Technology/Science - Metaverse
How to Explain the ‘Metaverse’ to Your Grandparents By Aaron Frank
THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION for a complete or 1. Spatial Computing (What is that?) almost-beginner. There’s plenty of mainstream 2. Game Engines (What are those?) coverage on the issue, but it often conflates 3. Virtual Environments (Is that the Metaverse? …sort of) concepts: VR is not the Metaverse (though it’s 4. Virtual Economies So let’s explore...
related), crypto/Web3 by itself is not the Metaverse (though also related). Confusing, I know. Whether you’re a business person, or grandparent, this is my best effort to lay everything out. Firstly, who am I to explain the Metaverse to the grandparent/MBAs of the world? There are experts with more experience who are commenting smart things in this space, and I will cite many of them here. I was too young for Second Life in its prime, but I do come from what I might call the Oculus Rift generation. Since 2013, I’ve used VR, built apps, and written related articles at Vice and other places. I’ve also worked at a Silicon Valley technology organization called Singularity University where I’ve researched, used, and built virtual worlds as my core focus. That’s the point of view I can offer. What is the Metaverse? In 99.99% of cases, provided the term is used correctly, you could replace the word ‘Metaverse’ with ‘internet’ and the sentence will mean the same thing. So then why is everyone using this fancy new word? I think analyst Doug Thompson, says it very well “that we’re using the term as a proxy for a sense that everything is about to change.” So if the Metaverse is just the internet, what about the internet is about to change? To answer that question, this article comes in four parts:
94
March-April 2022
1. Spatial Computing (and the history of the ‘interface’) To understand the changes coming to life online, you have to start with the seemingly obvious way we currently access the internet; computers. And to understand where we’re headed, we have to look to the history of computing interfaces. By computer interface, I’m referring to the way that humans interact with digital machines to get them to do what we want. In the middle of the 20th century, getting a computer to do things involved sticking your hand in it to wire cables. Then something called punch cards were invented which allowed us to keep our hands to ourself. Then came command lines (like MS-DOS) - you
could interact by typing words. Next was the invention of the graphical user interface (GUI) or clicking pictures and what most of us take for granted as just how they work today. Today GUI’s are used in everything from ATMs, to ticketing machines, and it’s the reason ordinary nonprogrammer people like us can use them. Why do I go through this history? The point is that
DAWN
www.africabusinessassociation.org
