Dubbed as the successor of the internet, the concept of metaverse is gaining popularity day by day. As of now, the metaverse is at its infant stage has evolved from MMO games. But, is there real life applications of the metaverse or just it is limited to games & virtual world.
Real life applications of the metaverse includes DeHealth in healthcare sector, Horizon Workroom and Microsoft Mesh in workplace, virtual universities in education sector and many more. There are also applications of metaverse in entertainment sector and smart cities.
In this blog post, we will focus on different aspects of our physical life where applications of the metaverse are possible. Next, we will dive deep into 9 real life applications of the metaverse that are currently in use. Finally, we will compare the technologies of the metaverse these applications of the metaverse uses.
5 REAL LIFE APPLICATIONS OF THE METAVERSE
Apart from the gaming industry, many entities and organizations from tech companies to governments have shown their interest and seriousness in establishing their metaverse presence. They have come forward to embrace this new technology.
These entities are from the following fields.
- Work
- Education
- Healthcare
- Entertainment
- Smart Cities
WORK
The concept of work and workplace have drastically changed during the pandemic. Remote work became prevalent and it made all of us get adapted to it. With the advent of metaverse, the concept of work and workplace got its meaning.
Working in a virtual office, holding meetings, collaborating with teammates, etc became one of the most used applications of the metaverse. In the next section I will discuss the 2 most famous applications of metaverse in work.
HORIZON WORKROOMS
The term Metaverse became popular after Facebook rebranded its parent company to Meta. By doing this it aimed to change its social media company to a metaverse company. It launched many metaverse applications including Horizon Workroom.
Horizon Workroom is Virtual Reality(VR) space for teams and the workplace. You can connect, collaborate and develop ideas together with your office colleagues. You can meet a team in a virtual office, hold meetings, develop something, etc.
Using Horizon Workroom you can do the following things.
- Discover, Share and Create with your teammates
- Tools your team can use to collaborate remotely.
- You can bring your physical desk/PC into the VR space.
- You can use applications and software like Dropbox, Slack, monday.com, etc in Horizon Workroom.
MICROSOFT MESH
Microsoft Mesh brings your workplace into the metaverse. It is one the best example of real life applications of the metaverse in work. Microsoft mesh is basically a collaborative platform that allows you to have shared virtual experiences.
Microsoft Mesh enables presence and shared experiences on any device through mixed reality(MR) applications. As of now Mesh will import the virtual avatar from AltspaceVR. You can do the following things in Mesh at present
- Collaborate Virtually
- Train together anywhere
- Get Remote expertise
- Design together in 3D
EDUCATION
Education has become one of the top applications of the metaverse. Many education institutes are created in many metaverse platforms. Digital twins of many universities are being built. Education in the metaverse will bring drastic change in the education scenario of today.
Students will have the option to be taught by the best teacher in the world. They can visit any place or see any documentary or animation to have a better understanding of the topic. They can collaborate together in a project from anywhere and anyone in the world.
I will discuss two real life applications of the metaverse in the field of education in the next section to come.
CUHKSZ
CUHKSZ metaverse is the exact virtual copy (digital twin) of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen(CUHKSZ). It is powered by blockchain to provide the students with a metaverse that is interactive where real world behavior can have impact on the virtual world and vice versa.
CUHKSZ metaverse was developed in Unity. It is intended to be Deployed on smartphones, PCs, etc. The 3D model was created on Blender, a free 3D software. It was built using FISCO-BCOS blockchain with smart contract, tokens, DAO and trading systems, etc.
XIRANG
XiRang is the metaverse project of Chinese tech giant, Baidu Inc. The word XiRang translates to Land of Hope. The XiRang metaverse will be accessible through computers ,smartphones, wearable devices, VR devices, etc.
Baidu users can use the metaverse platform. They have to login and create an avatar to explore the XiRang environments and engage with other users. It is thought this metaverse will be used as an education platform. So, it is a real life example of the metaverse in education.
HEALTHCARE
In my last post, I have highlighted 5 benefits of metaverse telehealth. So, healthcare is one of the sectors where real life applications of the metaverse is taking place.
Metaverse Telehealth is a combination of use of metaverse and its related technologies in the healthcare system. In this applications of the metaverse it allows you to connect virtually with healthcare professionals even if they are physically apart.
Virtual Hospitals are being created in the metaverse. The doctors and patients can meet in this virtual hospital through VR headset to provide telemedicine consultation.
Healthcare applications of the metaverse can significantly reduce hospital footfall, reducing patient waiting times and delivering system-based cost savings.
BENEFITS OF HEALTHCARE APPLICATIONS OF THE METAVERSE
I will list the benefits of healthcare applications of the metaverse.
- Accessible healthcare to remote areas of the world
- Patient Visit and Support will improve
- Family Visit to patient through VR Headset
- Digital Therapeutic Therapy can be given
- Virtual Health Assistant or Virtual Nurse
- Medical Education and Training across the world.
DEHEALTH
DeHealth is the world’s first decentralized healthcare metaverse. It allows the doctors and patients to work and interact with each other in a full 3D virtual world. In DeHealth metaverse, several high-quality healthcare and medica; services are delivered such as
- Health Analytics on the go
- Recommendation from Advanced AI-bot.
- Real Time dialogues with doctor and health expert,
The patients can earn tokens by selling anonymized medical data. The data collected from DeHelath metaverse will be used to build AI-based diagnostic models.
In DeHealth doctors and patients are able to communicate via a virtual space similar to real-world environments. Users gets DeHelath token for health related activities like running, walking, etc. DeHealth token owners can exchange them for special discount coupons for pharmaceuticals, medical services or products.
ENTERTAINMENT
Entertainment includes everything from gaming to watching movies. You name anything about entertainment, you can do it in metaverse. In the next section , I will discuss Microsoft AltspaceVR and brief about Decentraland.
ALTSPACEVR
AltspaceVR is a virtual meeting space for live show, virtual events developed by Microsoft. It empowers artists, bands and businesses to create virtual events easily so that it fosters community and connection.
It allows large groups of individuals to be co-present in a single space. You can create your own AltspaceVR World and Events. Basically the users of AltspaceVR are allowed to meet and engage online through the use of avatars.
AltspaceVR expressive avatars, engaging eye contact, spatial sound and immersive virtual world will allow you to feel the true presence.
AltspaceVR is available for the following devices
- HTC VIVE
- Oculus
- Windows Mixed Reality
- Apple OS
- Windows
DECENTRALAND
Decentraland is one of the best examples to show the applications of the metaverse that is available presently. It is well known among the metaverse community and tech world. Decentraland is a decentralized virtual world where you can buy and sell land, hangout with friends, go to virtual concerts and many other things you can do in the metaverse.
SMART CITIES
Smart cities concept is a decade old. Smart cities acquire meaningful information about the needs of its citizens through existing technologies like IoT, social media, etc. But the actual impact and benefit to these technologie is limited.
With the advent of metaverse, the smart city concept can gain it’s full potential. Many digital twins of cities are coming up on many metaverse platforms. It is becoming one of the leading applications of the metaverse.
METAVERSE SEOUL
Seoul is the capital city of South Korea. It became the first local government to join the metaverse at the end of 2021. It planned to establish a platform for contactless communication by the end of 2022.
Metaverse Seoul will contain the following things.
- Virtual City Hall
- Tourism Destination
- Social Service Centers.
The city hall will allow you to do everything from touring historic sites to filing a civil complaint. The official in metaverse soul will be in an avatar where the locals can meet for consultations and provisions of civil services.
It will also host festivals like Seoul Lantern Festival where you can enter the event by wearing your VR Headset.
BARBADOS METAVERSE EMBASSY
Barbados is an island nation with 2.87 lakh population. The government of Barbados is establishing their embassy in metaverse. It had signed an agreement with Decentraland on November 14, 2021 to develop its metaverse embassy.
The Barbados Metaverse embassy will be built with an aim to grow strong bilateral relationships with the government globally. It is expected to provide services such as e-visas that will be in the form of NFT. It will also construct a teleporter that will allow users to transport their avatars across worlds.
COMPARISON OF TECHNOLOGIES USED BY APPLICATIONS OF THE METAVERSE
Name of Metaverse Software/Application | Blockchain | AR/VR Support | Digital Twins Used | User Generated Content | AI |
CUHKSZ | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | AI Non-Player Characters |
XIRANG | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | AI Non-Player Characters |
Horizon Workroom | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Tools Designing Virtual Content |
Microsoft Mesh | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Tools for Avatars, Holoportation and Spatial rendering |
DeHelth | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | AI Non-Player Characters |
AltspaceVR | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | AI Non-Player Characters |
Decentraland | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | AI Non-Player Characters |
Metaverse Seoul | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | AI Non-Player Characters |
Barbados Metaverse | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | AI Non-Player Characters |
CONCLUSION
Most of the current applications of metaverse have some limitations. They are being developed and more and more applications of the metaverse will come. With more engagement of emerging technologies and progressive development, the metaverse will drastically look different.