I'd like to dedicate a project log over what exactly inspired me to do what I am doing right now. The first question belongs to the most important, what is the metaverse?

The Metaverse is a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the internet.
The Metaverse, a phrase coined by Stephenson as a successor to the Internet, constitutes Stephenson's vision of how a virtual reality-based Internet might evolve in the near future.
. . . the Metaverse describes a future internet of persistent, shared, 3D virtual spaces linked into a perceived virtual universe, but common standards, interfaces, and communication protocols between and among virtual environment systems are still in development.

Wikipedia

There will be 360 capture devices coming out soon from GoPro, Samsung, & Google. The hardware design for this camera array will be open and film-makers can use off the shelf cameras coupled with the Google stitching software to create very high quality 360 captures for VR. I've researched every 360 camera in the past and would say that Google puts out the best solutions for those looking to get into immersive film-making.

A person can 3D print the shell and use their own cameras or buy a 360 capture gimbal from GoPro for $3000:

William Gibson's books have heavily influenced me growing up. Stories from the Sprawl Trilogy have seen it's influence to this day in modern culture with films such as The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell which have been greatly inspired by the themes written in these 80s cyberpunk classics. Some of the technology detailed in these stories is worth mentioning such as SimStims:

SimStim is literally Simulated Stimulation, and is a logical parallel to VR. Rather than experiencing a full VR or AR experience in which your mind is placed inside a metaverse matrix, a completely simulated reality; or the joys of physical reality -meatspace- with additional VR components grafted on, SimStim opens up a third possibility.

Viewing the world through another person's eyes, hearing with their ears, feeling with their skin, smelling with their nose. Full sensory stimulation of another person, total passivity.

Then he keyed the new switch.
The abrupt jolt into other flesh. Matrix gone, a wave of sound and colour…She was moving through a crowded street, past stalls vending discount software, prices feltpenned on sheets of plastic, fragments of music from countless speakers. Smells of urine, free monomers, perfume, patties of frying krill. For a few frightened seconds he fought helplessly to control her body. Then he willed himself into passivity, became the passenger behind her eyes.
William Gibson's Neuromancer, page 56

The evolution of the web will bring this global brain with amazing interconnectedness: my humble vision is to push humanity forward in being able to tap into that and be able to transcend as a species. It was in 2013 when I attended a the GF2045 Transhumanism conference in New York City.

It's greatly motivated me to expand my long term thinking strategy if I were to experience the singularity in my lifetime. I got to hear the science and tech behind some of the most brilliant minds but one project has stood out for me the most and that is project AVATAR:

This is where I saw myself being able to contribute. I had an Oculus Rift headset at the time and knew immediately that it would play a huge role in project AVATAR's development. Whether it might be in regards to Deep Learning [ http://deepmind.com/ ] algorithms being applied to live / recorded 360 captures from the devices or from the high grain data collected of human interaction in virtual / augmented environments, I was ready to apply myself in this direction to find out. However, it was later that year when Bitcoin started taking off like crazy, and for nearly a year my focus was split from the crypto-currency boom that followed up after it. As 2015 arrived, I made a New Years resolution to focus on one thing this time and get it right: Virtual Reality. It is about halfway in the year now, and it seems that every opportunity I have turned down yielded a bigger one right around the corner. My aspirations are so huge they sometimes frighten me... but at the same time I have gone through pains to design a system that can scale exponentially, be distributed with cheap hardware, decentralized, and by default respect the user's freedom. I've already made prototypes that can one day lead to a turn key revolution once consumer head mounted displays get into millions of consumers hands, and that is only be a matter of months away.

to be continued...