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7 Min
Key Highlights
Tampere, Finland is making waves as a pioneering Metaverse city. The city’s commitment to integrating the digital and physical worlds was highlighted at the Tampere Smart City Expo & Conference. The Metaverse is an immersive digital environment that aims to enhance the daily experiences of city dwellers and provide a thriving platform for businesses.
Tampere has taken a proactive approach to setting the future course for urban living. The city acts as a testing ground, inviting companies to implement their innovative solutions. According to Teppo Rantanen, the Executive Director of Growth, Innovation, and Competitiveness at the City of Tampere, the aim is to bolster the well-being of citizens, foster a positive urban experience, and create conducive conditions for everyday life.
Central to Tampere’s Metaverse development is the collaboration with industry-leading companies. Through partnerships with VTT, Microsoft, and Nokia, Tampere is utilizing the Metaverse to revolutionize urban planning and devise intelligent solutions for enhancing the lives of its residents.
Adding to Tampere’s Metaverse leadership is its commitment to sustainability, responsible data utilization, and ethical Metaverse practices. The focus on human-centric development ensures that technological advancements directly contribute to positive urban experiences.
Tampere believes that collaboration between cities, businesses, and ecosystem partners is vital to unlock the Metaverse's full potential. This collaborative approach positions Tampere as an inspiration for other cities and organizations to unite in shaping the future of human-centric urban living.
Key Highlights
Luxury conglomerate LVMH has formed a groundbreaking alliance with Epic Games, renowned for Fortnite and Unreal Engine, to reshape the creative direction of LVMH by integrating immersive product discovery experiences for customers. This alliance will enable LVMH and its Maisons to employ Epic's potent 3D creation utilities to fashion experiences like virtual fitting rooms, fashion shows, 360 product carousels, augmented reality, and the creation of digital twins.
Utilizing tools including Unreal Engine, Reality Capture, Twinmotion, and MetaHuman technology, LVMH aims to unlock substantial growth possibilities. The partnership's guiding principles align with LVMH's tradition of continually rejuvenating its offerings while honoring its invaluable assets and heritage. LVMH will draw on Epic's globally acclaimed expertise to enhance customer experiences in virtual domains, mirroring the Group's unmatched proficiencies in production and store networks.
Also, the collaboration fosters the digital acumen of LVMH teams, echoing the Group's emphasis on cultivating digital savoir-faire. Toni Belloni, LVMH Group Managing Director, emphasized the commitment to innovations that present novel experiences to customers.
LVMH Maisons have already started deploying solutions from Epic. For instance, Bulgari introduced a mesmerizing Metaverse experience titled “Virtual Rome” using Unreal Engine 5. Additionally, Louis Vuitton will showcase the “Digital Show Experience,” an interactive, immersive experience allowing visitors to experience the 2023 Fall-Winter Men’s show virtually.
Key Highlights
Hexagon AB, a global frontrunner in digital reality solutions, has proclaimed an alliance with NVIDIA Omniverse to facilitate industrial digital twin solutions. The collaboration converges industry-leading technologies from Hexagon and NVIDIA, producing seamless, multi-user workflows through a unified perspective for factory planning and design, as well as process quality optimization and operations.
In the framework of the collaboration, Hexagon's HxDR reality capture platform and Nexus manufacturing platform will integrate with NVIDIA Omniverse, a platform for the formulation and operation of industrial Metaverse applications grounded on the Universal Scene Description (USD) framework. The interlinked platforms supply complementary technologies that empower customers to propel manufacturing for digital factories and boost the capability of digital twins for intelligent cities, construction, and infrastructure.
Paolo Guglielmini, President and CEO of Hexagon, emphasized the coalition as an opportunity to combine reality capture, AI, simulation, data analysis, and visualization through harmonious collaborative planning platforms. The integration of NVIDIA technologies and Hexagon’s Smart Digital Realities assures solutions delivering real-time juxtapositions of real and virtual world models.
Hexagon's Smart Digital Realities transform digital twins through real-time data capture and analysis, offering a 360-degree view of the real world. This enhances productivity, quality, safety, and profitability when employed with simulated solutions.
Rev Lebaredian, Vice President of Omniverse and simulation technology at NVIDIA, mentioned the collaboration as an essential step in bridging the chasm between real and virtual worlds, enabling training robots in virtual worlds and bringing autonomy to industrial processes.
Key Highlights
Metaverse Beauty Week has embarked on a mission to exemplify the branding potential of the Metaverse through immersive games and events. This comes in the aftermath of heightened interest in Metaverse experiences, stimulated by Apple’s revelation of a new mixed reality headset and Louis Vuitton’s commitment to a Web3 presence.
This five-day event, which commenced on Monday, is organized by the Creative Agency Cult and is tailored to usher cosmetics brands into the Metaverse. The central goal is to underscore the benefits consumer brands can reap by establishing immersive and imaginative virtual marketing avenues.
Unlike the conventional connection between the Metaverse and fashion, which is relatively direct, translating cosmetics to the virtual domain presents an abstract challenge. This abstractness, however, creates room for innovation and creative brand expression. Brands have the freedom to design unique virtual experiences that represent their identity and values in the Metaverse.
Events are hosted on Web3 Metaverse platforms Decentraland and Spatial, and the Web2 platform Roblox, which boasts an astounding 66 million daily users. Beauty brands participating in the event include Neutrogena, Lush, Flannels, and Clementine. Visitors can navigate beauty-themed pop-up games and experiences, interact with brands, and indulge in imaginative virtual realities.
The initiative showcases the boundless possibilities that the Metaverse holds for consumer brands in building deeply engaging and innovative brand presences.
Key Highlights
The Metaverse is increasingly attracting cross-industry collaborations, with companies leveraging virtual worlds to engage audiences and extend brands.
Upland, a leading Web3 Metaverse SuperApp, has announced a significant partnership with Nowhere, a virtual gathering platform. They are introducing Metaventure Cafes, which allow users to socialize, share content, and play games in immersive spaces. Cafes are built on geographically located properties within the Upland platform, blending cutting-edge 3D technology and location-based social spaces.
In another development, RTFKT, a virtual sneaker studio acquired by Nike, has signed with CAA, a talent agency, aiming to expand its intellectual property into film and TV. Moreover, RTFKT and CAA will create webinars and educational programs for crypto and 3D-focused artists, indicating an educational shift within the Metaverse landscape.
Furthermore, DressX, a digital fashion marketplace, has announced a partnership with YouTube and TikTok star Mackenzie Turner to release an exclusive digital fashion collection for the Roblox Metaverse. The collection will feature three digital fashion wearables in three colorways, reflecting Mackenzie’s signature style.
These partnerships signify a strategic move by brands to utilize the Metaverse as a medium for brand extension, education, and digital fashion, heralding a new era of immersive online experiences.