Due to the necessity of living conditions and the desire to seek alternative living environments, people have recently focused on virtual worlds. The purpose of this chapter is to provide information about what kind of activities people can do in Metaverse virtual worlds without being dependent on mediator platforms in a decentralized way. Moreover, information is given about the advantages of blockchain-based Web 3.0 technology in virtual environments. The advantages of integrating virtual reality technology into Metaverse virtual worlds and properties of non-fungible tokens are explained. In addition, the most popular Metaverse projects in the crypto coin markets are mentioned with the effects of these projects on society discussed.
Martin Spraggon Hernandez, Ilham Sentosa, Francis Gaudreault, Ian Davison · 5 authors
The world is witnessing a paradigm shift towards digital blockchain transformation; disrupting businesses, industries, governments, institutions, cultures and nations. Breakthrough developments in the fields of machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), intelligent data, virtual and augmented reality, and the internet of things, many others as well, have driven the extraordinary rise of the so-called a "digital economy." The Metaverse is anticipated to thrive when the distributed ledger economy transitions into digital technology. But as it grows, it presents ecological sustainability with both fresh possibilities and difficulties. In this paper, we use the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) model to analyse these potential and constraints. The metaphysical phenomena was critically analysed using an organised study of literature and the ESG system, which aims to illustrate community, energy, and governance problems in order to ensure a sustainable future. For the objective of choosing, evaluating, and synthesising pertinent papers on the topic, resources such as EBSCO, Scholar by Google, Scopus, Web of Science, and Sciences Direct were used. Our analysis shows that organizations engaged in the Metaverse blockchainphenomena are more likely to achieve higher levels of sustainability when they adopt solid governance practices in relation to the ESG framework. While the Metaverse holds the promise of significant sustainability benefits in the social, environmental, and governance arenas, several challenges and concerns on these dimensions ought to be acknowledged and addressed by decision makers. Adopting the ESG framework to the Metaverse phenomena allows stakeholders to better understand how to manage challenges and risks pivoting around sustainability matters.
Ever since Neel Stephenson's novel ‘Snow Crash’ was published in 1992, the metaverse and its virtual space have been evolving. Because of the growing desire for immersion, this survey article is the first endeavor to offer a comprehensive framework that assesses the contemporary metaverse development under the perspectives of state-of-the-art innovations and digital world ecosystems. So, we re-investigate eight enabling technologies: Extended Reality, User Interactivity, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Computer Vision, IoT and Robots, Future Mobile Networks etcetera. The metaverse environment in application terms means empowering users to interact with and live within a subconscious everlasting and shared reality. A wide range of computer-mediated virtual environments that we have created include social networks, video conferencing, virtual 3D worlds (like VR Chat), augmented reality apps (like Pokemon Go), and non-fungible token games (like Upland).Although transient and unconnected, these virtual environments have brought about various levels of digital change for us. Thus, we propose clear future research for the metaverse's advancement.
The integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools in art and design has disrupted the traditional creative landscape, leading to debates on the legitimacy of AI-generated art and the emergence of new markets such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The US Copyright Office’s February 21, 2023, ruling withdrawing copyright protection for AI-generated comic artwork, while protecting the accompanying text and arrangement, highlights the contested nature of AI art and suggests that significant human intervention in the creative process will be required for monetization. Whether considered content interpolation or content creation, AI generative content for the creation of art and design is here with human-AI collaboration. To explore the potential of AI tools in creative practice, this study introduced students in a digital art course to Craiyon and Midjourney generative AI tools, with DALL-E 2 selected as the primary tool due to its varied output. The students were tasked with selecting a preferred prompt from one tool and then reproducing the output from both tools. The results revealed significant variations in replicating the outputs of different AI tools and limited exploration of prompt engineering, leading to restrictions in the iterative process of artmaking. The students agreed that generative AI tools are not a substitute for human creativity and should be used for final projects. The study demonstrates the potential and limitations of integrating AI tools in art and design and suggests the need for further research in developing effective prompt engineering strategies.
Non-fungible token (NFT) products are important for industrial applications. In recent years, they have rapidly gained importance in the field of blockchain combined with metaverse. The concept of NFTs has developed gradually, as many industries have begun using NFTs creatively to raise new business innovation opportunities in entrepreneurship. However, few studies have been conducted analyzing critical features of NFTs for success, trends, and challenges in NFT products. In this study, group discussions, case analysis methods, and the OpenSea database were used to analyze fashion trends among NFT products. A mixed method was used in this study. Quantitative and qualitative data derived from the questionnaire and group discussions were analyzed using the case study method, and the actual historical trading data of NFT products obtained from the OpenSea platform were analyzed. This study analyzed NFT products, fashion characteristics, and trends in NFT artwork. The opportunities and challenges of NFT applications and sustainable NFTs are discussed in this study. Our research results show that the most attractive NFT product types are collectible digital works and creative artworks. The critical design characteristics are lovely (cute), beautiful, and interesting. We recommend that NFT makers use the above-mentioned characteristics to create NFT artworks with special design characteristics to increase NFT values. The advantage of NFTs is that makers can freely create their works through the NFT platform, which can decrease the limitations of traditional methods such as the need for venues, exhibition setup costs, and intermediaries’ commissions. The major challenges of current NFT applications include usability challenges, security and privacy issues, and governance considerations. We believe that our research results can provide useful directions and strategies for future researchers, makers, and ventures seeking to develop NFT applications. Our research results, such as identifying the critical design factors and current trends in NFTs, can provide guidelines for art design and innovation education. In addition, this study discusses the applications of NFTs in sustainable education, which can provide benefits for sustainable educational development to meet the goal of quality education in SDG4.
Md Ariful Islam Mozumder, Tagne Poupi Theodore Armand, Shah Muhammad Imtiyaj Uddin, Ali Athar · 7 authors
Metaverse is the buzz technology of the moment raising attention both from academia and industry. Many stakeholders are considering an extension of their existing applications into the metaverse environment for more usability. The healthcare industry is gradually making use of the metaverse to improve quality of service and enhance living conditions. In this paper, we focus on the potential of digital anti-aging healthcare in the metaverse environment. We show how we can use metaverse environment to enhance healthcare service quality and increase the life expectancy of patients through more confident processes, such as chronic disease management, fitness, and mental health control, in the metaverse. The convergence of artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain (BC), Internet of Things (IoT), immersive technologies, and digital twin in the metaverse environment presents new scopes for the healthcare industry. By leveraging these technologies, healthcare providers can improve patient outcomes, reduce healthcare costs, and create new healthcare experiences for a better life, thus facilitating the anti-aging process. AI can be used to analyze large-scale medical data and make personalized treatment plans, while blockchain can create a secure and transparent healthcare data ecosystem. As for IoT devices, they collect real-time data from patients, which is necessary for treatment. Together, these technologies can transform the healthcare industry and improve the lives of patients worldwide. The suggestions highlighted in this paper are worthy to undergo implementation and create more benefits that will promote a digital anti-aging process for its users for a longer life experience.
During the pandemic, the new culture of working from home ignited new interests and hobbies to help entertain people from the monotony of lockdown. Horticultural activity has seen a surge in popularity over the past year. Unsurprisingly, horticultural activity has indeed helped people to stay physically and mentally well. The wave of new horticulturalists has led to a growth in sales of house plants, especially succulents. Unfortunately, many plants died due to a struggle in finding proper care. Therefore, it is necessary to provide education and guidance on succulent plant cultivation through the Succupedia book. Succupedia is an augmented reality-driven (AR) book that aims to provide knowledge about succulents for beginners. In parallel, the pandemic has left the creative industry devastated to seek new sources of income, as many projects and events are cancelled, and the discovery of Non-Fungible Token (NFT) is becoming popular. Conceptually, this article extends how AR objects inspired by horticultural activity could potentially become an NFT object inside of the Metaverse as meta-species.
Alicia Cork, Adam Joinson, Laura G. E. Smith, David A. Ellis · 5 authors
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) allow individuals to demonstrate ownership of digital and physical assets. NFTs are scarce, unique, and authentic; three properties known to be key for determining perceived value. Whilst previous research has primarily focused on NFTs as a source of economic value, here we assess the psychological motivations of collectors of digital fashion NFTs. Specifically, NTFs related to digital fashion are particularly relevant to HCI researchers as they sit at the intersection between business, culture, and self-expression. Here, we survey 19 users of a digital avatar fashion company, Genies, to understand the gratifications users derive from collecting digital NFT fashion. Results demonstrate that the primary motivations for collecting fashion NFTs are self-expression and utility and that motivations associated with value are secondary. We make design recommendations based on these results, indicating that developers should distinguish between expression-based motivations and value-based motivations.
Mohammad Hadi Zahedi, Elham Farahani, Karim Peymani
Metaverse is a new type of social network based on Web3 and has multi-technology, decentralized and hyperspatial temporal features. In the Metaverse world, people play roles online and in 3D in the form of avatars. Therefore, the fields of electronic education can also take advantage of this new potential and provide the path of changes for availability and sustainability in the future. Until now, most of the research regarding the discussion of Metaverse and e-Learning has been around the benefits and the possibility of implementing educational systems on this platform, and they have focused more on the progress that Metaverse has made so far, and an educational system based on Metaverse has not yet been operationally implemented. All items are at the design level and in the best case, only a 3D environment is created to present the content non-dynamically. In this paper, we will present a Metaverse virtual e-Learning environment model, all the basic and infrastructural elements, and we will show the ideal mechanisms and technologies and their challenges. This model will lead to the easy development of Metaverse applications in the field of e-Learning.
Businesses are keen to implement new technologies like virtual reality, artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality, big data, etc. as they see profitable business applications. The supply chain and the larger business community have been paying attention to Metaverse as one of the technology disruptions. The metaverse is being enhanced by several variables, including mobile-based always-on access and virtual currency linkage with reality. Additionally, the growth of the Metaverse and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) has taken the metaverse to a new level. This paper performs a comprehensive analysis of the metaverse's attributes, uses, and prospects in global supply chains. The current metaverse-focused study discloses the state of the research and outlines future research goals by reviewing and analysing recent articles that reveal metaverse uses across multiple supply chain activities. It has been demonstrated that the metaverse has several features that help businesses improve supply chain efficiency and customer engagement, including increased visibility into operations, facilities, inventory, and capacity. These characteristics fuelling the metaverse's application in supply chain management and logistics operations. The study further found that metaverse-related research has been extremely growing in the areas of healthcare, retail, and infrastructure, while there is still scope for study in the field of supply chain security and traceability. Finally, it is emphasized that metaverse-related research in logistics, supply chain operations, and agriculture supply chains has the potential to be explored.
The distributed services of the blockchain derive many applications. Combining the latest VR/AR related virtual reality technology, the application scenarios are linked to the decentralized servers, which greatly increase the accessibility of Metaverse. By using the blockchain browser to access the dapp, the accessibility of the content is further improved. More virtual worlds can be developed in combination with the actual application scenarios. Users can closely participate in the re development of the scenarios to achieve user centered essential services. In the application of the meta universe, smart contracts enable the economic development of virtual scenes with tokens. As the underlying network structure of the meta universe, the blockchain network is landing at an unprecedented speed. It is developing the meta universe in the network structure logic related to digital wallets, distributed autonomous organizations (DAOs), distributed storage, decentralized public transactions, and heterogeneous authentication (NFT). It has multiple advantages. First, it realizes participation in predictable scenarios and reduces labor consumption. Sec ond, the interaction process realized the alternation of reality and virtual, and increased diversified creation. Third, use device terminals and mobile terminals to access applications, accelerate point-to-point interaction, and achieve decentralized services.
Yao Xiao, Lei Xu, Can Zhang, Liehuang Zhu · 5 authors
The metaverse is an advanced digital world where users can have interactive and immersive experiences. Users enter the metaverse through digital objects created by extended reality and digital twin technologies. The ownership issue regarding these digital objects can be solved by the blockchain-based nonfungible token (NFT), which is of vital importance for the economics of the metaverse. Users can utilize NFTs to engage in various social and economic activities. However, current NFT protocols expose the owner’s information to the public, which may contradict with the privacy requirement. In this article, we propose a protocol, NFTPrivate, that can realize anonymous and confidential trading of digital objects. The key idea is to utilize cryptographic commitments to hide users’ addresses. By constructing proper zero-knowledge proofs, the owner can initiate privacy-preserving yet publicly verifiable transactions. Illustrative results show that the proposed protocol has higher computation and storage overhead than traditional NFT protocols. We think this is an acceptable compromise for privacy protection.
Md Ariful Islam Mozumder, Ali Athar, Tagne Poupi Theodore Armand, Muhammad Mohsan Sheeraz · 6 authors
Metaverse is defined as a collection of technology gadgets and metaverse connected to IoT, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and all the other tech industries including educational. In particular, the big success of the metaverse in the recent era is in the educational sector, metaverse resolved many difficulties in the education domain. Especially, in the situation of covid 19 people continued there all the educational things virtually using metaverse technologies. At this moment it was only a sector that was not hampered by the reason of covid 19, everyone did their educational work online instead of offline. Metaverse uses artificial intelligence and IoT technology to build a digital virtual world where you can safely and freely engage in social and educational activities that transcend the limits of the real world, and the application of these latest technologies will be expedited. In this paper, we are going to introduce the future of the metaverse, including its history, explanation, and shared features. Then, we will describe what technologies the metaverse is using and metaverse potentiality in education, the metaverse in education is clearly defined, and a detailed framework of the metaverse in education is proposed, along with in-depth discussions of its features.
The Metaverse allows the integration of physical and digital versions of users, processes, and environments where entities communicate, transact, and socialize. With the shift towards Extended Reality (XR) technologies, the Metaverse is envisioned to support a wide range of applicative verticals. It will support a seamless mix of physical and virtual worlds (realities) and, thus, will be a game changer for the Future Internet, built on the Semantic Web framework. The Metaverse will be ably assisted by the convergence of emerging wireless communication networks (such as Fifth-Generation and Beyond networks) or Sixth-Generation (6G) networks, Blockchain (BC), Web 3.0, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). It has the potential for convergence in diverse industrial applications such as digital twins, telehealth care, connected vehicles, virtual education, social networks, and financial applications. Recent studies on the Metaverse have focused on explaining its key components, but a systematic study of the Metaverse in terms of industrial applications has not yet been performed. Owing to this gap, this survey presents the salient features and assistive Metaverse technologies. We discuss a high-level and generic Metaverse framework for modern industrial cyberspace and discuss the potential challenges and future directions of the Metaverse’s realization. A case study on Metaverse-assisted Real Estate Management (REM) is presented, where the Metaverse governs a Buyer–Broker–Seller (BBS) architecture for land registrations. We discuss the performance evaluation of the current land registration ecosystem in terms of cost evaluation, trust probability, and mining cost on the BC network. The obtained results show the viability of the Metaverse in REM setups.
This interview, which took place in September 2021, explores the history of projects carried out by Jadu and the possibilities of Web3, NFTs, and the futures of data in the metaverse.
Abstract The potential of the metaverse in the field of education is an area of increasing interest, with many researchers exploring the space to increase the ease and efficacy of student education while reducing time and labor requirements to deliver effective teaching. However, there has been little work into the systematic and technological aspects of delivering education through the metaverse. To fill this gap, we propose a metaverse education system that takes good advantages of virtual reality and Web3 blockchain techologies to create a social learning environment. With this added emphasis on social aspects, learners are able to socialize and engage in collaborative efforts to improve their own knowledge. Using blockchain technology, the system can also help to ensure security and transparency while also keeping progression and grading fair for all participating students.
3D printing’s rapid technological development is starting to impact the art field because, for the first time, it has become possible to exactly reproduce and reconstruct artworks without any loss of their physical features. Yet, a coherent overview of how 3D printing is used within the art field while paying attention to ethical considerations does not exist. This study will provide an overview of the current developments of 3D printing in the art world, its use, and the direction it is moving toward. Within this study, the technologies that enable, influence, and will continue to affect the 3D reproduction of artworks, namely technologies necessary to capture an artwork’s materials on a chemical and physical level, artificial intelligence (AI), 3D printing technology itself, and the rise of the non-fungible token (NFT) are analyzed to be able to understand what 3D printing implies for our changing perception of art in the future.
Introduction: the metaverse phenomenon is vast and continuously grows and develops. Knowing what position the metaverse has been occupying as a theme on the web allows us to achieve precise results on information needs. Objective: to characterize the Internet search trends on the metaverse from 2020 to 2022. Methods: a retrospective longitudinal descriptive study was carried out on Internet searches for the term "Metaverse". The research was carried out with the support of the Google Trends tool. Results: the interest on the web for the metaverse was high as of October 2021. A tendency to decrease interest in the subject is observed. China was the country with the most significant interest; the term I had the most relationship within searches was "non-fungible token". Conclusions: It can be concluded that the term generated a high interest that has decreased, in line with the slow reception that technology is having.
Dimitris Mourtzis, John Angelopoulos, Nikos Panopoulos
Following the technological advances, new personalized, and immersive services, based on recent developments in virtual co-existence, i.e., Metaverse, new opportunities for teaching methodologies and practices for reskilling educators and students emerge. However, the Metaverse infrastructure is still in its infancy. Thus, researchers, educators, and digital designers have an opportunity to lead the way. To realize the Metaverse potential as a three-dimensional, global, interconnected, immersive and real-time online world, new ways of connecting the physical world with Extended Reality (XR) experiences are required. Online learning has become mainstream, and Education is mainly focusing on the integration of immersive technologies into academic curricula to make learning more engaging and conceivable. Thus, Metaverse is one of those focal points for educators to create 3D virtual classrooms. Additionally, heading towards Industry 5.0, huge amount of personal data is continuously uploaded to the Cloud. As such, Blockchain is required to improve the quality of online education by enhancing accreditation processes, including security issues and scalability. Therefore, in this research work the design and development of collaborative platform for the design of Product-Service Systems (PSS), encapsulating a plethora of virtual tools is presented. Ultimately, with the integration of Metaverse, Blockchain and their accompanying digital technologies, young engineers can coexist with their educators, industrial partners, and their colleagues, in an attempt to achieve greater engagement, learn by doing, and get familiar with foreign and multi-cultural educational systems. Consequently, the presented framework promotes design education based on the collaboration provided by Metaverse, and academic credits are granted for young engineers through the Blockchain framework.
The term Metaverse is emerging as a result of the late push by multinational technology conglomerates and a recent surge of interest in Web 3.0, Blockchain, NFT, and Cryptocurrencies. From a scientific point of view, there is no definite consensus on what the Metaverse will be like. This paper collects, analyzes, and synthesizes scientific definitions and the accompanying major characteristics of the Metaverse using the methodology of a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). Two revised definitions for the Metaverse are presented, both condensing the key attributes, where the first one is rather simplistic holistic describing “a three-dimensional online environment in which users represented by avatars interact with each other in virtual spaces decoupled from the real physical world”. In contrast, the second definition is specified in a more detailed manner in the paper and further discussed. These comprehensive definitions offer specialized and general scholars an application within and beyond the scientific context of the system science, information system science, computer science, and business informatics, by also introducing open research challenges. Furthermore, an outlook on the social, economic, and technical implications is given, and the preconditions that are necessary for a successful implementation are discussed.
This paper investigates the potential integration of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies with Additive Manufacturing in the context of architectural design and fabrication. The study aims to identify knowledge gaps, explore the affinity between these technologies, and challenge the current architecture production paradigm. Through a comprehensive state-of-the-art review and analysis of academic papers and industrial case studies, we identified emerging themes and gaps in the literature. We also examined the misalignment of incentives among key participants of the proposed systems. Our findings highlighted the relevance of blockchain technology in additive manufacturing, but also revealed significant challenges and misalignments in incentives among stakeholders. We argue that further research and experimentation are necessary to fully understand the technical feasibility and impact of integrating these technologies in architectural design and fabrication.
Open access
Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing Technologies
Digital technologies has transformed human experience in the virtual world. Metaverse work as a network of 3-D virtual worlds where human can interact, carry out business, and build connections through their ‘avatars’ or digital identity. These would also grant an access to digital ecosystem through its own currency, property and possessions. In the metaverse, disruptive technologies (such as AR and VR, Blockchain, AI, 3D reconstruction and IoT) support the trading of digital real estate assets (such as sales and purchase of virtual lands) in the form of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). Investment in real estate metaverse is currently experiencing a great return. Presently, real estate sales in the metaverse have been concentrated on the 'Big Four' — Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels and Somnium. Therefore, investment in digital real estate assets require some degree of skills and competencies in the metaverse. The concept of digital intelligence is a set of skills needed by investors to meet digital technologies' demand in trading of digital real estate assets and the virtual world's challenges. This paper therefore explore the need for digital intelligence in investing in digital real estate assets in the metaverse from a theoretical perspective. Review of relevant literature in the subject area was adopted for this study. This paper outlined the major benefits of digital intelligence in the purchase of digital real estate assets as identifying the virtual land with the highest traffic, understanding the digital footprints in a geospatial context among others. This paper provide policy implication on the need for investors in digital real estate assets to acquire necessary digital skills (such as digital: identity, rights, security, safety etc.) for a successful business transactions (sales and purchase of digital assets) in the metaverse.
The Metaverse is an online universe that combines virtual reality and augmented reality, linked together via a network.It has generated novel experiences that are fully engaging and transpire in real time, facilitating interpersonal communication and dialogue. Virtual environments with 3D space and avatars can boost patient-facing platforms, operational utilisation, digital education, diagnostics, and treatment choices in medicine and ophthalmology. Globally, there is an increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, with an estimated 25 percent of individuals presently contending with multiple chronic health issues. The management of chronic diseases is currently being rethought in light of the development of technology known together as "Smart Healthcare." A prime example is state-of-the-art wearable technology that incentivizes people to embrace healthier lifestyles through the monitoring of physiological indicators and metabolic processes. With better data organisation and analysis, chronic disease patients may benefit from improved health, privacy, and quality of life. Through the examination of physiological data acquired from wearable devices on a patient, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the capability to generate informed recommendations pertaining to the diagnosis and treatment of illness. These recommendations can be provided by AI. The adoption of blockchain technology (BC) has the potential to significantly advance healthcare in a variety of ways, including decentralised data sharing, user privacy, user empowerment, and dependability in data administration. The potential impact of Wearable Technologies (WT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Blockchain Technology (BC) on Chronic Disease Management (CDM) could be a transition in emphasis from the hospital to the patient. This article provides a patient-centered technical framework for controlling chronic diseases using artificial intelligence, blockchain, and wearable technologies. Our proposed architecture depends on Metaverse environment. In order to participate in the Metaverse, both patients and physicians need to sign up on the Blockchain network. After entering, customers will be accompanied by avatars throughout the experience. A comprehensive record of all information gathered during doctor-patient consultations, including text, videos, images, audio, and clinical data, will be compiled, uploaded to the blockchain, and stored in perpetuity. Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) algorithms examine these particulars in order to diagnose and forecast the progression of diseases. We conclude with a discussion of the constraints of this novel paradigm and recommendations for future research.