Metaverse

Last updated

Avatars socialising in the virtual world Second Life Second Life 11th Birthday Live Drax Files Radio Hour.jpg
Avatars socialising in the virtual world Second Life

The metaverse is a loosely defined term referring to virtual worlds in which users represented by avatars interact, [1] usually in 3D and focused on social and economic connection. [2] [3] [4] [5]

Contents

The term metaverse originated in the 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash as a portmanteau of "meta" and "universe". [6] [7] In Snow Crash, the metaverse is envisioned as a version of the Internet that is a single, universal, and immersive virtual world, facilitated by the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets. [8] [2]

The term "metaverse" is often linked to virtual reality technology, [9] [10] and beginning in the early 2020s, with Web3. [11] [12] The term has been used as a buzzword by companies [8] [13] to exaggerate the development progress of various related technologies and projects for public relations purposes. [14] Information privacy, user addiction, and user safety are concerns within the metaverse, stemming from challenges facing the social media and video game industries as a whole. [8] [15] [16]

Implementations

Some software platforms require a virtual reality headset to explore the metaverse. Un enfant portant un casque de realite virtuelle (Exalto, Villeurbanne).jpg
Some software platforms require a virtual reality headset to explore the metaverse.

Components of metaverse technology have already been developed within online video games. [17] The 2003 virtual world platform Second Life is often described as the first metaverse, [18] [19] as it incorporated many aspects of social media into a persistent three-dimensional world with the user represented as an avatar, but historical claims of metaverse development started soon after the term was coined. Early projects included Active Worlds [20] and The Palace .

Popular games described as part of the metaverse include Habbo Hotel, [9] World of Warcraft , [21] Minecraft , [9] Fortnite , [22] VRChat , [23] [24] and game creation platform Roblox [25] [26] [27] [28] In a January 2022 interview with Wired, Second Life creator Philip Rosedale described metaverses as a three-dimensional Internet that is populated with live people. [29] Social interaction and 3D virtual worlds are often an integral feature in many massively multiplayer online games.

In 2017, Microsoft acquired the VR company AltspaceVR, [30] and has since implemented virtual avatars and meetings held in virtual reality into Microsoft Teams. [31]

In 2019, the social network company Facebook launched a social VR world called Facebook Horizon . [32] In 2021, the company was renamed "Meta Platforms" and its chairman Mark Zuckerberg [33] declared a company commitment to developing a metaverse. [34] Many of the virtual reality technologies advertised by Meta Platforms remain to be developed. [35] [36] [37] Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen criticised the move, adding that Meta Platforms' continued focus on growth-oriented projects is largely done to the detriment of ensuring safety on their platforms. [38] Meta Platforms has also faced user safety criticism regarding Horizon Worlds due to sexual harassment occurring on the platform. [39] [40] [41] In 2021, Meta made a loss of over $10 billion on its metaverse development department, with Mark Zuckerberg saying he expected operating losses to "increase meaningfully" in 2022. [42] In February 2023, Zuckerberg wrote a Facebook post announcing the company's pivot away from the metaverse to focus on AI. [43]

Some metaverse implementations rely on digital currencies, and often cryptocurrency. Assets within the metaverse are sometimes traded as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and track ownership using blockchain technology. [44]

Proposed applications for metaverse technology include improving work productivity, [31] [45] interactive learning environments, [15] e-commerce, [15] [46] mass-audience interaction, [47] healthcare [48] [49] and real estate. [15]

Technology

Hardware

Access points for the metaverse includes general-purpose computers and smartphones, augmented reality, mixed reality, and virtual reality. [3]

Dependence on VR technology has limited metaverse development and wide-scale adoption. [10] Limitations of portable hardware and the need to balance cost and design have caused a lack of high-quality graphics and mobility. [50] Lightweight wireless headsets have struggled to achieve retina display pixel density needed for visual immersion. [50] Another issue for wide-scale adoption of the technology is cost, with consumer VR headsets ranging in price from $300 to $3500 as of 2022. [9] [4]

Current hardware development is focused on overcoming limitations of VR headsets, glasses, sensors, and increasing immersion with haptic technology. [51]

Software

There has been no wide-scale adoption of a standardized technical specification for metaverse implementations, and existing implementations rely primarily on proprietary technology. Interoperability is a major concern in metaverse development, stemming from concerns about transparency and privacy. [52] There have been several virtual environment standardization projects. [53] [54] [55] [56] [57]

Universal Scene Description is a specification for 3D computer graphics interchange created by Pixar and supported by Blender, Apple's SceneKit and Autodesk 3ds Max. The technology company NVIDIA announced in 2021 they would adopt USD for their metaverse development tools. [58]

glTF is a specification for the efficient transmission and loading of 3D scenes and models by engines and applications created by the Khronos Group, an industry consortium developing royalty free open standards. In August 2022 it was announced that glTF 2.0 had been released as the ISO/IEC 12113:2022 International Standard. [59]

OpenXR is an open standard for access to virtual and augmented reality devices and experiences. It has been adopted by Microsoft for HoloLens 2, [60] Meta Platforms for the Oculus Quest, [61] HTC for the HTC Vive, [62] Qualcomm for the Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform, [63] and Valve for SteamVR. [64] [65]

Criticism and concerns

Feasibility

In a February 2022 article for The New York Times , Lauren Jackson argued that the metaverse is "stalled from achieving scale by a lack of infrastructure for both hardware and software, a monopolistic approach to platform development, and a lack of clear governance standards." [66]

In December 2021, Raja Koduri, senior vice president of Intel, claimed that "Truly persistent and immersive computing, at scale and accessible by billions of humans in real time, will require even more: a 1,000-times increase in computational efficiency from today's state of the art." [67]

In an article for The New York Times on October 26, 2022, Ryan Mac, a technology reporter, claimed that for the past year, Mark Zuckerberg has struggled to find the best way to achieve the metaverse. He has yet to succeed. [68]

Privacy

Information privacy is an area of concern for the metaverse because related companies will likely collect users' personal information through interactions and biometric data from wearable virtual and augmented reality devices. [69] Meta Platforms (previously Facebook) is planning on employing targeted advertising within their metaverse, raising further worries related to the spread of misinformation and loss of personal privacy. [8] In 2021, David Reid of Liverpool Hope University argued the amount of data collection in the metaverse would be greater than that on the internet stating "If you think about the amount of data a company could collect on the World Wide Web right now, compared to what it could collect with the metaverse, there is just no comparison." [70] In fact, the current metaverse technology is very immature. Abdulsattar Jaber, a professor at Iraq's Middle Technical University, found that the new technology used by the metaverse may cause many problems related to the security and privacy of system users. [71]

User safety

User addiction and problematic social media use is another concern. Internet addiction disorder, social media, and video game addiction can have mental and physical repercussions over a prolonged period of time, such as depression, [72] anxiety, and various other harms related to having a sedentary lifestyle such as an increased risk for obesity and cardiovascular disease. [16] Experts are also concerned that the metaverse could be used as an 'escape' from reality in a similar fashion to existing internet technologies. [69] [73]

Virtual crimes like sex abuse, child grooming, and harassment are significant challenges within existing virtual reality social platforms, and may be similarly prevalent in the metaverse. [74] [75] [76] [77] In February 2022, investigations by BBC News and The Washington Post found minors engaging in adult activities in applications such as VRChat and Horizon Worlds despite an age requirement of 13 years or older. [23]

In an October 2022 interview, Roblox Chief Scientist Morgan McGuire stated that it is "a challenge to moderate 3D", and also compared moderating Roblox to shutting down speakeasies. [78]

Regulation

With the emergence of the metaverse, many [66] are calling for new regulations to protect users when they interact in the virtual world and to ensure that intellectual property (IP) laws are extended to both physical and virtual objects, respecting the rights of inventors, designers, and owners of trademarks, just as they would in the real world. [79]

Social issues

Metaverse development may magnify the social impacts of online echo chambers and digitally alienating spaces [2] [80] or abuse common social media engagement strategies to manipulate users with biased content. [80] [81] Keza MacDonald of The Guardian criticized the utopianism of technology companies who claim that a metaverse could be a reprieve from worker exploitation, prejudice, and discrimination. MacDonald stated that they would be more positive towards metaverse development if it was not dominated by "companies and disaster capitalists trying to figure out a way to make more money as the real world's resources are dwindling." [82] Marketing professor Andreas Kaplan, citing their experience studying Second Life users, argues that the metaverse may have a generally negative societal impact due to their strongly addictive potential. [83] People with physical disabilities like deafness or blindness are disadvantaged without technologies addressed to accessibility. [84]

Lack of adoption

As of 2023, there has been little adoption of Metaverse technology, with Decentraland, a platform claiming to be the metaverse, reporting that it had 8,000 daily users or fewer. [85] Ed Zitron of Business Insider and Marc Olinga of The Street declared the Metaverse a fad that was "dead", having been displaced by artificial intelligence as the current hot new trend in computing. [86] [87]

Fiction

Snow Crash, 1992

So Hiro's not actually here at all. He's in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. In the lingo, this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse. It beats the shit out of the U-Stor-It.

Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (1992). [88]

The term metaverse was coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash , where humans, represented by computer-generated avatars, interact with each other and software agents, in a three-dimensional virtual space that uses the metaphor of the real world. [89] Stephenson used the term to describe a virtual-reality-based successor to the internet. [90]

Neal Stephenson's metaverse appears to its users as an urban environment developed along a 100-meter-wide road, called the Street, which spans the entire 65,536 km (216 km) circumference of a featureless, black, perfectly spherical planet. The virtual real estate is owned by the Global Multimedia Protocol Group, a fictional part of the real Association for Computing Machinery, and is available to be bought and buildings developed thereupon. [91]

Users of the metaverse access it through personal terminals that project a high-quality virtual reality display onto goggles worn by the user, or from grainy black and white public terminals in booths. The users experience it from a first-person perspective. Stephenson describes a sub-culture of people choosing to remain continuously connected to the metaverse; they are given the sobriquet "gargoyles" due to their grotesque appearance. [91]

Within the metaverse, individual users appear as avatars of any form, with the sole restriction of height, "to prevent people from walking around a mile high". Transport within the metaverse is limited to analogs of reality by foot or vehicle, such as the monorail that runs the entire length of the Street, stopping at 256 Express Ports, located evenly at 256 km intervals, and Local Ports, one kilometer apart. [91]

Ready Player One, 2011

Ready Player One is a dystopian science fiction franchise created by Ernest Cline which depicts a shared VR landscape called "The OASIS". The first novel was released in 2011, with a 2018 film adaptation, and second novel in 2020. The franchise depicts the year 2045 as being gripped by an energy crisis and global warming, causing widespread social problems and economic stagnation. The primary escape for people is a shared VR landscape called "the OASIS" which is accessed with a VR headset and wired gloves. [92] The OASIS functions both as a massively multiplayer online role-playing game and as a virtual society. [93]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual reality</span> Computer-simulated experience

Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment, education and business. VR is one of the key technologies in the reality-virtuality continuum. As such, it is different from other digital visualization solutions, such as augmented virtuality and augmented reality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avatar (computing)</span> Graphical representation of a user or a users alter ego or character

In computing, an avatar is a graphical representation of a user, the user's character, or persona. Avatars can be two-dimensional icons in Internet forums and other online communities, where they are also known as profile pictures, userpics, or formerly picons. Alternatively, an avatar can take the form of a three-dimensional model, as used in online worlds and video games, or an imaginary character with no graphical appearance, as in text-based games or worlds such as MUDs.

Virtual crime, can be described as a criminal act conducted in a virtual world -- usually massively multiplayer online role-playing games, MMORPGs. To grasp the definition of virtual crime, the modern interpretation of the term "virtual" must be assessed to portray the implications of virtual crime. In this sense, virtual crime describes those online acts that “evoke the effects of real crime” but are not widely considered to be prosecutable acts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roblox</span> Multiplayer game creation platform

Roblox is an online game platform and game creation system developed by Roblox Corporation that allows users to program and play games created by themselves or other users. Created by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004 and released in 2006, the platform hosts user-created games of multiple genres coded in the programming language Lua. Early in Roblox's history, it was relatively small, both as a platform and as a company. Roblox began to grow rapidly in the second half of the 2010s, and this growth was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Parisi (software developer)</span>

Tony Parisi, one of the early pioneers in virtual reality and the metaverse, is an entrepreneur, inventor and developer of 3D computer software. The co-creator of Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), he has written books and papers on the future of technology. He works on WebGL and WebVR and has written two books on the former, and an introductory book on virtual reality programming. He is the chief strategy officer at Lamina1. Parisi is also a musician, composer and producer working on multiple projects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Facebook F8</span> Mostly-annual conference held by Facebook, intended for developers and entrepreneurs

Facebook F8 is a mostly-annual conference held by Meta Platforms since 2007, intended for developers and entrepreneurs who build products and services around the website. The event has generally started with a keynote speech by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, followed by various breakout sessions concentrating on specific topics. Facebook has often introduced new features and made new announcements at the conference.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reality Labs</span> Virtual and augmented reality products company

Reality Labs, formerly Oculus VR, is a business and research unit of Meta Platforms that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as Quest, and online platforms such as Horizon Worlds. In June 2022, several artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives that were previously a part of Meta AI were transitioned to Reality Labs. This also includes Meta's fundamental AI Research laboratory FAIR which is now part of the Reality Labs - Research (RLR) division.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hugo Barra</span> Brazilian computer scientist

Hugo Barra is a Brazilian computer scientist, technology executive and entrepreneur. From 2008 to 2013, he worked in a number of product management roles at Google, including vice president and product spokesperson of its Android division. From 2013 to 2017, he worked at Xiaomi as vice president of global operations. From 2017 to 2021, he worked as vice president of Virtual Reality and head of the Oculus division at Meta Platforms. In May 2021, he left Meta to join health technology startup Detect as CEO.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samsung Gear VR</span> Virtual reality headset by Samsung

The Samsung Gear VR is a virtual reality headset developed by Samsung Electronics, in collaboration with Oculus VR, and manufactured by Samsung. The headset was released on August 21, 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTC Vive</span> Virtual reality headset

HTC Vive is a line of virtual and mixed reality headsets produced by HTC Corporation. The brand currently encompasses headsets designed for use with personal computers as well as standalone headsets such as the Vive Focus line, Vive Flow glasses, and the Vive Elite XR mixed reality headset.

OpenXR is an open-source, royalty-free standard for access to virtual reality and augmented reality platforms and devices. It is developed by a working group managed by the Khronos Group consortium. OpenXR was announced by the Khronos Group on February 27, 2017, during GDC 2017. A provisional version of the standard was released on March 18, 2019, to enable developers and implementers to provide feedback on it. On July 29, 2019, OpenXR 1.0 was released to the public by Khronos Group at SIGGRAPH 2019 and on April 15, 2024, OpenXR 1.1 was released by Khronos.

<i>VRChat</i> Virtual reality social platform

VRChat is an online virtual world platform created by Graham Gaylor and Jesse Joudrey and operated by VRChat, Inc. The platform allows users to interact with others with user-created 3D avatars and worlds. VRChat is designed primarily for use with virtual reality headsets, being available for Microsoft Windows PCs and as a native app for Android-based headsets such as the Meta Quest, Pico 4, and HTC Vive XR Elite. It is also usable without VR in a "desktop" mode designed for either a mouse and keyboard or gamepad, and in an Android app for touchscreen devices.

Decentraland is a 3D virtual world browser-based platform. Users may buy virtual plots of land in the platform as NFTs via the MANA cryptocurrency, which uses the Ethereum blockchain. Designers can create and sell clothes and accessories for the avatars to be used in the virtual world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meta Platforms</span> American multinational technology conglomerate

Meta Platforms, Inc., doing business as Meta, and formerly named Facebook, Inc., and TheFacebook, Inc., is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. The company owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, among other products and services. Meta ranks among the largest American information technology companies, alongside other Big Five corporations Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. The company was ranked #31 on the Forbes Global 2000 ranking in 2023. In 2022, Meta was the company with the third-highest expenditure on research and development worldwide, with R&D expenditure amounting to US$35.3 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SexLikeReal</span> Virtual reality company

SexLikeReal (SLR) is a virtual reality pornography sharing site, VR live cam streaming, production company and VR technology developer. It was launched in 2015 with the top Studios such as VR Bangers, VR Conk, BadoinkVR, Virtualrealporn and more than one of the largest Netflix-like platforms for VR pornography, SexLikeReal has been featured by XBIZ and other major media outlets in the adult entertainment industry. According to Venture Beat, SexLikeReal is pioneering in merging adult entertainment with VR technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quest 2</span> Virtual reality headset

Quest 2 is a standalone virtual reality headset developed by Reality Labs, a division of Meta Platforms. It was unveiled on September 16, 2020, and released on October 13, 2020 as the Oculus Quest 2. It was then rebranded as the Meta Quest 2 in 2022, as part of a company-wide phase-out of the Oculus brand following the rebranding of Facebook, Inc. as Meta.

<i>Horizon Worlds</i> Virtual reality platform developed by Meta Platforms

Meta Horizon Worlds is an online virtual reality game with an integrated game creation system developed and published by Meta Platforms. On this multi-player virtual platform, players move and interact with each other in various worlds that host events, games, and social activities. They can also build and publish worlds similar to Rec Room. Horizon Worlds works on Oculus Rift S, Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 3 headsets.

Viverse is an open platform for virtual worlds and environments developed by HTC and encompassing multiple devices and applications. Conceived as a metaverse, the platform is intended to create an interconnected series of virtual worlds, and includes elements of augmented reality. The Viverse platform consists of various components, including virtual reality headsets, social applications, and content creation tools.

The Meta Quest Pro is a mixed reality (MR) headset developed by Reality Labs, a division of Meta Platforms.

Meta Horizon OS, previously known informally as Meta Quest Platform or Meta Quest OS, is an extended reality operating system for the Meta Quest line of devices released by Meta Platforms. Initially developed for the embedded operating system on the Oculus Rift and Oculus Rift S, the platform has been based on the Android operating system since the release of the Oculus Go in 2018. It first supported augmented reality via grayscale camera passthrough upon the release of the Oculus Quest in 2019, and has supported color passthrough since the release of the Meta Quest Pro in 2022.

References

  1. ↑ RITTERBUSCH, GEORG DAVID; TEICHMANN, AND MALTE ROLF (February 9, 2023). "Defining the Metaverse: A Systematic Literature Review". IEEE Access. 11: 12368–12377. Bibcode:2023IEEEA..1112368R. doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3241809 .
  2. 1 2 3 Newton, Casey (July 22, 2021). "Mark Zuckerberg is betting Facebook's future on the metaverse". The Verge. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  3. 1 2 Ritterbusch, Georg David; Teichmann, Malte Rolf (2023). "Defining the Metaverse: A Systematic Literature Review". IEEE Access. 11: 12368–12377. Bibcode:2023IEEEA..1112368R. doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3241809 . ISSN   2169-3536. S2CID   256562095.
  4. 1 2 Robertson, Adi (October 4, 2021). "What is the metaverse, and do I have to care?". The Verge. Retrieved March 9, 2022.
  5. ↑ Clark, Peter Allen (November 15, 2021). "What Is the Metaverse and Why Should I Care?". Time. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  6. ↑ Zenou, Theo (June 30, 2022). "A novel predicted the metaverse (and hyperinflation) 30 years ago". The Washington Post . ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved September 7, 2022.
  7. ↑ Ball, Matthew (July 19, 2022). The Metaverse: And How it Will Revolutionize Everything. Liveright Publishing. ISBN   978-1-324-09204-9.
  8. 1 2 3 4 O'Brian, Matt; Chan, Kelvin (October 28, 2021). "EXPLAINER: What is the metaverse and how will it work?". ABC News. Associated Press. Archived from the original on December 4, 2021. Retrieved December 4, 2021.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Brown, Dalvin (August 30, 2021). "What is the 'metaverse'? Facebook says it's the future of the Internet". The Washington Post . Retrieved November 1, 2021.
  10. 1 2 Antin, Doug (May 5, 2020). "The Technology of the Metaverse, It's Not Just VR". The Startup. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  11. ↑ Fannin, Rebecca (April 14, 2022). "Hong Kong's 'Mr. Metaverse' on why he's placing a big Web3 bet against Mark Zuckerberg". CNBC. Retrieved April 26, 2022.
  12. ↑ "The Metaverse Requires a Whole New Vocabulary to Navigate Web3". Bloomberg.com. April 8, 2022. Retrieved April 26, 2022.
  13. ↑ Fischer, Sarah (November 16, 2021). ""Metaverse" is Wall Street's new favorite buzzword". Axios . Archived from the original on December 4, 2021. Retrieved December 4, 2021.
  14. ↑ Ravenscraft, Eric (December 26, 2021). "The Metaverse Land Rush Is an Illusion". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved December 28, 2021.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Needleman, Sarah E. (October 16, 2021). "The Amazing Things You'll Do in the 'Metaverse' and What It Will Take to Get There". The Wall Street Journal . ISSN   0099-9660. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  16. 1 2 Rajan, Amala; Nassiri, Nasser; Akre, Vishwesh; Ravikumar, Rejitha; Nabeel, Amal; Buti, Maryam; Salah, Fatima (November 1, 2018). "Virtual Reality Gaming Addiction". 2018 Fifth HCT Information Technology Trends (ITT). pp. 358–363. doi:10.1109/CTIT.2018.8649547. ISBN   978-1-5386-7147-4. S2CID   67876446. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  17. ↑ Orland, Kyle (November 7, 2021). "So what is 'the metaverse', exactly?". Ars Technica . Archived from the original on November 9, 2021. Retrieved November 9, 2021.
  18. ↑ Tidy, Joe (November 5, 2021). "Zuckerberg's metaverse: Lessons from Second Life". BBC News . Archived from the original on November 13, 2021. Retrieved November 17, 2021.
  19. ↑ Maney, Kevin (February 4, 2007). "The king of alter egos is surprisingly humble guy". USA Today . Archived from the original on February 18, 2007. Retrieved February 20, 2007.
  20. ↑ "Active Worlds for Windows (1995)". MobyGames. Archived from the original on November 11, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  21. ↑ Woods, Bob (May 7, 2022). "In Microsoft's Activision deal, it's not just stock prices but a future world at stake". CNBC . Retrieved May 8, 2022.
  22. ↑ Webster, Andrew (March 18, 2021). "Fortnite's Experimental Story Is An Attempt To Create 'The Entertainment Experience Of The Future'". The Verge . Archived from the original on May 3, 2021. Retrieved May 3, 2021.
  23. 1 2 Crawford, Angus; Smith, Tony (February 23, 2022). "Metaverse app allows kids into virtual strip clubs". BBC News . Retrieved March 6, 2022.
  24. ↑ Smith, Quinton (May 17, 2022). Making Sense of VRChat, the 'Metaverse' People Actually Like (Video). Design and art direction by Anni Sayers. People Make Games . Retrieved June 24, 2022– via YouTube.
  25. ↑ Wakefield, Jane (March 10, 2021). "Roblox: How the children's game became a $30bn bet on the Metaverse". BBC News . Retrieved January 9, 2022.
  26. ↑ Sidhwani, Priyansh (March 12, 2021). "The History Of Roblox : From 2004 Until Now". TechStory. Archived from the original on April 20, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  27. ↑ "Nike gets ahead of the Metaverse and creates 'Nikeland', its own virtual world on Roblox". entrepreneur.com. Archived from the original on November 26, 2021. Retrieved November 26, 2021.
  28. ↑ Kastrenakes, Jacob (November 19, 2020). "Roblox goes public so that it can build a bigger metaverse". The Verge . Archived from the original on December 1, 2021. Retrieved December 1, 2021.
  29. ↑ Edelman, Gilad (January 27, 2022). "How to Build a Better Metaverse". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved January 27, 2022.
  30. ↑ Langston, Jennifer (March 2, 2021). "'You can actually feel like you're in the same place': Microsoft Mesh powers shared experiences in mixed reality". Innovation Stories. Archived from the original on November 3, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  31. 1 2 Warren, Tom (November 2, 2021). "Microsoft Teams enters the metaverse race with 3D avatars and immersive meetings". The Verge . Archived from the original on November 17, 2021. Retrieved November 17, 2021.
  32. ↑ Constine, Josh (September 25, 2019). "Facebook announces Horizon, a VR massive-multiplayer world". TechCrunch . Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  33. ↑ Roose, Kevin (October 29, 2021). "The Metaverse Is Mark Zuckerberg's Escape Hatch". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on October 30, 2021. Retrieved October 30, 2021.(subscription required)
  34. ↑ Milmo, Dan (October 28, 2021). "Enter the metaverse: the digital future Mark Zuckerberg is steering us toward". The Guardian . Retrieved December 13, 2021.
  35. ↑ Griffin, Andrew (October 28, 2021). "Facebook changes name to 'Meta' as it focuses on metaverse and tries to move on from controversies". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on October 28, 2021. Retrieved October 28, 2021.
  36. ↑ Thomas, Daniel (October 28, 2021). "Facebook changes its name to Meta in major rebrand". BBC News . Archived from the original on October 28, 2021. Retrieved October 28, 2021.
  37. ↑ Paul, Kari (October 28, 2021). "Facebook announces name change to Meta in rebranding effort". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on October 28, 2021. Retrieved October 28, 2021.
  38. ↑ Hamilton, Isobel Asher (October 26, 2021). "Whistleblower Frances Haugen says Facebook's investment in the 'metaverse' shows how its priorities are all wrong". Business Insider. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
  39. ↑ Jones, Stephen (December 17, 2021). "Meta launched an investigation after a woman said she was groped by a stranger in the metaverse". Business Insider. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
  40. ↑ Mahdawi, Arwa (December 18, 2021). "Metaverse is just a new venue for the age-old problem of sexual harassment". The Guardian . Retrieved December 30, 2021.
  41. ↑ Sundaravelu, Anugraha (May 31, 2022). "Woman's avatar raped within an hour of signing into the metaverse". Metro. Retrieved June 1, 2022.
  42. ↑ Kovach, Steve (February 2, 2022). "Mark Zuckerberg's 'metaverse' business lost more than $10 billion last year, and the losses keep growing". CNBC . Retrieved May 13, 2022.
  43. ↑ "Meta's "year of efficiency" means job cuts, less metaverse, and more generative AI". Quartz. March 7, 2023. Retrieved March 7, 2023.
  44. ↑ Page, Thomas (September 23, 2022). "Pixel pushers: How the metaverse became real estate's new frontier". CNN . Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  45. ↑ Combs, Veronica (October 29, 2021). "The metaverse: What is it?". TechRepublic. Archived from the original on October 31, 2021. Retrieved November 1, 2021.
  46. ↑ "Despite metaverse buzz, 60% of consumers have zero interest in virtual shopping". VentureBeat. May 30, 2022. Retrieved June 1, 2022.
  47. ↑ Takahashi, Dean (November 3, 2022). "Why Improbable's Herman Narula believes virtual society will foster transhumanism". VentureBeat. Retrieved November 8, 2022. The sleeping giants of the metaverse are massive communities – celebrities are a great example – who don't monetize those communities very well. They can't engage with them very easily. They want a new way of doing that. That is who the metaverse is going to unlock value for.
  48. ↑ Curtis, Caitlin; Brolan, Claire (November 27, 2022). "Health care in the metaverse". Medical Journal of Australia. 218 (1): 46. doi: 10.5694/mja2.51793 . PMC   10952226 . PMID   36437589. S2CID   254042167.
  49. ↑ Wang; Badal; Jia; Maltz; Mueller; Myers; Niu; Vannier; Yan; Yu; Zeng (November 25, 2022). "Development of metaverse for intelligent healthcare". Nature Machine Intelligence. 4 (11): 922–929. doi:10.1038/s42256-022-00549-6. PMC   10015955 . PMID   36935774. S2CID   253564988.
  50. 1 2 Wood, Rhys (October 14, 2021). "This Oculus VR headset could feature lifelike resolution – here's why that matters". TechRadar. Retrieved January 9, 2022.
  51. ↑ Lewis, Leo; Davies, Christian; Jung-a, Song (January 5, 2022). "Investors gear up for 'gold rush' in metaverse hardware". Financial Times. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  52. ↑ D'Anastasio, Cecilia (November 4, 2021). "The Metaverse Is Simply Big Tech, but Bigger". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  53. ↑ "The Metaverse Roadmap". Acceleration Studies Foundation. Archived from the original on May 17, 2014. Retrieved October 8, 2011.
  54. ↑ "X3D Specification, ISO/IEC 19775-1:2004 -- Part 1: Architecture and base components". www.web3d.org. Archived from the original on November 11, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  55. ↑ "Virtual World Region Agent Protocol (VWRAP)". IETF. Archived from the original on August 11, 2011. Retrieved October 8, 2011.
  56. ↑ "Immersive Education Technology Group (IETG)". Media Grid. Archived from the original on September 8, 2011. Retrieved October 8, 2011.
  57. ↑ "Immersive Web Working Group". www.w3.org. Retrieved March 1, 2022.
  58. ↑ Caulfield, Brian (April 27, 2021). "Universal Scene Description Key to Shared Metaverse, GTC Panelists Say". The Official NVIDIA Blog. Retrieved December 24, 2021.
  59. ↑ "ISO/IEC 12113:2022 Information technology — Runtime 3D asset delivery format — Khronos glTF 2.0". The Official ISO Website. July 26, 2022.
  60. ↑ Edicott, Sean (July 23, 2019). "OpenXR now available on the Microsoft Store for Windows Mixed Reality". Windows Central. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  61. ↑ Heaney, David (September 13, 2019). "Oculus Rift Has Hidden Preliminary Support For OpenXR". UploadVR. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  62. ↑ Heaney, David (April 14, 2022). "HTC's Vive Focus 3 Standalone Headset Gets Beta OpenXR Support". UploadVR.
  63. ↑ Sprigg, Sam (June 1, 2021). "Qualcomm announces global availability of its Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform". Auganix.
  64. ↑ "Conformant Products". Khronos Group. August 18, 2022.
  65. ↑ "Steam :: SteamVR :: Introducing SteamVR 1.16". store.steampowered.com. February 24, 2021. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  66. 1 2 Jackson, Lauren (February 12, 2022). "Is the Metaverse Just Marketing?". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved February 17, 2022.
  67. ↑ Koduri, Raja (December 14, 2021). "Powering the Metaverse". Intel. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
  68. ↑ Mac, Ryan (October 26, 2022). "Meta's Profit Slides by More Than 50 Percent as Challenges Mount". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved November 3, 2022.
  69. 1 2 Lee, Lik-Hang; Braud, Tristan; Zhou, Pengyuan; Wang, Lin; Xu, Dianlei; Lin, Zijun; Kumar, Abhishek; Bermejo, Carlos; Hui, Pan (October 11, 2021). All One Needs to Know about Metaverse: A Complete Survey on Technological Singularity, Virtual Ecosystem, and Research Agenda. arXiv: 2110.05352 . doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11200.05124/8 .
  70. ↑ "Who is Going to Police the 'Metaverse'?". www.hope.ac.uk. April 11, 2021. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  71. ↑ Abdulsattar Jaber, Tanya (July 11, 2022). "Security Risks of the Metaverse World". International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies. 16 (13): 4–14. doi: 10.3991/ijim.v16i13.33187 . ISSN   1865-7923. S2CID   250467972.
  72. ↑ Huddleston, Tom (January 31, 2022). "'This is creating more loneliness': The metaverse could be a serious problem for kids, experts say". CNBC. Retrieved February 2, 2022.
  73. ↑ Evans, Woody (2011). Information Dynamics in Virtual Worlds. Chandos. ISBN   9781780632742. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved November 13, 2021.
  74. ↑ Basu, Tanya (December 16, 2021). "The metaverse has a groping problem already". MIT Technology Review . Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  75. ↑ Chalmers, David (January 28, 2022). "What Should Be Considered a Crime in the Metaverse?". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved January 28, 2022.
  76. ↑ Baker-White, Emily (February 11, 2022). "Meta Wouldn't Tell Us How It Enforces Its Rules In VR, So We Ran A Test To Find Out". BuzzFeed News . Retrieved March 6, 2022.
  77. ↑ Oremus, Will (February 7, 2022). "Kids are flocking to Facebook's 'metaverse.' Experts worry predators will follow". The Washington Post . Retrieved February 18, 2022.
  78. ↑ Chmielewski, Dawn; Dastin, Jeffrey (October 11, 2022). "Roblox says policing virtual world is like 'shutting down speakeasies'". Reuters. Retrieved October 12, 2022.
  79. ↑ "The metaverse, NFTs and IP rights: to regulate or not to regulate?". WIPO Magazine. June 2022.
  80. 1 2 Shou, Darren. "I Want My Daughter to Live in a Better Metaverse". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028. Archived from the original on September 10, 2021. Retrieved November 1, 2021.
  81. ↑ Peck, Andrew (2020). "A Problem of Amplification: Folklore and Fake News in the Age of Social Media". Journal of American Folklore. 133 (529): 329–351. doi:10.5406/jamerfolk.133.529.0329. ISSN   1535-1882. S2CID   243130538.
  82. ↑ MacDonald, Keza (January 25, 2022). "I've seen the metaverse – and I don't want it". The Guardian . Retrieved January 27, 2022.
  83. ↑ Kaplan, Andreas (November 2, 2021). "Facebook's Metaverse: A nightmare turning into reality?". ESCP. Retrieved March 10, 2022.
  84. ↑ Allam, Zaheer; Sharifi, Ayyoob; Bibri, Simon Elias; Jones, David Sydney; Krogstie, John (July 8, 2022). "The Metaverse as a Virtual Form of Smart Cities: Opportunities and Challenges for Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability in Urban Futures". Smart Cities. 5 (3): 771–801. doi: 10.3390/smartcities5030040 . hdl: 11250/3051264 . ISSN   2624-6511.
  85. ↑ Lawler, Richard (October 13, 2022). "Decentraland's billion-dollar "metaverse" reportedly had 38 active users in one day". The Verge. Retrieved May 9, 2023.
  86. ↑ Zitron, Ed. "RIP Metaverse, we hardly knew ye". Business Insider. Retrieved May 9, 2023.
  87. ↑ Olinga, Marc (March 18, 2023). "Mark Zuckerberg Quietly Buries the Metaverse". The Street. Retrieved May 9, 2023.
  88. ↑ Stephenson, Neal (1992). Snow Crash. Bantam Books. p. 22. ISBN   9780553351927.
  89. ↑ Grimshaw, Mark (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 702. ISBN   9780199826162.
  90. ↑ In the acknowledgments section following the text of Snow Crash, Stephenson writes: The words "avatar" (in the sense it is used here) and "Metaverse" are my inventions, which I came up with when I decided that existing words (such as "virtual reality") were simply too awkward to use.
  91. 1 2 3 Neal., Stephenson (2007). Snow crash. Rizzoli. ISBN   978-88-17-01682-7. OCLC   799825166.
  92. ↑ Grady, Constance (March 26, 2018). "The Ready Player One backlash, explained". Vox. Retrieved January 4, 2022.
  93. ↑ "Books about metaverse to binge read over Christmas holidays". cnbctv18.com. December 24, 2021. Retrieved February 19, 2022.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.