Metaverse 是对互联网未来的愿景，其中许多不同的持久虚拟世界相互连接并共存。Metaverse 将当今的互联网变成了一个您可以使用虚拟现实和混合现实等(Mixed-Reality)沉浸(Virtual-)式技术以具体方式生活的地方。
元宇宙也是著名技术人士采用的一个有点模糊的想法。所以它的意义仍在不断变化，尽管在所有迭代中，总的想法是将互联网统一成一个共享的虚拟空间，我们至少可以在其中生活一部分生活。
“元界”一词从何而来？(Did)
像许多技术术语一样，“元宇宙”最早是由著名科幻作家尼尔斯蒂芬森(Neal Stephenson)在他的小说雪崩(Snow Crash)中创造的。Snow Crash的元宇宙在用户看来是一个城市环境。这是一条 100 米宽的道路，横跨一个毫无特色的虚拟星球的圆周。那是超过 40,000 英里的虚拟道路！
用户可以在元界购买房产，然后开发他们的虚拟建筑。除大小限制外，用户可以显示为任何形式的化身。人们在家中通过 VR 终端连接到元宇宙。一些用户从不离开虚拟世界并永久携带便携式 VR 设备。
对虚拟世界最引人注目的屏幕描述之一是史蒂文·斯皮尔伯格(Steven Spielberg)的电影《Ready Player One》。根据作者欧内斯特·克莱恩（Ernest Cline(Ernest Cline) ）的同名小说，角色几乎将所有时间都花在了OASIS（本体论以人类为中心的感官沉浸式模拟(Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation)）中。
OASIS是一个连接一切的丰富而复杂的虚拟世界。用户可以自由地从一个地方移动到另一个地方，就好像它是一个单一现实的一部分。OASIS以既是共享虚拟世界又是多人视频游戏而著称，具有总体得分和目标。
类似元界的虚拟世界是赛博朋克(Cyberpunk)类型小说的中流砥柱。在赛博朋克 2077(Cyberpunk 2077)视频游戏（基于桌面RPG特许经营）中，“网络行者”将在线世界体验为物理空间。
即使是1999 年由基努·里维斯(Keanu Reeves)饰演Neo的同名电影中的(Neo)黑客帝国(Matrix)，本质上也是一个元宇宙。不同之处在于模拟中的人不知道这是模拟。
归根结底，元宇宙的概念早于这个术语本身，而领导当今大型科技公司的人们已经将元宇宙的想法作为科幻小说的重要组成部分成长起来。
我们已经拥有的元宇宙
根据您认为元节概念的某些方面的重要性，多年来我们已经以各种形式体验了元节。早在 1975 年就以Colossal Cave Adventure开始的基于文本的多用户地下城(Multi-user Dungeons)( MUD(MUDs) )可以被认为是元宇宙的先驱。
(MUDs)至少，MUD是现代MMORPG(MMORPGs)（如《无尽(Everquest)的任务》或《魔兽世界》）(World of Warcraft)的明确先驱。这些是持久的在线世界，用户可以在其中过另一种生活。因此，尽管MMORPG(MMORPGs)是一个提供商的核心，但元宇宙的精神就在那里。
今天，我们的游戏和应用程序至少可以更接近部分虚拟世界的体验。
视频游戏
我们已经提到了像魔兽世界这样的在线游戏作为(World)类似(Warcraft)虚拟世界的体验的例子，但有些游戏对此更直接。超受欢迎的Fortnite Battle Royale游戏已经开始超越其根源。该游戏是 Epic Games尝试构建GaaS（游戏(Games)即服务(Service)）游戏的结果，并且取得了巨大的成功。
Fortnite不仅仅是一款在线游戏。它'。这是一种文化现象，也是人们闲逛的地方。Epic开始与Fortnite内的其他特许经营权和品牌合作，这在某种程度上让人联想到Reader Player One。
游戏开始举办大型活动，包括与大牌艺术家成功举办的几场虚拟音乐会。
现在 Fortnite 正式添加“派对世界(Party Worlds)”。这些“旨在供玩家闲逛、玩有趣的迷你游戏和结交新朋友的场所”。只有时间才能证明这是否会使 Fortnite(Fortnite)成为一个真正的元宇宙，但考虑到它多年来的发展情况，它可能有最好的机会。
这并不意味着其他流行游戏不会尝试参与其中。Roblox 可能具有更好的元宇宙体验，因为它专注于让用户创造他们的世界和体验。
虚拟现实社交平台
《第二人生》(Second Life)无疑是虚拟世界中最真实的例子。在 Second Life中，您可以购买财产和虚拟物品以放入您的虚拟家庭或企业中。人们作为他们的化身四处走动，玩耍、探索、调情，并且通常会做他们在现实中会做的大部分事情。
Second Life于 2003 年推出，虽然它现在不像以前那么受欢迎，但它一直保持着忠实的追随者。随着 VR 革命，曾有计划通过衍生产品将 Second Life带入 VR 时代，但这个想法被放弃了(abandoned)。当时，我们还没有价格实惠但功能强大的虚拟现实耳机，例如Quest 2，因此 VR 普及率很低。现在人们正在大量购买它们，更容易证明投入资源的合理性。
根据Second Life的一位创始人Philip Rosedale的说法， (Philip Rosedale)VR 耳机(VR headsets)的“iPhone 时刻”可能还有一段路要走。然而，随着对元宇宙的想法重新产生兴趣，Rosedale正在努力为即将到来的事情发展第二人生(evolve Second Life)。
与此同时，我们拥有VRChat等专注于 VR 的社交平台，通过将 VR 设为可选来绕过 VR 需求。您可以使用常规屏幕以“桌面模式”访问平台。这就像《雪崩》(Snow Crash)中使用低端终端的用户。他们仍然可以参与，但方式有限。
Facebook 的元宇宙愿景
当Facebook收购 VR 巨头Oculus时，该公司已经很清楚他们为什么要投资 VR。尽管社交媒体对公司来说已经取得了巨大的成功，但市场已经变得竞争激烈。Facebook也开始看到用户基数下降(decline)和青少年用户(teenage users)流失。
该公司决定将自己重新命名(rebrand itself)为“Meta”，这是对其元宇宙计划的另一个强烈暗示。马克扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)表示，该公司现在计划建立一个连接各种系统和产品的元宇宙，以建立一个有凝聚力的数字世界。Oculus Quest的成功意味着它可能拥有稳固的用户群来吸引这个元宇宙，尽管他们已经回溯了 Facebook(backtracked on the Facebook requirement)对 Quest 用户的要求。
虽然 Facebook 的元宇宙计划仍处于早期阶段，但现在有适用于 Oculus Rift S 或Quest 2用户的 Horizon Worlds 应用程序。(Horizon Worlds app)以前称为Facebook Horizons，这实际上是一个可能更明显的游戏焦点的元宇宙平台。Facebook曾尝试过Oculus Rooms、Oculus Venues和Facebook空间等应用。其中一些可以通过现已停产的Oculus Go访问。Horizons提供了一个围绕用户生成的内容构建的完整的动作捕捉互动世界。
Horizo n Worlds(Horizon Worlds)是社交和娱乐的场所，Horizon Workrooms还提供虚拟会议室并与视频通话技术集成。鉴于大流行推动的在家工作趋势，Workrooms 等应用程序显然将与Skype和Zoom等应用程序直接竞争。
微软的元宇宙愿景
微软(Microsoft)是元界游戏的另一个主要参与者，不能被排除在外。借助Microsoft Hololens耳机和Windows Mixed Reality等技术，他们已经在技术方面站稳了脚跟。更不用说他们庞大的Azure数据中心资源和知识了。微软(Microsoft)还拥有 PC 历史以及 Xbox 游戏机的游戏开发专业知识。然而，尽管索尼的最后两款PlayStation(PlayStations)具有 VR 选项，但 Xbox 却奇怪地没有 VR。
微软(Microsoft)已表示其大型视频游戏特许经营权的元界计划，如Minecraft 和 Halo(Minecraft and Halo)。该公司对于如何看待元界一直持非常开放的态度。2021 年末，他们发布了一段YouTube视频，标题为什么是微软的元界？(What is Microsoft’s Metaverse?)(What is Microsoft’s Metaverse?)
这段视频说明了一切，微软(Microsoft)只是说他们将元宇宙视为人们聚会、娱乐和工作的数字场所。它是“一个你可以与之互动的互联网。” 微软(” Microsoft)强调其目标是创建虚拟形象系统，让您将完全体现的人性带入虚拟世界。这方面的一些早期示例包括将Microsoft Teams参与者投影到虚拟礼堂中。
微软(Microsoft)还认为，实时翻译等技术对于帮助元界中的人们工作、社交和一起玩耍至关重要。由于我们彼此之间的物理距离在元宇宙中变得无关紧要，因此其他障碍（例如语言）现在将发挥作用是理所当然的。
混合现实(Reality)是元宇宙(Metaverse)的关键(Key)
我们仍在开发使虚拟世界可行的技术和软件。尽管 VR 技术经历了重大飞跃，但从 2016 年 Oculus Rift 的商业发布开始，VR 系统并不是将元宇宙融入我们生活的最佳方式。
混合现实是真正的元宇宙技术。在这里，您可以从完整的 VR 到增强现实，虚拟环境和物理世界无缝融合。这意味着我们需要小巧轻便的可穿戴硬件，可以每天佩戴数小时甚至永久佩戴。想想具有(Think)Google Glass物理尺寸但比Quest 2或 Hololens 2 更先进的东西。
大多数经典的元宇宙概念往往看起来像 VR。尽管如此，混合现实(Mixed Reality)提供了在物理世界和元节之间无缝切换或生活在两者之间的混合空间中所需的灵活性，这一点变得越来越清楚。未来的头显会更轻，因此可以整天佩戴，从长远来看，将您插入虚拟空间的技术很可能是可植入的。
元界网络基础设施
要使此处构想的元宇宙发挥作用，您需要通过本地和全球网络转移大量数据。这些网络必须可靠并且延迟非常低。毕竟，在虚拟世界中意味着与虚拟世界中的其他人实时互动。在Skype(Skype)通话中有一两秒的延迟已经够糟糕的了，但想象一下你身临其境的虚拟世界中的人与你有几秒钟的不同步！
我们还没有网络基础设施来实现全球性的、真正的元宇宙。毫米波 5G 网状技术可能是我们拥有的最接近的技术。尽管如此，这项技术只能在少数几个特定的地方使用，而且它还需要很多年才能普及。
5G 网状网络旨在为需要带宽的应用和需要低延迟反馈的应用提供服务。例如，想象一队无人机飞越城市。使用 5G 网格，所有这些无人机都可以实时远程控制。5G 网络的这一方面也使其非常适合物联网，其中数百万台设备连接到互联网并共享其数据。
在具体化的元节中，网络不仅需要传输音频和视频数据，还需要传输运动、空间映射等。
Web3 和元界
另一个新的流行语以“Web3”的形式放大了围绕元宇宙的炒作。这不是您可能听说过的Web 3.0，而是描述了一种由去中心化系统构建的新互联网架构。互联网不是拥有巨大的集中式数据中心，而是分布在整个网络的节点上。您可以结合每个人计算机的处理能力和存储来完成提供在线服务所需的所有工作。
NFT(NFTs)（不可替代代币(Tokens)）、加密货币、区块链、智能合约和dApp(blockchain)（去中心化应用程序）都是Web3技术的例子。虽然像马克扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)这样的人将元宇宙视为所有科技巨头集中在线资源的统一，但事实证明，真正的元宇宙将作为Web3分布式模拟存在。至少，加密货币可以成为虚拟世界中虚拟世界的工作货币。
元宇宙可能(Metaverse Could)是乌托邦(Utopia)或反乌托邦(Dystopia)
对于一个真正的元宇宙对个人和社会意味着什么，有很多担忧。这可能并不出人意料，因为社交媒体或机器人自动化等其他技术也会引发担忧。当然，对新技术保持警惕是一件好事，而且已经提出的许多问题都有真正的价值。
例如，如果人们开始更喜欢与虚拟世界中的人工智能或虚拟代理的关系怎么办？是否存在新型网络欺凌或诈骗的范围？人们会变得比当前技术让我们更久坐不动吗？
在围栏的乌托邦方面，元宇宙可能是一个思维扩展的地方，人类可以生活在比现实世界更友好的现实形式中，身体安全地在物理世界中。就像(Just)当前的 VR 一样，许多虚拟世界的实现将涉及物理移动你的身体。所以也许久坐的问题可以得到改善。
至于社会变迁，总是很难预测科技会产生什么影响。无论好坏，我们的社会已经适应了无处不在的社交媒体和智能设备世界。从长远来看，实验性Neuralink等大脑植入技术也可能会增加某些类型的心理甚至身体风险，但只有时间会证明一切。
深入研究元宇宙
无论(Whichever)元节的哪个愿景最终最接近我们实际得到的元节，随着关键技术开始成熟，你可以期待听到越来越多的关于这个想法的想法。当像苹果(Apple)这样的公司终于推出了他们传闻中的 AR 头戴设备，而未来版本的Oculus Quest变得如此便宜以至于任何人都买得起，就会有许多元宇宙竞争对手争夺你的注意力。
如果您想深入了解元界的技术、社交和业务方面，我们建议您阅读Matthew Ball的九部分元界入门(Metaverse Primer )。这是一个很好的资源，可以帮助您掌握元节的关键概念和庞大的范围，而无需高级学位。
What Is the Metaverse and Why Should You Care?
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The metaverse is also a somewhat vague idea adopted by prominent technology personalities. So its meaning is still in flux, although in all iterations, the general idea is to unify the internet into a shared virtual space where we can live at least part of our lives.
Where Did the Term “Metaverse” Come From?
Like many technology terms, “metaverse” was first coined by famous science fiction author Neal Stephenson in his novel Snow Crash. The metaverse of Snow Crash appears to users as a city environment. It’s a 100-meter-wide road that spans the circumference of a featureless virtual planet. That’s more than 40,000 miles of virtual road!
Users can buy property in the metaverse and then develop their virtual buildings. Users can appear as avatars of any form, apart from size limitations. People connect to the metaverse from VR terminals in their homes. Some users never leave the metaverse and permanently carry portable VR gear around.
One of the most striking on-screen depictions of a metaverse is the Steven Spielberg film Ready Player One. Based on the novel of the same name by author Ernest Cline, the characters spend almost all their time in OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation).
OASIS is a rich and complex virtual world that connects everything. Users move freely from one place to another as if it’s all part of a single reality. OASIS is notable for being both a shared virtual world and a multiplayer video game, with overarching scores and goals.
Metaverse-like virtual worlds are a mainstay of fiction in the Cyberpunk genre. In the Cyberpunk 2077 video game (based on a tabletop RPG franchise), “netrunners” experience the online world as a physical space.
Even the Matrix from the eponymous 1999 film starring Keanu Reeves as Neo is essentially a metaverse. The difference is the people in the simulation don’t know it’s a simulation.
Ultimately, the concept of a metaverse predates the term itself, and the people who lead today’s big tech companies have grown up with the metaverse idea as a prominent part of science fiction.
The Metaverse We Already Have
Depending on how important you think certain aspects of the metaverse concepts are, we’ve already experienced the metaverse in various forms over the years. The text-based Multi-user Dungeons (MUDs) that started life with Colossal Cave Adventure back in 1975 could be considered a metaverse precursor.
MUDs, at least, are a definite precursor to modern MMORPGs such as Everquest or World of Warcraft. These are persistent online worlds that users can live another life in. So the spirit of a metaverse is there, despite MMORPGs being central to one provider.
Today, we have games and apps that give a closer taste to at least part of the metaverse experience.
Video Games
We’ve already mentioned online games like World of Warcraft as examples of a metaverse-like experience, but some games are being more direct about it. The hyper-popular Fortnite Battle Royale game has already begun to outgrow its roots. The game is the result of Epic Games’ attempt to build a GaaS (Games as a Service) title, and it’s been a massive success.
Fortnite is more than an online game. It’. It’s a cultural phenomenon and a place where people simply hang out. Epic started to tie in with other franchises and brands within Fortnite, in a way very reminiscent of Reader Player One.
The game started to host major events, including a few successful virtual concerts with big-name artists.
Now Fortnite is formally adding “Party Worlds.” These are “designed as places for players to hang out, play fun mini-games, and make new friends.” Only time will tell if this runs Fortnite into a true metaverse, but given how it’s been developing over the years, it might have the best chance.
That doesn’t mean other popular games aren’t trying to get into the action. Roblox might have a better pedigree as a metaverse experience since it focuses on letting users create their worlds and experiences.
VR Social Platforms
Second Life is undoubtedly the most on-the-nose real-life example of a metaverse. In Second Life, you can buy property and virtual items to put inside your virtual home or business. People walk around as their avatars and play, explore, flirt, and generally do most of the same things they’d do in reality.
Second Life was launched back in 2003, and although it’s not nearly as popular today as it once was, it’s maintained a committed following. With the VR revolution, there were plans to bring Second Life into the VR era with a spinoff, but that idea was abandoned. At the time, we didn’t yet have affordable yet powerful virtual reality headsets such as the Quest 2, so VR penetration was low. Now that people are buying them in more significant numbers, it’s easier to justify pouring in resources.
According to one of the founders of Second Life, Philip Rosedale, the “iPhone moment” for VR headsets may be some way off. However, with a renewed interest in the idea of a metaverse, Rosedale is working to evolve Second Life for what’s to come.
In the meantime, we have VR-focused social platforms such as VRChat, which gets around the VR requirement by making VR optional. You can access the platform in “desktop mode” using a regular screen. This is like a user from Snow Crash who used lower-end terminals. They could still participate but in a limited fashion.
Facebook’s Vision of the Metaverse
When Facebook bought VR giant Oculus, the company already had a clear idea of why they wanted to invest in VR. Although social media has been a significant success for the company, the market has become competitive. Facebook has also started seeing a user base decline and a loss of teenage users.
The company decided to rebrand itself as “Meta,” another strong hint at its metaverse plans. Mark Zuckerberg has stated the company now plans to build a metaverse connecting various systems and products for a cohesive digital world. The success of the Oculus Quest means that it may have a solid user base to entice into this metaverse, although they have backtracked on the Facebook requirement for Quest users.
While Facebook’s metaverse plans are still in the early stages, there’s now the Horizon Worlds app for Oculus Rift S or Quest 2 users. Formerly known as Facebook Horizons, this is effectively a metaverse platform with perhaps a more pronounced game focus. Facebook had experimented with apps like Oculus Rooms, Oculus Venues, and Facebook spaces. Some of which could be accessed through the now-discontinued Oculus Go. Horizons offers a full motion-captured, interactive world built around user-generated content.
While Horizon Worlds is a place to socialize and play, Horizon Workrooms also offers virtual meeting rooms and integration with video call technology. Given the work-from-home trend driven by the pandemic, it seems clear that apps like Workrooms are set to compete directly with the likes of Skype and Zoom.
Microsoft’s Vision of the Metaverse
Microsoft is another major player in the metaverse game, not to be left out of the loop. With technology such as the Microsoft Hololens headsets and Windows Mixed Reality, they already have a foothold on the technology side. Not to mention their massive Azure data center resources and knowledge. Microsoft also has expertise in game development from its PC history and, of course, its Xbox consoles. However, VR is oddly absent from Xbox, despite Sony’s last two PlayStations having VR options.
Microsoft has said metaverse plans for its big video game franchises such as Minecraft and Halo. The company has been remarkably open about how it sees the metaverse. Late in 2021, they published a YouTube video titled What is Microsoft’s Metaverse?
This video lays it all out, with Microsoft simply saying that they see a metaverse as a digital place where people go to meet, play, and work. It’s “an internet you can interact with.” Microsoft emphasizes that its goal is to create avatar systems that let you bring your fully embodied humanity into the metaverse. Some early examples of this include projecting Microsoft Teams participants into a virtual auditorium.
Microsoft also feels that technologies such as real-time translation are essential to help people in the metaverse work, socialize, and play together. Since our physical distance from each other becomes irrelevant in the metaverse, it stands to reason that other barriers, such as language, will now come into play.
Mixed Reality Is the Key to the Metaverse
We are still beginning the technology and software that will make the metaverse feasible. Although VR technology has experienced a significant leap, starting in 2016 with the Oculus Rift’s commercial release, VR systems are not the best way to integrate the metaverse into our lives.
Mixed reality is the true metaverse technology. Here you can move along a spectrum from full VR to augmented reality, where the virtual environment and the physical world are blended seamlessly. This means we need wearable hardware that’s small and light enough to wear for hours a day or even permanently. Think of something with the physical size of Google Glass, but more advanced than a Quest 2 or Hololens 2.
Most classic metaverse concepts tend to look like VR. Still, it’s becoming clear that Mixed Reality offers the sort of flexibility you need to seamlessly step between the physical world and the metaverse or live in a hybrid space between the two. Future headsets will be much lighter so that they can be worn all day, and in the long term, the technology that plugs you into virtual spaces could very well be implantable.
Metaverse Network Infrastructure
For a metaverse as conceived here to work, you need to shift a huge amount of data over local and global networks. These networks have to be reliable and have very low latency. After all, being in the metaverse means interacting with other people in a virtual world in real-time. Having a second or two of latency in a Skype call is bad enough, but imagine the people in your immersive virtual world were a few seconds out of sync with you!
We don’t yet have the network infrastructure to make a global, true metaverse possible. Millimeter-wave 5G mesh technology is likely the closest thing we have. Still, that technology is only available in a few select places, and it will be many years before it’s commonplace.
5G mesh networks are designed to serve both bandwidth-hungry applications and ones that need low-latency feedback. For example, imagine a fleet of delivery drones flying through a city. Using a 5G mesh, all of these drones can be remotely controlled in real-time. This aspect of 5G networks also makes it perfect for the internet of things, where millions of devices are connected to the internet and share their data.
In embodied metaverses, networks will not just have to carry audio and video data, but motion, spatial mapping, and more.
Web3 and the Metaverse
Yet another new buzzword has amplified the hype around the metaverse in the form of “Web3”. This isn’t the Web 3.0 you might have heard of but instead describes a new internet architecture built from decentralized systems. Instead of having huge centralized data centers, the internet is distributed across nodes all over the net. You can combine the processing power and storage of everyone’s computers to do all the work needed to provide online services.
NFTs (Non-fungible Tokens), cryptocurrency, blockchain, smart contracts, and dApps (decentralized apps) are all examples of Web3 technology. While people like Mark Zuckerberg see the metaverse as a unification of all the tech giants’ centralized online resources, it might turn out that the real metaverse will exist as Web3 distributed simulations. At the very least, crypto could become the working currency of the virtual world in the metaverse.
The Metaverse Could be a Utopia or Dystopia
There are many concerns about what a true metaverse could mean for individuals and society. That’s perhaps not unexpected since other technologies such as social media or robotic automation also trigger concerns. It’s a good thing to be wary of new technologies, of course, and there’s real merit to many of the issues that have been raised.
For example, what if people start to prefer relationships with AI or virtual agents in the metaverse? Is there scope for new types of cyberbullying or scams? Will people become even more sedentary than current technology has made us?
On the utopian side of the fence, the metaverse could be a mind-expanding place where humans can live in a form of reality that’s friendlier than the real world, with the physical body safely in the physical world. Just like with current VR, many metaverse implementations will involve physically moving your body. So perhaps the issue of being sedentary could be improved.
As for the social changes, it’s always hard to predict what effect technology will have. For better or worse, our societies have already adapted to the world of social media and smart devices everywhere. Over the long-term, brain implant technology such as the experimental Neuralink may also increase certain types of psychological and even physical risk, but only time will tell.
Delving Deeper Into the Metaverse
Whichever vision of the metaverse ends up being closest to the metaverse we actually get, you can expect to hear more and more about the idea as key technologies begin to mature. When a company like Apple finally launches their rumored AR headset, and a future version of the Oculus Quest becomes so cheap that anyone can afford to have one, there will be many metaverse competitors vying for your attention.
If you want to dig deeply into the metaverse’s technical, social, and business aspects, we recommend reading the nine-part Metaverse Primer by Matthew Ball. It’s a great resource that will help you grasp the key concepts and massive scope of the metaverse, without needing an advanced degree to do so.
