metaverse

Metaverse Fashion Week 2023: A Showcase of the Future of Digital Fashion

The second annual Metaverse Fashion Week (MVFW) will run from March 28-31 in Decentraland. MVFW23 will take place across multiple metaverses, with Decentraland’s Luxury District serving as the heart of digital fashion.

The event will showcase the latest trends in digital fashion and highlight the potential for interoperability between open metaverses. Top brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Tommy Hilfiger, COACH, Adidas, DKNY, Vogue Singapore, Monnier Paris, DUNDAS, Phygicode Dress in collaboration with Rubin Singer, and many others will lead an all-star lineup of designers.
Pioneered by Decentraland and UNXD in collaboration with the Spatial and OVER metaverses, MVFW23 will bring fashionistas worldwide together to witness the newest advancements in digital fashion. The curatorial theme Future Heritage will connect emerging digital designers with established traditional fashion institutions, showcasing the connection between innovation and tradition.

Unlocking the potential of the metaverse: Huawei’s vision for East Asia

Huawei is ramping up its efforts to bring new technologies to the forefront with its latest partnership announcement. The tech giant has teamed up with a number of blockchain companies to launch its Metaverse and Web3 Alliance projects aimed at driving the adoption of these cutting-edge technologies in East Asia and beyond. This collaboration was unveiled at the Huawei Cloud Asia Pacific Partnership Leaders Summit in Bali, Indonesia, on 23 February.

The partnership sees Huawei joining forces with leading blockchain companies such as Polygon, Deepbrain Chain, Morpheus Labs, and Blockchain Solutions, with more expected to follow suit in the near future. These partnerships are part of Huawei’s broader strategy to drive digital transformation and productivity across the globe. In addition to its blockchain alliance, Huawei has set its sights on rolling out 6G networks by 2030.

Amazon to bring metaverse to esports and education sectors

Amazon UNIVERSITY Esports has introduced a new project called UNIVERSITY World, which aims to bring the metaverse to the education and esports sectors by connecting students from different countries. The project features a virtual world where students can interact with each other in a central hall and specific rooms for each country. The platform includes a chat function, mini-games, and other activities that enable players to compete for prizes and build a global community.

The project aims to improve students’ experience by creating a virtual environment that allows them to interact in new ways and test out new products. This project also aims to overcome limitations and provide a platform for enhanced user experience.

Tech giants team up to build mixed-reality platform

Samsung, Google, and Qualcomm have announced they are teaming up to build a mixed-reality platform. The announcement was made during Samsung’s Unpacked event by high-ranking officials from the three companies. There is no mention of whether any specific products are already being developed. 

In an interview with CNET, TM Roh, who leads Samsung’s mobile division, said the announcement is ‘declarative’. He said each company would contribute expertise to create the mixed-reality platform.

Meta brings NBA matches to the metaverse

Meta announced its partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA), Women’s National Basketball Association, G League and 2K League to provide content in immersive reality. The NBA Arena in Meta Horizon Worlds experience will feature live NBA League Pass games in virtual reality throughout the season.

Users will have access to more than 50 live virtual reality (VR) games on Meta Quest, including five immersive, 180-degree VR games in 5k resolution on Xtadium and Meta Horizon Worlds. In Meta Horizon Worlds, users could access game highlights, recaps and archival content.

Additionally, the NBA-licensed merchandise will soon be available in Meta’s Avatar Store, allowing users to purchase items for their avatars and showcase them on Meta Quest and social media platforms.

Tuvalu plans to create its digital twin in the metaverse

The small island nation of Tuvalu is planning to create a version of itself in the metaverse as a response to the existential threat of rising sea levels. Piece by piece, the entire country, its natural and other riches, will be created in a digital 3D world, with the goal of preserving the island and its unique culture.

Speaking at the COP27 climate summit, Foreign Minister Simon Kofe of Tuvalu has revealed the country’s intention to establish itself as the first digitised nation in the metaverse. ‘Islands like this one won’t survive rapid temperature increases, rising sea levels, and droughts. So we’ll recreate them virtually’ said the minister.

Deloitte estimates that metaverse could add US$1.4 trillion a year to Asia’s GDP

Deloitte’s new report, titled ‘The Metaverse in Asia: Strategies for Accelerating Economic Impact‘, estimates that the metaverse could contribute US$800 billion–US$1.4 trillion per year to Asian economies by 2035.

The report examined the potential influence of the metaverse on 12 Asian economies. Deloitte estimated several factors, including demography as well as high digital literacy and cutting-edge digital infrastructure.

As somewhat expected, the Chinese economy will benefit the most, with US$456–862 billion of economic input per year, followed by that of Japan (US$87–165 billion) and India (US$79–148 billion).

Action Plan for the Integration and Development of Virtual Reality and Industrial Applications (2022-2026)

The Chinese government has published an Action Plan for developing the virtual reality (VR) sector and integrating VR with industrial applications.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Radio and Television Administration, and the General Administration of Sports of the People’s Republic of China collaborated to create the action plan.

Horizon Worlds losing users, reports show

Horizon Worlds, Meta’s flagship metaverse platform, is failing to meet internal performance expectations, as was reported by The Wall Street Journal which reviewed internal company documents. The Journal said the records showed that the user base had progressively been falling since the spring, with many Horizon users leaving after the first month on the platform.

Meta had set a monthly target of 500,000 active users, but recently reduced it to 280,000. Currently, there are fewer than 200,000.

Horizon’s services include several interactive virtual spaces or worlds allowing users to socialise, play, and have fun. Internal statistics have shown that only 9% of developed worlds have more than 50 visitors, while many never get visited.

Dubai Metaverse Strategy

The Dubai Metaverse Strategy goal is to turn Dubai into one of the world’s top 10 metaverse economies and a global hub for the metaverse community. The strategy also aims to develop global standards in building safe and secure platforms for users and develop metaverse infrastructure and regulations to accelerate the adoption of these technologies.

Strategies objectives are:

  • attracting more than 1,000 companies in the fields of blockchain and metaverse;
  • promoting Dubai’s ambitions to support more than 40,000 virtual jobs by 2030;
  • to support the UAE government’s vision of increasing the number of blockchain companies by five times.

 The Dubai Metaverse Strategy seeks to:

  • foster innovation, enhance the metaverse’s economic contributions through R&D collaborations, and promote advanced ecosystems utilising accelerators and incubators that attract companies and projects to Dubai
  • foster talent and invest in future capabilities by providing the necessary support in metaverse education aimed at developers, content creators and users of digital platforms in the metaverse community
  • develop Web3 technology and its applications to create new governmental work models and development in vital sectors, including tourism, education, retail, remote work, healthcare and the legal sector.

 The strategy’s key pillars focus on:

  • extended reality (XR)
  • augmented reality (AR)
  • ·virtual reality (VR)
  • mixed reality (MR)
  • and digital twins (a virtual representation of an object or system).