Metaverse – the future of the Internet ---------------------------------------------- Facebook – newly rebranded Meta – CEO Mark Zuckerberg, wants to be at the forefront of the Internet’s next major upgrade: the Metaverse ---------------------------------------------- Promotional image (above) from Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One movie – perhaps our closest look at what Metaverse could be like ---------------------------------------------- Mark Zuckerberg (right) wants Meta to build Metaverse ---------------------------------------------- Metaverse: Coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, where humans, as avatars, interact with each other in three-dimensional virtual successor to Internet ---------------------------------------------- SEVEN-LAYERED ECOSYSTEM OF METAVERSE Persistent virtual world with its own economy, jobs, shopping areas and media to consume Experience: What we engage with – games, social experiences, live music, etc Discovery: How people learn that different experiences exist Creator economy: Everything that helps creators build in Metaverse – design tools, monetisation tech, etc Spacial computing: Software that translates objects into 3D, allowing us to interact with them Decentralisation: Everything that moves ecosystem to permissionless, more democratic structure Human interface: Hardware that helps us access Metaverse – mobile devices, VR headsets, etc Infrastructure: Semiconductors, material science, cloud computing and telecommunications networks that make it possible to construct any of above layers ---------------------------------------------- Sources: Gizmodo, Washington Post, Meta, Medium, Wikipedia Pictures: Warner Bros, Meta, Penguin, NASA © GRAPHIC NEWS