Falstaff Magazin International Nr. 3/2022

travel / THE FUTURE IS

travel / THE FUTURE IS NOW In the future, we’ll be able to travel to see spectacular sunsets and palm trees without leaving the comfort of our living rooms. Predicting the future is fraught with pitfalls; it’s so easy to make a fool of yourself, at least in retrospect. “500 dollars? It’s the world’s most expensive phone but doesn’t have a keyboard and so has no appeal for business users,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer when the iPhone was launched in 2007. It was a fateful mistake; today, the smartphone is seen as a milestone in the history of technology. The market leader at the time was Blackberry, whose product had already been on the market for ten years. It featured a generously sized keyboard that many people thought set the standard for mobile phones of the future. It’s a similar story with the metaverse, which is constantly in the news at the moment. No one really knows what it will look like and what visions will prevail and achieve success in the mass market. So far, there have just been a number of ideas for a virtual parallel world in which we can work, communicate, shop and spend our free time in the future. It seemed like a particularly tempting prospect during the pandemic: being able to travel anywhere from your home office, meeting other people (at least in avatar form) and attending concerts together. And going to the seaside, at least virtually. The pandemic generated enthusiasm for a digital future. Many people got their first taste of cryptocurrencies, which are used for making purchases in the metaverse. The world was astonished at the insane prices fetched by Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT monkey paintings, which have since become a status symbol, and at the sums being paid for virtual properties next to US rapper Snoop Dogg in the Sandbox metaverse (0,000). The public mood fluctuated between scepticism and goldrush fever, between total rejection and the desire to make lots of money by getting in on the act early. In the new, three-dimensional world of virtual reality, we’ll be able to buy land, houses, trainers, fashion and NFT art. There’s a growing push to use blockchain technology – a kind of land register in which purchases are recorded – to help establish a decentralised version of the internet that is digital, walk-through and defined by its users. It would allow us to progress from being passive users to active developers. Part of the internet will then belong to us. Photos: Unsplash, Stocksy 34 falstaff winter 2022/23

META, THE COMPANY THAT OWNS FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM, INVESTED TEN BILLION DOLLARS IN THE METAVERSE LAST YEAR. BRIGHTLY COLOURED AVATARS The initial euphoria has now subsided. The value of cryptocurrencies has plummeted, the frequent insider trading in NFTs has become common knowledge and the first attempts to create the metaverse appear distinctly amateurish. Horizon Worlds is the name of Mark Zuckerberg‘s version. It features brightly coloured avatars – virtual versions of ourselves – who fly through equally brightly coloured computer game worlds without any legs. Decentraland and The Sandbox are equally minimalist and retro looking. They are reminiscent of the computer game Second Life, which caused a stir 20 years ago. It is disappointing to see that little has changed since then, at least aesthetically. The avatars are still cartoonish. Then there is the lack of security: female users report being victims of abuse in the metaverse. Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and others, invested ten billion dollars in the metaverse last year. Yet owner Mark Zuckerberg believes it will be another ten to fifteen years before it reaches its full potential. There are currently 290 companies developing common standards for the metaverse, including Microsoft, Nvidia, Google and even Ikea. Although the metaverse concept is still in its infancy, it has already entered the consciousness of end users. Bitkom, the trade association of the German digital technology industry, recently surveyed 1,000 over-16s. Twenty-one percent of those surveyed said they expected to be visiting foreign countries in the metaverse using virtual reality goggles by 2030 instead of travelling there physically. Unsurprisingly, as many as 26 percent of Virtual Zen garden: Why not take a yoga lesson or meditate under a beautiful digital tree? Work is currently being carried out on affordable, high-quality VR goggles that will make the metaverse experience as real as possible. the 16- to 29-year-olds said they could imagine inhabiting a digital model of reality as an avatar. SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL Swimming in the ocean with sharks. Exploring space and discovering far-off galaxies as an astronaut. Balancing on top of a skyscraper. Accessing the world’s most remote places. Or even travelling through time to the Middle Ages. Proponents of the metaverse claim that it will open the door to completely new holiday experiences. Travel will thus become more resource-efficient, sustainable and environmentally friendly. You could travel to Antarctica at the weekend from the comfort of your living room. You wouldn’t need to be physically fit to reach the summit of Mount Everest. You could arrange to meet friends in New York City. You’d meet digitally, but still in real time and in a trendy bar. The metaverse is also an exciting option for live concerts because it offers the experience of being in the audience even though you are at home. If it all gets a bit too much, < winter 2022/23 falstaff 35