“Remember hearing about the internet? Get ready for the metaverse”
Have you ever had this experience of buying a new car and then suddenly seeing the same model everywhere you go?
There is a reason why it happens. The part of the brain is apparently called the Reticular Activation System (RAS).
Think of it as the torchlight that focuses your attention and determines the lenses through which you see the world.
Maybe that is what I have been using for the half a dozen times I have stumbled upon ‘the Metaverse’ almost in everything I read.
So here is a lowdown on the Metaverse!
#1 Coined by the writer Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel, “Snow Crash,” then reimagined as the Oasis in the Ernest Cline novel “Ready Player One,” it refers to a fully realized digital world that exists beyond the analog one in which we live.
(If you haven’t read either, please do)
#2 The metaverse essentially is a virtual shared space created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality, augmented reality and the internet. If you own a NFT, crypto or have attended a work meeting with a digital avatar, you are treading quite close
#3 The thing with connected networks is that they happen slowly and then all at once. There “will be no clean ‘Before Metaverse’ and ‘After Metaverse,’” writes a VC. “Instead, it will slowly emerge over time as different products, services and capabilities integrate and meld together.”
#4 No one person or company can have control over the metaverse Google, Microsoft, Samsung and Sony have joined Facebook in the XR Association, a consortium of tech companies aiming to shape the future of “experiential reality.”
#5 What do you do with a $69 million artwork that doesn’t physically exist? Singapore based investor, Metakovan, who purchased the NFT for $70 M plans to put the artwork on display in four virtual world environments. He is working with architects to design gallery complexes that the public can enter via web browsers or virtual reality technology.
The future is faster than we think.
And my constant thought as a mom is this – beyond our Indian schools getting kids to ace in Math and Science, to careers in Medicine and Engineering, are we really preparing our kids to the world they will face when they grow up 🙂
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Sources in comments
#reviewswithranjani
#metaverse
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Image – Roblox, a platform where independent developers create games popular with children, has been described as a metaverse.
Sources :
- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/10/style/metaverse-virtual-worlds.html
- https://www.nber.org/papers/w19843
- https://www.coindesk.com/a-crypto-guide-to-the-metaverse
- https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/digital-only-artwork-fetches-nearly-70-million-christies-2021-03-12/
- https://www.reuters.com/business/metaverse-bet-crypto-rich-investors-snap-up-virtual-real-estate-2021-04-19/