What is the metaverse?
Science fiction
The term “metaverse” was first coined by the science fiction author, Neal Stephenson in his 1992 book, Snow Crush. More recently Earnest Cline used the term in his book Ready Player One, now a Stephen Spielberg directed feature film. In the film, people escape from reality through a virtual reality entertainment universe called OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation).
A New Internet
Several Tech Companies like Microsoft and Games company Epic Games have been using the term for several years since it appeared in Snow Crush. Mark Zuckerberg has also coined the term as a catch all for his vision for the future of the internet, recently rebranding Facebooks parent company Meta.
There is a lot of marketing hype, rather than reality, surrounding visions of the metaverse but idea essentially is that over the next 10-15 years, platforms will be developed that will enable people to share a virtual 3D world using virtual or augmented reality glasses. It will be permanently on, interactive and collaborative, and if gaming is anything to go by, highly immersive and potentially addictive.
Meta (Facebook) intends to recruit 10,000 developers in Europe alone to help push forward this vision.
I believe the metaverse will be the successor to the mobile internet, and creating this product group is the next step in our journey to help build it.
Social Media 2.0?
Will this be an even more immersive extension of social media in order to generate more revenue, or is it a defensive action in the face of Apple’s move to limit ad tracking on its devices? Some reckon its a political strategy to deflect interest away from Facebook’s social media problems that are under scrutiny by the US senate as well as other governments. Unless Meta/Facebooks business model changes, it will surely be a move to generate more advertising revenue under another guise.
Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, maker of the Fortnite game, believes that the dominant players in the internet today have created a closed platform and that the metavesre can change that.
Now we’re in a closed platform wave, and Apple and Google are surfing that wave too,. As we get out of this, everybody is going to realize, ‘Okay we spent the last decade being taken advantage of'.
That said, Epic Games Fortnite is regarded by some as a cultural phenomenon and Generation Z’s preferred social platform rather than just a game. It has proven that it can rally and bring together millions of people to watch games or a virtual concert.
A Virtual Reality
Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR & AR) are a key part of developing the metaverse and its no surprise that companies betting on it for their future are investing heavily in this technology. Oculus, a virtual reality glasses company, was acquired by Facebook for $2 Billion as part of its commitment to its vision for the future and is developing social hangout apps that will interact with the real world.
In September 2021 it launched it’s first smart glasses under the Ray-Ban brand, developed in partnership with major glasses manufacturer EssilorLuxottica who makes Ray-Ban glasses. They allow wearers to listen to music and take photos and videos that can be shared on the Facebook platform.
The metaverse will become a platform that’s not tied to any one app or any single place — digital or real. Ultimately we’re talking about creating another reality, another world, that’s as rich as the real world,
Virtual Collaboration
Microsoft, not surprisingly, has a more enterprise based vision of the metaverse and has been working on its HoloLens virtual reality headset since 2010. They announced their intention to provide its Teams product with the Mesh platform – a form of holoportation that allows remote collaboration through its HoloLens headset. The long game is that the Hololens system will enable visualization of holographic images of others as well as the wearer. For the time being, the platform allows users to create avatars of themselves that will animate as you speak, creating, the developers suggest, a feeling of presence.
...the mixed-reality technology will give each user an avatar that provides a sense of presence that allows them to be their expressive selves when they don't want to be on camera..
Microsoft’s vision is that its Mesh platform “will also enable geographically distributed teams to have more collaborative meetings, conduct virtual design sessions, assist others, learn together and host virtual social meetups. People will initially be able to express themselves as avatars in these shared virtual experiences and over time use holoportation to project themselves as their most lifelike, photorealistic selves” (Microsoft 2021).
This has been the dream for mixed reality, the idea from the very beginning. You can actually feel like you’re in the same place with someone sharing content or you can teleport from different mixed reality devices and be present with people even when you’re not physically together
Gaming
The closest, but still limited, realisation of the idea of a metaverse, so far, are games like Fortnite developed by Epic Games, or user created virtual worlds like Minecraft. Epic Games developed Unreal Engine, a tool that is used to create avatars and that can also produce completely life like humans or “metahumans” as the company likes to call them. In the gaming world, most avatars are still cartoon like, a style that Epic Games thinks best matches the game world. The tool can be licensed by others and could, for example, be used to create digital assets that are indistinguishable from human actors. How might such assets play in a collaborative metaverse where your avatar is indistinguishable for you!
A carmaker who wants to make a presence in the metaverse isn’t going to run ads. They’re going to drop their car into the world in real time and you’ll be able to drive it around.
A way to go
In some mock up demonstrations, the metaverse is experienced in 3D with holograms of the people that you are interacting with. Yet the technology to do this with complete realism and anywhere, in the type of metaverse envisioned doesn’t yet exist, one of the reasons Microsofts Mesh platform only offers avatars at present. Their HoloLens demonstrations give a glimpse of what might be possible in the future. The reality is that the vision of the metaverse will take decades to fully realise, if its even possible to reach the goal at all. There are not only technological challenges, there are also issues of privacy and standards needed to create a cross platform/technology platform that people can experience with different products and service providers.
the killer feature (metaverse) is simply getting together with your friends to have great social experiences, like going outdoors for a walk. That’s more fun than just sitting on a couch and talking.
Real community
A key question surrounding these virtual worlds is whether they in fact take us further away from authentic relationships and community. Real relationships and community need a physical embodiment rather than a virtual one. They need to be a place where we can really see, touch and be together – whether walking, playing real games or enjoying a meal together. They embody the richness of real worlds where sight, hearing, smell and touch all contribute to a sense of belonging and being – not mediated through a digital experience of other.
References
https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-sets-up-new-team-work-metaverse-2021-07-26/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/09/28/epic-fortnite-metaverse-facebook/
https://www.windowscentral.com/mesh-microsoft-teams-metaverse
https://news.microsoft.com/innovation-stories/microsoft-mesh/
venturebeat.com/2021/01/27/tim-sweeney-the-open-metaverse-requires-companies-to-have-enlightened-self-interest/