Big Tech Companies Betting
on The Metaverse Gold rush
It’s not a coincidence that
two global multinational investment banks and financial services companies, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, agrees that the nascent metaverse
market could be worth $8 trillion in the future.
In its latest Technology
Vision 2022 report, titled Meet
me in the metaverse, multinational information technology services company, Accenture surveyed more than 4,600 business and
technology leaders across 23 industries in 35 countries. 71% of executives
believe the metaverse will have a positive impact on their organisation and 42%
believe it will be “breakthrough” or “transformational”.
Like an arms race, futuristic big tech companies Microsoft, Facebook (FB now
Meta), and Apple Inc, Google (now Alphabet) amongst others, are scrambling to sweep up the metaverse.
Meta (Facebook’s) Metaverse
Facebook (now Meta) describes the
metaverse as "a set of virtual spaces where you can create and explore
with other people who aren't in the same physical space as you". CEO Mark
Zuckerberg says Meta is working on egocentric data, which involves seeing worlds from a first-person
perspective. Mark believes augmented reality glasses will eventually be as
widespread as smartphones. This explains why Meta (Facebook) earmarked spending at least $10 billion in 2021 on Facebook Reality Labs, its metaverse
division tasked with creating AR and VR hardware, software, and content.
Microsoft’s Metaverse
Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella was quoted as saying that
gaming “will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms.” This explains why Microsoft bought game developer,
Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion saying the deal would provide “building blocks
for the metaverse’’. Similarly, regulators – The US Justice Department, The EU, and
UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, recently cleared Microsoft’s
acquisition of speech recognition company, Nuance Inc, ushering in new era of
Conversational Artificial Intelligence.
Enter Microsoft's Azure Digital
Twins, a platform as a service (PaaS) offering that
enables the creation of twin graphs based on digital models of entire
environments, which could be buildings, factories, farms, energy networks,
railways, stadiums, and more—even entire cities. Once modeled, it can be
brought to life and synchronized with the physical world using two-way internet-of-things
(IoT) connections. For instance, AB InBev used Azure Digital
Twins to create a comprehensive digital model of their breweries and supply
chain. A report by Grand View Research
suggests that the digital twin market is anticipated to reach $86.09 billion by
2028.
Microsoft is also said to be
developing a range of technologies and metaverse apps, that will help converge
the physical and digital worlds. Such solutions include Azure Maps, Azure Digital Twins, Azure IoT,
AltspaceVR, HoloLens 3.0, Visual Studio, Microsoft Mesh,
MetaOS, amongst others.
Apple Inc’s
Metaverse
If the report on Apple leak
site - MacRumors
is anything to go by, Apple could replace the iPhone with virtual reality
contact lenses that let users immerse in the metaverse - make calls, browse the
web and even play games without the need
for a handheld device. The high-tech 'contact lenses' or ‘Apple Lens’ as it is christened, would
integrate virtual reality into someone's daily life likely using an
internally-developed Apple software called 'realityOS'. Perhaps this indicates
why Apple CEO Tim Cook opined that Apple is "exploring new and emerging
technologies" and that the metaverse is "very interesting to us"
when asked about the company's thoughts on the metaverse tech trend.
With Apple’s iPhones, iPads,
and wearables used by a huge installed base of users across the globe --
roughly 1.8 billion, means Apple can introduce
a metaverse device and cross-sell the same to its large existing ecosystem. Such
a pioneering innovation could herald the end of smartphones.
The Booming Real Estate Market in the Metaverse
Prices for pixelated plots
of land in the metaverse surged this year, some selling for millions of
dollars. An analytics company, Metametric Solutions, projects that real estate sales in the metaverse could double
this year, reaching nearly $1 billion in 2022. For sure, there’s just one
metaverse but several platforms which can be likened to different land masses
on the same planet. Like countries, the size of these metaverse platforms is
finite. In essence, once someone buys a plot of land on a metaverse platform,
nobody else can use that space unless they are ready to rent or buy it off the
original owner. If lots of people are interested in that land, the price will
shoot up. Currently, The Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels and Somnium Space, are some of the most common
platforms selling virtual real estate with a combined total of 268,645 parcels
of land.
While some people are
cynical about booming real estate prices in the metaverse, others are already
investing. Republic Realm reportedly splashed out $4.3 million
on land in The Sandbox metaverse while Tokens.com,
a publicly traded company that invests in Web 3 assets linked to the Metaverse, purchased land worth $2.4
million in Decentraland. PricewaterhouseCoopers
(PwC) Hong Kong recently doled out US$10,000 on a virtual plot in The Sandbox. J.P
Morgan, a global leader in financial services became the first bank to enter the
metaverse, opening a lounge in Decentraland. Barbados is said to be the first
sovereign state to develop a diplomatic
embassy within the metaverse on a plot of land in Decentraland.
Sandbox reports that American rapper, Snoop
Dogg built a digital recreation of his real-life Diamond Bar, California
mansion, where he will throw exclusive, members-only parties. There will also
be a music venue for concerts – and residents, who buy a plot in Snoopverse,
will be able to create their own games and experiences. Someone already paid
$450,000 for land next Snoop Dogg’s house, to be his neighbour.
Saudi Arabia's futuristic
$500-billion new city - Neom - announced that its key subsidiary - Neom
Tech & Digital Company, launched a 3D cognitive digital twin metaverse
platform envisioned to enable a ground-breaking ‘mixed-reality’ urban living
model. The city's digital twin in the metaverse will allow citizens to
experience the city even before it is launched.
Traditional banks are not known
to embrace innovation swiftly but not to be outdone, global financial services provider, HSBC,
joined a growing list of notable brands that have acquire a piece of virtual
real estate in The Sandbox metaverse. According to HSBC, “When you think about
the economics of the metaverse — or metanomics — there are opportunities in
almost every market area.”
In Africa, it
appears only telecoms firm, MTN came early to the party with the 144 plots of
virtual land it purchased in Africarare metaverse -
Ubuntuland, for an undisclosed sum. Where
are Nigeria’s technologically-driven new generation banks, the GTBank (GTCO), Access bank,
Zenith Bank, and Fidelity banks of this world?
The Metaverse Naysayers
While some companies and futurists, including
renowned financial institutions such as Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs et al.
are betting on the prospect of the metaverse, there are those who reckon
metaverse to be dystopian, a bad idea.
For instance, tech leaders SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Twitter founder,
Jack Dorsey are not fans of metaverse, or Web3. They are not alone. A critique
argues that fans of the metaverse are creating
artificial scarcity and a fear of missing out (FOMO). In fact, a survey conducted
in February 2022 involving 1,000 people in the United States, found that a
whopping 49 percent of the participants were ignorant about the metaverse. Even
among the other half of respondents who had actually heard about metaverse,
most were skeptical about how it would proceed, with 78 percent calling it a hype.
It is not only in the United
States that people are oblivious of the metaverse. In a similar survey amongst
1,000 respondents in the United Kingdom a month earlier, 96 percent of respondents
aged between 25 and 54 said they would not shop in the metaverse. If this notion
obtains in the Western world, I can bet that tenably 80 percent of Africans,
nay, Nigerians are not aware of the metaverse.
Predicting technological
evolution is not a precise science
In 1995, Robert Metcalfe, who invented Ethernet,
declared that ‘’the Internet was totally screwed’’. He reportedly predicted that ‘’the Internet will soon go
spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse'’. In 1946,
leading figures in the movie industry had their doubts about the prospect of
the television. They argued that ’Television won't be able to hold on to
any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired
of staring at a plywood box every night’’. In a now
infamous piece of editorial protesting the rise of electronic reading devices
published in February 1995’s issue of Newsweek, Clifford Stoll said, “no online database will replace your daily
newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer
network will change the way government works.”
Time will tell if Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey’s prognosis of the
metaverse pans out.
Possible ways the metaverse will be a game
changer
1. Education and
learning – According to the UNICEF,
approximately 1.6 billion students from 192 countries, or 91 per cent of the
world’s student population, experienced educational disruptions sequel to the
Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns. Kwang Hyung Lee, president of the Korea
Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) believes
that going forward, ''universities best equipped with digital infrastructure
and savvy human resources will emerge as the new leaders − no matter
where they are''. In his writeup
on phys.org, John Preston posits
that, ''ultimately, the metaverse might
result in the end of some traditional forms of university education. Rather
than attending a single bricks-and-mortar institution, students might flock to
the cyber-physical realm instead. In the metaverse, they could learn from
virtual experiences provided by a range of global universities. Academics might
become edutainers, working with developers to create experiences for students.
The future for university lecturers might lie in self-employment, providing
tailor-made learning experiences for a range of customers''. In Nigeria, EON
Reality is partnering with the University of Lagos to build a knowledge
metaverse hub. Dan Lejerskar, Founder of EON Reality affirmed that cutting-edge
technology like EON-XR will enable University of Lagos’ educators to offer “hands-on” training to their
students without the usual logistical restrictions in many forms of engineering
and vocational studies.
2.
Defence or Military: According to a commentary by United States Defense and
National Security’s Jennifer McArdle and Caitlin Dohrman published on War on the Rocks, titled, ''the
Full Potential Of A Military Metaverse'', they foresee several applications of the metaverse to the armed
forces to include:
Military training simulations
to measure battlefield effectiveness, education and virtual learning
opportunities through the use of augmented-reality. Others include recruitment - use of video games alongside
traditional tools to attract talent into the armed forces, experimentation - wargame data capture, storage,
and analysis tooling, acquisitions, personnel placement,
and promotion - ensure
interoperability across disparate personnel records and social interactions. For instance, the US
Air
Force Gaming community is connecting distributed airmen in a digital
environment through video games, providing opportunities for leadership
development, teamwork, morale building, and support for the mental health of
servicemembers, particularly those in the 18 to 30 age range who grew up as
avid gamers. A military metaverse could serve as an extension to this
community, bringing in other non-gaming activities and connectivity.
3. The future of work
and workplace training – According to a research by the
University of Maryland, users retain information more effectively when
presented in virtual reality (VR) rather than on a computer screen. Mark
Zuckerberg said in a March podcast
that, ‘’by 2030, the new generations of Oculus will allow users to teleport
from one place to another without moving from their couch — not only for gaming
and entertainment but also for work''. Meta (Facebook) is introducing Horizon
Workrooms for remote working and collaboration. Workrooms will boast of
features such as mixed-reality desk and keyboard tracking, hand tracking, remote desktop
streaming, video conferencing integration, spatial audio, and the new Oculus
Avatars. Hyundai reportedly
deployed metaverse to train new employees, while Samsung held a virtual
recruitment career fair in September, 2021. Research
commissioned by Lenovo reveals that close to half of employees (44%) are
willing to work in the metaverse and believe that it can deliver benefits like
productivity to the workplace. A PricewaterhouseCoopers report
asserts that employees can be trained four times faster in soft skills using VR
than traditional in-person classroom or online training. The
metaverse can supercharge
corporate skills development and training. Instead of gathering employees and
training them on actual pieces of machinery, organizations could set up virtual
plants where trainees could learn to perform all essential operations from
startup to shutdown. They could also use the virtual environment to simulate
accidents/emergencies and train workers on safety response measures more
effectively. Currently, organizations have to rely on repetitious training
manuals or videos for such tasks.
4. Remote conferences, and meetings - The pandemic entails remote working is the new normal and full teleworking or flexible work option will continue to be the trend. Microsoft Mesh is the future of Microsoft Teams meetings. Microsoft is building in features like ‘Together Mode’, ‘Holoportation’ 3D avatars, which will make meetings more interactive, immersive, and photorealistic.
5. Engineering and
architecting - Metaverse digital twins would help with
engineering and development efforts. For instance, Airbus partnered with
Microsoft to use Azure
Mixed Reality and Hololens to reduce design validation time by 80% and
accelerate complex aircraft assembly tasks by 30%.
6. Job opportunities
in the metaverse – Metaverse content creators, user
experience (UX) writers and designers, research scientists, data scientists can expect booming career
opportunities in the metaverse enterprise. In the words of Falon
Fatemi, ‘’the metaverse will not only
enable content creators to develop more interactive and immersive content, but
it will also enable them to develop more intelligent content, thanks to new
developments in Artificial intelligence’’. Meta’s head
of content design, Elisabeth Carr asserted that
content designers are embedded in every product team across Meta—we work on
Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Meta Quest, Portal and within teams
working on integrity, social impact, privacy, business products, advertiser
tools, as well as within Reality Labs, which is pioneering a lot of our work in
the metaverse. As a matter of
fact, in October 2021,
Facebook announced
plans to create 10,000 new high-skilled
jobs in the
European Union (EU) to help shape the metaverse.
7. Healthcare: A United
Kingdom’s National Health Service study established
that 92% of Virtual Reality participants trained in infection control measures
were found to have an adequate understanding, compared to only 16 percent of
the control group. Post-training performance increased by more than 230 percent
for the VR group, compared to 16.75 percent for the control group.
8.
Customer support and experience – In a blog post Nancy Pekala, Vice President
for content marketing and strategy at HGS Digital, says, ‘’organizations that
rely on telephone calls and digital-first channels (automated chats) for
customer service will be able to leverage the metaverse to pivot to an absolute
virtual-first experience’’.
9. Sales and
marketing – Forbes reports
that the metaverse is marketing’s next big thing because it offers new ways to
engage your audience and provide a richer, fuller and more immersive content
experience.
10. Advertising - Organizations,
especially those in the retail industry, will also be able to leverage the
metaverse for product placement and advertising. Fashion giants Balenciaga,
Burberry, Gucci, amongst others, set up their metaverse
division to make the most of this opportunity.
Metaverse Cybersafety, Cybersecurity And National Security Risks
The metaverse will not be immune from cybersafety, cybersecurity, national security,
and privacy challenges. NBC News reports
that crypto exchanges keep getting hacked, and there's little anyone can do. Lately,
two individuals were arrested
in Manhattan, United States of America for allegedly conspiring to launder
cryptocurrency that was stolen during the 2016 hack of Bitfinex, a virtual
currency exchange, presently valued at approximately $4.5 billion. A similar report claims that hackers
stole almost $400m worth of digital assets in at least seven attacks on
cryptocurrency platforms in 2021. Below are some of the security concerns that the
metaverse will contend with:
1.
Virtual reality sexual assault and harassment - According to a report
by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s, MIT Technology Review, a woman
was sexually harassed on Meta’s virtual-reality social media platform, Horizon
Worlds. She’s not the first—and won’t be the last. In a recent BBC news investigation,
a reporter posing as a 13-year-old girl on VRChat, a virtual reality (VR) app was
exposed to sexual content, racist insults, and a rape threat. Professor Carla Gannis of
the New York University Tandon School of Engineering advocates
that people will need to be held accountable for their behavior in the
metaverse.
2.
Mental health issues – There are potential mental health issues from long-term immersion in virtual worlds. Pearlman, who was formerly the head of security
at Linden Lab, said she experienced a feeling
called "phantom timeline syndrome" where the lines between the
virtual world and physical world became blurred, while working at VR platform
Sansar.
3.
Human errors: According
to IBM’s Cybersecurity Intelligence Index Report, human error plays the
largest role in 95% of security breaches.
4.
Social engineering attacks - Hackers can trick people
into revealing their personal information by using social engineering
techniques or identity theft tricks.
5. Identity Theft - VR technologies powering the metaverse could serve as a vulnerable target for identity theft. Imagine unwittingly having a spy from a competitor in the room or having an imposter replacing the boss during a business meeting.
6.
Credential theft – Hackers or cybercriminals
can compromise the network credentials of users through wearable gadgets. Theft
of network credentials can also compromise the financial and personal
information of users stored in their user profiles on the metaverse.
7.
Denial of service (DDoS) attacks – occurs when legitimate users are unable to
access information systems, devices, or other network resources due to the actions of
a malicious cyber threat actor.
8.
Ransomware attacks – Ransomware is a type of malware that can either encrypt all of your
data or lock you out of your computer. Once ransomware infects a computer, it
will ask for a ransom — usually in cryptocurrency — in exchange for decrypting
your data or unlocking your computer. Ransomware cost the world $20
billion in 2021. That number is expected to rise to $265 billion by 2031.
9.
Lack of metaverse regulatory and legal framework: There are currently no laws
or legislations regulating the virtual landscape. Who resolves AI-intellectual property,
piracy, and patent disputes in the metaverse?
10. National security risks - radicalization or extremism: A Chinese state-run think tank, Institute of Contemporary International
Relation which is affiliated with China’s Ministry of State Security warns of national security risks involved with the
metaverse. Other potential risks involved with the metaverse include “technological
hegemony,” where developing countries increasingly rely on developed countries’
technologies as the gap in the metaverse’s development expands. Similarly, terrorism researchers at the University of
Nebraska Omaha, say metaverse could become a new domain for terrorist
activity vis a vis online recruitment, engagement coordination, identification
of new targets and execution of terrorist acts. Imagine having the avatar of
a resurrected bin Laden meeting would-be followers
in a virtual lecture hall. The emerging metaverse affords extremist leaders a
new ability to forge and maintain virtual ideological and social communities
and powerful, difficult-to-disrupt ways of expanding their ranks and spheres of
influence.
Conclusion:
A report published by Credit Suisse, a leading financial services company reveals that metaverse revolution will hike the average internet data usage to 20 times around the globe by 2032. While 5G network will support metaverse, 6G will have broader metaverse application. Currently, many African countries are yet to embrace 5G, let alone 6G. It behooves on them to up their game if they are to teleport to the metaverse seamlessly. Metaverse will be revolutionary, but it won’t be immune from cybersecurity and national security threats such as ransomware, hacking, social engineering, denial of service (DDoS) attacks, mental health issues, online radicalization, amongst others.
Written By:
© Don OKEREKE,
A tech-savvy security thought leader, analyst, researcher, content creator, UX writer, military veteran.
March 20, 2022
Follow me on Twitter: @DonOkereke
