Stop and smell the metaverse roses: Virtual world on display at CES
Immersive technologies that can better lives, whether helping people treat dementia or learn to pilot fighter jets, is the future of the metaverse, virtual reality startups say.
Some entrepreneurs at the annual CES gadget fest that ends Sunday in Las Vegas were eager to combine real and virtual worlds to help people stop and smell the roses.
The company OVR Technology has created an accessory for VR headsets that treats users around a faux campfire to whiffs of smoke and toasting marshmallows.
Smell is essential to the metaverse, said OVR Vice President Sarah Socia, because it's "the only sense that is directly connected to the limbic system, a part of the brain crucial for memory and emotion."
The Vermont-based startup also has a prototype of another device that can hold scent cartridges created by users through a mobile app.
Japanese "digital scent technology" company Aromajoin is also betting that the metaverse will be a place of many smells.
"It's like before smartphones, we didn't know how big a part they would play in our lives," Aromajoin's SeonHoon Cho said of scent in the virtual world.
- Slowly taking shape -
When Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta in late 2021, it signaled faith in the metaverse becoming the center of online life, and the company continues to invest in that future despite profits suffering.
"Metaverse these days is very likely to be met with skepticism," said Steve Koenig, a vice president at the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which organizes CES.
"I do think that the term metaverse still is somewhat speculative in nature."
But the metaverse is starting to take shape through various applications and devices, Koenig said.
The Indian firm AjnaLens believes immersive
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