Meta, Microsoft, and 34 other companies and organizations have formed a set of standards for emerging Metaverse technology that will make the emerging digital worlds of companies compatible with one another.
The forum is supposed to promote open and interoperable standards for augmented and virtual reality, geospatial technology, and 3D technology.
Participants in the Metaverse Standards Forum include many of the largest companies in the field, from chip makers to game companies, as well as standards-setting bodies such as the W3C.
Apple is clearly absent from the list of members at the moment, which analysts expect to become a dominant player in the Metaverse race once it launches its mixed reality headset this year or next.
Game companies ROBLOX and Niantic, which took early strides in mixing games and virtual worlds, were also not included among the forum participants. Crypto-based metaverse platforms such as The Sandbox or Decentraland are not included.
Apple has yet to publicly acknowledge its plans for the headset, though it did give its board of directors a peek at the product.
The introduction of such a device puts Apple in direct competition with Meta. Meta bet its future in favor of metaverse growth and invested heavily in hardware to make its vision of interconnected virtual worlds a reality.
Meta has revealed plans for a mixed reality headset called the Cambria, due to be released this year.
Apple has been heavily involved in creating web standards such as HTML5 in the past. I also worked with Pixar on the USDZ file format and with Adobe to make sure they supported the format.
Promote the development of open standards for metaverse technology
Any company, including participants from the crypto world, is welcome to join the group, said Neil Trivett, CEO of chipmaker Nvidia who chairs the Metaverse Standards Forum.
He added: The forum aims to facilitate communication between a diverse group to achieve real-world interoperability. But he did not elaborate on how Apple's absence would affect this goal.
The forum focuses on real and existing projects such as hackathon tools and prototypes to support the Common Standards. He is also interested in developing consistent terminology for the field. Not many players in the field can even agree on what metaverses are.