Thinking of a virtual world where people can actually work, shop, live, and talk, with each other may seem quite unrealistic but this seems to take a front seat in the physical world in the form of the Metaverse.  Even though the idea of the Metaverse, a virtual world isn’t anything new as it was already described in 1992 in the novel Snow Crash. After this many companies started to incorporate this into their online communities, however, Metaverse became the household name in 2021 when social media giant, Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta and announced its plans to spend $20 billion on the vision of Metaverse.

What Is Metaverse?

Metaverse is a collective network of 3D virtual worlds where generally avatars are used as characters and communicate with each other. The virtual reality (VR) headsets are used to access and navigate the Metaverse using voice commands, eye movements, or feedback controllers. These headsets actually immerse the users to experience the physical sensation of actually being in the Metaverse. Thus, Metaverse is considered the next evolution in the internet space and takes an interesting form in gaming, business meetings, and building online communities using digital facsimile or their avatars.

What Are The Technologies Powering Metaverse?

The technological companies are on the mission to make Metaverse more impressive with the use of big technologies such as Blockchain, Augmented Reality (AR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), 3D Reconstruction, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Blockchain

Using the Blockchain, enterprises are able to develop transparent and decentralized solutions to facilitate digital collectability, value transfer, digital proof of ownership, and interoperability. As a result, gamers on popular games like Decentraland rely on native digital currency MANA which is a result of blockchain technology to buy virtual land and ensure the availability of the accessories required for playing games. Thus, the Metaverse ecosystem receives great incentives through cryptocurrencies which makes breathtaking innovations become possible.

Artificial Intelligence

AI is a big boost to the Metaverse space as it supports multiple crucial activities in the platform.  It empowers data processing and facilitates 3-D scans to help generate realistic avatars and a lot more. As a result, helps to make entire Metaverse processes more dynamic with the enchanted user experience.

3- D Reconstruction

While on the other hand the idea of 3 –D Reconstruction which has been around for quite some time and has great implications in the real -estate business as a Metaverse. This allows potential buyers to have a property tour without coming in person by creating a replica of the environment or the object to intensify the experience.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)

These two technologies are crucial to Metaverse and act as the entry points to a virtual world. AR, which utilizes visual elements and graphic characters, is capable of morphing the real world which is the major essence of Metaverse. Wherein using VR it becomes possible to create a complete computer-generated digital world that can be explored using VR headphones, digital sensors, and gloves.

Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT system acts as the bridge between the physical world and the internet that collects data from the physical world and renders this as information in the form of virtual space. Thus, IoT technology helps to connect the 3-D virtual world to real-world objects and upgrade the Metaverse ecosystem.

Examples of Popular Metaverse

Metaverse has been an entirely new phenomenon in the digital space and has created some popular projects. Second Life is the very first example of a virtual world where avatars were used as the characters in the game. This game created the space for people to customize their looks and talk to people across the globe. Furthermore, Ready Player 1, Fortnite, Roblox, IMVU, Pokémon Go, Horizon, etc are a few popular Metaverse dedicated to the gaming industry and is gearing up the Play to Earn (P2E) culture.  However, Metaverse is also becoming a big blessing to several other industries like social media, real estate, virtual dressing, etc.

Popular Companies in the Metaverse Space

Some of the popular companies that are working towards enriching the Metaverse experience for all are as follows:

Facebook

Facebook, the social media giant is targeted towards bringing the “Metaverse to life “and is also seen as the Metaverse – the first company. The company has also sold millions of its Oculus CR devices/headgears for better navigation of Metaverse and is continuously working towards creating additional virtual worlds using its product Horizon Worlds.

Epic Games

This company is popular for its online shooter game series called Fortnite which has around 350 million users and provides Unreal Engine software for game developers across the world. Hence, Epic Games aims to create a communal space for users to interact without the newsfeed immensely occupied with ads.

Microsoft

The software giant, Microsoft has brought Metaverse to its popular product “Teams” in the form of “Mesh”. With this, it aims to provide better collaboration and holographic experience during virtual meetings. Mesh allows users to establish a virtual presence

Difference Between Internet And Metaverse

Despite the immense differences, oftentimes Metaverse is misunderstood as the substitute for the Internet. As we all know the internet is the network of billions of computers, servers, and other electronic devices that allow users to communicate, view, and interact with websites and all their offerings. On contrary, Metaverse is nowhere competing with the Internet, it simply transverses a virtual world that mimics aspects of the real world using technologies such as VR, AR, 3D-Reconstruction, etc., and gives people an experience. Thus, Metaverse is built on Internet, but certainly not a substitute for it.