Metacosmity, as a hot word for frequent out-of-circles in 2021, has triggered a wide range of discussions. Whether it is technology giants, venture capital companies, start-ups, and even some national government departments have also joined the board.
In March this year, Roblox, the first stock of the meta-universe concept, was officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the United States; in May, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Information and Communications of The Republic of Korea initiated the establishment of the "Meta-Universe Alliance"; in August, ByteDance spent a huge amount of money to acquire VR startup Pico; in October, Facebook changed its name to Meta.....
Why is the metaverse favored? What is the world it describes? Is it far from our lives? With many questions, today we will walk into the metaverse together to explore the answers and charms under its virtual reality.
▲Image source network
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Metaverses ≠ games and socializing
Metaverse can be generally understood as a virtual world parallel to the real world, an online virtual world that maps the real world, and everything that people can do in reality can be implemented in the metaverse. People can use science and technology such as brain-computer interfaces and VR to enter the data world of immersive experience, switch to another identity, and experience a second life.
At present, gaming and social networking are generally considered by the industry to be the domain of the early realization of the metaverse. Because they all provide virtual roles and have independent economic systems. Taking games as an example, games can provide an immersive experience, not only with virtual identities but also virtual domains, and can also be traded through virtual currency.
But the metaverse is by no means limited to that, and its boundaries are far beyond our imagination. It is reported that the future development of the metaverse will roughly go through two stages, the first is to empower social and entertainment, to create immersive content experience + virtual social; followed by the true Internet, virtual and real symbiosis, 100% penetration of the metaverse, the interconnection of all things, empowering life + industry / industry, changing people's life, work, connection way...
▲ Metacosm development stage
Source: Meta-Universe Token, Guohai Securities Research Institute
It is foreseeable that the development of the metacosm will bring transformative, disruptive experiences to our lives. However, it is undeniable that the development of the metaverse is still in the early stage of exploration, and the real metaverse prototype is still in the pipeline.
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In the metaverse
What an experience it would be
Although there is currently no universally accepted definition of the metacosm, its basic characteristics have been universally recognized by the industry. The arrival of the metaverse will bring us a different experience.
(1) Immersive experience, low latency and immersive sense allow users to have an immersive sensory experience. Taking fire drills as an example, users can see the real flame through AR glasses, and they must make a rescue action before the flame will be extinguished.
(2) Virtualized twins, where users in the real world will have one or more ID identities in the digital world.
(3) Open creation, users enter the digital world through terminals, and can use massive resources to carry out creative activities. The metacosm is not limited by the rules of the physical world, lowering the threshold of creation.
(4) Strong social attributes, the real social relationship chain will be transferred and reorganized in the digital world. The metaverse restores people's real-world communication scenes, and the communication is more natural, which is different from the two-dimensional communication of the mobile Internet.
(5) Stabilized system, with a safe, stable and orderly economic operation system. In the metaverse era, we can put any object in any scene, and transactions are no longer concentrated in fixed scenes, but decentralized, and occur anytime and anywhere.
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The arrival of the metaverse, far away
At present, the concept of metacosmology is hot. It is reported that almost all large domestic Internet technology companies have announced their entry into the meta-universe track, and industry associations and institutions such as the meta-universe industry committee and the meta-universe research center have also landed. However, the technical conditions of the metaverse are far from mature, and now it is still a concept that outweighs the substance.
Although the digital and virtual industries have developed rapidly in recent years, technologies such as 5G, cloud computing, VR/AR, and artificial intelligence are also constantly improving. However, as an extremely open, complex and huge system, the metaverse covers the entire cyberspace and many hardware devices and real-world conditions, and its technical limitations are the biggest bottleneck of the metaverse.
▲The technical base and institutional system of the metacosm are deconstructed
Source: Guohai Securities Research Institute
Taking network transmission as an example, according to the research of Guohai Securities Research Institute, it is expected that the metacosm needs at least 6G network, global coverage, and delay microsecond level. One of the goals of the 6G network is to support 1 microsecond or even sub-microsecond delay communication; indoor positioning accuracy of 10 centimeters, outdoors is 10 meters, compared to 5G 10 times higher. At present, countries have begun to deploy 6G research and development intensively, and it is expected to start commercial use around 2030.
In addition, in terms of computing power, the metacosm has nearly infinite requirements for computing power, but the current global computing power lags behind the growth rate of data and algorithms. Computing power supports the creation and experience of virtual content in the metaverse, more realistic modeling and interaction require stronger computing power as a premise, and large-scale users' continuous online and creation need strong computing power as a support.
The Internet of Everything provides a basis for the restoration of physical reality for the metaverse and establishes a unified underlying IoT system. At present, the Internet of Things is still in the early stages of the outbreak and may continue for several years. In order to achieve large-scale and accelerated evolution of the Internet of Things, it must solve the three major development problems of fragmentation, security and cost.
▲Source: Guohai Securities Research Institute
At the same time, technological advances are also driving the development of simulation interactions. At present, many manufacturers have invested heavily in VR/AR hardware technology and have tended to mature development, but the price is high and accompanied by a series of problems such as poor sense of use, environmental restrictions, poor portability, high price cost, and poor equipment compatibility.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. As an emerging industry, in addition to many technologies, metacosm also involves standards, legislation and other aspects. Only by defining the metaverse through a series of standards and protocols can the great connection of different ecosystems in the metacosm be achieved. At the same time, in the process of meta-universe development, issues such as regulatory review and data security should also be considered in advance.
In general, whether it is the underlying technology or the application scenario, there is still a big gap from the realization of the metaverse, but this also means that the space for expansion of the metaverse-related industries is huge. The road to the development of the meta-universe is long, and under the precipitation of technology and time, the maturity of the meta-universe industry is worth looking forward to.
However, in the face of the current hot market situation, enterprises should also remain calm, after all, the road to meta-universe exploration has just begun.
(Nine Pulses New Horizons)