream adoption and consumer uses—just witness the controversy of Neuralink’s human trials. However, Apple masterfully introduces physiological sensors in its headset pointing toward that direction. Biofeedback is the future.

So what can we do?

Well, that was more of an informative post.

What matters is being aware of neurotechnology being embedded in advanced headsets to create the “magic” we’re all looking for.

It’s not magic, haha… it’s the headset reading the user ;-)

Now, you know.

Bye for today!

News of the past month: I literally packed up my life. My cycle in Denmark has come to an end and June was about piling stuff into boxes and coordinating the logistics for my international move. Where to? Paris! New adventures await me there. Can’t wait to share more soon 🎉

Thanks for reading until the end! I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding community. Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones.

⏳ 5 min read

“You have to make a choice, and you have to work hard at making it positive. It doesn’t just happen”—Avi Bar-Zeev.

In this edition of MDE, I had the great pleasure of interviewing XR pioneer Avi Bar-Zeev. For those who don’t know him, he has been at the forefront of XR and the metaverse for over 30 years: from launching Disney’s Aladdin VR ride in the early 90s, to co-founding Keyhole (Google Earth) around 2000, co-inventing Microsoft HoloLens in 2010, helping define Amazon Echo Frames in 2015, and even contributing to Apple in 2016. More recently, he co-founded the XR Guild. Wow!

Check the video below just to get a taste of the early VR times Avi was part of (it’s Disney’s Aladdin VR ride). A vintage piece! ✨

Today, we are focusing on some of the lessons he learned over the years, especially why ethics should be an intrinsic part of XR.

Pay attention to the next lines. Let’s dive in!

How ethics gets intertwined with XR

Avi started in the XR field in the early nineties. These were early times for XR. In my opinion, these were times for advancing XR tech (i.e., computers running 3D graphics) and starting to experiment with the possibilities of XR, rather than times for ethics—which require more technological maturity.

What caught my attention in the discussion with Avi is that even when technologies in early stages are unleashed into the world and users start to play with them, ethics are at the core of the game.

Now, let’s look at some snippets of the stories Avi shared and how ethics played a central role.

🌍 Earth data and terrorism

“How do you put a world inside of a computer? And you make it three-dimensional so as to be able to experience it in real life?”—Avi Bar-Zeev.

This was the remarkable inspiration for Keyhole—the startup Google acquired that later became Google Earth.

As the co-founder of Keyhole, Avi told us that the initial feedback for the platform was excellent, except for a few bad actors that included terrorists. They were reportedly using Google Earth to plan attacks.

In a large pool of users, you can imagine that the majority will use tech in a righteous way. However, a small percentage will use it for destructive purposes, harming the rest.

In the end, technology is a tool. Users have the power to use it for good or evil.

It’s a choice, after all.

👤 Account impersonation

In 2008, Avi joined Microsoft. Within a week of joining, somebody opened a false Facebook account taking his name and a picture from a press release stating that he was joining Microsoft. “Clearly trying to impersonate me.”—Avi Bar-Zeev.

Avi wrote to every Facebook email address he could find without receiving any reply. The only solution he could see was to claim the copyright on the photo.

Under copyright infringement, Facebook finally took the claim seriously.

However, at the time, Facebook had not provided tools for verifying the legitimacy of a user’s account, leaving impersonation as an option for bad actors.

Again, technology is a tool. When deploying it to a large pool of users, ethics should be addressed to prevent situations that can become harmful, especially to sensitive populations such as teenagers.

Since then, Avi opened a Facebook account just to claim that it was the verified one! But he deleted it some years ago…

💥 Getting fired for speaking up

In 2012, while working as a co-founder in a startup that collected personal data from mobile phones, one of the board members at the startup proposed to sell their users’ data. Avi stood up to defend users: “We have to be trustworthy. And it’s not just ethics. It’s a good business decision.” This was before Apple took such a public stand for privacy, so Avi couldn’t point to them as an example.

In the short-term, the company wanted to find a way to sell their users’ data; however, in the long run, being unethical would turn against them: “If our customers don’t trust us, then what kind of business do we have?”

He held true to his principles, soon got fired, and settled the matter via lawyers—a settlement he can’t discuss.

But that’s not all. ☝️

While at Microsoft, he almost got fired for publicly defending WebGL. A VP from another division who disliked WebGL wanted him fired over it. In this case, Avi had the support of his bosses, so he survived.

So what can we do?

These three short stories summarize unaddressed ethical issues in tech. I presented just a taste of Avi’s 30 years of experience.

Here are some of Avi’s recommendations to speak up wisely: 😎

• Build a culture that is human-centered. This means putting people and their needs first in the early stages of the design and development process. This can be achieved by answering the following questions: What are we doing for people? How are we helping people? What do they need? How do we make sure they are safe? How do we make sure they are not harmed? These are some of the key questions Avi learned while working at Apple.

• Put privacy first. Having a privacy team involved at every stage of the development process is critical to prevent any potential harm to users.

• Raise concerns together. It usually takes more than one person to get to a common understanding. Therefore, sharing an ethical matter is better when backed up by several colleagues so that the discussion is not a balance of power between one employee and his/her manager. 

• Give nine compliments for one criticism to have credibility so that people trust you. Create a space open for constructive criticism.

In the end, these are just some basic principles to raise ethical issues in tech.

Joining a group of like-minded professionals is the best way to go: to share experiences, raise concerns, and back each other up.

👉 Check the XR Guild for more tools and a community of XR professionals speaking about issues and raising ethical concerns.

After all, we do have a choice.

Bye for today!

News of the past month: I spoke at Twin Global gathering at the Royal Institution in London. A conference for innovators “who build trusted relationships across sectors to manifest purpose and impact” founded by the great Rob Wolcott.

Thanks for reading until the end! I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding community. Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones.

⏳ 5 min read

The transition towards the metaverse is becoming a reality. Meetings are soon to incorporate a feature that is just the tip of the iceberg for what immersive meetings will become. Starting in May, Microsoft Teams will enable interactive avatars to be displayed when your camera is off.

Wait…? When the camera is off? Right, when you don’t want to appear on screen you’ll be able to customize an avatar to your image and liking so that it stands in front of the camera when you don’t feel like it—instead of having your picture or name.

But why does this small feature matter? 🤔

This small feature says a lot. It explicitly shows the direction that online meetings are going to take in the years ahead of us.

Fostered by the partnership Microsoft-Meta, this feature is a brilliant way to make co-exist 3D avatars and streamlined video in the same video-call. It is a smart move towards immersive meetings. Why? Because immersive meetings will mainly make use of 3D avatars. In this way, we are already getting used to interacting with avatars in a regular Teams meeting.

It is these small incremental changes that, placed strategically, show the direction that big tech companies are taking for the metaverse. In this newsletter, I refer to the metaverse as a vision for the next wave of computing that is ubiquitous, seamless, and immersive—making use of AR and VR technologies.

Incremental change fosters adoption

One of the key learnings from my PhD was that for innovation to succeed, change has to happen gradually. Step by step. So that change becomes almost invisible. Seamless.

The emoji example. Remember how emoticons evolved from the simple characters on a keyboard in the 1990s :-) to the popular yellow rounded emojis in the 2010s 🙂?

The aesthetics became three-dimensional through time and even enabled refined customization options such as hairstyle, skin color, etc. In 2018, we witnessed the appearance of the so-called Memojis from Apple.

In the end, Memojis have become popular after an evolution and gradual adoption that has spanned almost three decades. Probably, if they had appeared in the early 90s, people would have laughed at them, and maybe they would have been labeled as being for children. Instead, the gradual adoption of emojis fostered adoption and, to a certain extent, consensus. To the point that emojis of all kinds are widely accepted in informal adult conversations. End of the emoji parenthesis. 😉

Summary: gradual change fosters adoption and to a certain extent, consensus. Now let’s be critical of what this implies.

But why should we care?  

Mixing 3D avatars and videos of people in the same call is a smart move towards immersive meetings. In a few years we will get used to it, as with the phenomenon of the adoption of emojis.

Now, let’s look at it with a critical lens. 🔍

When we choose to be represented by an avatar in an online meeting, we are giving power and credibility to 3D avatars. Without appropriate authentication systems that verify the identity of the person behind the camera, how will we know if the avatar is truly the person behind the camera?

As of 2023, we may say “switch on the camera” to verify the identity of the person behind the avatar. However, in immersive meetings in the metaverse, there may not be cameras to be able to make this quick verification. Implementing such features should open a debate on increasing the security of our identity online.🔥

And this is what we are doing here with this blog post.

The real danger to me is the implicit consensus that such features may bring into our unconscious: getting used to seeing avatars that represent humans and act on behalf of humans will become a new normal with time.

This is paving the way towards giving credibility to virtual representations of humans (aka: avatars). In such process, we may lose the ability to question and to discern who is behind avatars… 💥 💥

AIs present risks as chatbots or conversational agents are becoming more and more powerful to the point that they will be proficient at manipulating humans towards a targeted goal they have been programmed for.

In the words of Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “godfather of AI”: If AI gets to be much smarter than us, it will be very good at manipulation because it will have learned that from us [humans].

So what can we do?

I don’t have a solution. 😵

Soon 3D avatars will become a new normal.

For now, keep on questioning who is behind the screen. 🔍

Disclaimer: Although I took the example of Microsoft Teams because it is a widely known platform, this is equally applicable to avatars in all other platforms. If Microsoft had not implemented this feature, another company would have.

News of the past month: I attended Laval Virtual in France, an XR conference focused on the French and European XR ecosystems. Below, I am sharing a fun picture sponsored by Microsoft (ha!) with the founder of Lynx, a French company focused on Mixed Reality GDPR-compliant headsets. Promising!

Thanks for reading until the end! I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding community. Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones.

⏳ 6 min read

The metaverse is at the center of discussions in the European Commission.

“We have certainly not been too quick to act—and this can be an important lesson for us in the future.  We need to anticipate and plan for change, given the obvious fact that our enforcement and legislative process will always be slower than the markets themselves. For example, it is already time for us to start asking what healthy competition should look like in the Metaverse.” Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission.

I am proud to see how the European Commission is taking the lead in regulating the digital space amidst all the confusion, hype, and chaos. With the Data Governance Act, the Data Act, the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, and the AI Act in the pipeline, the EU is setting the bar for data protection and citizen welfare. 🇪🇺

Even if you read this outside of the EU, let's be informed: Europe is a model for the rest of the world for protecting its citizens’ civil rights and welfare system.

What originates in Europe inspires the rest of the world. For example, California Consumer Privacy Act was inspired by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

Today, I will address the European Digital Markets Act (DMA) that has been discussed since 2020 and will be applicable as of the beginning of May 2023.

Let’s dive into it!  🚀

Ensuring fair and open digital markets

The DMA establishes rules to ensure open and fair markets among more and more powerful tech companies that exploit the digital market to their advantage. These powerful tech companies are referred to as gatekeepers.

The term gatekeeper is just another word for the tech giants. The law targets companies of at least 75 billion euros and an annual turnover of 7.5 billion euros. Indirectly, the law addresses MAMAA (Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple) and Chinese companies such as ByteDance or Alibaba.

But why is the EU “punishing” tech giants that have pushed innovation forward?

For a straightforward reason: given their privileged positions in the digital market, they are eliminating any potential competition (for example, by bundling or self-preferencing) and making it increasingly difficult for smaller companies to innovate.

In simple terms, the DMA aims to ensure a fairer and more open digital marketplace for businesses, innovators, and consumers.

Let’s look at how DMA will affect the AR/VR space and the so-called metaverse. In this newsletter, I define the metaverse as a vision for the next wave of computing that is ubiquitous, seamless, and immersive—making use of AR and VR technologies.

The DMA & the metaverse

Data doesn’t lie: in 2022, 84% of the European AR/VR market revenue was generated by the top 10 players. In the top three positions were Oculus (Meta) cumulating 52.1% of the market, Sony with 9.6%, and Microsoft with 8.0%. None of these top 10 players are EU-based, despite monopolizing the EU market.

DMA sets the basis for healthier competition and a healthier metaverse. With the DMA, gatekeepers will still hold the position of market leaders while following a new set of rules that guarantee that the competition remains open and fair.

DMA brings three main advantages to the metaverse: fairer competition, data privacy, and messaging interoperability.

DMA sets the basis for healthier competition and a healthier metaverse. Both gatekeepers and businesses will now know what to expect when using gatekeepers’ platforms. 

According to a survey conducted by the European Commission, 88% of businesses and business users experienced unfair trading conditions on large platforms.

Remember the lawsuit Epic Games lost against Apple? In August 2020, Epic Games, a popular gaming company, sued Apple in the US for their 30% fee on every purchase made through the Apple store. Epic Games wanted fairer conditions for in-app purchases in their game, Fortnite, which sells coins to users. They asked Apple to either lower the fee or allow them to use their own in-app purchasing methods, which Apple prohibits. However, the court ruled in favor of Apple, stating that while its enforcement of anti-steering restrictions is anti-competitive, Apple is not a monopoly.

Starting in May 2023, this won´t be a problem in the EU anymore. Companies and developers will have the freedom to choose the platform to sell their products and services. Yay! This is a huge step towards more fair competition. 🤝

This historical decision will have major implications for creating a more open and competitive metaverse not subject to gatekeepers’ restrictions.

Other aspects of DMA include that gatekeepers can’t create uninstallable apps and can’t self-preference their own products in search results. For example, in the Quest store, Meta will not be allowed to put their own apps in the first positions.

DMA states that gatekeepers should not merge data from different services used by the gatekeeper without prior consent from the user.

Gatekeepers often bury important information in long and complicated legal texts when they ask for consent from users. In theory, Meta will not be allowed to use data from Oculus with a Facebook account unless the user explicitly consents to it.

However, since August 2022, there has been a new Meta account for Oculus. To me, it's unclear if this is allowed under the DMA without prior consent from the user. It's possible that Meta created this "umbrella" account to englobe several of Meta’s services to comply with the DMA. Using a Meta account might allow cross-referencing user data from several of Meta’s services for targeted advertising without requiring explicit consent. 🤔

DMA opens the door to messaging interoperability in the metaverse.

This is interesting as it may open the door for interchannel communication in the metaverse. What do I mean? For example, you could send a message in a virtual world that your friend could receive on their phone.

DMA allows entrepreneurs and businesses to innovate in this direction and avoid being stuck using only one service (called "lock-in" effect) controlled by gatekeepers. There are some hints that interoperability for social media may come in the near future.

For now, what matters is that this act is a step forward towards interoperability between metaverse platforms. Hats off to DMA! 👏👏

So what can we do?

To all the innovators and business owners out there, don't miss out on the opportunity to see how the DMA can benefit your company.

👉 Head over to the European Commission's official website to get an overview of this new policy.

Keep in mind that it will take some months until we see how gatekeepers adapt to the DMA (or exit the EU market; they don’t have much choice after all, given the importance of the EU market globally), and smaller companies start to offer new services beyond the ones offered by gatekeepers.

In the end, gatekeepers hold a dominant position in the market and provide a path of “least resistance” for most users. We can expect them to continue leading the EU market alongside new emergent platforms that may inspire the rest of the world. ✨

That’s all for today.

See you next time! 😎

Many thanks to Serena Faccio, lawyer specializing in privacy & data protection, for pointing me toward valuable resources for this article.

News of the past month: I had a great time participating in the recording of a metaverse course for BitLab. Such creative production sets remind me of the time when I was doing photography in Paris years ago…

I also participated in Digital Dip XR, an event organized by Berlin Partner and VRBB. We explained how to ground expectations for XR in an ever-increasing momentum of instability and hype for the metaverse.

Thanks for reading until the end! Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones. I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding community.

⏳ 5 min read

Hold on to your VR headsets and get ready for some serious metaverse power!

This edition unveils a metaverse superpower that's a must-have for every virtual explorer out there. It's time to level up your data protection game in the uncharted territory of the metaverse.

Introducing MetaGuard—a VR plug-in for safeguarding your identity and data while you immerse yourself in the wonders of VR. 🔥

Developed by researchers Vivek Nair and Dawn Song from UC Berkley (US) and Gonzalo Munilla Garrido from the Technical University of Munich (Germany), this plug-in gives the power back to the user. It´s a research tool that allows us to choose the level of privacy desired in a VR application. The power of privacy is back in our hands!

Below, I briefly describe their amazing research: "Going Incognito in the Metaverse." Here, I refer to the metaverse as a vision for the next wave of computing that is ubiquitous, seamless, and immersive—making use of AR and VR technologies.

Why should we care about going incognito?

“Data is the new oil,” and companies monetize their users’ data to generate revenue.

As users, we should become aware of how our data is used by tech platforms. And even more in the metaverse, where sensitive data such as biometrics or our behavioral blueprint can be collected.

💡 Curious to know more? Check MDE#02 Data Privacy.

On the web, we have several measures to protect our privacy. One measure is via regulations. For example, third-party tracking cookies that generate privacy and security concerns have been regulated in the EU via the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Other defensive measures involve the use of VPNs, proxies, and private browsing. Check Tor Project, Brave, or the total cookie protection from Firefox. Plus, there are search engines that do not track, such as DuckDuckGo.

The main difference between data privacy on the web and in AR/VR technologies is the amount of data collected quickly and the accuracy of inferring users´ data. By collecting enough AR/VR sensor data, companies can create a digital and behavioral blueprint of a person.(See MDE#02.)

We lack solutions and regulations to protect privacy and security specifically targeted to AR/VR technologies. By the time specific regulations for AR/VR come up, the space will be populated by applications tracking users’ data.

Until then, there is no time to waste: let’s go incognito!

Going incognito in the metaverse

When I first heard about MetaGuard, it reminded me of Project Alias, an award-winning device to protect users’ privacy with AI home assistants, from designers Bjørn Karmann and Tore Knudsen.

The device is placed on top of the AI speaker and acts as a parasite: it generates white noise to ensure privacy and offer customization options. For example, you can rename your AI assistant to be unique to you—“Tom” instead of a predefined name—to assist you with your home duties, ha! ;-)

MetaGuard is similar. It protects the user by “intelligently adding noise when and where it is needed most to maximize privacy while minimizing usability impact.” In other words, MetaGuard acts as a middleman between the users’ data and the VR software to ensure privacy.

The great advantage of MetaGuard is protecting users from identification. The metrics gathered by the study indicate a 94.6-96.0% degradation in identifying VR users. This point is fundamental as a recent study from the same authors demonstrates that a single VR user can be identified within a pool of 50000 users.

You’d better start taking privacy seriously in the metaverse!

How does MetaGuard work?

MetaGuard is a Unity plug-in that prevents attacks at the software level. It uses local differential privacy to achieve three different levels of privacy: low, medium, and high.

Heads up! There is a trade-off between data privacy and accuracy: the more accurate you want your data to be, the less privacy you can have.

Take the popular game BeatSaber, for instance—it requires a ton of data to be collected per second to keep up with the fast-paced, competitive gameplay. Applying a high privacy setting here would severely impact the amount of data sent back to the game, ultimately compromising the user experience. So, while it's important to prioritize privacy, sometimes we need to make a trade-off to ensure the best possible user experience.

With MetaGuard, the data harvested by the VR application is less accurate because it protects the user's privacy. The results from the study indicate that when it is turned on, there is a significant accuracy drop in predicting gender (-23.5%), age (-58.25%), ethnicity (-48.75%), and income (-73.85%). And a 94.6-96.0% degradation in identifying VR users.

So, what can we do?

Protect your identity and privacy by checking the plug-in below. Disclaimer: it’s currently a research prototype. You can experiment by downloading it here:

💥 MetaGuard Unity plug-in GitHub

You can also try Project Alias if you own an AI home assistant. And if you know somebody who owns one, share this newsletter. Now ;-)

💥 Project Alias step-by-step tutorial and Project Alias 2.0 GitHub 

Don’t delay, do it today. 🚀

Bye for now!

News of the past month: what an amazing time in San Francisco! I had the pleasure to give a talk at SPIE AR|VR|MR about the responsible angle when shaping hardware and optics for AR/VR.

Plus, I had the pleasure to meet amazing AR/VR innovators during my trip, join some activities of the XR Guild and enjoy the great California vibes! 😎

Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones. I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding community.

⏳ 6 min read

AR/VR technologies enable us to see the world from a wider perspective. When we put a headset on, we are “teleported” to another reality. Immersive journalism, pioneered by Nonny de la Peña, shows how experiences that are far from us can be seen and even felt thanks to AR/VR headsets. Check the immersive piece Project Syria released in 2013. Who said the metaverse was new?

Here, I refer to the metaverse as a vision for the next wave of computing that is ubiquitous, seamless, and immersive—making use of AR and VR.

AR/VR technologies powering the metaverse are great tools for creating empathy. We put ourselves in the shoes of an AR/VR character to experience another reality and expand our vision. What a great opportunity for inclusion and education. Check Justin Beaver, that educates about climate change, pollution, and global warming from the eyes of an animal.

There is not a single point of view. There are thousands.

Here is where inclusion comes in.

Inclusion in the metaverse

Why inclusion? Because there is discrimination given inequalities among humans. That’s obvious. The tech space is a direct reflection of the human space. Inequalities, biases, and power asymmetries are present in tech.

We are in the early stages of democratizing the metaverse. Shaping the space with inclusive practices is key to recognizing our diversity. However, developing inclusive practices remains a challenge given the sophisticated interactions, huge amount of data, and level of immersion of AR/VR technologies.

In the lines below I summarize—in my style—the report: Extended Reality (XR) Ethics and Diversity, Inclusion, Accessibility from the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics and Extended Reality by Dylan Fox and Isabel Guenette Thornton.

The inclusion banquet

At the inclusion banquet, there is constant chatter and debate between the great opportunities afforded by AR/VR technologies and the great challenges derived from them. One of these big challenges deserves a special place at our banquet: data.

Metaverse challenges

There are two types of inclusion challenges: accessibility and equity.

1. Accessibility is about providing access to technology to fully engage in a metaverse experience.

Unfortunately, we are far from full accessibility today. Accessibility features for people with disabilities need to be reinvented for immersive experiences.

👉 Check XR Access, leading the way in developing accessible AR/VR.  

Beyond this, accessibility is also about technology access and depends on basic infrastructure elements such as electricity or internet access.

Access to infrastructure will be a main factor in increasing the digital divide between low-income and high-income countries in the years to come. Technological requirements for the metaverse will continuously increase, making the gap more obvious and making metaverse technologies a privilege.

2. Equity is about the fair treatment of people in metaverse experiences.

Let’s dig a bit more: 🔎 the difference between equality and equity is small but worth mentioning. Equality assumes everybody should be treated the same, while equity considers a person’s unique circumstances, adjusting the treatment so that the result is equal. This means creating experiences that are not discriminatory in nature.

This is tricky. Very tricky.

As metaverse creators, we should aim to reduce inequalities in immersive experiences; however, the reality is that we have our own biases (most of the time, unconscious) while building immersive experiences. Plus, we are also influenced by the culture we live in, the corporate culture we work for, the priorities of the team we are included in, etc.

So, the best antidote for ensuring equity is to have diversity. The more diverse the creators, the more diverse and inclusive the metaverse space will become.

Data is a key player for equity. We are aware that biometric data is collected by advanced headsets (check MDE#02 Metaverse Data Privacy). That, combined with social media data raises concerns for equity. Especially for marginalized populations that have been historically more affected by privacy concerns.

Plus, the metaverse presents a scenario for obfuscating data. “Obfuscation privatizes information by making it inaccessible in practice” according to UNC Associate Professor Tressie McMillan Cottom. Obfuscation is a threat to all potential users, but marginalized groups are more exposed.

And now, let’s check the other side of the coin: the opportunities. ✨

Metaverse opportunities

The metaverse is a land of opportunities to reinvent interaction possibilities for marginalized groups. Sounds cool, right?

It’s true: customization is at the heart of reducing inequalities. By customizing experiences, we allow diverse modes of expression and interaction.

An example is avatar customization. Here is an interesting paper on avatar diversity for people with disabilities in social VR.

The metaverse offers great opportunities to include people with disabilities. My personal take here is the work at the Full-Body Interaction Lab in Barcelona, where I learned to design for children with autism. I understood the great potential of AR/VR technologies for shaping human behavior and helping people with disabilities. This was when I committed to the AR/VR space. 🔥

So, what can we do?

The report from the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics for XR presents simple and accessible guidelines for creators and policymakers.

The full guide is here. Below I provide my 2 cents.

• Best practices for AR/VR creators:

  Keep this in mind: “Provide comparable experiences for all users.”

  How? By giving customization options for diverse users. For example, options to customize the level of detail of the experience (it directly impacts cognitive load), or to customize the speed or time for certain actions. Also adding bypass functions, undo/redo functions, and the option to save progress is an inclusive measure that could help users with cognitive and motor impairments.

• Recommendations for policymakers:

  Check “Principles and policies to unlock the potential of AR/VR for equity and inclusion” by Ellysse Vittoria Dick from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

👉 Check XRAccessibility Project, by XR Access, the most complete list of accessibility resources that I have seen so far. Worth mentioning are resources classified according to developer platforms and developer communities organized around several topics on AR/VR accessibility such as gaming accessibility.

By being inclusive, we are not only creating a fairer space that avoids social biases and power relations that enlarge inequalities, but also betting on a more equitable future. Take the initiative, embrace diversity and step out of your comfort zone.

Be inclusive, be creative, be courageous. 🔥

Bye for now!

Exciting news to kick off the year! I had the honor of participating in a panel on diversity and inclusion at the Nordic Metaverse Summit, hosted by the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies in my beloved Denmark.

SPIE XR brings me to San Francisco for the first half of February. Let’s connect if you are in the Bay area! Feel free to drop me an email or connect here.

Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones. I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding community.

⏳ 4 min read

Tech has become like a high-maintenance relationship: screaming for our attention via alerts, sounds, buzzes, and even lights.

Disconnecting from tech during the Christmas holidays may seem like a paradox: it´s especially during these dates when we are texting and sending greetings to dear ones. At least, it´s a great time to check where we stand in our relationship with tech.

Was your phone at the Christmas table?

Was it there to take some memorabilia of the dinner, or was it distracting you from being fully present?

What thought, feeling, or impulse led you to pick up your phone?

These simple questions show the power that tech may have over us.

Let´s become more aware of our tech consumption these days when everything is slower than usual. It´s a great time to reflect on our behavior with tech and include our family and dear ones in this conversation.

Let´s start 2023 with some good resolutions! 😉

Resources for a tech check-up

As my Christmas present to you, here are a series of resources to check your relationship with tech. The time you commit to these resources is an investment in yourself/your family.

There is a movie (1), a family or individual activity (2), and recommendations (3). Just choose one and dare to take your power back with tech!

1. The Social Dilemma from the Center for Humane Technology, an association that aligns technology with humanity´s best interests. The documentary is available on Netflix and has reached over 100 million people, streaming in 190 countries in 30 languages. A must-see in the 21st century. I highly recommend watching this movie alone or with your family to learn about how the social media industry works. Plus, here is a guide to follow up on the movie and reflect on how you can take control of your social media use.

2. The Data Detox Kit from Tactical Tech, a non-profit working at the intersection of technology, human rights, and civil liberties. This printable guide addresses four topics: data privacy, digital security, digital well-being, and misinformation. The kit targets 11-16 year-olds. Frankly, it´s an excellent resource for all ages and is available in 17 languages. The kit is a great starting point for home conversations on healthy relationships with tech. I recommend addressing each of the four different topics at different times to allow some time to apply the learning and integrate the benefits.

   

3. The family´s digital everyday life from Børns Vilkår, an association that fights for the rights of kids in Denmark. Their excellent guide (no exaggeration here) helps parents navigate the uncertainties and questions about their kids´ safety. Tip: install Google Translate on the browser if you don’t understand Danish. Here are the topics that the guide covers:

- Screen check survey. Survey to check yourself as a digital role model and learn how screens affect the family´s everyday life.

- Kids, games, and gaming. Short guidelines to investigate the games your kid plays and learn about the online communities and people that your kid is playing with.

- Safety online. Tips and tricks to protect your kid from the dangers of the net. The resource addresses online grooming, photo sharing without consent, hacking, phishing, and identity theft.

These resources are brilliant. Just take the time to apply one instead of scrolling through them. It may even become part of your 2023´s resolutions. Dare to do it.

This is all for this year. Happy holidays!

AND NOW, LOOKING BACK AT THE PAST WEEKS. Some pictures of a few events I attended. What an intense end of the year!

First and foremost: I graduated from my Ph.D. at the Technical University of Denmark. What a journey!!! To be honest, I never envisioned getting a Ph.D. Life led me there instead. It was a tremendous sacrifice from a personal perspective, but the learnings are worth it. Especially the mindset shift that comes from doing a Ph.D. Below is a picture of the celebration day. ✨

Plus, a shot from my participation in the panel: "The Metaverse, a lawless world?" organized by Stereopsia Europe on the stakes of the metaverse at IHECS, Brussels.

Finally, a picture of the Nordics from where I am writing this post and closing the year.

Thanks for reading until the end! Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones. I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding community.

⏳ 6 min read

The metaverse has entered into arrhythmia: an irregular heartbeat.

Painful news came recently after a reduction of 11,000 jobs at Meta (13% of the company). The news came after Altimeter Capital published an open letter with an aggressive plan to get the company back on track.

In the letter, Altimeter Capital Chair and CEO Brad Gerstner states that Meta needs to focus on its core business and limit investment in the metaverse to no more than $5 billion per year (roughly cut more than half of the $10–15 billion budget initially planned). A painful situation for the company and its talented employees some of whom had found their identity at Meta.

Sadly, since Facebook´s rebranding to Meta a year ago, the HYPE (yes, in capitals and bold) over the metaverse has skyrocketed. 🚀

As an anecdote, the day after the rebranding I remember my parents calling me excitedly and telling me: “Andrea, the metaverse is here!”

I asked myself: “Uhhhh, what´s happening?” Then I understood how this rebranding had looked to the mainstream population.

And the hype expanded and expanded… Fueled by the trillions, the alliances, the reports, the promises, and mainstream population not even fully understanding what the metaverse is. Check the video below to see where the collective mainstream understanding of the metaverse is. Confused?

Do you believe in the metaverse?

The cherry on top of the cake is when people ask me with either glowing or skeptical eyes: “Do you believe in the metaverse?”

I take a deep breath. And pause: “What is going on?” It’s as if the metaverse is something that has to do with belief, like if it was a god or a supernatural being.

I reckon the metaverse may seem obscure from an outsider perspective, but it is NOT about faith or belief. It’s a scientific fact that computing is heading towards AR/VR.

It is a fact that AR/VR is the next wave of computing. Big tech corporations are well aware of this fact and are putting their efforts into that direction.

Then, why the arrhythmia? Because of the huge expectations for and huge misunderstandings of the field, at a very profound level.

The metaverse is a vision powered by AR/VR technologies.

A vision that started in 1965…

The vision for the metaverse

The great computer scientist Ivan Sutherland stated the vision for the first headset in “The Ultimate Display” [1]. His vision set the basis for the invention of the first headset: “The Sword of Damocles” [2]. That was back in 1968. Yeah… who said AR/VR or the metaverse is new?

“The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. Handcuffs displayed in such a room would be confining, and a bullet displayed in such a room would be fatal. With appropriate programming such a display could literally be the Wonderland into which Alice walked” (Sutherland).

The term “metaverse” is more recent; it comes from Neal Stephenson´s science fiction novel Snow Crash from 1992. But words evolve through time and get followers, as well as haters. With the current beat of the metaverse, I even wonder if the term “metaverse” is going to stay here for long. Ever heard about the term metaworse?

What matters, after all, is the vision. Vision is the power to shape reality. Vision is the power to shape the world around you—with the corresponding action, of course 😉

So, what is the vision that we should set for the metaverse?

A vision that fosters BOTH human needs and business opportunities,

A vision that aligns innovation with human well-being and sustainability.

However, “innovation that truly serves us is in scarce supply” as Shannon Vallor, Professor at the University of Edinburgh outlines in a great article for MIT Technology Review. In the mass-production era we live in, technology is producing more and more inventions that rarely add value to our daily lives.

Is there a solution to this? Where does the metaverse fit in?

The solution would be a humane metaverse that aligns economic opportunities, human physical and mental well-being, and sustainability. In short, a solution that serves our planet > people > business interests.

Maybe this solution is an ideal vision, but wasn´t Sutherland´s vision of the first headset highly idealistic? It was. And he made it happen.

Setting the road for a humane metaverse

As innovators and technologists, each of us has the power to shape at least a bit of the metaverse.

As technologists, we tend to focus on small things. Let me explain: hardware engineers, for example, focus on the components that will enable new inventions. We talk about milliscale and in some cases even nanoscale. Software engineers create the apps and solutions that we interface with. The unit is code.

Code is a small unit that materializes when deployed. It is kinda magic. The scale, at the moment of creating it is small and very abstract—which makes relating it to the real world difficult.

In these times when the world is more messy, crowded, interconnected and interdependent than ever, what is missing is taking a complementary approach that zooms out and looks for the impact of the product/feature/solution in the world. In other words, seeing the world through a systems perspective is essential.

Beyond any hardware or software, there is the system where it will be inserted. Society is one such system, and the adaptation of the product into a system will determine its success or failure. A systems perspective acknowledges the interconnections created when a new product/feature/solution enters an ecosystem.

So, what can we do?

When building technology, zoom out as much as you zoom in and reflect on what/who your solution serves. Some recommendations:

• Check for the system. What is the effect of your solution when you zoom out?

• Put the system first. Does your solution benefit the system or a few elements or individuals? Go for the good of the whole.

• Be creative and courageous.

📝 TIP: INFORMAL CHAT AT THE END OF THE WEEK WITH THE PRODUCT TEAM. This is an excellent time to set an informal discussion to zoom out and check for the impact of what the team has engineered over the week. For example, a good time to do so would be before or during the Friday Bar, an informal event on Fridays where the team meets over a drink. Do share some feedback in case you implement this tip. ;-)

These are just some ideas inspired by Donella H. Meadow´s Thinking in Systems book. A brilliant example of how to start thinking with a complementary perspective that will hopefully set the path to a more humane metaverse that thrives with a healthy beat.

That´s for all today. Thanks for reading until the end!

Scientific references

[1] Sutherland, I.E. (1965). The Ultimate Display.

[2] Sutherland, I. E. (1968). A head-mounted three dimensional display. Proceedings of AFIPS 68, pp. 757–764.

AND NOW, A PALATE CLEANSER. Some pictures of the Nordic VR Forum I attended at the beginning of November in Hamar, Norway. The two-day event outlined the advances of AR/VR in the Nordics. It was great to meet some of Norway´s metaverse shapers! I also participated in a panel discussing the metaverse´s future avenues together with Meta, Microsoft, CapGemini, and Spello; and presented the Metaverse Data & Ethics community. Yay!

Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones. I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding community.

⏳ 6 min read

Guarantee the privacy of metaverse users, MDE#01’s first commandment.

Let´s dig into user privacy in the metaverse (yay!). This topic may seem boring, but I assure you that marketers will make it damn attractive. So, you´d rather be informed! Here, I refer to the metaverse as a vision for the next wave of computing that is ubiquitous, seamless, and immersive—making use of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR).

Today, I analyze the paper “Exploring the Unprecedented Privacy Risks of the Metaverse” [1] from UC Berkeley (US) and the Technical University of Munich (Germany) by researchers Vivek Nair, Gonzalo Munilla Garrido, and Dawn Song.

The article presents an experiment where 30 participants navigated a VR escape room while simultaneously playing little games. Let´s check what happened behind the scenes.

Researchers created an adversarial program to collect personal data attributes. In other words, they created a program to collect participants’ data from 4 data sources: the VR device, the application (the game), the server, and other potential users. They managed to collect 25 unique data attributes from each participant: from geospatial telemetry, device specifications, network data, and behavioral observations. Wanna know which ones? Check their amazing data attribute taxonomy. (I can´t publish it here. Damn!).

Getting into details, what is interesting is that participants´ data is classified as primary, secondary, and inferred. Primary data attributes are collected from sensor data. For example, data from the left and right arm length. Secondary data attributes are derived from primary data. For example, you can determine the wingspan (secondary data attribute) by knowing the left and right arm lengths. Inferred data attributes are derived using machine learning from primary and secondary data attributes. In this case, it is possible to infer the gender by knowing the wingspan and other data points such as height and interpupillary distance.

So, a pleasant and innocent activity such as dancing in VR and opening your arms to the rhythm of the music could lead to inferring your gender, wealth, ethnicity, age, and even disabilities! 😲

So, let´s dance in VR and enjoy? The fun doesn´t end here.

How about biometric data harvested right off your face?

This is the next frontier. And it is here.

Biometric data harvesting

Advanced headsets include analytics that track facial expressions and the gaze (eye-tracking). Examples are Varjo´s headsets; HP Reverb G2 Omnicept with a set of monitoring tools that include the heart rate, pupil dilation, and facial tracking; and the freshest, Meta Quest Pro.

So, why is biometric data harvesting the next frontier? The main reason is to create realistic avatars. Have you ever used a VR social platform? Interacting with other avatars feels clunky: the interaction is limited. When chatting with another avatar, it seems like you were talking to a puppet or a robot (depending on the avatar's look!). It’s very impersonal: it lacks facial expressions.

To make the interactions more natural and feel that you are in front of a real person, incorporating users´ data from their face is crucial. Even the promise of including avatars’ legs is a step towards making avatars more realistic.

Hats off to the advances from tech companies, their research and product teams that are making it possible!

As a technologist, I am impressed.

As a person, I am concerned about where society is heading.

Dr. Luke Stark, subject expert and assistant professor at Western University (Canada), explains in this article: “It’s been clear for some years that animated avatars are acting as privacy loss leaders,” he said. “This data is far more granular and far more personal than an image of a face in the photograph.”

In other words, data from your face reveals much more information than a simple picture. Why? Because you get a stream of information on how your face moves and reacts: it’s a digital blueprint of yourself.

Here is where privacy notices and agreements between users and companies matter.

Checking privacy notices

Let´s take the example of Meta´s new Quest Pro privacy notice.

Raw data from eye-tracking and facial expressions is processed locally on the headset and deleted after the processing. Kudos to Meta for that!!

However, using third-party services such as the new Movement SDK would allow developers to access biometric data and is subject to third-party terms and privacy policies. ☠💥💥

Isn´t this familiar? My intuition tells me that it will not be necessary to “hack” AR/VR devices to collect data from users and exploit it for commercial purposes. It’s as simple as concealing the consent somewhere in a privacy policy agreement that the user accepts without even noticing it. Same as with third-party cookies in mobile apps…

The main difference and concern about AR/VR is the amount of data collected quickly and the accuracy of inferring users´ data attributes. AR/VR sensor data is enough to create a digital and behavioral blueprint of a person. We should be aware of that.

On that note, AR/VR pioneer Dr. Rosenberg, states in his paper “Regulation of the Metaverse: A RoadMap” [2]: The platform providers controlling the metaverse will not just know how their users physically act and interact, but how they emotionally react as they traverse real and virtual spaces, profiling their responses at far deeper levels than has been possible in traditional media platforms. Of course, the danger is not merely that these personal parameters can be monitored in real-time, but that advertisers and other paying third parties can use such invasive data to manipulate the wants and needs of consumers more effectively than ever before.

It will be very simple for data harvesting machines powered by machine learning and AI to predict the type of content that you like and present it in a delightful manner, without you even noticing that you clicked on an ad. Oh! 💥

So, what can we do?

There are 3 ways to prevent this. (Let me know if I should add more. Ha!)

• Create awareness on the topic. Talk to your colleagues, family, and kids. For kids (and teens), here are some guidelines for having healthy relationships with tech.

• Awaken policymakers. Yes, these are still early times… but it´s the right moment to act knowing the pace of technology vs. the pace of regulations. If you know any policymakers working in the digital space: share this newsletter, now.

• Spread the word out and loud with people you care about. What are you waiting for? It´s time to share this newsletter. ;-)

Thanks for reading until the end.

Bye for now!

Scientific references

[1] Nair, V., Garrido, G.M., & Song, D.X. (2022). Exploring the Unprecedented Privacy Risks of the Metaverse. ArXiv, abs/2207.13176.

[2] Rosenberg, Louis. (2022). Regulation of the Metaverse: A Roadmap. 10.1145/3546607.3546611.

Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones. I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding community.

⏳ 9 min read

Let’s go back in time to 2005. We were about to experience a new way of social interaction and information exchange in just a couple of years thanks to 2 critical inventions. First, the iPhone (2007) revolutionized telecommunications. Second, the appearance of social media apps, with Facebook (2006) leading the way, transformed the way in which we share information. The synergy created by having a small powered computing device (the smartphone) and apps that enable keeping in touch with our friends and communities has changed how we interact and behave socially.

Back then, nobody would have expected the huge social impact that the smartphone combined with social media apps would have on society: on how information is shared, on how behavior is shaped by technological exchange, on how notifications impact our cortisol levels, on how attention is captured and fragmented… And above all, on the impact of technology on our overall well-being.

And this is why today, at the dawn of the metaverse era, it is crucial to start thinking about ways to responsibly code, build, and deploy the future technological ecosystem known as the metaverse. Here, I will refer to the metaverse as a vision for the next wave of computing that is ubiquitous, seamless, and immersive—making use of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies. The metaverse will allow the convergence of augmented and virtual spaces in a unified digital reality that will pervade most layers of society in the upcoming decades.

The metaverse will impact human well-being and social interactions in a way we have not seen before. This is not science fiction; it is science fact. Research on the neuroscience of AR/VR technologies that power the vision for the metaverse clearly demonstrate the persuasive effect of AR/VR devices and their highly engaging nature. Let´s dig into this!

The metaverse will be persuasive. Indeed! Ever heard the expression: see it to believe it? The metaverse will present digital 3D content either in a virtual environment (VR) or in your real environment (AR). This digital content is a stimulus to your brain that is highly real (because of the 3D aspect and the interactive properties) and thus can “trick” your brain and can effectively convince you. If I present you with an ad for a soft drink in a newspaper, it has maybe a 1/5 persuasive effect (0 being not persuasive at all, and 5 being very persuasive). The same refreshment on TV may get a 3/5. And if I put a virtual copy of this soft drink in front of you, in your living room, with an AR app? This virtual copy would feel almost as if you were holding the soft drink in your hand: the size, the vibrancy of the packaging, the smell—for smell, check here ;-). The 5/5 is easy to get.

The metaverse will be engaging. Another science fact backed up by research. Several studies have revealed how AR/VR technologies are more engaging than computers, even for experienced AR/VR users. Curious about the studies? Check the bibliography from my PhD dissertation [1]. I am sure you´ll find it delightful! ;-)

Going beyond these science facts, if we combine the persuasive effects with the highly engaging nature of AR/VR experiences, we can easily deduce that AR/VR experiences are addictive. Remember the phenomenon of Pokémon Go? It was one of the first games exploiting AR combined with geo-location. A true success that also entailed dangers, especially for children, related to privacy, distractions, and strangers. Parents, you can check this article from Forbes and this one from the American Safety Council.

Now that we know a bit more about the effects of AR/VR on our behavior, let´s recognize that AR/VR are powerful technologies with tremendous potential for positive impact. For example, they have the potential to bring communities together in ways we have not seen before: AR and VR allow for a 3D embodied experience. Imagine a remote call where you meet a friend in a 3D environment and you start a conversation. The graphics and the experience as of today (late 2022) still need to catch up to compete with reality. However, it is just a matter of time until the computational power and infrastructure enabling computer graphics will get to the point of creating a digital reality that will be almost indistinguishable from real-life experiences.

Wait and see.

But don´t wait to act.

The time to commit to an ethical metaverse is now. When it is being shaped, when the basis is being set. Overestimating the risks that the metaverse will bring is not an exaggeration. The Jordan Times declares:

Anticipating the metaverse’s ethical challenges is still possible; but the clock is ticking. Without effective independent oversight, this new digital domain will almost certainly go rogue, recreating all the abuses and injustices of both AI and social media, and adding more that we have not even foreseen.

That´s why there’s no time to waste. You are in the right spot. Carved on digital stone, found in the immense database of the internet, the 10 commandments are here.

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS

In the following lines, I summarize the paper “The Ten commandments of Responsible AR” [2], which sets an excellent basis of 10 rules to address the ethical challenges in the metaverse. It´s long but worth the read. Let´s dive into it!

1. Guarantee the privacy of metaverse users.

2. Guarantee the anonymity and privacy of non-users.

3. Clarify issues of both physical and virtual ownership in the hybrid world.

4. Protect the mental and physical health of metaverse users.

5. Strengthen human capacities in a fair and dignified manner.

6. Protect people´s cognitive autonomy.

7. Ensure fair power relations in the hybrid world.

8. Create public spaces in the hybrid world.

9. Design the hybrid environment in a socially responsible manner.

10. Make a joint effort to create a responsible metaverse.

Commandments 1-3 mainly address regulations. The metaverse implies AR/VR devices that collect a huge amount of data from the user, including sensitive data such as eye gaze, facial tracking, and movement data. It is crucial to minimize the use of sensor data from AR/VR devices, anonymize it, and regularize it to avoid abuses from companies (shhhh… it is a type of data that has the potential to be very lucrative, especially for marketing purposes).

But, the data collected is not limited to users (commandment 2). It also spans our surroundings and the people in them. As AR/VR devices may integrate facial recognition to identify other people, imposing a moratorium on metaverse applications that collect biometrics in public spaces is recommended until the space is regulated. Commandment 3 specifically addresses AR and the grey area in property rights over augmented spaces. Who is going to regulate this space? When? Until now, digital content can be overlaid without restrictions to a physical space owned by someone.

Commandment 4 addresses digital literacy skills as a critical asset to incorporate into school curriculums and universities. Given the addictive parameters of immersive experiences, the overall population (especially the younger ones) should be aware of the stakes that immersive technologies have over human cognition and well-being.

The metaverse will undoubtedly create a larger breach between the privileged and the unprivileged (commandment 5).The gap will grow wider because of the requirements to access AR/VR technologies and the infrastructure needed to power AR/VR, which will go beyond 5G technologies. To avoid the risk of the “digital divide” we, builders of the metaverse, should think about inclusivity to balance inequalities versus making the gap more obvious.  

Regarding AR/VR software design, it should be designed to not make people dependent (commandment 6). This is one of the biggest challenges to date. On one side, AR/VR technologies are very engaging. On another side, one of the key drivers for monetization in apps is engagement. Tech companies foster engagement. So, my question here is: where to find the balance between monetization and human well-being? How could we achieve both? What needs to be leveraged?

Following on the topic of tech companies, there is a clear asymmetry in power relations between AR/VR corporations and their users (commandment 7). The only way to mediate is through regulations (aka governments). In Europe, the Digital Markets Act sets the ground for a fairer digital market competition.

Commandments 8 and 9 address public spaces in the metaverse. The vision for the metaverse encompasses both private and public spaces where digital information merges with our physical world. How will we design public metaverse spaces? What should be allowed versus what should not? How can we safeguard the legacy of the public sphere versus personalized content?

Finally, the 10th commandment is about you. It’s about all of us. It´s about each one of you reading this post. It’s about our responsibility to shape this space. We know that tech companies are driving the race, and we should acknowledge their contribution. However, the vision for the metaverse should be shaped by all actors of society, and not only by corporations. Putting these commandments into action would lead to a metaverse that cares for user privacy and puts mental and physical health as its top priority.

The metaverse will be a space where the good, the bad, and the ugly will find their place. These commandments are to serve as inspiration. For now, let´s write the 10 commandments and recite them every morning and evening (ha!). Thanks for reading until the end. Let´s commit to building an ethical metaverse!

Scientific references

[1] Bravo, A. (2021). Beyond the Screen: Immersive Information Visualisation in Engineering Design. Technical University of Denmark.

[2] Royakkers, L., Snijders, D., van Est, R. (2022). The Ten Commandments for Responsible Augmented Reality. In: de Paz Santana, J.F., de la Iglesia, D.H., López Rivero, A.J. (eds) New Trends in Disruptive Technologies, Tech Ethics and Artificial Intelligence. DiTTEt 2021. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1410. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87687-6_13

Thanks for reading (until the end!) this article. Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones. I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding network and community.

This is an introduction to this newsletter. The official launch is on October 10th. Just click below to get the first article right into your inbox. 👇

The 21st century is governed by data. In the last decades, we have witnessed increased digitization of processes and datafication of society. From the use of smartphones that track our location and communication patterns through apps to the digitization of industry where devices increasingly assist us. Every action performed through an electronic device is recorded and stored in a database. It is not surprising to witness the exponential increase in the volume of data that has happened in the last decades.

Let's now discuss the metaverse, this highly controversial word populated with hype. In simple terms, the metaverse is the next internet. An "experiential" internet where we interact in 3D. And it is not something new: augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) devices were already researched in the late 1960s. In the early 1990s, Mark Weiser [1] could already foresee his vision for the metaverse. Except that he called it ubiquitous computing:

Ubiquitous computers will help overcome the problem of information overload. […] Machines that fit the human environment instead of forcing humans to enter theirs will make using a computer as refreshing as taking a walk in the woods.

He was clearly referring to the use of AR, where virtual content is overlaid on top of our reality thanks to AR headsets or mobile phones. The concept of the metaverse is not new. It became democratized and, at the same time, overhyped since Facebook’s rebranding to Meta in October 2021.

So, why does the metaverse matter? The metaverse is a shift in dimensions. From 2D to 3D. From the flat screen to 3D content around us that makes us experience a new reality. There are two possibilities to enter the metaverse today: one is through AR, in which you see virtual content overlaid to the real world. The other is through VR, in which you are immersed in a virtual world that is 100% computer-generated. The metaverse is a total game changer for the human brain: when we perceive content in 3D, it is harder for our brains to distinguish between what is real and what is not. In simple words, the metaverse plays with reality by adding virtual content to it. By doing so, it also tricks our reality and tricks our brains too.

TRICK OR TREAT?

That is the question, and ultimately it is our responsibility to leverage both. The real power of the metaverse does not come from the devices per se. It is about the interaction between them, the system we are creating right now, and ultimately the use we will make of these devices as humans and citizens. As with all powerful tools, their use is human responsibility combined to human invention. Let me explain: as innovators and technology builders we also have a part of responsibility: to envision, code, prototype, build, and ultimately deploy a metaverse ecosystem that protects people and cares for their well-being and safety.

With time, AR/VR devices will become lighter. Instead of bulky headsets, we will reach the point of having devices that are very similar to a pair of glasses. Ray-Ban Stories are a clear example of what the future might look like. These are smart sunglasses that take pictures and show on-demand content at the same time that their appearance blends with any other "non-smart" sunglasses. These smart sunglasses adhere to the concept of invisible computing: they look like any other sunglasses except for two cameras positioned close to the lenses that we overlook unless we get close to the device.

One of the ultimate goals for any device is to become so natural that it is embedded in the fabric of everyday life in a way that we do not think about the device, but about the service it provides. In a way, we end up losing the awareness that there is technology in the background and that data about us is still being collected.

THE METAVERSE: AN EXPONENTIAL INCREASE IN DATA COLLECTION

Indeed, the amount of data collected by AR/VR devices that will enable the metaverse will increase exponentially. Let me explain: the number of cameras and sensors embedded within AR/VR devices is much higher than an average smartphone. The Meta Quest 2 headset, the commercially most successful VR headset to date, presents 4 external-facing cameras that can determine the user's position in the space. High-end VR headsets such as Varjo VR-3 also present integrated eye-tracking for more detailed foveated rendering and hand-tracking for natural interactions. Plus, accessories such as Vive Facial Tracker enable the capture of full lower-face motion for creating more realistic avatars and VR-based video conferencing. And rumors about the upcoming Apple AR headset claim that the device will pack a dozen cameras.

These are all technological improvements to enable an optimal user experience of the metaverse. However, as we learned from Web 2.0 (our current internet), beyond looking at data to optimize users´ experience, data has become a new currency. Companies providing services in the web get access to our data and exploit it to their advantage either for marketing (targeted ads), or by selling it to third parties. The metaverse presents higher and alarming stakes as the data collected is not only about basic information (i.e., email, name, age, occupation), but about sensitive biometric data and behavior patterns unique to each of us (i.e., hand, body, eye, and facial tracking).

Some of the key players in the space are pioneering projects that target data collection with AR devices to learn and create safe practices for users in this space. Google's recent testing of AR prototypes, and Meta's project Aria are examples of research in this area. We are yet to see what these upcoming devices will look like, including their underlying data collection mechanisms. For now, let´s commit to building an ethical metaverse!

Scientific reference

[1] Weiser, M. (1991), “The Computer for the 21st Century”, Scientific American, Vol. 265 No. 3, pp. 94–104, https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004.

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