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What Is the Metaverse? Is It Just Virtual Reality, or Something More?

what is the metaverse reddit

Another virtual universe beloved by kids, the Microsoft-owned Minecraft is essentially the digital equivalent of Legos, where players can create their own digital character and build whatever they desire. During the pandemic, it has exploded in popularity among kids who Forex trading 24 hours had to rely more heavily on virtual connections. Inklings of the metaverse already exist in online game universes such as Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox. And the companies behind those games have ambitions to be part of the evolution of the metaverse.

American cinematographer and inventor Morton Heilig built the Sensorama in 1962. The mechanical device simulated the experience of riding a motorcycle through New York City by using a 3D movie, vibrating chair, a fan and piped-in smells, providing one of the earliest immersive multimedia experiences. They envision it putting the focus a lot more on “image,” “social status,” and being full of explicit content when it does become more mainstream. Although there might not be a lot of evidence to suggest this yet, it’s true that the squeaky clean, friendly version of the Metaverse being marketed right now is unlikely to be an accurate portrayal of how it ends up being in reality. The potential of the Metaverse might be very real, but that doesn’t mean the current interest in it from big corporations necessarily comes from a sincere belief in the power of the technology. Redditor Moggy-Man is concerned that it’s largely being used as a marketing strategy at the moment, especially by Meta.

It’s the future of virtual reality, and VR games like Beat Saber will sell you on why virtual reality can be great. The metaverse is an increasingly complex concept in the digital landscape, promising exceptional opportunities for billions of people. A complete definition of the metaverse is currently still being outlined by modern pioneers.

For example, you could share a room with other users and chat or play cards, and then pop out with a pal into a 3D surfing game. From there, you could hit an NFT art gallery, pop into a digital casino, or check out a live concert. And then you can get some alone time in your own personal, customizable home base. Nvidia Omniverse, launched in 2022 and purpose-built for developing applications in the metaverse, has been heralded as shaping the future of 3D and the metaverse itself. By integrating 3D design, spatial computing and physics-based workflows, the real-time platform enables the creation of digital twins for factories, warehouses, products and other infrastructure.

Isn’t the metaverse just… video games?

Several other technologies, in addition to VR and AR, play a role in shaping the metaverse. Industry watchers shy away from codifying the technologies that will power the metaverse. This is in part because the metaverse is evolving and partly because many of the tools driving the metaverse are themselves made up of multiple technologies. “We will just think about one life. One reality, and it will be a combined world of the real and the virtual,” said Rosenberg, CEO and chief scientist at Unanimous AI. Others, however, like engineer and entrepreneur Louis Rosenberg, who helped develop one of the first mixed reality systems at Stanford and the U.S.

what is the metaverse reddit

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games

The company announced in 2023 that it would no longer sell Google Glass Enterprise Edition, AR smart glasses launched in 2013 that failed to catch on. Several metaverse initiatives are in the works, including Project Starline, a 3D immersive video chat technology. Web 3.0 aims to decentralize the internet by moving away from centralized servers and platforms controlled by a few large companies, giving users greater control over their digital assets and interactions.

Bill Gates jumped on the bandwagon, predicting that meetings would move from screens to the metaverse in two or three years. The Metaverse promises to change things like how everyone learns and works, and there are already some incredibly immersive VR games and experiences. But Redditor EvidenceBase2000 thinks that, when the Metaverse is really upon us, its uses will be a lot more superficial.

So in order to sell these things as a new vision of the world, there has to be some element of it that’s new. When tech companies like Microsoft or Meta show fictionalized videos of their visions of the future, they frequently tend to gloss over just how people will interact with the metaverse. VR headsets are still very clunky, and most people experience motion sickness or physical pain if they wear them for too long.

Can someone explain what the Metaverse is and why it’s a big deal?

SecondLive and Decentraland are other examples of successfully mixing the blockchain world and virtual reality apps. Creating successful metaverse work environments will require far more than grafting existing office spaces and protocols onto virtual spaces. Indeed, early research suggests that simply translating existing offices into a 3D virtual equivalent can reduce productivity and even cause nausea and motion sickness.

Other metaverse technologies

The development and improvement of VR technology are key to the Metaverse becoming viable for mainstream consumers and, whilst the Oculus has been steadily adding more to the experience, some think this is going to always be a problem. Tech enthusiasts took to Reddit to express some of their issues with the technology in its current form. From questions about data and privacy that have plagued Meta since they invested heavily in the technology to issues of practicality, these are their top concerns. Other companies talking up the metaverse include Microsoft and chipmaker Nvidia. Instead of video calling a friend on a 2D screen, imagine being able to meet them at a virtual concert. McKinsey research indicates that simply not participating in the metaverse may result in a significant competitive disadvantage.

The ability to own virtual property as you would physical property

  • The degree of interoperability among virtual worlds, data portability, governance and user interfaces will depend on what the metaverse eventually becomes.
  • Nvidia Omniverse, launched in 2022 and purpose-built for developing applications in the metaverse, has been heralded as shaping the future of 3D and the metaverse itself.
  • And while the science-fiction appeal of such a virtual world might seem obvious on the surface, you have to question how deep the desire to spend time there really goes.
  • Here is a sampling of the inventors whose pioneering work proved integral to the current concept of the metaverse.

It’s important to keep in mind that the technology to fully realize the potential of the metaverse doesn’t exist yet. Advancements will be required in compute infrastructure, network infrastructure, and interface hardware. MMOs like WoW share an obvious kinship with metaverses in form, if not function. But there are closer analogues to be found in two post-Minecraft games that are hugely popular with kids. In both Roblox and Fortnite, your avatar, your presence, your customization choices, and your social connections are almost more important than the game itself — or the games, plural, in Roblox’s case. The metaverse is expected to be an equivalent watershed, and lots of businesses want to get ahead beaxy cryptoexchange overview of that.

In theory, such NFTs could allow virtual goods to be moved freely between metaverses controlled by different companies. In practice, the level of standard-setting and inter-corporate cooperation necessary for this kind of portability writ large remains a pipe dream. Advances in virtual reality technology in the 2010s led by the likes of Palmer Luckey of Oculus VR — now part of Meta’s Reality Labs — and developers at Sony, Google, Unity, Epic Games and other independent studios popularized VR use. Here is a sampling of the inventors whose pioneering image manipulation work proved integral to the current concept of the metaverse. A graphic showing a comprehensive timeline of metaverse technology milestones follows. In November 2021, Facebook renamed itself Meta and announced a $10 billion investment in developing virtual experiences, prompting enthusiasts to anoint the metaverse as the world’s new computing interface.