Metaverse Cyberpunk Style City With Robots Walking On Street, Neon Lighting On Building Exteriors, Flying Cars And Drones
Will we be able to build the metaverse?
Categories

An engineer’s view of the metaverse | IEEE’s Tom Coughlin interview

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 13 min

Engineers are an interesting cross section of practical thinking and creative vision. When you give them a problem like the metaverse to work on, they’re going ponder it in a different way.

Science fiction writers and Hollywood creatives have done a good job painting the vision of the metaverse. But the engineers are the ones who have to think about building it. To get a flavor for the practical side of engineering the metaverse, I talked to Thomas Coughlin, president of Coughlin Associates and president-elect of the IEEE engineering society.

Unlock premium content and VIP community perks with GB M A X! Join now to enjoy our free and premium perks. 

Join now →

Sign in to your account.

Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.