Metaverse, one of the most popular concepts of today, is the fictional universe in which there are many virtual reality environments. Like every emerging technology, this concept has started to be researched rapidly in the academic field. Metaverse contains important opportunities for many fields, such as education. VR technology is of great importance in the emergence of the metaverse. Especially VR headsets play a key role for metaverse in terms of immersive VR experience. In this chapter, leading VR headsets and metaverse applications are presented comparatively and analyzed systematically. It can be said that standalone VR headsets come to the fore in terms of usability and portability, and dominate almost the entire global market. Metaverse applications such as MeetinVR, Engage, Horizon Workrooms, AltspaceVR, etc., have started to gain an important place in the business life and education sector in the metaverse world. Finally, the use of metaverse in the education system of the future is discussed and potential research topics related to the concept of metaverse are presented.
TopIntroduction
Metaverse, a concept that most people frequently encounter in daily life, was first introduced in Stephenson's (1992) science fiction novel. The transfer of science fiction novels to the cinema is common in the cinema industry. Steven Spielberg's movie “Ready Player One”, which was released in 2018, was transferred from a science fiction novel to the big screen as an example of this and became the first movie in which the concept of Metaverse was handled. This concept, which is formed by the combination of the words “meta” and “verse”, refers to a virtual reality existing beyond reality. The words “meta” denotes transcendence and virtuality, and “universe” denotes the world and the universe. This phrase describes a new reality expressed through digital media like smartphones and the Internet as the “digitized earth” (Kim, 2020).
Although the concept of Metaverse seems like a new concept, famous examples such as Second life appeared long before. Mark Zuckerberg's (2021) official announcement of the metaverse project in October 2021 made the concept of the Metaverse popular. Lee (2021) defined that “metaverse means a world in which virtual and reality interact and co-evolve, and social, economic, and cultural activities are carried out in it to create value.” In this definition, the terms world and virtual reality interact rather than merely being combined. Metaverse is an alternate universe where daily life and commercial processes are coordinated (Kye et al., 2021).
Figure 1. Metaverse concept in Google Trends
Figure 1 shows web search trends in the Metaverse concept in Google Trends. Simultaneously with Zuckerberg's explanation, the interest in the concept of the Metaverse has reached the highest level all over the world. It can be said that the concept of Metaverse is still prevalent, although a decrease was observed afterwards.
Figure 2. Interest by region in metaverse concept
In Figure 2, some countries search for the concept of Metaverse on the web more than others. This ranking has emerged by proportioning the population of the countries. Therefore, it can be thought that people living in China, Singapore and Turkiye have a high interest in technology.
The concept of Metaverse, considered the new type of social interaction, is designed as a virtual environment where people can live within the determined rules. Although the Metaverse inherently contains the concepts of virtual reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), it generally differs from these concepts in the following points: “shared”, “persistent”, and “decentralized” (Hwang & Chien, 2022).
The metaverse fuels sharing between users and AI-driven/virtual entities and events. The Metaverse cannot be disconnected or restarted since it is persistent. It is continuously dynamic, active, and on. Additionally, decentralized technologies (such as blockchains) are necessary to guarantee that economic operations may be carried out safely and that personal property and metaverse logs won't be altered by unauthorized parties (Min & Cai, 2022).