Liu Cixin angrily criticized Zuckerberg's metaverse: Is it a new round of wealth creation or cutting leeks?

Everything can be the metaverse.

On October 28, Mark Zuckerberg announced at the Facebook Connect conference that Facebook was renamed "Meta". According to foreign media reports, Facebook responded on the same day: the name change was to reshape the brand to match the company's transformation from a "social media company" to a "metaverse company"

Afterwards, Chicago's "Meta Company" and Arizona's "Meta Pc" protested Facebook's new name "Meta". The head of Meta Company said that Facebook had negotiated to buy their trademarks and domain names.

But they rejected the proposal because the price was too low. The company firmly believes that Facebook's move constitutes trademark infringement. These disputes indirectly confirm how popular the name of the Metaverse is.

However, the metaverse has also caused considerable controversy. Liu Cixin, the writer of classic science fiction works such as "The Three-Body Problem" and "The Wandering Earth", recently publicly accused the metaverse of being a "spiritual poison" that will cause humans to become addicted to it and then go to their doom.

What kind of scenario does the real metaverse want to construct?

Perhaps the movie Ready Player One released in 2018 can give the audience a glimpse. In the movie, the young hero Wade Wozniacki puts on a pair of VR glasses, puts on his equipment, and steps onto a conveyor belt to enter a virtual world called "OASIS". In this dazzling virtual reality fantasy, the boy wins the treasure left by the founder of "OASIS" through games. The movie shows the equipment support players need to enter the metaverse.

Stills from Ready Player One

They are all scrambling to become "metaverse" manufacturers

Many technology companies claim that the virtual reality world "Metaverse" will be the next future of the Internet.

The Wall Street Journal previously wrote that in order to realize the vision of the Metaverse, Silicon Valley's leading technology companies are engaged in a "manufacturing race." Facebook has now confirmed its identity as a "Metaverse company" through "official name change," and Mark Zuckerberg also said in a financial report conference call in July this year that his goal is to attract new users through Facebook's own head-mounted device Oculus.

Zuckerberg said that eventually this huge metaverse user base will benefit the company's advertising business. Previously, Facebook suffered heavy losses in its advertising business due to Apple's new privacy policy. Some people believe that Facebook's metaverse plan may have a way to circumvent relevant privacy policies in the future, allowing Facebook to obtain more economic benefits. Zuckerberg also believes that the "hundreds of millions of users" in the metaverse can "constitute the scale of the digital economy therein." In fact, Zuckerberg has been obsessed with this field for many years and has built his investment portfolio through strategic acquisitions, including Oculus (VR goggles), Within (VR fitness app) and various VR game manufacturers.

In fact, Facebook is not the only company that has invested heavily in the Metaverse. In May this year, Microsoft said that it has a series of artificial intelligence and MR tools that can assist in the development of "Metaverse apps"; in addition, Microsoft has been developing the "Mesh" business (an extension of its own Teams business), which is supported by both AR and VR tools and provides an enhanced communication medium. The goal is to create a lifelike working environment for social interaction, while using AR technology to realize the possibility of the virtual world to the physical world.

In addition to Facebook and Microsoft, what other manufacturers are there in the Metaverse? Among them, Nvidia's Omniverse is a scalable real-time development platform that helps users build 3D simulations and collaborative development. In essence, Omniverse is closest to becoming the hardware that can drive the Metaverse. Currently, it allows users to collaborate in real time around the world through cloud technology, and can update, iterate, and change in real time without preparing data. Omnivores also has an interactive character called "Avatar", which can capture voice and facial cues and respond to them, thereby achieving in-depth conversations with users.

Epic Games, the developer of the game "Fortnite", has also released its own "metaverse" simulation software and related virtual reality VR services. In the first iteration, foreign users have realized their desire to participate in virtual concerts in person on Roblox and Fortnite.

Roblox is the "first stock in the Metaverse" in various senses. It has brought the Metaverse concept from abroad to China. As a user-generated content game platform, Roblox has become one of the fastest-growing entertainment platforms in history. In the past quarter, Roblox said that its platform had 47.3 million daily users.

Ideals are full, but reality is skinny

The term metaverse was coined by writer Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash. In it, the metaverse refers to an immersive digital environment where people become digital avatars to interact. The prefix "Meta" means transcendence, and "Verse" refers to the universe. Technology companies use this term to describe the generation after the Internet. It is a common practice for Internet companies to romanticize new technologies. For a long time, the metaverse has actually been called "extended reality XR" in the industry.

Several technology CEOs inspired by science fiction movies said that one day, we will be immersed in an interactive virtual reality world, just like the characters in science fiction movies, with games, adventures, shopping and otherworldly products. The CEOs call it the Metaverse. Some analysts believe that the Metaverse may bring trillions of dollars in capital flow, and to achieve the scale of this capital allocation, it is necessary to increase users' screen time and platform business opportunities on the existing basis, indicating that the Metaverse requires superior hardware and software support.

The Metaverse is also a revolution in the Internet ecosystem. Today's virtual reality technology provides players with isolated gaming experiences through head-mounted devices, and players rarely have the opportunity to interact with other players. The "Metaverse" will be a huge public network space. In the future, we will access the Metaverse through three paths: augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR). Among these three paths (especially MR), the current technical models for capturing facial, eye, body, and hand movements require deeper and wider data transmission to ensure a smooth user experience.

The implementation of the Metaverse requires the cooperation of technology giants. But the reality is that technology giants are not inclined to cooperate. Some people believe that the Metaverse is a "game" between large companies, and small and medium-sized companies do not have the ability to participate in the Metaverse competition. It is generally believed that the Metaverse does not exist at present. It is more like a concept worth understanding, a value that transcends reality. Foreign media believe that if the concept of the Metaverse can be realized, it is expected to change and reshape society and industry.

The Metaverse has successfully harvested leeks

Think of the Metaverse as a "physical internet" that you are physically in, not just seeing. This digital realm is not limited to electronic devices, and the digital avatars you use can move freely in cyberspace. A powerful virtual world

Users need affordable VR devices that are both beautiful and stylish as well as powerful, but current technology still does not achieve both.

Analysts believe that it may take decades to make the Metaverse a reality and will require the following improvements: First, hardware and computing power must be improved, and the devices and hardware used to create VR and AR environments must become more efficient; second,

Given the unprecedented scale of interaction between users, Internet connectivity must be improved; third, technology companies need to develop and operate complex virtual platforms that allow users to participate in various experiences online - such as driving, walking on the beach or listening to live music; fourth, convenient digital payment channels must be established to facilitate users to purchase goods and improve the purchasing experience; finally, user behavior needs to be transformed so that users can accept and participate in operational training of the Metaverse.

In the investment field, stocks of the Metaverse concept have become very popular. In the article "Don't Tell Mark Zuckerberg: Investors Have Discovered the Metaverse", CNN tried to emphasize that Facebook's competitors are very large. Investors already have many choices outside of Meta. Although Facebook is not the first Metaverse company, analysts believe that it is precisely because of Facebook's "Metaverse" shift that this concept has been pushed to the forefront.

CNN said that Roblox's stock price has soared nearly 160% since it was listed on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year. At present, with a market value of nearly $65 billion, it far exceeds the old game giant Electronic Arts and the scandal-ridden Blizzard. Another game company Unity Software has not only seen a surge in stock prices and earnings recently, but also announced that it will acquire Weta Digital (a visual effects studio founded by Peter Jackson, the director of The Lord of the Rings) for $1.6 billion to enhance the visual effects of its metaverse products.

Reports show that from record company Warner to media giant Disney, several companies have discussed the metaverse at earnings conferences. CNN also mentioned that 5G chips and image processors from giants such as Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Microsoft will drive more audiences into the virtual world. IG's chief market analyst said in a report, "As other companies agree, it is clear that the concept of this new world based on services and experiences will expand revenue."

(Compiled from The Wall Street Journal, Lifewire, CNN)