Neal Stephenson’s focus at LAMINA1 will be on “getting artists and other value producers compensated fairly for their work, benefiting the environment […] and seeing a truly open Metaverse established,” according to co-founder Peter Vessenes.
The father of Metaverse, Neal Stephenson, who originated the phrase “Metaverse” 30 years ago, is establishing a blockchain project called LAMINA1 that will focus on the Metaverse.
He’s also changed his mind about the Metaverse, noting that the experience will most likely be focused on flat 2D screens rather than virtual reality or augmented reality technology like headgear and glasses, as suggested by Meta and Microsoft.
Stephenson is a well-known speculative fiction author who, in his 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash, explores the concept of a virtual reality realm dubbed the Metaverse. In addition to writing, the 62-year-old worked as the chief futurist for Magic, an augmented reality (AR) company, from 2014 to 2020.
Stephenson and OG crypto investor and former Bitcoin Foundation chairman Peter Vessenes have co-founded a new layer-1 blockchain dubbed LAMINA1 that they hope will serve as the “foundation layer for the Open Metaverse,” according to a June 8 announcement from Vessenes.
“A place to build something a little closer to Neal’s vision — one that prioritises creators, both technical and artistic, one that provides support, spatial computing technology, and a community to help those who are building out the Metaverse,” Vessenes wrote, adding that the network will “probably” be carbon negative.
At this time, there are few specifics about the project, but Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin is listed among the initiative’s early backers.
Vessenes stated the following about the co-founders’ duties at LAMINA1:
“Neal brings his vision, wisdom, experience, and some core goals: helping get artists and other value creators paid properly for their work, helping the environment […] and seeing a truly Open Metaverse get built instead of seeing the Metaverse vision co-opted by monopolies.”
As he tries to get “the appropriate governance, technology, node operators, IP partners, artists, commercial partners, and money up and running,” Vessenes stated that he will be focusing on getting the blockchain off the ground soon.
The Metaverse is a virtual urban environment that can be accessed by a worldwide fiber-optic network and virtual reality headsets, according to Stephenson’s novel from 1992. The book touches on socioeconomic inequality, centralised control, and incessant advertising, as well as the concept of virtual real estate.
On Twitter earlier today, Stepheson expressed his thoughts on the Metaverse, predicting that much of the Metaverse will be built for displays rather than VR headsets.
When Stephenson originally wrote about it three decades ago, he didn’t imagine high-quality video games becoming widely available to customers in the future.
“Thanks to games, billions of people are now comfortable navigating 3D environments on flat 2D screens. The UIs that they’ve mastered (e.g. WASD + mouse) are not what most science fiction writers would have predicted. But that’s how path dependency in tech works.”
The author went on to say that present game production is still centred on screens for both the developer and the customer, and that in the Metaverse, a hybrid method that includes both 2D screens and AR/VR technology, rather than just VR, will be used.
“We fluently navigate and interact with extremely rich 3D environments using keyboards that were designed for mechanical typewriters. It’s steampunk made real. A Metaverse that left behind those users and the devs who build those experiences would be getting off on the wrong foot,” he stated.
Source: Cointelegraph