What Is the Metaverse? Is It Just Virtual Reality, or Something More?

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Tech CEOs keep talking about “the metaverse.” Mark Zuckerberg insists that Facebook will be seen as a “metaverse company” instead of a social media company. Satya Nadella proclaims Microsoft is creating a “metaverse stack” for the enterprise.

Author Neil Stephenson coined the term “metaverse” in Snow Crash, a dystopian cyberpunk novel published in 1992.

In the novel, the metaverse is a sort of 3D virtual world. It’s not simply a virtual reality game but is a persistent, shared virtual world. Or rather, the metaverse is a whole universe of shared virtual spaces seemingly linked together—you could, essentially, teleport between them.

If you think this all sounds a bit like Ready Player One or a higher-tech version of Second Life, you’re right.

virtual reality (VR) and not augmented reality (AR) was necessary for that kind of vision

To Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs, the concept of “the metaverse” seems to have more in common with “Web 2.0.” It’s a bunch of new technologies: VR headsets! Presence! Persistent digital worlds

Microsoft’s vision of the metaverse seems to take the form of rambling, buzzword-heavy talk about “digital twins” and “converging the physical with the digital” with “mixed reality.” Microsoft’s Azure cloud can do it!

Of course, as we learned with Windows 10’s “Mixed Reality” headsets, that term often just means Virtual Reality to Microsoft. However, it can also mean augmented reality: And, little surprise, Microsoft also has a headset to sell you: The HoloLens.

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more on Metaverse in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=metaverse

more on immersive in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=immersive