The word ‘Metaverse’ has become quite a sensation recently since Facebook changed its name to ‘Meta’ and announced its plans to design and build a virtual realm interconnected to the real world. Other tech giants like Microsoft, Nvidia, Niantic and Unity have made big announcements as they all aggressively embrace the movement and help actualise this world into a reality.
For all those living under a rock or still trying to make sense of what Metaverse is, simply put, it’s a 3D digital world that is soon going to replace the 2D internet. Often referred to as extended reality, the core idea of metaverse is to create a 3D virtual environment which you don’t just see but be a part of when you socialise, interact, manage businesses and investments. Although the metaverse world is still in the making, the Covid- 19 impact of remote working has further accelerated the need for a layered digital world that will soon go beyond the internet.
As a futurist and a tech innovator, I believe metaverse is our future and is going to change the way we live. Here are three shocking predictions of how metaverse will dominate the world.
Bigger than Planet Earth
This new world will be bigger and larger than our own world. We will see a digital twin of planet earth built where applications and processes can be simulated before being built in the real world. Every new building, infrastructure and advanced technology can be trialled and improved before real time application. We will see digital creators make more things in the metaverse than in the real world. It will impact every industry and businesses can collaborate in real time using digital twins to understand their operations, processes and people better. Recently, BMW and Nvidia Omniverse created new simulation capabilities to help BMW make critical decision and introduce automation at the future factory.
Ericsson is using Nvidia Omniverse in building a digital twin environment to help determine how to place and configure each of their sites for best coverage and network performance. By building city scale models that are physically accurate down to the materials of the buildings to quickly calculate and visualise the quality of the signal at every point in the city. So unlike the Sci-fi metaverse the real metaverse will use technology to make our experience as we have known it for thousands of year ‘ as a place of purpose, novelty and community.
As Real as Real Life
You won’t be able to tell the difference between metaverse and the reality in the next 10 years. When Mark Zuckerberg predicted that metaverse will become mainstream in the next 5-10 years he is talking about digital objects and worlds we will see not at high definition or ultra-high definition but at reality level definition. Well, that is because the virtual reality glasses and headsets we will use will be at reality level resolution, making it difficult to see the difference between the real world and digital worlds ‘ called the retina level definition. You can sleep in your VR glasses, wake up and have no idea what you are seeing is a reality or a dream. Retina level virtual reality glasses already exists but are expensive and only used today by astronauts, car designers and fighter pilots. As the cost of retina level glasses will drop and computing power grows, withing 10 years our reality is going to merge with a life like planet size digital metaverse through which we can teleport and time travel to anyplace anytime.
Digital Currencies ‘ Bigger than the world economy
In the next 10 years, digital currencies and the meta economy will grow so big that billionaires in the metaverse will be richer than the billionaires in the real world. With digital assets, virtual land and a new digital graffiti world, we will embark on an entirely new world where we get to rewrite the rules. This year’s boom in NFT’s is linked to the boom in the metaverse and it all begins with art because we are now living in a new renaissance. Ownership of digital objects that can be easily bought and sold in the metaverse are now growing fast ‘ from art, collectibles, games, music, property and virtual land. As the metaverse becomes planet sized and linked to our real world, NFTs, tokenisation, digital ownership and digital currencies become the norm and we will begin to see everything linked to blockchain.
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