The metaverse is in the news quite literally every single day. New developments around the technology that powers it, new investments, and new and innovative ideas that fuel its growth are just a Google search away. This chapter is about the very essentials of the metaverse, and if you're someone who has very little knowledge about the metaverse, or would like to know more about it, you are in the right place.
So what is the metaverse?
The metaverse is a collection of online spaces where users interact with each other in a computer-generated environment. However,the metaverse isn't just one place, but rather different worlds that can all be accessed through virtual reality and augmented reality glasses.
The metaverse is a term similar to the internet, which encompasses many different elements of an online place. For example, you can find information, contact people, purchase things, or create an identity for yourself. In its early stages, the metaverse began in the gaming world. Early gaming was restricted to personal computers and gaming consoles, but as the internet developed, and connection speeds increased, gamers found a way to connect to each other online.
Video game and online gaming companies noticed this, and began developing their own online spaces where multiple players could connect and play together. Online gaming then pushed the boundaries of 3D graphics, with the development of hardware that would support rendering extremely high resolution graphics for games. Today, the metaverse has gone beyond the world of online gaming.
Companie sare investing heavily in the development of different virtual worlds, where participants or players can do many things. This can include meeting with other people, being part of a specific community, visiting a metaverse store, or buying digital goods.
Here's a list of some companies that are paving the way. Meta, or Facebook, is heavily focused on creating metaverse experiences for over 2.5 billion users worldwide.The company is developing virtual reality hardware, and different virtual worlds to engage and invite its users to try other things.
This includes joining a social network, or engaging in various activities like training, hobbies, and more.
NVIDIA is investing in its own metaverse and creating a world called the omniverse.The omniverse is more targeted at professional users, who would be able to use digital items from within the metaverse to collaborate on designing new things.
Decentralandis a metaverse all on its own, and consists of different virtual locations and places in an online world. This includes businesses, banks, entertainment plazas, and many other spaces that participants in these virtual worlds have created.
Roblox is a very well known metaverse, and is in fact an online game, where you can play with others in a 3D or virtual environment.
Some of the other companies, and well known names within the metaverse are Sandbox,Nakamoto, Epic Games, Somnium Space, Bloktopia, and others.
In order to have an optimal experience in the metaverse, you will need to purchase virtual reality glasses or a headset, which are offered by many in-store or online electronic retailers.
Finally,one of the most important reasons the metaverse is becoming so popular, is dueto the rise of digital payments, such as cryptocurrencies, and related digital assets, such as non-fungible tokens or NFTs. The ability to buy, sell, andtrade digital assets within these virtual worlds is giving rise to a new typeof economy, the metaverse economy.
In this course, we will look at securing the metaverse, and what the future evolution of the metaverse brings in terms of cyber security and personal security. In a world where we meet others, and are exposed to a 3D experiential environment, considerations for security become very high, and that's what we'll discover in my course.
