Facebook recently announced that it plans to hire 10,000 highly skilled talents in EU countries to create a metaverse within five years. This is the latest step for the world’s technology giants to deploy the metaverse.
What is the metaverse? How does it evolve from the concept in science fiction to the technological direction of the key layout of the technology giants? What changes will it bring to our lives?
From science fiction to reality
The metaverse originated from the concepts of science fiction and movies. The listing of Robles Games in the United States in March this year triggered a real metaverse boom. Some technology giants and capital quickly deployed. Robles Game is a sandbox game popular among teenagers. Players can develop various small games on its cloud platform.
The meta universe is composed of meta and universe, that is, “the world beyond the universe”. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as a virtual reality (vr) space in which users can interact with computer-generated environments and other people.
About 30 years ago, the American science fiction writer Neil Stephenson’s novel “Avalanche” created the concept of metaverse. The protagonist of the novel is a pizza delivery guy. In reality, he shares with others in a small warehouse, but when he connects himself to the metaverse, he lives in a virtual mansion. In the metaverse, everyone has their own “digital avatar”.
Bashuki, CEO of Robles Games, put forward the 8 elements needed for metaverse.Identity, friends, immersion, low latency, diversification, access anytime, anywhere, economic system and civilization.The metaverse should be a virtual world parallel to the real world.With a fully functioning social and economic system, people in reality can enter virtual time and space in the form of “digital avatars” and get an experience as close to the real as possible. Users can entertain, socialize, consume, and create content in the metaverse.
Why ushered in the boom
Facebook CEO Zuckerberg said in July this year:
“Metaverse will become the successor of the mobile Internet. I believe Facebook will become a Metaverse company in the next five years.”
Microsoft CEO Nadella said in May this year that the company is working hard to create an “enterprise metaverse.” The United States Yingpei Game Company also said that it has raised $1 billion in funds for the development of Metaverse related products.
The industry does not yet have a recognized definition of metaverse. There are also various ways for companies to shape the metaverse.
Nvidia develops real-time simulation and collaboration platform omniverse for exploring the meta verse. Japanese vr developer hashilus opened the metaverse browser “mecha bath” in August this year. Allow users to enter a virtual space with a large number of real-time online participants directly from a web browser.
Technology is eager for new products, capital is looking for new exports, and users are looking forward to new experiences. The expansion of demand and the blessing of new technologies make the concept of metaverse more reliable.
At the technical level, virtual reality, augmented reality (ar), 5g, artificial intelligence, blockchain and other technologies are the basis for the development of metaverse. Among them, interactive technologies and hardware devices such as ar and vr are the key to entering the metaverse. At present, many companies have launched consumer-level VR headsets, which have been implemented to play immersive games and online virtual social interactions.
Only at the initial stage
Whether it is technical level, content supply or user experience, it is still in its infancy.
The short-term breakthroughs of the metaverse are games, social interactions and immersive content.This is the core demand of users at the moment. Gradually expand the extension through the flow advantage and form an ecology.
In the future inter-enterprise metaverse, a fair third-party platform is required to confirm the rights of users’ digital assets. For example, clothes bought in game a can be worn in game b. Users’ “digital avatars” can also be unified and interoperable on different platforms.