Zuckerberg wants to create a make-believe world in which you can hide from all the damage Facebook has done Facebook the company is being renamed to Meta, and the social network will be a brand within that entity, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday. You may think that this is just a cheap and cynical rebranding exercise to mitigate the ongoing controversies in which Facebook is mired. But this move goes way beyond that. We're well …
No, it is not.
Technologies like the Internet should be tools for making the real world a better place, not a replacement for it; and certainly not one run by a corporation, particularly an untrustworthy and rapacious one like Facebook.
Every virtual surface will be a billboard for advertising, sold by FB, of course. Just, no.
If the majority of life is perceived virtually then there's no pesky Physical reality to give insight to how others are manipulating. It really helps to destroy any potential for intuitive diversity, that eventually build to destabilize entrenched powers.
Removing the majority Of an individual's potential for independent thought. If you cannot test reality outside of how other humans have defined it, Then There is nothing real to Contrast with and so that anything an apathetic ruling faction can advertise, can be sustainfully believed by the masses.
He is looking for Is a 100% disconnection with physical reality For everyone except at the top of the Is pyramid. who must maintain a sense of Physical reality to keep the whole lie running.
"Technologies like the Internet should be tools for making the real world a better place.."
I have no interest in what you might think is a 'better place' but you are entirely correct that the internet does not exist to replace it and the idea that Zuckerberg will have anything to do with it is both horrifying and absurd.
A problem with "better" is it always reveals itself to be A mere biased preference that has lost proper distinguishment. Really thats just declaring war on any perspective that differs from your own strong preferences.
I would argue the most valuable thing the Internet affords us be Some place to bypass rules, Is an access information restricted in the physical world. Is to give people away to shore up the cracks they fall tp, due to the flaws and bugs and shortcomings of social and legal codes.
The internet is no man's land. Where ideologies and morals and other fabrications cease to be authoritative and become debates of philosophy.
A place for divergency and Critical thinking to thrive, And children smart enough find it to bypass the censors.
what they called the dark web just the original Internet Working to preserve anonymity So that individuals
outgrow what is convenient to society to allow. Until you are anonymous you you can't develop yourself all. you can do is avoid the most dangerous threat. The bias of fear distorts every other creative impulse you might have to delete.
It's this Web 2.0 propaganda machine and e-commerce infection that is the perversion.
I get people suffer from anxiety, I do, but he clearly doesn't understand people at all, maybe he suffers from it. The simple remark of boardgames being virtual, does he not understand people like to collect boardgames, they like physical objects take Warhammer for example.
He's clearly out of touch and every person in that video was a yes person as they clearly just want to keep a job.
I'm reminded of Ronald Reagan's famous quote, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help."
I wish I was alive then to reply, "Then if disaster strikes and you've lost everything, who would you rather come to save you: the government or the Really Big Corporation of America?"
Reagan and his ilk started from an abject horror at what big government did in Nazi Germany or Stalin's USSR and then drew a free-hand extrapolation to any government initiative.
Sentimentally I would prefer a small, effective government (P J O'Rourke's guard the coastlines and let UPS deliver the mail), but I'd always emphasize the effective over the small.
I'm missing quite a few words from that sentence.
"... you want to see fail to get started, then explode and burn up taking the one pushing it with it, the answer is an unequivocal "Yes, and hopefully with as little collateral damage as possible.".
This move may indeed be just that. A brilliant move by the Facebook board to amplify back to him his own nightmares and encourage Zuck to launch himself into an unknown and unknowable 'metaverse' leaving them to try and clear up the mess he left at Facebook.
Nice to imagine but I really can't see even his wildest fantasies totally distract him from real control of the real world through his existing channels. But we can dream.
I did watch the whole of that video. Oh, to be a fly on the wall of the technicians' canteen.
The problem with the B Ark idea is that you'd probably get something like a Captain Peter Peachfuzz on board who can find his way to the nonexistent controls, mess with it, and redirect it INTO the A Ark (or the Earth in this case, likely into Yellowstone, setting off the supervolcano there).
Make Every Thing Awful will fit too.
Or for Zuck, My Entry To Absurdity.
Is Zuck losing his grip on reality and creating his own fugue to escape into while hoping everyone else wants to go with him.
Incidently, autism has nothing to do with this, try understanding a condition before using it as an insult.
It's interesting. I enjoyed reading Snowcrash. Now admittedly it did make me want to buy an aircraft carrier and turn it into a yacht. I mean, who wouldn't? But what it didn't do was make me think, "Ooh this future looks like a nice place to live." It's not a nice fluffy bit of utopian sci-fi.
Personally though, I think Zuckerberg should be made to listen to Reason.
I'm all for creating an online universe, but this isn't it. Facebook is buggy as hell, slow, clumsy, and completely incapable of taking on next-generation functionality. The best it do is profit from abuse and chaos. This is like some crackpot with poor welding skills and no concern for physics claiming he's going to build a spaceship.
Don't forget that the other two thirds of the Golgafrinchams died out from a disease contracted from a poorly sanitised phone. The corollary here is that we need faecesbook to not catch horrible diseases.
I think that the better analogy for Zuck and his ilk are the pan dimensional beings who palyed inter galactic bar billiards and potted a whole planet into a black hole killing 10 billion people. or Vroomfondel and Majikthise with the humour taken out.
"Facebook is buggy as hell, slow, clumsy, and completely incapable of taking on next-generation functionality."
Yes, now imaging being a fully immersive VR world of that quality. Motion sickness just won't be enough to describe it. Although come to think of it, maybe now is the time to invest in companies making motion sickness medications?
What he has visioneered [sic] really does sound like a particularly unpleasant Black Mirror episode (or perhaps the Matrix), and it sounds horrid, but I have to say that I do quite like the logo: it's a cross between the infinity symbol and a spinning Lissajous figure, so it seems pretty much 'just right' (if you want to be trapped inside a virtual world of changing voltage inputs - or is that pretty much what we are anyway?). At least the designer deserves an appreciative nod for the thinking behind that, even if the whole idea is ghastly.
Or, intentional - a nod to their owned zombie users
His dream is my nightmare.
Changing name to try to erase bad reputation is a classic. It's a good strategy, many people have memory skills close to the ones of a golden fish. It may work for a while, but because Meta will be as perverse as Feckbook is, its reputation should be tarnished the same. What will be the next name?
When Vive exists?
My sons have been through all the other serious VR headsets, but won't touch the Facebook one.
So far one has Steam VR, the other has his Vive back from him, and I am the recipient of their PSVR.
So what is the need for a Facebook Oculus?
Will Steam and PSN remain safe from Facebook?
Metaverse won't be going anywhere unless it directly targets a profit making plan.
How about amateur making of eye-candy 3D/VR videos for a Tik Tok like platform? Maybe. Make a profit selling the recording hardware/firmware/software and the viewing glasses.
How about games? That could be big - the world wide game market is worth 230 billion a year.
Of course a prerequisite is that the glasses can be worn comfortably for extended periods without headaches or causing degraded vision. And that's not at all a given.
If Metaverse flops then the company will have to rename again. Google at least had the foresight not to use the name of a project which didn't work out.
"Of course a prerequisite is that the glasses can be worn comfortably for extended periods without headaches or causing degraded vision. And that's not at all a given."
I suspect that is physically impossible as even before VR goggles, people were suffering from simulation sickness. Apparently, the brain is a lot easier to fool than anyone realized.
A link to the full presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOn2CZWnxxY
I've watched the first 10 minutes - it truly is something to behold. I'm not normally one to comment on someone's appearance but it really does look like they have deliberately made MZ look like Data from TNG - a "meta" commentary on this thing trying to be like the Holodeck?
I can't believe he made it through the presentation with a straight face, and of course there had to be a single-speed fixie in the background at one point...
Appears he doesn't give a shit what people think of him I'm guessing. When one was dressed as the robot and he said "I thought I was supposed to be the robot".
This idea is shit as we are nowhere near having the tech to make it happen. One thing I would like and want however IS a holodeck from Star Trek. Nothing wrong with that idea. Especially if you can use it to take old memories to revisit. I have been looking on and off for years of photos of Sandown on the Isle of Wight, specifically the Browns area where the lake is (was a boating lake) and the old Browns arcade but haven't found any. If the holodeck could recreate that from my memory it would be great :)
I carried on watching. The investors will fall for it and he says its a long way off, they'll want to be in on it in case it takes off so their family can enjoy the riches. But watching it he just doesn't seem to get it. All the ISPs will be pissed on data usage, they are already moaning about Netflix. People out in the sticks won't have speeds high enough for this. And little things like "You're friend is at a concert, they can invite you as a hologram" yeah but surely that person needs to then pay for a ticket, surely?
Had that discussion in a jossing way about Latest Richard Herring RHLSTP series. He's not putting it out for free after having done for years, because this run is for charity. £50 for the whole series for virtual tickets (you can go to the theatre instead if you want) so you can stream it from home, which I've done as I can't be arsed to go to London. I've said "What if I have others sitting on the sofa with me watching, should they also not pay for a ticket like they would have to if they went to the physical theatre?"
It keeps going. 14mins in "Can create products with Spark AI" your AI (not AI just an algorithm is already shit), if you look at true AI its fucking hard. Just look at Robert Miles YouTube channel on AI Safety, especially the latest one and how unpredictable AI is. But anyway, you'd have to scrap copyright otherwise no doubt someone will create a virtual toaster for the metaverse that becomes popular until a big company comes along and sues because your toaster looks a lot like theirs.
He's fucking deluded. Its comedy gold.
It's all a big joke (though that would require it to be aware of it being a joke).
Haven't we been warned enough over the years just how bad an idea it is? Red Dwarf (better than life), Syndicate (Amiga game), They live (Hollywood's finest example of two men having a fight), Neuromancer (cyberpunk kick starter) the list goes on.
Finally, SillyCon valleys last great name change has done wonders for Alphabet Google, no?
The sooner it's smashed up, the better.
The landed/crashed spaceships reminded my of this artists book cover style.
It feels llike there's a huge dearth of robust thinking amongst the supposed 'thought leaders' in computing.
Google spends its time trying to becoming AOL (A walled Garden) and Facebook wants to us all to revisit Second Life, or worse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYkZNPBxZyk
Is there no ingenuity out there? Is ths really as good as it gets?
Yep, it's as good as it gets.
Real ingenuity doesn't get planned, it just happens out of the blue. If you look at all the real inovations over the last century, they weren't predicted or planned. What was predicted was personal hovercraft and jet packs.
This is turd-polishing recast as genius, like everything else FB does.
I've driven a personal hovercraft. It was lots of fun. And they're not all that expensive, even without mass production. So they're a perfectly practical solution to all your commuting needs, so long as you don't mind crashing into things all the time and getting flipped upside down if you have to brake too hard. I even got passably good at steering it - well better than anybody else on the day, but that's really not saying very much.
The sheer tragedy of this: a man with more money than he knows what to do with and who could buy any experience he wants on Earth or beyond, holed up inside a sprawling mansion and wearing VR goggles after his website has had untold effects on democracies, scheming how to help us escape the society he dragged his car keys along for more than a decade.
Brilliant.
Although at this stage it's more like an angle grinder.
This talk of building towards a Metaverse reminds me of something ...
... the Commies talk of builing towards communism.
So, all is well and gangsta in the Metaverse until the Zuck-KVD shows up and puts you into a Meta-Lag.
Until the Metaverse will be realised, please endure the hate and misinformation Faecebook spreads, it's all for the greater good, or was it for the good the great?
This isn't entirely dissimilar to the world described by Asimov in his short story "It's Such a Beautiful Day" that I remember reading some 40 years ago.
I don't know who has asked for Metaverse - I am in my early 50s, I work in technology and I am a regular El Reg commentard but I hate the use cases that he has set out. I appreciate that I am outside the target demographic (except maybe as one of the parents/grandparents that users are avoiding visiting in person!!)
My Oculus Rift has been in its box for over a year (and since getting it maybe 4 years ago I have used it maybe 10 times), and when there is a requirement for a FaceBook account to use it, it will go on to Ebay (if not sooner).
It would be interesting also to see what opotometrists think of the effect of such increased close-up screen use on the user population. It might be that we don't die out from a poorly-sanitised telephone, but from myopia from VR use (which may or may not include the Adult sites....)
What Zuckerberg doesn't mention is how those unable to use/afford the technology will be able to participate in the dystopia he has wanked out. I'd be interested to get ShadowSystems' views on this...
(Although maybe he doesn't care since they aren't a demographic that his advertisers care about either?)
My eye doctors told my Mum when I was a kid, that lots of viewing things like telly from close up is fine. That was Moorfields Eye Hospital which is one of the world's best research places. Their canteen also used to do excellent doughnuts as well... I still get the same advice, though I'm a regular at a less lofty hospital nowadays.
So I'm sure the 3d goggles are fine. Although if you wear them too long it gets pretty hot and sweaty in there, so it's probably not so great for your skin.
Also, if the VR headset is properly designed and adjusted then your eyes will be sat at neutral focus, the most relaxed they can be.
Assuming the backlight isn't emitting any UV, then it's probably better for your eyes than looking out of the window.
Not all that great for your neck though, as they're all relatively weighty. Not to mention nausea, for that matter. Motion sickness is absolutely a thing.
I think Zuck's VR future will be denied to me. I was born very premature with retrolental fibroplasia (now called retinopathy of prematurity or ROP) in one eye and pretty good vision in the other. I have had essentially monocular vision since birth. All the 3D gadgets, stereo photo viewers, etc I have ever tried have, of course, done nothing at all, sometimes to the great puzzlement of binocular people (What? You can't see it? really?). A sort of compensation is that I am a pretty good shot with a rifle; I got a marksman's badge in the school CCF.
Binocular vision basically does nothing beyond a foot or two away. Past that, your brain figures out distance from scale.
We've mostly got two eyes for a backup - losing all vision would be immediately fatal for any animal hunting using sight, and eyes are fragile.
Having two means you don't starve to death if an antelope kicks sand in your eye.
VR is pretty likely to work just fine for you. A friend of mine has a wonky eye and she's still pretty damn good at Beat Saber.
However, it does appear that anyone who's partially sighted in both eyes is not considered a person by Zuckerberg. Rather a lot of people being left out of the Metaverse.
but he's declared that his virtual reality headsets will be sold below cost.
Doesn't that immediately undermine every company selling VR kit at a sensible profit?
If that is indeed the case, isn't this declaring that Facebook is using its monopolistic position to undermine other businesses around the world?
Isn't that saying "get the lawyers ready for anti-competitive behaviour" court battles for the next ten years?
The trouble with Zuckenberg is 7/8 of what his company does isn't visible on the surface ...
For years I've thought Zuck was a real life Bond Baddie, and he really is looking like that. Closed off from the real world, unimaginable wealth, and simply insane ideas. Meanwhile his original product causes truly horrific things to happen all over the world. Its all like something from the movies.
It's like a Bond baddie combined with some 1950/60's Sci-Fi terror/horror of the world controlled by the borg and we are all just pawns in the game.
The Federation have taken over the planet and there are just a few rebels left somewhere fighting for the cause and freedom. Once freed from the federation the pawns will not be able to survive for long as they have lost the basic skills of life.
It is up to us, fellow commentards, to save the planet and bring back freedom.
Note : This really is not the future we all imagined as kids in the 1970's when we were told computers would take over our life and run the world for us.
It's not just this guy who wants to change the world as you see it. Niantic (you know, that Ingress, Pokemon, Harry Potter and failed Catan company) aslo want a version of the same thing - except John Hanke calls it AR instead.
https://nianticlabs.com/blog/real-world-metaverse/
Calling the Metaverse a Dystopian Nightmare, his vision (no pun) is for people to walk around the world wearing glasses that "transform" what is there into an alternate world laid over the real world. To get this Niantic are using the players of Ingress and Pokemon to scan street images that will then be incorporated into these "alternate worlds".
Tied up with Nintendo, Niantic have just released a new "experience", Pikmin Bloom, which I hope the world will not look like in the future. If it does then you'll know that the Teletubbies have taken over.
In fairness, those are two different things. VR is taking a videoconference, making it full screen, and blocking out the rest of your vision. AR is keeping your vision but adding stuff. I can see a few potential uses of AR to add information to a physical location, whereas VR is just a screen in a different shape which doesn't sound very useful to me.
Because if he's become so detached from reality that he thinks that the decades long fail of virtual reality headset alterna-worlds is going to succeed because this time it'll be clever-mark-and-all-his-money making it, it will be sweet to watch.
Gratified that it's been met with such mockery worldwide, and if anyone's tempted to take up a job there building it, just imagine how many people will be driven mad by working with one of these headsets on all day every day staring at the not-even-working-yet bleakness of this poor quality alternative reality, then go take a walk somewhere nice and realise that entering this world of shit will damage you, maybe beyond repair.
It feels to me like the whole thing is an "ignore the neo-Nazis on our platform, ignore the fact we don't pay any taxes and ignore the anti-trust issues around the merging of WhatsApp/Facebook/Instagram, here's something you can talk about instead" type of deal
Cynical, moi? You betcha...
oddly we have have a world like what zuck is talking about for 16 years now
its called second life or open sim or many of the others that are going about none of them have become main stream ?
face book should stick to what its good at, spying on the masses and spreading lies
Exactly. You beat me to it. Second Life already exists, and has been around for like 15 or 20 years. You can do EVERYTHING in there he goes on about (it has a scripting language, so you can even do the scripting an in-SL object that interacts with the outside world.) And Second Life looks lots better than Zuckerberg's demo too (... in general, all graphics are user-supplied in SL so there are some historical areas intentionally kept as they were in like 2005 or whenever.)
I had assumed (given the bubble in users on there years back, and the drop off in users afterwards) that Linden Labs was still in business due to cost cutting (originally 1 SIM -- 256 meters x 256 meters -- was on 1 server, they can probably combine 50 or more onto one now) but it turns out they are more profitable than ever -- due to porn and gambling. Make no mistake -- there's still a reasonably large number of users in there actually creating stuff, interacting (non-pornographically), and so on, they just don't bring in the revenue that people throwing $L (Lindens) into slot machines as fast as physically possible does.
Ironically, Second Life initially did have VR goggle support -- for the 1990s era extremely expensive ones. They dropped it, and by the time Occulus Rift etc. came out, they apparently found their code base was too antiquated (... it is still OpenGL 2 based) to add current VR goggle support to it.
Almost right, Second Life did add support for the Oculus Rift, it never had support for VR before that.
It was support for the Rift they gave up on although a third party viewer at the time already had rudimentary VR support and there is a project that still exists today, FirestormVR that lets you enable virtual reality for headsets such as the Rift, Vive and Quest
Linden Lab created a new World called Sansar which was intended to be their new VR experience and based on entirely new code. It actually does look amazing but never really took off and was later told to another company. The Second Life platform has actually been sold to another company now although while it remains profitable it will stay open.
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@mrmond
Yes, Sansar has been sold on. However, as far as I know Second Life is still owned by Linden Lab and is still in active development by them.
If LL had sold SL then I am sure I would have heard about it as I am still a SL resident (and have been for around 14 years now).
When Second Life was the Next Big Thing, it attracted serious companies as if everyone would need a SL presence to compete in the real world.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-the-last-company-to-pull-out-of-second-life-2009-2
Soon we can watch the VR production of Zuckerberg's original script. Imagine, VRing to a planet where giant snakes poop cocaine which allows one to crumple space, that is, go nowhere without moving; while producing deranged prophesies of mankind's future.
The mind truly boggles...
Long ago. When he started it at University for people to rate girls.
A toxic cess pit where posters of content are the product for the real users, the advertisers. His entire organisation should be split-up, data collection model banned and the people running it charged with abuse, sedition and manslaugter. Or just shutter facebook, whatsApp, Instagram etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Meta
That list, and one of Amazon and Alphabet are a result of acquisitions being tax deductible. Corporate USA is out of control
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Amazon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Alphabet
These lists are not complete. Please help by updating them.
"That list, and one of Amazon and Alphabet are a result of acquisitions being tax deductible. Corporate USA is out of control"
And the US Govt. has a massive debt problem. Maybe they could consider placing a 15% Sales Tax on corporate acquisitions? Kill two birds with one stone :-)
Weird flex in the article. I'm all here for a bit of Facebook hating, and the metaverse stuff is pretty fluffy (though there were some undoubtedly impressive tech demos hidden in amongst the self-aggrandising).
But Meta isn't "going off the deep end", it's just Facebook realising they've made a bunch of acquisitions (some more disparate than others) and wanting to farm them out to a parent - Google meet Alphabet. Is that so weird?
>But Meta isn't "going off the deep end", it's just Facebook realising they've made a bunch of acquisitions ...
It is MZ going off the deep end, about his metaverse; instead of simply announcing the creation of a parent company etc. which doesn't really need an attention grabbing admedia friendly name. Because following the logic, if MZ calls the holding company Meta then the subsidiary developing the metaverse can't also be called Meta.
"Because following the logic, if MZ calls the holding company Meta then the subsidiary developing the metaverse can't also be called Meta."
That caught my attention too. Surely, following his own logic, Meta should be a new spin-off company under the parent, which means they need to go back and find a name for the new parent company. Again.
Unless the "logic" is that "Meta" is the parent and Facebook, instagram etc. are all planned to be part of it, despite his bleating on about inter-operability and open standards, the long term plan is a closed, walled garden.
When I heard of the renaming, my immediate thought was "Meta Incognita" - the name given to part of Baffin Island by Martin Frobisher in 1577! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_Incognita_Peninsula).
It isn't, perhaps, an obvious link to one not conversant with the Polar Regions, but I think it does indicate the direction that the new entity is likely to take! "Limits? What Limits?"
Those who don't like what they see should perhaps start doing something more useful than picturing the one who installed it, being mr. Zuckerberg, as the devil.
Drugs trafficking, use of illegal substances, tax evasion by billionaires who are above the law, child abuse, human trafficking and terrorism are all manifestations of things our elected politicians allow to happen without doing anything effective against it.
They are not there because of facebook, they are there because the people taking part in it are not mercilessly being prosecuted and hung from the highest tree when caught.
Accusing Facebook of all that is wrong in the world is misleading and cheap, it is us all who are to blame, since we are facebook.
"Those who don't like what they see should perhaps start doing something more useful than picturing the one who installed it, being mr. Zuckerberg, as the devil."
That's a little like saying the oil companies aren't to blame for pollution. It's the people buying the products that cause it. Oil[1] companies are nice, friendly, green and cuddly, but those customers force them to produce all that dirty oil. (But let's not mention the $billions spent on advertising, pushing the people to buy all that oil derived product)
[1] Pick the industry of your choice here.
>Drugs trafficking, use of illegal substances, tax evasion by billionaires who are above the law, child abuse, human trafficking and terrorism are all manifestations of things our elected politicians allow to happen without doing anything effective against it.
Of course the do things about it. The consequences of those "things the do about it" tend to fall on less advantaged people, though. Low handing fruit will always get picked first.
(Those "things" are also manifestations of enterprise. What is a drug dealer but someone involved in an enterprise to provide a commodity to satisfy a demand?)
Is the title of a (probably the only) sci fi story penned by E M Forster. In this future each person inhabits their own little pod, and all communication is through video and machines. People only meet for necessities, like when they need medical care. The story centres on what happens when the machines that mend the machines that run the world start to fail.
Spoiler alert - there is no 'happy ending'.
Only people in the IT industry know that Alphabet = Google. They rest of the world neither knows nor cares.
Even most tech journalist writing for the less technical or more general audience, will always state something like "Alphabet, the parent company of Google" because they know their readers won't know who Alphabet are. And by the time most readers have got the thought "Alpha-who?" across their brain, they then see the next bit of the sentence and their brain immediately replaces all future occurrences in the article of Alphabet with Google.
It is also very unlikely that a corporation like Google, even pre-Alphabet, is just a single company. Most of our household names are collections of corporations that manage different aspects of the business. These components trade among themselves, its one of the primary tools for profit diversion.
Only the most financially minded sorts bother with these details.
This afternoon I'm going to meet a friend. We'll hug (he's a 'huggy guy'), and go to a cafe where we will each choose a coffee / tea or other beverage of choice from a menu neither of us can create at home, and probably each have a cake. We'll chat, then visit a local bookstore to browse.
How much of that could we do in Zuck's Meta-topia?* Well, none of the actual physical stuff, like hugging, drinking or eating. None of the sunshine or showers (I'm in the UK, rain is an occupational hazard for us Brits) or the actual exercise of being out in the fresh air, the smells, and the actual exercise of moving. You cannot get the feel and atmosphere** of being in woodland from a headset.
I lasted about 12m30s into his presentation, and all I could do was wonder if the bicycle, surfboard or exercise machine were just decoration or he actually used them, or, when he said you won't have to type at a keyboard any more, you'll just use a hand gesture, if anyone was thinking of the same gesture I was***.
*"Meta-topia" is now copyright 2021 Eclectic Man :o). 'coz it is the coolest thing I'll invent today.
** https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/90720.html
***I am deeply ashamed of myself and will do penance, eventually.
My thoughts of the Zuckverse - on watching the video, is it is ideal for those in denial about climate change, extinction, etc.
In the metaverse, the weather is always sunny (and even when it raiins you don't get wet or cold), the vegetation is is always lush and the grass green.
So a nice piece of escapism from the realities of the real-world. Obviously, we've just got to find a use of all those humans and then we can go full on Matrix.
Just a query: what is the speed of light in the Zuckverse?
I can only assume this means Facebook (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Evil Corp) will be throwing open its data silos. Then we can all see what they've been acquiring; and that those of us who have never subscribed to any of their services can ensure all of the shadow data they've gobbled up about us is deleted.
It's worse than you Imagined. He's created a digital AI controlled world with YOU in it, whether you want to be or not. You have given him everything. Your name, image, likeness. Your family history and life and interests. Even your beliefs, all belong to him, and digitally recreated. You are an avatar now. What happens when that avatar starts feeding you things that aren't true? or are done for intention? Can you tell reality from fiction anymore? where is the line? Is what happens in his AI world reality to the avatars?
sounds like great fun to escape this mudane one
I for one will be lapping this up with my VR headset....... except something itches at the back of my head and it aint fleas
Once hes got everyone inside his metaverse ..... whos going to be on the outside actually doing stuff...?
And whos going to be watching what goes on inside (besides the spam artists)
In fact... <puts down VR headset> I'll take my VR with games and say no way in hell am I stepping inside that metaverse....... I've seen the crap on FB and they do nothing about it except spam you even more crap because 'you clicked on the link'
Lets just say one site in previous years would be limited to a badly xeroxed flysheet handed out on street corners by a loon raving at a cloud... now he has 5 million 'followers' and can broadcast to the planet thanks to FB
"Whos going to be on the outside actually doing stuff...?"
Me for sure. And the billons and billions of other people that have much better things to be doing living real life v1.0 - rather than running away from it.
Do you think you may have lost some perspective..? Your comment feels a bit similar to a lot of online people who's only view of the scale and majesty of planet Earth seemingly comes via a web-browser, Google earth - and the media.
Looks like a grab for all internet websites. 'meta' is a fundamental for good internet sites, using the html tag 'meta' to enhance information or deliver instruction to the browser and user.
Most likely any future search for 'meta' tag data/values will surface the new Meta, instead of desired technical information.
Pity 'meta' is open source technical keyword and, probably, cannot be cited as 'protected' or 'licenced'.
Looks like more trouble ahead for developers.
Mike B
This post has been deleted by its author
I would have posted using my username but I know the typical response I'll get just for saying I use Secondlife.
Saying Secondlife is only used for porn is a typical comment from someone who doesn't use Secondlife based on ignorance of the 1000's of people who use it daily for other things. It's content is user generated, people socialise, no not porn, many other things all *without* VR and have been using the "metaverse" long before Facebook or Zuck ever took an interest in it.
I don't like Elon much but understand the need to have the ability to leave the planet quickly if all goes to shit. However all the others, although he could do the same, should think about the current issues of Earth as well and how all their money, pool, could help out so much.
Not only this but they could also use that good bit of PR for advertising. People may dislike Microsoft and although no longer there, Bill Gates has at least created his foundation to try and eradicate the likes of polio. Why don't Bezo, Branson, Elon and Zuck do something similar with other fields?
We have a massive issue with plastics at the moment, Coke Cola being one. Not paying enough to recycle their bottles, places like Maui not having recycling centres so its too expensive to export the bottles, Coke Cola only donate 40k for their project/charity that tries to recycle. Bezo and the like are missing a trick. Donate machines with all your Amazon labels on them or Facebook labels etc. I really don't understand why they don't do any of this.
Clearly missing a trick and it might be something that people then won't ridicule them for. Cause this metaverse idea is a stupid fucking one.
I was an original Kickstarter sponsor of the OR. I still think it's an awesome idea.
Not only have FB and its Uncanny Valley Head Droid shat dissent and hate all over the Internet, they took the OR, lied about what they would do with it, and turned it into another insidious stalking tool.
Increasingly high-resolution headset environment cameras and powerful backend processing will give improving AR performance -
However, if you already think that FB tracking is a creepy stalkers' wet-dream, then just wait until everything you see around you, your family, house, sensitive paperwork, etc., is fed back, OCR'd, analysed and exploited by MetaCreep Inc.
"Your Whole Life™️" will become 'The Product', and it won't just be limited to the peccadilloes that they scrape (or you stupidly share!) online.
As others have already said, the adverts, the fucking adverts...
Just.
Zuck.
Off!!
... the great re-naming successes of the past?
British Leyland -> Rover
Windscale -> Sellafield
(and Nuclear Radiation -> Magic Moonbeams! c: Lenny Henry) ?
If these are anything to go by, we should all be rejoicing! Zuck has just signed his company's death warrant!
--
Pete
Your toy universe emulator will never be as good as the simulation we already inhabit. And ours runs as a proper virtualisation close to the metal.
But the Zuckerverse will have way way more advertising and whiney American accents.
So thanks, but no thanks.
Can virtual avatars be offended/sued/accused of real world 'ism crimes etc.?
I doubt it - so once in this world you are disconnected from the protections (such as they are) of the current real world.
You would look pretty stupid racking up to a real world Court saying "My Meta world character has been offended because I was subjected to virtual verbal abuse because of the colour of my skin, my sexuality and the length of my hair coupled with my body mass and severe BO - and I want damages"
So in the Meta future Zuck can not be accused of all the heinous crimes against society because the society is not real, it is imaginary.
We can only hope the imaginary society disappears up the imaginary virtual A'hole a little like the oozlum bird.
Whatever your opinion is on VR, it’s only going to get better, I can imagine a future that looks back at our rectangle monitors / TVs / smart phones and just laughs at the idea.
Think contact lenses.
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/28/the-10000-pixel-per-inch-display-is-now-possible/
VR isn't the issue, it's how faceb.... ehr Meta intends to use it that seems a tad far fetched. I have a PSVR set and am now also playing my non-VR games with the headset on, simply because it projects a massive screen, well over 100", for my gaming pleasures. Even though it's "only"HD and I can regularly see pixels, it still massively enhances my gaming experience, I see no reason to return to playing games on my TV as long as I have the VR set.
Excuse me? The Residents aren't saddos or losers ... Freaks, maybe, but then we all have a little bit of freak in us. Their art might not be for everybody, but calling them that is kinda harsh, don't you think?
@Jake
You misunderstand. It's The Register who seldom passes up an opportunity to insult Second Life and (by implication) anyone who is positive about it.
I was merely (sarcastically) pointing out that, for once, they had not done so.
I was not condoning it or agreeing with it.
My science fiction analogy would be Soylent Green. People eating people, while folks asking for decency are bulldozed into garbage trucks. (Or was that last part Rollerball? )
Whatever. I'm getting nostalgic for the dystopias of yore. At least some had flying cars.
This sounds like a nightmare to be honest and that comes from someone who loves being home alone. I have no problem with an extended lack of contact with people, but if there's one thing that covid has taught me is that even the most fervent hermit will start to miss human contact at some point, I certainly did. Only a company as removed from reality as faceb.... sorry Meta can come up with something like that. The Matrix anyone?
The metaverse is a meaningless term, it's the old street con man for mumbling incomprehenibly when a mark asks questions.
F*ckUbook motto really is "we use stupid laws like 230 and technology to invade everyone's privacy and sell the information gained to the highest bidder, and also promoting murder, incest, pedophilia, racism etc if it sells adds."
Metamucil is more like it, get ready to get shit on even more by powerful corporations.
Lest you think this is a power grab, he insisted Facebook, or is that Meta, didn't want to be in control, and the future new reality must be built on open standards and easy interoperability, with privacy and data security built in from the star-haha-hahahaha-hahahaha
Open standards yeah right, privacy and data security OMG he really has been sniffing the glue again.
The problem with real life is that, despite capitalism's best efforts, there are still human actions and interactions that aren't monetised yet.
That's what Zuckerbot's Metaverse is for. Everything do you; everything you look at; everything you access or interact with, both in work or personal time, can be sold or rented to you or licensed or used to deliver adverts.
And then there's you as a data source... on a whole new level from the already insane levels of data slurping from your web and mobile use.
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