What is the Metaverse?
The word “metaverse,” originally coined by science fiction author Neal Stephenson in the 1992 novel Snow Crash, refers to a vision of an immersing and lifelike virtual world so complex, useful, and convincing that it becomes difficult to consider it strictly subordinate to “the real world.” People might legitimately spend the majority of their time in such a world, just as many office workers spend the majority of their time on computers today. The metaverse is similar to the idea of virtual reality, but goes beyond it in grandiosity and the specificity of its connotations. The term is coined from a combination of the word meta, meaning overarching, and the suffix –verse, meaning place or world, as in “universe”. The metaverse is a technologically sophisticated idea. As of 2008, we lack the necessary infrastructure, processing power, interface devices, and software to create a truly immersive virtual reality world worthy of the name metaverse. Some futurists speculate a full-scale meta
By Clive Jackson For those new to the term, the “Metaverse” is a concept developed by Neal Stephenson and described in his 1992 book “Snow Crash” . Stephenson has shown remarkable vision, considering that at the time of the novel’s publication, the World Wide Web was only available to limited government and educational establishments. Stephenson describes a virtual world; a Metaverse where people log into from computers using special goggles for visualization. In this virtual world, people are represented by avatars – 3D renditions of themselves. The center area is the Street, a main road which loops around the equator of the Metaverse. The Street is lined with buildings and bright neon signs. There are side roads veering off the Street and builders with planning permission create virtual buildings everywhere. Everything is there from night clubs to shops and residential buildings. Anyone who is anyone has an address in the Metaverse. In recent years, many people and companies have spe
