By Alang Bendahara
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 20 — Selangor may explore the use of metaverse technology for its tourism industry.
Selangor Information Technology and Digital Economy Corporation (Sidec) chief executive officer Yong Kai Ping said this is to overcome the restrictions posed during the pandemic.
“The tourism industry can use the metaverse technology due to the Covid-19 restrictions. A hotel room can be converted into an ‘experience room’ with the tourist wearing virtual reality (VR) glasses or a headset to transport them into a virtual world.
“So if the tourist is virtually in Kuala Selangor, he or she can experience the history of the place and even buy local products from there,” he said, during his speech as a panellist in a session titled Innovate Business — Virtual is Real at the Selangor Asean Business Conference (SABC) 2021 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, here yesterday.
According to Yong, the Taiping Zoo is an early adopter of VR technology in the country for its night zoo.
“So this is something that we can explore to use in Selangor, too,” said Yong.
According to Wikipedia, the metaverse is a hypothesised iteration of the internet, supporting persistent online 3-D virtual environments through conventional personal computing and virtual and augmented-reality headsets.
In some limited form, metaverses are already present on platforms like VRChat or in video games like Second Life.
