What happened this week in Metaverse news?

Metashima Minting this Week

Metashima, “your personal metaverse companion” is minting this week. The “intelligent sidekick” will help owners to “explore virtual worlds, make new friends, and conquer future frontiers” with custom animated faces, as well as other modifications and upgrades to be released later in the roadmap.

Each Metashima is an NFT on the ethereum blockchain with the initial mint consisting of 14,159 unique virtual robots. Customizing and interacting with the robots will be an experience in itself, but they are designed to accompany owners through different virtual experiences. I'm an advisor to this project and I'm so proud of what they are building. Hats off to Simon and Yush, and the whole Dimension Studio team.

AWE Combats Climate Change With Prize Program

The Augmented World Expo announced that it will fund $100,000 to an organization or project that proposes to use extended reality to fight climate change. The announcement was made by event cofounder Ori Inbar, who is also the founder and managing partner of Super Ventures , who will presumably provide the funds to the winner announced at next year’s event.

I sadly missed AWE this year because of a work conflict, but my colleagues, Lee Kebler was there and shared some great insights. I was glad to see Orlando mentioned during Unity CEO, John Riccitiello's keynote. Hope to see everyone at AWE next year.

Snapdragon Spaces Releases Hardware Devkits and Magic Leap 2 Gives Details

At the same venue, Qualcomm opened Snapdragon Spaces to developers, including a hardware developers kit created with Motorola and ThinkReality – a division within Lenovo dedicated to extended reality hardware. While the software developers portal has been anticipated since its initial announcement six months ago, the hardware developers kit announcement was unexpected.

Magic Leap also gave new specs for the upcoming second generation of their headset. A representative called it 50 percent lighter, 20 percent smaller, with two to three times more computing power and a doubled field of view. The new headset has 18 different sensors and will be compatible with WiFi 6e and Bluetooth 5.1 to incorporate data from connected devices into its environmental understanding.

The Fabricant Releases NFT Fashion Collection with World of Women

Digital-only fashion studio The Fabricant has partnered with World of Women (WoW), a promoter of “representation, inclusivity, and equal opportunities” in Web3, according to reporting by BeInCrypto . The result is a 27-piece AR fashion collection inspired by the original WoW NFT collection that was released last summer but has since sold out.

In potential Fabricant “news,” a tweet from cross-platform avatar solution Ready Player Me invited The Fabricant and virtual world platform Spatial to “hang” during the upcoming NFT NYC industry event. This isn’t exactly a press release, but Ready Player Me had let the cat out of the bag on Twitter when they started working with Spatial well before that news became officially public.

AI Comes to VR

Virtual world Agora has partnered with Unanimous AI to leverage their “Swarm Intelligence” tool. While we usually think of AI as computers that think for themselves, Unanimous AI’s solution helps to understand human insights. In a futuristic kind of way, the product is a natural fit for the virtual world named after city centers of Ancient Greece.

Iconic Vogue Magazine Covers for Sale as NFTs

Lighthouse Publishing is selling three Vogue Portugal covers as NFTs . The covers, one from 2017, one from 2020, and one from 2022 mark historic events in the publication’s history as well as turning points in society. The NFTs have floor prices from 1.5 to3 ETH.

8th Wall Payments Goes Live

Hardware-agnostic WebXR experience platform 8th Wall announced on LinkedIn that8th Wall Payments is now live. The new tool is one of several updates and changes that the company announced in a recent summit hosted by parent company Niantic . At the time of the announcement, it was not clear when the program would be available to developers.

The program allows developers to charge a limited-time admission for select XR activations. The company framed this as a monetization tool to empower content creators, but it will also be interesting to see whether it increases the number of XR “events.”

Pride Month in the Metaverse

Decentraland kicked off Pride Month with a “Kickoff Panel talk on Friday.” Don’t worry too much if you missed it. The weekly newsletter to residents of the virtual world said that Pride Month is “a month-long schedule” including future panel talks, parties, entertainment and a “24/7 pride parade full of outrageous floats and colorful dancers” with more to be revealed throughout the month.

Virbela also announced a Pride Month initiative including a moving and educational exhibit in their Speakeasy social area. The two floor venue moves from ongoing LGBTQ+ efforts on the ground floor to showcasing accomplishments and achievements on the second floor. There will also be a pride parade and avatar fashion contest in the platform’s open world on June 30.

And so much more, like Prada's NFT and Gucci Town in Roblox.

Keep building everyone!