1. A “tornado” blew in the meta universe

Recently, the “Tuyere” of the tornado level is none other than the “Metaverse”. However, Meta Universe is not a concept of “popularity overnight”. There has been a wave of discussions on the Internet before.

But it was the real Internet giant that made the meta universe completely “fire”-on October 28, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook was renamed “Meta” and said that it would gradually integrate its products to create a “transcendence”. The reality of the meta-universe platform” has made “Meta-universe” a buzzword that everyone knows.

Two days later, Douyin’s “Liu Yexi” attracted more than a million fans overnight by relying on a “Meta Universe Short Video”. Liu Yexi not only has a plausible appearance, but also interacts with real people. Many netizens exclaimed: The meta universe is coming!

As the saying goes, “If you don’t know Chen Jinnan, you can call it a hero in vain.” You still don’t understand what the meta universe is? It doesn’t matter, there are already several kinds of meta-universe courses dedicated to providing you with popular science.

For example, on the Get App, “Frontier Course · Metaverse 6 Lectures” once occupied the top position on the list of popular courses. The page showed that more than 54,000 people have joined the study. The entire course fee is 29.9 yuan. According to this calculation, the course The income of has now exceeded 1 million yuan.

And new investments or new products triggered by Metaverse have sprung up like bamboo shoots after a rain shower.

On November 26, the blue cursor said that in the future, it will focus on and fully invest in Metaverse-related virtual human IP and technology, XR technology, virtual space and other business directions. The company does not set an upper limit on this investment amount and can support more than 1 billion Funds will be invested in the layout of the meta-universal track.

In addition, Chuangze Intelligent Robot Group recently launched the “Metacosmic Robot”; Li Meng, chairman of the Tianxiaxiu Digital Technology Group, announced its new 3D pan-entertainment virtual social product “Rainbow Universe” at the company’s 11th anniversary. Rainbow Universe will be the ticket to the next generation of the Internet”, followed by the launch of the first fan meeting in the virtual world.

Not only are major companies marching across the border into Metaverse, but even tourist attractions are not far behind. On November 18, Zhangjiajie, a well-known tourist attraction, officially launched the Metaverse Research Center, and the Xi’an Datang Everbright City Scenic Area has also announced that it is building the world’s first Metaverse project based on the historical and cultural background of the Tang Dynasty.

In the context of the meta-universe fire, global investors have even transferred their enthusiasm for offline real estate speculation to online, buying digital land at high prices in the virtual world.

In the virtual world platform Decentraland, a piece of digital land was sold for a high price of US$2.43 million (approximately RMB 15.52 million). This selling price is more than twice as high as the previous virtual real estate record ($913,000), and it is also higher than the average single house price in Manhattan in the United States in reality.

On the e-commerce platform, Meta Universe accessories and Meta Universe blind boxes are selling well, and some VR devices are also marked as VR Meta Universe devices. Nike, Adidas, Gucci, etc. have also tested the water meta universe to satisfy users’ pursuit of luxury goods in the virtual world.

From this point of view, the upsurge of “everything can be meta-universe” is surging. The world’s Internet giants, down to manufacturing, tourism and other industries, have all stated that they want to “enter the meta-universe.” It can be said that “where there are wells, they can sing songs.”

For most giants, Metaverse is the future of the mobile Internet, so in addition to Facebook, Microsoft and Nvidia also end up “seizing new opportunities”; Tencent, Bytedance, NetEase, Baidu and others have entered related fields. The three major telecoms The operator also announced the addition of code element universe infrastructure.

Corresponding to this is the continuous daily limit of the meta universe concept stocks. Many companies such as Zhongqingbao, Jiachuang Video, Shengtian Network, Tianxia Show, Dafu Technology, and Yishang Display have maintained sharp rises, so that the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges have to issue letters of concern or to certain concept stock companies. The inquiry letter “cools down”.

In March of this year, Roblox, a sandbox game company known as “Meta Universe’s first share,” went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Its market value exceeded US$40 billion on the first day. As of November 24, Eastern Time, its market value has already At 71.9 billion US dollars, it is enough to prove the global capital market’s enthusiasm for “meta universe”.

However, when many giants are scrambling to enter the meta-universe, there are also those who are “unmoved.”

For example, Google’s CEO Pichai made it clear that Google’s next growth point is still search, not meta-universe; “Cardinal” Zhou Hongyi believes that the virtual reality of meta-universe fantasy does not represent the future, but represents humanity. The decline of the world; Liu Cixin, the author of “Three-Body”, has a more fierce attitude. Recently, he has publicly accused Metaverse of being a “spiritual poison”, which will cause mankind to become addicted to it and unable to extricate itself from it…

What are the opinions of the relevant practitioners regarding the meta-universe that has exploded in popularity? What are the current usage scenarios? For domestic manufacturers, what are the advantages and disadvantages in the development of Metaverse? Is the “enthusiasm” about the meta universe a false fire? “Tanker Tanker” discussed with several practitioners, and the following are their thoughts.

2. Meta universe is in the “prehistoric era”

In fact, in this “tornado” wave about the meta-universe, whether it is preemptively occupying a seat or laying out the future, or “scratching hot spots” or “cutting leeks”, in short, this is still unclear but publicized in advance. , Everyone is afraid to miss it.

However, there is still a lot of debate in the industry about the connotation of meta universe.

Generally speaking, Metaverse is considered to be the future connection method, but it is also like a basket, whether it is AR/VR, artificial intelligence, blockchain, digital twin, cloud computing, etc. can be installed in it. Its basic features include: immersive experience, low latency and immersion, as well as features such as virtualized clones, open creation, and strong social attributes.

Most people in the industry believe that with the maturity of cloud computing, 5G, AR, VR and other technologies, Metaverse is expected to gradually move from concept to reality.

“Meta universe is an idealized goal, and this idealized goal is still a long time away from being truly achieved. As Zuckerberg said, “it will not be profitable in ten years.” Based on this expectation, we focus on our work. The point must not be to build an idealized meta-universe “high-rise building” right away, but to use existing feasible technologies to realize the strong demand in meta-universe vertical areas, such as online exhibition halls, online factories, online real estate, etc., Realize achievable commercial value through these vertical fields.” said Dr. Gao Xiang, CEO of Zhongqu Technology.

“For the metaverse, our cognition needs to go through three stages, one is the online identity and value system, the other is the simulation and onlineization of the real world, and the third is the integration of the virtual world and the real world.” Technology founder and CEO He Yibing said that what he is doing now is to help the real world to be “on-screen”, that is, to “screen” and “digitize” the commercial space.

He believes that by providing digital transaction scenarios for offline merchants, a basic identity system and value exchange system in the meta-universe world can be established. His company has built “super big screens” in nearly 20 shopping malls in Beijing. Sometimes goods are sold on the big screens, and sometimes live broadcasts. There are various applications inside, just like opening different APPs.

“At present, we are still in the prehistoric era of the meta universe, and the most likely thing to see is the application of games. But it is still too early for the ultimate goal of the meta universe. With the improvement of technology and experience, what kind of applications and applications can we form? The business model is not yet fully known.” He Yibing said.

In his view, whether it is the PC Internet, the mobile Internet, or the Internet of the future meta-universe, there are essentially two things: one is connection and the other is content.

In the PC Internet era, BAT made three important connections. Baidu made the connection between people and information, Ali made the connection between people and goods, and Tencent made the connection between people and people. Because after companies have connections, data, and traffic, when they do content, they have the ability to reduce the dimensionality of the original content platforms.

In the era of mobile Internet, its connection characteristic presents a kind of “synchronous connection characteristic of hour and space” in the human dimension. In other words, in the PC Internet era, people and cars cannot be connected, but in the mobile Internet era, people can always take the Internet with them, even when they are visiting shopping malls, they can also be online.

“Therefore, in the era of mobile Internet, we have the connection between cars and people, and there has been a taxi-hailing software.” He Yibing said that what he wants to do is to connect people and places, that is, to build a scene of online and offline integration.

“Actually, the concept of meta-universe is highly consistent with another emerging concept, and this concept is exactly the digital twin (DigitalTwin).” Gao Xiang said that both meta-universe and digital twin have one thing in common: scale content construction , Which is the demand for basic spatial data. To pursue high immersion and rich content, a master with extremely high authenticity is inevitably needed.

“The goal of digital twins and meta-universes is to create a hyper-real digital space on the basis of the real world, and to open the digital space to a wide range of users. Its most fundamental infrastructure is a digital twin of the physical earth, and In this way, we can carry out diversified construction and generate a diversified digital universe suitable for different needs.” Gao Xiang said.

3. How will “Meta Universe” land?

“The meta universe is, in the final analysis, the mapping of the real world in the virtual world. This mapping can be detached from the real world, but its foundation must be born out of the real world.” When talking about the use scenarios and landing applications of the meta universe, Gao Xiang Express.

The space digitization work that Zhongqu Technology has been engaged in is to reproduce the real world on the Internet and recreate the virtual space on which the meta-universe depends. “In other words, the spatial digital technology we have done is the infrastructure of the meta-universe. “Gao Xiang said.

This year, Zhongqu Technology has developed a lightweight 3D space shooting solution-Zhongqu VR-Lite, VR space digital twin cloud service platform and other products. While building a digital space, it also constantly improves the foundation of the meta universe.

He Yibing believes that both the virtual world and the real world in the future are real worlds. With the advancement of AR/VR technology, glasses are very likely to replace mobile phones as the next computing platform. The world perceived through glasses is both real and virtual. Humans will live in a world where the virtual world and the real world intersect each other.

Under this concept, Faceface is building a scene e-commerce platform where people and scenes are interconnected, trying to achieve heterogeneity and isomorphism through “super screen shops”.

Because in He Yibing’s view, in the PC Internet era, e-commerce with screens connected into a network is an information platform, such as Taobao, JD, etc., which is essentially a commodity information platform—after all offline commodity pictures and texts are digitized , And then publish to the Internet, this is called “shop on the platform”.

In the era of mobile Internet, the e-commerce model has become a live broadcast drive, “Li Jiaqi is a store”; Pinduoduo is doing social e-commerce through people’s social relationships. This e-commerce model is people-centric and can be called a “shop”. Go with others”.

“What we want to do now is to open the store on the screen, move the product information in the offline scene to the screen, and achieve traffic conversion through digital operations, so that’goods are stores’.” He Yibing said.

He believes that in the future, when the computing platform becomes glasses, a virtual world can be seen through the glasses, and when the virtual world is superimposed on a real world, a new digital world can be constructed. Therefore, the perfection of hardware facilities such as super glasses and smart screens has always been the primary factor for the establishment of the prototype of Metaverse.

4. Phenomenon applications in the 5G era?

From an objective point of view, although the concept of meta-universe is on fire, its future development is full of uncertainty.

So, how do people view the investment and R&D actions of many companies that are “staking the beach and landing”?

In Gao Xiang’s view, the arrival of the craze is a good thing for all new things on the whole, and it will definitely greatly promote the progress of new things. But when it comes to individuals, everyone must be careful, be careful that they fall into the frothy bubble and become a victim.

“How to avoid falling into the bubble? The most important point is to grasp the maturity of technology and the understanding of customer needs, and grasp the actual development path of the product. As you often say, for a person who wants to climb Mount Everest, see Mount Everest is of little value. Finding a climbing path and making a good plan is the key.” Gao Xiang told Tanker.

As for the advantages and disadvantages compared with Europe and the United States, he believes that it must be recognized that North America is leading in the meta-universe, and many original technologies come from Europe and the United States and benefit the entire human society. In terms of technology, there are not many lagging companies in China, and considering China’s huge market base and numerous engineer groups, I believe that in the future, the development of Metaverse will keep pace with Europe and the United States.

“Currently, domestically, we already have everything that should be in terms of specific software and hardware technologies, but there is still a gap between Europe and the United States in terms of key technical parameters. This gap is limited at the equipment and software system level and can be made up to a certain extent. However, there is a big gap at the chip level. I hope that in the next few years, through the efforts of the whole society, the gap at the chip level can be narrowed.” Gao Xiang added.

In He Yibing’s view, a simple overview of the fiery situation of the meta-universe may not be accurate enough. It may be more appropriate to use the term “epoch” to express it. Just as human beings have entered the mobile Internet era, we will then Enter the “meta universe era”.

“Throughout the history of the development of technology and business concepts, we have always been unable to escape the four stages of’conceptual period-bubble period-disillusionment period-stable development period. In the process of development, the boom is the process of intensifying and expanding the bubble. Companies are afraid of missing opportunities and bringing excessive investment. Eventually, the tide recedes and naked swimmers withdraw one after another.” He Yibing said.

However, this is also a process of gestating new species-every time the bubble dissipates and the virtual fire is extinguished, new life will survive. As the understanding of technology deepens, business models are explored by practitioners, and technology follows The maturity of the business model has gradually integrated into people’s daily lives.

“So we look at this kind of’surging’, it is both inevitable and necessary. The meta universe will one day be integrated into everyone’s life, but this time may be 5 years or 10 years.” He Yibing said.

As for the current investment and R&D enthusiasm related to Metaverse, “We understand that this is the driving force for the development of the business. Only when there is investment, there will be influx of talents, a deeper understanding of concepts and technologies, and a Keen insights into scenarios and needs. Only this nearly saturated attack method can finally breed new species suitable for the environment.”

Regarding the future prospects of Metaverse, some people in the industry told Tanker that Metaverse is probably the first commercial application of 5G that everyone can think of, just like video is to the 4G era and WeChat is to the 3G era.

“Meta Universe will have great development prospects in the future, and it is a definite promising direction that is difficult to find now. Especially China has begun to popularize 5G, and the real-time information of 5G has a qualitative impact on Meta Universe. The combination of the two will be very important.” The above-mentioned person said that Metaverse needs a very powerful real-time information system to support, high bandwidth and high real-time performance can ensure the entertainment of Metaverse.

According to data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of November 16, my country has built more than 1.15 million 5G base stations, accounting for more than 70% of the world; 5G terminal users have reached 450 million, accounting for more than 80% of the world. Because the world has the largest number of 5G base stations, Meta Universe will be a big development direction for China in the future, and it will definitely lead the world.

In his view, 5G is the foundation for the great development of Metaverse, but having strong basic conditions does not mean everything. The specifics depend on the actual development, such as whether there are such talents and whether there are sufficient funds. In this regard, domestic companies are indeed not of an order of magnitude compared with Facebook.

Generally speaking, the industry is generally optimistic about the future of the meta universe, but it also admits that it requires multi-party coordination and inputs a lot of manpower, financial and material resources to make the meta universe truly come. People are also waiting for the concept of meta universe and industry crowding. Drop the bubble and show the truth.

But now, amidst the false fire and bubbles, this “meta-universe construction competition” has just sounded the horn.