Nvidia's CEO Predicts a Metaverse Will Transform Our World (time.com) 120
"Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, the nation's most valuable semiconductor company, with a stock price of $645 a share and a market cap of $400 billion, is out to create the metaverse," writes Time magazine.
Huang defines it as "a virtual world that is a digital twin of ours." Huang credits author Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, filled with collectives of shared 3-D spaces and virtually enhanced physical spaces that are extensions of the Internet, for conjuring the metaverse. This is already playing out with the massively popular online games like Fortnite and Minecraft, where users create richly imagined virtual worlds. Now the concept is being put to work by Nvidia and others.
Partnering with Nvidia, BMW is using a virtual digital twin of a factory in Regensburg, Germany, to virtually plan new workflows before deploying the changes in real time in their physical factory. The metaverse, says Huang, "is where we will create the future" and transform how the world's biggest industries operate...
Not to make any value judgments about the importance of video games, but do you find it ironic that a company that has its roots in entertainment is now providing vitally important computing power for drug discovery, basic research and reinventing manufacturing?
No, not at all. It's actually the opposite. We always started as a computing company. It just turned out that our first killer app was video games...
How important is the advent and the adaptation of digital twins for manufacturing, business and society at large?
In the future, the digital world or the virtual world will be thousands of times bigger than the physical world. There will be a new New York City. There'll be a new Shanghai. Every single factory and every single building will have a digital twin that will simulate and track the physical version of it. Always. By doing so, engineers and software programmers could simulate new software that will ultimately run in the physical version of the car, the physical version of the robot, the physical version of the airport, the physical version of the building. All of the software that's going to be running in these physical things will be simulated in the digital twin first, and then it will be downloaded into the physical version. And as a result, the product keeps getting better at an exponential rate.
The second thing is, you're going to be able to go in and out of the two worlds through wormholes. We'll go into the virtual world using virtual reality, and the objects in the virtual world, in the digital world, will come into the physical world, using augmented reality. So what's going to happen is pieces of the digital world will be temporarily, or even semipermanently, augmenting our physical world. It's ultimately about the fusion of the virtual world and the physical world.
See also this possibly related story, "Nvidia's newest AI model can transform single images into realistic 3D models."
Huang defines it as "a virtual world that is a digital twin of ours." Huang credits author Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, filled with collectives of shared 3-D spaces and virtually enhanced physical spaces that are extensions of the Internet, for conjuring the metaverse. This is already playing out with the massively popular online games like Fortnite and Minecraft, where users create richly imagined virtual worlds. Now the concept is being put to work by Nvidia and others.
Partnering with Nvidia, BMW is using a virtual digital twin of a factory in Regensburg, Germany, to virtually plan new workflows before deploying the changes in real time in their physical factory. The metaverse, says Huang, "is where we will create the future" and transform how the world's biggest industries operate...
Not to make any value judgments about the importance of video games, but do you find it ironic that a company that has its roots in entertainment is now providing vitally important computing power for drug discovery, basic research and reinventing manufacturing?
No, not at all. It's actually the opposite. We always started as a computing company. It just turned out that our first killer app was video games...
How important is the advent and the adaptation of digital twins for manufacturing, business and society at large?
In the future, the digital world or the virtual world will be thousands of times bigger than the physical world. There will be a new New York City. There'll be a new Shanghai. Every single factory and every single building will have a digital twin that will simulate and track the physical version of it. Always. By doing so, engineers and software programmers could simulate new software that will ultimately run in the physical version of the car, the physical version of the robot, the physical version of the airport, the physical version of the building. All of the software that's going to be running in these physical things will be simulated in the digital twin first, and then it will be downloaded into the physical version. And as a result, the product keeps getting better at an exponential rate.
The second thing is, you're going to be able to go in and out of the two worlds through wormholes. We'll go into the virtual world using virtual reality, and the objects in the virtual world, in the digital world, will come into the physical world, using augmented reality. So what's going to happen is pieces of the digital world will be temporarily, or even semipermanently, augmenting our physical world. It's ultimately about the fusion of the virtual world and the physical world.
See also this possibly related story, "Nvidia's newest AI model can transform single images into realistic 3D models."
*vomit* (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
I think the journalist's line is the most douche-baggery:
Saying 'Not to make value judgements' whilst managing to make a value judgement and say it in a way that sounds derogatory towards video games.
And to me, the related story is more interesting. The AI that creates models could be useful for the rapid input of large amounts of game assets for game engines and
Re: *vomit* (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, the article is shit,
but what's worng with being derogatory towards video games?
In theory, games are simplified environments to train skills for the real world. /nothing/. ;)
But in reality, the video games (actually computer games) offered train you in not reality-related and mostly useless things, and give you false rewards for achivements that, in the real world, translate to
(Yay, you are good at quickly pointing with a mouse! What an ambitious skill to spend *years* on!
So in reality, people use games
Re: *vomit* (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a rather sad view IMO based upon a very dull closed minded capitalist work life paradigm. We don't all live to work.
Re: *vomit* (Score:4, Interesting)
In theory, games are simplified environments to train skills for the real world. But in reality, the video games (actually computer games) offered train you in not reality-related and mostly useless things, and give you false rewards for achivements that, in the real world, translate to /nothing/.
This is a big statement. Let's examine it with a comparison to traditional sports. Let's look at soccer (football) and see what value it has in the real world, and let's see if any of these values are shared by video games.
Soccer is played on a limited geographic area ("playing field") where the behavior of the players are restricted by a set of rules, the breaking of with will bring penalties if you are caught. Multiple humans comprise a team that needs to cooperate as it competes with another team. Which team wins tends two depend on 2 variables, (1) The physical fitness and skills of individual players. (2) The ability of individuals to cooperate in a strategic manner to achieve their goal.
Now, the skills directly related to playing soccer (dribbling and kicking a ball in a specific direction) have very little application to "real life". Outside of soccer, you couldn't make money with those skills. The same goes with pointing a mouse at a specific location on a computer screen and pressing specific button combinations at the right time. So yeah, not very useful. However, with both soccer and video games, you need to be thinking strategically and make rapid decisions in real time or lose. This is a skill that absolutely has value in the real world.
Teamwork. Soccer requires teamwork. I've played video games that require teamwork, like Everquest 2 and Fortnite. Teamwork is required in the real world. It is a vital skill taught by video games.
Of course, the one big advantage of soccer over video games is the physical fitness required to play it. That is something you don't have with video games. But for the most part, the real skills and disciplines taught by traditional sports, beyond the obvious ball hitting ones, are shared by video games.
Big benefit: Avoiding war. (Score:2)
Let's look at soccer (football) and see what value it has in the real world ...
IMHO one of the main benefits of collegiate and professional team sports is that they give aggressive and dominant people and their admirers something rewarding and fun to do that distracts them from organizing and fighting wars of conquest, looting, or extermination, and organizing more, and more extreme, governments to run the lives of NON-volunteers for serfdom.
They're far from perfect. But they're a substantial improvement o
Re: (Score:2)
Which team wins tends two depend on 2 variables, (1) The physical fitness and skills of individual players. (2) The ability of individuals to cooperate in a strategic manner to achieve their goal.
You forgot the 3rd variable. (3) The ability of individuals to dive to the grass and pretend to be injured by a player on the opposing team in a convincing enough manner to draw a penalty for the opposing team.
Acting ability is very valuable for convincing an authority figure to take your side. Such athletes are being well prepared for a job as a trial attorney.
Re: (Score:3)
In theory, games are simplified environments to train skills for the real world.
Well, no. That's one purpose for them, but it's not the primary purpose, which is simple amusement. Militaries use games for training, but most people just use them for distraction, and most game skills don't translate directly into the real world anyway. They can be helpful training tools, but in general they don't behave realistically. Some driving and shooting games have extremely realistic components, but are still dramatically different from the real thing.
Re: (Score:3)
In theory, games are simplified environments to train skills for the real world.
Keep in mind I'm not one of those "games are the devil" type "concerned parents" morons. Games are *amazing* and very important. ... Just not any of that brainless waste-of-time AAA crap.
You are just as stupid as the writer of the article. "I'm not making a moral judgement, but if you play the wrong kind of games, you are wrong."
Fellating your high horse much?
Re: (Score:2)
In theory, games are simplified environments to train skills for the real world.
Games do fill that role, but it isn't the only role they play. Simple relaxation and leisure is important for the brain as well. Plus many of those skills being honed are not physical skills like pointing a mouse. Some are organizational and social skills like planning and executing a dungeon raid, while working with and building relationships with a remote and disparate group of people. Now that I have a family plus am further along in my career I don't spend almost any time with these types of activities,
Sounds alluring, but... (Score:2)
Re:Sounds alluring, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
... wouldnâ(TM)t that virtual world give a false sense of correctness to the models you create and finally download into physical machines? Real world will still be orders of magnitude more gnarly and low level chaotic.
This particular use-case is using a virtual factory to benefit a real one. That doesn't mean it will remain that way going forward. Perhaps virtual widgets, manufactured in a virtual world, for a virtual world, won't have a need to cross the boundary into the physical realm in the future.
Something tells me our new virtual construction and manufacturing plants will ultimately turn into this as we start running out of physical jobs for humans to do in meatspace.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
that would not be what I consider manufacturing.
Perhaps not.
In the 20th Century.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Damnit! (Score:5, Funny)
Solution (Score:2)
20 GOTO 10
30 REM Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Re: Solution (Score:2)
Wait, line 10 is not valid BASIC, is it?
What's the exclamation mark doing? (Not negation, I figure.)
Re: Solution (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> Wait, line 10 is not valid BASIC, is it?
Depends on the dialect of BASIC.
* Some use REM
* Microsoft's Visual Basic uses apostrophe. '
I've never seen exclamation used as REM in any [wikipedia.org] BASIC dialect. Note: Fortran [gavilan.edu] uses the the exclamation for an EOL comment.
> What's the exclamation mark doing?
That depends on the intent. Was it supposed to be PRINT or REM? I'm assuming it is a typo for PRINT.
The reason I say it is a typo is becaus
Re: Damnit! (Score:2)
There are potentially many metaverses. This one is more specifically a CYBERVERSE.
Re: (Score:2)
I feel great synergy [wikipedia.org] with this comment. Let's all vote this comment up together.
Re: (Score:2)
Much as I may appreciate the cool stuff NVidia do reality is a CEO of a big company is a paid actor, and he does what they pay him for.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I recommend a day in complete isolation in some dessert with no wireless coverage...
so what? (Score:5, Interesting)
BMW is using a virtual digital twin of a factory in Regensburg, Germany, to virtually plan new workflows before deploying the changes in real time in their physical factory. The metaverse, says Huang, "is where we will create the future" and transform how the world's biggest industries operate.
Yeah, I was doing industrial process simulation on computers in 1993 and I wasn't even doing a CS degree.
You don't need a metaverse for this. You don't even need a 3D model if your parameters are right - all that does is help visualise it.
What you really don't need is your factory and its optimal configuration thoroughly modelled inside someone else's software. Do BMW really want carbon copies of their factories popping up across China?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, I was using more than simple scheduling and CPM charts back then.
No, I wasn't modelling to the complexity they will be now. I was using computers that literally couldn't allocate a single bit to each of the elements modelled in their current simulations. They'll be tracking individual components of the machines putting together several thousand individual components for each of several thousand cars, and also modelling the impact of a delay of an hour, a day, a week in delivery of any one of those com
Re: (Score:2)
First, my guess is yes .. yes they do. BMW has multiple factories in China churning out hundreds of thousands of cars. In fact they are building a huge EV factory in China. Second, how does this 3D simulation risk their factory being copied any more than say architectural diagrams and CAD files .. which you know are all stored on some server somewhere. If your argument is that computer data can be compromised, the solution is they switch back to drawing on paper? Let me know how that works out.
Re: (Score:2)
Do BMW really want carbon copies of their factories popping up across China?
Too late to worry now. [google.com]
Chinese EV companies do not want to copy BMW (Score:2)
BMW is behind. Chinese EV companies do not want to copy those guys.
Re: (Score:2)
Watch the video. They're talking about things that go way beyond that. In one example they show two process engineers working together in VR to optimize a workspace for a task. One engineer is on a mo-cap stage performing the task, while the other engineer moves around equipment and furniture to let him do it with the fewest movements. I don't think you were doing anything like that in 1993.
No thanks (Score:2)
Once we've got a replacement digital world, it will be "irresponsible" to use resources in the real world, at least by normal folk. Some of us will spend our whole lives in the digital world, enslaved.
I mean, as long as we're throwing out wild predictions about the future...
Re: No thanks (Score:2)
I'm a slave to the demands of the physical world. I have to breath, eat, and shit.
So what exactly is more enslaving about a digital world?
Re: (Score:2)
There is a potentially scary side to a life in the Matrix but it is not at all inevitable. A government in the Metaverse would have far more power than in the real world as it would have complete control of "reality". We've seen what horrible governments can do in the real world, imagine them when they can literally shape the very world you live in.
As I said before though, this is not inevitable although this possibility is sure to raise giant red flags for super small government types many of whom are alre
Re: (Score:2)
I would think if the government was giving complete control of reality they'd use it to keep the plebes happy, if utterly oppressed for the simple fact they wouldn't want the virtual population getting smart with them or trying to find ways to escape into reality to cause havoc. I can't even say it'll be that terrible of a life. It'll probably beat sitting around wondering if we'll be able to afford it if some injury or inevitable health calamity befalls us. Most likely they'll use a limitless supply of
One should note that Regensburg... (Score:2)
...kinda is the bar and pub capitol of Germany. There are lots of ways to get alcohol there.
Re: One should note that Regensburg... (Score:2)
Let me guess: You have been to Germany *once*.
*Everywhere* in Germany is the bar and pub capital. :)
And Leverkusen officially had or has the highest density in Germany, just FYI. (It's a shithole anyway. They only exist because the many low-level workers had to numb themselves from their shit jobs in the past. Like chemical plant, mining and car making jobs.)
Re: (Score:2)
I live in Germany and have studied in Regensburg. Though I have never been to Leverkusen.
buzzword? (Score:3)
"digital twin" is a buzzword right now. I'm waiting if it turns out to be a hype or a real thing.
There are some use cases (like the factory) where it works and is worth the effort. But for most things?
I'd be happy to have a digital version of my house, with all pipes, cables, etc. - but how realistic is that, given how houses are planned and built today?
Re: (Score:2)
I'd be happy to have a digital version of my house, with all pipes, cables, etc. - but how realistic is that, given how houses are planned and built today?
If by 'realistic' you mean possible to create accurately, it's quite realistic. If you mean "worth the time and expense", probably not, even if houses were built differently today. At least, not until automated 3D model generation from video gets spectacularly good at its job.
The 3D model of your house available to virtually "walk" around in isn't even necessary for your purposes. A robot rolling through a job site every day taking a hemisphere of video data would tell you everything you needed to know,
Translated for slashdot readers (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Translated for slashdot readers (Score:2)
This new era is going to be slashdotter's time to shine!
Re: Translated for slashdot readers (Score:3)
Unless you got a realistic full body suit that you wear nude, you will leave your basement as soon as an opportunity to fuck attracts you.
Or you can naturally die out in natural selection, of course. ;)
Re: (Score:3)
Unless you got a realistic full body suit that you wear nude, you will leave your basement as soon as an opportunity to fuck attracts you.
There are two things you are missing:
1) There are less and less opportunities to fuck nowadays, due to fear of STDs, ultra feminism, porn and sex toy addiction.
2) Drugs can give you the same pleasure or an even greater pleasure than sex, at least physically.
When you count these two, the remaining reason for look for sex is to brag to friends or to look for a relationship (which is satisfying in a psychological level that drugs and ONS can't replace, for now)
Re: Translated for slashdot readers (Score:2)
No, actually there are only less opportunites for the likes of you. And that is your own self-fulfilling prophecy.
Hint: Even raging feminists need a hard fuck every once in a while. You fell for the story that girls don't like sex. Well, as a girlfiriend of mine said: Men think about sex all the time. Women think about sex *without interruption*. ;)
But hey, more for me! :) ;)
You can gladly not procreate. Thanks buddy!
On and are you seriously omitting the entire damn problem with drugs? The problem of gettin
Re: (Score:2)
What a long way to say "I'm better than you nyah nyah"
Someone's been watching too many... (Score:3)
The metaverse is ... (Score:4, Interesting)
... just such bullshit. All this nonsense is about client server apps and you not owning your PC. Since the ignorant mmo, steam and windows 10 loving masses have fucked over the PC as an open platform and us getting complete local win 32 applications with complete files and apps not talking to remote computers spying on us like in the good old days.
Since gaming has been shit since they figured out the average gamer was computer illiterate and retarded in 1997 with ultima online, from scam arists like Richard garriot and Raph Koster that started the stolen RPG trend in 97 which lead all PC games being back ended and publishers hiding behind "MMO" sticker for all the games they wanted to steal, which lead to steam in 2004 and Origin/uplay/battle.net/social rockstarclub in 2010's.
Mmo's were just rpg's with stolen networking code ripped out so they could steal rpg's and charge a subscription. They were the first drm, since drm is just corporate newspeak for back ended C++ compiled apps so they could take control of the PC away from the user.
When Ultima online and everquest began to print money in 97 and 99, that gave valve the idea for steam, once gamers gave up game ownership all the negative practices began.
Ultima 9 - the game with singleplayer +multiplayer we owned, local win 32 binary, was cancelled for UO service scam game. Then every RPG in development was rebadged mmo.
See here Ultima online devs:
Ultima Online devs discuss how EA cancelled box product ultima for UO, the beginning of DRM, back ended AAA PC games [youtu.be]
We went free maps, mods and skins and dedicated servers to having none of that because the average gamer doesn't realize he's been being robbed for 20+ years now, most people playing wow or any mmo have no idea they could have had the same game with dedicated servers and level editors.
Cool things we got 20 years ago, Quake level editor:
http://icculus.org/gtkradiant/ [icculus.org]
Free maps, mods, skins:
https://ws.q3df.org/models/ [q3df.org]
So valve and the industry has been dead since 1997, it just took a full decade for high speed internet to be built out from 2000 to 2010 so they could fully back end every big budget games.
Whenever you see a game that requires a login or a user account or a remote server, you're getting scammed. Gamers haven't clued in to the fact they are being robbed for 23+ years now.
Re: The metaverse is ... (Score:3)
I was thinking they'd re-announced Activeworlds.
Re: (Score:2)
steam is available on linux. If you want non-drm games then use GOG. And there are MMOs on linux, too. But yeah these type of games are client-server based.
You don't seem mmo's were just rebadged PC rpg's with modified code, they wanted to kill piracy, you can program any game app in a client-server way and slap mmo on it. You don't grasp they wanted to back end every piece of software on the planet. Diablo 3 is owned by actvision , diablo 1+2 owned by us.
League of legends, dota 2, anything with a back end was what they were aiming at to kill piracy, and hence the problem because it's the same as stealing the fucking game. You no longer get the complete fil
Boring... (Score:2)
"meta" is old news. As someone fluent in Greece, the language which gives you the "trendy" prefixes, I can give you a couple of newer "verse" buzzwords to use:
"hysteroverse" - it's the universe that comes after the metaverse
"prothesteroverse" - it's the universe that should come after the metaverse, but actually comes before it
The spelling could vary a bit if you wish to meet your branding needs - transliteration from Greek is not exact.
Re: (Score:2)
That's fluent in "Greek". :D
At least I was not claiming fluency in English in that sentence
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Boring... (Score:2)
As a native English speaker, let's also include some trendy Old English prefixes.
"niþer-" gets you niþerverse or netherverse.
(I have no idea if the thorn character is going to make it through the mobile website, or will it be ate by the gremlins of slashcode)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, it's admittedly an obvious one. Although I can't think of any examples in my massive stacks of Fantasy gaming books and magazines where they used the archaic spelling.
heathoverse then? Or perhaps more idiomatically, heathoweorold. (war/battle + world/universe)
(No luck on using þ either. Had to transcribe it as th. And the wiktionary link to the definition of heatho will be munged up by slashdot as well)
Re: (Score:2)
transliteration from Greek is not exact.
Actually it is. It is just a bit tricky if you want to make it sound english.
Amen %lt; and no, it is not pronounced like americans do it.
Re: (Score:2)
transliteration from Greek is not exact.
Actually it is. It is just a bit tricky if you want to make it sound english.
Well, that's news to the various linguists that don't appear to agree with each other, so we end up with different standards and various ways to write names and such. The problem lies mostly from the fact that the "latin" alphabet is used for many different languages nowadays, so people have different ideas of what sounds the letters represent. Also different ideas on whether transliteration SHOULD go after sounds or not. For example, the current EU standard for transliterating Greek names is based on sound
Re: (Score:2)
Modern day German borrows a lot of English words and gives them slightly different meaning. That English (an a hundred other languages) did this to Latin and Greek over centuries should come as no surprise.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that's news to the various linguists that don't appear to agree with each other, so we end up with different standards and various ways to write names and such. ... or roman.
Actually it is not.
Everly greek letter has a one to one correspondent in "english"
A few do not exist. A few are like in english diphthongs, and for that we use a transcription.
I mean, if you are German I guess there is only one way to do transliteration, it's kind of obvious, isn't it?
Obviously. As greek is sounding the same as l
What the fuck is this shit? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
this. we've already had a virtual world craze back in 2005. please, not again.
Re: What the fuck is this shit? (Score:2)
Let's make a new Slashdot 2.0, guys.
Slashcode is open source.
Add UTF-8 support (I'll gladly do that so it works safely. Using a whitelist.), finish the mobile UI, make moderation relative instead of absolute (think PGP "web of trust", but you trust your friends' moderation and mistrust that of your foes, and everybody gets to moderate, but only for himself and his fans), and fix a few other small kinks, and we're fine.
Slashdot 1.0 would be dead in what... a week?
Re: What the fuck is this shit? (Score:2)
Oh, and mot importantly: Ban moderation UNLESS a one replied, and make it non-anonymous. So moderators can not be anonymous cowards and moderation can not be used for trolling and its current main use: ideologic censorship.
Re: (Score:2)
Uh, it already exists and you're still here.
Next, the singularity (Score:2)
So create a software simulation of a physical world, (IE. a flight-simulator or the 1999 movie "13th floor".) then run your prototype inside it. I first heard of this in the Shadowrun RPG, in the early 1990s, where the "metaverse" could simulate at the atomic level, if needed.
One day, the simulation will be accurate enough and big enough to be a total metaverse: Until that day, at some point, it's cheaper and faster to build the real thing.
The next step, as so many movies suggest, (Eg. The matrix, 199
Been there done that (Score:2)
After falling in love with VR in its 90s iteration and starting my own VR business when it showed up again in the 2000s I bought some cheap VR goggles in the 2010s which I barely used and now they're going to try it all over again.
We developed abstract interfaces because the real world is a hassle. We automated searching and sorting, and grouping things / actions into batches so that one person with the right UI and the right software can theoretically control the entire world.
I learrned this the hard way t
So he says that his investment is the future... (Score:2)
Yeah, right. He just wants in in all industries and got somebody to make a sci-fi narrative.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: So he says that his investment is the future.. (Score:2)
Well, if it's the thing you truly believe in, why would you not?
It's just that ... he's deluded. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Nah I don't think he's deluded. His assessment of the impact of that statement on securing such future contracts on the other hand... :)
2005 just rang (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: 2005 just rang (Score:2)
*laughs in AlphaWorld, ca. 1995*
There is only one real world though. (Score:4, Funny)
If you have a failed life,
then even if you are a godking in some RPG, have a mansion and factory in Minecraft, your sports team won the world cup, your royal idol cured cancer, got a Nobel priz and became your president, you are walking in a "metaverse" where everything is perfect, and you dreamt of having the hottest wife/husband ever, . . .
you still have a failed life.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You are preassuming that life has some meaningful point. Self-perpetuation doesn't mean anything to the universe in and of itself.
As far as I'm concerned, the point of life is to be happy, and if those people are happy then they win.
Re: (Score:2)
you still have a failed life.
There are plenty of hugely-successful people who kill themselves in despair, and happy people who have very little in the way of wealth, achievements, etc. Happiness is subjective, and fulfillment is personal.
and you dreamt of having the hottest wife/husband ever
The fact that you seem to think the physical attractiveness of your spouse is in any way related to happiness/success speaks volumes.
Simulation within simulation (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Gravity was also a terrible idea.
Did he read the rest of snow crash? (Score:2)
The book also foretells the fall of civilization as we know it, with a conversion to a corporation-run hellscape in which hyperinflation dominates. It's not really a good story for.most corporations, let alone people.
Linden Labs Called (Score:3)
Linden Labs called and thanks nVidia for recycling a press announcement from 2003 when they launched Second Life [secondlife.com].
Popular online games like buzzword and buzzword (Score:2)
The interesting thing about these games (well, at least the second one, I think Fortnite is about as interesting as Zynga) is that they're not massively multiplayer. Everyone thought massively multiplayer shared universes, "Ready Player One"-style, was the gaming future. Then Minecraft came along and dropped us into our own separate, lonely, infinite, infinitely modifiable worlds (with a little multiplayer as a side dish).
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone thought massively multiplayer shared universes, "Ready Player One"-style, was the gaming future. Then Minecraft came along and dropped us into our own separate, lonely, infinite, infinitely modifiable worlds (with a little multiplayer as a side dish).
I don't pretend to know how most people use minecraft but there are many, many shared minecraft worlds on the internets. It's become a pretty big business actually. You can play for free, but you can buy stuff in the servers like plot expansions, self-renewing gear, etc. And in some networks they use addons that can transport you to different servers. In that regard minecraft is much like the metaverse, different parts of which (in the book Snow Crash) were described as running on different servers.
Re: (Score:2)
I've never found a server which voluntarily hands you off to another server, that's got to be really rare.
Most of the exploitative, play to win/monetization stuff on servers is things that popped up because Mojang under Notch refused to do anything of the sort, and online lowlife jumped in to fill the void. Also a big deviance from the way the industry thought things would go.
But it relies on kids not knowing better; basically no one is going to e.g. pay to get unbanned, or invest heavily in a single commer
Second life (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's still around and has gotten a lot better [secondlife.com]. I still prefer my first life.
Re: (Score:2)
Cory Ondrejka was Second Life's visionary architect and he was aiming for a Utopia. It's as close to an open-ended Metaverse as anyone's gotten, but it fell apart quickly as soon as it was hyped as a way for the inhabitants to make a living. It took Second Life about two years to become a shithole. CEO Philip Rosedale believed his own hype, took all the credit, and SL became a mirror of Rosedale's worst impulses of greed and depravity.
After Cory left, it took years for them to get a handle on his code to ad
From what i've read/seen of the current internet.. (Score:2)
It will be like our world, only more douchey. What could possibly go wrong?
More proof (Score:2)
More proof that billionaires are not immune from the morona virus.
I can see some applications (Score:3)
The one they touch on in the article seems about right, actually. Hand-held 3D scanners are already a thing. Walk through a building and with a sufficiently well-programmed application you can reconstruct it as a virtual model.
There's no reason that model can't be smart and understand what a wall or door or desk or window is so that those components can be manipulated in the virtual representation, only without the pesky need to do all the physical work. Just play with it until you get it the way you like, then the computer can generate a report of the required work and materials to get your reality to catch up to the virtual model.
Made affordable enough, it would be an excellent tool for planning physical spaces or upgrades to existing physical spaces.
Nice. (Score:2)
Gun nuts will be able to do a safe trial run of their mass shootings beforehand.
Um, they're not going to get what they expect (Score:2)
Have you watched any of the bizarre goofy crap that is vr chat?
Seriously, I've never felt more disconnected from the current generation than when I watch it. Its sort of the worst dystopian thing I'd have imagined it would be, but it's so vapid and banal it's hard to be upset?
Just mostly "I don't get this and really feel old because my 20-somethings think it's hilarious"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Greatest Swordfighter (Score:2)
Only if I can be the "Greatest word fighter in the world".
Re: (Score:2)
I saw/read "Ready, Player One", did you? (Score:2)
In both works of fiction, the Real World had become a total dystopia, a real shithole to live in, really, and people would use virtual reality to escape that.
So here's a better idea, humans: How about we fix the REAL WORLD instead of spending money and effort on some fake-ass 'virtual' world to replace it, mmkay? Then we won't need all that shit.
Seriously quit running away from the problems and confront them.
If Nvidia doesn't want to waste the effort (Score:3)
If Nvidia would cooperate on an interoperable, GPU independent architecture standard, that Metaverse might have a chance to succeed.
Don't make it about the buying and selling of digital assets and don't require users to transact with NvidiaBucks.
Run on distributed, independent servers, and not be dependent on Nvidia hardware.
Nothing blockchain. Nothing.
Like any of that would ever happen.
"Metaverse"? (Score:2)
Partnering with Nvidia, BMW is using a virtual digital twin of a factory in Regensburg, Germany, to virtually plan new workflows before deploying the changes in real time in their physical factory. The metaverse, says Huang, "is where we will create the future" and transform how the world's biggest industries operate...
"Metaverse," huh? We used to call that a model.