With Facebook’s parent company Meta taking this wholeheartedly, the concept of the Metaverse, which is essentially a virtual social space, caught attention in 2021. With Metaverse hailed as the next internet, you can bet every tech company is researching how to use and contribute to space. Hyundai is no exception.
Hyundai’s Intentions for Robotic Technology Becomes Clearer
According to an announcement at the 2022 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on January 4, Boston’s intentions for cutting-edge robotic technology became clearer as it outlined a meta-universe vision that robots can use to connect the physical and virtual worlds. This is coming after Hyundai Motor acquired robot maker Boston Dynamics last year, we weren’t sure what that would do for the company.
At the Las Vegas Technology Show on Tuesday, the South Korean company unveiled its mission to use robots to make space, time and distance irrelevant. When you are in one place, the robot acts as an agent or “digital twin” so that you can experience another place that becomes your eyes, ears and other sensory organs and allows you to interact with the robot’s environment.
In a video that Hyundai Motor showed during its CES event, the company gave an example of how it envisioned this type of work. The clip shows a young girl and her father using the Boston Dynamics Spot robot to explore Mars in the Metaverse that will actually exist on this red planet.
The idea is that Spot can map data and images so the couple can experience the Martian landscape in real-time. Robots can take measurements, including the wind speed of sandstorms and the temperature of rocks, to replicate these sensory aspects on Earth. Technology lets you feel the Martian wind on your face or the rocks on the cold fingertips of Mars.
Chang Song, President of Hyundai Motor Group, stated that Metaverse’s immersive existence agency experience makes robots an extension of our body senses that enable us to reshape and enrich our daily lives.
Hyundai Believes the Future of Metaverse will not be constrained By Current VR Headsets
Hyundai Motor has not fully explained the principles of operation of these technologies and believes that all of this will happen in the future Metaverse platforms that will not be constrained by current VR headsets. The company is now more focused on helping us understand the role robots will play in improving these future meta comic spaces.
In a press release, Hyundai Motor cited an example that enables workers to remotely control industrial robots from the metaverse. It also stipulates that you can use robots to feed and hug your pets, allowing meaningful interaction for both parties while you are away. Whether cats or dogs are willing to accept a robot’s hug – or even the robot that is feeding them – is likely a question for another day.
