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that I haven't read much about until recently,

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, which helps explains why it's peopled by potato-headed avatars:

MetaWorld consists of 10,000 square miles of virtual environment, complete with meadows, trees, mountains, lakes, and yes, campfires, that will be made available to early adopters through a “Pioneer Edition” program for high-end VR headsets like the HTC Vive later this year... MetaWorld by comparison is bare, and serene. During a demo for Variety, HelloVR co-founder Carleton DiLeo explained that some of this reduction was done on purpose. MetaWorld avatars for example don’t come with a full body. Instead, you’re represented by a floating head and two hands. “Your mind fills in the rest,” said DiLeo — and it actually does a better job doing so than VR experiences can.

You might think that potato heads aren't pretty enough to appeal, but then again, ask 100 million Minecraft players what they think of their own blocky-ass avatars. In any case, the piece that appeals to me most is that MetaWorld is powered by SpatialOS from

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,

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:

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MetaWorld invites you to build, explore and create memories together in a 10,000 square mile massively scaled open world made possible by SpatialOS. Discover activities and adventure inside a real-time physics simulation allowing thousands of players to participate simultaneously online. Join us, and make your mark in a first of its kind, vast-scale Social VR MMO experience.

10,000 square miles is a fraction of Second Life's size, but if MetaVerse can put more world in its own virtual world -- contiguous, seamlessly experienced geography with responsive physics that don't come crashing down even with thousands of users in the same area -- that's something I can probably put on a potato head for. (Improbably.)

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