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Facebook To Hire 10,000 Across The EU In Metaverse Push

From uploadvr

Facebook today announced plans to hire 10,000 people across the European Union over the next five years to work on its take on the metaverse.

The social networking giant announced as much in a new blog post authored by Nick Clegg, VP Global Affairs, and Javier Olivan, VP Central Products. New details about exactly what Facebook’s interpretation of the metaverse will be were not revealed, but the company said it would work with governments to “find the right people and the right markets” for the recruitment drive.

Facebook’s Metaverse Team Expanding

The metaverse is a broad term used to describe a virtual online environment where people could meet up as digital reflections of themselves and interact with others.

Currently, Facebook has several such experiences on its Oculus Quest platform. In August it launched Horizon Workrooms, allowing VR and non-VR users to meet in virtual offices to collaborate. Work also continues of the recently rebranded Horizon Worlds, which lets users make their own VR experiences with others.

In July, Facebook announced it was setting up a “Metaverse product group”. We speculated on what exactly that means right here. Around the same time, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook would be a “metaverse company” in the next five years.

“No one company will own and operate the metaverse,” today’s blog post reads. “Like the internet, its key feature will be its openness and interoperability. Bringing this to life will take collaboration and cooperation across companies, developers, creators and policymakers.”

Next week sees Facebook host its annual Connect developer conference for VR and AR technologies. We’ll be bringing you all the latest on the company’s announcements at the show.

Report: HTC Working On ‘Viveport Verse’ Metaverse Platform

From uploadvr

HTC is working on a customized version of Mozilla Hubs with a persistent social layer, Protocol reports.

HTC already has a business-focused social VR platform called Vive Sync, but the report says it’s now working on a consumer platform called Viveport Verse.

Protocol also claims to have a source backing up recent speculation that HTC will soon announce Vive Flow, a “lightweight consumer VR headset” that will be “primarily positioned as a media consumption device”. That same source claims Flow will have positional tracking but won’t ship with controllers, and will use a chip less powerful than Quest 2’s.

Rather than starting its metaverse ambitions from scratch, HTC is apparently building on Mozilla’s open source Hubs platform. Hubs runs on WebXR, so users can access it on any platform and don’t need to install or update an app.

A now-deleted unlisted HTC webpage pitched Viveport Verse as letting users “meet people around the world” and “explore a variety of events, from virtual tourism and exhibitions to sports events and festivals”. It also listed potential future features including NFT integration and user generated content.

The report says HTC is working with open-source distributed social network Mastodon to experiment with adding “a persistent social layer” to Verse, but notes it’s unclear how exactly that would work.

It sounds like Viveport Verse is still early in development, but it could be designed to take on Facebook’s Horizon Worlds. Horizon was first slated for a 2020 launch but still today remains an invite-only beta, with Facebook recently announcing a $10 million fund for creators to build content in it.

New Social VR Platform Debuts With an Immersive Muse Concert You Can Watch with Friends

From roadtovr

Stageverse is a new social VR platform debuting this week with a two-hour immersive capture of the Muse: Simulation Theory concert. The platform allows multiple viewers to experience the concert together through 360° 3D footage captured from multiple angles around the venue. In addition to Oculus Quest, Stageverse also supports iOS and Android devices.

Founded initially back in 2017, Stageverse is making its debut this week after purportedly raising $7.5 million in venture capital. The company has built a social VR platform that it hopes will be home to entertainment and social interactivity. You can find the app for Oculus Quest, iOS, and Android.

At the outset the company is focused on building out a virtual concert venue, and has partnered with the hit band Muse to debut the platform with an immersive two-hour capture of the band’s Simulation Theory concert.

“Simulation Theory has always been about creating experiences that redefine the human role in programming and technology,” said Muse frontman and co-founder Matt Bellamy. “We can’t wait for our fans to be able to truly immerse themselves in our Simulation Theory world and take full advantage of everything that the Stageverse experience will offer.”

The Simulation Theory Concert was captured in 360° 3D in 2019. Users can meet up in a social hub space in the app then watch the concert together in avatar-form from any one of 16 viewpoints.

Part of the Stageverse social hub | Image courtesy Stageverse

The concert is available now in Stageverse, free for a limited time, with shows starting at 7PM ET (your timezone here) on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. An on-demand preview of the concert can be seen at any time.

Although the Muse concert is clearly the keystone content at launch, Stageverse says the platform is capable of more than just concerts. Founders Tim Ricker and Claire Seidler see the platform extending to host all manner of immersive social experiences. In October the company plans to launch an immersive art exhibit by visual artist Shantell Martin that will be seamlessly integrated into the platform alongside the Muse concert.

Image courtesy Stageverse

Stageverse is also hoping to create an “NFT economy and marketplace” built around avatar clothing and customization that will “unlock community capitalism to the fullest extent.” To kick off that effort the platform has also partnered up with Parisian fashion house Balmain to offer up a small set of avatar fashion items. Though it isn’t yet clear what kind of prices the company will be asking for, nor precisely how its NFT ownership model will work.