2021, which is about to pass, is called the first year of the meta universe.
The impact of the mobile Internet era is still fresh in people’s memory, from “surfing” with only computer wired network to accessing the Internet with smart devices such as mobile phones and tablets anytime and anywhere. At present, although the concept of “meta universe” of the successor has not been clear, it cannot be prevented from becoming the focus of attention.
What is the universe? What are its birth background and main characteristics, and what changes will it bring to people’s social life? How to correctly understand the opportunities and risks and create a good ecological environment for the development of the industry? The reporter interviewed relevant experts.
there is no single technology called “metauniverse” in the world. Metauniverse is the combination and upgrading of various existing technologies, which can be understood as “3D Internet”
In the eyes of a thousand people, there is a thousand yuan universe.
The imagination of the meta universe began with the science fiction avalanche published in 1992. The book describes a virtual world called metaverse. As long as people are connected through a public entrance, they can enter it as a virtual “Avatar” and open another life different from the real world. In recent years, with the progress of global science and technology, the connotation and extension of meta universe are evolving.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, said: “metauniverse is a vision that spans many companies and even the entire technology industry. You can see it as the successor of mobile Internet.” Huang Renxun, CEO of NVIDIA, said: “the real world and the meta universe are connected.”
Generally speaking, the meta universe is a virtual world based on the Internet, connected with the real world and exists in parallel. It is a virtual space that can map the real world and is independent of the real world. It is not a single closed universe, but a constantly colliding and expanding digital universe composed of countless virtual worlds and digital contents. “We believe that the development direction of the meta universe should be an Internet form with 100% penetration and uninterrupted use 24 hours a day.” Kong Rong, chief analyst of global science and technology, said that metauniverse can be understood as a “3D version of the Internet”, that is, to obtain an immersive experience through a 3D representation of the Internet.
“From the perspective of various concepts, the meta universe is a new Internet application and social form that integrates virtual reality produced by a variety of new technologies.” Shenyang, executive director of the new media research center of Tsinghua University, believes that metauniverse closely integrates the virtual world with the real world in the economic system, social system and identity system, and allows each user to produce content and edit the world.
Shenyang told reporters that there is no single technology called “meta universe” in the world. Meta universe is the combination and upgrading of various existing technologies. In his opinion, metauniverse has three core technologies, namely, extended reality technology, digital twin technology and blockchain technology, which may have explosive and exponential growth in the future.
For example, extended reality technology provides immersive experience by VR and AR, which can solve problems that mobile phones can’t solve. Digital twin technology can mirror the real world into the virtual world, which means that in the meta universe, people can see their own virtual avatar. With the further development of the meta universe, the simulation of the whole real society is strengthened. After building an economic system with blockchain technology, people may not only spend money, but also make money in the meta universe.
“As a new thing, the meta universe is still a concept that continues to develop and evolve. Different participants continue to enrich its meaning in their own ways.” Shenyang said.
multiple factors promote metauniverse from concept to popularity, which can bring development opportunities for the combination of games and social networking, retail and e-commerce links, industrial Internet, etc.
Although the concept has a long history, it was not until this year that the meta universe really “came out of the circle”. In March this year, roblox, known as the first stock of the meta universe, was officially listed in New York; In October, Facebook, an American social media giant, announced that it was renamed “meta”; Recently, Microsoft, apple, Tencent, Huawei, Adidas and other well-known enterprises at home and abroad have entered or laid out relevant industries with a high profile.
It can be said that the wave of meta universe has swept the world. Both traditional industries and technology giants show a strong interest in striving to be the “number one player”. In essence, the meta universe is not an academic concept, but is promoted by all aspects of industry and investment.
There is no doubt that this year is the year when the meta universe has moved from concept to popularity. The reasons behind it are worth pondering.
“2020 is a critical point of virtualization in human history. People’s lives have changed dramatically due to the epidemic of covid-19 pneumonia.” According to the analysis of Shenyang, on the one hand, the epidemic has accelerated the social virtualization, and the “housing economy” has developed rapidly under the epidemic prevention and control measures; On the other hand, online life has become the norm from the original short-term exception, which makes more demands that can not be realized in real society turn to be met online.
Specifically, the epidemic has forced the elderly to surf the Internet, and the people far away from the Internet are online; In daily work, people are more used to using online conference software to hold meetings and discuss business; With the basic water and electricity guarantee, the popularity of home e-commerce and the full supply of network information, the epidemic is promoting the “virtual survival of otaku men and women”… These changes pave the way for 2021 to become the first year of the yuan universe.
Kong Rong also listed two reasons: first, the global Internet penetration has reached a high level, the user bonus is gradually lost, and users have more in-depth, rich and diverse needs for a more immersive virtual world; Second, VR / AR hardware, artificial intelligence, digital twinning, cloud computing and other key technologies are gradually developed.
“For example, suppose we start from Huangshan Tourism Development Co.Ltd(600054) Back, if his family wants to know whether Huangshan is fun, he can only see photos and videos on his mobile phone at most. If it is the era of meta universe, I can share all the location and space, including the three-dimensional objects in the space, and he can immediately enter the space through the corresponding equipment to get the same feeling as me. Such an immersive experience based on extended reality will naturally be welcomed. ” Shenyang said.
In theory, we can reproduce everything offline to the online, that is, the ultimate state of the meta universe. At present, the following fields are easier to be digitized and deserve your attention.
The first scenario is the combination of games and social networking, tiktok or WeChat. The current social platform is 2D social, which mostly transmits graphic information. However, we usually go out with friends, whether it’s dinner, movies or concerts, it’s a kind of social interaction in addition to the content itself. Especially under the epidemic, isolation makes offline interaction difficult, and the virtualized social platform has strong user needs.
The second scenario is retail and e-commerce. Our current shopping is more about brush Taobao, tiktok, and grow grass through little red book. In the process of shopping, most of them are in the form of pictures and videos, with no sense of 3D. In the future, there may be a new form of e-commerce because of the meta universe. The offline blocks will be engraved online, so that users can go shopping in real blocks, go to different stores, and choose goods with the help of virtual salespeople.
Yuancosmos also has strong application scenarios in the industrial Internet. At the beginning of 2021, BMW and NVIDIA Omniverse cooperated to build a digital factory, using digital twin technology to realize online testing, which improved the accuracy and efficiency of the planning process. The efficiency in the planning stage was increased by about 30%, and one vehicle was produced every 56 seconds in the vehicle manufacturing stage. In August 2021, Tesla engineers also showed how to build digital scenes, simulate real camera data, and let artificial intelligence simulate, test and fit them.
“Therefore, do not narrowly understand the meta universe as a social game platform. If it can make our real world more 3D and three-dimensional, the efficiency will be greatly improved and the distance between people will be shortened.” Kong Rong said that the extremely immersive interactive experience can bring people far more experience than the 2D era. Life, industry, society and scientific and technological iteration will greatly improve efficiency, and human cost, resource cost, time cost and transaction cost are also expected to be reduced.
rationally look at the new round of technological revolution and its impact on society brought by the meta universe, do not underestimate the opportunities in 5-10 years, nor overestimate the evolution changes in 1-2 years
With the hot topic of meta universe, some routines of “encircling money” using relevant concepts are emerging one after another. As of mid November, China had applied for more than 4300 yuan universe trademarks, involving nearly 700 companies, of which 99.9% of the trademarks were registered and applied this year.
Many people in the industry believe that although the yuan universe has pointed out the direction for the future of the Internet industry, there is also a big bubble in the yuan universe.
Virtual reality integration has become the general trend of Internet development, but at present, the meta universe industry is still in the early stage of development and is still far from large-scale production. Needless to say, the meta universe industry has the characteristics of immature and unstable emerging industries, and there are still some potential risks. From the perspective of Shenyang, the concept of the yuan universe is still concentrated in expanding reality and game social interaction. Technology ecology and content ecology are not yet mature, and the entrance of the universe needs to be widened. There is still a long process of “de bubble” between ideal vision and reality development.
Shenyang listed the following risks to the reporter: capital manipulation, there are still many uncertainties in the meta universe in the embryonic stage, and the industry and market urgently need to return to rationality. We should be vigilant against capital’s profit seeking inertia operations such as creating new concepts, hyping new outlets and attracting new investment; Public opinion flatter that the yuan universe industry is still in the foundation stage of the application of social interaction games, and far from realizing the ideal state of whole industry coverage and ecological openness, economic self consistency, and virtual reality interoperability. We should be alert to irrational stock market bubbles and bring about irrational stock market shocks. Economic risk, the meta universe also provides a more hidden manipulation space for the financial harvesting of giant capital to a certain extent. Financial supervision needs to be expanded from the real world to the virtual world. In addition, the meta universe also has risks in ethics, monopoly, computing power, privacy, addiction, knowledge producing areas and so on.
Kong Rong believes that the new round of technological revolution brought by the meta universe and its impact on society should be viewed rationally. The doubts of the existing market about the meta universe mainly come from the immature and matching of the hardware conditions and network environment of the technical realization. The key technologies for building the ultimate meta universe, such as computing power, platform and network construction, still need to be improved for a long time.
At present, some companies hype the concept of meta universe, which is quite different from the real meta universe, and need to eliminate the false and preserve the true and make careful judgment. In the view of the industry, metauniverse will become the development goal of the next generation Internet for a long time, which depends on the core technology breakthrough, technology evolution and change at the bottom technology and computing power level.
Yuancosmos is a new outlet of the Internet of things, and semiconductor has become a “new infrastructure” (with a list of beneficiary shares)
Hot “Yuan universe”: more than 5000 trademarks have been registered, and more companies offer millions of annual salary to rob people
IDC’s top ten predictions of China’s yuan universe next year: training and telecommuting are the first, and commercial games are the most concerned
(website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission)
