Facebook has announced plans to hire 10,000 staff in Europe to work on the metaverse, its plans for a futuristic new computing platform.
Here is a closer look.
– So, what is the metaverse?
In essence, it is the internet in 3D.
The metaverse is an online world in which people can meet, play and work virtually, often entering this world using virtual reality headsets.
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has described it as being a place where rather than just viewing content “you are in it” and as an early example has used the idea of people watching a concert video on their smartphone but then jumping in it using the metaverse to create the sense they are really there.
Anyone who has seen films such as Ready Player One will have a sense of what this could look like.
Congrats to the Visual Effects team of Roger Guyett, Grady Cofer, Matthew E. Butler and David Shirk for their Academy Award nomination. #ReadyPlayerOne #OscarNoms #Oscars pic.twitter.com/DTY33YBrhH
— Ready Player One (@readyplayerone) January 22, 2019
The metaverse would not be run by one company, Facebook says, but would instead be an open internet which different companies could build on and offer their own experiences to people.
Some of the virtual experiences already exist in some form, but they are all independent and not seamlessly linked together – that is the aim of the metaverse.
Facebook’s metaverse idea would see all the experience accessible in one place and at any point, with users able to enter it not just via VR headsets, but also PCs, games consoles and mobile devices in much the same way they do now with mobile internet.
– But what could I actually do in it?
Anything – meet friends and chat around a fire, take a fitness class on top of a mountain, play the latest video game, watch a movie or take part in an experience such as deep-sea diving.
The idea is that you can jump in and have any real-life social experience in virtual reality, with holograms or avatars representing the user and their friends and colleagues.
And given the world’s reliance on video conferencing over the last 18 months, one key usage of the metaverse could be as a new type of virtual meeting space.
So instead of staring at a grid of faces all sat in their kitchens, imagine putting on a VR headset and finding yourself sat in a hilltop villa surrounded by avatars of colleagues and having the meeting “in-person” no matter where everyone is based.
And not just for meetings – Facebook has even suggested that these spaces could become an “infinite office” where people all feel like they are working in the same place, even when they could be in different cities or even countries.
Speaking to The Verge earlier this year, Mr Zuckerberg also suggested meeting in the metaverse could replace some analogue phone calls or video calls.
“In the future, instead of just doing this over a phone call, you’ll be able to sit as a hologram on my couch, or I’ll be able to sit as a hologram on your couch, and it’ll actually feel like we’re in the same place, even if we’re in di
