WEBVTT - What is the metaverse? 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:15.240 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.600 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:23.040 and love all things tech. But boy, that that less 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:25.639 phrase comes with a lot of qualifiers, doesn't it. You know, 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.360 I think that I might need to create a sub 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:32.240 series of tech Stuff episodes called the Grumpy Old Man Episodes. 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:36.920 Um and in which case, maybe we need like some 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.159 sort of grumpy old man music, maybe something you know, 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:44.280 like hill billy esque playing in the background, considering my 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:48.360 my my own background in southern culture. But um yeah, 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:51.120 this is gonna be a grumpy episode in many ways. 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:54.640 And it's because I thought I would talk a bit 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:57.880 about the concept of the metaverse and what that is 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:02.360 besides being kind of using. And the reason I'm bringing 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:04.920 it up at all is there have been a few 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:09.120 recent examples of companies committing to building out a type 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:13.959 of metaverse. One of those is Facebook, which you know, 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:15.760 if you're listening to this in the future, might not 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:18.360 be called Facebook anymore. The company that is. I'm sure 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:22.000 the platform will still be called Facebook, but the company 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.240 is looking at a rebranding at least according to rumor, 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.080 and I'm sure I'll talk about that more in tomorrow's 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:32.520 news episode, but first let's talk about some general concepts, 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:37.080 because we're not just going to talk about Facebook's metaverse here. 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.119 So the term itself has its roots in science fiction, 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.839 similar to the term cyberspace. In fact, we should first 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:51.200 consider cyberspace before we move on to the metaverse. Now, cyberspace, 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:56.120 at least the version of cyberspace that became popularized within 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:01.720 mainstream culture, originated from the works of cyber author William Gibson. 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:06.760 Gibson himself was no programmer. He was not even a technologist. 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.440 He has said that he picked up terms and expressions 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.080 when essentially eaves dropping on conversations at a science fiction 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.639 convention back in the early nineteen eighties, and he found 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:23.160 certain phrases and you know, jargon, really captivating and they 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:26.560 became part of his work and he used them liberally 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:33.320 and loosely. One of the terms that he used with cyberspace, 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:36.280 and he kind of coined it. Now, to be fair, 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:39.959 other artists had actually used the term cyberspace before Gibson, 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.399 but in a different context. So I'm not really including 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:48.840 those in his short story Burning Chrome He called cyberspace 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:53.600 a consensual hallucination. So it was a thing that took 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:59.040 abstract data and ideas and turned it into stuff you 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:03.799 could actually see, like visualize. And that sounds pretty trippy, 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.000 but stick with me for a second, because honestly, this 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.640 is how we interact with a lot of our technology today. 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:13.840 It's just you know, mundane to us. So take the 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:19.320 typical computer user interface or even smartphone interface. Most systems 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.880 that the average person comes into contact with these days 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.799 are some variation of a graphical user interface or g 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:30.640 u I or gooey. In other words, there are obviously alternatives, 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:34.560 and I mean if you're working on Linux systems with 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.840 line code and things like that, you know that's different. 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:42.560 But most of us tend to encounter systems that are 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.640 using some form of gooey. So the graphics on screen 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:50.840 represents stuff like programs and processes. So for example, if 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.280 you have a uh your desktop up and there's a 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:56.600 Chrome icon on the screen, you can click on that 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.600 and it opens up the Chrome web browser. Uh. If 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.200 you were to click on an icon that was for Minecraft, 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.840 it would open up Minecraft. You get the idea. The 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.480 process of executing a program, which you know that's kind 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:10.760 of abstract. The idea of telling a computer, hey, I 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:14.760 need you to execute this specific code. That has made 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:19.520 more understandable by representing that process with the icon. You 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:22.640 click on the icon and the computer does the thing. 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:25.120 You don't have to try to figure out how to 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:27.600 tell the computer to do the thing. The computer knows 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:29.760 how to do the thing. All you had to do 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:33.440 is click on the icon. Gibson's description of cyberspace was 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:38.560 kind of like that, but on a global scale. It 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.720 was an extension of how we already used various methods 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.800 to try and visualize data. I mean, we've been doing 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:49.760 that for ages, you know. We use tables and charts 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.080 and graphs in order to do this. Humans are not 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.320 super good at processing big numbers, like we can't really 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.599 conceptualize big numbers effectively. But if you break it down 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.640 into a picture, then we typically get the idea, ah ha, 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.400 that piece of the pie is much bigger than this 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:11.719 other piece of the pie. You know, mm hmm pie. 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.800 That's a that's a throwback for the long time text 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:20.240 stuff listeners out there. Well later people would specifically interpret 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:25.440 Gibson's description of cyberspace to mean computer networks in general, 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:30.240 and then the Internet in particular. Cyberspace was this kind 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:34.760 of nebulous location. It wasn't physical, but it was possible 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:39.159 because of these interconnected computers. It was the the abstract 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:43.680 idea of space represented by these computer connections. Cyberspace was 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:47.240 where data could flow from one source to another, or 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:50.760 from one source to many others, or from many sources 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:55.400 to one destination. As the general public became aware that 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.960 there was this thing called the Internet, the term cyberspace 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.279 would sometimes be used to describe it. In fact, a 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:06.080 lot of us still use it today. I would argue 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:09.839 that Gibson's original concept was a little more poetic than 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:14.040 the Internet, that it was less about the actual interconnections 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:18.240 and more about this experience of the abstract taking a 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:22.599 synthetic form that we could interact with in some presumably 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:26.120 meaningful way. But there you go. Well, by the time 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:28.560 we get to the nineties, the Internet was a known thing, 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:32.360 at least to a slightly larger number of folks. It 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.320 wouldn't really take off in the public consciousness until the 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:39.480 Worldwide Web started to gain speed. Really, by the mid 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:41.919 to late nineties, it had been around for a while, 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.719 but mostly it was college students who were aware of 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:48.240 it before then. But in those early nineties we got 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:53.120 another concept from science fiction, and this would be the metaverse. Now, 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.479 this time the author was Neil Stevenson and the book 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.280 was Snow Crash. That book, by the way, is a 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:04.400 darn entertaining read. There's no way I could give a 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.280 synopsis of that book and do it justice. It would 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:09.960 just sound like gibberish if I try to explain it. 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:14.560 But it includes stuff like cyberpunk elements, the concept of 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:19.440 human language being somewhat synonymous with programming languages, the idea 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:23.480 of corporations becoming the dominant force in modern life, and 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.800 stuff like that. Also, the main character's name in that 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:32.080 book is Hero Protagonist, which is just playing awesome. But 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.280 the part we want to focus on is the metaverse. 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:40.240 So in the books No Crash, there is this online 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:44.480 virtual space that exists in tandem with our own physical world. 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.160 Using a computer system like a terminal, you can log 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:52.160 into this persistent virtual world, and in that world, each 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:55.960 person has an avatar to represent themselves, just like you 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:59.679 would find in your typical massively multiplayer online role playing 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.600 game or m m O RPG. Now, this kind of 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:06.880 gets back to Gibson's description of abstract data taking forms. 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:10.320 So in this case, the abstract data would be all 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:12.880 the different kinds of interactions you would have within a 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.680 virtual space, and the form would be the avatar. Right. 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:21.160 So let's say that you're in a virtual pub, and 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:23.800 this virtual pub has a dartboard in it, and you 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.640 decide you want to play a game of darts, so 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.200 you direct your avatar to the dart board. Then you 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.160 begin a game, and the whole process of your avatar 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:34.400 walking to the dart board and pulling the darts out 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:35.959 and getting ready to throw the darts is kind of 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:39.240 analogous to how you would click on an icon on 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:44.160 your standard computer or smartphone gooey like, when you want 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:46.120 to play a game on your phone, you just touch 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:48.280 the icon for the game on your screen and it 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.880 launches and then you're off. In this version of a metaverse, 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.960 a virtual representation of you seems to go through these 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:57.839 stages that a real person would go through in our 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:02.040 physical real world to play the real version of that game. 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:06.360 So again it's giving form, it's mirroring the real world 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.920 in that case. Now that's just a simple example, of course, 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:14.120 And in snow crash. The metaverse includes not just avatars 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:18.520 that represent people and not just like entertaining diversions. There 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:23.439 are also representations of programs and processes that take a 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:28.240 form like akin to a physical form in the metaverse. Again, 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:31.400 let's think about your computer. One thing you might have 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:34.760 on your computer is an anti virus program that, right, 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.960 the anti virus is designed to keep your computer protected 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:41.640 from malware threats. Well, in the metaverse, you might have 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:47.600 something akin to malware protection, but it takes the form 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:50.880 of like a security guard or maybe a personal bodyguard, 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:55.120 and you actually see a representation. You wouldn't have to 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:56.920 do it this way, right, You wouldn't even have to 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:01.520 have a visualization of that process, but you could. So 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:03.680 some of the things in the metaverse would not be 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:10.040 representations of other people, but of specific processes or programs. 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.199 On a similar note, maybe you've got a personal assistant 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:16.000 in this virtual world, and the assistant isn't an actual 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:19.840 human being using an avatar. Instead, it's a computer generated 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.720 conduit for things like notifications. So instead of seeing like 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:26.600 something pop up within your vision telling you, hey, you've 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:30.000 got a message, maybe you've got this personal assistant who says, hey, boss, 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:33.320 I got a message for you, like, that's another way 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.760 you could have this implementation. Now, that is the tippiest 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.720 tip of the iceberg when it comes to metaverse implementations, 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.600 of course, And I should also add that the concept 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:45.840 lumps and a few other things as well. For one thing, 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:51.559 stuff like virtual and augmented reality bleed into the idea 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.959 of a metaverse. The metaverse becomes something that one can 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:59.360 experience within the virtual environment, or sometimes the metaverse can 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.959 bleed in to the real world through technologies like augmented 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:07.319 reality and the Internet of Things. Really, the metaverse is 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.240 an evolutionary step and how we interact both with the 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:14.120 world of computers and computer systems and our real world 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:18.360 around us. Now, let's talk about augmented reality for a second. 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.920 I often think of augmented reality or a R as 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:25.400 being kind of an isolated experience. So, in other words, 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.319 I frequently take a fairly narrow view of a R. 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:33.160 I imagine glasses or maybe a headset. Then lets me 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:37.160 do stuff like see virtual overlays like directions displayed on 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:41.280 top of my real world view. So maybe I'm desperately 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.240 trying to put together a piece of IKEA furniture and 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.280 I'm having real hard time just following the paper directions. 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:50.559 So I put on my A R headset that has 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.960 a program that has all the different Ikea furniture programmed 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:58.040 into it, and the headsets camera is looking where I'm looking, 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.679 so it identifies the various pieces is of Ikea furniture 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.040 in front of me, and it gives me directions step 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:06.200 by step on what I need to do next. It 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.320 tells me if the piece I'm working on is backwards 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:11.559 or not right, might say, hey, you need to flip 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:14.800 that around, which is very useful. It prevents me from 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.720 doing what I otherwise will do practically every single ding 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.200 dang darn time, which is that I will install the 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:25.760 drawers upside down in my desk. Anyway, with the A 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.640 R glasses, I'm not just getting instructions like I would 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:35.280 from the paper book. I'm getting contextual, relevant instructions for 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:38.559 what's happening at that moment, where I am and how 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:42.760 everything is oriented from my perspective. The glasses interpret what 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.960 it is I'm looking at and what it should look like, 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:48.160 and then it is able to tell me what I 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.840 should do next. I mean, the earliest versions of A 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:54.160 R were meant to do this sort of thing. One 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:58.079 very early implementation of augmented reality was to help people 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.040 who are putting together commercial air craft. You know, there's 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:02.800 a lot of stuff that has to happen correctly to 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:07.920 build a working commercial aircraft, for example, wiring up the 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:11.120 aircraft that you're putting together so that all the electrical 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:15.520 systems work properly. So one early implementation of the ARE 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.600 was to create a guide for technicians to follow when 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:22.160 they were wiring up aircraft to make sure that the 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:25.160 correct wires were going to the correct places. Well, these 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.520 are kind of isolated examples of a R. In a 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:33.600 metaverse implementation, the a R glasses could tap into this shared, 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:38.280 persistent universe and create experiences in our real world connected 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.400 to that virtual universe, and it could do so in 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:43.280 a lot of different ways. I mean, maybe it allows 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:45.680 you to travel within both the real world and the 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:48.560 metaverse at the same time, which I think would probably 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.280 be a little bit confusing at least for me. Or 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:53.760 maybe it lets you tap into stuff that enhances your 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:57.480 experience in both realms in some way, Like you could 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:02.559 think of ways that marketers could create real world experiences 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:06.679 that enhance your experiences in a virtual world or vice versa, 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:08.960 like you could have it go both ways. When you 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:12.079 pairent with things like the Internet of Things and ubiquitous computing, 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:15.880 you really start to blur the lines between where the 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:18.800 virtual world ends and the real world begins. And that's 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:21.400 kind of the point. Now. I mentioned that in snow 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:25.440 Crash there's kind of a social system in this metaverse 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.560 um and it depends partly on how good your avatar 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:31.800 looks like. That's a big part of it. And the 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:34.920 idea here is that you typically need to be pretty 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:38.520 talented as a programmer or a hacker in order to 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:42.400 make a really cool looking avatar. Uh. And the way 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.760 you tap into the metaverse and snow Crash is reliant 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:48.520 on what kind of terminal you are using. What's your 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:51.720 end point, your your access point. The folks who are 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:54.240 really well off in the real world have their own 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:59.560 personal terminals with powerful computer systems and sophisticated electronics, so 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:02.760 the look great when they log in. Their Their avatars 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:07.280 aren't just cool, they're like high resolution, detailed avatars. But 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:11.640 you could also access the metaverse using publicly accessible terminals, 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:15.080 but these run on much older pieces of hardware, so 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:17.400 you look kind of jankie when you log in like 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:20.880 a low resolution version of whatever it is you're trying 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:23.840 to be, and that means that the folks around you 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:26.480 will look down on you like your status is lower 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:32.880 because you're accessing the metaverse using some publicly accessible terminal, 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:36.080 not like through some fancy sh fancy one. Now that's 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:39.040 an interesting concept. It's one that I think we would 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:41.200 have to tweak a little bit today for it to 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:43.880 translate properly. And the reason I say that is because 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.960 of cloud computing. Most of the time online worlds rely 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.920 on cloud based servers to do the heavy lifting. So 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:55.280 the device you use, whether it's your computer or virtual 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:59.280 reality setup or even your smartphone, that device doesn't need 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:01.680 to do as as much work. Has to do some 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.560 it's got to render stuff for you, but a lot 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.680 of the heavy lifting is done on the server side, 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.760 not on the client side. So some processing has to 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.480 happen at your side, but a lot of it needs 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:19.320 to happen in the centrally located cloud. So in this case, 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.960 what's really important is that you have a good Internet 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:26.680 connection in order to have a seamless experience. But then 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:28.800 the servers do the rest. So I think if Stevenson 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.920 were to write snow Crash today, he might put more 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:37.040 emphasis on connection speed versus the actual physical hardware you're 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:40.920 using to access the metaverse, and that the speed would 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:45.200 end up being something that affects your perceived status within 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:49.600 the metaverse. Anyway, the metaverse plays a really big part 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:52.080 in snow Crash, but it plays an even bigger part 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:56.520 in a novel titled Ready Player one by Ernest Klein, 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.720 which also was famously turned into a movie. Now. In 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:05.520 that novel, there's an online world called Oasis that is 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:09.280 in many ways a metaverse. It's where people go to 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:13.159 escape the harsh and mundane challenges of the real world. 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:18.080 Like snow Crash, how you experience the Oasis depends largely 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:21.480 upon the equipment you have at your disposal. If you 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:23.920 have a basic setup, you get a taste of it, 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:25.679 but to really get the most out of it, you 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:29.480 need really high tech and expensive gear that not only 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.879 lets you navigate this virtual environment, but you get real 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:36.200 world haptic feedback. Haptic in this case, that that's talking 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:39.920 about your sense of touch. So you have some sort 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:43.240 of technology that can give you touch feedback to stuff 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:46.280 that you're encountering. In this virtual space, which creates your 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:50.639 sense of immersion, right, and you can physically experience the 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:54.760 stuff that you're virtually encountering. The two realities, you know, 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.359 the reality of the real world and the reality of 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:02.240 this virtual real world kind blend into one another. Also 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:06.359 in the metaverse and Ready Player one, that metaverse mostly 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.720 exists so that you can endure countless references to nineteen 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:14.320 eighties pop culture like a lot. Now, I know this 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:18.199 isn't a literary criticism podcast, but I have to say 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:20.679 that the one thing I found Ready Player one to 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.600 really be was irritating, both because I felt that Klein 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.440 was leaning way too hard on references to kind of 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:31.720 stand in for story, and also what little story there 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:35.480 actually was once you peeled the references away, amounted to 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:39.560 very little more than a juvenile male power fantasy, which 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:42.120 is kind of a key for me. And because all 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.520 the references were for the nineteen eighties, I couldn't help 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:47.800 but feel that Klein was really writing this book for 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.960 folks who belonged to kind of my generation, the same 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:53.679 as Klein's generation. You know, people who were kids in 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:57.080 the eighties like those references wouldn't have the same appeal 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.840 to people who were born and say the late nineties, 0:18:59.880 --> 0:19:04.480 for example. But then you've got a juvenile male power 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.679 fantasy that was written in a book that was mostly 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.080 geared for people in their forties. Anyway, I'm off track, 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:13.600 you know what. Actually, I think we're gonna take a 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.600 quick break. When we come back, we'll talk more about 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:27.200 the concept of the metaverse. One thing that we need 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:30.600 to take into consideration when we're talking about the metaverse 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:34.439 is the idea of what comes next, because that's kind 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:38.280 of what the metaverse is. And it helps if we 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:40.919 think of some of the technologies that were emerging at 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:43.639 the time that folks first started to think about stuff 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.320 like the metaverse. For one thing, you had the emergence 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:51.000 of virtual reality or VR. Now, VR in the nineties 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:55.480 was pretty primitive, but folks latched onto this concept like Gangbusters. 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:59.320 The hype was out of control. The general public was 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:03.080 familiar with, at least, you know, to some extent, of computers, 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:05.840 and they were at least aware of computers. Stuff like 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:10.159 video game systems, personal computers, and digitized workplaces. Meant that 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.040 pretty much everybody had at least some awareness of what 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:16.960 computers are and what they can do. Virtual reality had 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:20.320 this promise of bringing what computers do into a new 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:26.520 kind of experience, a really immersive, enveloping experience like the gooey, 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.280 like the graphical user interface. Virtual reality we were told 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:35.600 would revolutionize how we interface and access computer information and programs. 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:37.760 So rather than sitting at a desk and using a 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.880 keyboard and mouse, we would use a virtual reality set 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:45.800 up and we would virtually walk around environments and interact 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:49.600 with virtual objects. Would be the next step up from 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:54.119 having icons, right, And this was the era where Hollywood 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:57.479 kind of envisioned a very different, unrealistic version of what 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.000 using a computer was all about, and an even more 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.840 unrealistic depiction of what virtual reality experiences were like. If 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:07.320 you take a look at films from the early to 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.480 mid nineties that involved computers, there's usually some sort of 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:14.520 scene where someone is, you know, at a computer and 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.440 they're going through a file system and they're navigating through 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:23.040 some sort of three dimensionally rendered virtual structure. They might 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:27.280 even be avoiding viruses or or security programs that are 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:30.280 represented in some way like it's like you're playing a 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:32.960 first person shooter game that all you're trying to do is, 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:37.000 you know, run a simple program. It's nonsense, but it 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:39.920 was a way to bring about that abstract idea into 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.960 something that was, you know, filmable, because it's not very 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:47.359 exciting to see someone either type in code into a 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:51.520 computer or click on an icon on the screen. Well, 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:54.879 VR would end up having a drastic decline, largely because 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:59.320 people became disenchanted with where the technology actually stood versus 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:03.240 where people thought it was based upon these like Hollywood 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:07.040 films and stuff. So VR fell off the edge of 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:10.080 the hype train and it would take another decade or 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:12.760 so before it would start to re emerge to make 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:15.679 another go at it. The VR would be one of 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:18.800 the many components we would see incorporated into the concept 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:22.000 of the metaverse. Then we've got the idea of web 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:24.800 two point oh, which ties into this general idea of 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:28.439 whether the Internet, or to put it less whimsically, what 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:32.280 comes next, what's the next evolutionary step. So web two 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:35.879 point oh was essentially a marketing buzz term. It was 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:39.159 a way to reduce a lot of different important concepts 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:42.480 into something that was easy to reference, even if you 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:48.920 weren't being particularly precise with your language. It's unfortunate that 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:52.679 people went with two point oh as a designation because 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:56.440 it suggests that we first had Web one point oh, 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:59.560 and then at some point some developers somewhere pushed out 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:01.480 an up date to the web and we got Web 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:04.600 two point oh. But that's not what happened. Instead, Web 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:07.840 two point oh was a kind of collective term to 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:14.159 describe websites that embraced stuff like dynamic, interactive experiences instead 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:17.639 of a static web page. These experiences didn't have to 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:20.440 be you know, thrilling, edge of your seat kind of things. 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:24.560 For example, shopping sites that let users post reviews of 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:30.160 products and then future visitors will see those reviews. Those 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:33.880 are considered to be interactive and dynamic. The users are 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:37.240 adding value to the experience of visiting the website through 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:41.720 their activities. They're changing things over time, and future users 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:43.840 can take that and say, oh, this person gave a 0:23:43.880 --> 0:23:46.800 really good review for this particular item, I'm going to 0:23:46.880 --> 0:23:49.679 go ahead and order it. Then you contrast that with 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:51.840 some of the early web pages that were nothing more 0:23:51.880 --> 0:23:54.919 than just text. I mean, maybe you've got a table, 0:23:55.680 --> 0:23:57.760 maybe you've got a picture or two if you were lucky, 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:00.359 if you were unlucky, maybe you also had a MIDI 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:02.520 file playing in the background. Because I built some of 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:06.879 those pages and and I am sorry anyway. These early 0:24:06.920 --> 0:24:12.080 pages were more like a physical catalog or a reference book. 0:24:12.320 --> 0:24:15.960 It's something that had inc committed to paper kind of 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:18.879 approach to it. You know, the books and the catalogs, 0:24:18.880 --> 0:24:22.000 they never change. The publisher might send out an updated 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:24.560