Aish in virtual world = cash in real world

Its like how things were in 1983 when the Internet came into being and no one knew what was going to happen with it But we were all making a go at itrdquo says tech entrepreneur Krishnan Sundararajan referring to the curiosity around ldquoMetaverserdquo a term that was first discussed In 1992 scifi novel Snow Crash but made it to headlines last week when Mark Zuckerberg announced rebranding Facebook as ldquoMetardquoThough the company will now be known by its new corporate name its social media platforms Facebook Instagram and WhatsApp used by billions the world over arenrsquot part of the namechanging exercise The idea as Zuckerberg cofounder of Meta Inc explained in his keynote address on October 29 on Facebook Virtual Reality Labs was to steer the company beyond traditional social media and build interconnected experiences as part of the MetaverseKrishnan Sundararajan tech entrepreneurThe term is a collective reference to shared online worlds where itrsquos possible to pit physical reality against augmented reality You can meet colleagues buy products visit an exhibition enjoy a service buy land and build a structure all virtually as your internet avatar An IIT graduate can work as colleague with a Nobel laureate in a virtual office something that would otherwise be considered the stuff of preposterous dreamsWhile gamers have been doing this for years what makes Metaverse gamechanging is that a single avatar with the same identity and assets will now be able to traverse multiple virtual worlds smoothly Decentraland and Sandbox are two of the popular worlds with millions of inhabitants already with land selling at premiumIn the Facebook Metaverse you could be spinning at home but feel like you are in a spinning studio with your friendsBut what does it actually mean for you the average Internet user Well if you are an Enid Blyton fan it would be like going through the hole on top of the Faraway Tree and finding a different land every weekmdashthe land of the upside down and candy If you are a gamer think Roblox Minecraft and Fortnite If you are a scifi fiction fan you wouldrsquove read the 2011 dystopian Ernest Cline book Ready Player One or watched the 2018 film of the same name It would be like living in a virtual universe called OASIS where the main character has to find an Easter egg hidden by the game creator James Halliday to inherit his wealth In our case Zuckerberg is Halliday and what he is proposing with this rebranding which many say has been done to move past the scandalplagued social networkrsquos multiple discrepancies is a world beyond the mundane He explained during his glitzy address that when he sends a video of his kids to their grandparents it should feel like they are really there ldquohellipit will be beyond the constraints of screens beyond the limits of distance and physics and towards a future where everyone can be present with each otherrdquo Zuckerbergrsquos ldquoMetaverserdquo is going to be a 3D virtual social spacemdashldquoThe new North StarrdquoSome of the features that he listed out as part of the immersive Internet future include teleportation to anywhere in the world studying online with 3D effects how about holding Jupiter in your hand while explaining the solar system to your kid interacting with people all over the world and buying and doing whatever you willThis means that an artist can buy land using NFTs in a prime location in a virtual world get an lsquoarchitectrsquo basically someone with 3D modelling experience to build an art gallery display his work and that of others and collect a community of artists whorsquove also transitioned from physical to virtual What connects these digital assets and expansions with the real world is that the value of the token at any given point in time dictates the digital assetrsquos worth in terms of the recognised currency of a nation Vaibhav Sharma and Sai Krishna VKLike in the real world in the Metaverse too everything can be bought and soldWhile Meta Inc is already investing in virtual reality VR and augmented reality AR at fullthrottle these new realities are not going to be a part of our immediate future feels Delhibased tech journalist Nandini Yadav ldquoThe way Mark showed the hologramshellip that may take at least 50 years They are doing this to attract investors Small changes may happen over time Nothing will happen right awayrdquo Holography is a photographic technique that measures the light scattered from an object and presents it such that it appears threedimensional Yoursquove seen holograms in Avatar and Star WarsBut for Indian startups which have been spearheading several Metaverse projects the future looks promisingNandini YadavSeveral tech and software giants including Microsoft have been talking about their ldquoMetaverse enterpriserdquo for a while but experts say that Facebookrsquos entry will also benefit smaller indie companies who were already making a foray into the VR sceneTake LOKA for instance Founded by Krishnan Sundararajan it will be Indiarsquos first multiplayer gamified virtual Metaverse when it goes live sometime in early 2022 Delhibased Sunderarajan who is the founder of FoodieBaba studied BTech and coding and has previously worked with Zomato LOKA is based on 3D maps of realworld cities and locations where players can participate in live and concurrent experiences powered by their favourite thirdparty apps The platform offers 3D versions of locations like Connaught Place in Delhi Marine Drive in Mumbai and MG Road in Bengaluru ldquoAll the experiences are driven by third party apps For example if you want to watch a movie it will be powered by Netflix If you want to order a pizza it will be powered by Zomatordquo explains Sudararajan LOKA is not focused on activities or objectives but on experiences and people ldquoWe will however start live events as most people need an objective to be on a Metaverse like playing a gamerdquoOneRare founders Supreet Raju and Gaurav GuptaFor him the news about Facebookrsquos entry is ldquobrilliantrdquo as ldquowhen a company as big as that joins the fray it automatically changes consumer behaviour and creates hype which otherwise takes long to achieverdquoSundararajan says in the new immersive future no one company will have a monopoly on the virtual world This would mean decentralisation of powerVaibhav Sharma and his company CopeStudio based in Bengaluru combines design product support and capital to turn bold ideas about the metaverse into categorydefining companies The company has worked with organisations like Vedantu Together Fund Urban Vault The Product Folks Reality Tools Dehidden Arali and Alter8 Analytics ldquoIn a nutshell we are a startup helping startups build their own Metaverse We are focused on building on the blockchain and helping companies get ready for the next phase of the Internetrdquo Sharma who sees Metaverse as a natural follower of cryptocurrency and NFTs feels that itrsquos currently at the hype stage ldquoAs more companies come to life we as a collective will move into the next levelrdquoExperts say NFTs NonFungible Tokens have given the much needed boost to the virtual universe And this is because this sort of a virtual world is powered by the very same blockchain technology that operates cryptocurrency like NFTs NFT is one type of crypto currency that allows users to buy and sell virtual assets like real estate clothes and art and even entry to an event like a concertIndia is an important player in this conversation especially because it loves its online games The country is home to 16 per cent of the worldwide gamer base of 27 billion and is among the top five global markets in terms of user base For the first nine months of 2020 India ranked number one in global mobilegame downloadsYouTube gamer Animesh Agarwal who goes by the name of 8BitThug and has 983000 subscribers says that Facebookrsquos announcement has taken him back to the world of 2011 when we were all playing FarmVille on Facebook creating a virtual world and gifting friends points ldquoThis will be a more extensive version of that with advertisements deeper social connection and the use of NFTs to buy and own things in the Metaverse But I do hope this is not the endgame for our generation where we lose out on the charm of whatrsquos real OTT streaming has already glued us to our couch I fear that metaverse will bind us further This could be very dangerous for us socially mentally and emotionallyrdquoOver the last few years there have been a string of unique metaverse projects in India Like Supreet Raju and Gaurav Guptarsquos OneRare which is Indiarsquos first playtoearn food Metaverse game on 0xPolygon The user needs to follow recipes and farm the right ingredients to get their dish to unlock the Dish NFTs successfully ldquoHere even players make money as they playrdquo says Raju 33 who is a gold medalist from NIFT and has been long working in design Her husband and partner Gupta studied engineering and later worked for startups ldquoWe are trying to get chefs onboard So you may be able to buy a Vikas Khanna Rajma Chawal NFT or Saransh Goilarsquos Butter Chickenrdquo says Raju about the platform which goes live in December ldquoFor us itrsquos a digital community experience which adds to your real life and takes you to a different universerdquoFacebookrsquos presentation also spoke about retail in the Metaverse where you will be shopping for clothes that your avatar wears If in the real world you canrsquot afford a Versace ensemble in Metaverse you could buy a wardrobe full of them Gucci is experimenting in virtual commerce within existing gaming formats and sold a virtual handbag in the Roblox platform for just over 4100 Quartz reported that Louis Vuitton has released lsquoLouis the Gamersquo As you play you traverse a whimsical landscape on the way to a 200th birthday celebration while collecting items such as candles that unlock postcards Balceniaga is also experimenting withreadily available technology presenting its fall 2021 show in a video game formatBut Sai Krishna VK founder of Scapic which is a nocode platform for VR AR and 3D experiences and acquired by Flipkart has a different take on the hype around Metaverse ldquoFor the consumer it may feel drastic but Facebook has been working on this for a while especially since they acquired VR giant Oculus in 2013 They are spending billions of dollars as they want to get into hardware and the operating systems business They missed the boat with mobiles and they now want to own hardwarerdquoHe also says that since this is the only time in the history of mankind where your online presence matters more than your reallife presence powered interestingly by the virtualisation of life in the pandemic India and the world are poised for the transition ldquoTrue boundaries have ceased to exist The geographical constraints that plagued entrepreneurs for years donrsquot bother them now Now we can make and run worldclass companies from anywhere else in the worldrdquo But users will need to tread with caution he says ldquoA healthy balance will be hard to keep when we work play see friends make connectionsmdashall online All lines will be blurred We may come to that cliffhanger point where we will have to decide if wearing that headphone or VR set is more important than living your liferdquo