Technology giants rush into the metaverse, where is the fire?

The American social media company Facebook recently announced that it plans to hire 10,000 highly skilled people in the EU within five years to build the "Metaverse", which is the latest step for the world's technology giants to lay out the "Metaverse". What is the "Metaverse"? How did it develop from a concept in science fiction to a key technology direction for technology giants? What changes will it bring to our lives?

From science fiction to reality

The "metaverse" is a concept that originated from science fiction novels and movies. In March this year, the listing of Roblox Games in the United States triggered a real-life "metaverse" craze, with some domestic and foreign technology giants and investors rushing in. Roblox Games is a sandbox game popular among teenagers, and players can develop various mini-games on its cloud platform.

The word "metaverse" is composed of "meta" (beyond) and "universe", which means "the world beyond the universe". Oxford Dictionary defines it as a virtual reality (VR) space in which users can interact with computer-generated environments and other people.

About 30 years ago, American science fiction writer Neal Stephenson created the concept of "metaverse" in his novel Snow Crash, which refers to a computer-generated virtual world. The protagonist of the novel is a pizza delivery man who shares a small warehouse with others in reality, but when he connects himself to the "metaverse", he moves into a virtual mansion. In the "metaverse", everyone has their own "digital avatar".

The movie Ready Player One intuitively shows the audience how to realize the "metaverse". Wearing a VR helmet, one can enter the virtual world of "Oasis", where there is a complete virtual social form, including digital content and digital products from various industries. The protagonist can not only "see", but also feel the physical pain caused by conflicts in the virtual world through the somatosensory suit.

Bashuki, CEO of Roblox Games, proposed eight elements that the "Metaverse" must have: identity, friends, immersion, low latency, diversity, access anytime, anywhere, economic system, and civilization. Based on this standard, the "Metaverse" should be a virtual world parallel to the real world, with a fully functioning social and economic system. Real people can enter the virtual space and time in the form of "digital avatars" and get an experience as close to the real thing as possible. Users can entertain, socialize, consume, and create content in the "Metaverse".

Why is there a boom?

The industry generally believes that 2021 is the "first year of the 'metaverse'", which is five years after 2016, which was called the "first year of virtual reality". Will the so-called "first year of the 'metaverse'" be "old wine in a new bottle"? Perhaps we can get a glimpse of it from the latest plans of relevant technology companies.

In July this year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the "Metaverse" will become the "successor" of the mobile Internet, and he believed that Facebook would "transform from a social media company to a 'Metaverse' company" in about five years. In May this year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the company is working hard to build an "enterprise version of the Metaverse". In the United States, Impex Games also said that it has raised $1 billion to develop products related to the "Metaverse".

The industry has not yet reached a generally accepted definition of the "metaverse", and companies have various ways of shaping the "metaverse". Nvidia, a global chip giant, has developed Omniverse, a real-time simulation and collaboration platform for exploring the "metaverse". Hashilus, a Japanese VR developer, opened the "metaverse" browser "Mecha Bath" in August this year, allowing users to enter a virtual space with a large number of real-time online participants directly from a web browser.

"Technology is eager for new products, capital is looking for new outlets, and users are looking forward to new experiences" - this is the main reason why the concept of "metaverse" is so popular. Compared with the "first year of virtual reality", the expansion of demand and the support of new technologies have made the concept of "metaverse" more solid.

At the demand level, the COVID-19 pandemic has weakened people's connections in the physical world and strengthened the need for virtual interaction. The "2020-2021 Metaverse Development Research Report" recently released by Tsinghua University's New Media Research Center pointed out that under the epidemic isolation policy, the total Internet time of the whole society has increased significantly, and the "home economy" has developed rapidly.

At the technical level, technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality (AR), 5G, artificial intelligence, and blockchain are the foundation for the development of the "metaverse". Among them, interactive technologies and hardware devices such as AR and VR are the key to entering the "metaverse". At present, many companies have launched consumer-grade VR headsets, which can be used to play immersive games and online virtual social networking.

Still in the "breastfeeding period"

The endless emergence of "metaverse" applications is like a "dazzling flower", but whether it is technology level, content supply or user experience, it is still in the early stages. New economy investment institution Yicai Capital believes that the "metaverse" is still in the "lactation period" and the short-term breakthrough is still games, social networking and immersive content, which are the core needs of users at present. Then it can gradually expand its extension through traffic advantages and form an ecosystem.

In the long run, the "metaverse" may eventually give rise to a new type of social relationship that integrates online and offline. Professor Shen Yang, executive director of the New Media Research Center of Tsinghua University, told reporters that the "metaverse" has expanded the dimension of human survival on the one hand, and people will live in a comprehensive environment that integrates the real world and the virtual world; on the other hand, it has expanded the dimension of human senses, bringing a comprehensive sense of vision, hearing, and touch that combines the real and virtual worlds.

"Looking into the future, online and offline will be completely connected, and human real life will begin to migrate to the virtual world on a large scale. Humans will become an 'amphibious species' of reality and digital," he said.

Any new technology will be accompanied by unknown risks and challenges. Shen Yang believes that with the deepening of virtual-real integration, new types of crimes in the "metaverse" may pose a huge challenge to supervision. In addition, the boundaries between play and work in the "metaverse" are blurred, and gamers' leisure time is occupied by technology platforms.

Experts also believe that in the future cross-enterprise "metaverse", there will need to be a fair third-party platform to confirm the ownership of users' digital assets in order to enable the calling of cross-enterprise applications. For example, clothes bought in game A can also be worn in game B, and users' "digital avatars" can also be unified and interoperable on different platforms.