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Attend A Metaverse Job Fair In VR Later This Month

From vrscout

Connect with immersive technology professionals in VR via Mozilla Hubs.

Interested in working in the field of immersive technology? Then you’ll definitely want to check out Active Replica’s inaugural XR Career and Opportunity Fair, a virtual job fair taking place later this month in the metaverse.

Those interested can attend the limited-time event in VR using Mozilla Hubs. The platform is powered by WebVR, which means you don’t need to download any additional software in order to use it.

All you need is a VR headset capable of supporting a WebVR-compatible web browser such as Mozilla Firefox. Those without a VR headset can also attend via desktop or mobile.

Developed in partnership with Constellation, the metaverse job fair will be accessible to the public from August 25th to the 26th. Attendees will have the chance to speak directly with immersive technology professionals from leading British Columbian organizations about potential jobs, internships, grants, scholarships, and various other opportunities.

Are you an organization in need of new talent? Company’s who register for a spot before August 20th will receive a custom virtual booth featuring integrated graphics.

“Whether you’re a recent graduate, more established in your career, or have a project in mind and want to start building a team, this is your chance to connect with emerging technology professionals while experiencing first-hand how the industry hires today,” says the official event page.

For more information on the event visit here.

Image Credit: Active Replica

Meta Is Working On A Digital Wallet For The Metaverse

From vrscout

The company will begin by changing ‘Facebook Pay’ to ‘Meta Pay.’

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week announced that the company is working on a digital wallet that will make it easier to spend and make money in the metaverse.

In a recent Facebook post, Zuckerberg talked about a future where all of the purchases you make in the virtual world, from clothing and music to event tickets and art, are stored in a single, easy-to-access location. In addition to managing your funds, this digital wallet would also be used to manage your identity in the metaverse.

Credit: Meta

“There’s a long way to get there, but this kind of interoperability will deliver much better experiences for people and larger opportunities for creators,” said Zuckerberg in his post. “That is, the more places you can easily use your digital goods, the more you’ll value them, which creates a bigger market for creators.”

The first step toward this fiscally responsible future will be changing the name of Facebook Pay to Meta Pay. Other than that, the payment method will remain more or less the same. You can still shop for items, transfer money to friends, and donate to charities via Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

“The more places you can easily use your digital goods, the more you’ll value them, which creates a bigger market for creators,” added Zuckerberg. “The more easily you can transact, the bigger the opportunity for creators should get as well. We’re looking forward to building this out.”

Credit: CNBC

Recently, Meta announced the Avatars Store, a new way for Facebook and Instagram users to purchase high-end designer clothing for their Meta Avatars. Not only that, but we’ll eventually have the ability to design and sell our own virtual clothing. While currently unavailable in VR, the company has confirmed that the store will eventually make its way to Meta Quest headsets.

As paid content continues to expand into the metaverse, the need for a secure digital wallet in which to manage our identities could become more important. For more information check out Zuckerberg’s Facebook post here.

Image Credit: Reuters

Meta Announces New Avatar Store With A Digital Fashion Show

From vrscout

Meta Avatars Store rolls out next week on Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger with plans for a VR launch “soon.”

Meta today announced plans to expand its lineup of virtual fashion items for its Meta Avatars with the launch of the Meta Avatars Store. Here you’ll be able to purchase stylish outfits from iconic fashion labels such as Balenciaga, Prada, and Thom Browne, with more options on the way.

The announcement was made earlier today during an Instagram Live broadcast between Eva Chen, VP of Fashion Partnerships, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Throughout the live stream, Chen showcased a handful of virtual ensembles, using Zuckerberg’s own Meta Avatar as an impromptu model. The digital fashion show featured everything from a high-end motorcycle suit from Balenciaga to some classy business attire from Thom Browne.

“When Meta tweeted “Hey @Balenciaga, what’s the dress code in the metaverse?” we were instantly into it. Web3 and Meta are bringing unprecedented opportunities for Balenciaga, our audience, and our products, opening up new territories for luxury,” said Balenciaga CEO Cédric Charbit in an official release.

The Avatars Store will begin rolling out next week on Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger with plans for an official VR launch sometime in the near future. No word yet on how much each outfit will cost. According to Meta, you’ll eventually have the ability to design and sell your own virtual clothing, opening the doors for fashion in the metaverse.

You can watch today’s full conversation here.

Image Credit: Meta

Horizon Worlds Launches In The UK This Week

From vrscout

A new Voice Mode that turns strangers’ conversations into friendly nonsensical gibberish.

Meta today announced that Horizon Worlds will begin rolling out on Meta Quest 2 headsets in the United Kingdom, further growing its social VR metaverse. The company states that more countries in Europe will also be added later this Summer. As is the case with existing players in the US and Canada, you will need to be at least 18 in order to access the experience.

The company is also releasing a new safety feature called “Voice Mode.” Rolling out on Quest 2 headsets over the following weeks, this tool will allow you to adjust how other strangers sound in the metaverse. In addition to muting other users, you can also enable “Garbled Voices” to turn non-friend voices into friendly-sounding nonsense.

Other players will see an indicator that you’re unable to understand them. If you want to hear what they’re saying, you simply lift one hand to your ear. This does not add the player as a friend; just temporarily deactivates Garbled Voices.

In addition to Voices Mode, Meta is introducing a new update to its Community Guidelines that allows them to send pop-up warnings to disruptive users. These new features are just the latest in a series of safety-minded updates designed to give users more control over their metaverse experience.



“With Horizon Worlds, you can create and explore together,” said the company in the official blog update. “Whether it’s a comedy club where you can step on stage and try out your dad jokes in front of an audience, a bowling alley where you hit the lanes with friends, or even a place to learn about the diverse people, lifestyles, and languages of Asia, Horizon Worlds has something for everyone. Since launching in 2021, we’ve been blown away by the boundless imagination of our always-expanding creator community.”

For more information on today’s announcement visit here.

Image Credit:

Taking Action Against Serious Crimes In The Metaverse

From vrscout

A Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence in the United Arab Emirates wants the U.N. to take action against crimes in the metaverse.

The metaverse is growing incredibly fast, with companies expected to invest billions of dollars in the upcoming years.

However, there are several growing concerns around the safety of digital twinning and the metaverse. During the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Omar Sultan Al Olama, a Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence in the United Arab Emirates, talked about some of these concerns. According to him, the metaverse, while revolutionary, could result in new forms of digital harassment.

Al Olama believes that the U.N. should take action against serious crimes in the metaverse in the same way we have laws to protect people on the internet.

Credit: World Economic Forum

“If I send you a text on WhatsApp, it’s a text, right? It might terrorize you but to a certain degree it will not create the memories that you will have PTSD from it,” said Al Olama. “But if I come into the metaverse and it’s a realistic world, and I actually murder you and you see it, it actually takes you to a certain extreme where you need to enforce aggressively across the world because everyone agrees that certain things are unacceptable.”

Of course, you can’t actually get murdered in the metaverse, though a report on Analytics Insight slightly disagrees. That said, there has been a steady rise in metaverse-related incidents that have some people concerned. We’ve already seen several reports of women coming forward to report that they were virtually groped while visiting a VR social platform.

It’s possible to feel threatened by other people in a virtual experience. Haptic feedback lets you feel it when someone touches you in a virtual environment. In a recent study, one unnamed female researcher who was assaulted in VR talked about her experience saying “It happened so fast I kind of dissociated. One part of my brain was like ‘WTF is happening,’ the other part was like ‘this isn’t a real body,’ and another part was like, ‘this is important research.”



In addition to the above-mentioned incident, there are several reported cases of verbal abuse, racism, and overstepping of personal space, especially towards “female-appearing and female-sounding avatars.”

Another concern is that the metaverse could become a place for sexual predators to find and groom younger users for human trafficking. There are even experts who believe we need to have a version of metaverse police patrolling various worlds for suspicious activity. 

Most VR social platforms employ teams of moderators to make sure your metaverse experience is a safe and pleasant one. They also have built-in tools that you can easily access to create your own virtual safe space. Of course, you can always remove your headset if, at any point, you feel uncomfortable.

In Al Olama’s opinion, however, we could be doing more. He believes that governments should step in and create new laws to protect people in the metaverse. As he points out, there are already internet laws to prevent things such as drug trafficking and child pornography. 

Credit: Rohit Sabu

Chris Cox, the chief product officer at Meta, talked about the importance of increased metaverse security, saying that when it comes to the metaverse, there need to be international standards. As the metaverse grows and becomes more popular, he believes that we’ll eventually see a rating system for different worlds. “There will probably be something like a rating system, which we have for film, we have for music, we have for other types of content so that a parent or a young person can have some sense of what the rules are in the environment they’re going to walk into,” said Cox.

The interesting thing about the metaverse is that it’s made up of multiple worlds. With different brands and industries creating their own virtual environments on an almost daily basis, a dedicated rating system could be ideal for helping people know what they are getting into before entering the metaverse.

Credit: Meta

Al Olama isn’t alone in believing the U.N. should take a harder stance on crimes in the metaverse. We are also seeing companies reexamine their own HR and business policies to possibly include employee behavior in virtual spaces.

Moving forward, it’ll be interesting to see how social VR platforms and companies address these ongoing concerns. As the idea of the metaverse and digital twinning becomes more popular, these types of discussions will only become more commonplace.

Image Credit: VRChat

Genies Secures $150M Series C to Expand Development on Metaverse Avatars

From roadtovr

Genies, a 3D avatar company, announced it’s raised a $150 million Series C investment, something it says will be used to hire more engineering talent and continue development on its non-fungible token (NFT) based “avatar universe.”

The round was led by private equity firm Silver Lake, and includes participation from existing investors BOND, NEA, and Tamarack Global. This brings the company’s total outside investment to $202 million, with the company now valued at $1 billion.

The company’s main focus for now is on avatar creator tools and digital fashion collections which it hopes will be used across the metaverse—and not just sit in a crypto wallet. The company envisions creating avatar homes and social experiences in the future—presumably also minted as tradable NFTs.

In late 2021, Genies notably inked a partnership with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group to launch its own NFT marketplace, called ‘The Warehouse’. Users and creators on the platform can buy, sell, and trade avatars and accessories, which are minted on Dapper Labs’ blockchain network, Flow. The deal also saw NFT partnerships with a number of musicians, including Justin Bieber, Migos, Cardi B, and J Balvin.

“We believe avatar ecosystems are going to shape Web3 the same way that mobile apps defined Web2,” said Akash Nigam, CEO of Genies. “With every advancement of the internet, an expansive new region of entrepreneurial skill sets is born. In Web3, Gen Z avatar ecosystem builders are going to be the leaders of innovation and, through our creator tools, we strive to empower their wildest imaginations, ideas, and experiences as avatar creations.”

It’s not clear whether this particular blockchain tech will become the standard for digital ownership in the Web3 future, where digital property ownership is set to go well beyond pictures of cartoon apes. Just the same, many household names in the XR industry are also jumping into the NFT craze. HTC opened its own NFT marketplace in December, albeit solely dedicated to ‘flat’ NFT art for now. Meta is planning to do the same on its social network Facebook, although there’s still no clear launch date.

Meta Plans to Take Nearly 50% of Creator’s Earnings in ‘Horizon Worlds’

From roadtovr

This week Meta announced that it was beginning to test selling tools so that creators can sell things inside of Horizon Worlds and earn real money. Now the company has offered up more detail about how that will work, including the fees creators will pay on earnings made through the platform.

Meta says the goal of its various metaverse initiatives is to one day allow people to “earn a living” from creating virtual goods through its platforms. But for creators to make that happen, they’ll need to contend with hefty fees from the company.

Speaking to Road to VR about the new selling tools being made available to select creators in Horizon Worlds, Meta explained that anything sold in Horizon Worlds would be subject to the same 30% fee the company charges developers selling apps through its VR platform and then an additional 25% fee on top of the remaining amount. The company provided the following example:

“…if a creator sells an item for $1.00, then the Meta Quest Store fee would be $0.30 and the Horizon Platform fee would be $0.17, leaving $0.53 for the Creator before any applicable taxes.”

That’s an effective rate of 47.5% of anything sold on Horizon Worlds to Meta, leaving 52.5% to the creator.

Image courtesy Meta

That’s a pretty hefty take, but not entirely out of line with contemporaries. Roblox, for instance, takes between 30% and 70% of the revenue generated by creators depending upon whether the creator sold the item directly to customers or if the item was sold on the Roblox marketplace or by another party.

These are big fees, no doubt, but creators are getting something in return. Horizon Worlds, for instance, offers up its self-contained collaborative building tools, access to an audience, and handles all hosting and networking costs associated with the things creators build. Whether that’s worth 47.5% of what someone manages to sell on the platform is going to be up to the creator.

The Horizon Worlds fee structure strikes a sharp contrast to the thoughts Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared about a theoretical metaverse back at Connect 2021:

The last few years have been humbling for me and our company in a lot of ways. One of the main lessons that I’ve learned is that building products isn’t enough. We also need to help build ecosystems so that millions of people can have a stake in the future, can be rewarded for their work, and benefit as the tide rises, not just as consumers but as creators and developers.

But this period has also been humbling because as big of a company as we are, we’ve also learned what it is like to build for other platforms. And living under their rules has profoundly shaped my views on the tech industry. Most of all, I’ve come to believe that the lack of choice and high fees are stifling innovation, stopping people from building new things, and holding back the entire internet economy.

We’ve tried to take a different approach. We want to serve as many people as possible, which means working to make our services cost less, not more. Our mobile apps are free. Our ads business model is an auction, which guarantees every business the most competitive price possible. We offer our creator and commerce tools either at cost or with modest fees to enable as much creation and commerce as possible.

Meta also clarified some other things about how the selling tools in Horizon Worlds will work. Speaking to Road to VR, the company said that, from the buyer’s standpoint, purchases in Horizon Worlds are handled like anything else on the Quest platform (ie: they use the headset’s account and payment credentials on file to handle the transaction). That means that items will be advertised and transacted with local currency, rather than a proprietary app-currency.

As for the transportability of items bought in Horizon Worlds, Meta says that anything buy can currently only be used in the world in which it was purchased. So if you buy a hat in one world, you only have access to it when you’re inside that specific world.

A photo provided by Meta also gives us some hints about the mutability of the things you purchase in Horizon Worlds, with the fine-print of the transaction pop-up warning that items are “subject to changes by creator even after purchase.” The pop-up also mentions a set of ‘User in-World Purchase Terms’, of which we’ve asked the company for a full copy.

Meta says it plans to gather feedback on the Horizon Worlds selling tools and the structure of item ownership, and evolve the offering over time. At present, only select creators have access to the selling tools, but the company expects to expand access over time.

Meta Begins Testing Selling Tools in ‘Horizon Worlds’ With the Long Term Goal of Enabling People to “earn a living”

From roadtovr

Meta announced today it is enabling new in-world monetization tools for a “handful” of creators in Horizon Worlds. The tools will allow them to sell access to items and experiences inside of the app. Eventually, Meta says, it hopes people can “earn a living” in the metaverse.

Horizon Worlds is Meta’s social VR platform built around user-generated content that anyone can build within the app itself. Though the platform remains available only to VR users older than 18 in the US and Canada, the company is moving ahead with testing the first in-world monetization tools which will allow creators to charge real money for things inside of Horizon Worlds.

The company says the tools will allow creators to “sell virtual items and effects,” and gives the example of someone selling an attachable accessory (like a hat) or an item that would grant access to an exclusive part of a world (like a special key).

Meta said the ability to sell items in Horizon Worlds is just a test for now, and while all users are able to make purchases, only a “handful of creators” are getting access to monetization tools for the time being. The company says it plans to iterate on the tools prior to expanding them to more creators, also saying that this is a first step toward its long-term vision of a “metaverse where creators can earn a living and people can purchase digital goods, services, and experiences.”

Meta didn’t offer many specifics on the functionality of the Horizon Worlds monetization tools. For instance, it isn’t clear how ownership will work (ie: once you buy an item can you take it anywhere on the platform, or does it only exist within a single world?), nor the mutability of purchased items (ie: if I buy access to a premium portion of a world, what happens if the creator chooses to alter or delete the world?).

The company also didn’t say if it will take a cut of the revenue generated by in-world purchases (like it does for apps sold on the Quest store).

We reached out to Meta for more details on these questions and more.

Image courtesy Meta

Beyond the Horizon Worlds monetization tools, Meta today also said it’s testing a Horizon Worlds Creator Bonus program for creators in the US. In addition to the $10 million fund the company formed to incentivize creators to start building in Horizon Worlds, the Creator Bonus program is focused around “goal-oriented monthly programs where the creators are paid out at the end of the month for their progress toward the goal.”

Ostensibly, goals will relate to metrics Meta deems useful to Horizon Worlds, like the number of visits to specific worlds, time spent in a specific world, return visitors, etc.

The company did not specify if the Creator Bonus program would be open to all creators or a select group.

Meta also says it recently launched an “entirely new analytics dashboard” for Horizon Worlds creators to give them more information about how people are engaging with their worlds.

– – — – –

Meta is far from the first to introduce monetization tools geared toward encouraging user-generated creation in VR.

Among others, social VR platform Rec Room introduced its first in-world monetization tools back at the end of 2020. The app allows creators to charge for items in the world to earn tokens which can be cashed out for real money. Similar to the Creator Bonus program, Rec Room has been offering incentives to draw creators to its platform, like a $15,000 matching bonus available to creators through 2023.

Mastercard Could Be Preparing To Enter The Metaverse

From vrscout

One of the biggest banking institutions in America predicts that the metaverse will be a $13 trillion industry by 2030.

The global financial institution Mastercard is preparing for the metaverse economy through 15 trademarks applications that would position them as the biggest payment facilitator for a virtual world powered by crypto, fintech (financial technology), and all metaverse eCommerce technologies. 

The news was discovered this past week when USPTO licensed trademark attorney and specialist in intellectual property Mike Kondoudis tweeted out the details of several trademark filings that included the Mastercard name, the company’s “Circles” logo, and “Priceless” slogan. The tweet also included details such as NFT backed media, payment processing in the metaverse, marketplaces for digital goods + NFTs, and eCommerce transactions in the metaverse.

This past April, Citibank predicted that the metaverse economy could be worth as much as $13T by 2030. There are a lot of big opportunities here for brands and industries. Many are in the early stages of establishing their digital twin in the metaverse. This includes Nike, Wendy’s, The Gap, Walmart, and Mcdonald’s. 

This movement into the metaverse isn’t just impacting the food, retail, and fashion industries. Almost every type of business is looking at the metaverse and digital twinning as a new way to do business with their consumers, extend their B2B relationships, and recruit, onboard, and train new and current employees.

Even the higher ed industry sees the potential of the metaverse. Several colleges recently announced that they are opening up their own Metaversities, unique digital twins of their campuses where students can attend class and buy virtual college sweatshirts remotely.

The Wendyverse / Credit: The Wendy’s Company

Earlier in 2022, Mastercard partnered with Coinbase to create an NFT marketplace that will allow you to use your Coinbase wallet to pay for digital goods using a Mastercard debit or credit card. 

Mastercard is not alone in this race. The global banking institution, HSBC just announced that they were actually closing almost 70 real-world branches in the UK to focus on establishing their digital twin in the metaverse. Just recently the company opened a new metaverse investment portfolio, while JP Morgan, PayPal, and Visa are all also in the race to establish their own digital twin. 

Through Mastercards trademark filing, the company had 4 key application details for their footprint in Web3 that they feel will be fruitful for their metaverse endeavors. 

  • “Downloadable music files authenticated by non-fungible tokens (NFTs); downloadable multimedia files containing artwork, text, audio, and video authenticated by non-fungible tokens (NFTs);…E-commerce software to allow users to perform electronic business transactions in the metaverse and other virtual worlds”
  • “Marketplaces for digital goods and NFT backed media”
  • “Processing of virtual credit card, virtual debit card, virtual prepaid card, and virtual payment card transactions in the metaverse… Payment processing services, namely credit card, prepaid card, gift card, and payment card transaction processing services in the metaverse; Providing financial information in the metaverse and other virtual worlds”
  • “Events and performances in the metaverse in the fields of finance, cryptocurrency, and NFTs”
  • “Online communities for digital assets, NFTs, metaverse and virtual worlds”
Metaversities / Credit: Engage XR

This is just the beginning of where the metaverse is going. These patents show how businesses, brands, and industries will all benefit from having a digital twin in the virtual space. As of today, the number of U.S. NFT trademark applications has surpassed the number filed last year. In 2020 the U.S. patent office saw 23 applications filed, in 2021 there were a total of 1,965 filed. So far in 2022, there are 1,967 applications filed and that number is climbing rapidly. 

There’s a lot of investment and movement in the metaverse right now, and Mastercard is preparing itself to be there to process those payments through an experience that is “Priceless”.

Image Credit: Mastercard

Meta Cancels F8 Developer Conference This Year to “build the metaverse”

From roadtovr

Meta is again cancelling its F8 developer conference this year. Meta skipped F8 in 2020 and 2021 explicitly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however this year the company says it’s taking a pause to work on the metaverse.

“Similar to years past, we are taking a brief break in programming and will not hold F8 in 2022 while we gear up on new initiatives that are all tailored towards the next chapter of the internet, and the next chapter of our company too: building the metaverse,” says Meta’s Diego Duarte Moreira in a blogpost. “Similar to the early stages of the web, building the metaverse will be a collaborative effort at every stage – with other companies, creators and developers like you.”

Meta says it’s still holding a business messaging event called Conversations on May 19th, which it says is dedicated to businesses, developers and partners interested in building “better and faster experiences on the most popular messaging platforms.”

It also says Connect, its annual XR developer conference, is still being held according to plan later this year, where Meta is slated to serve up more insight into its latest work on VR, AR, and metaverse platform.

The company announced back in October 2021 at Connect it was pivoting to put more emphasis on XR by becoming a “metaverse company,” and rebranding from Facebook to Meta.

In years past, Meta (then Facebook) used F8 as a way of building hype for XR in its wider developer community. At F8 2019, the company announced it was releasing pre-orders for both the original Oculus Quest and Rift S, and that everyone at the conference would receive a free Quest. At the event in 2018, the company also gave away Oculus Go, the company’s last 3DOF headset.