San Francisco, Sep 28 – Social media giant Facebook has announced that it will invest $50 million to partner with the organisation to responsibly build the so-called metaverse.
The “metaverse” is a set of virtual spaces where one can create and explore with other people who aren’t in the same physical space.
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“We will work with experts in government, industry and academia to think through issues and opportunities in the metaverse. For instance, its success depends on building robust interoperability across services, so different companies’ experiences can work together. We also need to involve the human rights and civil rights communities,” the firm said in a statement.
Facebook. (File Photo: )
Facebook. (File Photo: )
Facebook. (File Photo: )
Facebook. (File Photo: )
Facebook. (File Photo: )
Facebook. (File Photo: )
Facebook. (File Photo: )
Facebook. (File Photo: )
Facebook logo.
FILE – In this Nov. 15, 2018, file photo the icons of Facebook and WhatsApp are pictured on an iPhone in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Facebook has sued the Israeli hacker-for-hire company NSO Group for allegedly targeting some 1,400 users of its encrypted messaging service WhatsApp with highly sophisticated spyware. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)
FILE – In this April 30, 2019, file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes the keynote speech at F8, Facebook’s developer conference in San Jose, Calif. The Boston-based renewable energy developer Longroad Energy announced in May that Facebook is building a massive new solar farm in West Texas, a project believed to be one of the largest in the nation and the social media giant’s first direct investment in renewable energy. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar, File)
FILE – In this March 29, 2018 file photo, the logo for social media giant Facebook, appears on screens at the Nasdaq MarketSite, in New York’s Times Square. Facebook may be close to putting a Federal Trade Commission investigation behind it. But it faces a variety of other probes in Europe and the U.S., some of which could present it with even bigger headaches. While the $5 billion fine from the FTC, which Facebook has been expecting, is by far the largest the agency has levied on a technology company. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. (File Photo: )
PARIS, May 10, 2019 (Xinhua) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaves the Elysee Palace after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, France, on May 10, 2019. (Xinhua/Jack Chan/)
WASHINGTON, April 10, 2018 (Xinhua) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies at a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., United States, on April 10, 2018. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Congress in written testimony on Monday that he is “responsible for” not preventing the social media platform from being used for harm, including fake news, foreign interference in elections and hate speech. (Xinhua/Ting Shen/)
FILE – In this May 18, 2012, file photo a television photographer shoots the sign outside of Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. A parliamentary committee report published Sunday, Feb. 17, 2019, has recommended that the United Kingdom government increase oversight of social media platforms like Facebook to better control harmful or illegal content. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
FILE – This July 16, 2013 file photo shows a sign at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Facebook Inc. reports earnings Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)
FILE – In this Monday, Feb. 5, 2007 file photo, Mark Zuckerberg poses for a photo next to a Facebook logo at the offices in Palo Alto, Calif. The social networking site is turing 15 on Monday, Feb. 4, 2019. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
Guest are welcomed by people in Facebook shirts as they arrive at the Facebook Canadian Summit in Toronto on March 28, 2018. Facebook Canada will launch a fact-checking program to deem stories as false and provide social media users with more context on stories they read on the platform. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Donovan
FILE – This Feb. 19, 2014, file photo, shows WhatsApp and Facebook app icons on a smartphone in New York. Instagram along with Messenger and WhatsApp are serving as the social media giantÄôs insurance policy for a future that might not be dominated by its flagship service. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison, File)
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 5, 2018 (Xinhua) — Founder and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg (L) and his wife Priscilla Chan attend the awarding ceremony of the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in San Francisco, the United States, on Nov. 4, 2018. The Breakthrough Prize Foundation held a grand gala Sunday night in northern California to award a total of 21 million U.S. dollars worth of prizes to the world’s top scientists for their remarkable achievements in fundamental physics, life sciences, and mathematics. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaoling/)
The metaverse is not a single product one company can build alone. Just like the internet, the metaverse exists whether Facebook is there or not. And it won’t be built overnight. Many of these products will only be fully realized in the next 10-15 years.
Facebook has invested heavily in virtual reality and augmented reality, developing hardware such as its Oculus VR headsets and working on AR glasses.
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Earlier, Facebook in partnership with Ray-Ban, launched its first smart glasses named Ray-Ban Stories. The new glasses are a step in the direction of offering true augmented-reality spectacles.
The new glasses have been named “Ray-Ban Stories” and will start at $299 (around Rs 21,988), with polarised and transition lens options being made available at a higher price point.
