Metaverse beyond the din: Immediate challenges and issues to address

cnbctv18.com:

Even while the world still grapples with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, crypto fans and investors alike are going gung-ho about the Metaverse like it is the biggest social disruption that humankind has ever seen.While the term ‘metaverse’ is used to describe any virtual world where humans can socialize, it is being loosely applied to any project that involves virtual reality (VR), gaming or even non-fungible tokens (NFTs), in a bid to draw consumer attention today. With market experts hypothesizing that the metaverse will eventually expand into a multi-trillion-dollar industry, there is a barrage of companies trying to squeeze every bit of investor interest, and money, by applying the ‘metaverse’ tag to their product portfolio.When Facebook rebranded itself as Meta, signaling its move to focus on virtual worlds, the world truly sat up in rapt attention, and sales for its Quest 2 VR headsets went through the roof.

By its own admission, however, the company acknowledges that the metaverse will need to incorporate much more than VR wearables to include augmented reality (AR), machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and of course, VR. Yet, there are many who still question how much time will people really want to spend in a virtual world and will the metaverse really be a safe place for humans to socialize.Also Read| Where are Indian Web 3.0 developers relocating?Aliasgar Merchant, Developer Relations Engineer at Ignite (formerly Tendermint) says, “In a metaverse, you can be anyone you want to be, and that might create security concerns.