“元宇宙”是吸引科技行业想象力的最新流行词,以至于最著名的互联网平台之一正在重塑品牌,以表明其接受未来主义理念。

Facebook首席执行官马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)周四宣布,他将把公司名称改为Meta平台公司(Meta),这可能是自科幻作家尼尔·斯蒂芬森(Neal Stephenson)在1992年的小说《雪崩》(Snow Crash)中创造了这个词以来,元宇宙发生的最重大事件。

但扎克伯格和他的团队并不是唯一一个对如何形成融合了虚拟现实和其他技术的元宇宙有想法的技术梦想家。,一些人一直在思考一段时间担忧了一项新的世界与社会媒体巨头,会获得更多的个人数据和被指控未能阻止危险的错误信息的扩散和其他在线危害加剧现实问题。

什么是元宇宙?

你可以把它想象成互联网被赋予了生命,或者至少是3D渲染。扎克伯格将其描述为一个“虚拟环境”,你可以进入其中,而不仅仅是在屏幕上看。从本质上说,这是一个无限的、相互连接的虚拟社区的世界,人们可以在这里见面、工作和娱乐,使用虚拟现实耳机、增强现实眼镜、智能手机应用程序或其他设备。

跟踪新兴技术的分析师维多利亚•彼得罗夫克(Victoria Petrock)表示,它还将整合网上生活的其他方面,如购物和社交媒体。

她说:“这是连接的下一次进化,所有这些东西开始在一个无缝的、二重身的宇宙中聚集在一起,所以你的虚拟生活就像你的现实生活一样。”

Facebook在加州门洛帕克的公司总部发布了新的Meta标识。

托尼Avelar /美联社

我在元宇宙中能做什么?

比如参加一场虚拟音乐会,在线旅行,观看或创作艺术品,试穿或购买电子服装。

在冠状病毒大流行期间,该元宇宙还可能改变在家工作的游戏规则。员工可以在虚拟的办公室里加入他们,而不是在视频通话中看到同事。

Facebook为企业推出了名为“地平线工作室”(Horizon Workrooms)的会议软件,可与Oculus VR头盔一起使用,不过早期的评价并不好。这款耳机的售价为300美元或更多,这让许多人无法获得元宇宙最尖端的体验。

对于那些买得起的人来说,用户可以通过他们的虚拟形象在不同公司创建的虚拟世界中穿梭。

扎克伯格说:“许多元宇宙体验将围绕着能够从一种体验传送到另一种体验。”

科技公司仍然需要弄清楚如何将他们的在线平台相互连接起来。要让它发挥作用,需要相互竞争的技术平台就一套标准达成一致,所以“Facebook的元世界里没有人,微软的元世界里也没有人,”Petrock说。

Facebook会在元宇宙中全力以赴吗?

扎克伯格正在大力发展他眼中的下一代互联网,因为他认为这将成为数字经济的重要组成部分。

批评人士怀疑,此举可能是为了分散人们对该公司危机的注意力,这些危机包括反垄断打击、揭发内幕的前员工的证词,以及人们对该公司处理错误信息的担忧。

前雇员Frances Haugen指控Facebook的平台复制内部研究文件并将其提交给美国证券交易委员会后,伤害儿童并煽动政治暴力。

这些文件还被提供给了一些媒体机构,其中包括美联社(The Associated Press),后者报道了许多关于Facebook如何将利润置于安全之上,并对投资者和公众隐瞒自己的研究的故事。

元宇宙只是Facebook的一个项目吗?

不。微软和芯片制造商英伟达(Nvidia)等公司也在大力宣传元宇宙。

英伟达Omniverse平台副总裁Richard Kerris表示:“我们认为,将会有很多公司在元宇宙中构建虚拟世界和环境,就像很多公司在万维网上做事情一样。”“开放和可扩展很重要,这样你就可以通过一家公司或另一家公司传送到不同的世界,就像我从一个网页到另一个网页一样。”

视频游戏公司也在发挥主导作用。大受欢迎的电子游戏《堡垒之夜》(Fortnite)的开发商Epic Games已从投资者那里筹集了10亿美元,以帮助其建立元宇宙的长期计划。游戏平台Roblox是另一个大玩家,它描绘了元宇宙的愿景,“人们可以在数百万的3D体验中聚集在一起学习、工作、玩、创造和社交。”

消费品牌正试图赶上这一潮流,今年6月,意大利时尚品牌古驰(Gucci)与Roblox合作,出售一系列数码专用配饰。可口可乐(Coca-Cola)和倩碧(Clinique)都出售数字代币,作为进军元宇宙的踏脚石。

这会是获取更多数据的另一种方式吗?

在某些方面,扎克伯格对元宇宙的拥抱与它最大的狂热者的核心原则相矛盾。他们认为,元宇宙是网络文化从Facebook等科技平台解放出来的产物。Facebook拥有用户的账户、照片、帖子和播放列表,并利用用户从这些数据中获取的信息进行交易。

“我们希望能够轻松地在互联网上移动,但我们也希望能够以一种不被跟踪和监控的方式在互联网上移动,”专注于加密货币技术的Kindred Ventures管理合伙人、风险投资家史蒂夫·张(Steve Jang)说。

很明显,Facebook希望将其基于使用个人数据销售定向广告的商业模式带入元宇宙。

扎克伯格在最近的公司收益电话会议上表示:“广告将继续成为我们在社交媒体领域的重要战略组成部分,而且很可能也是元宇宙中有意义的一部分。”

Petrock表示,她担心Facebook试图引领进入一个虚拟世界的道路,这可能需要更多的个人数据,并提供更大的滥用和错误信息的可能性,如果它没有在其现有平台上解决这些问题。

 

原文:

The term “metaverse” is the latest buzzword to capture the tech industry’s imagination — so much so that one of the best-known internet platforms is rebranding to signal its embrace of the futuristic idea.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Thursday announcement that he’s changing his company’s name to Meta Platforms Inc., or Meta for short, might be the biggest thing to happen to the metaverse since science fiction writer Neal Stephenson coined the term for his 1992 novel “Snow Crash.”

But Zuckerberg and his team are hardly the only tech visionaries with ideas on how the metaverse, which will employ a mix of virtual reality and other technologies, should take shape. And some who’ve been thinking about it for a while have concerns about a new world tied to a social media giant that could get access to even more personal data and is accused of failing to stop the proliferation of dangerous misinformation and other online harms that exacerbate real-world problems.

What is the metaverse?

Think of it as the internet brought to life, or at least rendered in 3D. Zuckerberg has described it as a “virtual environment” you can go inside of — instead of just looking at on a screen. Essentially, it’s a world of endless, interconnected virtual communities where people can meet, work and play, using virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses, smartphone apps or other devices.

It also will incorporate other aspects of online life such as shopping and social media, according to Victoria Petrock, an analyst who follows emerging technologies.

“It’s the next evolution of connectivity where all of those things start to come together in a seamless, doppelganger universe, so you’re living your virtual life the same way you’re living your physical life,” she said.

Facebook unveiled its new Meta sign at the company headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.

Tony Avelar/AP

What will I be able to do in the metaverse?

Things like go to a virtual concert, take a trip online, view or create artwork and try on or buy digital clothing.

The metaverse also could be a game-changer for the work-from-home shift amid the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of seeing co-workers on a video call grid, employees could join them in a virtual office.

Facebook has launched meeting software for companies, called Horizon Workrooms, to use with its Oculus VR headsets, though early reviews have not been great. The headsets cost $300 or more, putting the metaverse’s most cutting-edge experiences out of reach for many.

For those who can afford it, users would be able, through their avatars, to flit between virtual worlds created by different companies.

“A lot of the metaverse experience is going to be around being able to teleport from one experience to another,” Zuckerberg says.

Tech companies still have to figure out how to connect their online platforms to each other. Making it work will require competing technology platforms to agree on a set of standards, so there aren’t “people in the Facebook metaverse and other people in the Microsoft metaverse,” Petrock said.

Is Facebook going all in on the metaverse?

Zuckerberg is going big on what he sees as the next generation of the internet because he thinks it’s going to be a big part of the digital economy.

Critics wonder if the potential pivot could be an effort to distract from the company’s crises, including antitrust crackdowns, testimony by whistleblowing former employees and concerns about its handling of misinformation.

Former employee Frances Haugen has accused Facebook’s platforms of harming children and inciting political violence after copying internal research documents and turning them over to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

They also were provided to a group of media outlets, including The Associated Press, which reported numerous stories about how Facebook prioritized profits over safety and hid its own research from investors and the public.

Is the metaverse just a Facebook project?

No. Other companies talking up the metaverse include Microsoft and chipmaker Nvidia.

“We think there’s going to be lots of companies building virtual worlds and environments in the metaverse, in the same way there’s been lots of companies doing things on the World Wide Web,” said Richard Kerris, vice president of Nvidia’s Omniverse platform. “It’s important to be open and extensible, so you can teleport to different worlds whether it’s by one company or another company, the same way I go from one web page to another web page.”

Video game companies also are taking a leading role. Epic Games, the company behind the popular Fortnite video game, has raised $1 billion from investors to help with its long-term plans for building the metaverse. Game platform Roblox is another big player, outlining its vision of the metaverse as a place where “people can come together within millions of 3D experiences to learn, work, play, create and socialize.”

Consumer brands are trying to jump on the trend, too. Italian fashion house Gucci collaborated in June with Roblox to sell a collection of digital-only accessories. Coca-Cola and Clinique have sold digital tokens pitched as a stepping stone to the metaverse.

Will this be another way to get more of my data?

Zuckerberg’s embrace of the metaverse in some ways contradicts a central tenet of its biggest enthusiasts. They envision the metaverse as online culture’s liberation from tech platforms like Facebook that assumed ownership of people’s accounts, photos, posts and playlists and traded off what they gleaned from that data.

“We want to be able to move around the internet with ease, but we also want to be able to move around the internet in a way we’re not tracked and monitored,” said venture capitalist Steve Jang, a managing partner at Kindred Ventures who focuses on cryptocurrency technology.

It seems clear that Facebook wants to carry its business model, which is based on using personal data to sell targeted advertising, into the metaverse.

“Ads are going to continue being an important part of the strategy across the social media parts of what we do, and it will probably be a meaningful part of the metaverse, too,” Zuckerberg said in a recent company earnings call.

Petrock she said she’s concerned about Facebook trying to lead the way into a virtual world that could require even more personal data and offer greater potential for abuse and misinformation when it hasn’t fixed those problems in its current platforms.


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