Summary

In this article, we will talk about a new definition of metaverse that is suitable for present world.

What is Metaverse?

Metaverse is a compound word made up of transcendence meta and universe. It refers to a three-dimensional virtual world where avatars engage in political, social and cultural activities. It was first coined by Neil Stevenson in his science fiction novel Snow Crash in 1992.

According to an article published by S. -M. Park and Y. -G. Kim, the novel metaverse can be distinguished by the earlier metaverse in 3 different ways:

• The rapid development of deep learning and generative models improves accuracy of vision and language recognition which enables a more immersive environment and natural movement.
• With mobile devices that can now connect to internet at all times, it has become very easy to access the metaverse space.
• The program coding can be done in the new metaverse, and it is more bonded to the real world and has virtual currency.

They also describe metaverse different from Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in the following different ways:

• Metaverse focuses on strong content and social meaning unlike VR which focuses on physical approach and rendering.
• Metaverse application can exists independently without AR or VR.
• Metaverse has scalable environment which can support existence of multiple people together.

What is avatar in metaverse?

In Metaverse, avatar is a digital twin in the virtual world. It is a reflection of the ego of the person who is controlling their own character in the metaverse.

Journal Reference:

S. -M. Park and Y. -G. Kim, “A Metaverse: Taxonomy, Components, Applications, and Open Challenges,” in IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 4209-4251, 2022, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3140175.