Facebook forms a team whose mission is to mix the real and virtual worlds

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Facebook revealed, on Monday, that it has formed a team whose mission is to work on creating the so-called metaverse or metaverse universe in which the real and virtual worlds blend to the point of merging, a vision Originated from science fiction based video games.

The founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg considered that "Metaverse" represents the future of this social network.

He said, my hope is that within five years people will look at us as a Metaverse company above all.

This task will be taken over by the virtual and augmented reality division of Facebook Reality Labs run by Andrew Bosworth, the unit currently responsible for the Oculus helmets used mainly for recreational purposes to date.

Facebook has hired people working on the Instagram application, in the video games department, Facebook Gaming, and in Oculus.

“To achieve our vision for metaverse, we need to build the fabric that connects the various digital spaces in order to bypass physical restrictions and allow easy movement between rooms in the house,” Zuckerberg wrote on his personal account via “Facebook” Monday.

He added that the main advantage of metaverse will be a presence of the feeling of being real with people and Facebook Reality Labs has been working for years to create products that provide a presence in different digital spaces.

“Metaverse” is a concept developed by Neil Stephenson in the science fiction novel “The Virtual Samurai” in 1992, which is an electronic space parallel to physical reality, in which users can meet for the purpose of interaction, discussion, or even entertainment, and they take the form of symbolic images that represent them, or what is known By "Avatar".

Some video games have established “paranormal universes” of limited size for their players, including the “Roblox” platform, which includes a large number of games created by young people and teenagers, and the game “Fortnite”, which has 350 million users.

For example, at the end of last April, a series of five virtual concerts were held, during which American rapper Travis Scott appeared on “Fortnite” in the form of an avatar, and was followed by more than 12 million users.

Zuckerberg explained that screens, holograms, virtual reality helmets and augmented reality glasses are supposed to gradually allow “movements” from virtual universes to actual places, akin to “teleportation.”

In his interview with "The Verge", Zuckerberg considered the "Metaverse" as the "successor" of the use of the Internet by mobile devices.