A Glance At Metaverse - Same World, Different Reality

By Author: vorphy
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Since the advent of the Internet, humanity has been trying to separate itself from reality. Each new technology is another way to immerse yourself in cyberspace, temporarily freeing yourself from the constraints of your body. As the metaverse lurks on the horizon of existence, the line between real life and the virtual world seems to blur every day.
You could call the metaverse the ultimate form of virtual reality. If you've seen any of the Black Mirror movies, it's the same but far more than that. It's actually in the name that "meta" stands for beyond and "sentence" stands for universe.

In their vision, tech giants like Facebook and Epic Games (Fortnite) see the metaverse as a replica of the real world. Everything that exists in our reality will shift to an alternate - almost like a parallel universe.
Compared to what companies have in mind, the idea of a metaverse is still in its infancy. There's a lot of sense in making it happen; those will even affect the lives of those who opt out. Metaverse sounds like a good idea to you? Let's take a closer look at this otherworldly concept and what it means for the ...
... world we know.

The History of Escape

One of the earliest forms of alternate reality began with Six Degrees. It is the first social media platform that has grossed over $125 million. Users can create profile pages and connect with others through private messages. That's when people first dipped their hands in the anonymous sauce and fell in love with it.

It only got worse from there. When MySpace took the throne in 2003, our addiction to alter egos began to take hold. MySpace offers more profile customization beyond friending and messaging options. People quickly understand that they can be whoever they want and with whomever they want.

Our escape journey continues through cutscenes and video games. Popular titles like The Sims, Second Life, and Roblox are some of the earliest attempts in the metaverse. They eventually evolved into augmented reality (AR) applications and later virtual reality (VR) applications, which are the closest we have to a digitized world.

What is the Metaverse?

Metaverse is an ambitious concept. In the final form, we will visualize a digital representation of all aspects of the real world, such as the economy and the environment. Users will be completely immersed in a virtual lifestyle and be able to do things that they would never normally be able to do in real life. We don't need any subtleties to tell you what some of this might be.

There are many forks at the current stage of the metaverse, including those with specific purposes, such as crypto trading and NFTs. Think of Axie Infinity or Entropia Universe. If they expand to their own metavers in the future, there will probably be more competition in the category.
That said, the metaverse will be defined by two main atmospheres - economy and sandbox-centric lifestyles. The former will support a monetary environment while the latter will respond to an infinite virtual world.

In the sandbox metaverse, we can meet friends and other people anywhere in the world. Mundine’s quests in the real world will become much more realistic in the metaverse. Things like trying on new clothes or taking a test drive of a car could easily be done right in your home (or the futuristic VR room we might have then).

Facebook has announced the creation of a metaverse. We believe it is not ironic that it is one of the most culturally appropriate companies to take on this type of initiative. Let's face it, social media started all this, so might as well end it.

The project will bring in billions of dollars and will mechanically revolve around Oculus technology. It will feature a sandbox-style world as well as all social amenities including business meetings, concerts and shopping. While the hype is real, Facebook says it could take another 10-15 years to start seeing viability.

Problems with metaverse

The concept of the metaverse may seem like a technological breakthrough, but it comes with some inherent problems. We think there are two main concerns:

decentralization and economics.

• Delegation of rights

For a metaverse to really work, it cannot run on central servers. Participating means contributing your computing resources, similar to cryptocurrency mining. No one wants to be peaceful in their own world. Facebook isn't exactly known for its unwavering commitment to user privacy, so if it decides to focus on its metaverse, we can only imagine the consequences.

• Economy

Metaverse economies will likely rely on cryptocurrencies, including those in sandbox environments. This could increase the demand for the cryptocurrency to skyrocketing levels. We needed to find a way to support such heavy loads on the network. This also leads to excessive power consumption and thus affects the reversals themselves. Finding a balance between these factors will be extremely difficult, at least with the technology we have now. Epilogue

Life is so much simpler when Windows 95 is the best thing you own. Now we devote hours of our lives to the Internet without even thinking about it. Even our money is just numbers on the screen.

As long as we continue to improve our technology, the metaverse will continue to grow. Every step towards its creation takes us further from reality. Or is it closer to better? Where will you be in the metaverse?

Changing the Reality! Vorphy is an easy-to-use, interactive and immersive learning app for kindergarten-12th standard students, emphasising STEM education via XR.