On October 28, 2021, Mark Zuckerberg stood in a virtual living room announcing his company; Facebook would rebrand as "META." He stated that the mission would remain the same, connecting people. The priority will be to build a "metaverse," an interactive digital future in which everyone lives and interacts together in virtual reality.
While Google, Microsoft, and other technology giants are also interested in the Metaverse, Facebook appears to be leading the charge into this new technology. They plan to hire 10,000 specialized engineers to transform the company from a social media company to a Metaverse company in the next five years.
Before we dive into what the Metaverse is and how it will affect your life, it is crucial to understand that it will essentially be the next generation of the Internet. It will be where people exist in avatar form and do what they would do in regular life but virtually: socialize, attend events, shop, work.
Building the Metaverse
The technical work necessary to make the Metaverse is vast and diverse. Think projectors, batteries, custom silicon chips, holograms, and speakers to map the stuff around you into glasses that you will wear and are expected to be not more than 5 mm thick. In addition, Facebook has recently expanded options in the Metaverse for Developer Services: where consumers and developers, as well as creative services, are going to be more available so that outside the Oculus Quest 2 store, the app economy can get more extensive and more significant.
Facebook, now Meta, has tapped into a worldwide phenomenon that blends aspects of real environments and the digitally created. It allows personal style and decision-making to be cohesive and easy to share.
Through its Presence platform, powered by artificial intelligence technology, it. Will enable items in a room such as couches, chairs, and tables to be used by your lifelike avatar. One that will portray facial expressions that are more lifelike and inclusive- beards, glasses, and micro-expressions.
According to Facebook - The Metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today's online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can't be together — and do things together you couldn't do in the physical world. Facebook believes it is the next evolution in a long line of social technologies, and it will usher in a new chapter for the company.
According to Andrew Bosworth, VP of AR/VR at Meta, the Metaverse will "build the connective tissue" between devices like Portal and the Oculus headsets "so you can remove the limitations of physics and move between them with the same ease as moving from one room in your home to the next."
The Metaverse will change image quality and the ability to see images- High resolution, color passthrough, an array of sensors with reconstruction algorithms that incorporate depth and perception. The first iteration will be Augmented Reality Glasses. Still, the next generation of the Metaverse is creating a life within a headset that is so seamless; it becomes a tool that we use to connect, much like the phone turned from a simple device into one with much more opportunity.
The Metaverse looks to mix reality with augmented reality. Imagine a workout where you don't need to take off your headset, OR
Taking notes at a meeting- and because you can work at your virtual desk, you can pick up a pen (in your actual environment) without taking off your headset.
Remote Work
We can expect that The Metaverse will be everywhere– Let's take Remote work- Over the last year and a half, many companies have transitioned to a remote workforce. Enabling employees to work in the Metaverse will allow them to have their own physical space AND shared working environments, giving individuals even more options to connect and share content.
Virtual Clothing Stores
You can already create a lifelike digital avatar using the Meta Reality Labs. Soon, you will have the ability to shop for clothes and shoes in the Metaverse or get a haircut from your favorite Metaverse hairstylist before actually getting one in the physical world.
Where is this Metaverse going to be?
Everywhere, essentially. The idea of a metaverse encompasses it being persistent, so it would be available on every device that connects to the Internet and some new ones, too. Meta owns Oculus, so you can expect it to be compatible with VR headsets. But, they also have plans to release AR-powered smart glasses in partnership with Ray-Ban that Zuckerberg says is part of the company's metaverse plans.
The Metaverse and Web 3.0
As the Internet evolves, The Metaverse will be at the core of what we can call Web3 (short form for web 3.0). We will see new social networks, search engines, and marketplaces emerge built on a blockchain system. This system is already behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It's a form of bookkeeping, where multiple computers can host data that is searchable by everyone rather than being operated by a corporation; it's managed collectively by users.
Participants will be awarded tokens for their participation, and these tokens can be used to represent real value. For example, you can earn tokens for every message you post, giving you ownership of the platform and eventually a chance to cash in.
Web3 and the Metaverse are coming. We expect to see online gaming, social media, virtual reality, augmented reality, and cryptocurrencies working together to enable users to interact and communicate in the virtual world with or without a VR headset. In this virtual world, people will have more control over their data. They can use one account to manage their activities, from shopping to email to social media.