First and foremost, we need to align on how we define ‘virtual reality’ here: its properties and our expectations of it. There are various perspectives and definitions; for the purpose of this document, we must agree on one.

Therefore, we start with a touch of philosophy.

What is ‘Virtual Reality’?

The word ‘virtual’ originates from the Greeks, where it meant ‘real’ or ‘actual.’ In common, non-technical language, ‘virtual’ refers to something that is almost or nearly as described but not entirely so or according to strict definition. For example, ‘the virtual absence of border controls.’

Centuries later, tech enthusiasts introduced an almost opposite definition: ‘not real, but appearing to be real.’ This is the definition of ‘virtual’ we use most frequently today.

Thus, virtual reality denotes ‘a reality that is not real, but appears to be real.’ The term appears laden with the notion of ‘real.’ Here's how we simplify it here:

Virtual Reality is an immersive environment that people perceive as genuinely real.

In this context, we might label ‘virtual reality’ as the ultimate ‘true reality’ created from person’s perception to support their life experience. In this reality, everything may come true — the way we wish it to be.

Is our ‘real reality’ not ‘true’ enough? Sometimes, it isn’t. Occasionally, we walk down the street feeling disconnected, as though observing ourselves from afar, or perhaps we are daydreaming. Sometimes, we endure a lecture or business meeting, wishing it would end, mentally removing ourselves from experiencing the tedium. There are times we are tormented, unable to escape the pain that confronts us.

In this regard, virtual reality should represent the space where you genuinely exist.

Buddhists often guide us towards being present in the moment, in the physical place we inhabit. At times, the same Buddhists steer us away from the suffering and torment that this place may impose on us. The crucial point is that no one but you holds the reins of your true reality. You are not a captive of the so-called ‘real world’, whose existence is often doubted by Buddhists.

People have been creating their own virtual realities for centuries. Painted cave walls, coloured cathedral windows, the layered sand of Buddhist mandalas, voluminous books of fiction, and cinema screens — these have all been mediums through which virtual reality has lent a helping hand to humanity.

What was missing was interactivity. People immersed themselves in these realities, but the realities of paintings, books, and movies never responded.

Once computers became widespread, video games flourished. They provided various solutions to the problem of interactivity.

Games offered scripted quest lines and puzzles for players to discover and solve, allowing them to enjoy the satisfaction of piecing together the puzzle and being rewarded with victory animations.

They presented sandboxes with a set of rules that enabled players to interact with the game's world in myriad ways: mining minerals, building houses, planting crops, taming animals, protecting fellow villagers from bandits, hunting and killing monsters, and traversing ethereal spaces, all within a single game!

Yesterday: Virtual Reality is Behind the Screens

At some point, someone unknown to us contemplated: if we extract the essence of the ‘game’ from a video game, what remains? It must be the purest form of virtual reality! Let’s isolate that and declare that we finally have it.

That’s how we arrived at Second Life and other ‘virtual reality’ apps. Today we use the term ‘Metaverse’ to describe the elements that make virtual reality possible:

1. It is a three-dimensional space;
2. There are other people in that space;
3. Those people are represented by human-like (or humanoid-like) avatars;
4. People can interact with each other and with some of the world's objects.
5. The environment attempts to mimic ‘real reality’ by incorporating some of its features.

Those features comprise:

1. Physicality: gravity, lighting, spatial audio, impassable obstacles;
2. Vitals: health, hunger, debilitation;
3. Economics: virtual currency, property, marketplaces;
4. Politics: governing institutions, enforced social restrictions.

Yet, observing that already convincing reality through the keyhole of a computer screen is somewhat limiting. We should leap into that digital mirror, much like Alice did in Carroll's tale, fully immersing ourselves in the virtual — true — reality.

Science fiction writers were the first to envision this vivid world of the future, presenting it to us all.

Tomorrow: Virtual Reality is Augmented

In the world of tomorrow, as depicted by science fiction, virtual reality envelops us. We don’t require computer screens to be there. Neither do we need these heavy VR headsets. In a short time, the cumbersome and weighty VR headset will lighten, then it will morph into VR glasses. Eventually, these VR glasses will follow the same path as regular ones, becoming VR contact lenses.

Perhaps at some point on this journey, we will overcome our fear of invasion of our bodies and permit technology to penetrate our brains, establishing a sort of neural link there. Maybe this neural link won’t be invasive but merely electromagnetic. These are details that science fiction need not worry about. Neither should we.

Instead, we need to ponder how we would interact with this 'true virtual reality' in the future. When would we continue to use the same 2D rectangles with buttons — as we still use paper menus in restaurants? When would we create something different?

Which ‘features’ of virtual reality would be personalized (and only visible to one person, like today's text messages), and which would be shared (so everyone could see them, like websites and your Instagram profile photo)?

When faced with this design challenge, the most significant hurdle is the absence of the ‘screen’ — the surface on which all ‘virtual reality’ interfaces now exist. Our instinct might be to recreate such screens, as we are used to designing interfaces for 2D rectangles. Recognizing this, deconstructing it, and finding the right way forward represents the primary design challenge for tomorrow’s virtual reality.

We will discuss this challenge in our next post.

Today: Virtual Reality by Proxy

Today, we don’t have neural links or VR contact lenses. We still have the rectangular screens of our computers and phones, and bulky and heavy headsets that can barely produce high-quality 3D.

Nevertheless, we possess the most powerful tool — our imagination. Imagine that the world of tomorrow is already here, but for some reason, you can't fully immerse yourself in it. Imagine you have a specific disability: for instance, you fear needles and thus will never install either a neural link or contact lenses. You would then have to resort to wearing some sort of headset.

Imagine further that you can't position screens so close to your eyes, and wearing even the lightest headset gives you both a headache and motion sickness (a plight some people regularly endure, so they likely know the feeling). You would probably resort to some sort of rectangular screen set at a comfortable distance.

Once you have completed this exercise, you are prepared to understand the ‘virtual reality of today.’

It is a placeholder, a proxy for tomorrow’s reality. It must be built on the same principles, with the same logic as the future, and then gracefully downgraded to accommodate today's devices.

In designing for today's VR, we shape the experiences of the future, then adapt them to cater to the technical realities of the present.

AI Grows Rapidly in the Digital Space

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is growing rapidly and already transforming the digital landscape. ChatGPT, with its plugins and numerous generative AI frameworks (Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, etc.), provides powerful and intuitively natural means for information search, analysis, and even creativity.

Currently, AI primarily operates within the digital space. However, there is no doubt that the future of AI extends beyond the screen and into the real world. Science fiction writers and trend watchers all promise us that this will happen; we just need to wait a bit longer and develop better AI.

Valuable AI Has a Purpose

Humans develop AI with a purpose. Its value lies in providing help to people and supporting them in their daily lives, including work and leisure. To achieve this effectively, AI needs to connect with humans.

Human connection is an essential component for people, and we can observe it in many areas, such as hospitality and care, employee engagement and growth, creative thinking, and collaboration. In order to truly contribute to these areas, AI needs to see and understand people as humans and present itself in a humane way.

With text communication, this is already happening. Complex interfaces of software like Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw, Blender, and the once popular search engines like Altavista, Google, and Bing are being replaced with natural conversations facilitated by ChatGPT and prompt-driven visual AI.

Today, AI communicates and connects with humans through messaging, whether it’s answering questions, prompting for images, or navigating complex analytical data.

Tomorrow, AI will connect with people in the most rich and immersive way—in reality. What form will it take? This question awaits answers from many AI tech companies.

Rapidly Developing AI Needs a Playground

AI technology is developing so quickly that hardware struggles to keep up in the real world, much like an overly smart prodigy struggling with basic real-world tasks. We need better displays, faster processors, smaller chips, and lighter yet more powerful batteries.

All of this will come within a year or two. Until then, AI needs a virtual playground to grow.

Morpheus Platform is the Virtual AI Playground

Morpheus focuses on human-human connections to address real needs in employee engagement, transformational learning and growth, and creative collaboration. Our high-fidelity metaverse is built to facilitate and enable those experiences.

Soon, AI will have access to this platform, allowing it to connect with human participants and support them by solving real tasks and addressing real needs within a virtual space.

For example, AI can serve as a scribe and facilitator for creative brainstorming and discussions. Imagine a smart whiteboard that summarizes discussions in post-its, arranges and regroups ideas while you and your colleagues play around with them.

Another example, AI can serve as a guide for employee onboarding. Picture a ‘brand ambassador’ who not only presents the company’s history but also answers questions and, most importantly, embodies the company’s values.

Moreover, AI can serve as an immersive therapist. Envision a captivating, out-of-this-world environment that prompts self-reflection and responds to your story, providing you with a rich, captivating, and interactive experience that leads to personal transformation.

These are just a few examples that illustrate the potential of human connection in AI and what AI can do for human connection.

Now, imagine all of this in the real world—with real whiteboards, real brand avatars, and real ‘transformation rooms.’ This is the future, the future we are building today.

Morpheus Platform Breathes Life into the Metaverse

Today, we are creating a platform that allows AI technology to integrate into an interactive virtual reality where humans connect. We provide an open API and an SDK for AI companies so they can use our platform to train, demonstrate, and apply their AI technology to address real human needs—starting today.

On the platform, third-party AI providers will be able to embed their AI into everything that exists within it: avatars, worlds, and objects.

There is always a conversation about making things ‘smarter.’ However, what we need is not just smart things; we need things that feel ‘alive.’ We, as humans, connect with things that possess an anima, a spirit that lives inside them.

Thus, each element on our platform can be given a ‘spirit’ that drives its interactive behavior, provides autonomous intent and memory, and personalizes the experience for context—everything that makes things come alive.

After all, what is an AI-powered smart thing if not a ‘smart ghost’ inside an empty shell of an ordinary thing?

In addition to embedding AI spirits, the platform allows third-party developers to build complex inter-AI interactions since these AIs will operate in a shared and consistent world. This makes Morpheus platform a true playground for the complex AI ecosystem that is growing right before our amazed eyes.

Grow AI Together with Morpheus

Before AI can run things in the real world to come, it needs to take baby steps in the existing virtual world. This virtual world is Morpheus.

If you see the future of AI similar to how we see it, let’s connect and work together to make it reality.

On Tuesday, Apple unveiled their first mixed reality headset. We have all been eagerly awaiting this news and couldn't be happier with what we saw. This is the wind of change we’ve been waiting for and the tide that raises all virtual ships.

First and foremost, Apple has fully committed to the virtual spatial future. They did so regardless of Meta's shortcomings and market skeptics. Remarkably, they accomplished this without mentioning AI once.

We believe they executed their strategy in a highly strategic and intelligent manner. They solved the hardware challenge by creating a state-of-the-art headset that delivers the most immersive experiences without compromise. Additionally, they addressed the cold-start issue of content by leveraging their existing ecosystem of apps.   Apple is paving the way for mass adoption by giving people what consumers understand and want today - “you can do the things you love in ways never before possible” This approach is crucial as it introduces new ways of experiencing familiar things, making the purchase of headsets appealing to those who haven't yet explored high-quality XR. As these new ways become familiar, an entire market of new things to love and do emerges.

We are thrilled to witness the overwhelmingly positive response from the market and the public. People desire this future and this technology, even if they were initially hesitant about it coming from Facebook/Meta. The price tag on the headset reflects both its value to users and Apple's confidence. It is clear that a version priced around $2k (Vision, not Pro, and possibly even an SE) will soon be available. However, in the meantime, the current pricing positions the device as a premium, a coveted item that may be out of reach for many. Apple has a knack for generating desire for their products and excelling in the sale of high-end hardware.

The announced partnership with Unity paves the way for Morpheus to be available on Apple headsets right from the start. We have already enrolled in their developer program and are excited to add Vision Pro to our list of supported platforms. We chose Unity engine for its incredible ecosystem of creators and immersive experiences that we can connect and integrate with. It is fantastic that Apple chose not to build an isolated AR/VR world. Native Unity support by Apple makes the future of the connected world of virtual reality so much closer!

Overall, this announcement has had a significant impact on the metaverse. There is no longer any doubt that the future of spatial computing is rapidly approaching. We are thrilled to be a part of this exciting journey!

The idea of the metaverse had its ups and downs in the last few years. For me, as a person who builds a virtual reality platform for the enterprise, it is disappointing to see that the power and magic of virtual reality were defiled, shaded by unsound metaverse hype. Virtual reality is real, it is here and it works. Experiencing VR is an intense, often transformational experience that opens new doors of perception and interaction. This power can be applied thoughtfully and strategically to solve real problems of people and companies. Metaverse is merely a vision for a possible future where different immersive apps and spaces will become interconnected and will share economy. No need to say that we need to walk before we run and that before having metaverse we first need to have such spaces and wider adoption.

Two unfortunate things happened in the last two years that muddied the waters of this opportunity. I want to openly name them to clear the way for a conversation about things that actually matter.

First – one of the largest corporations in the world – Facebook, announced “the age of the metaverse” without actual products and adoption to back this claim. Some say it was done to redirect attention from many trust issues the company was fighting at the moment. Yes, Meta Quest 2 headset is a game-changer in the accessibility of immersive experiences, but there is a huge difference between a VR headset and an actual VR experience. Soon after rebranding Facebook / Meta has launched Horizons – an app that failed to find its audience. This led to a massive drop in valuation and going down, the company is taking a “metaverse” dream with it.

Second – crypto-hype followed by crypto-crash, which took the early promise of the immersive tech and used it to extend its own runway. In reality, immersive tech has nothing to do with blockchain – VR is immersive storytelling, playing with our perception when web3 decentralizes records of ownership. Nevertheless, the Web3 ecosystem, in search of use cases to validate its valuations, tried to claim ownership of the virtual reality future. The market got flooded with “metaverse” projects selling NFTs and cryptocurrencies, but offering nothing in terms of real-life value, experience and not even supporting VR!

These two ill-founded trends put the whole “metaverse” dream in question. At its inception, metaverse was a vague concept that may or may not actually happen (and Facebook Corp with the crypto community didn’t actually help). The metaverse vision is so huge, that even if it will come to life, it will do so as a joint effort of many real companies, providing real, valuable immersive solutions and experiences to millions of people. It definitely is not happening in 2023 and is unlikely to happen in the next few years.

So with all the hype and disappointment with the metaverse, it seems everyone is missing a simple fact that the metaverse hasn’t failed, it just hasn’t happened yet. And for it to happen we need to build enough meaningful and valuable experiences in virtuality, enough worlds and universes, and bring enough users and creators to kick-start this new economy, market, and ecosystem.

I think it is time to time to focus on what actually exists, on the reality of Virtual Reality - on the Virtuality.

Virtuality matters because of the reality of the experience that happens in it – of its value, be it spiritual transformation, entertainment, or productivity. Virtuality provides a third dimension to a digital world where we already spend hours of our day. In virtuality, our perception is not reduced to looking at 2-dimensional feeds and documents, as we can BE there. In virtuality, we can be more human in a digital world.

Being in virtuality is an intense experience. With today’s tech, spending more than an hour a day is not advisable. But this hour matters. This hour can bring memories and experiences that were not possible not only on Zoom or on 2d internet, but even in real life. I know this has been said a lot, but it is true – as I have memories of flying freely in the sky with my friend, floating with glowing jellyfish while having a business meeting, becoming small as a mouse and playing hide-and-seek with co-workers, having a presentation on top of the tree in a magic forest, manifesting group intent through a growing energy orb and so on and so forth.

We should not allow empty hype to take away what matters and what can actually make our lives more fulfilling and interesting. And virtuality is that.

P.S. You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned AI once. This is not because it is not relevant, quite the opposite – I believe that a combination of AI and VR is something that will take virtuality experiences, value creation, and adoption to the next level and this topic deserves a separate post.

P.P.S. My co-founder expressed doubts that Virtuality is a real word - so here is a link to https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virtuality

With this, we are starting the Morpheus blog, a channel where we will publish and share our thoughts, insights, and the challenges we face while building Morpheus.

It has already been an incredible three years of a beautiful struggle of building a virtual reality platform for enterprise, that can be their new virtual home. We started from scratch, inventing and reinventing every step, every component, and every feature. We combine off-the-shelf pieces with our in-house developments, driven by our vision. Today, we believe that our product already demonstrates some strengths and validates the ideas we have been working on.  I feel that sharing our thought process and experience may be interesting for the metaverse and virtuality community as well as help and motivate us to continue our thinking in a more systematic way.

I also want to say that in this blog we commit not to publish AI-generated articles (but we will use ai-generated images). Our insights and stories are paid for with sweat and tears, so you can be confident that you will find real people sharing their real thoughts here.

What are we building?

We see Morpheus as the ultimate enterprise metaverse. This metaverse consists of private and public universes, each holding purposeful and consistent virtual worlds. These worlds are used as the company's virtual campus for training, team-building, sales, and marketing activations, as well as for creative collaboration. Morpheus provides spaces, web-based tools to manage events, invites, and access as well as a marketplace of content and services - from virtual spaces and world-building services to training modules and services of professional facilitators. Basically, we want to offer a one-stop-shop for immersive business experiences

Why are we building it?

Because we think that human connection is the most important thing in life and we know the power of the VR medium to create and elevate this connection. Being immersed in virtuality we can be present with each other and we can DO things together, create shared memories, explore, and create. So everything we do, we do to elevate the human experience and to facilitate meaningful and valuable connection.

How are we building it?

As the tech and industry are pretty early, we've developed a turnkey solution to help our clients cross the adoption gap. There are 3 keys opening 3 doors to virtuality

How? - headsets and onboarding of users

Where? - the platform itself - spaces and tools

What? - facilitated activation experiences as well as customer-specific content

By learning how to do this right, by creating a streamlined onboarding process (and successfully leading hundreds of people into virtuality), by building our proprietary metaverse from the ground up, by working with leading trainers and facilitators adapting their content and skills to VR, we've learned a lot. And now we can't wait to share our insights with you.