According to phone maker Nokia, virtual reality and the metaverse will soon replace smartphones, possibly even before 2030.
By the end of the decade, smartphones will no longer be the main communication tool
While in the early 2000s, the telecommunications giant Nokia was making a name for itself in the portable market by offering telephones equipped with radio technology, the company is now betting on the metaverse to reinvent itself, and announces the death of smartphones as the primary form of communication. “Our belief is that this device will be overtaken by a metaverse experience in the second half of the decade”said Nokia chief strategy and technology officer Nishant Batra.
Nokia has reinvented itself since the end of flip phones
The flip cell phone, the iconic phone of the 2000s, has almost completely disappeared nowadays, dethroned by smartphones, despite a timid movement back to basic phones called “dumb phones”. Since then, Nokia has transformed itself into a technology company in its own right, developing facial recognition used in certain airports or helping public electricity supply services to secure their network. Seven of the main electricity grids in the United States are supplied by the Scandinavian company’s networks. Nokia is therefore far from being threatened with disappearance, and achieved more than 21 billion dollars in turnover last year, operating in more than 130 countries with a workforce totaling nearly 88,000 people.
The metaverse, the technological sector of the future for Nokia
According to the telecommunications company, in the consumer world, there is still a lack of comprehensive ideas for applications and business models, as well as technologies capable of supporting applications in the metaverse. But these technologies will develop very quickly. The size, form factor, cost of VR headsets, their lack of mobility are still holding back the development of the metaverse, but that is already changing. 6G technology will also develop, and allow all types of metaverse applications. Concepts like human augmentation and digital-physical fusion will soon allow people to interact with the digital world. Games, social interactions and virtual journeys will allow people to use the metaverse intuitively. “Wide adoption of the technology by businesses and consumers will be essential for it to really take off, and it will also depend on the availability of affordable and ergonomic wirelessly connected VR and AR devices,” said Nishant Batra.
A future that will endanger digital sobriety
Nokia isn’t the only company investing in and promoting the metaverse. Meta and other IT giants champion the metaverse as the future of communications, with more powerful networks and a virtual world where anything can be done. But unfortunately, these developments will considerably increase the energy consumption of digital platforms, which mechanically increases digital-related pollution, the main argument of critics of this technology.