What is a metaverse and its advantages?

The term metaverse first referred to the virtual reality world depicted in the 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. Nowadays, the definition of metaverse can be generally understood as a virtual world mapped and interacting with the real world, a digital living space with a new type of social system, which is linked and created using technology.

What is a metaverse?

Metaverse is a new type of Internet application and social form that integrates a variety of new technologies, which provides immersive experience based on extended reality technology, generates a mirror image of the real world based on digital twin technology, and builds an economic system based on blockchain technology, which closely integrates the virtual world with the real world in terms of the economic system, the social system, and the identity system, and allows each user to produce content and interact with the real world.

The term meta-universe was born in 1992 in the science fiction novel Snow Crash, which depicts a vast virtual reality world where people are controlled with digital avatars and compete with each other to improve their status, and to this day seems to be describing a futuristic world that is still ahead of its time. A more recognized source of ideas about meta-universes is the American mathematician and computer expert Professor Vernovich, who creatively conceived of a virtual world that is accessed and sensory experienced through brain-computer interfaces in his 1981 novel, The Real Name.

For the definition of meta-universe, Prof. Chen Gang and Dr. Dong Haoyu of Peking University believe that: meta-universe is a virtual world mapped and interacted with the real world using technological means for linking and creation, and a digital living space with a new type of social system.

Definition of Terms:

Through the archaeology of meta-universe conception and concept, meta-universe can be cross-defined from four aspects: spatio-temporal, authenticity, independence, and connectivity.

From the viewpoint of spatio-temporality, the meta-universe is a digital world that is virtual in spatial dimension but real in temporal dimension; from the viewpoint of authenticity, the meta-universe contains both the digital replicas of the real world and the creations of the virtual world; from the viewpoint of independence, the meta-universe is a parallel space that is both closely connected with the external real world and highly independent; from the viewpoint of connectivity, the meta-universe is a space that encompasses networks, hardware terminals and users.

In terms of connectivity, the metaverse is a perpetual, wide-coverage virtual reality system that encompasses the network, hardware terminals, and users.

To be precise, meta-universe is not a new concept, it is more like the rebirth of a classic concept, a conceptualization under the new technologies of Extended Reality (XR), Blockchain, Cloud Computing, Digital Twin and so on.

In the original, Metaverse is composed of two words, Meta and Verse, Meta means transcendence, Verse represents the universe (universe), which together is the concept of transcendence: an artificial space running parallel to the real world, the next stage of the Internet, supported by technologies such as AR, VR, 3D and so on. The next stage of the Internet, supported by AR, VR, 3D and other technologies, is the network world of virtual reality.

Characteristics and attributes:

The meta-universe given by Roblox consists of eight elements: identity, friends, immersion, low latency, diversity, anytime, anywhere, economic system and civilization. There are numerous elements, and behind each element, there's a litany of explanations. In short, it's too much to say in one sentence, which just goes to show the ambiguity of the concept.

In the START mapping of the characteristics and attributes of the meta-universe, Prof. Chen Gang and Dr. Dong HaoYu of Peking University sorted out and systematically defined the five major characteristics and attributes of the meta-universe, namely: Social & Space attributes (Social & Space), Technology Enabled Transcendent Extension (Technology Tension), Human, Machine & ArtifIcal Intelligence*** Creation (ArtifIcal, Machine & ArtifIcial Intelligence). ArtifIcal, Machine & AI), authenticity and reality mapping (Reality & Reflection), trade and circulation (Trade & Transaction).