【Lieyun Network (WeChat: ilieyun) Beijing】 Reported on December 26 (Text/Wang Fei)
In 5 days, the "first year of the meta-universe" will soon become history.
In the past year, foreign manufacturers such as Facebook, Microsoft, and Nvidia have entered the game with high profiles, and domestic giants such as ByteDance and NetEase have also laid out.
And this week, many companies continue to soar, trying to take the express train of the development of the meta-universe: JD.com, Coach, OPPO have successively released NFT digital collections, NetEase Youdao and Foxconn applied for the meta-universe trademark, Tencent Music launched a virtual music carnival...
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection published an article on its official website to set the tone for the development of the metaverse: "Metacosmity - The Development Goal of the Next Generation internet (Deep Attention to How the I Metacosmitis Rewrites Human Social Life)".
In the midst of the hustle and bustle, Tesla CEO Elon Musk's conservative evaluation of the meta-universe and the successive bombardment of Web3 are naturally much more abrupt.
Zhou Hongyi and Musk seem to be in agreement, he once said, "a powerful company like Facebook, should think more about the future of mankind like Musk, to solve big technical problems, rather than working on this more addictive, entertaining, illusory technology." ”
Musk has slammed Web3 one after another, more like a marketing buzzword
Recently, Reuters commented on the top 12 technology hot words in 2021, and Web3 and meta-universe were on the list at the same time.
It is worth noting that when everyone talks about Web3, blockchain and cryptocurrencies are often mixed in, and in many reports, metaverse and Web3 are even mixed, which is regarded as the ultimate form of the Internet.
Simply understood, the metacosm is a combination of the Internet and VR/AR, and its final form is a digital world reconstructed by the social, life, and even economic and social systems in reality. Web3 is a new paradigm of the Internet and can be seen as an important part of this virtual world.
It can be said that blockchain, Web3, and metaversm are layers of progressive relationships. Blockchain is the technical support of Web3, and Web3 is the underlying facility of the metaverse and is the first step in building the metacosm.
For Web3, Musk has poured two basins of cold water in a row.
On December 21, Musk said on his personal social media that I'm not saying Web3 is real. At the moment, it seems more like a marketing buzzword than a reality. But imagine what the future will look like in 10, 20 or 30 years. The future of 2051 seems crazy!
On Wednesday, Musk gave an interview to The Babylon Bee and went live on youTube, a video platform. He stressed again in the interview that "the web3 concept that is popular now is more like buzzword marketing than reality." ”
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey also said that users do not actually own Web3 products, the actual owners of Web3 are the venture capital agency (VC) behind the project and its limited partners (LPs), and eventually, Web3 will go against the starting point of decentralization and become a centralized entity with different tags, no different from Web2.
Dorsey also hinted that there is a lot of money behind Web3 to support the hype. According to TechCrunch, VCs invested more than $6 billion in crypto projects in the third quarter of 2021 alone.
Musk on the metacosm: The construction situation at this stage is not convincing
Musk said in an interview with the Babylon Bee Network: "Although I have heard a lot about the metaverse, wearing a virtual reality headset and putting the "TV screen" on your nose can enter the metaverse. But it's like when we were kids, our parents told us not to sit too close when watching TV, it will ruin your vision. But now, we're putting television in front of us.
In addition, Musk highlighted the vertigo symptoms of VR. He said: "When you play video games on a computer desktop or other device, you can play the game in the first person perspective, be able to move the mouse or other tools quickly, and there will be no feeling of motion sickness. But games in the metaverse, you need to try to use virtual reality equipment, and you must get used to "teleporting" in the game, but in many cases you will have a feeling of motion sickness.
At present, the application scenarios of the metaverse are still few, and may still be in the early stages of participating in virtual conferences with virtual avatars.
In this regard, Musk said bluntly: I have not seen some convincing metaversmic construction now.
Not only is there a lack of landing examples, Musk also thinks that the consumer experience of the metaverse is disappointing: "Of course, you can put the TV on your nose, but I don't think it's called 'entering the metacosm'." He thinks, "I don't think anybody would really tie a screen to their face all day long, it's very uncomfortable." Even if the device could be designed to be very light and lightweight, I still don't think anyone would want to wear it all day. ”
Musk still leaves room for the metaverse and Web3 evaluation. He believes that he is just "too old" to understand these new technologies. "I like people who were dismissive of the internet in the '90s, who didn't care about something fashionable or something that would never have any practical meaning, and we preferred to talk to people like on the phone, writing letters, etc., to communicate and communicate with others. But the internet may eventually change humanity and slowly permeate people's lives. ”
It is worth mentioning that in 1995, Musk was the first to discover the future value of the Internet. After years of exploration and excavation, he has now become the richest man in the real world.
Among Musk's many explorations, the brain-computer interface project is the most futuristic. But in the interview, Musk appears to have no intention of associating it with the metaverse.
Musk said in an interview that complex brain-computer interface devices can allow you to fully immerse yourself in virtual reality. He also said, "I hope that next year the first brain-computer interface device can be implanted into the human body." ”
Zhou Hongyi was worried about safety, and the first case of meta-cosmic sexual harassment broke out
If Musk's evaluation of the metaverse is relatively neutral, Zhou Hongyi's statement is much sharper.
Zhou Hongyi once said: If people put the main time of their lives into the metaverse and virtual reality into the metaverse, the metaverse will definitely be attacked, and many new security problems will appear.
In addition, Zhou Hongyi does not agree with the metaverse depicted by Facebook, if people go to the virtual world to seek the satisfaction of the real world, the real world will stagnate. He divided the metaverse into four genres: game families, coin flippers, stock speculators, and virtual communities like Facebook, constructing a virtual world through virtual reality.
As of now, the new security problems that Zhou Hongyi is worried about have not yet been revealed. However, the first case of meta-cosmic sexual harassment still came unintentionally.
According to foreign media reports on December 20, Meta (formerly known as Facebook Facebook) officially opened its meta-universe platform "Horizon Worlds" earlier this month. During the Horizon Worlds test, a female tester reported a very disturbing incident — she was sexually harassed in the virtual world. The tester said a stranger tried to "touch" his virtual character in the square. "This (uncomfortable) feeling is stronger than being harassed on the internet," she writes.
Catherine Cross, who studies online harassment at the University of Washington, said virtual reality has a sense of immersion and authenticity, as is harmful behavior that occurs in this environment.
Meta reportedly said after an internal review of the sexual harassment incident that testers should use a tool called Safe Zone, which is part of Horizon Worlds' suite of built-in security features. The so-called "safe zone" is a protective bubble that can be activated when the user feels threatened, and inside this bubble, no one can touch their character, talk to them or interact in any way until they signal that they want to unprotected.
Horizon vice president Vivek Sharma called the sexual harassment "very unfortunate," but said, "It's still good feedback for us because I want to make blocking simple and easy to find."