Living in a Virtual World
By Matt Gibson
Since the publication of Neal Stephenson’s landmark SF novel Snow Crash, people have been trying to recreate his “Metaverse”, the interactive virtual world described in the book.The Metaverse replaces the Internet. You log in, and become a three-dimensional model of your own self, wandering around just like in real life. Instead of going to a company’s website, you walk down to their virtual headquarters. To give someone a phone number, you hand them a virtual business card.