and has anything new been revealed this week? and whilst facebook might be facing difficulties in the real world, that hasn t stopped them investing heavily in an alternative reality future. so what exactly is the metaverse? and how soon before we re all living in it? well, joining me to discuss all of that is my panel of guests. nicola millard is a presenter, writer and principal innovation partner at bt. so nicola, what is a principal innovation partner and why does bt need one? good question, well, i used to be bt s futurologist and i got very tired of the crystal balljokes. i do have one, it doesn t work. but largely, my role, i m part of bt s innovation team. so i m here to innovate with and for our customers. very good, very good. lauren goode is senior writer at wired. lauren, you host the get wired podcast. what sort of thing does that cover? the get wired podcast, we highlight some of wired s most impactful stories and we kind of explore the intersection of technology and huma
have to be something that is in that space. as nicola also said, it could be something that kind of exists partly in your physical world around you and partly in the digital world. i also think that what you re describing or asking are these silos, right? we hear technologists prognosticate right now about the metaverse and say it s going to be its vast expanse of virtual experiences where people will connect, there will be interoperability, it will be open. but what we are actually seeing is now a lot of these companies try to elbow their way into the metaverse and stake theirclaim in it. facebook of course is one, you mentioned that off the top. i wouldn t be surprised if we saw google make a more serious play in the metaverse. apple might not call it that because apple tries not to call things super nerdy terms but it s working on ar solutions. there s microsoft, pokemon go, fortnite, and what we are seeing are these companies that exist in our lives, so present in our lives through
world perhaps we would feel a little bit more present with each other as we interact and move from space to space. nicola millard, principal innovation partner at bt, this does sound all just a bit dystopian, doesn t it? it is true that the metaverse did come from dystopian science fiction, i m a massive science fiction geek as well as a social scientist. i m interested in how technology and people interact but snow crash is the origin of the metaverse and i described honest i tend to describe it as the 3d internet. and it s notjust the digital bit, i think there is the intersection with the real world that we need to think about as well. crash, readyplayer one, the ultimate dystopian vision would be the matrix as well. this is the problem, it s all the science geeks pushing us toward this new future? i thin.it really tryied to move from that 2d static,
bt need one? good question, well, i used to be bt s futurologist and i got very tired of the crystal balljokes. i do have one, it doesn t work. but largely, my role, i m part of bt s innovation team. so i m here to innovate with and for our customers. very good. lauren goode is a senior writer at wired. lauren, you host the get wired podcast. what sort of thing does that cover? the get wired podcast, we highlight some of wired s most impactful stories and we kind of explore the intersection of technology and humanity. that s the best way i would describe it. well, we ll hear a bit more from you and nicola slightly later on in the show. also with us today is madhumita murgia, european tech correspondent at the financial times. but i guess, madu, you have been spending a lot of your time following silicon valley at the moment. yes, that s right.
may know, they may even remember the sims, that was a video game in which you had a little digital characters and you could decide what they wear, what they ate, what kind of house they lived in, whether they even had a shower. i remember playing that. is the metaverse similar to that? i think you re touching on something that is important. which is that the metaverse can be expressed through a virtual world such as simcity or the sims, and some people also say second life is something that would be considered part of the metaverse. but is doesn t necessarily have to be something that is in that space. as nicola also said, it could be something that kind of exists partly in your physical world around you and partly in the digital world. i also think that what you re describing or asking are these silos, right? we hear technologists prognosticate right now about the metaverse and say it s going to be its vast expanse of virtual experiences where people will connect,