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Mark Zuckerberg, owner of the platform, wants the future of Facebook be that of a “metaverse company”, greatly expanding the concept of social network currently applied to the product – in a time period of five to ten years. The project aims to create an augmented reality world for general interactions, whether in terms of office, leisure or events, but US government regulations at big techs can meet this expansion.
What is the metaverse?
Well, first of all, let's understand the concept of metaverse. The term comes from Neal Stephenson's speculative fiction. Snow crash (which goes by Nevasca or by its original name, in Brazil), from 1992, where it defines a world based on a convergence of virtual, augmented and physical realities that succeeds the internet as a whole. The concept was explored in various media, such as the book and film. Number One Player, but mainly games, like Fortnite, Roblox e Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which bring elements of the metaverse. Events such as tournaments or virtual shows involving the interaction of players from all over the world are part of this.
Matthew ball, when writing on the subject, emphasized that the metaverse must also involve a lot of interoperability – that is, it will have to work from several different devices, but with the same technology, which will require many companies to work together. We have to be able to access the same metaverse from different virtual reality devices, so this integration is absolutely necessary, since it is impossible for just one company to create all the virtual or augmented experiences in the world.
Ideas, investments and the future of Facebook
So that the company could work with virtual reality and augmented reality, Zuckerberg spent US $ 2 billion in the acquisition of Oculus, which develops VR products, and, in 2019, launched the FacebookHorizon – an immersive virtual space, accessible by invitation only, where users can interact through cartoon avatars, all via Headsets from Oculus. The CEO, however, acknowledges that current VR and AR devices are big and cumbersome, and says the metaverse of Facebook it will have to work on multiple platforms, as well as PCs, video game consoles and cell phones. He spoke about it in an interview with the The Verge:
“Most of the time we spend, we're basically mediating our lives and our communication through these bright little rectangles. I don't think that's how people were made to interact. In most meetings we currently have, we are looking at a grid of faces on a screen. That’s not how we process things either.”
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, for The Verge
To make a different experience, the idea is that you can enter this metaverse and interact with people through 3D models located in space, making conversations more natural and interactions more… interactive. Second Zuckerberg, this will make it possible to do things that a 2D screen doesn't allow, like dancing or exercising, as well as participating in virtual shows and concerts.
There is also the idea of the “infinite office”. In this context, the user would be able to build their ideal workplace in VR and/or AR, making remote work more comfortable and interactive. Meetings, interviews or leisure with friends could be done on virtual tables, sofas or rooms through representative holograms of the participants, regardless of the distance they are. Zuckerberg believes that this shortening of distances is very powerful and opens up many different opportunities.
problems and controversies
It's not all rosy, of course – all these innovations come with issues that experts perceive, including regulatory and user privacy issues. Verity McIntosh, a virtual reality expert at University of the West of England (University of West English) commented to with the BBC that “part of the reason for the Facebook being so interested in VR/AR is that the granularity of data available when users interact on these platforms is an order of magnitude higher than that of screen-based media.” This data includes subtle movements, reactions to stimuli and much more, which are very revealing about the client's subconscious and constitute a gold mine of data.
McIntosh also comments that no business changes its ways of dealing with data or gives users freedom to choose how their data is used to prioritize privacy – and this ends up clashing with government policies, such as those of the United States, in addition to entering the field of ethical controversies. In the US case, there is currently an effort to stop the super expansion of big techs – Congress is working on a package of laws that could take the WhatsApp and the Instagram from the hands of Zuckerberg, as well as preventing you from making new purchases or even offering hardware-connected services. All this to prevent a monopoly that is too big.
How this will halt the development of the intended metaverse, we don't know – if the laws will pass. As long as the hardware doesn't advance enough and the software can't keep up with it, however, the metaverse remains in the realm of ideas – or should we say, virtual?
To keep knowing everything about virtual and augmented realities and technology in general, continue here, on showmetech.
Sources: with the BBC | The Verge | Matthew ball | Business Insider
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