Science fiction veterans know that the first mention of Metaverse can be found in the 1992 book Snow Crash. The author, Neal Stevenson, describes a virtual world to which you can connect using virtual reality equipment, and to conduct yourself in it using virtual avatars. Mark Zuckerberg's 2021 announcement of the Metaverse marks the direction
In 2030, I give a lecture in Japan to an audience of almost a thousand participants, using a robot. I control the robot - my hands are virtually connected to his hands, and I see through his cameras and hear through his microphones. I am in Japan - but also in Israel at the same time. That is, my robotic-artificial body is in Japan, while my biological body remains in my room in the Holy Land.
As soon as the lecture ends, the personal assistant appears in my field of vision. She looks exactly the way I want, and walks around me in the room as if she were really there and not just an avatar put on the picture of my room in the virtual reality glasses I'm wearing.
"Don't forget the meeting you have in the city hall," she says. "They're waiting for you right now."
I swear Once because I forgot, a second time because the municipality. Then I launch myself directly to the virtual entrance floor of the city hall. From there I am automatically transferred to the committee that is looking into expanding my balcony to open another playroom. All the experts are connected, although obviously most of them are not actually in the original city hall. The background changes on demand to that of the street outside the house. I lead them in the virtual world up the stairs, show them the balcony from the parking lot, and even bring them into my house to admire the balcony from the inside. All this - without leaving the small room where my biological body is currently located. The information comes from a drone that rotates outside in real time, and from the cameras inside the house. In voice instruction, I make the blueprints of the desired changes appear and wear right over the picture of reality I show them.
The examiners walk around the living room, look around at the walls, take notes - sometimes on the walls themselves. One of them lingers near the passage from the main house to the balcony. He noticed a groove in the concrete. I will have to take care of this before getting the approval. I humbly accept his ruling, and after a few minutes the story is over. I got the approval. I thank them and leave the city hall.
It's time to move on to the next show. I leave Haifa and travel - physically - to Tel Aviv. I don't know the city that well, but in 2030 no city is really foreign. As soon as I leave the train station, my augmented reality glasses direct me immediately to the opera building named after the police officer Azoulay. The back doors open especially for me without my asking at all, courtesy of my artificial assistant that notified the building that I was coming. The small staircase at the entrance flattens on its own so I can easily climb it with my walking stick. I enter the building, and know that at that very moment, tens of thousands of people around the world can see my avatar appear in the virtual simulation of the event. Using the special glasses I can see for myself some of those around me in the virtual world. One of them is the holder of the NFT of the opera building, which gives him a percentage of every virtual performance at the venue. He was smart. He bought it in 2022, when no one was yet sure what "Metaverse" even was.
The owner of the NFT is smiling at me. The tickets to the virtual show were expensive, and he made good money today. The visitors know that they are buying something extraordinary: not only my lecture, but also my leaving the house and traveling across the country. When it is easy to do everything in the virtual world, people are willing to pay good money to those who put effort in the physical world.
I stretch my arms out to the sides, and see the virtual heads turning towards me. I open my mouth, and my voice is heard on five continents at the same time. I am connected to two worlds at the same time - physical and virtual.
I live in the Metaverse Continuum: The Continuum Universe.
Since Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2021 the opening of the Metaverse era, everyone is still trying to understand: what exactly is the Metaverse?
And a satisfactory answer - no.
Science fiction veterans know that the first mention of Metaverse can be found in the 1992 book Snow Crash. The author, Neal Stevenson, describes a virtual world to which you can connect using virtual reality equipment, and to conduct yourself in it using virtual avatars. The same idea was repeated in the book and movie Ready Player One. And another book, and another book, and another series of books or ten.
If we'll be honest for a moment, all this is still not very interesting. In the last thirty years, a multitude of virtual worlds have opened up for billions of people. From the ancient game worlds of Ultima, where players fought zombies and dragons, through World of Warcraft, where players fought zombies and dragons, to Minecraft, where players fought zombies and dragons.
Indeed, there is no limit to the human imagination.
If the games don't interest you, then there are always the virtual worlds that are less graphic but just as addicting. For example, Facebook: a world where the avatars are without legs and arms, and can move from 'home' to 'home' - that is, from wall to wall - with the ease of pressing a button. And just like in the physical world, in the world of Facebook too, a person can destroy his world with one incorrect word.
All of these are virtual worlds, but what can elevate them to the level of the famous "metaverse" is virtual reality technology. Glasses for the eyes that make you feel like you are really in another world. Gloves that transmit sensation to the fingertips so that you feel the objects you 'touch' in the virtual world. Special shoes that allow you to walk as if - but actually stay in place.
And to that one can only say: so what?
Yes, Sims players will be able to pet their virtual dog and feel its fur. But after an hour they will leave the game and return to their lives in the physical world.
Yes, Facebook trolls will be able to yell at each other more personally. But when they get tired, they will have to take care of the children in the morning and go to work.
Yes, porn consumers will be able to enjoy a more impressive sexual thrill. But at the end of the evening, they will still take off their glasses and go to sleep next to their partner.
So what is the big innovation that the Metaverse brings? Is it just "the virtual world - but more"?
The point I want to convey in this article is that the really big change does not come down to the existence of "Metaverse". The revolution that will shake our lives is coming because the metaverse - the virtual world - is connecting these days with the physical world in ways we didn't know before, to create a new kind of universe. I call it, inspired by an Accenture report from the beginning of 2022, "the Metaverse Continuum" - the continuous universe.
The continuous universe is the product of the connection between the digital world and the physical world.
No need to explain what the physical world is. We know him well. This is a stable world: it is very difficult to change it. We have to invest a lot of energy to move atoms and molecules from one place to another, so erecting buildings and transporting people costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time. Since space in the physical world is limited, and mistakes can have fatal consequences, we also need to get approval from the land owners - the state and its agents - for any long-term changes we want to make in the physical world. This is why you can't plant your own new road sign in the middle of the street.
The physical world is stable, gray, boring. Nevertheless, in which we live almost all hours of the day. Without it, we could not exist.
The digital world is the complete opposite.
If only one word had to be used to sum up the digital world it would be "cheap". Bits - calculation and memory units - are an extremely cheap resource. Because of this, it is easy in the digital world to change a photo or video. You only need to improvise for this the arrangement of the bits behind the scenes. It is also easy to copy works, again - by rearranging bits. And when you can copy things easily, you can also create backups for everything. And when there is a backup, you can also experiment without fear of failure. This is why Wikipedia is so successful: vandals deface pages all the time, and yet they return to their original integrity in seconds thanks to the backup that exists for them. All this enormous trouble justifies itself when some user adds an important piece of information to a Wikipedia page - and the world's largest encyclopedia immediately improves.
The digital world is colorful, fluid, ever-changing. It gives added value to simple physical existence, but it is not available to us like the physical world. As of today, we still need to use computer screens or smartphones to connect to the digital world. We need to perform a clear and voluntary action - turn on the computer or raise the smartphone to eye level - to move to the other side of the mirror. Even when we finally connected with him, he is not perfect. Precisely the fact that it is so easy to change the bits, leads to the fact that the virtual works do not have much value in themselves. And for proof, anyone can download all of Van Gogh's digital works to their personal computer, completely free. If you wanted the physical pieces, you'd probably have to pay a bit more.
In the continuous universe the two worlds begin to touch and connect. Along the way, they lose their uniqueness. The physical world is about to become "cheaper", for all that implies. The digital world is about to become a part of our daily life, and acquire some of the properties of the physical world - for example, adding value to digital works.
In the first part of the article I will describe how and why the metaverse - the virtual world separate from the physical one - is established these days. In the second part we will see how the metaverse is not preserved by itself, but merges with the physical world to create the metaverse-continuum - the continuous world.
But let's start with the trends that will lead to the establishment of the Metaverse itself.
If you look at old pictures of computer shorts from the late XNUMXs, you will surely find a demonstration of the EyePhone system. This includes a virtual reality helmet and an apathetic glove - that is, one that transmits sensations to the palm of the hand. The system looks very similar to the virtual reality helmets we have today. In fact, the man behind the EyePhone - Jaron Lanier - is the one who also coined the term "virtual reality".
So why did the system fail? Why did virtual reality helmets only start to flourish and become successful among the general public in recent years?
For starters: a $250,000 price tag[1]. But beyond that, the system was simply not successful enough. It was capable of projecting images at a stuttering rate of five frames per second, and even for that it was harnessed to large and expensive computers. The investors saw, recoiled, and went elsewhere. It was clear to the critics: virtual reality is nothing but a dream.
Much more water has passed under the bridge since then. The technologies that make virtual reality possible - advanced calculation components, special lenses, vision processing and others - have leapt in their capabilities several times. In 2011, Palmer Lackey, a young inventor, realized that it was possible to combine the advanced technologies together in one device to provide a virtual reality experience of the kind that Neier and Stevenson had been promising for many years. He bound together several off-the-shelf products – including a smartphone screen – with masking tape, creating the first prototype of the modern virtual reality helmet.
Lucky founded the Oculus company, raised almost 2.5 million dollars on Kickstarter to launch the system, and a year later sold the company to Facebook for an amount almost a thousand times higher: two billion dollars. Other large companies - Samsung, Sonic, Google, Microsoft and more - saw and internalized, and decided to start entering the field of virtual reality themselves.
Helmets improved and improved rapidly. The resolution of Lucky's original Oculus Rift was 640x800. The resolution of the Oculus Quest 2 today is 1832X1920. The original Rift could only monitor the user's head movements using two external cameras installed in the room. The Quest does not need these cameras. The Rift had to be connected to a computer with an advanced graphics card, at a cost of about a thousand dollars. The Quest 2 today contains the computer inside the device itself. And yet, the weight of the Quest is about the same as that of the Rift[2] [3].
Oh, and the frame rate? It jumped from five frames per second - the EyePhone's rate - to sixty in the case of the Rift, and to 120 in the Quest.
In short, in two decades we have progressed from the original lame horse - the EyePhone - to a racing car in the form of the Rift. And from there we jumped forward to the jet plane that is the Quest.
Other technologies that deliver input to the body are also emerging rapidly. Every month there is a report on another new miraculous invention: once a carrier that allows us to run in place in the physical world, but feel as if we are moving in the virtual world. Another time, the apathetic gloves. or the haptic soles. Or the haptic mouth, thanks to which we can kiss people in the virtual world, and feel their tongue on our haptic gloves or soles while we run across their virtual faces.
We can go on and on, but the big and unifying trend here is that of transferring data through several different channels, from the digital world to the physical world, so that we feel as if we really exist in the digital world. All these technologies try to focus our existence in the metaverse.
But by themselves, virtual reality technologies are not enough. In order for us to produce metaverses that are truly alive and well, we need two additional conditions to be met: ease of content creation, and decentralization of computing capabilities. We will touch on each of them in the following chapters, before continuing and understanding why the continuous universe - the one that includes the Metaverse within it, but does not ignore the physical world - is the one we will live in in the coming decades.
Think of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the encyclopedia that was the largest in the world twenty years ago. She relied on the great experts in their field to write entries for her. It worked great for her, until Wikipedia came along and allowed every person on the street to create their own entries, and for others to easily edit them. Today, Britannica does not even come close to competing with the level of variety, up-to-dateness and depth that Wikipedia has.
It is the people who created the content on Wikipedia, in the text. It is only thanks to them that she is so successful.
Think about Facebook, the biggest media tool in the world, and all its affiliates: Instagram and WhatsApp mainly. The people create the content on Facebook and its sub-services, but now it is not only text-based, but also image-based.
It is the people who created the content on Facebook and Instagram. It is only thanks to them that they are so successful.
Think of TikTok, the world's largest video app. The people create the video-based content, and upload it to TikTok.
You get the idea. The most successful companies today in the field of content creation place the responsibility for this on the general public. And the public longs for it with all its heart. For the likes, for the shares, for the friends, for the advertising.
All the XNUMXD metaverse worlds that have been demonstrated so far - such as World of Warcraft, Second Life and others - were developed by the big companies. There is no other choice: it is easy to move bits, that is true, but it is difficult to decide where and how. Whoever wants to produce a new digital world, has to hire thousands of human craftsmen to do it for him. And the larger the world needs to be to house a greater number of avatars, the greater the investment of effort and money required. And these, as mentioned, are only in the hands of the big companies.
But the situation will not continue like this for long.
The history of content creation in recent decades teaches us that as soon as the capabilities reach the masses, the large-scale and relatively free platforms (that is, those where the public provides the content) easily prevail over those that are predetermined and limited in size.
And the abilities are passing to the masses quickly these days, thanks to artificial intelligence.
The representative example of technologies for transferring capabilities to the public is that of OpenAI. One of the company's artificial intelligence engines is DALL-E 2. Do you have an idea for an extraordinary image in your head? Just tell your idea to prevent in a few words, and watch in amazement as it produces dozens of realistic-looking images for you that easily rival those of human artists.
There is no end to the images Dali-2 can produce. From teddy bears programming on the moon on computers from the XNUMXs, through beautiful jewelry in close-up photography to a detective rabbit reading a newspaper in a Victorian setting.
Other artificial intelligence engines know how to produce tunes and even videos. These tools have not yet reached their peak capabilities, and the product always requires human supervision, but it is still a steep drop in the amount of effort required to bring a new creation into the world. And if all this is not enough, the artificial intelligence is also starting to produce 'scripts' for movies and games by itself.
This means that the worlds of the Metaverses on the way will be created - eventually - by the little people. That is, by the general public, armed with the power of artificial intelligence. These worlds may be hosted on giant platforms like Facebook or TikTok, but they will still be produced by the public, for the public.
One more thing is missing from this future picture: security.
At the beginning of May, plots of land were sold for 300 million dollars. There would be nothing strange about it, if not for the fact that those lands do not exist in the physical world but in the digital one. And what's more: they don't even exist yet, but only in planning.
The impressive sale may make more sense—or less—if you find out it's an NFT. That is, in digital land title deeds, stored on the blockchain network[4]. The pieces of code known as NFTs have been selling for the past year at prices that seem absolutely insane to us. Why? And what does this have to do with Metaverse?
The answer is that NFTs are essentially bills of title that are issued on top of a network based on blockchain technology. They are also only the swallow that heralds the coming of spring, because on blockchain-based networks it is possible, in principle, to produce an entire metaverse as well. Not only the NFTs, but also the complete code of the system, all the vast information that allows people to travel in the virtual world. Blockchain-based networks can also provide the basis for an economy in the Metaverse, where it will be possible to buy and sell services using digital-encrypted currencies such as Bitcoin and Ether.
But why would we choose blockchain networks for all this? Why don't we rely on Facebook, for example, to provide all these services in the metaverse you will create?
The answer is that blockchain networks can be Several advantages over the usual systems we know. These advantages - trust, security, globality and eternity - can be secondary in any thought about the future, and especially about the future of the Metaverse, so it is important to know them.
All those advantages are a product of one great feature of the blockchain: a high level of decentralization. The meaning of decentralization is that millions and even billions of users around the world contribute the necessary computing power to operate the system. Ideally, there is no single body that controls these systems.
The first benefit of decentralization is that of trust. We are currently entering a period where people believe less and less in governments and big companies, for more or less good reasons. Companies like Facebook can decide to change their algorithms with a wave of their hands, and silence a part of the population in one fell swoop - sometimes without the silenced even knowing that they have disappeared from the public discourse. Twitter, especially now that it's been bought by a single person, could make Donald Trump great or make him nothing — and lawmakers aren't yet sure how to handle the challenge. And of course, governments all over the world can choose to harm citizens' freedoms and their right to privacy, as indeed happens every day - and again, for more or less good reasons.
A decentralized, blockchain-based Metaverse can give control back to users. There will not be one company that operates it, and that the control will always be in its possession. No single entity can change the rules of the metaverse world. The algorithms will be open, and any changes will only be made with the full knowledge of those who benefit - or suffer - from it. Naturally, not everyone will be satisfied - but everyone will know, at least, that they don't have to rely on one government or one commercial company, whose interests certainly do not always match those of the users.
The second advantage is that of security. Decentralized Metaverse shares its security burden among all users. Blockchain-based networks are more secure than any other existing system, once they reach a certain critical size.
The third advantage is that of globality. A decentralized Metaverse can contain all companies and all users. Everyone will be able to open virtual sub-worlds in it. Each company will be able to develop its own city - or world. Each person will be able to produce his own house in the virtual world. Everyone will use the same digital currencies - Bitcoin, Ether, and any other currency. And again - in this situation, the control will not be in the hands of one entity. In this respect, the Metaverse will be much freer than even the physical world, where every territory is currently under the control of some government.
The fourth advantage (for now) is that of eternity, and is actually a product of all the other advantages we have listed. Blockchain-based networks have the potential to survive catastrophes better than any other human system. Think about it: if Facebook is hacked tomorrow morning, then all the information it has will be corrupted and lost. But if a decentralized blockchain network is hacked, the information will be restored and verified within seconds. If Ukraine falls, all the information in her mind will be lost forever. But if the information is stored on the distributed blockchain network - it will be saved forever.
Think of a decentralized, blockchain-based Metaverse that enjoys all of these features. It is not under the control of one company or government. It is completely safe to use: the people living in that metaverse know that their digital money is safe, as well as the ownership of the virtual assets in their possession. It is global, so anyone in the world can use it without tying themselves to just a sub-metaverse run by some government. People can also trade in the same metaverse for goods, creations and digital money, with yet to be defined financial rules. Even when the economy in Metaverse is established and well defined, it will certainly be very different from the international financial procedures we are familiar with from the world of nation-states.
Oh, and last but not least, eternity. You want to be safe in your assets and investments, right? You want to know that they will be preserved forever, and that no company or country will be able to play with their value or steal them from you, right?
Go to Metaverse.
But wait. there's more.
So far we have described a progression to a metaverse that looks mostly like the one described in Ready Player One: a virtual world where every person has an avatar, and the relationships between the people are mostly conducted in it. The physical world is left as an abyss that is not of much interest. In this story, the Metaverse becomes the center. There is no continuous universe. Only a split that cannot unite.
But that won't be the future. At least not in the coming decades.
The trends we reviewed and which promote the metaverse, can equally promote the continuous universe: the metaverse that integrates with the physical world. The same technologies that enable the existence of virtual reality glasses, for example, can also support the existence of augmented reality glasses. Revoda from the word "rovid", or another layer, which covers the physical world.
The most well-known application of augmented reality is Pokemon Go. The game adds another layer of reality to the physical world: every street and every neighborhood can have virtual Pokemon that the players can fight. The players can also see the Pokemon against the background of the physical world, through the screen of their smartphone.
We see here the progress towards the metaverse-continuum: the physical world and the digital world are merging together. But the connection point between the two worlds is still shaky, as it relies on the voluntary and tedious act of pulling out the smartphone, running the app, keeping the hand at eye level, and so on.
The breaking point between the worlds will come and go with the transition to more advanced augmented reality devices, which will be left behind from morning to evening. These will be glasses that can add graphic elements and animations to everything we see around us. We can walk in empty streets - and see them full of Pokemon, or maybe monsters or people from other game worlds. We will be able to observe people in the physical world - and see their details from social networks appear around them, and even automatically dress them in their avatar form from the virtual world. We can add virtual advertisements to every street sign, penetrate walls with our gaze (as long as there are cameras on the other side of the wall that can transmit information to our glasses) and even erase the beggars we see on the street from the world, provided they don't set foot on our blindness.
The future of puncture repair
The year is 2030, and I have a flat tire. Not just a puncture, but a complete explosion of the tire. And all this, when I'm driving a brand-new car, with an innovative modular jack that I've never used. I don't know how to use tools. I don't know how to remove the spare wheel from the trunk. I don't know why the wheels have a tread that just won't come apart.
In short, I know nothing. I'm not even sure why I drive a car instead of using an autonomous vehicle. But let's go. It's a story.
In this story, when my tire blows out in the middle of the night on the main road, my smart glasses immediately tell me what to do. They direct me to the trunk, instruct me on the location of the spare wheel, and actually show me animations in the field of vision to explain how to remove the spare part. They show me the jack and demonstrate in real time how I should open the device and what the correct order of operations is. They accompany me throughout the entire process, until its successful end. The spare wheel is assembled successfully, and I can continue driving.
As I continue to drive on the road, I wonder to myself - what else can we do, with glasses like this? Will ordinary people be able to function as mechanics, or as doctors? probably not. These professions require too high a level of training. But they will allow people to become expert warehousemen who will know where each package is and how to get to it quickly. They will give novice police officers the skills of experienced police officers who know every street and every person in the areas they are in charge of. They will minimize the frequency of human-caused failures in manufacturing plants or at remote points that require human maintenance, such as on power poles or wind turbines.
All the technologies we have described are not just a dream. They are not here yet, but they are fast approaching us. According to one of the predictions, the augmented reality devices will reach in only ten years a level where it will not be possible to differentiate between the images they transmit to our eyes, and the physical reality[5]. Long before then, these devices will revolutionize the way we live and work.
Now add the other trends to these devices as well. Imagine what the world could look like when every user could create high-level content, filling the continuous universe with spectacular visualizations. Think about how cities can look, when the residents enrich each neighborhood with virtual houses, works, sculptures, signs, graffiti - all of which a person can see when he walks down the street on his own two feet. Think how, thanks to the same richness of creation, people can travel in one city and zigzag between different layers of virtual reality - and thus enjoy dozens of virtual cities, in the same physical environment. The same street can take on the decor of a Dragons' Den, a Hacking Den, or a Hacking Den. or of a haunted forest. Or of a virtual supermarket, where you can get an impression of the variety of goods offered along the walls of the houses. There is no end to the possibilities in the continuous universe, and they all serve the individual: the person who chooses them.
Despite all the excitement about the Metaverse, it seems that we are advancing safely these days precisely towards the continuous universe, thanks to three major trends: the development of virtual and augmented reality technologies, the reduction of the skill required to create new content, and the great decentralization of computing power, made possible thanks to blockchain technologies.
In the continuous universe we can enjoy an integrated world with the virtues of the physical and digital mediums together. It will be a world where every person can find the point of comfort that suits them best. A world that is adapted to people, instead of forcing people to adapt to one unchanging reality.
I can't wait anymore.
[1] https://flashbak.com/jaron-laniers-eyephone-head-and-glove-virtual-reality-in-the-1980s-26180/
[2] https://vr-compare.com/headset/oculusriftdk1
[3] https://vr-compare.com/headset/oculusquest2
[4] https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/bored-ape-yuga-labs-300-million-metaverse-land-ethereum-crash-2022-5
[5] https://medium.com/swlh/when-will-virtual-reality-and-mixed-reality-look-completly-real-185fb14a4df0
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