{"id":21168,"date":"2022-12-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-04T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/?p=21168&preview=true&preview_id=21168"},"modified":"2022-12-09T11:39:41","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T10:39:41","slug":"is-the-metaverse-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/2022\/12\/05\/is-the-metaverse-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Metaverse the future?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

IS THE METAVERSE THE FUTURE?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

…OR HAVE ZUCKERBERG AND HIS TECH FRIENDS MISREAD THE ROOM<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BY PROF STEVE BENFORD<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The metaverse is 30 this year! The idea first appeared in Neal Stephenson\u2019s 1992 cyberpunk novel Snow Crash<\/em>. Stephenson imagined a future in which everyone took up residence in an online virtual world where they worked, played, lived, and, in this dystopian novel, also suffered from a mysterious physical and digital virus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been attempts since then to create the metaverse for real, some good, some bad, and some truly laughable. Now, in 2022, some of the biggest global players have entered the game. Meta offers us a vision of the metaverse as a future social place, a virtual reality version of Facebook. Microsoft is taking the more serious approach, envisaging it as an office environment where we\u2019ll work online. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what is the metaverse and will we all flock there? Common to all visions of the metaverse is that this place is presented as a coherent whole through interactive 3D graphics and sound. In other words, the metaverse is a globally connected virtual environment\u2026 albeit, a somewhat glitchy work-in-progress environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The metaverse is also universally talked about as a social experience, with its inhabitants communicating through their avatars. Despite the popularity of social media, much of today\u2019s internet remains an isolated place. We might be looking at the same web page, but never see each other. In contrast, the metaverse will be crowded.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might also take up permanent residence, acquiring real estate and making it your own by uploading user-generated content. Of course, this idea already underpins today\u2019s social media, and was core to Second <\/em>Life <\/em>through its economy based on the Linden Dollar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Companies like Meta (Facebook), Microsoft and Sony have invested heavily in headset technologies with the goal of deeply immersing people in the virtual world of the metaverse. However, despite advances in resolution, weight and size, headsets remain clumsy, can require significant space, and cut us off from those around us in the \u2018real world\u2019. They are still a niche technology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An extreme view of the metaverse is that it will become the universal \u2018front end\u2019 to the internet; we will enter the metaverse to do everything we might conceivably do online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the big tech names seem sure the metaverse is the future, this kind of technology requires full commitment, leaving the real world to live an almost second life in a digital world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But let\u2019s say the metaverse came to fruition, and we all flocked to this virtual utopia, who would actually be in charge of our new techy global world? There appear to be several contenders for owners. But as a manifestation of the internet, surely no particular company will own it, but instead different metaverse implementations will talk to each other using agreed protocols. We might instead consider ownership in terms of who gets to purchase its virtual real estate and populate it with their own content. And who gets to regulate the metaverse? Who makes and enforces its laws? This is perhaps the most challenging and pressing sense of ownership today, given the current tensions between \u2018big tech\u2019 and governments over privacy, freedom of speech and online safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turning full circle, we return once again to Stephenson\u2019s metaverse in which citizens\u2019 lives were policed by major corporations while governments were reduced to small administrative outposts. Perhaps the important question for the metaverse right now is not what kinds of technology it will use, nor even what we will use it for, but who will win the battle between corporations and governments for controlling it. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n

IMAGE: GETTY<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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