Microsoft Build In Focus: Mesh for Teams Metaverse

Unlike it looked yesterday, we got more information about Mesh for Teams and the Metaverse during Into Focus : Preparing for Metaverse session Tuesday evening. I was happy to be part of virtual MVP audience of that session too!

There were some very interesting pieces of information released during Satya Nadella’s keynote speak combined with information from Into Focus Metaverse-session. Everyone was expecting a preview but as it wasn’t annouced at Builld we just have to wait on that for longer. Microsoft will be releasing more information in upcoming months. My bet now is now that the wait may be even to the Ignite. Unfortunately autumn Ignite hasn’t been announced yet but I would be very surprised if there wouldn’t be one.

• Satya Nadella :”I’ve been using Mesh internally and I am very excited with personal expressive avatars.. and avatars express me the way I want to be seen”. This brings an important topic about avatars being our digital twins – and they need to express who we are or how we want to express ourselves in the Metaverse to others. It was great to see how expressive avatars can be – from hearts to blowing my mind gestures.

• Customizing your avatars is very imporant feature. And we can have more than just one avatar – so we can switch between them easily to have the right expression presented to others – making sure our presence fits the need and purpose of the encounter with others.

Yes – you can have up to three different avatars to meet your expression and style in the Metaverse.

• Worth especially nothing about avatars is that your digital twin can include details like a prostethic arm.

• You dont’ just do meetings, but you can drop into persistent Metaverse spaces to keep on working with others. Whatever you do there will remain and people dropping into the space later can continue your work.

• “We are building Mesh as a platform service in Azure to enable you to build your own immersive worlds. You can build your Metaverse experience on Mesh that are accessible from anywhere on any device whether it is HoloLens, VR Headsets, phones, tablets or PCs. “. Yes, this is big wow and very important information.
  
  Building Metaverse experiences on Azure using Microsoft Mesh allows us to create anything, including integrations to other devices and platforms. This may hint that organizations won’t be using AltSpace VR to create public experiences but instead run their Metaverse events and spaces on Azure Platform. I can vision this easily to include maximum number of customizations available. As was shown in keynote’s examples where early stage POCs and pilots have been already created with WEF + Accenture. And it was stated it was build on Mesh.

• Operation room or “war room” or “drop in space” can contain multiple applications and displays to make sure people are up to date and have access to the relevant information. The picture is showing PowerBI and/or PowerApps representation of the data. In my own visioning I see low-code/no-code (=Power Platform) as a way to customize your metaverse with your own applications. Just like you can start to create Live Share and Collaborative Apps to Teams. In the metaverse you don’t need to install these (or access them separately) for everyone – just add them to the space.

• We can also use the Whiteboard in the Metaverse. And it surely looks like the new version of the Whiteboard based on the toolbar. It looks that we will be able to use Whiteboard once Mesh preview begins – and not just use but presenting something to others using the whiteboard. And since it is a whiteboard other people can be editing it at the same time.

• Graphics on avatars are looking very good – much higher polygon count than in various avatars have. These seem to have eye-tracking and it is worth nothing it is not just floating hands, but they have arms as well. Legs – well, perhaps we get them later as technology advances on both device and software performance. .

• Microsoft Teams Rooms will also be supporting virtual stages and avatars. Noting especially that there can be objects that have depth in place – allowing presenter to walk behind them if needed. Combining with intelligent cameras and speakers the presentation will be more engaging and inspirational than you get these days.

• it also looks that there is still work to do with Mesh for Teams. I am eagerly waiting for more news in following months!

Mesh for Teams and Microsoft Mesh are going to enable us to bring Metaverse seamlessly and easily to our work and life while making it possible for organizations to create their own Metaverses running on Azure platform.