FACEBOOK METAVERSE
Face book is now meta verse. Wait, Metaverse! What’s that? Before diving in to meta verse, lets rewind face book. Face book was a revolutionary idea which now has more than one billion users around the world. As a social networking platform, it makes easy for us to connect with family and friends online. Face book was introduced way back in 2004,which majorly aimed the college students. But now it became so popular among folk irrespective of age. Its a platform that allows us to send messages, share different types of content, post status updates, all which enables us to keep in touch with friends and family.
Face book and other messaging apps helps in communication. What if you get a chance to live ,work and play inside its digital world, Metaverse .Face book CEO launched its new company brand, Meta on oct 28 2021,at their head quarters. Mark Zuckerberg renamed face book as ‘Meta’. Zuckerberg said on a conference call with Wall Street analyst, “our goal is to help the meta verse reach a billion people and billions of dollars in commerce in the next decade. What makes face book look at it is,a term stands for next gen internet and the technology involved is augmented reality.
WHAT IS META VERSE?
A portmanteau word with “meta” in Greek means “ beyond” and the English word “verse” stands for “universe”. The word is a metaphor for the real world. In short, it’s a virtual world where you can socialize, work and chill.
WHO COINED THE TERM META VERSE.
The term was first used by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction Snow Crash. The novel is all about a dystopian world ,in which the protagonist ,Hiro moves in and out of the grim reality to a 3D digital city scape, which the novelist called metaverse.
WHAT IS FACE BOOK META VERSE
A sudden hype broke overnight amongst people when Mark Zuckerberg announced face book as Meta in his keynote speech at connect 2021.Metaverse,fairly new idea .isnt it?.Soon after the declaration a video was released, in which Zuckerberg is seen walking through his room and explaining the future plans with this dystopian idea. He presents how life would be like in the meta world .His digital avtar is seen playing cards with his meta verse companions in a floating space ship .In between he calls up his friend using the messenger on his smart watch. His friend tells that she and her friends are running late as they were checking out 3D art piece. They share a link of 3D art piece which zuckerberg and his mates explores piece by piece and appreciates it.
KEY TECHNOLOGIES IN THE METAVERSE
Major technologies involved in metaverse are blockchain,augmented reality,virtual reality,3Dreconstrucion,artificial intelligence,cryptocurency etc.All these make metaverse experience more immersive.
BLOCKCHAIN AND CRYPTOCURRENCY
- Cryptocurrency is a digital currency intended to use as a mode of exchange and services to earn profit , while people work and socialize in the 3D digital world.
- Blockchain is a public ledger that records every transactions of cryptos.
- Record is distributed across network of computers.
- These records cannot be manipulated.
- Blockchain transactions are thought to be more secure than any other mode payment mechanism.
- Made up of units called blocks.
- Blocks store informations of the transactions done.
AUGMENTED REALITY (AR) AND VIRTUAL REALITY (VR)
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) powers 3D experience and engages us in a 3D world. These are the starting points to the virtual world. Now, lets have a glance at the difference between AR and VR?
AR uses visual elements and characters, that are digital to morph the real world, which is more accessible than VR. It can also be used on any digital devices like smartphones, laptops etc with a camera. People can have a look at their surroundings with interactive digital visuals, using AR, which is similar to the mobile game Pokémon GO. When the players open the camera on their phones, they can see Pokémons in the real-world environment. ..
VR is different from AR. It is capable of producing computer-generated virtual environment. It is much more advanced. People can access it using VR headsets, gloves, and sensors .It can involve physical simulations with VR equipment. Here people can interact,hear and also able to feel, with people from other parts of the world.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become popular among us in recent years with “business strategy planning, decision making, facial recognition, faster computing, and more”. The AI experts are now involved in the study of the possibilities of applying AI in immersive metaverse.AI can process a lot of data at faster pace. AI along with machine learning techniques can learn from previous iterations, taking into account historical data to end up with unique outputs and insights. In Metaverse,it can be used to create avtars.It can analyze 2D images or 3D to develop avtars to be realistic and accurate.It can create different facial expressions,hairstyles,clothes,etc to showcase the digitalizing.
CHALLENGES OF THE FACEBOOK METAVERSE
To comment on metaverse is foolish since it is in its early stages of development . Major challenges with the meaverse include identity authentication and privacy control. In the real world, it’s easy to identify someone. But when mass traverse the digital world in their avatars, its not going to be that easy to tell or prove who the other person is. .
Privacy control is yet another challenge. The metaverse relies largely upon AR and VR devices to give us an immersive experience. These technologies with inbuilt camera systems and unique identifiers ,may air our personal informations.
