Home » Metaverse: What Is It & What Do You Need To Know?

Metaverse: What Is It & What Do You Need To Know?

Metaverse is here, as stated by Mark Zuckerberg. The CEO of Meta, previously known as Facebook, spent more than an hour on October 28, 2021, explaining to the viewers of the company how he believes the next version of the internet will be, as well as the hardware and the software needed to achieve that goal. The event was great, especially when judged by developer conference standards. The Metaverse isn’t easy to understand, so in this guide, we will explain what is Metaverse and all you need to know about it.

What is Metaverse?

The first half of Meta’s conference was just Mark Zuckerberg explaining the Metaverse, which consisted of virtual public rooms, spaces for playing games with people all over the world, and personal home-like spaces for people, that they can easily customize with digital art workspaces. If you want, you can invite people into your virtual home, or choose to keep it as a private space. 

Although, that’s not all the Metaverse is capable of. According to Mark Zuckerberg, the metaverse will also contain full wolds as places that are devoid of time. One example is that people will be able to watch the forum being built in ancient Rome.

The concept of the Metaverse can be easily found in science fiction movies and TV shows and it was just a matter of time till it finally became a reality. When you’re ready to move from one world to the next one, you’ll be able to transport yourself to the world of your choosing. Which is equal to clicking on a link.

The users will be able to create an Avatar to move between these virtual spaces, you can even create multiple avatars, and it all depends on what you’re trying to achieve. You can think of these as the equivalent of profile pictures on different social media platforms. Compared to LinkedIn, your social media profile on Instagram is definitely different. This is the same concept behind multiple avatars, you can create professional-looking avatars for work and other professional purposes, and make a casual avatar for fun times.

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Metaverse Will Take Some Time

According to Meta, the Metaverse is the next step to the internet, and we all know how much time the internet took to become all it is today. So, anyone who’s waiting to jump into several worlds and experience all they have to offer, shouldn’t hold their breath.

“This may sound like science fiction, but we’re starting to see a lot of these technologies come together,” Zuckerberg said. “In the next five to 10 years, a lot of this is going be mainstream.”

That’s mainly because of the time and effort needed to build the hardware that can support the systems. Also, the hardware required to make people experience Metaverse as seamlessly as possible just doesn’t exist now. The extremely high cost of VR headsets means that not everyone will get to experience the technology. The price of the technology and its compatibility levels need to improve till it can become mainstream.

Update Your Hardware for Metaverse

If you happened to catch the event in person, you must have noticed that any non-Meta employee who engaged in the presentation was wearing advanced-looking glasses. This simply means that these are some gadgets that you’ll need to use to experience and engage in Metaverse.

Zuckerberg mentioned that once Metaverse becomes all it promises to be, our devices won’t stand out. Instead, there will be hardware, that can allow you to be in the world of your preference whenever and wherever you want. So, the good news is you’ll get to wear some really cool-looking glasses in the future as wearable displays are the only way to achieve the future.

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During the Meta event, the company also teased a new “high-end, mixed reality” headset project named Cambria that is guaranteed to offer a high-res, full-color video pass-through.

This means you’ll be able to go about your daily activity in the real-world while weaving digital elements such as art and virtual computer display into your surroundings. The highlight of project Cambria is that it can capture your facial expressions as accurately as possible and project them in the Metaverse.

You may also be required to wear clunky-looking smart bands for the neural interface which will eventually let people type at full speed in the Metaverse without even moving their hands.

Metaverse Will Have a Combination of Virtual and Real Economies

Even if Metaverse is virtual, it still is a world. You’ll need to decorate your home, you may want a better car (even though you may be able to fly), and you may want to get the latest Yeezy for your Avatar, and this is why the Metaverse, believes that virtual economy will be of importance. Meta is currently building a virtual currency to support people who create products and services in the Metaverse. 

“At the end of the day, it is really the creators and developers who are going to build the metaverse and make this real,” said Zuckerberg, while also mentioning that those people need to “make a good living doing this work.”

With Metaverse becoming a mainstream thing, it could also mean that the price of hardware required to access Metaverse will reduce.

Will Metaverse be a Challenge to Privacy?

It’ll be a huge challenge trying to maintain privacy in the Metaverse, and to this specific point, Zuckerberg argued that privacy will be a crucial component of Metaverse and he also mentioned a couple of ways how people can safeguard themselves from privacy threats.

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He said, “You’ll get to decide when you want to be with other people, when you want to block someone from appearing in your space, or when you want to take a break and teleport to a private bubble to be alone.” As the Metaverse is still a concept, it’s not yet clear what tools and technologies people can employ to better protect themselves.

On traditional social media platforms such as Twitter, or Instagram, you can block the person who’s been harassing you. But how can you do the same in a virtual space that’s shared among all the users? Let’s say you don’t wish to interact with someone in a virtual concert or event, and they still keep hassling you, will you be able to block them in a public space? And will they be able to see that you’ve blocked them? It’s all too early to say.

Meta also mentioned that regulators could play a vital role in shaping Metaverse. Lawmakers have also grown more sophisticated as to how they approach the problems of social media, and with the conversations around the metaverse becoming viral, it will be interesting to see how lawmakers get around the crimes related to Metaverse.