As AI-enabled AR glasses and VR headsets go mainstream, there is an urgent need to evolve today’s web infrastructure to deliver spatial services to these next-generation devices. The race is on to establish the open standards required to make this transition possible at scale. Just as the early web depended on foundational standards to succeed, the spatial internet faces the same challenge. The opportunity lies in building on existing web standards while developing essential new protocols and APIs.
The Metaverse Standards Forum and RP1 are addressing this challenge by launching the Open Metaverse Browser Initiative, an open-source effort to build the foundation for how the world will access spatial services.
The Evolution of the Web
Just as the web browser unlocked the World Wide Web by providing universal access to information on 2D devices, the metaverse browser will unlock proximity-based services across AR and virtual environments without installing separate apps for each service.
The metaverse is the evolution of the World Wide Web, bringing spatial computing to the same open, standards-based foundation that made the web successful.
What This Looks Like
Walk into an airport wearing smart glasses. Instantly, you’ll see a route to your gate overlaid on the floor in front of you. Your flight status floats above your departure gate. Security wait times appear as you approach checkpoints. When you arrive at your gate, the airline’s check-in interface appears automatically. You select your seat from a 3D visualization of the plane. Meanwhile, a colleague in another city joins you virtually, their avatar standing beside you for a quick meeting before your flight.
None of this will require installing apps. Each service will activate automatically based on your location. The airport provides navigation, the airline provides check-in, your company provides communication tools. All working together seamlessly in your view, then disappearing as you move to new locations.
This is how the metaverse works: multiple services from different providers appearing automatically based on where you are and what you need.
The AOL Moment
The XR industry today resembles the early 1990s internet, fragmented into incompatible proprietary platforms. We’re in another “AOL moment.” Just as walled gardens gave way to the open web, today’s proprietary XR platforms will evolve into an open metaverse built on universal standards.
A standards-based metaverse browser connects any device to any spatial service, giving organizations the ability to own and operate their spatial presence just like hosting a website today. Open standards create full data ownership, revenue control, and freedom to build without dependence on any platform or gatekeeper.
How do we get the standards we need before fragmentation becomes locked in?
RP1 has developed an operational prototype metaverse browser that connects to immersive 3D content and third-party services across any device, on demand, in real time. RP1 is contributing this prototype to seed an open-source project under the stewardship of the Metaverse Standards Forum, a collaborative non-profit bringing together more than 2,500 member companies and leading standards organizations.
The initiative will be hosted on GitHub under a permissive open-source license, enabling broad industry contributions and providing a functional testbed for exercising and validating interoperability standards.
“Open standards are a powerful foundation for transformative platforms, and RP1 has given us an extraordinary head start to create not just a browser implementation, but a testbed for interoperability collaboration,” said Neil Trevett, president of the Metaverse Standards Forum. “We invite the standards community to join the initiative and leverage this mutual opportunity to drive the evolution and widespread adoption of their standards.”
“The metaverse and XR industry is fragmented and proprietary. A standards-based metaverse browser is the way forward and the Metaverse Standards Forum was custom built to foster this kind of industry-wide cooperation,” said Sean Mann, co-founder and CEO of RP1. “Industry and academic interest in this project has been overwhelming, and we welcome all interested parties to get involved.”
Join Us
This is a call to the entire standards community: standards development organizations with expertise in web, networking, 3D, spatial, and XR technologies; implementers ready to build, test, and validate emerging specifications; enterprises planning spatial infrastructure who want a seat at the table; and developers and researchers passionate about spatial technologies.
Early participants will shape the project’s direction, structure, and deliverables. The initiative will use proven, transparent open-source governance welcoming contributions from all. Organizations are encouraged to join the Metaverse Standards Forum for a voice in the project and broader Working Group activities.
