What is the Metaverse that Zuckerberg wants to create
On October 29, 2021, Mark Zuckerberg announced a project to rebrand the social network Facebook, which should become a Metaverse. What is behind this?
History
Mark Zuckerberg announced his intention to create a Metaverse in August 2021 . He has been talking about this project for several years.
Many users believe that the process of turning Facebook into a Metaverse has significantly accelerated the scandal around the social network. A former employee of the company, Frances Haugen, published a number of internal documents that, in her opinion, prove the fact that the main goal of the managers of the social network was to make a profit at the expense of the security of user data.
F. Haugen stated that the social network was used to incite violence and other illegal actions, including negative influence on young people. Haugen spoke about the situation on Facebook at a hearing in the US Senate.
Zuckerberg himself denies the connection between the change of the company’s image and these events.
What is a Metaverse
The idea of a Metaverse is being developed simultaneously by several IT giants, including Microsoft Corporation. The metaverse can be viewed as a Digital world in which physical, augmented and virtual reality exist simultaneously.
Augmented reality consists in introducing elements synthesized by a computer using sensory data into visible objects. A typical example is the Pokemon game that was popular a few years ago.
Virtual reality simulates with the help of special technical means (helmets, gloves) interaction with virtual images of objects from the real world.
The name “Metaverse” first appeared in Neil Stevenson’s science fiction novel “Avalanche”. The prototype of the Metaverse was shown in E. Klein’s novel “The First Player to prepare”, adapted by the world-famous director Steven Spielberg. The action of the novel and the film takes place in 2045. The main character lives almost in poverty, but, wearing virtual reality glasses, he is transported to another world of the online game “Oasis”, where he can feel like a person.
In the Zuckerberg Metaverse, the digital double of the user in the form of an avatar will be able to connect to various virtual platforms, “transferring” to various points of the world space within a few seconds.
Features of the Metaverse
The ideologists of this new direction highlight the following features that distinguish the Metaverse from online games:
- infinity of space;
- real-time mode;
- no restrictions on the size of the audience;
- a functioning economy.
How Facebook will Change
A team of more than 10 thousand employees is working on the development of the Zuckerberg Metaverse. $10 billion has already been allocated for its creation, and this is not the final amount.
Users will communicate using avatars, live in a virtual home Horizon Home and work in a virtual office Horizon Workrooms.
The purchased virtual goods can be used in various social networks, exchanged or sold. The owners of Facebook and Instagram accounts will have all the existing content.
What has already been done
Facebook is already releasing the Occulus virtual reality helmet. Augmented reality glasses are in development. Facebook is testing an advertising company in an already existing virtual reality ecosystem.
Zuckerberg believes that in the next 10 years, the number of users of the ecosystem will reach 1 billion. Cryptocurrencies and non-interchangeable tokens of works of art will be widely used in it.
Criticism
The very idea of a Metaverse is often met with skepticism and misunderstanding. According to critics, social networks already have nothing to do with sociality and are used more to earn money from advertising.
However, VR systems are already being used in real life. For example, doctors receive scans of human internal organs on VR glasses in order to better prepare for surgery or consult with other specialists.
So, in the near future, we can expect the emergence of virtual reality ecosystems, and not only on Facebook. Although such systems are now perceived as a way to escape from physical reality into virtual reality, their application should radically change a lot in real life. For example, to create new concepts of online learning or to control processes, physically being hundreds of kilometers away from production or construction sites.
Published: 14 January, 2022
