The metaverse may be coming.
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Until Thursday, most people had no idea what the metaverse was. For that matter, most of the 7.9 billion people in the world still don’t.
So, first an explanation: The “metaverse,” as coined by science fiction writer Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel “Snow Crash,” is a seamless blending of virtual and physical reality. For 30 years, his vision has been a fantasy.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and chief executive, thinks it’s coming — and quickly. He may be right. But I doubt it will come from him.
In 2014, Facebook paid $2 billion to acquire Oculus, a pioneer in virtual reality headsets. On Thursday, in a presentation that lasted nearly an hour and a half, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook’s parent company was changing its name to Meta to emphasize a new focus on bringing the metaverse to (virtual) life.
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