Virtual Pets, Virtual People and Virtual Immortality

One of the interesting and somewhat underappreciated aspects of the Qualcomm wireless event in San Diego a few weeks back is that 5G will make realistic augmented reality avatars possible. This advance will be possible because with high bandwidth and very low latency, processing could shift from the device to the cloud.

Coupled with the rollout of distributed data centers, to keep latency down, this means you could have realistic virtual pets and friends, or even visit remote locations virtually. Using virtual reality you could not only feel you were there, but also appear to people there as your avatar, rather than as the drone or robot providing you with the experience.

This also creates an interesting path to immortality by advancing the capability of creating digital clones of pets and people. Coincidentally, the first digital human clone was born last week, and I think it opens the door to many interesting future possibilities.