Extended Reality with Facebook Metaverse

Facebook aims to play a key role in shaping the future of the extended reality market and plans to create numerous new jobs in Europe. As the graphic below illustrates, consumer revenue from this promising technology could also increase significantly in the coming years – by around 30 percent annually. This forecast includes both content and hardware revenue. Experts anticipate that extended reality could receive a further boost, particularly in connection with the new and exceptionally fast 5G infrastructure. High bandwidth combined with low latency could enable a range of data-intensive applications.

Extended Reality encompasses three technologies: Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR). VR refers to a computer-generated, virtual environment. The first mass-market application of Virtual Reality is in video games. So-called VR headsets (head-mounted displays) allow players to immerse themselves more deeply in computer-animated game worlds. Augmented Reality is defined as the projection of information and holograms onto our immediate surroundings. Mixed Reality is similar to Augmented Reality, but it also allows for interaction between the real and the virtual world.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in July that Facebook aims to become a metaverse company within the next five years. The online event Facebook Connect (formerly Oculus Connect), taking place on October 28th and 29th, is a virtual event that aims to help shape the future of augmented and virtual reality. Zuckerberg is expected to elaborate on his vision of the metaverse and announce the first concrete steps in this direction during his keynote address. "We will explore what it takes to bring the metaverse to life," states the XR conference website.

Related to this:

• Name change on Facebook: Meta

The word “metaverse” is composed of the prefix “meta” (beyond) and the root “verse” (a back-formation of “universe”); the term is generally used to describe the concept of a future iteration of the internet consisting of persistent, shared, virtual 3D spaces connected to form a perceived virtual universe. The metaverse, in a broader sense, can refer not only to virtual worlds but to the internet as a whole, including the entire spectrum of augmented reality.

In contrast, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game consists of a single world. In the metaverse, users can help shape the worlds and "live, learn, work, and celebrate" there.

The term metaverse was popularized by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. In the epilogue, he claims that he invented the term for this book as a marketing gimmick, just like "Avatar".

Since the 2020s, the metaverse has experienced a resurgence in popularity due to the sale of virtual land (Decentraland, The Sandbox). Similarly, projects like NEOS VR and Dual Universe aim to create vast worlds that will ultimately evolve into a metaverse.

Tim Sweeney, the founder of Fortnite studio Epic Games, had repeatedly stated his desire to work on a metaverse. In April 2021, Epic Games officially confirmed its plans for a metaverse project.

In July 2021, Mark Zuckerberg announced his intention to transform Facebook into a metaverse.

Contributions by Matthew Ball have had a particular influence on the debate surrounding the metaverse. His essay "The Metaverse: What It Is, Where to Find it, Who Will Build It, and Fortnite"[10] and subsequent articles were declared required reading for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's employees.

The term was coined in Neal Stephenson's 1992 science fiction novel *Snow Crash*, in which humans, as avatars, interact with each other and with software agents in a three-dimensional virtual space that uses the metaphor of the real world. Stephenson used the term to describe a virtual reality-based successor to the internet. Concepts similar to the metaverse had already appeared under various names in the 1981 cyberpunk novel *True Names*. Stephenson explained in the afterword to *Snow Crash* that after completing the novel, he learned of *Habitat*, an early MMORPG that resembled the metaverse.

The concept of cyberspace, first introduced in William Gibson's short story "Burning Chrome" (Omni, July 1982), was a central theme in his seminal 1984 novel Neuromancer. The metaverse differs from the broader concept of cyberspace, which reflects the totality of shared online space across all dimensions of representation. Unlike the fictional concept presented in Neuromancer, characterized by a Cartesian separation of body and mind, the metaverse allows its users to access their environment while remaining aware of their world. This is demonstrated in a technology developed by Nissan called Invisible to Visible (I2V), which overlays virtual information onto a car's windshield and offers, among other things, the ability to bring a 3D avatar into the vehicle.

Since many massively multiplayer online games have similar features to the metaverse, but only offer access to non-persistent instances shared by up to several dozen players, the concept of virtual multiverse games has been used to differentiate them from the metaverse.

Elements of the metaverse include video conferencing, games like Minecraft or Roblox, cryptocurrencies, email, virtual reality, social media, and live streaming. The aforementioned cyberspace has been constantly evolving and encompasses various computer-mediated virtual environments. Such an expanding cyberspace suggests a digital "Big Bang" driven by various technologies and ecosystems. Technologies such as augmented reality, user interactivity (human-computer interaction), artificial intelligence, blockchain, computer vision, edge and cloud computing, and future mobile networks are enabling the transition from the current internet to the metaverse. The metaverse ecosystem allows human users to live and play in a self-sustaining, persistent, and shared world. Therefore, the metaverse ecosystem incorporates user-centric elements such as avatars, content creation, the virtual economy, social acceptance, security and privacy, as well as trust and accountability.

Notable platforms and developments:

• 1993 – The Metaverse was a MOO (a text-based, low-bandwidth virtual reality system) operated by Steve Jackson Games as part of their BBS, Illuminati Online.
• 1995 – Active Worlds, based entirely on Snow Crash, distributes virtual reality worlds that at least implement the concept of the metaverse.
• 1998 – There.com was founded, where users appeared as avatars and could connect with others and purchase items and services using the virtual currency Therebucks, which could be bought with real-world money. There.com was shut down on March 2, 2010, but reappeared in 2011 as a world for invited users only, aged 18 and over.
• In 1998, blaxxun created virtual 3D communities that used VRML technology. CyberTown was one example.
• 2003 – Second Life was launched by Linden Lab. The stated goal of the project was to create a user-defined world like the Metaverse, where people could interact, play games, conduct business, and communicate in other ways.
• In 2004, X3D was recognized by the ISO as the successor to the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) as an open standard for interactive, real-time 3D (web3D). Today, X3D is the standard that defines the open metaverse for 3D web and mixed reality by connecting virtual, mirrored, and augmented realities with the web.
• 2004 – IMVU, Inc. is founded by Will Harvey, Matt Danzig, and Eric Ries. It began as an instant messenger with 3D avatars.
• In 2005, the University of Michigan launched Vmerse in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark affirmative action ruling (Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger) to improve campus accessibility for underprivileged minority applicants. Vmerse was described as a revolutionary innovation for increasing campus diversity. This metaverse, delivered to computers via the internet, combined video and forms embedded in a virtual reality mirror world, was also used for alumni relations, fundraising, and emergency training. Vmerse technology was also adopted by Louisiana State University, Iowa State University, Columbia University, Stanford University, Western Illinois University, and others. The U.S. Department of State used Vmerse as "Your 5 Steps to US Study" to assist international students in applying to U.S. universities, and it has been used by over 1 billion people worldwide. Vmerse was founded and invented by Bhargav Sri Prakash in 2004 and is now the proprietary platform that has been adapted by FriendsLearn for use in medicine.
• 2005 – Solipsis is launched, a free open-source system intended to provide the infrastructure for a metaverse-like public virtual domain.
• 2005 – The Croquet project was launched as an open-source software development environment for “creating and deploying online applications for multi-user collaboration across different operating systems and devices,” with the goal of being less proprietary than Second Life. Following the release of the Croquet SDK in 2007, the project was transformed into the Open Cobalt project.
• 2006 – Entropia Universe, the world's first MMORPG with a real monetary economy.
• 2006 – Roblox is released.
• 2007 – Several social networks offered profiles and networking opportunities for Metaverse avatars, including Koinup, Myrl, and AvatarsUnited. These projects faced many challenges related to the lack of avatar portability to other virtual worlds and attempted to address the possibility of managing multiple accounts through a single dashboard. (AvatarsUnited was later acquired by Linden Lab and then discontinued when some social networking features were added to Second Life.).
• 2007 – OpenSimulator is released, developing free, open-source software for virtual worlds that is protocol-compatible with Second Life and allows users to move between otherwise independent installations. It is based on the Second Life client viewer and serves as a platform for building a virtual world.
• 2008 – Google Lively was introduced by Google via Google Labs on July 8, 2008. The service was discontinued at the end of December.
• 2013 – The K-Pop girl group Girls' Generation hosts one of the first virtual concerts, where life-size holograms of the members are projected onto a stage.
• 2013 – High Fidelity Inc. is founded as an open-source platform where users can create and deploy virtual worlds, as well as explore and interact together.
• 2014 – VRChat launches as a social VR platform (SVRP) that allows users to publish 3D spaces and avatars developed with external tools.
• 2015 – Launch of AltspaceVR as an SVRP, which allows users to publish 3D spaces developed with external tools.
• 2016 – Sinespace was launched as a social VR role-playing game (SVRP), allowing users to publish 3D spaces and content created with external tools. Rec Room was introduced as a social VR game, which was expanded in 2017 to support user-generated spaces. Anyland and Modbox were launched as social VR games, allowing users to publish 3D spaces created with integrated tools.
• 2017 – Sansar launched on July 31, 2017. The platform enables user-created 3D spaces as social spaces. The avatars include voice-controlled facial animations and motion-controlled body animations.
• 2018 – NeosVR Metaverse was launched by Solirax. Cryptovoxels was launched in 2018 as a user-owned metaverse using the Ethereum blockchain.
• 2019 – Facebook Horizon was announced as a social VR world by Facebook.
• 2020 – Decentraland launches as a decentralized virtual platform owned and operated by its users. The Sandbox, a voxel metaverse, is launched by Animoca. Core is created by Manticore Games.
• 2020 – Rival Peak, a cloud-based reality show featuring AI contestants in a virtual environment, is launched on Facebook Watch. Individual viewers or groups could directly influence an AI contestant's progress in the show by watching or interacting via Facebook.
• 2020 – Beyond Live, a platform for online concerts, is launched.
• 2020 – SM Entertainment, a KPop agency, collaborates with one of its groups, aespa, to create a virtual universe called SM Culture Universe as a platform for its artists.
• 2021 – Epic Games initiates fundraising to expand Fortnite into a metaverse.
• 2021 – Microsoft Mesh, a mixed-reality software that enables virtual presence via Microsoft devices such as the HoloLens 2.
• 2021 – South Korea announces the formation of a national metaverse alliance with the goal of building a unified national VR and AR platform.

The Matrix is ​​a film series depicting a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped in a metaverse called the Matrix, created by intelligent machines to distract humans and use their bodies as an energy source.