FACEBOOK NAME CHANGED TO 'META'
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook's new name is 'Meta'. Zuckerberg made the announcement of the name change of Facebook on October 28, 2021, during an annual Connect conference. The decision to rename Facebook to Meta is to showcase the company's growing focus on Metaverse. In a similar feat, Google in 2015 had created Alphabet Inc as a holding company to house its various ventures and establish itself as more than a search and advertising business. Facebook on October 18, 2021, had also announced its plan to hire 10,000 people in the European Union over the next five years to build the Metaverse, a virtual reality version of the internet. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been mentioning Metaverse since July 2021. The tech giant is looking forward to work with governments across Europe to hire the right people and find the right markets across the region.
WHAT IS METAVERSE?
The term metaverse is used to describe the vision in which the internet evolves into a virtual world. This idea was for the first time conceptualised in 1992 by American novelist Neal Stephenson. He talked about this concept in his science fiction novel Snow Crash. Facebook will use technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) to create a sense of virtual presence that will enable one to experience the event as if interacting in person. With this technology, Facebook aims to connect its 3 billion users through Metaverse. The metaverse has the potential to help unlock new creative, social, and economic opportunities.
It has been made by blending the words “meta,” that means beyond, and “universe”. It is the metaverse that combines elements of the physical world and merges them with virtual spaces. This concept sees the internet as a 3D virtual space where individuals can go in and out and even interact with one another in real time. This would mean you can talk to your co workers even without attending office in the real world, but would be present near them virtually. Mark Zuckerberg seeks to build a system where people can move between virtual and real worlds (like you saw in the movie Matrix). They can move in between virtual reality, augmented reality (AR) and even 2D devices. The users would be asked to use their own avatars. The people can work, socialise, share and also have various other experiences but over the internet. Major excitement is bringing co-workers in an avatar based one on one contact for the first time ever.
WHAT IS DECENTRALAND?
It is a virtual world where the visitors can perform various activities like watching concerts, visiting art galleries and gambling in casinos. The plots of lands are also being sold which are worth 100s of thousands of dollars in MANA (cryptocurrency).
Examples of metaverse:
In today's world there is a lot that goes on virtually. NFTs or Non Fungible tokens can be considered an example of metaverse already. Even cryptocurrencies are one of them. However it is still far from the complete metaverse experience which would actually mean living lives on the internet.
As per Zuckerberg's description, the metaverse is an “embodied internet, where instead of just viewing content — you are in it.” In order to access the metaverse, Facebook would require the biometric data such as eye scans, voice recordings, pulse rates, etc. All of this information would then be collected by Facebook Inc. This data would then be used to build the multiverse. The issue is will the people trust Facebook to such an extent that they would share their data or would Facebook access it with improper means. As it is the Facebook has faced flak over data stealing from the Government of the United States.
WHO WILL RUN METAVERSE?
No one company will run the Metaverse. The key features of Metaverse will be openness and interoperability. As per Facebook, different companies will collaborate, cooperate with each other, creators, developers, and policymakers to build and operate the Metaverse.
When will Metaverse be available?
As per the Facebook official blog, the company is in the beginning stages of building the next computing platform Metaverse. It could take 10 to 15 years to be fully developed. As of now, Facebook has announced its plan to hire 10,000 people in Europe over the next five years for building the Metaverse. Facebook has also announced the XR Program and Research Fund, a 2-year $50 million investment in research to help build the Metaverse. The Fund will set the stage for collaboration between industry partners, governments, civil rights groups, and academic institutions to explore the development of technologies.
ABOUT FACEBOOK PLATFORM
Facebook is an American online social media and social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name comes from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities and, since 2006, anyone over 13 years old. As of 2020, Facebook claimed 2.8 billion monthly active users, and ranked seventh in global internet usage. It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s. The subject of numerous controversies, Facebook has often been criticized over issues such as user privacy (as with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal), political manipulation (as with the 2016 U.S. elections), mass surveillance, psychological effects such as addiction and low self-esteem, and content such as fake news, conspiracy theories, copyright infringement, and hate speech. Commentators have accused Facebook of willingly facilitating the spread of such content, as well as exaggerating its number of users to appeal to advertisers.
