Most of the technology companies in the world, and of all shapes and sizes, large, medium and even small, and from “Facebook” and “Microsoft” to “Tender” in the past weeks announced their own plans to build “Metaverse” ( Metaverse), which many believe will be the Internet of the future within the next ten years.

This is despite the fact that no one in the world yet seems completely confident of what the final metaverse will look like in the coming days, and there are also important questions about who will finally control this virtual environment, and who will ensure that everyone in it is on the same page.

Sai Krishna, co-founder of India's augmented reality company Scapic, describes Metaverse as "a revolutionary evolution of the Internet where we will have 3D spaces, immersive virtual environments and advanced communications, as well as a paradigm shift in commerce and entertainment." ...to him and to many others, metavirs is the next logical step beyond the smartphone stage and the traditional Internet as we know it now.

privacy question

This raises many questions about privacy, as it is known that major technology companies now such as Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and others collect our personal information from social media, and from our direct daily communications on the Internet, and exploit it to collect huge amounts of money, whether through advertisements or others, knowing that we live outside The current Internet means that the screens are in front of us, so how about when we live within the network and within the screens?

How about when we practice our whole lives in augmented and virtual reality through our metaphysical avatars?

Will there be any privacy left for us?

We'll put off answering this question a bit, but when Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, finally renamed the company "Meta", he also announced what he plans to do within metaverses, and that in no way means that he wants to own metaverses. Because he simply can't do that.

In this context, Psy asserts, "No one owns the metavirus... it is an open platform."

Meta's plans are more in line with building its own version of the meta-universe, a digital world in which the real and virtual worlds are combined. For example, you can meet your cousin who lives in California in a cafe in a virtual environment in Real time via your avatar.

"Meta" company has the ability to own this data and communication in the three-dimensional environment is the next step (Al Jazeera)

Dr. Anupama Malik, Managing Director of Vizara Technologies, a startup specializing in virtual and augmented reality technologies, told the Indian Express, “Although the current social media is great, Meta has the ability to own this data.” Communication in a 3D environment is the next step, given the fact that you have very easy ways to get 3D data now, and he (Zuckerberg) knows 3D spaces are going to be the next big thing."

And Meta Corporation has the talent and resources to build metaverses.

In fact, the social media giant has announced the hiring of 10,000 people in the European Union to do this big job, as the company’s platform recently mentioned, and it helps that they already own Oculus, the leader in virtual reality devices owned by the company. meta, which will literally be the portal to metaverses.

And in this new environment, groups of users roaming 3D spaces can choose to do whatever they want to do, which is the future of social media, the internet as a whole.

"Mesh" Microsoft

And if Facebook wants to create its own metaverse, Microsoft is seeking to make its “mesh platform” an essential link that links many virtual environments together, and it announced this at the “Ignite” conference recently, and the giant company said that it plans to bring a “mesh” to a common collaboration platform called Teams which has 250 million users worldwide.

The company describes “Mesh for Teams” as a feature that will combine the mixed reality capabilities of Microsoft Mesh, which allows people in different real-world locations to join virtual environments that use holograms with special productivity tools. In “Teems”, where people in different places can join virtual meetings, send chats, work, exchange files and many more, as the ARStechnica platform recently reported.

The seriousness and seriousness of Microsoft in being a part of metaverse can be measured by the fact that the “Mesh” platform will allow companies registered with Microsoft to build their own metaverse after providing them with a set of elements and controls necessary for this process, and in order to bring the topic closer to the reader, it is like Completely build and publish a smartphone app in the Apple Store.

Whether it is through Facebook or Microsoft, the race to build metavirs will be very useful for virtual and augmented reality, and will lead to their unprecedented spread, and lead to the adoption of these technologies by ordinary people in their daily lives in the near future.

Microsoft's seriousness about being part of the metaverse is measured by the fact that the Mesh platform will allow companies registered with Microsoft to build their own metaverses (Reuters)

Metaverse already exists now

The point that many forget when talking about metaverse is that it already exists today, and combines many emerging technologies such as 3D cinema, cryptocurrencies, electronic game platforms, and 3D video games such as “Roblox” and “Fortnite” ( Fortnite), as well as VR glasses makers such as Oculus and HTC Vive… all of these technologies already exist, evolve and overlap with each other in larger metaverses.

Says explains, "Because metaverse is an immersive 3D environment shared by a user group, where you can interact with others through your avatar, specialized hardware is needed to do this, you can't play it in a 2D world or through smartphone apps. The triple immersive environment means a much richer communication experience, which is why it will spread very quickly in the future.”

Does this mean that smartphones are on the way out?

In the near future at least, smartphones will remain, but we have to know that they are not designed for 3D spaces, as is the case in metaverses, and this is why all major technology companies are investing heavily in virtual and augmented reality technologies, the future is definitely hers.

Experts say the race is to build experiences that will bring information to your face, but that also means focusing on manufacturing and producing a new set of devices that are very different from the regular smartphones we know, and in fact: Who will need smartphones in the future as we begin to live And communication and communication within the metaverse?

"In the next five years, we will witness a frantic arms race between technology companies aimed at producing new facial devices that are completely different from smartphones, and virtual and augmented reality will coexist together to complement each other," Sai said.

He added, "In the near future, the lines will become more blurred between what virtual reality and metaverse are. It is very similar to the analogy that exists today between a laptop and an Internet connection."

Returning to the privacy question that we raised at the beginning of this article, the immersive digital environment that metaviruses will create seems exciting and pioneering, but it also has its own challenges, especially in the field of privacy, knowing that ads will be a primary source of income in it.

In an immersive environment like this, do not expect to have any privacy of any kind. Virtual reality data is biometric data, and every movement of humans within this environment will be recorded, which is like a “global harvest” of all personal and behavioral characteristics of humans, which will make people vulnerable to a lot of cybercrime, much more than what currently exists.

It's a new and exciting world to come, and it's also a completely naked world without even the shade of a mulberry leaf.