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The Internet GUI Sci-Fi Virtualization Games

Are We on the Cusp of a Metaverse, the Next Version of the Internet? (washingtonpost.com) 69

Posted by EditorDavid from the ready-player-one dept.
The Washington Post describes it as "the next internet." Wikipedia defines it as "a collective virtual shared space...including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the Internet." But it was Neal Stephenson who named it "the metaverse" in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash.

Are we closer to seeing it happen? The Washington Post reports: In the past month, office culture has coalesced around video chat platforms like Zoom, while personal cultural milestones like weddings and graduations are being conducted in Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The Metaverse not only seems realistic — it would probably be pretty useful right about now. The Metaverse reality is still years, possibly decades, away. But Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has been publicly pushing for its creation, and he isn't alone in his desire to push for the Metaverse, where the online world echoes and fulfills real-world needs and activities. Constructing the virtual Internet space is Silicon Valley's macro goal, many of whom are obsessed with Neal Stephenson's 1992 book, "Snow Crash," which defined the term.

In recent years, Facebook, Google and Samsung have all made heavy investments in cloud computing and virtual reality companies in anticipation of a Metaverse... But it's Epic Games, with Fortnite, that has the most viable path forward in terms of creating the Metaverse, according to an essay by venture capitalist and former Amazon executive Matthew Ball... [The article also notes other "traits" of the metaverse in Minecraft and Roblox.] The most widely agreed core attributes of a Metaverse include always being live and persistent — with both planned and spontaneous events always occurring — while at the same time providing an experience that spans and operates across platforms and the real world. A Metaverse must also have no real cap on audience, and have its own fully functioning economy... Fortnite hasn't reached Metaverse status yet. But Fortnite as a social network and impossible-to-ignore cultural phenomenon, Ball says, provides Epic Games a key advantage for leading in the Metaverse race. Fortnite draws a massive, willing and excited audience online to engage with chaotically clashing intellectual properties... "This organic evolution can't be overemphasized," Ball writes in his essay. "If you 'declared' your intent to start a Metaverse, these parties would never embrace interoperability or entrust their IP. But Fortnite has become so popular and so unique that most counterparties have no choice but to participate... Fortnite is too valuable a platform...."

The current swarm to an online-only social and capitalist economy has only highlighted the current Internet's failings, and what the Metaverse needs to do, Ball said. Big sites like Facebook, Google and Amazon continue to dominate online activity, as do larger streaming services like YouTube and Netflix. But each location requires its own membership and has separate ecosystems. "Right now, the digital world basically operates as though every restaurant and bar you go to requires a different ID card, has a different currency, requires their own dress codes and has their own units [of service and measurement]," Ball said. "It is clear that this really advantages the biggest services. People are just sticking to the big games, really. However there's a clear argument that reducing network lock-in can really raise all boats here."

Sweeney said as much in his DICE Summit keynote speech February. If the game industry wants to reshape the Internet and move away from Silicon Valley's walled gardens, Sweeney stressed that publishers need to rethink economies in the same way email was standardized... "We need to give up our attempts to each create our own private walled gardens and private monopoly and agree to work together and recognize we're all far better off if we connect our systems and grow our social graphs together.
Neal Stephenson answered questions from Slashdot readers back in 2004.
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Are We on the Cusp of a Metaverse, the Next Version of the Internet? More

Are We on the Cusp of a Metaverse, the Next Version of the Internet?

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  • and that's why it's never gonna happen (Score:3, Interesting)

    by yassa2020 ( 6703044 ) on Sunday April 19, 2020 @06:41AM (#59964822)

    In recent years, Facebook, Google and Samsung have all made heavy investments in cloud computing and virtual reality companies in anticipation of a Metaverse

    All the companies with all the capital can only see owning everything. Straight up greed. That's why technology has been stagnant the last 30 years outside of universities and militaries, whose goals are functionality-driven rather than own-everything driven.

    • Betteridges law... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thesupraman ( 179040 ) on Sunday April 19, 2020 @06:49AM (#59964838)

      As usual, stupid headline posing as a question has the obvious answer No.

      But hey, just to be polite to whomever bothered to write this shlock.
      Ignoring small things like bandwidth requirements, lack of deep immersive interface, etc, etc, etc...
      There is little revolutionary about now, except perhaps how unprepared many people are for actual technology (zoom is a classic example of a terrible solution, with garbage reliability, security, etc).
      But more to the point, look around you -the VAST majority of people are STILL not doing this.. More are, but no majority.

      And no, Zoom, Social media have NO likeness to 'the metaverse'..

      • (zoom is a classic example of a terrible solution, with garbage reliability, security, etc

        Eh what? The security might be poor but in terms of reliability I've found it very good. It's also very light on the battery on phones, I get much more battery life than any of the competitors. So far I've tried sykpe, whatsapp, google meet and zoom because everyone needs you to use a different platform.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dpille ( 547949 )
        I think you're giving far too much weight to technology, even if you're trying to ignore most of it.

        I "attended" a MUD wedding in 1994. It wasn't the advance of technology past text-based role playing that put an end to those, nor was it the lack of a growing number of users being introduced to it- it was the fact that it was fucking stupid and it took everyone a little while to realize it. I expect Silicon Valley's idea of "the meta verse" to be no different.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by fred911 ( 83970 )

      " That's why technology has been stagnant the last 30 years "

      Yea. I can't wait until they make a better bag phone, the price of RAM drops so I can afford more than the 8 megs populating my 386 and I buy one of those new 56k6 modems (I hear you can download 5kps with one!).

      • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

        by yassa2020 ( 6703044 )
        iteration is not innovation
        • That just means you don't understand the innovations that had to happen. Some of the things they've done with radio waves to get high speeds are pretty amazing.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by lgw ( 121541 )

          All innovation is iteration. Nothing is wholly new. We tend to remember when an idea gets popularized as innovative, but those ideas were never new, just the first business success. The first iteration that worked.

      • Yea. I can't wait until they make a better bag phone, the price of RAM drops so I can afford more than the 8 megs populating my 386 and I buy one of those new 56k6 modems (I hear you can download 5kps with one!).

        Posh bastard. In 1990 you had a DS0 leased line, the rest of us were struggling with top end phone line tech of 9600 bps, if we had a modem al all. And in 1990, 1M was considered OK, 2M generous and 8 bitters with 128k were still to be in production for another 3 years. :)

        Honestly though I didn't ev

    • "That's why technology has been stagnant the last 30 years outside of universities and militaries." Don't you think it's about time you came out from the rock you've been living under?

    • At some point of capital accumulation, technology companies become focused on strategies which maximize capital accumulation and retention.

      Sometimes this overlaps with value-based improvements in technology, but too often progress in technology gets corrupted by the organization's financial goals.

      I always wonder what Microsoft would have been if their efforts had been focused on technology improvement as end unto itself rather than having it as a means of maximizing market share and defending cash cow produ

      • I can answer that Microsoft question.. go look up what became of DEC and their team h like the Alpha CPU.

        Short answer: bought up by company focusing on sales which was bought by bigger company even more sales focused.

        • I think the DEC situation is really the HP situation, and HP is a great example of a company that used to be technology focused and instead became marketing focused. The details are probably more complicated, as HP bought DEC in its drive to expand and dominate low(er) margin PC sales.

          Growing PC sales fits into the narrative of focusing on capital/marketshare expansion vs. technology improvement, but I'm not sure the decline of the Alpha CPU can be entirely blamed on this. As great as the Alpha was at the

  • Again? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Parker Lewis ( 999165 ) on Sunday April 19, 2020 @06:49AM (#59964836)
    SecondLife, Playstation Home... yeah, sure, because Animal Crossing is popular, we'll be all in SecondLife again.

    • The funny thing is, the whole COVID-19 thing has increased concurrency in Second Life recently. Sunday used to be the day with the highest concurrency but now there's Sunday level numbers in midweek and the weekends are even more populated.

      And Animal Crossing seems to also be popular amongst Second Life users.

    • That was exactly my reaction as soon as I read the headline and the summary. Are they just now discovering Second Life like it's new tech? I've been in SL over ten years and most of my friends consider me a newbie.

      There was a time back in SL's early pioneering days when universities and businesses experimented with that environment as a platform for virtual meetings. I guess they finally had enough of trolls crashing the meetings with swarms of flying penises before they moved elsewhere in search of the Ne

  • No. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The "metaverse" (vaguely defined as the term is) already exists in Second Life. Just see how that took over the world. I think people put far too much stock in Stephenson; he does show his work but ultimately he's just not that clued up on how IT works.

  • There is the psychosocial rebound effect somewhere the otherside of lockdown which probably says that real life suddenly has a lot to offer given that someone just took it away for a long time. Also no one over the age of 30 is going to be seen anywhere socially until there is a vaccine. Just imagine that, all businesses involving social gatherings will have to cater almost exclusively to the young or go bust.

    • Risk of death is very low until you hit 50 or so ... I'm in my late 30s and am going to go out and socialize when I legally can.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      Also no one over the age of 30 is going to be seen anywhere socially until there is a vaccine.

      The Flu Manchu isn't a meaningful threat if you're under 60, and even in the 60-70 range isn't that worrying. Also, the moment the news finds something else to talk about, no one will remember or care.

      Just imagine that, all businesses involving social gatherings will have to cater almost exclusively to the young or go bust.

      Ah, so nothing changes then, fair enough.

  • Buzzwords (Score:5, Funny)

    by bluegutang ( 2814641 ) on Sunday April 19, 2020 @07:07AM (#59964866)

    Seems more likely, from this article, that we're on the cusp of a new era of pervasive meaningless buzzwords...

  • Given the way in which a lot of these "social media" companies have been impinging on free speech and shaming wrong-think, combined with the difficulty of competing against the momentum of their large user base, I'm not sure this is going to be a version of the future that I want to be part of.

    • Let's think about that for a second. Let's try to imagine how a multi-world virtual reality could work. Let's take Fortnite, Destiny 2, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV for example.

      Even if we assume each company would genuinely work toward cross-world compatibility, how would that even work? Each world has its own maps, it's own characters, classes, abilities, equipment, mounts, enemies, etc. How could a team made of someone from Fortnite, a shaman from WoW, a red mage from FF XIV and a titan from Desti

  • Headline needs fixing (Score:3)

    by jmccue ( 834797 ) on Sunday April 19, 2020 @07:21AM (#59964902) Homepage
    Fixed that for them:

    Silicon Valley is racing to build the next version of Walled Gardens. Fortnite might get there first

  • ...without ubiquitous, cheap, high-capacity and un-metered bandwidth.

    Also, something that Stephenson completely glosses over is how actual interaction takes place with his MetaVerse - he mentions lasers projecting onto goggles/visors, but movement? Manipulation? Facial expression replication? We don't have good/cheap answers to those...

    • So he was *clearly* never invited to a party. And is a kissless touchless virgin.

      Nobody else would advocate that remote interaction could ever be a substitute.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by cirby ( 2599 )

      Facial expressions in the metaverse were a major character point for Hiro's ex-girlfriend - you might want to go back and read it again.

      There are already some facial expression reader/translators for VR, and they're apparently not very hard to implement.

      Manipulation is catching up with either touchless (Steam controllers and Leap Motion) or force-feedback (various other experimental) controllers.

      Basically, we're in the "bugfix and maker it cheaper" mode for those technologies right now.

  • Also known as "series of tubes" to you.

    Go back to printing our electronic letters and newspapers from the "Internet" (you mean the computer and the browser window displaying the *web*) .
    Or the iEquivalent of that.

    • I would pay additional money to be on Internet2 that came without all the 'shit' that the Internet1 has become. .onion sites are great because they are static, encourage turning off JS (so they're actually usable) and designed to load over a slower connection so they don't have bloat.

      Internet1 will still exist for shopping and what ever else I use it for now, but I would move to Internet2 just for the discussion that I could have back on Internet1 before the floodgates opened. (Usenet users may be familiar

  • "--I know that you have a straight razor in your other pocket. Looks like a nice one, too." "--Never underestimate the importance of good grooming," Uncle Enzo says.

    Some things don't change.

  • Sure (Score:2)

    by DMJC ( 682799 )
    I see these same circle jerking techno-rapture type posts every couple of years. The reality is that all of this stuff is hard. 3D is hard, making 3D space usable is hard, 3d content creation is hard. None of these problems have been solved in a way where Joe Sixpack is ready to jump in and go. The same is true for VR. Sure if you have 2020 vision, and don't turn your head in the wrong way at the wrong time your experience may be ok (but you'll probably get nausea after 20-40 mins anyway). We can't even get
  • Here's one example of what this metaverse will lead to. See if you like it. It was a shock to see. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] - we are already disconnected via social media. Do we really need to be further disconnected?

  • The short answer is no.

    The longer answer is not until we can all run servers. That means routable IPs, which means IPv6, and also ISPs which permit it.

    There's nothing else prohibiting it technologically. With mods you can have portals between Minecraft servers, for example.

    A better question is, do we actually want that? Is it actually useful? I think the answer to that is also no.

    • Funny, I've been running servers on dynamically assigned IPv4 addresses at home for DECADES, just updating DNS for my domain as address changes... what's your problem?

      • Yeah, I've done it too. So? It needs to first be convenient for noobs, and second permitted by ISPs.

        • ISPs don't stop it, they don't care. I was a n00b back then and had to educate myself a little. A ten year old can do it (and some have!)

  • ‘The Washington Post describes it as "the next internet." Wikipedia defines it as "a collective virtual shared space...including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the Internet."’

    A question for EditorDavid is why my Zoom video chats have to pass through servers in Washington, DC. When the recipient is just across town.

  • Hopefully we are on the cusp of a crossover, of augmented solutions that could include a virtual world as part of the makeup of the whole experience.

    There is clearly not going to be any way of replicating some of the experiences of a real world in virtual form any time soon.
    Just think of the tiniest little details, such as body language - a slightly raised eyebrow, an almost imperceptible nod of the head - through to even subtler communication - pheromones for example.

    Even the most amazingly crafted metaver

  • Or it gets hacked
  • I don't take anything the WaPo says seriously
  • INRE: Did they actually read Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash,". It's not exactly a ringing endorsement - random assassinations by flying nanobots. The same person probably thought 1984 was good model for the future.

  • The 'metaverse,' or a number of sci-fi concepts which are very similar, are all envisioned as a natural progression of the internet in some manner. Understandably so. If VR technology really got that good there would be some understandable advantages to working in such an environment: No distractions, more effective screen space, no shoulder-surfers, much more information presented at once.

    All of these companies are working on platforms. Platforms which they control. The reasons for this are both business a

  • You're on the cusp of trying to hype another buzzword with no real meaning or benefit. Marketers might latch onto metaverse, like "Metaverse is Web 3.0!" or some shit

    *yawn*

    Let's talk about shit that actually exists, and that will realistically exist given constraints on bandwidth, processing power, software, cost etc.

  • If such a thing exists it won't be free and open or even close, it'll be the walled garden everyone has warned about for years and years now, you'll be censored up the ying-yang, content will be 'curated', and every single aspect of it will be tightly controlled. It'll basically be Facebook VR. For that reason you should just forget about it and ignore it if they try to create and promote such a thing.

  • "We need to give up our attempts to each create our own private walled gardens and private monopoly and agree to work together and recognize we're all far better off if we connect our systems and grow our social graphs together."

    Sweeney? Isn't that the guy bribing developers into giving him exclusivity for his own walled garden, I mean, gaming platform?

    Yeah, yeah... business is tough... fight fire with fire and all that.

  • The flying dildos.

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