Metaverse

Metaverse

News: Recently, various brands gathered for the founding of the Metaverse Standards Forum for the development of interoperability standards to drive the growth of the metaverse.

What is Metaverse?
• The metaverse is not a new idea, science fiction writer Neal Stephenson coined the term in 1992, and the concept is commonplace among video game companies.
• Metaverse is the next version of the Internet focused on social connection. It can be defined as a simulated digital environment that uses Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and blockchain, along with concepts from social media, to create spaces for rich user interaction mimicking the real world.

Metaverse Standards Forum:
• The concept of the metaverse has yet to be fully established, but interest in virtual and augmented realities fast-tracks the growth of various metaverse projects.
• In light of the growing anticipation for the metaverse, Metaverse Standards Forum was established ‘to foster the development of open standards for the metaverse’.
• ‘Open Standards’ are standards made available to the general public and are developed (or approved) and maintained via a collaborative and consensus driven process. ‘Open Standards’ facilitate interoperability and data exchange among different products or services and are intended for widespread adoption.
• The internet is interoperable through the power of HTML, the metaverse also requires a similar interface for users to navigate between virtual worlds freely.

Need of Interoperability of Metaverse:
• Interoperability equips the metaverse with support for the different features and activities across projects.
• This continuity is essential in generating a fluid user experience from one metaverse project to another.
• With open interoperability standards and guidelines to follow, companies can launch fully interoperable projects, allowing them to integrate their programming interfaces with other projects.
• There has to be a set of commonly agreed upon protocols to make the metaverse work, just like how Transfer Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) enabled the Internet to go live four decades ago.
• Such protocols help us in connecting to a WiFi network from home and office without changing our devices.
• They are a result of open standards. The potential of the metaverse will be best realised only if it is built on open standards.
• Proponents of the metaverse call it the future of the Internet with 3D at its core. And to fully simulate the digital world, 3D interoperability has to be met.