Exploring and defining the metaverse

Some elements of the metaverse exist today, but we’re a ways off from seeing its full potential — or even knowing precisely what it is. How will the metaverse evolve in the next few years?

While the metaverse promises to be unlike any technology we’ve seen before and will change the way we work and play, it will both borrow from lessons learned by innovations and paradigm shifts that have gone before it as well as bring us to uncharted tech territories.

In this special report, we look at what we know about the metaverse and the companies driving it, its security risks, what the gaming industry is showing us, how the metaverse could impact the environment, how to ensure it’s open and interoperable.

Use this special issue to navigate the many facets of the metaverse through our in-depth coverage spanning identity and authentication, simulations, regulation, security, gaming, the environment and more.

—Dan Muse, content director and managing editor

In this issue…