Metaverse - Where Virtuality meets Reality

  Recently there has been a lot of talk about the word “Metaverse,” Last October Facebook changed its name to Meta with claims of entering into the metaverse, and “bringing metaverse into life.” This raises an obvious question about what is meta verse, making us curious to learn more, which is exactly what we are going to do here... 

WHAT IS THE METAVERSE 

The word metaverse consist of two terms, Meta – meaning virtual and verse meaning universe thus Metaverse refers to a “Virtual universe.”  

The term is now pretty much self-explanatory. Metaverse refers to an interactable, virtual, 3D, universe; combining Games, social media and more into a single world which would be accessed using VR or AR technology

TERMS CLOSELY RELATED TO METAVERSE 

Terms which are intricately linked to Metaverse are AR and VR. 

 AR: AR or Augmented reality refers to overlaying virtual stimuli onto the real world to enhance it. For example, using AR you can overlay stats about your fitness when you are working out, or it can show 3D directions while you are walking. 

VR: VR or virtual reality refers to an entirely virtual world where you are completely cut off from the real world; accomplished using a VR headset, which gives you visual and auditory stimuli around that interactable virtual world.  

A person using the VR equipment will be able to enter the virtual world, interact, move objects, and do things similar to our world. Many games also offer you this capability. 

*Understanding of these two terms help you in differentiating them in the later part of the article. 

WHO WILL CREATE METAVERSE 

 Creating the Metaverse is not a single man’s job, everyone must contribute in it. Just like how our world needs millions of people to develop it, Metaverse needs the hands of many to develop a virtual universe.  

CURRENT CONTRIBUTORS FOR THE METAVERSE 

During the autumn of last year (2021), Facebook changed its name to meta with claims and goals of developing the metaverse, leveraging its ownership of Oculus (VR equipment company). Meta states that their goal is to make virtual Reality social media in which people could interact with one another. However, the vision of Meta could not be accomplished with the current state of technology 

Meanwhile Microsoft is using the already existing resources to develop their version of metaverse. They have a service called as Mesh, which is an AR platform which users could access via their mobile devices instead of buying a VR headset. 

Game companies like Roblox, Epic games (Fortnite) also are striving to create a virtual version of their game to play using VR headsets, contributing to the metaverse. 

IMPLICATIONS OF METAVERSE 

I would say that Metaverse has immense potential if used properly. Metaverse could be used everywhere from social media, to learning to games. Below are some of the main uses of it. 

1. Instead of relying on video calls and text messages metaverse could open up 3D calls and 3D meeting even 3D social media. Which goes hand in hand with Work from home. As calls become interactive and 3D, we could have better business meetings from our home, which helps a lot during the pandemic. 

2. It could also help the recreation sector. As with Metaverse, people could play virtually interactive video games or AR games which could be more fun than traditional gaming that we are used to today. 

3. It could also help the medical sector by giving surgical simulations to medical students in virtual reality to help them practice medical operations without risks.  

4. Metaverse can play a significant role in tourism too with the introduction of VR tourism, where people can simply put their VR goggles, take a virtual flight to a virtual version of the destination that they wanted to go. Though the experience would not be the same as a real tour, this could temporarily help during the pandemic. 

CONCERNS AND CHALLENGES 

The Metaverse is yet another technology, thus it has inevitable inherent characteristics that every technology has. 

When used correctly it is a boon but if fell in wrong hands could become a disaster. Metaverse opens a new way of interacting with people using VR and AR, which really helps many. However, if ended up in wrong hands it could give harm. Below are some of the potential challenges and concerns related to the Metaverse. 

Hardware:  Metaverse mostly depends on AR, MR (Mixed Reality) and VR, and needs specialized hardware for it like VR headsets, and these are not currently manufactured on a large scale and even the ones available are not affordable. And the affordable counterparts of these devices do not guarantee quality.  Also, the backend servers are not strong enough to withstand the virtual lives of millions of people.

Security and privacy concerns:  Based on our current experience with the internet, we know that security and privacy is a matter of concern for everyone. Data breaches, cyber threats, viruses could only get more adverse, taking the fact that ‘metaverse is more interactive and whole virtual world’ into consideration, it is expected that privacy and security issues could occur, and we must be prepared for it to stay away from it.  

Addiction: Though VR game is “more fun” that traditional type of gaming, it has its side effects too, one of which is addiction. Which will not only lead to physical health problems like obesity diabetes and other chronic diseases, but also will lead to mental health problems like depression and anxiety. 

FINAL NOTE

As a final note I would like to conclude that by saying one thing, Metaverse is a concept which is still in its budding, premature state, as of now we cannot jump into any Conclusions about its characteristics, so before praising or ranting about it, I would suggest that we wait until it matures and we get more information about it. See my friend's article for more information and a different perspective of this article. With that being said, thanks for all readers, hope you learnt something with this article. I am Raghunath Balaji from tech passion signing off