Betta Get Betta, Meta

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Article from Issue 265/2022
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When Facebook renamed itself Meta in honor of its new vision of a virtual reality metaverse, I knew they were taking their initiative very seriously. I will admit, though, it was a little difficult to figure out what they were talking about.

Dear Reader,

When Facebook renamed itself Meta in honor of its new vision of a virtual reality metaverse, I knew they were taking their initiative very seriously. I will admit, though, it was a little difficult to figure out what they were talking about. The visionaries describe a metaverse as a virtual-reality-driven, totally immersive, unified Internet experience – which seems quite bold and revolutionary, but still a little vague. You can always look for clues in science fiction, such as Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel Snow Crash, which is credited with coining the term metaverse, but of course, the desire to interact with people who are far away goes back for centuries.

Meta's Horizon Worlds metaverse platform was in the news this past month, and the news it was in wasn't good. Users complained of bugs and a general feeling that there weren't enough people to interact with in the virtual spaces. Many have also offered that they think it is odd that the people in this virtual world, at least so far, do not have legs and, instead, float around on their torsos. (Meta later announced that it was working on a leggy upgrade.)

[...]

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