Skip to content
Digital Bodies
  • HOME
  • SPEAKING / WORKSHOPS
  • VR EXPERIENCES
    • VR VIDEOS
  • NEW FRONTIER OF LEARNING
  • CONSULTING SERVICES
  • ABOUT

Digital Bodies » VR News » Meta Continues to Buy its Way to the Metaverse with Lofelt Acquisition

Meta Continues to Buy its Way to the Metaverse with Lofelt Acquisition

September 13, 2022 by Emory Craig
Meta Platforms acquires Berlin-based Lofelt haptic startup.

With four new headsets coming in the next two years, Meta Platforms is determined to stake its claim to the Metaverse – if not control it completely. But it’s also rushing to acquire other startups with technologies that would transform how we interact in virtual worlds in the future. Meta’s latest acquisition is the Berlin-based haptic startup, Lofelt. Unlike other haptic solutions, Lofelt made small, discreet, wearable devices that you can use all day. Just the kind of tech we need if we are to spend extended periods in virtual worlds.

The Basslet by Lofelt.
The Basslet by Lofelt is a small, inexpensive haptic device.

Meta’s Lofelt Acquisition

Unlike many tech startups, Lofelt was born in Berlin’s thriving electronic music scene:

Started by members of Berlin’s electronic music software community, Lofelt is a company that specialises in the development of haptic technology. Specifically, this involves the conversion of visual and auditory stimuli into felt, physical feedback through mechanical touch, force and vibration. [RA / Electronic Music Online]

This isn’t a complex haptic solution that will let you hold an object or feel a bump on your chest. But it provides feedback through a tiny wrist wearable that gives a deep sense of immersion. The challenge Lofelt never really solved was that the sensations always seem localized to your wrist, and music – especially deep throbbing baselines – is a full-body experience.

But Meta is likely acquiring Lofelt for more than its immersive sound capabilities. Last year, Meta was rumored to be exploring wrist-worn devices as the basis of a new interface for AR experiences. Meta has experimented with electromyography solutions that would pick up the movement of your fingers in your wrist. It’s not so much a haptic device as a controller for immersive experiences. Whether that’s the incentive to acquire Lofelt remains to be seen, but we need something other than the bulky handheld controllers we currently rely on. Gamers may love them, but the rest of the world doesn’t – and the Metaverse will be much more than a gaming platform.

Ethical Issues in Wrist Tracking Devices

If Meta is moving toward a wrist-based solution for haptic feedback and XR interface design, it raises a host of ethical issues. Combined with eye-tracking technologies that will be a standard feature in future XR headsets, wrist devices will generate massive amounts of personal data that Meta and other companies are dying to get their hands on. We’ve yet to resolve the personal data issues with our social media platforms, and here we are – on the cusp of a new era of corporate ownership over every glance of our eyes and movements of our hands.

The EU will likely push back on wrist-based interfaces if Meta and other companies have control over the data generated. Here in States, it seems like we need years of scandals and data breaches before anyone takes notice of the privacy and ethical issues.

Will Meta Platforms’ Acquisitions Go Too Far?

The FTC is suing Meta over its acquisition of the VR fitness app, Supernatural.
Meta Platforms’ acquisition of Within VR studios has triggered FTC antitrust action.

Meta is already dealing with an FTC challenge to its acquisition of Within, which created the popular VR fitness app, Supernatural. And they’ve moved into other areas as well, acquiring startups that better position them for the Metaverse.

As Road2VR notes,

Over the past two years Meta has acquired a number of VR studios, including Beat Games (Beat Saber), Sanzaru Games (Asgard’s Wrath and others), Ready at Dawn (Lone Echo and others), Downpour Interactive (Onward), and BigBox VR (Population: One). Its recent XR hardware acquisitions include VR/AR display makers Imagine Optix, wrist-worn haptics company CTRL-labs, and computer vision studio Scape Technologies.

Apple has been doing the same, even without a publically available XR device. The Lofelt acquisition won’t trigger an FTC move but don’t be surprised to see more antitrust action if Meta continues this pace. After all the years of Facebook scandals, Zuckerberg doesn’t have a lot of friends in Washington. And a data-gathering wearable on your wrist isn’t going to put him in a better light.

 

Emory Craig

Emory Craig is a writer, speaker, and VR consultant with extensive experience in art, new media, and higher education. He speaks at global conferences on innovation, education, and ethical technology in the future. He has published widely and worked with the US Agency for International Development, the United Nations, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Living at the intersection of learning, games, and immersive storytelling, he is fascinated by AI-based avatars, digital twins, and the ethical implications of blurring the boundaries between the real and the virtual.

Related

Horizon Workrooms – Is VR Collaboration Ready for Primetime?
Update: Bomb Attack at Northeastern University’s VR Lab

Our Consulting Services

Our consulting services include workshops, demos, keynote talks, professional development, and project management on XR, Web3, and Metaverse developments. We work with education, nonprofits, NGOs, and business organizations around the world to provide innovative solutions for understanding and implementing XR and emerging technologies.

Why not schedule a free discovery call to see how we can help you?

Metaverse Revolution: A Conversation with Maya Georgieva at Skylight Modern Gallery, NYC.

The Metaverse Revolution - a deep-dive conversation with Maya Georgieva at the Species Between Worlds Exhibition at the Skylight Modern Gallery, 537 West 27th Street | New York, NY 10001.

News, Media, and Events

  • Maya Georgieva will be speaking at SXSWedu on Tuesday, March 8th, 2:30 PM, on the The State of XR in Education: Trends and Insights.

  • Maya Georgieva will be speaking on Monday, Jan. 10th, 10:00 AM, at the Digital Literacy and AI Webinar Series #3: Simulation, Immersion, and Gamification hosted by the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) with the support of UNESCO IITE.

  • We'll be reporting on the latest developments in AR and VR on-site from the AWE 2021 Conference, in Santa Clara, CA, November 9-11th.

  • Emory Craig will be speaking at the GESS Education Global Leadership Summit, Tuesday, March 23rd at 10:30 AM (EDT) on "Learning in Virtual Worlds: How Augmented and Virtual Reality is Transforming Education in a Global Pandemic."

  • Join us at the ShapingEDU Winter Games this week! Lunch Session: Wednesday January 6, 12:30-1:00pm MST for the latest on the Hummersive Learning Project and a breakout session on Thursday, 10:45am MST on "Learning with Emodied Avatars in the Future."

  • Maya Georgieva is quoted in The Economist on Using augmented reality in marketing.

  • Join us today at the iLRN Conference where we'll present as co-authors the Executive Summary of the State of XR Report at 1:00pm (EST), June 23rd - immersively in VirBELA.

  • Maya Georgieva is quoted in The Atlantic It’s Cool to Look Terrifying on Pandemic Instagram on the use of AR during the Coronavirus.

  • Emory Craig did a keynote at the GESSDubai Conference in Dubai, UAE, "Reinventing Learning for the Future: A World of Virtual Reality and AI Avatars."

The EDUCAUSE-ELI Series, “VR/AR: Stepping into the New Frontier of Learning”

Article Series: Stepping into the New Frontier of Learning

Articles from our New Frontier of Learning series for the EDUCAUSE Review (and summaries of the articles):

  • From VR and AR to Our XR Future: Transforming Higher Education
  • VR and AR: The Ethical Challenges Ahead
  • VR and AR: The Art of Immersive Storytelling and Journalism
  • VR and AR: Learners as Creators and World Builders of Our Immersive Future
  • VR and AR: Designing Spaces for Immersive Learning
  • VR and AR: Transforming Learning and Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences
  • VR and AR: Driving a Revolution in Medical Education & Patient Care
  • AR and VR in STEM: The New Frontiers in Science
  • A New World: VR and AR Tech Developments
  • Introducing the VR and AR Series: Stepping Into the New Frontier of Learning Series

Digital Bodies RSS Feed

Our Consulting Services

In a time of profound change for K12 and higher education, we can help you engage students and clients through AR, VR, and innovative online collaboration tools. Take a look at our consulting services and featured talks.

We offer talks highlighting augmented and virtual reality developments, future trends, design thinking sessions, and provide experiential workshops for education, nonprofit and corporate clients.

About Digital Bodies

The best AR / VR news and analysis of XR in learning, storytelling, AI, the future Metaverse. See our customized consulting services.

XR is transforming learning, games, journalism, art, storytelling, filmmaking, workforce training, and entertainment. The convergence of XR and AI will create deeply immersive virtual worlds and lifelike avatars – and raise profound ethical challenges. We can help you leverage today’s cutting-edge XR developments and prepare for future opportunities and challenges in the rise of the Metaverse.

Have a tip or a story for us? Working on an innovative project in XR? Please connect with us here or through our social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram!

© 2023 Digital Bodies
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on Digital Bodies. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkPrivacy policy