“Navigating the Metaverse” Book Review

saidNavigating the Metaverse: A Guide to Limitless Possibilities in a Web 3.0 World is a new book by Cathy Hackl, Dirk Lueth, and Tommaso Di Bartolo. We got an advance copy of the book, and spoke with the authors, as well as the editor John Arkontaky, to learn more about how the book came together. Navigating “Navigating the Metaverse” Navigating the Metaverse consists of information-dense chapters broken up into manageable sections – a necessary consideration for a topic so branching and nebulous. While the metaverse itself may be a rats’ nest of uncertainty and conflicting ideas, the book is easy to follow and the ideas are presented with confidence and clarity. “The reason we have a full writing room is because the metaverse is complex. Different viewpoints add color and context. The co-authors’ combined forces offer a blend of industry knowledge, hard business, and blue sky aspirations.” – Introduction Many

Mental Health Awareness Month in XR

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and there are plenty of XR applications and outfits that deserve highlighting. We’ve teased out a couple of projects and products that deserve a closer look. Hit the Mind Gym in Virbela Virbela is an enterprise-first solution focusing on remote work and events through the use of shared or custom virtual campus spaces. However, they’re also very community-focused and create special “islands” on their open campus for various causes. In fact, their virtual library landed in our Black History Month roundup. This time, we’re highlighting a new experience, the “Mind Gym.” “I was talking with a colleague about Mental Health Awareness Month and how we could handle that kind of thing at an enterprise level,” Virbela VP of Community, Sarah Segrest, told ARPost in an in-app interview. “We kind of thought about a mashup of futuristic exercises and a mid-century style gym.” Modeled

The LA-Based Marketing Agency Expanding Into the Metaverse

With more and more business and sales being conducted in virtual worlds, one digital marketing agency with physical offices in California is expanding its services into the metaverse. The LookinMeta Launch LookinLA is already a digital-first marketing agency. With partners like Google, Salesforce, and Shopify, high-tech trends like big data analytics and online retail are not new to the company. So, what’s new? In a way, everything. “We are the forefront of metaverse marketing,” LookinLA CEO Ali Payani said in a release shared with ARPost. “Our clients are now able to expand their businesses and operations into the virtual world to amplify their growth and authority.” The March 3 release announced a new platform from LookinLA called LookinMeta. This platform will give clients and client companies access to a whole suite of emerging technology tools and services. What Marketing Looks Like in the Metaverse A lot of the release has

XRSI Releases Report on the Dangers of XR Data Collection

The metaverse is composed of virtual worlds. However, those virtual worlds are built and occupied by real people. While they offer real utility, they also pose real risks, particularly given the capacity of XR hardware to collect data and the inability of regulators to keep up. XR Safety Initiative held a roundtable event, The XR Data Classification Roundtable, on International Human Rights Day last year, and a detailed report of their findings and positions has recently been made available. Where Does XR Data Go? “People relinquish their data without realizing the risks or consequences. While this is not new, the difference today is we are moving towards an era of constant reality capture, especially with increased adoption of immersive technologies and a strong push to build the next iteration of the internet, also known as the Metaverse,” reads the “Virtual Worlds, Real Risks and Challenges” report. These strong words from

8th Wall Partners With Ready Player Me to Reality-Bending Effect

XR developer platform 8th Wall has just announced a partnership with cross-platform avatar builder Ready Player Me. To be fair, the list of companies compatible with Ready Player Me is growing all the time. However, there are a few things about the two companies that make this partnership particularly special. I Want to Talk About Ready Player Me To really understand the importance of this announcement, we have to make sure that we’re on the same page regarding Ready Player Me. The outfit allows users to make a 3D avatar starting from a photo. From there, they can change the avatar as well as its outfits. Ready Player Me avatars If this sounds familiar, it could be because you’ve probably done it quite a few times already – making an avatar is a common first step when stepping into a new VR platform. But, this isn’t a VR platform. This

Scalefast and YouGov Report on the NFT and Virtual Goods Market

By now, we’ve probably all at least heard of NFTs and virtual goods. But, what is the actual market like right now? How should interested companies get involved? Where is the market likely heading and what could drive these changes? Scalefast sifted through survey data from YouGov to come up with some answers and shared an early version of the report, titled “Revealing the Metaverse”, with ARPost. .uf36ce73394bb7b44fe7af7f772662799 { padding:0px; margin: 0; padding-top:1em!important; padding-bottom:1em!important; width:100%; display: block; font-weight:bold; background-color:#FFFFFF; border:0!important; border-left:4px solid #E74C3C!important; box-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.17); -moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.17); -o-box-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.17); -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.17); text-decoration:none; } .uf36ce73394bb7b44fe7af7f772662799:active, .uf36ce73394bb7b44fe7af7f772662799:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; text-decoration:none; } .uf36ce73394bb7b44fe7af7f772662799 { transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; opacity: 1.05; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; } .uf36ce73394bb7b44fe7af7f772662799 .ctaText

Exploring New Frontiers With Metaverse

The tech world is abuzz with news of the metaverse and how it can open up a world of opportunities. It promises a more immersive digital experience for users, and it’s poised to become the internet’s successor. This vast network of virtual worlds is the stuff of science fiction brought to life with today’s technology. If you’ve seen Ready Player One or The Matrix, engaged in crypto or non-fungible tokens (NFT), or played games like Roblox or Fortnite, then you already have a glimpse of things to come. What Is the Metaverse? The term was first coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. In the novel, the metaverse is a shared digital place that people visit to escape their dystopian reality. They use avatars to interact with other users and explore an online world where they can be who they want to be and do

A Hands-On Review of Holoride

Some of my favorite memories with my children involve traveling around the United States to visit national parks, historic sites, and science museums. We had an old 15-passenger van that I had purchased for $750 from a non-profit agency and with several rows of seats, each of my kids had plenty of space to spread their toys and art supplies while we traveled. They also had a Leapster, a small educational handheld gaming console that kept them occupied and reinforced basic academic skills for the younger children in particular, but we never had any other gaming consoles until many years later when my oldest son purchased an Xbox for his younger brothers with his first paycheck as a paratrooper for the US Army. Our travels took place many years ago and now our lives are quite different. Just a couple of weeks before the pandemic my van finally died, the