What is Metaverse?

If the curiosity of Metaverse has just gotten in your head you are already late to the party. The big giants like Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadela, and Snoop Dogg have been talking about it for a while now. Is it just a game? Or an enhanced version of the application or literal future of the Internet? Curious enough about what is metaverse? Let’s get going.

Origin of Metaverse

Although the term Metaverse is hyped now it was coined for the first time way back in 1992. Neal Stephenson, author of the Science fiction Snow Crash coined the term metaverse in his book for the first time. In his book, the author referred to the metaverse as a three-dimensional virtual world that has avatars of people.

The book Snow Crash is the source for enthusiasts of metaverse to understand its roots. However, another recent source is Ready Player One novel by Ernest Cline released in 2011. It depicts the Virtual Reality world as a place to work, party, and perform all the real-world tasks virtually.

What Actually is The Metaverse?

Before we begin it is important to get one thing in our head is that there is not a single definition for Metaverse that is universally accepted. But in the simplest form understand it in a way that Meta means beyond and verse means universe. When combined together metaverse means a digital environment beyond the universe that allows people to socialize in the form of avatars. Being device independent and not restricted to a specific vendor is a concept rather than being a product specific to a single entity holding.

The following layers of technology when combined together form the Metaverse. 

Hardware: 

• Virtual Reality (VR) headsets
• Augmented Reality (AR) Glasses
• Mobile devices

Software:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Blockchain
• Mixed Reality
• Mobile apps
• Edge computing

Infrastructure: 

Connecting technologies such as

• 5G
• Wi-Fi
• Cloud
• Graphics Processing Units (GPUs)

Spatial Economy

• 3D Visualization
• Frameworks for Modeling

Creator Economy

• Tools for designing
• Digital assets
• E-commerce establishments

Examples of Metaverse

Although there is no existing example of a linked Metaverse, there are platforms that work in the same line as Metaverse. Also, these projects incorporate NFTs and other elements of Blockchain technology.

Axie Infinity

A game for players living in developing countries to make money and a stable income out of their gaming. Depending on the market price you can also sell it in the open market to make around 200 to 1000 US Dollars. However, the avatars in the Axie infinity are not 3D but it successfully provides an opportunity for users to have a job like metaverse.

SecondLive

It provides a virtual environment in three dimension that enables users to control their digital avatars to socialize, learn and do business. It allows you to swap the collectibles at the NFT marketplace.

Why Is Everyone Talking About Metaverse?

Later in 2021 Facebook rebranded itself as Meta and stated its mission focused on Metaverse. This led to the recent popularity and curiosity about the term metaverse. As the pandemic restricted our professional and social life to Zoom meetings, different organizations took the opportunity to bridge the comfort of people and their safety by capitalizing the concept of Metaverse. And it was anyways important as the Metaverse holds a significant role in the future economy, culture, and majorly the entertainment industry. However, the governments across the globe are still catching up on how they can contain Big tech giants and suppress the effect of social media on society.

The concept came into the limelight as it helped in rethinking different ways to communicate, reform the technology of the Internet, and build an interactive 3D communication environment. The biggest flex while defining Metaverse is that it must be away from the existing technologies like a virtual world, video calls, e-commerce platforms, etc. To sell it online it must have a vision like never before.

Components of Metaverse

There are certain factors that propelled the development of thinking of the technology industry in the last few years. Metaverse is linked with a couple of technologies one of them being Virtual reality. Virtual reality has developed enough and become well reality. Headsets with decent quality are now commercially available with standalone devices like Quest VR.

The next on the list is Blockchain technology. A technology that brought cryptocurrency and NFTs to life. It enables you to own items from the virtual world and estates in Metaverse. Many different methodologies are available for ownership and trading of virtual items through NFTs.

Future of Metaverse

With companies working day and night on development of Metaverse it is no more just a concept. The current real world activities will soon become a metaverse thing. To understand it in simpler terms consider the following

• Learning will switch from offline to Virtual Classrooms
• Land purchases in real world to digital land
• Construction of virtual homes and workspaces
• Virtual shopping malls for buying everything for the Avatars
• Customer sales and services through Digital avatars

The list of possibilities through Metaverse can be endless and there’s a lot that is yet to be developed. With so much on its plate, the technology will soon become as popular as the internet is today.

Closing Words

No matter how fancy or attractive the concept of metaverse seems there’s still a lot to be explored. And hence an appropriate definition for what is metaverse will gradually develop over the developing years. Even today the existence and applications of metaverse seem unrealistic to a few but there’s so much more on the plate. But it’s exciting to see metaverse evolve and integrate with our daily life.

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