SK Telecom’s \u2018Ifland\u2019 offers 66 facial expressions, 800 fashion items, plans to offer more serious collaboration real soon now<\/b>
\nSouth Korea\u2019s top Telco, SK Telecom, has launched a \u201cmetaverse\u201d virtual environment and plans to grow it from a fun place to hang online into a forum for more serious collaboration. Known as \u201cIfland\u201d and aimed at the \u201cMZ generation\u201d \u2013 the overlapping cohorts of millennials and Generation Z \u2013 the service offers users the chance to visit 18 different types of virtual spaces, among them conference halls, outdoor stages, and rooftops. All can hold 130 participants. Users are promised a choice from \u201ca wide variety of virtual avatars\u201d customisable with \u201c800 different virtual items including costumes, hairstyles, and so on\u201d. Avatars can display their feelings with \u201c66 different emotional expressions to engage in rich communication with others\u201d. More will be added over time The carrier has pitched Ifland as an entertainment service, with a video depicting all manner of frivolity being shared by youthful, skinny, and fashionably-clad avatars. Youtube Video While the service looks frivolous, South Korea takes VR seriously enough that it recently created a Metaverse Alliance to foster the development of a national virtual and augmented reality platform and sort out the ethics of virtual environments. SK Telecom sees entertainment as just the beginning, saying it plans to grow Ifland based on what it learns from \u201cservices like \u2018Social VR\u2019 and \u2018Virtual Meet-up\u2019\u201d. SK Telecom has already said it plans to increase the number of participants that can share a virtual room \u201cso that Ifland can flawlessly support large-scale conferences joined by hundreds of participants\u201d. For now, serious collaboration inside Ifland is restricted to sharing PDF documents and MP4 video files. No timeframe has been offered for the enhanced collaboration functionality. When announcing the Metaverse Alliance, Second Vice Minister for Science and ICT Cho Kyung-sik said he hopes its work will ensure that the metaverse does not become \u201ca space that is monopolised by a single large company\u201d. SK Telecom may just have made that goal a little harder to realise. \u00ae<\/p>\n