What is mataverse?
- 1. What is Mataverse? The Metaverse is an iteration of the Internet part of shared virtual reality, often as a form of social media. The metaverse in a broader sense may not only refer to virtual worlds operated by social media companies but the entire spectrum of augmented reality
- 2. History of Metaverse The term was coined in Neal Stephenson's 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, where humans, as avatars, interact with each other and software agents, in a three-dimensional virtual space that uses the metaphor of the real world. Stephenson used the term to describe a virtual reality-based successor to the Internet. Concepts similar to the Metaverse have appeared under a variety of names in the cyberpunk genre of fiction as far back as 1981 in the Vernor Vinge's novella True Names. Stephenson stated in the afterword to Snow Crash that after finishing the novel he learned about Habitat, an early MMORPG which resembled the Metaverse.
- 3. History of Metaverse Cont’ In 2021, the social media company Facebook changed its name to Meta to reflect its new focus on building technologies that "bring the metaverse to life. Its version of the metaverse is described as "an embodied internet where you’re in the experience, not just looking at it
- 4. Key Elements of Metaverse The elements of the metaverse include "video-conferencing, games like Minecraft or Roblox, email, virtual reality, social media and live- streaming The aforementioned cyberspace has kept evolving and included various computer-mediated virtual environments. Such expanding cyberspace indicates a digital 'big bang' driven by various technologies and ecosystems.
- 5. Other KEY Elements of Metaverse The metaverse ecosystem allows human users to live and play within a self-sustaining, persistent, and shared realm. Therefore, the metaverse ecosystem considers user-centric elements including Avatar Identity, Content Creation, Virtual Economy, Social Acceptability, Presence, Security and Privacy, and Trust and Accountability.
- 6. Why Metaverse? Fans of the metaverse see it as the next stage in the development of the internet. The idea of the metaverse is that it will create new online spaces in which people's interactions can be more multi-dimensional, where users are able to immerse themselves in digital content rather than simply viewing it. The accelerated interest in the metaverse can be seen as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As more people have started working and going to school remotely, there has been increased demand for ways to make online interaction more lifelike.
- 7. Who is Interested The idea of the metaverse is attracting a lot of interest from investors and companies who are keen to be part of the next big thing. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in July that the company will try to transition from being a social media company to a metaverse company in the next five years or so. The term is popular in Silicon Valley, with Microsoft also having mentioned converging the digital and physical worlds.
- 8. Why is it suddenly a big thing? Hype about digital worlds and augmented reality pops up every few years, but usually dies away. However, there is a huge amount of excitement about the metaverse among wealthy investors and big tech firms, and no-one wants to be left behind if it turns out to be the future of the internet. There's also a feeling that for the first time, the technology is nearly there, with advancements in VR gaming and connectivity coming close to what might be needed.
- 9. Why is Facebook involved? Facebook has made building the metaverse one of its big priorities. It's invested heavily in virtual reality through its Oculus headsets, making them cheaper than rivals - perhaps even at a loss, according to some analysts. It's also building VR apps for social hangouts and for the workplace, including ones that interact with the real world. Despite its history of buying up rivals, Facebook claims the metaverse "won't be built overnight by a single company" and has promised to collaborate. It has recently invested $50m (£36.3m) in funding non-profit groups to help "build the metaverse responsibly". But it thinks the true metaverse idea will take another 10 to 15 years
- 10. Potential Implications of Metaverse The metaverse is often imagined as a means of manufacturing immersive digital spaces for all human activity, with potential uses to increase work productivity Within the education sector, it has been proposed that metaverse technologies would allow for more focused and interactive environments for learning history and human geography Virtual reality has long been used in the real estate sector for home tours and metaverse development may expand that function. There is a significant interest in developing the metaverse for online retail.
- 11. Who else is interested in the metaverse? Mr Sweeney, the head of Epic Games (which makes Fortnite), has long spoken about his metaverse aspirations. Online multiplayer games have had shared interactive worlds going back decades. They are not the metaverse, but have some ideas in common. In recent years Fortnite expanded its product, hosting concerts, brand events, and more inside its own digital world. That impressed many with what was possible - and thrust Mr Sweeney's vision of the metaverse into the spotlight.
- 12. Who else is interested in the metaverse? Other games are getting closer to a metaverse idea, too. Roblox, for example, is a platform for thousands of individual games connected to the larger ecosystem. Meanwhile, Unity, a 3D development platform, is investing in "digital twins" - digital copies of the real world - and the graphics company Nvidia is building its "Omniverse", which it describes as a platform for connecting 3D virtual worlds.
- 13. So is it all about games? No. Even though there are so many ideas about what the metaverse might be, most visions see social human interaction as the core. Facebook, for example, has been experimenting with a VR meetings app called Workplace, and a social space called Horizons, both of which use their virtual avatar systems. Another VR app, VRChat, is entirely focused around hanging out online and chatting - with no goal or purpose other than exploring environments and meeting people. Other applications may be waiting out there, ready to be discovered.
- 14. Technology of Metaverse The metaverse is a proposed expansion to existing internet technologies. Access points for the metaverse include general-purpose computers and smartphones, in addition to augmented reality (AR), mixed reality, virtual reality (VR), and virtual world technologies There are significant business and commercial interests in metaverse-related research and technology. Facebook bought VR company Oculus in 2014, looking to build a new 3-D social space with "connective tissue" to bridge the gap between varying services. A virtual environment is considered to be the most likely access point to the metaverse. The metaverse's dependency on VR technology places limitations on its development and wide-scale adoption
- 15. Does the technology exist yet? VR has come a long way in recent years, with high-end headsets which can trick the human eye into seeing in 3D as the player moves around a virtual world. It has become more mainstream, too - the Oculus Quest 2 VR gaming headset was a popular Christmas gift in 2020. The explosion of interest in NFTs, which may provide a way to reliably track ownership of digital goods, could point to how a virtual economy would work. And more advanced digital worlds will need better, more consistent, and more mobile connectivity - something that might be solved with the rollout of 5G. For now, though, everything is in the early stages. The evolution of the metaverse - if it happens at all - will be fought among tech giants for the next decade, or maybe even longer.