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Given that virtual worlds already exist, the next steps will be scaling them up to support more users (online games carefully limit their numbers), making them more realistic and accessible, and devising new hardware to allow greater immersion.
鉴于虚拟世界已经存在，接下来要做的将是：扩大它们的规模以容纳更多用户(网络游戏要谨慎地限制其数量)、使它们更逼真且更易访问，以及设计新硬件让用户更有沉浸感。
Progress is being made on all those fronts.
所有这些方面都在取得进展。
But by far the biggest challenge will be to make connections between what are currently separate worlds.
但到目前为止，最大的挑战将是在目前独立的世界之间建立联系。
For example, it is not yet possible to take an item of virtual clothing from “Fortnite” into “Minecraft”.
例如，将一件虚拟服装从《堡垒之夜》带入《我的世界》还是不可能的。
Mr Ball is optimistic that “economic gravity” will drive companies to co-operate in devising and adopting open standards, because the market that this will then unlock will be much bigger than any of them could create alone.
鲍尔乐观地认为，“经济引力”将推动企业在制定和采用开放标准方面合作，因为这样一来将打开的市场会比任何一家企业单独创造的市场大得多。
He adduces the so-called protocol wars of the 1970s-90s, when rival computing network standards vied for supremacy.
他引证了20世纪70年代至90年代的所谓协议战，当时相互竞争的计算网络标准争夺霸主地位。
Ultimately an open standard prevailed, the Internet Protocol, because a common format created a bigger market.
最终，一个开放标准--互联网协议--占据了上风，因为通用格式创造了一个更大的市场。
Similarly it makes economic sense, Mr Ball argues, for virtual worlds to share data and interoperate.
鲍尔认为，同样，虚拟世界共享数据和互操作在经济上也是有意义的。
Today people buy fewer objects inside games and other virtual worlds than they might if ownership rights were firmer and items more portable.
如今，与所有权更稳固、物品更便携的情况相比，人们在游戏和其他虚拟世界中购买的物品较少。
Tackle those problems, and more people might be willing to fork out.
解决这些问题后，可能会有更多的人愿意掏钱。
Economics, Mr Ball says, “will drive standardisation and interoperation over time”.
鲍尔称，经济学“将随着时间的推移推动标准化和互操作”。
He draws an illuminating analogy with the history of smartphones.
他用智能手机的发展史做了一个很有启发性的比喻。
Another way to think of the metaverse, he points out, is as the successor to the rise of the mobile internet.
他指出，另一种看待元宇宙的方式是，将其视为移动互联网崛起的继承者。
Mobile devices extended, but also changed, the way people experience the internet, with the advent of things like navigation apps and ride-hailing.
随着导航应用和打车等应用的出现，移动设备增加了同时还改变了人们体验互联网的方式。
The metaverse could represent a comparable kind of shift, transforming what the internet can do and how it is used.
元宇宙可以代表一种类似的转变，它能够改变互联网的功能和使用方式。
But isn’t the smartphone industry dominated by the duopoly of Apple and Google?
但智能手机行业不是被苹果和谷歌这两家寡头集团主导吗？
This is one case where “economic gravity” has not led to interoperability.
这是“经济引力”没有带来互操作性的一个例子。
Mr Ball thinks regulatory action is needed to loosen the duo’s grip on payment systems and app stores, which “limit the growth potential not only of virtual-world platforms, but also the internet at large”.
鲍尔认为需要采取监管行动，来放松这两家公司对支付系统和应用商店的控制，这种控制“不仅限制了虚拟世界平台的增长潜力，还限制了整个互联网的增长潜力”。
The author wisely avoids spending too much time trying to imagine all the future uses of the metaverse, or analysing which of today’s tech giants are best-placed to exploit it.
作者明智地避免了花太多时间试图想象元宇宙的所有未来用途，也没有分析当今哪些科技巨头最适合利用元宇宙。
Nor does he dig very deeply into the inevitable regulatory and governance challenges.
他也没有深入挖掘不可避免的监管和治理挑战。
It is far too early in the game.
现在还为时过早。
Think of those predictions from 1993: they were broadly correct, but Netflix, Amazon, Gmail and Wikipedia did not exist.
想想1993年的那些预测：它们大体上是正确的，但网飞、亚马逊、谷歌邮箱和维基百科当时并不存在。
The rise of smartphones, too, toppled previous industry leaders.
智能手机的崛起也推翻了之前的行业领先者。
The metaverse could cause a similar changing of the guard.
元宇宙可能会导致类似的警卫更迭。
Even the word metaverse may not stick, Mr Ball admits.
鲍尔承认，甚至是元宇宙这个词也可能无法留存下去。
Something like it will have arrived by the end of the decade, but “we may ultimately use a different term for this future”.
类似的东西会在近10年后到来，但“我们最终可能会用一个不同的术语来描述这个未来”。
Like the information superhighway, this latest buzzword seems to point in the right direction, but may get lost along the way.
就像信息高速公路一样，这个最新的流行语似乎指向了正确的方向，但可能会在途中迷失方向。
For anyone who wants to understand the process and what is at stake, Mr Ball’s lucid and timely book offers a portal into a new realm.
对于任何想要了解这一过程及其利害关系的人来说，鲍尔的这本清晰又合时宜的书就是进入新领域的大门。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
