News broke on October 29 that Internet headlines exploded when Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg officially announced at The Facebook Connect Developers Conference on Wednesday that the company's name would be renamed "Meta" to reflect the company's growing ambitions to go beyond social media. The new name , Meta , comes from the sci-fi word Metaverse , which describes the new company 's vision of working and playing in a virtual world , saying that metaversity will be the next mobile computing platform. I have to make a lot of people question, this time Facebook played a little big. Did Zuckerberg blaze a trail for Facebook to go to the universe?
Facebook New LOGO Former Space Meta
Facebook's old LOGO
Let's first talk about what kind of company Facebook is. Facebook Chinese called Facebook, Chinese the standard saying "must die", it is the world's largest social networking site with the largest number of users. At present, the number of Facebook users has reached 3.5 billion, as of September 30, 2021, the number of monthly active users (MAUs) of Facebook users is 2.91 billion, an increase of 6% year-on-year; daily active users (DAU) are 1.93 billion, an increase of 6% year-on-year, compared with weChat with more than 900 million users in China, which is naturally much larger. Since there is no access to Facebook in the country, the general public may rarely hear of it. Facebook just released a new virtual currency, called Libra, which is the first large network company issued virtual currency after the popularity of bitcoin and virtual currency, has made a global boiling, and now in the metaverse trend to attract popularity, in fact, Zuckerberg in addition to the world have drawn a good big pie, directly the metacosm as the next generation of Internet direction, had to push it to the cusp of the Internet. In-depth analysis of this great change is even no less than the change from the PC Internet to the mobile Internet. After tracking the development of virtual technology in the previous issues, Xiaobian will introduce in detail what is the metacosmology?
Facebook revealed everything about the Metaverse in 11 minutes>>
1. Historical origin
The term metaverse is derived from the science fiction novel "Avalanche" written by the famous American science fiction writer Neo Stevenson in 1992, in which Stevenson described a network world parallel to the real world - the metaverse, in which all people in the real world have a network twin. Stevenson's Metaverse is a new form of the Internet in the next phase of virtual reality. In the original book, metaverse is composed of two words, Meta and Verse, Meta means transcendence, Verse stands for universe, and together it is the concept of "transcendent universe": a man-made space that runs parallel to the real world, is the next stage of the Internet, and is a virtual reality network world powered by AR, VR, 3D and other technologies. The metacosm cannot be completely separated from the real world, it is parallel to the real world, it is interconnected with it, but it is independent of the real world, where people can socialize and work authentically.
Avalanche
2. Concept and in-depth analysis
Some people say that the metaverse is composed of eight major elements, including: hardware, network, computing power, virtual platform, standards, payment and blockchain, content service assets, user and enterprise behavior, all eight are indispensable; some people say that the metacosm is the next generation of Internet based on AR/VR glasses; Alibaba Dharma Academy Tan Ping divides the technical composition of the metacosmum into four levels: L1 holographic construction - L2 holographic simulation - L3 virtual-real fusion - L4 virtual-real linkage, which will span time and space barriers. Connect the virtual world with the real world. Alibaba allows merchants to build their own 3D shopping space, and customers have a new sense of shopping experience after entering the store.
A new sense of shopping experience
Summary: The metaverse is the next generation of Internet formed by AR+VR. Ma Huateng also started a new concept of a metaverse called the True Internet. There are also many people who will say that virtual reality is still a sea of stars, and the development of the virtual world has not had a big breakthrough for many years. However, with the current cloud computing and 5G infrastructure, it has naturally become a development trend, and it is undoubtedly a downward momentum.
Zuckerberg said: "We've gone from the desktop to the web to the phone, from text to photos to videos, but that's not the end. The next platform and media will be the more immersive and materialized internet where you can experience, not just look at it, which we call metaversics. ”
Immersion
3. Technical points
Ostensibly, the composition of the metaverse requires Presence, Avatars, Home space, Teleporting, Interoperability, Privacy and safety, Virtual goods, and Natural interfaces interfaces) eight elements. Technically, hardware, networks, computing power, virtual platforms, standards, payments and blockchains, content service assets, user and enterprise behavior are indispensable. It is a virtual world built on a regional chain, a decentralized platform that allows players to enjoy ownership and autonomy, and is closer to reality through immersive experience virtual, mainly in the hosting of virtual assets and virtual identities. What it needs to create is a fair, open source, and reliable economic system. Borrowing the regional chain can just ensure the security of the user's virtual assets and virtual identities, realize the value exchange of the meta-universe, and execute in an open and transparent manner with the help of the entire circulation system. At this level, users can not only have an extraordinary sense of body in the metaverse, but also create value that is passed on. What the metacosm needs to combine is the value element NFT that cryptography brings. Technologies such as 5G, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence are essentially infrastructure. Users can enjoy digital ownership of Web 3.0. The traditional three elements of artificial intelligence - data, algorithms, and computing power are not only closely related to the development of artificial intelligence, but also closely related to the future of the metacosm. Distributed computing, high-performance computing, cloud computing, fog computing, graph computing, intelligent computing, edge computing, quantum computing and other "computing power" systems generated around the demand for massive data analysis and processing will become an important engine for the development of the cloud universe.
User Experience - > Discovery Platform - > Creator Economy - > Spatial Computing - > Decentralization - > Human-Computer Interaction - > Infrastructure
4. Giant layout
Now the world's Internet giants have joined the layout of the metaverse, compared with overseas, the layout of domestic science and technology giants is more for the underlying technology such as 5G, cloud computing, AI and other fields, and have not seen a clear metaverse path such as Facebook, Nvidia, Roblox and so on. At the same time, we believe that the opportunities and space for the metacosm in China are still vast. For example, iQiyi and Bilibili have a large number of video copyright content, layout virtual human technology/virtual idols, and have tried to access VR applications; both have a certain VR content production capacity (PGC/UGC).
The Cloud Summit of the 2021 World VR Industry Conference reached 114 investment and cooperation projects with a total amount of 70.415 billion yuan
At the end of August this year, ByteDance and Tencent bid for the final byte to acquire the domestic VR hardware brand Pico (Little Bird Look) for 9 billion yuan, and invested in Guangzhou Semiconductor to make up for the shortcomings of AR/VR chips. Lay out new special effects for short videos. Kuaishou is also in the "panoramic VR + multilink" live broadcast layout.
Alibaba Damo Academy XR Lab Linyun Mirror to help the digital transformation of the industry, through the three-dimensional visual exploration research, in this Yunqi conference to bring the theme of "three-dimensional visual reshaping industry ecology" sharing, for the new retail, logistics, industry, tourism, education, finance, real estate, medical, film and television and other directions to bring a new application ideas
Tencent's first full disclosure of the VR plan is no less ambitious than the next WeChat, while Tencent is much more cautious and has not launched VR QQ and VR WeChat in time.
VR Atlas
5. Application scenarios
We see VR/AR technology being rapidly applied to all areas of society, especially in education, telecommunications, healthcare, and gaming. By 2025, China is expected to become a leader in the global VR industry, and the VR industry will usher in strong growth. Because the metacosm is a platform that carries virtual activities, users can carry out social and spiritual activities such as social, entertainment, creation, display, education, and trading.
6. The challenges are unlimited
First, the stability of VR/AR camera motion shooting, how to ensure that the video screen is always smooth, clear and stable.
Second, vr/AR equipment power consumption is too large, how to reduce consumption has become a major issue.
Third, VR/AR data synchronization processing capabilities, including recording and real-time modification.
Fourth, there is still a way to go to integrate the convergence of 5G, AI, VR/AR, the Internet of Things and other emerging technologies.
Fifth, AR/VR also faces the problem of "lack of core".
Sixth, the production cost is high, how to popularize the problem.
In addition, we still need to find the best way to integrate the metacosm and the real economy. Nevertheless, the continuous innovation of technology has brought us closer and closer to the goal of changing the future, and the future is full of challenges.
7. Future
The future of the metaverse will be divided into two stages: the first stage of the metacosm empowers social + entertainment, the mainstream form of the 3D virtual world is games, immersive content experience + virtual social.
The second phase of the metaverse is the true Internet, empowering life + industry/industry: changing the way people live, work, and connect; improving efficiency and reducing costs; and digitizing economic systems.
Facebook's name change will inevitably force the major Internet giants to speed up the layout of their respective metaversms, perhaps everyone will say Tencent metaverse, Ali metacosm, Byte metacosm, and small companies can only hold their thighs to do application-level development, in fact, it is indeed getting closer and closer to us, but not as fast as we think, every Internet change is through a cruel shuffle, in order to finally let users accept the final marketization, from science fiction to reality, may be more difficult.