Meta — the visitor formerly known as Facebook — is diving straight into virtual reality with a preview of its latest research and evolution on haptic gloves, which give sensory feedback while in digital realms.

Facebook rebranded to Meta in late October to shift its focus from social media to metaverse and VR tech evolution.

In a Tuesday blog mail service, Meta shared the latest breakthroughs in haptic glove enquiry from its VR tech house, Reality Labs, noting that the product has been seven years in the making.

The firm shared a video that shows ii people testing the haptic gloves in a demo metaverse, as they clench their fists, pick up blocks, throw objects, shake hands, knock over dominoes, and play Jenga together.

Haptic glove preview. Source: Meta

Meta said the gloves rely on haptic rendering to ship "precise instructions to the actuators on the paw" that correspond with tracking applied science that pinpoints the hand'due south location and the backdrop of virtual objects in the metaverse.

In their current land of evolution, the palms appear to be lined with small soft robotic motors that motion in unison to deliver a corresponding sensation to the user's hand movements in the metaverse. Meta noted, however, that haptic gloves won't be hit the market place someday before long.

"The reality of these being an affordable, accessible tool for regular consumers is still some time off. I hateful, look at the mess of the cables connecting these prototypes," the blog mail service read.

Related: To piece of work for everyone, the metaverse must be decentralized

Meta stated that its haptic glove project "started equally a moonshot" but is condign closer to existence a reality due to advancements in perceptual science, soft robotics, microfluidics, hand tracking and haptic rendering.

The firm too outlined its vision for the project, which is moving forrard, echoing something similar to the plot of the Ready Player 1 picture in which VR tech and gaming take developed to the stage of providing a liveable metaverse for its users:

"Imagine working on a virtual 3D puzzle with a friend'southward realistic 3D avatar. As you choice up a virtual puzzle piece from the table, your fingers automatically end moving every bit yous feel it within your grasp."

Many onlookers are waiting to run into if Meta volition launch an "open Metaverse" similar its decentralized counterparts in the crypto infinite or pose a threat to the space by wrestling for dominance over the sector.

However, some are quite bullish on Meta's move, with Emil Angervall, co-founder and master operating officeholder of music tech startup Corite, telling Cointelegraph on Oct. 29 that the business firm will provide extreme upside opportunities for the nonfungible token and metaverse sectors.

Meta'due south share price (FB) has gained nine% since the announcement of its rebranding to sit down at $341 at the time of writing.