TECHNOLOGY

The Next Chapter for the Internet

Published

2 years ago

September 6, 2022

In the future, there will be multiple virtual universes, each of which you can enter with your mobile device to experience the web with more vivid graphics and virtual and improved augmented reality.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has recently stated, “I believe the metaverse is the next chapter for the internet.” Virtual reality has the potential to reshape everything from entertainment and gaming to education and social interaction. But what exactly is the metaverse? And what are some of its features?

What Exactly is the Metaverse?

Several months have passed since Facebook declared its rebranding to Meta and its new focus to concentrate on the approaching “metaverse” for its future. What the phrase means hasn’t become altogether straightforward. Meta is developing a VR social platform, Roblox supports user-generated video games, and some businesses create gaming worlds with NFTs tacked on.

According to tech industry workers, the lack of coherence is because the metaverse is in development and too new to define. For instance, the internet existed in the 1970s, but the preconceived notions about what it would eventually look like were not all accurate. But the one certain thing is that tech firms stand to make huge profits once the metaverse launches. According to Citi, the value of the Metaverse economy by 2030 might reach $13 trillion.

How Will The Metaverse Affect Societies and Their Perception of Reality?

The metaverse is a digital universe that expands upon and enhances the physical world. It has the potential to change our perception of reality and society as a whole by blurring the lines between what is real and what is digital. With such a transformative technology, it’s important to understand the implications for people’s lives. The metaverse is a game-changing technology that will profoundly impact society’s perception of reality and society.

Meta’s depiction of the evolving Metaverse

For one, you’ll be able to buy virtual houses and go to work meetings in the metaverse. This process will change how people interact with each other and the world. In addition, the metaverse will provide a new platform for businesses and entrepreneurs to reach a global audience. The possibilities are endless, and the potential for the metaverse is immense.

How Does the Blockchain Fit Into The Metaverse?

The blockchain is critical to the metaverse because it provides a secure, decentralized way to store data and transactions. Plus, blockchain can create virtual assets that can be bought, sold, or traded in the metaverse. So what does this mean? Well, Facebook has already created an open-source protocol called Spark AR that you can use to create your own augmented reality experiences.

Imagine a social media platform where people could purchase these digital assets from other users. It would allow users to make money off the digital content and collect assets that could increase in value over time (similar to buying shares). Imagine everyone being able to buy and sell stock for unique creations. Through blockchain, the world economy is transitioning from a system based on scarcity to one based on abundance. And with blockchain technology becoming more widespread, more and more opportunities are emerging for entrepreneurs to build new platforms that will shape the future economy.

How You Can Get Involved in the Metaverse Today

While the metaverse is still in development, there are already ways to access it. For example, Meta has developed its own virtual reality headset Meta Quest 2, which can serve as your gateway into the metaverse. After downloading the app from the website, put on your headset and press Enter. You will find yourself in a white room with floating monitors where your journey into the metaverse begins.

Some popular virtual worlds include VRChat, Second Life, and Decentraland, or start developing your own world using platforms like High Fidelity or Somnium Space. You can also create avatars and experiences using tools like Unreal Engine, also used to create realistic scenes in Hollywood movies.

VR Chat Setup & Configuration

People can create realistic digital representations in the metaverse. Using laptop computers, mobile devices, and VR headsets like the Meta Quest 2, users can build realistic customizable avatars. These controllable avatars mimic actual humans visually and speak and move with realism.

From August, the 128GB and 256GB variants of Meta Quest 2 will cost $399.99 and $499.99, respectively. And for a limited time, with every new headset purchase, there will be a free download offer for the VR game Beat Saber. Over $1 billion has been spent on Meta Quest apps by users, assisting creators in developing ever-improving VR-optimized games and experiences.

The Potential to Revolutionize the World

While the true nature of the metaverse may not have been fully realized as of yet, there are a number of corporations looking at using metaverse technologies (namely Augmented and Virtual Reality) in order to develop the next generation of training content for their teams. Using these technologies undoubtedly leads to faster learning, better retention, and invariably cost savings in the short and long term. See how Toyota Material Handling is utilizing VR training in a recent case study here.

Toyota using Virtual Reality Multiplayer Training

The metaverse is a virtual world that exists on the internet. It is where people can interact with each other and with computer-generated characters and objects. The metaverse is still in its early stages of development, but it has the potential to revolutionize the way people interact with each other and with the world.

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TECHNOLOGY

Next-gen chips, Amazon Q, and speedy S3

Published

5 months ago

December 1, 2023

Max

AWS re:Invent, which has been taking place from November 27 and runs to December 1, has had its usual plethora of announcements: a total of 21 at time of print.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the huge potential impact of generative AI – ChatGPT officially turns one year old today – a lot of focus has been on the AI side for AWS’ announcements, including a major partnership inked with NVIDIA across infrastructure, software, and services.

Yet there has been plenty more announced at the Las Vegas jamboree besides. Here, CloudTech rounds up the best of the rest:

Next-generation chips

This was the other major AI-focused announcement at re:Invent: the launch of two new chips, AWS Graviton4 and AWS Trainium2, for training and running AI and machine learning (ML) models, among other customer workloads. Graviton4 shapes up against its predecessor with 30% better compute performance, 50% more cores and 75% more memory bandwidth, while Trainium2 delivers up to four times faster training than before and will be able to be deployed in EC2 UltraClusters of up to 100,000 chips.

The EC2 UltraClusters are designed to ‘deliver the highest performance, most energy efficient AI model training infrastructure in the cloud’, as AWS puts it. With it, customers will be able to train large language models in ‘a fraction of the time’, as well as double energy efficiency.

As ever, AWS offers customers who are already utilising these tools. Databricks, Epic and SAP are among the companies cited as using the new AWS-designed chips.

Zero-ETL integrations

AWS announced new Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Relational Database Services (Amazon RDS) for MySQL integrations with Amazon Redshift, AWS’ cloud data warehouse. The zero-ETL integrations – eliminating the need to build ETL (extract, transform, load) data pipelines – make it easier to connect and analyse transactional data across various relational and non-relational databases in Amazon Redshift.

A simple example of how zero-ETL functions can be seen is in a hypothetical company which stores transactional data – time of transaction, items bought, where the transaction occurred – in a relational database, but use another analytics tool to analyse data in a non-relational database. To connect it all up, companies would previously have to construct ETL data pipelines which are a time and money sink.

The latest integrations “build on AWS’s zero-ETL foundation… so customers can quickly and easily connect all of their data, no matter where it lives,” the company said.

Amazon S3 Express One Zone

AWS announced the general availability of Amazon S3 Express One Zone, a new storage class purpose-built for customers’ most frequently-accessed data. Data access speed is up to 10 times faster and request costs up to 50% lower than standard S3. Companies can also opt to collocate their Amazon S3 Express One Zone data in the same availability zone as their compute resources.

Companies and partners who are using Amazon S3 Express One Zone include ChaosSearch, Cloudera, and Pinterest.

Amazon Q

A new product, and an interesting pivot, again with generative AI at its core. Amazon Q was announced as a ‘new type of generative AI-powered assistant’ which can be tailored to a customer’s business. “Customers can get fast, relevant answers to pressing questions, generate content, and take actions – all informed by a customer’s information repositories, code, and enterprise systems,” AWS added. The service also can assist companies building on AWS, as well as companies using AWS applications for business intelligence, contact centres, and supply chain management.

Customers cited as early adopters include Accenture, BMW and Wunderkind.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

TECHNOLOGY

HCLTech and Cisco create collaborative hybrid workplaces

Published

5 months ago

November 29, 2023

Max

Digital comms specialist Cisco and global tech firm HCLTech have teamed up to launch Meeting-Rooms-as-a-Service (MRaaS).

Available on a subscription model, this solution modernises legacy meeting rooms and enables users to join meetings from any meeting solution provider using Webex devices.

The MRaaS solution helps enterprises simplify the design, implementation and maintenance of integrated meeting rooms, enabling seamless collaboration for their globally distributed hybrid workforces.

Rakshit Ghura, senior VP and Global head of digital workplace services, HCLTech, said: “MRaaS combines our consulting and managed services expertise with Cisco’s proficiency in Webex devices to change the way employees conceptualise, organise and interact in a collaborative environment for a modern hybrid work model.

“The common vision of our partnership is to elevate the collaboration experience at work and drive productivity through modern meeting rooms.”

Alexandra Zagury, VP of partner managed and as-a-Service Sales at Cisco, said: “Our partnership with HCLTech helps our clients transform their offices through cost-effective managed services that support the ongoing evolution of workspaces.

“As we reimagine the modern office, we are making it easier to support collaboration and productivity among workers, whether they are in the office or elsewhere.”

Cisco’s Webex collaboration devices harness the power of artificial intelligence to offer intuitive, seamless collaboration experiences, enabling meeting rooms with smart features such as meeting zones, intelligent people framing, optimised attendee audio and background noise removal, among others.

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, HCLTech, Hybrid, meetings

TECHNOLOGY

Canonical releases low-touch private cloud MicroCloud

Published

5 months ago

November 28, 2023

Max

Canonical has announced the general availability of MicroCloud, a low-touch, open source cloud solution. MicroCloud is part of Canonical’s growing cloud infrastructure portfolio.

It is purpose-built for scalable clusters and edge deployments for all types of enterprises. It is designed with simplicity, security and automation in mind, minimising the time and effort to both deploy and maintain it. Conveniently, enterprise support for MicroCloud is offered as part of Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro subscription, with several support tiers available, and priced per node.

MicroClouds are optimised for repeatable and reliable remote deployments. A single command initiates the orchestration and clustering of various components with minimal involvement by the user, resulting in a fully functional cloud within minutes. This simplified deployment process significantly reduces the barrier to entry, putting a production-grade cloud at everyone’s fingertips.

Juan Manuel Ventura, head of architectures & technologies at Spindox, said: “Cloud computing is not only about technology, it’s the beating heart of any modern industrial transformation, driving agility and innovation. Our mission is to provide our customers with the most effective ways to innovate and bring value; having a complexity-free cloud infrastructure is one important piece of that puzzle. With MicroCloud, the focus shifts away from struggling with cloud operations to solving real business challenges” says

In addition to seamless deployment, MicroCloud prioritises security and ease of maintenance. All MicroCloud components are built with strict confinement for increased security, with over-the-air transactional updates that preserve data and roll back on errors automatically. Upgrades to newer versions are handled automatically and without downtime, with the mechanisms to hold or schedule them as needed.

With this approach, MicroCloud caters to both on-premise clouds but also edge deployments at remote locations, allowing organisations to use the same infrastructure primitives and services wherever they are needed. It is suitable for business-in-branch office locations or industrial use inside a factory, as well as distributed locations where the focus is on replicability and unattended operations.

Cedric Gegout, VP of product at Canonical, said: “As data becomes more distributed, the infrastructure has to follow. Cloud computing is now distributed, spanning across data centres, far and near edge computing appliances. MicroCloud is our answer to that.

“By packaging known infrastructure primitives in a portable and unattended way, we are delivering a simpler, more prescriptive cloud experience that makes zero-ops a reality for many Industries.“

MicroCloud’s lightweight architecture makes it usable on both commodity and high-end hardware, with several ways to further reduce its footprint depending on your workload needs. In addition to the standard Ubuntu Server or Desktop, MicroClouds can be run on Ubuntu Core – a lightweight OS optimised for the edge. With Ubuntu Core, MicroClouds are a perfect solution for far-edge locations with limited computing capabilities. Users can choose to run their workloads using Kubernetes or via system containers. System containers based on LXD behave similarly to traditional VMs but consume fewer resources while providing bare-metal performance.

Coupled with Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro + Support subscription, MicroCloud users can benefit from an enterprise-grade open source cloud solution that is fully supported and with better economics. An Ubuntu Pro subscription offers security maintenance for the broadest collection of open-source software available from a single vendor today. It covers over 30k packages with a consistent security maintenance commitment, and additional features such as kernel livepatch, systems management at scale, certified compliance and hardening profiles enabling easy adoption for enterprises. With per-node pricing and no hidden fees, customers can rest assured that their environment is secure and supported without the expensive price tag typically associated with cloud solutions.

Tags: automation, Canonical, MicroCloud, private cloud