“The Metaverse is a massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds which can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an effectively unlimited number of users with an individual sense of presence, and with continuity of data, such as identity, history, entitlements, objects, communications, and payments,” ~ Matthew Ball.

Author Neal Stephenson coined the term "metaverse" in his 1992 science fiction novel "Snow Crash," in which he envisioned lifelike avatars who met in realistic 3D buildings and other virtual reality environments. Since then, various developments have made mileposts on the way toward a real metaverse, an online virtual world which incorporates augmented reality, virtual reality, 3D holographic avatars, video, and other means of communication. 

‘Metaverses’ are already a reality, in fact there is a big number of videogames that simulate lifelike worlds in so called parallel universes. Companies that already tried to build a metaverse in their games are now really interested into the metaverse that will be built from Mark Zuckerberg’s company named Meta. Zuckerberg described the metaverse as a “virtual environment” you can go inside of, instead of just looking at on a screen. The metaverse was thought as a world of endless, interconnected virtual communities where people can meet, work and play, using virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses, smartphone apps or other devices.

Is the metaverse going to be built and owned only by Meta?

As Richard Kerris, vice president of Nvidia’s Omniverse platform said there are going to be lots of companies building virtual worlds and environments in the metaverse, in the same way there have been lots of companies doing things on the World Wide Web, it’s important to be open and extensible, so you can teleport to different worlds whether it’s by one company or another company, the same way we go from one web page to another web page. So, the answer is no.

Other big companies helping in the building of the metaverse are Epic Games (owner of very popular games like Fortnite) which raised over $1 billion from investors to help, and Roblox (the game platform) which sees in metaverse an opportunity to build a better environment in which people can study, work, play, socialize and even create.

The metaverse will use technologies such as VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality), but what are these technologies and which is the difference between them?

When talking about AR we are talking about a version of the world that is being ‘augmented’  through the addition of digital and virtual content, overlaid on the physical environment that is already in front of us. The idea of AR is that through app and technologies that use a camera we can add augmented content to reality like images and sounds on the subject captured by our camera and display them directly (on live) on the screen of our device.
Example of a very famous app that uses AR is the game app Pokémon Go, but AR has been used also in other fields like construction, school teaching and also in design (an example of this last ‘field’ is IKEA that lets you visualize the furniture you want to buy in your house environment).

While when talking about VR we refer to applications that bring the user in a whole different reality from the one we are living into, because the new environment is 100% computer-generated, whether it is a real-life location, caught on 360° cameras, or a new scenario created via 3D technology. Once you put on a VR headset, you will lose any perception of the surrounding. What you will see and hear, instead, will be virtually created by the chosen software, all this is possible only because the headset is connected to a pc, smartphone, or any other kind of smart device. The biggest IT companies have created their own version of a VR headset, to meet the increasing market demand, for example Sony PlayStation VR, HTC Cosmos, Oculus Quest are just a few of the latest models. VR has completely revolutionized many fields such as tourism, allowing users to virtually travel, the hotel industry, allowing users to see the hotel rooms before booking, gaming, allowing people to feel and live like the character of their own story.

In conclusion, the metaverse is a beautiful dream, but it will certainly have a lot of technical challenges such as server maintaining and security, but also moral questions and law’s in the new world!