Metaverse: The Future of Technology?

I will be honest and tell you that I didn’t care about the term 'Metaverse' being thrown around until I sat down to write this article.?

The term ‘Meta’ means next to or beyond, and ‘verse’ is short for the universe.

Metaverse is a highly immersive and interactive 3D virtual environment where people existing in their virtual avatars get to work, socialise, shop and play games together on the internet.?

But what is it? What does it mean to be in a virtual space surrounded by the same people we meet in real life??

Neal Stephenson first coined the metaverse in 1992 in his sci-fi book that described a 3D virtual space and has been in the works ever since.

You might have noticed that in July 2021, Mark Zuckerberg changed the name of Facebook to Meta, hinting at investing billions of dollars into building the metaverse.?

The metaverse can be accessed only through VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) devices like Oculus VR headsets with toggle handsets to navigate through the space.?

Currently, the metaverse is occupied by kids between the age of 9 to 12 years who play games like Roblox and SandBox where they can chat with each other, make in-game purchases and build their own virtual space.

Multinational companies worldwide are competing to develop and equip this space to look and feel like a corporate environment for their employees to work in.

The time has now come to answer the concerns of the people who are reading this. Who is in charge of controlling the metaverse? Are there any rules at all? Who controls the personal data of millions of people?

Well, the metaverse is being built based on the concept of Web3 which is an idea of a decentralised internet using the blockchain technology that enables the existence of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Decentralisation is a process where the activities and duties of an organisation no longer come under the authority of a central entity.?

The metaverse promises complete autonomy when it comes to control of interactions of the people ie. the users will be responsible for their data and virtual assets like NFTs.

There will be rules in the metaverse that users will have to abide by to prevent fraudulent and abusive actions like harassment, bullying and trolling online.

I get what you’re thinking. All this sounds very fancy and futuristic but the more persistent question that most tech enthusiasts are curious about is if the metaverse can actually exist in reality.

The current metaverse exists in scattered spaces owned by various companies.?

A gaming company called Stageverse has been operating their own private virtual space for years now where they hold virtual meetings and assign tasks!

It would be ideal if the metaverse existed as a unified space where it is easily accessible to people around the world.

In order to create a single version of the metaverse, it would require all the largest multinational corporations like Facebook, Google, Apple and many others to join hands and develop this virtual dreamland.

According to experts, the metaverse will be the future of technology and a rough prediction states that it would be fully functional by 2050!?

By Nanda Kishore