Technology
Five Facts About the Metaverse You Need to Know
Technology has always enabled people to connect and express themselves. As communication became faster, the video became a richer way to share experiences. We’ve gone from desktop to web to mobile; from text to photos to video. But this wave of innovation isn’t slowing down, so what is the metaverse about and how will it change how we connect?
Imagine a set of digital spaces that you can move seamlessly between, an embodied internet, where you’re in the experience, not just looking at it. Like the internet, the metaverse will help you connect with people when you aren’t physically in the same place. Although nothing beats being together in person, when it’s not possible, the metaverse will get us pretty close, because interactions in the metaverse will feel more like those we have in our daily lives.
To understand how it works, here are five facts you need to know about the metaverse.
What is the metaverse?
VR is one end of a spectrum. It stretches from using avatars or accessing metaverse spaces on your phone, through AR glasses that project computer-generated images onto the world around us, to mixed reality experiences that blend both physical and virtual environments.
While it feels like a far-off vision, we can already experience glimmers of the metaverse today. Horizon Worlds is one of the best examples of the kind of metaverse experiences Meta is building – it won’t just be something that works on VR headsets, but also on mobile apps, websites and with portals into existing apps like Facebook and Instagram.
Avatars are going to be a crucial bridge into the metaverse. A digital avatar is an animated representation of yourself designed to capture the way you appear in a digital environment. Meta is already building out ways for people to better express themselves using Avatars today, by giving them ways to customise and use them easily across different apps.
The metaverse will not be built by one company
Like the internet, the metaverse won’t be built by one company. Meta’s role in this journey is to accelerate the development of the fundamental technologies, social platforms, and creative tools to bring the metaverse to life, and to weave these technologies through our social apps. But the experiences that people come to the metaverse to enjoy will ultimately be built by creators.
The metaverse may be virtual, but the opportunities it will unlock are real
The mobile internet has already allowed people to work, learn and socialise in ways that are less limited by their physical location. The metaverse is going to take that even further. Within the next decade, the metaverse is believed to drive digital commerce, change the way we work and support jobs for millions of creators and developers. And the potential societal benefits – particularly in education and healthcare – are vast, from helping medical students to practice surgical techniques to bringing school lessons to life in exciting new ways.
NFTs are important to the development of the metaverse
The metaverse will help us connect with each other in ways that improve our lives and open up new worlds of creativity and economic opportunity. In the metaverse, people will buy, use, and share digital goods, and experiences, and NFTs are a key piece of the puzzle for making this a reality. On Meta’s platforms, creators can already express themselves creatively, build and engage a fan community, and make money pursuing their passions. The company recently announced its first NFT offering—a test of digital collectibles on Instagram—and is taking important steps to encourage openness and innovation by enabling connection to multiple blockchains and wallets at the outset.
The metaverse will most likely impact our workstyle
With the effects of COVID on the working culture, working virtually is already a reality for many of us. Hybrid and remote work is here to stay and there’s a rapidly emerging need to support that shift with technology that brings people together. Meta is building Horizon Workrooms as entry points for the metaverse at work. Horizon Workrooms are virtual meeting spaces where you and your colleagues can work better together from anywhere—you can join a meeting in VR as an avatar or dial into the virtual room from your computer by video call.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
One of the players in the Nigerian gaming industry, Secure Electronic Technology (SET) Plc, has appointed Ms Leticia Otomewo as its acting secretary.
This followed the expiration of the company’s service contract with the former occupier of the seat, Ms Irene Attoe, on January 31, 2026.
A statement to the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Thursday said Ms Otomewo would remain the organisation’s scribe in an acting capacity, pending the ratification and appointment of a substantive company secretary at the next board meeting.
She was described in the notice signed by the Managing Director of the firm, Mr Oyeyemi Olusoji, as “a results-driven executive with 22 years of experience in driving business growth, leading high-performing teams, and delivering innovative solutions.”
The acting secretary is also said to be “a collaborative leader with a passion for mentoring and developing talent.”
“The company assures the investing public that all Company Secretariat responsibilities and regulatory obligations will continue to be discharged in full compliance with the Companies and Allied Matters Act, applicable regulations, and the Nigerian Exchange Limited Listing Rules,” the disclosure assured.
Meanwhile, the board thanked Ms Attoe “for professionalism and contributions to the Company during the period of her engagement and wishes her well in her future endeavours.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Russian government on Thursday confirmed it has blocked the WhatsApp messaging service, as it moves to further control information flow in the country.
It urged Russians to use a new state-backed platform called Max instead of the Meta-owned service.
WhatsApp issued a statement earlier saying Russia had attempted to “fully block” its messaging service in the country to force people toward Max, which it described as a “surveillance app.”
“Today the Russian government attempted to fully block WhatsApp in an effort to drive people to a state-owned surveillance app,” WhatsApp posted on social media platform X.
“Trying to isolate over 100 million users from private and secure communication is a backwards step and can only lead to less safety for people in Russia,” it said, adding: “We continue to do everything we can to keep users connected.”
Russia’s latest move against social media platforms and messaging services like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram comes amid a wider attempt to drive users toward domestic and more easily controlled and monitored services, such as Max.
Russia’s telecoms watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has accused messaging apps Telegram and WhatsApp of failing to comply with Russian legislation requiring companies to store Russian users’ data inside the country, and of failing to introduce measures to stop their platforms from being used for allegedly criminal or terrorist purposes.
It has used this as a basis for slowing down or blocking their operations, with restrictions coming into force since last year.
For Telegram, it may be next, but so far the Russian government has been admittedly slowing down its operations “due to the fact that the company isn’t complying with the requirements of Russian legislation.”
The chat service, founded by Russian developers but headquartered in Dubai, has been a principal target for Roskomnadzor’s scrutiny and increasing restrictions, with users reporting sluggish performance on the app since January.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigerian startup, Decide, has emerged as the fourth most accurate Artificial Intelligence (AI) agent for spreadsheet tasks globally, according to results from SpreadsheetBench, a widely referenced benchmark for evaluating AI performance on real-world spreadsheet problems.
According to the founder, Mr Abiodun Adetona, the ranking places Decide alongside well-funded global AI startups, including Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Mr Adetona, an ex-Flutterwave developer, also revealed that Decide now has over 3,000 users, including some who are paying customers, a signal to the ability of the startup to scale in the near future.
SpreadsheetBench is a comprehensive evaluation framework designed to push Large Language Models (LLMs) to their limits in understanding and manipulating spreadsheet data. While many benchmarks focus on simple table QA, SpreadsheetBench treats a spreadsheet as a complex ecosystem involving spatial layouts, formulas, and multi-step reasoning. So far, only three agents rank higher than Decide, namely Nobie Agent, Shortcut.ai, and Qingqiu Agent.
Mr Adetona said SpreadsheetBench measures how well AI agents can handle practical spreadsheet tasks such as writing formulas, cleaning messy data, working across multiple sheets, and reasoning through complex Excel workflows. Decide recorded an 82.5% accuracy score, solving 330 out of 400 verified tasks.
“The result reflects sustained investment in applied research, product iteration, and learning from real-world spreadsheet workloads across a wide range of use cases,” Mr Adetona told Business Post.
For Mr Adetona, who built Decide out of frustration with how much time professionals spend manually cleaning data, debugging formulas, and moving between sheets, “This milestone highlights how focused engineering and domain-specific AI development can deliver frontier-level performance outside of large research organisations. By concentrating on practical business data problems and building systems grounded in real user environments, we believe smaller teams can contribute meaningfully to advancing applied AI.”
“For Decide, this is a foundation for continued progress in intelligent spreadsheet and analytics automation,” he added.
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