Metaverse 概念的历史和演变

The Metaverse is an ever-evolving, quasi-fictional digital universe made up of various websites and platforms. It was first established in science fiction as a virtual world that users could visit and explore (albeit with a dystopian twist). With the invention of the internet, the concept eventually emerged in the real world, and has since grown to include social media sites, video game worlds, and interactive online experiences.

The concept has recently gained a lot of traction after Facebook rebranded itself as ” Meta ” in 2021, fueling excitement about the potential of fully immersive virtual reality. While many technical and legal issues still need to be resolved before this goal can be reached, the idea is steadily growing. Many industry experts predict that we will see major developments in this area in the coming years.

introduce. What is the Metaverse concept?

A Metaverse is a persistent virtual world or collective space of several virtual worlds that provides users with a shared space to interact and experience information, content and events. The concept envisions the seamless integration of virtual reality (or augmented reality), enabling users to live, work and play in one three-dimensional simulated environment.

full article. Metaverse Explained – Definition, Introduction and Examples

The Origin of the Metaverse Concept

The concept of the Metaverse first appeared in science fiction in the 1950s, with early works including William Gibson’s novel “Neuromancer” and the 1982 film “Tron”. These stories describe an immersive virtual world that humans can explore. If you extend this definition to “virtual reality”, the term was already used by the French poet Antonin Artaud in 1938 in his collection of essays “Theatre and its doubles”. The first true simulation was created in 1962 with the “Sensorama”, a machine that simulated the experience of a car ride in New York City through a 3D movie, complete with vibrating chairs, even fans and smells.

After first experimenting with virtual reality, author Neil Stephenson coined the term “Metaverse” in 1992 in his best-selling novel Snow Crash, envisioning it as a virtual multiverse where people interact with each other , experience a shared virtual world in a binary future. In 1997, famed video game developer Richard Garriott used the term to describe Ultima Online, an online role-playing game he was developing, which was released a year later and is widely regarded as the first An MMO (massively multiplayer online) game. In 2003, an online virtual 3D world called “Second Life” was released, allowing people to create virtual worlds, interact with them and exchange virtual items. Just 3 years later, Roblox was released, creating a hype opportunity for users who could easily create virtual worlds (with “blox” blocks) or use other users’ virtual worlds to play in, which was an immediate success.

Over time, more and more technology companies have begun to explore the concept of virtual reality and create versions of this new digital world. In 2012, Oculus, the first low-cost 3D headset for the masses, started operating, and was acquired by Facebook in 2014 only 2 years later. With the advent of faster smartphones, internet connections, and devices, platforms and games like Pokemon Go began to emerge, combining AR and real-world gaming with virtual gaming, or Fortnite, now in their virtual MMO game The world hosts more than 250 million players.

The next phase of the Metaspace hype begins in 2021, when Facebook rebrands itself as “Meta” and Microsoft releases its “Mesh” platform. Both Facebook (Meta) World and Microsoft “Mesh” are trying to woo businesses to use VR and virtual worlds for meetings, seminars, and more.

This trend continues, with new hardware and software releases every year that make VR headsets lighter, higher resolution, faster hardware, and most importantly – cheaper. Despite this, mass adoption has yet to happen due to the many hurdles that need to be overcome.

“Fuzzy Definition” of Metaverse

If we take a broader and more “vague” definition of the Metaverse, then ultimately, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can be seen as a simple “Metaverse”. These social media platforms are virtual spaces where people spend time, interact, exchange information, and almost “live”. So even today’s social media platforms can be a very simplified Metaverse because it’s always there (persistent), people live in it (people spend most of their time in this virtual world), and they create Your own world (even your feeds, videos, pictures, etc. count). The main difference is the scrolling experience of a 3D world versus a 2D screen, and the limited/bad UX of playing on a small 2D screen.

Metropolitan worlds in film and fiction

The concept of the metaverse has become very popular in movies, video games, and novels. In films like Ready Player One and Tron Legacy, we’ve seen a fully realized interstellar space where people can explore new worlds and live out their fantasies. In fiction, authors like Ernest Cline and Neal Stephenson have written extensively about cosmic space.

novel.

• William Gibson’s “Neuromancer” (1984).
• “Avalanche” by Neil Stephenson (1992).
• “Altered Carbon”, Richard K. Morgan (2002)
• “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline (2011)
• Damini Lana’s “Frayed New World” (2021).

Movie.

• “The Matrix” (1999), directed by the Wachowski Brothers
• “Tron” (1982), directed by Steven Lisberg
• “eXistenZ” (1999), directed by David Cronenberg
• “The Thirteenth Floor” (1999), directed by Joseph Rosnak
• “Ready Player One” (2018), directed by Steven Spielberg
• “Free Man” (2021), directed by Sean Levy

The development of virtual reality technology

The earliest VR experiments date back to the 1960s, when computer scientist Ivan Sutherland developed the first VR headset, the Sword of Damocles. However, it was in the 1990s and early 2000s that VR technology began to gain momentum with the rise of VR gaming and entertainment. With more advanced computing power and graphics capabilities, VR gaming becomes a more immersive and interactive experience, allowing players to enter and interact with virtual worlds in real time. The entertainment industry, in particular, saw the potential of VR, creating virtual experiences like theme park rides and movies, while erotic movies and pornography were among the early adopters.

In recent years, the VR industry has experienced a major resurgence with the emergence of companies such as Oculus, Microsoft (with its Hololens product), and X-Box and Playstation VR headsets. These are just a few examples of companies developing new VR and AR technologies that expand the scope and capabilities of VR as a tool not only for gaming and entertainment, but also for business and industry. From training simulations to virtual product demonstrations, VR has become a powerful tool changing the way many companies operate.

The concept of the modern metropolis

The Modern Metaverse has been a “buzzword” in the technology industry since Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021. This led to a surge in investment in the Metaverse space, prompting blockchain companies to attempt to align their ideologies with the Metaverse. However, these efforts haven’t added much real value to the space, because the concepts of “limited land” or “limited goods” don’t apply to the digital space, making it impossible to expand.

Nonetheless, the growth of VR/AR platforms and social VR experiences continues to accelerate, with companies such as Microsoft and Meta (with Oculus) offering business solutions and the first virtual classrooms and virtual worlds such as the updated Second Life platform and other.

It’s worth noting that the current state of the Metaverse is still in its early stages, due to limited computing power, poor experience, expensive hardware, and technical limitations that can only have a few users together on the same server before the system hits its limits. room, so adoption is slow. This is just the tip of the iceberg, as there are several technical challenges that need to be addressed for the Metaverse to reach its full potential.

This includes developing tactile sensors, improved VR headsets (with lighter weight, higher resolution, and more computing power), smaller processors that fit into glasses or VR headsets, and creating high-resolution graphics for millions of users. The overall computing power (server) of the large-scale persistent world.

future outlook

The Metaverse is both exciting and uncertain. There is no doubt that the Metaverse has the potential to be a transformative technology, but there are also many challenges that need to be addressed to make it a reality. Some of the biggest challenges are the issue of content moderation, as well as addressing issues related to identity theft and protection, which need to be addressed in order for users to feel at ease with Metaverse.

Despite these challenges, investment in the Metaverse continues to grow, and with more technological advancements, it has the potential to be a game-changer for many industries. A key question that will need to be answered in the coming years is whether there will be a “winner takes all” situation, i.e. a dominant player in the Metaverse due to the proverbial network effect.

使用数字双胞胎来创建城市或建筑的复制品也将发挥更大的作用。甚至房地产公司也在使用虚拟世界向全球各地的客户销售昂贵的房地产，让他们对自己的房子有一个第一印象，甚至不需要旅行。同样会越来越多地用于交通规划、数据分析、智能城市规划和其他主要涉及虚拟现实空间的用例。

值得注意的是，政府将在未来的Metaverse中发挥关键作用。他们需要积极主动地管理这项技术，因为Metaverse有可能对立法、税收、公民权和社会影响产生重大影响。因此，政府必须对这项技术采取积极主动的态度，以确保Metaverse是一种积极的变革力量，而不是一种伤害源。

作为反乌托邦的元老院

虽然Metaverse有可能带来令人兴奋的机会，但它也有必须承认和解决的反乌托邦式的潜力。如果没有适当的监管和管理，宇宙空间可能会成为政府或企业广泛监视和控制的工具。对如此庞大的信息和经验网络进行集中管理，可能会导致审查制度、信息操纵和隐私的丧失。Metaverse还引发了对物理现实的影响的道德担忧，因为人们在虚拟环境中花费越来越多的时间，可能会与现实失去联系。Metaverse中潜在的成瘾性和逃避性行为也是一个问题，这将导致生产力和有意义的人类联系的丧失，从而导致生育率下降和人口萎缩。这些挑战必须在开发和实施Metaverse的过程中得到解决，以确保其对社会的积极影响。

总结

There is no doubt that the Metaverse has the potential to change everything we know so far. The Metaverse represents the next step in this evolution, the natural evolution from the original form of the Internet (where only professionals created content and consumers could only consume it) to the second generation Internet (where users can create and communicate with ease). The Metaverse will allow users to not only create “information”, but to experience it, and possibly even live in this created reality without the need for a physical world. (Why would you live in a cheap little apartment when you could have a villa right on the beach in the Metaverse?)

For all its challenges, the potential of the Metaverse to shape the future is enormous, and it is sure to have a major impact on the way we live, work, and play in the years (or decades) to come.

Benjamin Talin

CEO & Founder of MoreThanDigital. Serial entrepreneur since he successfully founded his first companies at the age of 13. He has always questioned the "status quo" and is committed to innovation, disruption and new ideas. As International keynote speaker, consultant for companies and governments & states, lecturer and published digital transformation expert, Benjamin tries to advance the topics of digitalization, digital transformation and innovation internationally.