The Metaverse

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Yuli Ban
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Re: The Metaverse

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Recently there has been a lot of discussion around singularity and whether we soon will be entering a phase where artificial general intelligence will become reality. However, before we delve deep into the philosophical and ethical implications of singularity, we have to understand what it really is, its actual limitations and why it may happen in a way that is different than anticipated.

Singularity is the notion that the exponential acceleration of technological development will lead to a situation where artificial intelligence supersedes human intelligence and will eventually escape our control. Some even predict catastrophic consequences for humanity where machines will become the dominant species on this planet. This may seem a bit far-fetched, at least for the near future, given that advancements in hardware development and robotics are not catching up with software when it comes to artificial general intelligence. However, one can argue that the recent hype and developments surrounding the metaverse will definitely open the door to the rethink of Singularity. But what is the metaverse, and why is it such a big deal?

Recent market analysis has estimated that the metaverse market opportunity could be around $800 billion by 2024. This could be seen as an expected meteoric rise for the metaverse, given such an estimated market size; however, the question that many people are asking is, what is the metaverse?
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Yuli Ban
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Re: The Metaverse

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You cannot pet a dog in Meta’s new, high-tech virtual reality gloves. But researchers are getting closer.

Meta (formerly Facebook) is known for its high-profile moves into virtual and augmented reality. For seven years, though, it’s been quietly working on one of its most ambitious projects yet: a haptic glove that reproduces sensations like grasping an object or running your hand along a surface. While Meta’s not letting the glove out of its Reality Labs research division, the company is showing it off for the first time today, and it sees the device — alongside other wearable tech — as the future of VR and AR interaction.

At a simplified level, Meta’s haptics prototype is a glove lined with around 15 ridged and inflatable plastic pads known as actuators. The pads are arranged to fit along the wearer’s palm, the underside of their fingers, and their fingertips. The glove also acts as a VR controller. The back features small white markers that let cameras track how the fingers move through space, and it’s got internal sensors that capture how the wearer’s fingers are bending.
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Yuli Ban
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Metaverse bull market
The promise of a "metaverse" is being used by companies across entertainment, tech and gaming to lure developers and excite investors.

Why it matters: While each company defines metaverse differently, the broad concept of bringing people together in a virtual interactive world seems to have taken over the chatter in Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

By the numbers: The word "metaverse" has been mentioned 128 times so far this year during investor presentations, compared to just 7 times last year, according to data from corporate research company Sentieo.
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Yuli Ban
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Re: The Metaverse

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The metaverse is the next venue for body dysmorphia online
In Facebook’s vision of the metaverse, we will all interact in a mashup of the digital and physical worlds. Digital representations of ourselves will eat, talk, date, shop, and more. That’s the picture Mark Zuckerberg painted as he rebranded his company Meta a couple of weeks ago.

The Facebook founder’s typically awkward presentation used a cartoon avatar of himself doing things like scuba diving or conducting meetings. But Zuckerberg ultimately expects the metaverse to include lifelike avatars whose features would be much more realistic, and which would engage in many of the same activities we do in the real world—just digitally.

“The goal here is to have both realistic and stylized avatars that create a deep feeling that we’re present with people,” Zuckerberg said at the rebranding.
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Mark Zuckerberg wants us to believe he’s figured out how we’ll socialize in the future. On October 28, he outlined his vision for the metaverse, a virtual environment where we can hang out, shop, and work. Yet its realization depends on Facebook and various other companies jumping into the metaverse space to develop the technologies it will depend on, and requires the public to buy into a vision where we spend more time sitting at home with virtual reality headsets on instead of going out into the physical world.

Silicon Valley has a long history of big dreams that are not realized, from the libertarian utopia that the internet was framed as in its early days to the ubiquitous autonomous vehicles that were supposed to have replaced car ownership by now. The metaverse is likely to suffer the same fate, but that doesn’t mean it will have no impact at all. As Brian Merchant has explained, the tech industry is in desperate need of a new framework to throw money at after so many of its big bets from the past decade have failed, and the metaverse could be poised to take that place.

In the few weeks since Zuckerberg’s keynote address, other companies have embraced aspects of the metaverse, but also have shown how malleable the term can be. On November 2, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made his own metaverse pitch centered around enterprise and gaming. He cast a wide net arguing the concept encompassed existing video chat and collaboration tools, as well as games like Halo and Minecraft, and that those metaverse applications would be enhanced by virtual environments. As Nadella put it, the metaverse allows Microsoft to “embed computing in the real world, and to embed the real world into computing.”

I’m not sure that’s as attractive a statement as Nadella wants us to believe, but his focus on games and work may be a good reflection of what the metaverse could ultimately amount to. It remains to be seen whether we’ll all be pushed into virtual environments similar to how internet use has become a mandatory part of getting by in the modern world, but it’s much easier to see how video game companies and our workplaces could incentivize or even mandate our participation.
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Nvidia CEO says the metaverse could save companies billions of dollars in the real world
Companies are investing money into the creation of the so-called metaverse because it may ultimately save them significant chunks of change in the real world, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Friday.

In an interview on “Mad Money,” Huang painted a vision of connected, virtual reality universes that go beyond facilitating recreation and commerce. Rather, Huang said he believes businesses can lean on the metaverse — or omniverse, which is Nvidia’s preferred term — to reduce wastefulness and increase operational efficiency.

“We waste a whole bunch of things to overcompensate for the fact that we don’t simulate. We want to simulate all factories in metaverses, in this omniverse. We want to simulate plants in omniverse. We want to simulate the world’s power grids in the omniverse,” Huang said.
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Why TIME Is Launching a New Newsletter on the Metaverse
It’s hard to go online these days without seeing someone yelling about the metaverse, whether in rapture or derision. Depending on whom you ask, it’s the inevitable future of the Internet or a billionaire’s flight of fancy; a gaming utopia, an “infinite office,” a brand strategy, an NFT playground, a sci-fi illusion. Virtually every news outlet—including this one—has published articles attempting to make sense of it all. The noise around the term “metaverse” is now loud and constant enough to render it almost meaningless.

So what, exactly, is the metaverse? Why did Mark Zuckerberg make it his new life’s work, and why are other tech companies pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into their own competing visions? What role will cryptocurrencies and the blockchain play in this future? And most importantly, how is any of this going to impact your life?

I’m going to try to unpack all of that and more in a new weekly newsletter, Into the Metaverse. I come to you with a background in reporting on the intersection of culture and business, and I admit I still have a lot to learn—having descended only two or three rungs down the rabbit hole. Over the past year, however, as I’ve dived into the curious phenomenon of NFTs, I’ve talked to many people—from Metakovan to Trevor McFedries to Steve Aoki—who are devoting their lives to building the metaverse block by block. I’m hoping this newsletter will spotlight the work of others at the forefront of the metaverse: to show how their efforts are already bringing about significant change, and how a new kind of arms race has emerged that will define how we engage with the Internet and each other in the decades to come.
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Want to glimpse our metaverse future? Theme parks are already on the case
The promise of augmented reality so far has largely been just that — promises of a future seen through filters for our mobile phone apps or simple games that place characters with little movement on our camera screens. But if this whole metaverse thing — the concept of a persistent, evolving online world that we don’t log into as much as live inside — is ever going to take off, we’re going to need more.

Our theme parks, which increasingly are centered on the concepts of games and play, may offer a glimpse of where the future is heading.

In the not too distant future Universal Studios Hollywood will import a “Mario Kart"-themed ride from Japan that is centered on augmented reality, an attraction designed to create the illusion that we’re interacting with virtual objects and characters. Unlike most AR-enhanced mobile phone apps, where the images are tailored to an individual’s screen, the use of visor-like glasses will allow all guests on the ride to engage with the digital creations in real-time.

And earlier this month the Walt Disney Co. quietly announced that it is “in conversations” with Illumix, a Redwood City, Calif.-based AR firm that has been rooted in games (“Five Nights at Freddy’s AR: Special Delivery”) and e-commerce but is quickly expanding into physical realms. Illumix tech offers a range of experiences, including entertainment that merges physical and digital effects as well as more personally grounded character interactions.
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Christians are terrified of the metaverse
What virtual reality should Jesus join? None. At least that’s what numerous Christians are arguing. They’re convinced the metaverse is going to steal their souls.

On Oct. 28, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made two announcements. First, Facebook has rebranded as Meta. Second, it’s creating the metaverse, an immersive virtual reality connected to the internet.

“From now on, we are going to be metaverse first, not Facebook first,” Zuckerberg said.

Virtual reality is far from a new concept. People have been virtually hanging out with anime characters, attending concerts, and learning how to dodge linebackers for years.

So what’s special about the Meta metaverse? Nothing really. As CNN reported yesterday, multiple companies have created metaverses.

The only thing different about Meta’s version is the brand behind it. (The Meta metaverse also doesn’t technically exist yet.)

That’s different enough to a bunch of Christians. They’re convinced that any metaverse created by the company formerly known as Facebook is going to be a highway to Hell—literally.

A collective freakout began almost immediately. The day after Zuckerberg’s announcement, a headline in Catholic publication Crisis Magazine blared, “Christians, Beware the Metaverse.” In a piece sprinkled with transphobia and complaints about the youths, writer David Larson made some valid points about the potential invasions of privacy and addictive qualities of the metaverse.

Then Larson kicked on the hysteria by arguing that the metaverse will control our minds like the internet has. It’s a somewhat faulty thesis because if there’s one thing the internet has proven itself capable of doing over the last several decades, it’s clearly uniting society.

Speaking of giant tech companies, Larson wrote, “They would almost certainly continue to tell us which opinions are to be mocked and despised and which are to be approved and celebrated.”

Larson theorized that the tech companies behind the metaverse would even intentionally stop people from preaching the gospel or getting heterosexually married and procreating.
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