What is the metaverse?

Metaverse is an emerging phenomenon that, despite the term being more than a few decades old, has recently acquired an operational concept and has entertained many technology enthusiasts these days. This technology, similar to many other technological concepts, was initially a dream in the minds of several writers and filmmakers, which has recently been implemented.

Metaverse is a virtual world where users can create their favorite character using special glasses called virtual reality glasses and live there through an avatar (a virtual image and character that you create of yourself), just like in real life.

Companies that work in the field of new technology innovation use Metaverse technology to provide a new and advanced experience to strengthen and develop the 3D world. The word “metaverse” describes a digital world that resembles a fully realized real world and is beyond the world in which we live.

Currently, Metaverse is considered as a virtual world where all aspects of digital technologies include video conferencing, internet video games such as Minecraft or Roblox, digital currency transactions, sending and receiving emails, virtual reality, and social media.

The activities of experts on how to coordinate these virtual parts are progressing. But some of the elders of the technology world consider Metaverse to be the future of communication and human interaction.

History of the Metaverse world

Although we are still far from practical examples of metaverse technology, the concept has been around for decades in fiction, computer games, and digital technologies. In fact, the word metaverse and its creation go back to the 90s when Neal Stephenson published a book called Snow Crash.

In this book, this author for the first time predicted concepts such as Metaverse and Avatar in the form of stories. Concepts that made their way to the digital world years later with the same name. This story does not end here. Much later, the author of Ready Player One, Ernest Cline, tells the story of human life in 2044.

In this narrated book, people can continue their hard life in the real world by living in the virtual and digital world. Looking at all these developments and finally changing the name of Facebook to Meta all shows that there have been many plans for the Metaverse category since the past.

The concept of metaverse

Metaverse is composed of two words (Meta) which means universal and (Vers) which means superior. As a result, the term metaverse means “superior world” or “superior to the world”; A world that overcomes the limitations of the physical world and may be a version of the utopia loved by humans.

What is virtual reality “VR” in Metaverse?

Metaverse is often referred to as a form of virtual reality (VR) in which users can interact with each other in a computer-generated environment two-way. In the virtual world of metaverse, users are allowed to work, play and have experiences beyond imagination.

3D rendering is the main ingredient in virtual reality production, which is why video games currently offer the most similar metaverse experience. Of course, video games are not the only case of 3D, but now they provide services and features that are related to other aspects of our lives.

By placing a virtual reality (VR) headset on the head, the virtual environment is placed in front of the user’s eyes and interacts with the virtual environment based on head and body movements. This headset, along with other gadgets, can simulate the five senses so that the user has a more complete experience of virtual space.

The Roblox video game even hosts virtual events such as concerts, face-to-face meetings, and conferences. Other players don’t just play the game, but also use this space for other activities and parts of their lives in the virtual space.

Also in the game Fortnite, which can be played by several people at the same time, about 12 million people attended the virtual tour of the in-game music.

What is augmented reality “AR” in Metaverse?

Augmented reality technology with the abbreviation AR uses the combination of visual, auditory and emotional information in relation to the real world to enhance the individual experience. Small businesses or companies use augmented reality to advertise their products or services. It is also used in launching new forms of marketing and collecting unique user data.

In AR technology, the surrounding elements are received by the sensor and processed by the computer. Then the computer graphic elements enter the real world and interact before the user’s eyes. Similar experience of augmented reality technology can be seen in children’s cartoons and movies such as Garfield or Minions, in which cartoon characters are added to our physical world without any intermediary and we interact with them.

Users can easily interact with AR through a smartphone. Users can use it to fully control their movements in the physical world. One of the examples of the use of AR was in the game Pokemon GO. Due to the combination of the smartphone camera with the real environment, players can visualize virtual Pokemon in front of them. In this case, the player can deal with and interact with these virtual effects.

Microsoft has been working on this technology for several years. It presented the first augmented reality headset called HoloLens in 2016. The company called it mixed reality. Through this headset, users were able to feel the software game environment in the physical world around them.

What is the difference between the online world and the metaverse?

The world of Metaverse creates a mix of work and play. For example, a user creates a 3D avatar, which is actually a digital representation of himself, on Facebook or Microsoft Teams. Then he uses that avatar in virtual office meetings to do his work. After the meeting, this person buys a virtual concert ticket and appears with his friends’ avatars among hundreds of concert participants.

When the concert is over, the band reminds him not to forget to buy a t-shirt. He reviews the designs he saw today in the booths of online stores. Then he pays to buy one of them with digital currency and wears it in the virtual office the next day.

A co-worker wants to borrow his t-shirt for his child to wear to a Roblox game that night, and he lends the t-shirt to his co-worker.

In this simple example scenario, many corporate communication tools, live streaming of events, e-commerce and valuable information are shared. These interactions will only work if each service provider builds its system in such a way that assets such as avatars or shirts are compatible and transferable.

We generally have three worlds

online world

This is our current virtual world, which may be like 3D computer games or like different websites and social networks in the form of text and 2D images.

Multiverse world

If you are a big fan of Marvel Cinema, you must be familiar with Multiverse. Multiverse or multiple worlds is a scientific hypothesis centered on parallel worlds presented by the great scientists of the world and now many stories have been written about it in Marvel. Including the latest Spider-Man movie that narrates the encounter between three different Spider-Man characters from three different worlds.

Metaverse world

If we want to define the metaverse simply and concretely, we can consider it a combination of the multiverse world, the online world, and the real world. Where we experience the characteristics of all three worlds together.