The "Metaverse" is such a vauge and boundryless concept that's it's almost meaningless. You could argue that email and the Internet are already a kind of "metaverse."

Facebook's announcement says more about Facebook than the product/solution that Zuckerber is pitching.

The "metaverse" should be a collection of tools that people choose to use; like the Internet. Facebook would like to take away that choice. It would like control and to monopolize.

I guess its rather safe to call it a 3D internet.

Once again Wired reminds us that controversy sells clicks.

The barrier to entry to compete with Facebook is too high, they have too much power over humanity and they are alleged to have abused that power, so they will be scaled back, just like those who came before them (AT&T, IBM, etc.) Not sure what they are planning matters while this process is playing out, but click on…

Is there any evidence that the technology for the meta verse is anywhere near ready? The underlying tech of VR has been 5 years away for the last decade, consumer adoption of the early devices is mixed at best.

This reminds me of the old MS office videos that looked so cool but were ultimately just vapor ware.

Any link on the old MS office videos? Never heard of this

There was a series of them made from 2009 to 2015. Originally they were intended to show what Microsoft productivity products would look like in 2020.

Here is the first one that I could find, as far as I can tell Microsoft doesn’t distribute them anymore.

https://youtu.be/8Ff7SzP4gfg

The big ideas were that screens would be everywhere, and dedicated animated touch interfaces would be the default computing interface. This motivated the development of the windows 8 and Microsoft surface line of products to at least a certain extent - but looking at the videos it’s clear that nothing remotely like what they show would have been possible/common in 2020.

If you ask my kids, they'd say yes. RecRoom on the Quest2 is a huge and fun. It's full of social spaces and games. They'd spend all day on it if we'd allow it.

That's unfortunately why I avoid those spaces, even though I'm a huge fan of vr. Too many squeakers. Make being there a massive pain.

I don't see a metaverse being a real possibility without a better brain-computer interface. A stepping stone to that is probably a better and cheaper Google Glass, but definitely not some bulky face hugger VR headset

Jonathan Haidt gave an interesting talk on the psychological make-up of those who created so-called social networks. I posted a transcript online, which has curiously disappeared from the Intertubes :o

Summary?

> Summary?

I can't exactly remember and I can't find it online and I didn't keep a copy. I posted a number of transcripts to interesting stuff. Some self appointed gatekeeper decided to suspend the account and wipe all previous posts.

It honestly sounds like yet-another solution in need of a problem.

Can't say I'm surprised that Facebook continues to suck.