The Metaverse Is Having a Moment
Last October, CEO Mark Zuckerberg changed his company's name from Facebook to Meta. He said the metaverse was not only the future of his company, but also the future of the Internet. His words sent lots of people running to look up the word "metaverse" in their dictionaries.
The thing is, the word isn't new. It comes from Snow Crash, a 1992science-fictionbook by American writer Neal Stephenson. In the book, humans live through their avatars in a virtual world called the metaverse. Today the metaverse is still being created and understood and not everyone agrees on how it should come about. However, we are starting to get some idea as tech companies have begun to build it. The metaverse is believed to be a shared 3-D virtual world and now we can do real-life things like meeting friends, exercising or taking classes in it. Zuckerberg believes almost anything people can do in real life can be done in the metaverse in the close future.
Picture this. Zhang Yixing is putting on a big concert in Beijing and you are too busy to go to the city for it. When the concert begins, instead of watching it online, you put on a VR headset and come to the virtual concert. You sit, listen and shout with other fans. You even shake hands and talk with your idol. How exciting!
The recent growing interest in the metaverse can be seen as a result of COVD-19. As more people have started working from home, there has been an increasing need for ways to make online interaction (互动) more lifelike.
Zuckerberg said it might take around ten years for the metaverse to arrive. Are you looking forward to it?
