Our roundup covers the vast range of developments in and around the evolution of the metaverse and is in addition to our coverage of Augmented World Expo. At the heart of all things metaverse lie our interactions with technology, data and one another, whether in a commercial or work context, or a social or entertainment one. Each development taken on its own may seem slight but in combination, they build a systemic picture of the ongoing evolution, unlike the big-bang drop of a single technology offering.

The interconnected strands of technology and social development make for an inconvenient blur of boundaries and concepts, yet people often crave a simple classification. We need frames of reference to build our understanding of any development. Like this year's hall of fame at Augmented World Expo, Wimbledon hosting an esports competition or the Rolling Stones entering Roblox Corp.'s "immersive music hub," there is a place for cherished history to help shape the metaverse. As both technology and our expectations for it progress, we can learn from what has come before. This makes for a rich environment, and when artificial intelligence is thrown into the mix, new and reimagined ideas can flourish together.

AWE 2024

Augmented World Expo celebrated 15 years in June 2024 with an expansion of the event and a move to Long Beach, Calif. We previously described some of the 300 exhibitors, 500 speakers and 101 hall of fame inductees at the event. There was an intentional blend of the old and the new, to remind a fresh wave of entrants to the extended reality space of the long lineage of pioneers, from the 1960s to now, to draw experience from. There was also a focus on the blend between extended reality and AI, and how they support each other.

Infinite Reality buys Landvault for $450 million

Based in New York, Infinite Reality Inc. is a digital media company focused on immersive experiences and AI that is also the owner of the Drone Racing League. The company closed $350 million of additional investment and announced the purchase of WAM Group Ltd., trading as Landvault, for $450 million. Landvault is a Roblox, The Sandbox and Decentraland content developer for brands, having built over 1.2 million square feet in virtual experiences for Mastercard Inc., The Hershey Co., Heineken NV and the United Arab Emirates and Saudi governments. This takes Infinite Reality's valuation to a reported $5.1 billion.

HSBC India launches virtual world experience

The bank is creating a metaverse lounge for nonresident Indians, to reach out to its globally located customers. HSBC Holdings PLC says it will include avatar-based interaction in experiences called Amphitheatre, Premier Lounge, Beyond Banking Zone, Mariner's Harbor, Overseas Education Lounge, NRI Oasis and Interactive Zone. HSBC previously engaged with The Sandbox in 2022 to create customer experiences and interact with sports and esports fans.

Google XR executive lead appointment

Former head of QUALCOMM Inc. XR Hugo Swart has moved to Alphabet Inc.'s Google to head up its XR ecosystem strategy and technology. Swart oversaw the development and rollout of Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR chipsets that power most headsets on the market today, such as the Meta Quest 3. As we wrote in the last metaverse digest, Google has partnered with Magic Leap Inc. to further its XR ambitions.

Second Life goes mobile

As the platform celebrates its 21st year with a month-long celebration featuring user-created content, Linden Labs' Second Life just got a fully functioning mobile application alongside its more typical PC and Mac dedicated clients. It is currently in public beta for subscribers but due to be more widely available soon. There have been several attempts to get to this point over the years, but it is now an iOS and Android app. Delivered through app stores, the iOS version has some restrictions on content access compared with the more open Android one.

Meta Horizons expands worldwide

Meta Platforms Inc.'s Horizon Worlds is being rolled out to more countries and expanding its access on mobile and web. The virtual world environment has typically only been accessible through the Quest headset. Many of its competitors' user-generated virtual worlds and game environments, such as Roblox, Fortnite and Rec Room, have had multimodal access almost from inception. The new countries being targeted are in the eurozone region, such as Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. South Korea, Australia and Japan are also part of the expansion plan.

Roblox 4D GenAI plans

In a recent post, Roblox Chief Scientist Morgan McGuire described the Road to 4D Generative AI for the platform. Many current GenAI approaches feature the generation of text, images, video or music as an end artifact. Games and virtual world objects must have mutability. Roblox is looking at the multimodal needs of these objects and their creation, as well as the interaction of these objects, which it called the fourth dimension. In its understanding and potential training of AI models to create integrated tooling toward this goal, it has 77 million daily active users available to help gather insight. Roblox development tools already have a suite of GenAI assistants for things such as texture and material, as well as for code.

Odyssey announces Hollywood-grade AI

A new startup, Odyssey, popped out of stealth. The company aims to provide the next level of GenAI tools and control for filmmakers. The premise is that current text to video, or image to video, is effectively a single-shot process. Odyssey wants to allow filmmakers to create worlds for scenes and give creative control over the camera and shots, along with movement and animation. It is supported by Google Ventures and includes researchers from OpenAI LLC, Pixar, Metam DeepMind and Midjourney Inc. This is relevant to the metaverse because the company says it is supporting the OpenUSD standard that is used in many tools in the industrial metaverse and in creative media. It is also building places and spaces, not just images.

British Broadcasting Corp. invests in UK immersive events company

Our last digest noted BBC Radio One's new music event that was broadcast on radio and into a virtual world environment. In the 3D Condense platform, performers are live-streamed as video avatars in a web-based 3D environment, and fans can join the gig with their avatars. Following a test event, BBC Ventures invested £500,000 in Bristol, UK-based Condense. Publicly funded BBC plans to provide more Condense-powered events through its Radio 1 New Music Portal on Jack Saunders' New Music Show.

Rolling Stones Roblox

Back in 1963, the Rolling Stones released their first single, although it was two years later that the first of many signature songs, "Satisfaction," was released. Now the band is heading to Roblox as part of Universal Music Group's Beat Galaxy environment on that platform. The band's takeover of the virtual space will include virtual merchandise and prize games to compete in. It will feature the art and styles from the band's six-decade career.

Logitech MX Ink VR stylus for Quest

Meta Quest's mixed-reality headsets feature controllers, or the ability to track hands to control applications. Logitech, in collaboration with Meta, has announced its MX Ink stylus, a pen designed for drawing and manipulating content in 3D, or creating in 2D on a surface like a traditional stylus. The pen is designed to provide a more precise control point in VR and AR, with pressure sensitivity and haptic feedback. It made the announcement ahead of Apple Inc.'s expected Pen upgrades for its own VisionOS on Vision Pro, which is currently only controlled with hand and eye gestures.

Gorilla Tag tops $100 million

The social virtual reality game Gorilla Tag, by Another Axiom, brings the simple game of tag to an online game, where players use their arms as legs to perambulate through the environment. At AWE, the company shared new statistics about the game's popularity, noting over 1 million daily active users and 3 million monthly active users, with an average play time of 60 minutes per session. Also, on TikTok, there have been over 10 billion views citing Gorilla Tag. The popularity and take-up have driven revenue over $100 million. The game launched in early 2021, but hit the Quest app store and Steam in 2022.

Wimbledon comes to esports

Tennis at the Wimbledon Championships has a long association with technology innovation, combined with the more traditional aspects and history of the venue and event. Naturalist David Attenborough is known for suggesting that the tennis balls be changed from white to yellow, to see them better on grass courts when TV moved from black and white to color. Video ball tracking with Hawk-Eye was trialed in 2004 and used on center court in 2007. In 2006, Wimbledon was first represented in virtual world Second Life, using real-world ball trajectory as part of that digital twin and social experience.

This year, All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet, which runs Wimbledon, is launching its own official worldwide esports tournament in association with American Express Company and run by Blast. Wimbledon eChamps will use the TopSpin 2K25 video game from 2K Sports. Players will compete online from any location, but the finalists will be hosted at an in-person, LAN-based competition in the Media Theatre at Wimbledon in September. The prize includes a gold PS5 console with personalized engraving by Wimbledon's own engraver and an all-expense paid trip to the 2025 Wimbledon Championships men's final.

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