Future of Metaverse

In July, 2021, Mark Zuckerberg staked Facebook's future on the metaverse, to prove he was serious. He renamed the company meta and promised to spend billions of dollars to rebuild the metaverse platform. He isn't alone. Other companies are also working on their plans for the metaverse. The expected next iteration of the internet.

What is the metaverse

The metaverse is difficult to define. It's usually described as online spaces where people socialize work and play as avatars' digital representations of their identities. Unlike a zoom chat, the space is don't disappear, when you're done. They're there for someone else to use though. It's often name-checked in the tech world. The metaverse is still a fuzzy idea for people outside the industry. I mean, the metaverse is clearly a term of great currency in this moment in time. And I think for right now in 2022, the metaverse is a story we are telling about what the future of technical infrastructure might look like when you can combine virtual reality, augmented reality, high-speed internet connections, and some kind of notion of a virtual space. You might occupy with other people. So an easy answer to the metaverse well, it's, you know, the next version of the future of computing, the more complicated answer is, of course, it's a story about how we imagine the world.

Meta and other companies, tell The metaverse as an evolution of the internet, a virtual world that parallels, our lives in the real world, but it's an idea that's been tossed around for decades and tried before. one of the other ways to think about the metaverse is that it's always an already existed in different pockets of the world, right? So whether you were someone engaging in gaming experiences, whether those were multiplayer games or whether those were deeply immersive games, if you Engaging in other kinds of online communities. There's an argument to say that the metaverse is already here. Just wasn't all that.

Roblox and Minecraft have been building virtual worlds for years. Second Life, Fortnight Minecraft and other games, all incorporate aspects of virtual augmented or mixed reality to create an immersive gaming experience for users.

Virtual reality

If you're unfamiliar with the term virtual reality, refers to entirely digital spaces that are accessed through Hardware, like the Oculus headset. Get these headsets to use, special lens technology, cameras, and motion, tracking controllers to fully immerse you in their digital worlds, where objects can seem real, even when they aren't.

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Augmented reality

Augmented reality, is a related but different technology. AR brings digital objects into the real world often with no headset required though, there are some AR headsets on the market. Some experts see augmented reality as a gateway to broader acceptance of the metaverse. The technology has continues to advance and continues to find touchpoints in all of our Lives. Whether it's through mobile phones connected to the internet or other forms of connectivity like Smart TV, all those sorts of pieces of the puzzle.

Fidelity

Advances in software, have introduced users to more realistic experiences through higher levels of fidelity. The degree of real-world exactness. That's digitally reproduced. However, critics say more work is needed in order for the technology to deliver the fidelity the metaverse needs, it can be easy to you know get carried away in like this Nirvana state of what's being sold to us, but we need to think about what's right in front of us right now. We're now starting to see some metaverse being made available on mobile platforms. You know, as well, as though even the web browser. So we're starting to see a shift towards accessibility, you know, that also comes typically at the cost of fidelity.

Who will build the Metaverse

Beyond the technical aspects of the metaverse. Another area of concern is, who builds and controls the metaverse, a corporate version of the metaverse one that's built by existing tech companies, risks repeating problems, that already plague social media, some people worry, bias bullying, misinformation, and harassment could even be magnified in the metaverse because it's an immersive environment.

It's one thing to send 180 characters to somebody over Twitter. And another thing entirely devoid of somebody in metaverse type space. Where your brain is tricked and you feeling like you're really there. That's I think the potential for abuse in the metaverse that the argument that maybe we need to get ahead of this.

Other critics believe that user-generated content will be the building blocks of the metaverse like current and previous iterations of virtual platforms like the game second life. But even in Second Life larger entities like corporations and businesses still had a hand in shaping the space.

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Straightforward, it's either large tech companies or its user-generated. I think it's usually a little bit of a drift between both of those things and I think that under course the role of governments in all of this and the role of sort of social institutions.

Whether the metaverse will come together as a single platform is an open question. Right now industry, standards don't exist for the metaverse. That means big companies are competing to lay the foundation others will have to follow a pattern that was established with the development of the internet. One of the really interesting facts of the metaverse and of calling this constellation of technologies and experiences the metaverse is that it creates the opportunity to build a platform and the thing about platforms is that, if you build them, right, which is usually open and with standards, you can move things between pieces of the platform. So, you know, when we think about the internet, whilst we may experience it by a particular service provider or a particular device, the underlying architecture is such that it can be delivered in lots of different places.

Mark Zuckerberg, arguably the metaverse biggest champion says interoperability among applications is crucial to get people to use the metaverse.

That means companies will need to collaborate. So people using the metaverse can move freely between platforms and experiences. For instance, if you have an avatar in met as metaverse, ideally, you should be able to use the same Avatar when moving from microsoft platform that, however, is easier said than done. If you're familiar with the Roblox Style, I'll lego-like experience compare that to something like a fortnight or trying to take your character, just take it over to fortnight and make it work there.

I just wouldn't work. You actually need to have two completely different iterations or models of your avatar or that's where I think fundamentally they're just straight-up challenges that exist because no to metaverse really are delivering a common experience.

Qualcomm. Nvidia, valve, epic games, HTC and apple are among the companies working on metaverse or metaverse like projects, how or when these projects develop is anyone's guess. Game, and entertainment companies, like stage verse, which digitally reproduce concerts and festivals have been operating in a metaverse like environment for years. But with more companies adopting a hybrid work model, the metaverse could also come to the world of work.

A 2020 report from consultancy, PWC predicts that nearly 23.5 million jobs worldwide will use AR and VR by 2030. The technology will be used for tasks like employee training, meetings and customer service according to PWC. The metaverse could also offer new economic opportunities, such as game creation virtual retail or digital asset trading. The virtual world could be a source of real money. I think there's a good argument that over the long run you can potentially create a new class of economic participants, who could share in the upside of this new platform shift, right through maybe token economics through game mechanics and so that you're already starting to see, but I think the metaverse is potentially a really lucrative place for creators to kind of populate this new world and make a great living doing so.

How widespread the metaverse becomes is in part dependent on how many people get on the internet. A little less than two-thirds of the world's population had access to the internet in 2021. According to the ITU, without basic accessibility to the internet widespread adoption among a global community of users will be a challenge. Companies building the metaverse will need to first see the digital divide is bridged.

If they want their virtual world, to attract people from around the globe. When I think about the metaverse, my hope for it is that we can be really mindful about what's happening with built, large technology, apparatus and infrastructure in the past. And that as a result, we go into this, a little less naive and a little more deliberate about the choices we make. That also means as citizens, we have an obligation to hold the organizations and our lives accountable to the values that we care about.

It's unclear, whether the metaverse live up to the promises or failed to live up to the hype. What is clear? You're sure to be hearing more about the metaverse for years to come.