PETER MCBURNEY
The metaverse is a vision for the future of the world wide web, making our online interactions much closer to the three-dimensional sensory experiences we have in real life.
We will not merely be looking at a screen or listening to a podcast or typing an email; we will be immersed in a virtual world, as if we were actors in a play or movie. We will bring not only our sight and hearing to these interactions but also, eventually, all our other senses: touch, taste and even smell.
The metaverse will be a combination of virtual reality with sound and video, augmented by devices able to interact with our other senses.
The origins
This is a vision that has arisen from technology developments in different parts of applied computing. First comes the world of computer games, which have become increasingly lifelike as technology has advanced, particularly in computer graphics and sound processing.
Games technologies have in turn found application for training of military personnel, providing ever more realistic and immersive experiences of battle.
For example, two decades ago, the US Army selected the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California as its main partner for the development of advanced simulation training programmes, on the basis of the university’s leading computing expertise and its famous film
Creating realistic and immersive computer training requires not only sophisticated tech skills, but also storytelling and media production capabilities.
Another area of applied computing that has fed the development of the metaverse has been increasingly sophisticated business simulation modelling. From telecommunications networks to factories, from financial markets to insurance, advanced scientific and business simulation has become widespread in industry and commerce, for applications such as modelling the potential impacts of climate change or understanding the robustness of supply chains.
Such complex simulation models now support real-time management systems for these applications.
Key players
The widespread popularity of immersive games indicates that many people will find the vision of the metaverse compelling, and the world’s leading technology companies are currently investing heavily in its development.
These companies include Meta (which changed its name from Facebook to indicate the company’s focus on the metaverse), Google and Microsoft, which became the world’s third largest video game company with its purchase in January 2022 of Activision Blizzard. Other tech companies likely to be active are Apple, Amazon, Baidu, Sony and Tencent.
Multiple challenges
Before the vision is realised, however, there are many challenges, both technical and commercial. The first is that of technical standards and interoperability. If different metaverse spaces are created, will it be easy for users to move between them? Will it be possible to take virtual possessions created or purchased in one space across to another? Will users have a single ident
