Page 14 - EngineerIT December 2021

ICT

Into the Metaverse The blue pill or the red pill
Much like Neo, I believe we’re all being

the Metaverse and enjoy this new virtual
by Nick Durrant, CEO Bluegrass Digital presented with a choice. Do we embrace
world where we can be whoever we want
to be or is this taking things a step too far?
here’s this famous scene from the Matrix - a pale and rather dishevelled looking Neo Beyond this, it’s also very important to
(Keanu Reeves) sits in front of Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) in a darkened room. be discerning about who is going to be in
T“This is your last chance,” Morpheus tells Neo. “After this, there is no turning back. You control of this powerful, virtual ecosystem.
take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to In the Matrix, people are controlled
believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit by machines. In the Metaverse, many
hole goes.” suggest that we’ll be controlled by some
Facebook’s recent rebranding to Meta, and the subsequent media storm that has followed of the tech industries’ biggest and most
about ‘The Metaverse’, reminded me of this very scene. Sure, the picture that Meta CEO Mark prominent brands.
Zuckerberg painted of what the Metaverse will look like is a lot less dystopian than the scenes Luckily, we still have some time to
depicted in the Matrix, but the idea is quite similar. decide how we feel about it because, as
In the Metaverse, we will be able to get inside a super advanced version of the Internet Zuckerberg put it, the Metaverse doesn’t
where people interact via digital avatars. It will incorporate aspects of online gaming, social fully exist just yet. In fact, it could be five to
media, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). ten years before some of the key features
It’s the next evolution of connectivity where everything starts to come together in a of the Metaverse hit the mainstream,
seamless, doppelganger universe, explains Victoria Petrock, an emerging technologies analyst. but we are seeing parts of it already. As
“So you’re living your virtual life the same way you’re living your physical life.” No longer just a pretty simple example, consider how
viewing the digital world from the outside, the Metaverse presents us with a virtual space many aspects of our lives went online in
that we, or our avatars at least, can interact with and explore. 2020 when the pandemic forced us all to
And, perhaps most importantly for people like Zuckerberg, it’s a space where we can stay indoors. We had birthdays and baby
buy a range of virtual stuff that will enhance our experiences in this online world. In science showers online, our pub quizzes went
fiction, the Metaverse has typically been depicted as a place where people can go to escape virtual and some of us even closed big
the difficulties and troubles of the real world. Whether or not that’s how we engage with it, business deals without ever meeting in
remains to be seen. person the people we were working with.

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