巨头竞相涌入 “元宇宙”会是虚拟现实新马甲吗
♪ Strong ♪ ♪ Won cosmos will be a virtual new vest? ♪ ♪/strong ♪
科技创新世界潮
World tide of Science, Technology and Innovation
◎本报记者 刘 霞
Reporter Liu Xia
1992年，当美国著名科幻大师尼尔·斯蒂芬森在其科幻小说《雪崩》中提出“元宇宙”这个概念时，人们或许不会想到，他在书中设想的未来情境(人类通过虚拟现实设备与虚拟人共同生活在一个虚拟空间中)会走进现实，并借助科技大佬马克·扎克伯格的声明“一举成名”。
In 1992, when the famous U.S. sci-fi, Neil Stephenson, introduced the concept of a “mass universe” in his science-fibre avalanche, one might not have thought that the future scenario that he had envisaged in the book (humans living in a virtual space through virtual reality devices with virtual people) would go into reality and, by means of a statement by the big technologist, Mark Zuckerberg, would “be famous”.
扎克伯格向美国媒体宣布，他认为“元宇宙”是下一代互联网，脸书拟在5年内转变为一家“元宇宙”公司。西班牙消息网在近日的报道中指出，除脸书外，其他互联网巨头近期纷纷布局“元宇宙”概念，未来人们或可身临其境般进入到一个虚拟的“元宇宙”世界。
Zuckerberg announced to the American media that he believed that the dollar universe was the next generation of the Internet and that Facebook was to be transformed into a metacosystem in five years. In a recent report, the Spanish news network noted that, in addition to Facebook, other Internet giants had recently laid out the concept of the metacosystem, and that people might be able to enter a virtual world of metacosystems in the future.
美国彭博社称，“元宇宙”的市场规模将在2024年达到8000亿美元，到2030年或将达到2.5万亿美元。
According to Bloomberg, the market size of the “won cosmos” will reach $800 billion by 2024 and $2.5 trillion by 2030.
什么是“元宇宙”
what's a meta-cosmos
想象存在一个与现实世界平行的世界，一个数字“我”作为物理“我”的“分身”在其中交友嬉游、工作娱乐，一切都以沉浸的方式进行，使人们在这个平行世界中的互动与现实生活中尽可能相似，这就是“元宇宙”。
Imagine a world parallel to the real world in which a digital “I” as a “division” of the physical “I” hangs around and works for fun, all in a immersed fashion, making as much interaction as possible in this parallel world as in real life, that is, the meta-cosmos.
西班牙技术、艺术和设计学院的扩展现实专家劳拉·拉亚说：“‘元宇宙’指在网络空间中创建物理环境的数字‘分身’。它不以玩游戏和赚积分为目的，而将是一个数字现实，我们将在其中重现日常生活中的许多社会动态。它的另一个特点是沉浸感。”
Laura Laya, an extension reality expert at the Spanish Institute of Technology, Arts and Design, said, "The "mass universe" refers to the digital `diversity' of creating the physical environment in cyberspace. It does not divide play and profit from purpose, but rather it will be a digital reality in which we will recreate many of the social dynamics of everyday life. It is also characterized by a sense of immersion."
一旦进入“元宇宙”，那里的居民将能够买卖物品、财产等。拉亚强调说：“如果你不能做现实世界中做的几乎所有事，那将只是一个普通的数字应用程序，但‘元宇宙’不是这样。虚拟货币在‘元宇宙’中必须存在”。换句话说，“元宇宙”将产生经济活动。
Once it enters the “megaspace”, the inhabitants will be able to buy and sell goods, property, and so on. Laa stresses: “If you can't do almost everything in the real world, it's just a normal digital application, but it's not. Virtual currency must exist in the “megacocosm.” In other words, the “megacosm” will generate economic activity.
Gamelab战略顾问兼创始人伊万·费尔南德斯·洛博则表示：“‘元宇宙’的支柱之一是我们当前所有资产都被数字化并成为那个世界的一部分，就像在‘元宇宙’中所做的一切或发生的事情都可以某种方式进行交易，并产生一定的价值一样。区块链技术为这些问题如何发展提供了线索。”
“One of the pillars of “the dollar universe” is that all of our current assets are digitized and become part of that world, just as everything or what happens in the dollar universe can be traded in one way or another and generate value. Block chain technology provides clues as to how these issues develop.”
与互联网一样，“元宇宙”将是一个由不同公司组成的协作生态系统，具有类似于万维网的开放标准，用户可以在其中自由地从一个平台移动到另一个平台，同时维护自己的数字资产。扎克伯格似乎是这种模式的推崇者。他说：“‘元宇宙’的美好愿景不是由哪家特定公司构建的，它必须具有互操作性和可移植性。”
Like the Internet, the meta-cosm will be a collaborative ecosystem of different companies, with open standards similar to the World Wide Web, where users can move freely from one platform to another while maintaining their digital assets. Zuckerberg seems to be the admirer of this model. He says, “The great vision of the meta-cosm is not built by a particular company; it must be interoperability and portability.”
不过，他的想法也遭到了一些怀疑。加泰罗尼亚开放大学计算机科学、多媒体和电信教授塞萨尔·科科莱斯指出：“在我看来，这似乎是‘元宇宙’向前发展的最佳方式，但这种方式出自一个商业模式与之截然相反的人之口令我大跌眼镜。”
But his idea was also somewhat skeptical. César Corcoles, Professor of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications at the Open University of Catalonia, said, “It seems to me that this is the best way to move forward in the “megaspace”, but it comes from the mouth of a man whose business model is quite the opposite.”
亿万富翁们的“赌场”
尽管脸书最有能力开拓未来的虚拟空间——它拥有市场上最畅销的虚拟现实眼镜Oculus，但竞争仍将非常激烈。拉亚说：“脸书在生成虚拟形象和逼真的图形环境方面拥有强大的技术能力。但在其他方面，面临来自很多科技巨头的竞争。”
Although Facebook is the most capable of opening up virtual space for the future – it has the best-selling virtual reality glasses on the market, Oculus – competition will continue to be intense. Laa says, “Facebook has a strong technical capacity to create virtual images and drive real graphics. But elsewhere, it faces competition from a lot of technology giants.”
今年8月，脸书公司发布了Horizon Workrooms，允许用户在虚拟现实环境里举行会议。Epic游戏公司出品了Fortnite等热门游戏，4月从包括索尼在内的一群投资者那里筹集了10亿美元，用于创建自己的“元宇宙”。微处理器制造商英伟达已经有了一个面向工业领域的平台Omniverso，宝马等公司用其来对现实世界进行高级模拟。
In August this year, Facebook released Horizon Workrooms, allowing users to meet in a virtual reality environment. Epic games produced popular games such as Fortnette, and raised $1 billion in April from a group of investors, including Sony, to create their own “megaspace”. Microprocessors have an industry-oriented platform, Omniverso, BMW, and others to use it for advanced simulations of the real world.
洛博说：“脸书、微软、苹果、谷歌或亚马逊等科技巨头已经投入大量资源来概念化‘元宇宙’并创建必要的基础设施，从而在技术上支持‘元宇宙’梦想。他们依靠在视频游戏领域积累的知识、才能和技术来做到这一点，迄今为止，靠近‘元宇宙’的主要方法是视频游戏。”
Robert said, "The technological giants of Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Google or Amazon have invested a great deal of resources to conceptualize the ‘megaspace’ and create the necessary infrastructure to technically support the ‘megaspace’ dream. They have done so by relying on the knowledge, skills and technology accumulated in the field of video games, and so far, the main approach to the ‘megaspace’ has been video games."
实现仍面临不少挑战
尽管Fortnite或Roblox等全球热门游戏中包含“元宇宙”的元素，但要使其全面运行还需要很长的时间。西班牙卡斯蒂利亚-拉曼恰大学教授约瑟·安吉尔·奥利瓦斯说：“在上世纪60年代和70年代，人工智能先驱们说，15年后机器人将完成一切，但事实并非如此。‘元宇宙’领域也面临这种情况。尽管它不断在发展，但离我们还很远，因为有一部分需要进行很大改进。比如，如果我们想在‘元宇宙’中进行视频会议，就需要更好的通信，比如5G甚至6G通信，但现在要实现这些还有待时日。此外，可能还存在计算问题。”
Despite the fact that elements of the meta-cosmos are included in global popular games such as Fortnité or Roblox, it will take a long time to make it fully operational. José Angel Olivas, a professor at the University of Castile-La Mancha, Spain, said: “In the 1960s and 1970s, artificial intelligence pioneers said that robots will do everything, but this is not the case.
另一个挑战在于虚拟现实设备需要改进。拉亚说：“脸书和苹果都已经宣布了他们的下一代眼镜，一两年后这些眼镜会变得更舒适、更实惠。”
Another challenge is that virtual reality equipment needs to be improved. Laa says, "Facebooks and apples have announced their next generation of glasses, which will become more comfortable and more affordable in a year or two."
他警告说：“而且，构建更好的‘元宇宙’还需要大量人才。如果没有人能够在虚拟现实中编程、开发和设计，‘元宇宙’就不会出现。而公司之间相互协作实现标准化，将是耗时最多的部分。”
He warned: “And building a better ‘megaspace’ would require a lot of talent. Without a person who can program, develop, and design in virtual reality, ‘megacosystem’ would not occur. And standardization of company-to-firm collaboration would be the most time-consuming part.”
科科莱斯则强调了公司项目适应用户偏好的重要性。他解释说：“脸书的‘元宇宙’尽量模仿现实，这有积极的一面，但将一切都转换到虚拟现实世界并不一定是一个好主意。除了涉及的经济成本外，首次访问‘元宇宙’的人可能很不习惯。随着越来越多人进入‘元宇宙’，以及相关研究越来越多，或许公司会进行较大调整以适应更多人的偏好。”
Cocoles stressed the importance of the company’s projects adapting to user preferences. He explained: “The Facebook “megaspace” tried to imitate reality as much as possible, which has a positive side, but it is not necessarily a good idea to turn everything into a virtual reality world.
当然，研究人员指出，在经历了大流行之后，社会对“元宇宙”的接受度会更高，因为“大流行使我们更好地了解了技术在我们世界中的价值，远程呈现是‘元宇宙’对我们的极大诱惑。”
Of course, researchers have pointed out that, in the aftermath of the pandemic, society's acceptance of the meta-cosmos will be much greater, because “the pandemic has given us a better understanding of the value of technology in our world, and the televised appearance of the “cosmos” is a great temptation for us”.
专家认为，在扎克伯格提到的5年中，“元宇宙”的应用将仅限于技术科学、工作和休闲领域。此时此刻，硅谷巨头们正为了成为第一批征服“元宇宙”的先驱而争相拿出支票簿，但这将是下一场技术革命还是只是像游戏《第二人生》那样被遗忘的虚拟空间，我们拭目以待。
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