How will work evolve in the future? Could the future be one of ‘technological socialism’ (where technology takes care of our needs)? Can we hang out in our pajamas at home while “walking” around our virtual corporate headquarters in tomorrow’s workplace?
As we transition into the age of Web 3.0, this blog will explore the way in which artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and the spatial web will transform every aspect of our careers, from training to execution to leisure.
Here is a brief history of what the spatial web is and how it works.
Here’s a quick recap of Web 3.0
Unlike Web 1.0, which consisted of static documents and read-only data (static web pages), Web 2.0 provides multimedia content, interactive web applications, and participatory social media.
With 5G, AI, VR/AR, and a trillion-sensor economy, we can map our physical world into virtual space and superimpose a digital data layer onto our physical environments in the next two to five years. Our information will suddenly be manipulated, stored, understood, and experienced spatially.
Here, I will discuss the vast implications of the spatial web:
- A professional training program
- The delocalized business environment and the virtual workplace
- Keep your data safe and secure with smart permissions
Let’s get started.
In-person and virtual training have real-world benefits
There is already evidence that virtual reality and augmented reality are disrupting the professional training market. By 2022, ABI Research projects that the enterprise VR training market will be worth over $6.3 billion.
Walmart has already implemented VR across 200 Academy training centers, running over 45 modules and simulating everything from unusual customer requests to Black Friday shopping rushes.
After that, Walmart announced in September 2018 that it would order 17,000 Oculus Go headsets for every Supercenter, neighborhood market, and discount store in the US to be equipped with VR-based employee training. Since implementing VR training in mid-2019, Walmart has reported an increase in employee confidence of 10-15 percent.
Engineers at Bell Helicopter are using VR to expedite the development and testing of their latest aircraft, FCX-001. The partnership between Sector 5 Digital and HTC VIVE allowed Bell to transform physical mock-ups into CAD-designed virtual replicas within six months, thereby reducing the design time for a typical aircraft to six months.
As part of its VR pilot test and simulation program, Bell joins a host of companies pioneering real-world accuracy in the design process. With a virtual cockpit that mimics a virtual cockpit, pilots have been able to simulate countless iterations of the FCX-001 in virtual flight, drawing directly onto the 3D model and making real-time changes to the aircraft as they fly.
Several key players are already working on haptic feedback to expand our virtual senses. Using fingertip-mounted haptic technology for aviation, Go Touch VR and FlyInside have partnered on a VR flight experience.
Pilots will be able to touch-confirm every switch and dial activated on virtual flights, just as they would in a full-size cockpit mockup, reducing the time and trouble required for VR testing. A suite of actuators in these piloted robots simulate tactile sensations, stiffness, and even hold objects. These actuators are all controlled by gaze and finger movement, replicating everything from a light touch to more intense contact.
The field of virtual and augmented reality has barely scratched the surface when it comes to other high-risk simulations.
With virtual platforms such as FLAIM Trainer or Target Solutions, firefighters can now fight virtual wildfires. Surgeons may soon be able to perform operations on annotated organs and magnified incision sites, speeding up reflex times and increasing precision. This is thanks to AR/VR services like 3D4Medical or Echopixel.
However, Web 3.0 and its VR interface will offer an immediate solution to today’s constant industry turnover and large-scale re-education needs. Any job seeker can soon get a second chance at the 21st-century job market through VR educational facilities that simulate anything from large industrial equipment to minute circuitry.
Are you interested in becoming an electric, autonomous vehicle mechanic at age 15? Using a demonetized VR module, you can test your prototype iterations at almost no cost and with no risk of harming others.
Play around with a virtual nuclear fusion reactor and become a plasma physicist? By testing different tweaks, you’ll be able to simulate results and earn Smart Educational Record credits.
Rather than a one-and-done graduate degree, tomorrow’s career model will be one of continuous lifelong education. VR-based re-education will allow a continuous education loop, reducing the barrier to entry.
In addition to virtual training and augmented, real-world work scenarios, Web 3.0 promises entirely virtual workplaces and blockchain-secured authorization systems.
Data Integrity & the Virtual Workplace
The spatial Web is also enabling virtual goods marketplaces, “virtual company headquarters,” and completely virtualized companies, where employees can work from home or anywhere in the world.
Is it too good to be true? There is an amazing publicly listed company called eXp Realty that you need to check out.
EXPALTY became public this past May, surpassing a $1B market cap on day one of trading despite the 2008 financial crisis. However, how? As the founder of eXp, Glenn Sanford opted to ditch brick-and-mortar from the beginning, instead establishing an online virtual campus for employees and contractors.
After years of hosting team meetings, training seminars, and even agent discussions with potential buyers via 2D digital interfaces, eXp’s virtual headquarters has become spatial. Is there a single value that defines eXp as a company? The best! Employees at Glenn Sanford enjoy their jobs.
As part of its effort to transition from 2D to immersive, 3D work experiences, virtual platform VirBELA built out the company’s office space in VR. This opens up indefinite scaling opportunities. By getting rid of any physical locations for a centralized VR campus, eXp Realty can enter a lucrative market with a small up-front investment.
You can now hire anyone with Internet access (next door or across the globe), redesign your corporate office every month, add an ocean-view office or an impromptu conference room for client meetings, and forget about guzzling up hours in traffic when you delocalize with VR.
With the Spatial Web’s blockchain-based data layer, cryptographically secured virtual IDs can now verify colleagues’ identities or those of virtual avatars we will soon inhabit.
It becomes critical for spatial information logs to keep uncorruptible records of who was present at a meeting, what data each person had access to, and AI-translated reports of everything discussed.
Web 3.0 and VR advancements will allow us to build virtual worlds, but we’ll soon be able to map our real-world offices or entire high-rises digitally, as I mentioned in my previous Spatial Web blog.
With data added and linked to offices, conference rooms, and security systems, we might be able to access online-to-offline environments and information through augmented reality.
It would be great if you could show up at the concierge of your building and your AR glasses automatically check you in, authenticate your identity, and show any reminders you have associated with that specific location.
The smart security system in a friend’s office alerts you when he will arrive in an hour. Booking a public conference room that another firm’s marketing team has already reserved? A smart transaction will automatical transferer a payment to their company account once you offer to pay them a fee.
By leveraging blockchain identity verification, spatial data logging, and virtual manifest information, business logistics will take a fraction of the time, operations will be seamless, and corporate data will be safer than ever.
Thoughts for the future
In addition to reducing the lifespan of Fortune 500 companies, bringing on vast new industries and transforming the job market, Web 3.0 is transforming how we work, where we work, and who we work with.
Thousands of professional training camps are already using lifelike virtual modules, which are easily updated and modified in real time. Blockchain-based authentication and virtual programming enable smart data logging, identity protection, and on-demand smart asset trading. VR/AR-accessible worlds (and corporate campuses) not only demonetize, dematerialize, and delocalize our everyday workplaces, but also enrich them with AI-driven, context-sensitive data.
Greetings and welcome to the Spatial Web workplace.