What is the metaverse and can it replace the real world?

What is the metaverse and can it replace the real world?

The idea of a virtual world existing in parallel to the real one was once the stuff of science fiction. But today, millions of people are already spending hours a day in virtual spaces and spending billions of dollars on things that simply don’t exist in a physical environment.

When Facebook changed its name to Meta last year and rebranded itself as a “metaverse company”, what was once a controversial idea among tech enthusiasts came crashing into the mainstream. Now, the company and others like it are betting big that we will all be spending more and more time in the metaverse - doing everything from socialising and playing games with friends, to exercising and working remotely. On this week's Beyond The Headlines, host Arthur Scott-Geddes asks: what is the metaverse and is it really about to replace the real world?

Episoder(477)

The Minnesota model for fighting ISIS in the US

The Minnesota model for fighting ISIS in the US

In Northern Syria tens of thousands of women and children are now living in squalid, overcrowded camps. Thousands more military aged men have been corralled into Kurdish jails. Hundreds of them had le...

11 Jul 201927min

Locusts: battling the great plague

Locusts: battling the great plague

The first written records of locust swarms are over 3 millennia old. Today, international organisations work to prevent the formation of these swarms that devour their own body weight in food every da...

4 Jul 201926min

Iraq could face another summer of bloodshed

Iraq could face another summer of bloodshed

Hundreds of protesters converged on the streets of the southern Iraqi city of Basra last week. Demonstrators across the province are calling for structural change to fix rampant corruption, a stagna...

27 Jun 201923min

Tanker attacks straight from Iran’s playbook

Tanker attacks straight from Iran’s playbook

On June 13th, two more tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman, just over a month after four vessels off the coast of the Emirate port at Fujairah. The USA blames Iran for the attacks and has sent o...

21 Jun 201918min

Life in Afghanistan during America's longest war

Life in Afghanistan during America's longest war

On October 7, 2001 US forces invaded Afghanistan in response to the devastating 9/11 attacks by Al Qaeda from bases in the Afghan mountains. Although this drove the Taliban from power in a matter of d...

13 Jun 201930min

Exporting ISIS justice

Exporting ISIS justice

This week on Beyond the Headlines, we look into the growing number of European ISIS fighters captured in Syria and ask what should Europe do with them?  France has agreed to allow eleven ISIS fighte...

7 Jun 201933min

A queue in Everest's death zone

A queue in Everest's death zone

After a photograph of a queue of climbers waiting to summit Mount Everest went viral, we explore what risks this poses for climbers and sherpas. Eleven deaths have been recorded on the mountain so f...

31 Mai 201913min

What’s next for America and Iran?

What’s next for America and Iran?

The US has upped the pressure on Iran and since the start of May, tensions across the Middle East have risen. Officials on both sides are publically saying they don’t want a war but have released nume...

23 Mai 201922min

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