What are the key technological challenges and opportunities for the Metaverse?

Several Features of the Metaverse

Future persistence: Persistence, that is, saving data (such as objects in memory) to storage devices (such as disks) that can be permanently saved. The addition of the word "future" means that this action is continuous, and the generated data is continuously saved.

Decentralization: For this feature, we can use the analogy of payment systems. For example, if we want to transfer money, the existing methods are nothing more than direct bank card transfer or payment methods such as WeChat Alipay, but their common feature is that they all require a centralized organization to realize transfer. For decentralization, the main difference is that there is no need for a centralized organization, and all interactions only require the interaction between two parties, without the assistance of the center.

Online 3D virtual environment: This is relatively intuitive. Under the current setting, the metaverse is basically a mirror image of the real world, so 3D is highly probable. The so-called virtual environment is the virtual product of the real world.

The core technology of the Metaverse

The creation of the metaverse will require countless new technologies, protocols, companies, innovations and discoveries to work together. There are unlikely to be pure "pre-metaverse" and "post-metaverse" eras.

Instead, it emerges slowly over time as different products, services, and capabilities integrate and converge. Optimism, too, will take decades to mature into mass life. The simplest example is that the traffic of the Double Eleven shopping festival will bring down the Internet giants, not to mention the synchronous sharing and persistent simulation of millions of people online at the same time?

Eight core technologies: For Metaverse, the following eight technologies basically constitute its main framework: hardware, network, computing, virtual platform, exchange tools and standards, payment, content services and assets, and finally user behavior.

The current difficulties facing the Metaverse.

At present, the biggest shortcoming of the Metaverse, that is, the biggest short-term breakthrough lies in VR and AR equipment. Why do you say this, because the existing chips, communications, AI, blockchain, etc., can basically meet the initial metaverse construction. However, as an important entrance to the metaverse, VR/AR equipment still needs to be perfected.

Current VR/AR devices still need to reduce the bit rate (definition, realism) of the game to meet the basic smoothness, such as Roblox's block graininess. However, the experience of "realism" must be brought by a sufficiently powerful VR/AR.

As can be seen from the above table, most of the required technologies have appeared and met the basic usage requirements, but relatively speaking, the research and development of VR/AR equipment is far from meeting the needs. Not only the depth of technology, but also the supply is far from enough.

Metaverse trends

The development trend of the metaverse can be divided into short-term and long-term. I personally think that in the short-term, the metaverse related to entertainment games, office and work scenes, and in the long-term life and social scenes will definitely be flooded in the metaverse.

The development of VR/AR, as the short board of the barrel effect, will form a siphon effect in the short term, a large influx of capital and technological upgrades, especially for VR/AR equipment, the following five factors will be visually predicted by collective efforts. resolved quickly.

The metaverse will be transformative, gradually evolving and changing our daily lives.

There are also many misconceptions about the metaverse, the most common being virtual reality (VR) as the metaverse. In fact, VR is only one of the ways to experience the metaverse. This kind of misunderstanding is equivalent to treating each mobile app as the mobile Internet. In fact, hundreds of millions of people spend several hours a day participating in the virtual world through their mobile phones without VR equipment. In the future, mobile phones will also be one of the important ways to participate in the metaverse.

Another misunderstanding is to equate the metaverse with games, which is actually a very one-sided view. Games are definitely one of the important applications of the metaverse, but it does not mean that it is the only one. The metaverse serves as a mirror of reality, in which people can socialize, live, work, and produce.