Zuckerberg vows metaverse will have privacy, parental controls
Mr Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Meta, formerly called Facebook, pledged that the metaverse, the futuristic immersive reality platform he envisions for the coming decade, will have privacy standards, parental controls and disclosures about data use that his social network has famously lacked.
Speaking during the live-streamed Connect event on Thursday (Oct 28), he gave examples of privacy and safety controls that would be needed in the metaverse, such as the ability to block someone from appearing in your space.
Mr Zuckerberg is betting that the metaverse will be the next big computing platform, calling it "the successor to the mobile Internet".
related: What is the metaverse?
What's in a name? Meta Materials soars after Facebook identity switch
Facebook may have unveiled its new identity at a glitzy event on Thursday, but shares of a lesser-known Canadian industrial materials company surged in an apparent case of mistaken identity.
As Facebook metamorphosed into Meta, shares of Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Meta Materials Inc (MMAT.O) jumped 6% in opening trades on the Nasdaq on Friday, following a 26% rise in after-hours trading. Facebook shares were up 1.6%.
Meta Materials' stock has already been a favorite among retail investors using Reddit and social media, recording wild swings in recent months. It hit an all-time high of nearly $22 in June. The company, which specializes in designing materials used in a variety of industries including consumer electronics and aerospace, has a market value of $1.3 billion, according to Refinitiv.
Mocking Meta: Facebook’s virtual reality name change prompts backlash
Facebook gives a glimpse of metaverse, its planned virtual reality world – video
The announcement by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the social media giant will change the name of its holding company to Meta in a virtual-reality rebrand has prompted dismay and bemusement.
On Thursday, Zuckerberg said Meta would encompass Facebook as well as apps such as Instagram, WhatsApp and the virtual reality brand Oculus.
“Announcing Meta — the Facebook company’s new name,” the tech giant said in a tweet. “Meta is helping to build the metaverse, a place where we’ll play and connect in 3D. Welcome to the next chapter of social connection.”
Facebook changes its name to Meta in major rebrand
The company said it would better "encompass" what it does, as it broadens its reach beyond social media into areas like virtual reality (VR).
The change does not apply to its individual platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, only the parent company that owns them. The move follows a series of negative stories about Facebook, based on documents leaked by an ex-employee.
Frances Haugen has accused the company of putting "profits over safety". In 2015, Google restructured its company calling its parent firm Alphabet, however, the name has not caught on.
related: What is a metaverse?
Facebook changes company name to Meta
The re-branding also comes after the company has dealt with a barrage of news reports over the past month stemming from whistleblower Frances Haugen’s trove of internal documents
Facebook on Thursday announced that it has changed its company name to Meta.
The name change was announced at the Facebook Connect augmented and virtual reality conference. The new name reflects the company’s growing ambitions beyond social media. Facebook, now known as Meta, has adopted the new moniker, based on the sci-fi term metaverse, to describe its vision for working and playing in a virtual world.
“Today we are seen as a social media company, but in our DNA we are a company that builds technology to connect people, and the metaverse is the next frontier just like social networking was when we got started,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.
Facebook changes name to Meta as it refocuses on virtual reality
People pose for a photo in front of a sign of Meta, the new name for the company formerly known as Facebook, at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Oct 28, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Frandino)
Facebook is now called Meta, the company said on Thursday (Oct 28), in a rebrand that focuses on building the "metaverse", a shared virtual environment that it bets will be the successor to the mobile internet. The name change comes as the world's largest social media company battles criticisms from lawmakers and regulators over its market power, algorithmic decisions and the policing of abuses on its services.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg, speaking at the company's live-streamed virtual and augmented reality conference, said the new name reflected its work investing in the metaverse, rather than its namesake social media service, which will continue to be called Facebook.
The metaverse is a term coined in the dystopian novel Snow Crash three decades ago and now attracting buzz in Silicon Valley. It refers broadly to the idea of a shared virtual realm which can be accessed by people using different devices. "Right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can't possibly represent everything that we're doing today, let alone in the future," said Zuckerberg.
Metaverse
Metaverse is a speculative future iteration of the Internet part of shared virtual reality, often as a form of social media. The metaverse in a broader sense may not only refer to virtual worlds operated by social media companies but the entire spectrum of augmented reality. The term arose in the early 1990s, and has come to be criticised as a method of public relations building using a purely speculative yet still "over-hyped" concept based on existing technology.
The term was coined in Neal Stephenson's 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, where humans, as avatars, interact with each other and software agents, in a three-dimensional virtual space that uses the metaphor of the real world. Stephenson used the term to describe a virtual reality-based successor to the Internet. Concepts similar to the Metaverse have appeared under a variety of names in the cyberpunk genre of fiction as far back as 1981 in the Vernor Vinge's novella True Names. Stephenson stated in the afterword to Snow Crash that after finishing the novel he learned about Habitat, an early MMORPG which resembled the Metaverse.
The concept cyberspace, which first appeared in the short story 'Burning Chrome' by William Gibson (Omni, July 1982), was a central theme in his 1984 groundbreaking novel, Neuromancer. The Metaverse is distinct from "the more inclusive concept of cyberspace that reflects the totality of shared online space across all dimensions of representation" Unlike, for instance, in the fictional concept introduced in Neuromancer, which was typified by a Cartesian separation of body and mind, the Metaverse allows its users to access its environs while still aware of their world. This is demonstrated in a technology called invisible to visible (I2V) that Nissan is developing, which overlays a car's windshield with virtual information as well as features that include an ability to summon an in-car 3D avatar.
Since many massively multiplayer online games share features with the Metaverse but provide access only to non-persistent instances that are shared by up to several dozen players, the concept of multiverse virtual games has been used to distinguish them from the Metaverse. In 2021, the social media company Facebook changed its name to Meta to reflect its new focus on building technologies that "bring the metaverse to life." Its version of the metaverse is described as "an embodied internet where you’re in the experience, not just looking at it."
M'sia company’s name & logo last 3 years was Meta before Facebook's Meta rebrand
Facebook's announcement on Oct. 29 that it will be changing its name to Meta came as a shock to many, but probably not as much as to Malaysian entrepreneur Anthony Cheng.
Cheng took to Facebook to point out that his company, Metagroup, had a name and logo that bears a striking resemblance to that of Facebook's new rebranded name and logo, but his company was founded three years ago. Cheng explained that his company's logo and name had a hidden meaning.
Cheng explained that the infinity symbol represents yin and yang, and the five colours in the logo represent five elements and are complementary to each other. He also said the name "meta" refers to the origin of the universe, life, and the driving force behind good businesses.
M’sia Meta Group Logo & Name Look Like Facebook’s, Company Founded 3 Years Ago
3-Year-Old Meta Business In Malaysia Has Logo That Looks Like Facebook’s
On 29 Oct, Mark Zuckerberg posted a video speaking about his company’s ambitious plans to create the metaverse. He also renamed his company from Facebook Inc to Meta.
Later that day, Malaysian entrepreneur Datuk Anthony Cheng (郑博见) took to Facebook to share about his own company, Meta Group, and how its name and logo bear resemblance to that of Zuckerberg’s firm.
In a world with billions of people, it’s not surprising when two entrepreneurs come up with the same idea. Coincidence or not? You be the judge.
