Teleport me to the metaverse

Thanks to the standards that the Metaverse Standards Forum will soon develop, we will be able to teleport to the metaverse with our avatar, although we cannot say “Beam me up, Scotty” like Captain Kirk in a short time.

Technological change continues to envelop human life in every aspect at a dizzying pace. Digital technologies are now at the center of our daily lives. The moment our internet connection is cut off, we feel like we are excluded from the world.

In the not-too-distant future, we will also stop using the word “internet” specifically. Likewise, there will be no need to connect to the internet, since everything will be necessarily interconnected and we will be part of an uninterrupted process, so there will be no need to “connect to the internet”.

The world of the “Matrix” may still seem fantastic, but the omens that appear may make future movie scripts a part of our lives instead of being “surreal”. After all, the flying cars of the Jetsons of the 40+ generation are almost gone.

“Black Lightning”, on the other hand, has been on the roads for a long time. Fortunately, we’re a long way from Captain Kirk’s “Beam me up, Scotty” dream. But the distance to the dystopian episodes of the “Black Mirror” series and the Samantha of the movie “Her”, which is a virtual entity based on artificial intelligence and consists of only a voice, seems to have shortened considerably.

The sharp boundaries between the “physical world” and the “virtual world” are becoming increasingly blurred. It is really difficult to predict today how much of our existence will include the physical world and how much will migrate to the “digital, virtual world” in the later stages of the technological and digital change process, which has reached such a depth as to include the human body. But one way or another, welcome to the age of transhumanism!

In this story created by technology, your stance may be on the utopian or dystopian side. But what does it matter, whether you support or oppose, the future will already have arrived! The pace of development and change of digital technology surpasses Üsküdar before it has the opportunity to “understand” the impact of that technology!

It is clear that human beings have come a long way before they even have a chance to argue and do a due diligence. It is understood that one of the critical thresholds in this journey will be crossed with the “metaverse” that has entered our lives for the last two years.

This concept, which became popular suddenly after Facebook changed its company name to “Meta” and placed the “metaverse” in its business focus, still remains a mysterious word for many people. But for the giant brands of the tech world, the mystery has already been solved and they have already stepped into this upcoming new era of technology.

WHAT IS THIS METAVERSE?

Metaverse, which is also called “beyond the universe” or “beyond the universe”, can also be defined as the potential to go beyond the physical universe by moving away from the dimension of time and space, thanks to computers, android devices, VR lenses and various 3D user interfaces. . When it started to become popular last year, many vigilante entrepreneurs started selling their Metaverse plots by parcel, and it was among the most interesting news of the bulletins. In an environment where there are plenty of people lamenting that crypto money, especially Bitcoin, has missed the frenzy, it was not surprising that metaverse plots quickly attracted attention and even started to be bought and sold. Once again, disappointment remained!

Although the metaverse in our country is met with the treatment of crypto money, many small and large global companies have already started to develop technology in order to be located in the “fictional universe”. Metaverse technologies, tools, products and services are being developed in every sector and field you can think of.

In fact, last week Taiwanese technology giant HTC launched the world’s first metaverse phone, as it had previously announced. HTC, which will provide users with a gateway connected to its metadata, has also added features such as wallet, avatar creation and managing NFT assets to this particular device.

COMING STANDARD TO METAVERSE

While many developments were taking place in the metaverse space, there was a significant obstacle standing in the way of companies. Each company was developing its own metaverse technology, but they were advancing independently of each other, without understanding each other’s language. However, an important development took place last week, although it has not yet created the repercussions it deserves

The world’s largest companies and organizations came together and collaborated to create metaverse standards and established the “Metaverse Standards Forum ” .

Among the founding members of this forum were many companies such as Meta (former Facebook), Microsoft, Google, Adobe, Epic Games, Huawei, HTC, Ikea, Nvidia, Alibaba, Qualcomm. As it will immediately draw your attention, companies from all countries, regardless of the USA, China, Sweden, Taiwan, came together at this forum.

This initiative will of course be interpreted and analyzed in many aspects. However, the fact that these giant companies that direct the technology come together and cooperate is enough to show how important and serious the metaverse is.

WHY WAS SUCH A COOPERATION BORN?

The answer is actually not very complicated. In the first place, every company, including Meta (Facebook), took action to develop their own platform in the metaverse area. But it soon became clear that this was a futile effort; If a new solution was not developed, every company would be wasting time and money unnecessarily. Of course, the loss of trust experienced by the users would cause a wound that is more difficult to repair.

Here, with the “Metaverse Standards Forum”, companies pressed the button to develop common standards that understand each other’s language in order to create a “metaverse technology market over platforms”. The main purpose of this forum will be to clear up the confusions, to create “open source” collaborative workspaces and to pave the way for initiatives and technologies in the metaverse field. Thus, cross-platform systems can be built.

For example, with the opportunity these common standards will provide, the cryptocurrency Mana used in the metaverse universe called Decentraland can also be used in the Horizon Worlds universe of Meta. Again, it will be easier for Ethereum to become a valid currency in all universes. In short, all assets created in the metaverse universe will turn into an “asset, value” of the metaverse’s platform technology market.

WHO CAN JOIN THE FORUM?

For-profit companies, non-profit institutions and organizations, associations, foundations and universities can participate in the forum, which was established with the call of “Help us to build the Open Metaverse”. There are two levels in the Forum: Principal Member and Participant Member. Main Members are those who fund forum projects and are quarterbacks. Participating members will only be able to play a role in forum discussions and projects within the scope of the organization.

In order to set standards in an objective way, the management of the forum is also sensitive. The Kronos Consortium, which sets the standards in the field of 3D graphics technologies, of which 160 different companies are members, will be the manager of the forum. Therefore, over time, being a member of this forum will become a base that provides credibility and trust for users.

According to the official site, the forum will focus on “pragmatic, action-oriented projects” such as app prototyping, hackathons, plugin festivals and open source tools to accelerate testing and adoption of metaverse standards. These will be available to any organization for free. At the same time, “consistent terminology and distribution guidelines” will be developed. In short, thanks to the standards to be developed soon by the Metaverse Standards Forum, which will start its first meetings in July, we will be able to teleport to the metaverse with our avatar in a short time, although we cannot say “Beam me up, Scotty” like Captain Kirk.