Into the Metaverse
The metaverse has been a hot topic recently. Why is it generating so much buzz?
What exactly is the Metaverse?
Meta What?
To begin with, it’s hard to define the metaverse. In a sense, trying to define what the metaverse is today is like defining the internet in the 1970s. A new form of communication was being built, but no one was sure what the reality would be.
The Metaverse can now be considered a 3-D Internet, a virtual world, a “place” parallel to the physical world. The metaverse can be described as online worlds where people engage in a wide range of activities like socializing, work, and playing as avatars. These virtual spaces are shared and always available; they don’t disappear when you’re done using them.
A metaverse lets you be inside the online experiences instead of staring at a screen, so you can collaborate, play, and stay connected with friends through taking part in conferences, concerts, or virtual vacations. Users can create realistic avatars, communicate with other users, create virtual items, own virtual properties, and exchange goods and services.
What will it be like in the metaverse?
Metaverse is a world where all the crazy imagination will take place. Metaverse offers a lot of possibilities, but no one knows what the future holds.
Today, you own nothing on the internet. You could upload a YouTube video to YouTube, a photo to Instagram, or post to social media. But the companies own that content, and they are free to remove it whenever they want.
The metaverse lets you own your own content as well as buy content from others, so you don’t have to rely on a central authority. In Metaverse, you can own your digital identity and digital assets, and use them for playing games, meeting, socializing, etc. while coexisting in the real world.
Gaming and entertainment have currently emerged as the leaders in the race because their infrastructures are the most capable of being implemented in a virtual world.
A metaverse allows you to roam through a virtual shopping mall, picking up products from the shelves, rather than browsing an eCommerce catalog.
You can buy a piece of digital land in the metaverse, build a house there, display your artwork, and invite friends over to visit. You can host a party in your metaverse house where you can showcase your NFTs.
One can imagine a future in which we can visit the virtual hat store in the metaverse, purchase a unique digital hat, and then sell the same item to other people a few weeks later within a completely different virtual world.
Where did the metaverse come from?
The word “meta” comes from the Greek meta, which means across or beyond, and “verse” is from the word universe. The metaverse is something that transcends the universe.
The term was coined by Neal Stephenson in 1992 in the novel Snow Crash, in which the main character hangs out in a virtual fantasy world. The metaverse in Snow Crash is a 3D virtual reality space accessed through personal terminals and virtual reality goggles. This 3D space appears to its users as an urban environment created along a single hundred-meter-wide road, the Street.
Ready Player One, a book in which people gather in a metaverse known as Oasis, extended the idea even further.
Do you need any special hardware to enter the metaverse?
Congratulations, so you’ve decided to step up into the metaverse. The good news is that you don’t need high-tech expensive hardware, your smartphone or your laptop screen is good enough to explore the metaverse.
But for a fully immersive experience of the metaverse, you might need a pair of AR glasses or a VR headset.
The metaverse will be powered by extended reality, and each user will control an avatar or character. Imagine you might do a mixed reality meeting with a VR headset in your virtual office, finish your work, and relax with a blockchain-based game.
The promise of the metaverse is to bridge the gap between our physical and digital lives, whether in VR, augmented reality, or simply on a screen.
Real-world vs Metaverse Economics
Any virtual world needs to create value that can be monetized easily.
Ownership:Documents are typically notarized and provenance is established through notaries in the real world. You have blockchains and smart contracts in the Metaverse, and a blockchain is like a thousand notaries verifying who owns what. If you want to verify that someone owns land on Metaverse, the land will be represented by NFTs, and you can verify it within a few seconds.
Rarity:Gold is a rare item in the real world, making it valuable due to its rarity.There are also rare NFTs on the metaverse, which is 100s or 1000s in number and cannot be recreated.
Utility:In the real world, there are stocks. If you own Apple stock, you get dividends, voting rights, and so on. Similarly, in digital worlds, there are tokens representing the community. They are all referred to as DAOs — decentralized autonomous organizations. As a token owner, you can own fractional shares in DAOs and have voting rights, as well as collect dividends.
Exclusivity:As in the real world, we have exclusive memberships to clubs; similarly, in the metaverse, we have exclusive clubs where only NFT holders are allowed to participate.
What are the top technologies that will make metaverse a reality?
Here are some of the most important technologies that can power metaverses.
1) Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality
Metaverse relies heavily on AR and VR to provide users with engaging and immersive 3D experiences. AR and VR are the gateways to a virtual world.
Virtual reality produces an entirely computer-generated virtual environment that enable the persistent virtual worlds that continue to exist even when you’re not playing. The user can explore the world using VR headsets, gloves, and sensors.
In Augmented Reality, digital information and content are overlaid onto the physical world so it’s as if they’re actually right beside you, in your own space. Eventually, AR contact lenses and AR glasses could be used to augment the world around us.
2) Blockchain
Blockchain can be viewed as the DNA of Metaverse. Blockchains helps to decentralize a metaverse. Blockchain enables digital proof of ownership, digital collectibility, transfer of value, governance, accessibility, and interoperability. Cryptocurrencies allow users to transact value while working and socializing in a digital environment.
NFTs are unique, non-interchangeable units of data stored on the blockchain, which can be used to track a digital asset’s transfer, ownership, and properties. NFTs are the bridge to the metaverse and facilitate identity, ownership and uniqueness in the metaverse.
3) Web3.0
Web3.0 is the next-generation of Internet technology. Web 3.0 is a decentralized version of the Internet in which the users control their own data. Web 3.0 will make it possible to interact with anyone in the world without the need for middlemen. New business models will emerge from this shift, from decentralised autonomous organisations to self-sovereign data marketplaces.
4) AI
Artificial intelligence can create intelligent beings that roam the metaverse and interact with us and each other. AI can be used to make photorealistic images and 3D models of human faces, produce conversational text, and generate speech that sounds human. It can also be used to manipulate 3D characters to make them speak.
We can use AI technology to automate the creation of Metaverse assets, such as characters, buildings, landscapes, and routines for characters. In the future, AI may be able to generate complete virtual worlds as we explore them in real time. A fully immersive 3D environment we can explore and interact with might be something AI could one day create by taking some input, like “a waterfall with a mountain in the back”.
5) 3D Reconstruction
In the metaverse, one of the challenges is to make a digital world that looks as realistic as possible. 3D reconstruction makes it possible to create natural-looking and realistic spaces. We can render accurate 3D photorealistic models of objects, buildings and locations using special 3D cameras.
6) Internet of things (IoT):
In the metaverse, IoT can be used to collect and provide data from the physical world. This enables the creation of real-time simulations. For example, IoT data feeds might change how certain metaverse objects function based on the current weather.
7) Internet Infrastructure
In order for the Metaverse to function seamlessly, users will need high internet speeds, high bandwidth, and low latency, especially when they enter vast virtual worlds. 5G can enable a range of possibilities.
Possible Metaverse Use Cases:
A number of companies and brands have begun to capitalize on the metaverse. Brands use Metaverse and NFTs to improve fan engagement, to create new revenue streams, and to enhance customer relations. With increasing levels of consumer time spent in the metaverse, it is becoming more critical for brands to market in the metaverse. There are companies out there buying plots of land and placing ads in the metaverse.
The following is a list of potential use cases where Metaverse might have an impact.
1) Games: Metaverse platforms are dominated by games. Games are a huge use case for the metaverse, because people spend so much time playing them. Games with a decentralized economy at their core will attract the most users to the metaverse.
2) Social Experiences: Like we have homes and workplaces, we have places where we can have experiences such as clubs, etc. Metaverse is a great place for this third place where you can meet your friends and have social experiences.
3) Immersive Commerce: In real life, the experience of going to a store with your family or friends is very different from shopping online. Metaverse will soon enable in-store shopping experiences with virtual reality and augmented reality, so you can experience products before you buy them.
4) Virtual office space and collaboration: The metaverse can offer virtual experiences where you feel like you are working together or learning together. By utilising a hybrid of VR and mixed reality environments with digital avatars metaverse can offer a meaningful and productive workplace experience.
5) Volumetric live streaming: Volumetric live streaming will transform the experience of concerts. You will be able to experience music concerts in the future with your friends and family in the same virtual space through the metaverse at the comfort of your own homes.
6) Virtual Tourism: Metaverse will enable us to explore travel destinations with our friends from the comfort of our homes.
7) Education: The metaverse can really enhance education and training. With augmented reality, skill-based training can be enhanced in an hands-on way utilising virtual immersion.
8) Fitness: Metaverse can provide a super fun fitness experience. You can train anywhere on the planet, from volcanoes to deserts to Mars’ surface. Fitness can be kept engaging using highly gamified methods.
9) Real Estate: Incorporating real estate from the real world into the metaverse is another use case that has huge potential. Visit physical real estate in virtual world which is augmented with lot more information, bring designers at your property, buy /rent.
10) Fashion: This is really huge and you start to see big brands going to the metaverse and producing digital fashion. There are fashion artists and fashion designers who are building, selling digital fashion & augmented reality skins NFT’s.
11) Healthcare: Health professionals and medical staff who had difficulty visiting patients due to geographical constraints can now do so via Metaverse. Through the Metaverse, they can interact with the patient and gain insight into their health condition.
12)Finance: Finance will play a key role in the metaverse. In the same way as in the physical world, digital assets can be a collateral for a loan, and once you repay the loan, your assets will be returned.
While the Metaverse is still in its infancy, many businesses are eager to explore its potential. Several major corporations are getting involved including Microsoft, Nvidia, and Facebook. The emergence of a full-fledged metaverse may take years. Technology will continue to develop and we can expect exciting new spaces in these virtual borderless worlds.
See you in the Metaverse.
