Meta Platforms has partnered with technology giant Microsoft to bring a range of Microsoft Office 365 products into Meta’s Virtual Reality (VR) platform, aiming to entice companies into working in virtual environments. During Meta’s Connect 2022 keynote on Oct. 11, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said its Teams video calling app would integrate with Meta’s “Quest” and newly unveiled “Quest Pro” VR headset allowing people to gather in a virtual space akin to a boardroom. Familiar Microsoft productivity applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and SharePoint will also be made available within Meta’s VR. Nadella added future functionality would include …

OpenSea has officially opened up support for the Avalanche blockchain, with the move providing broader access for the network’s native NFT projects and faster transactions for OpenSea users. The Avalanche team noted in an Oct. 12 blog post that around 10 of the network’s native NFT projects have been initially listed on OpenSea, with more to come. “On Avalanche, OpenSea users will benefit from the fastest time to finality for NFT trades — regularly settling transactions in under a second — and consistently low transaction fees as a result of Avalanche’s success in horizontally scaling with Subnets,” the post reads. …

Ethereum (ETH) blockchain-based Metaverse projects Decentraland (MANA) and Sandbox (SAND) have hit back at reports suggesting low daily user activity on platforms, arguing a “misinformed” metric was used to measure each of the platforms' Daily Active Users (DAU). The controversy appears to have come from data originating from DappRadar, with observers suggesting the Decentraland metaverse sees 30 Daily Active Users despite having over $1.2 billion in market cap. Decentraland ( $MANA ) has 30 Daily Active Users and a $1.2 Billion Market Cap pic.twitter.com/u4MBNsWvwk — SHAKE (@0x_shake) October 6, 2022 However, Decentraland said in an Oct. 8 tweet that “some …

Artificial intelligence ecosystem Multiverse Labs has launched a new metaverse city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a move the emirate said could enhance the region’s tourism industry. The new metaverse city, dubbed Sharjahverse, was described by Multiverse Labs as a “photorealistic, physics-accurate” metaverse that encompasses the emirate’s 1,000 square-mile surface area. The virtual city will support the local tourism industry and potentially create new metaverse jobs, which aligns with efforts announced by the neighboring emirate Dubai earlier this year. The metaverse city is backed by the Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority, or SCTDA, which is the main government …

A blockchain gaming ecosystem says play-and-earn represents "the next wave of disruption" in this $250 billion industry. Catheon Gaming says the cutting-edge technology that immutable ledgers provide tackles many of the shortcomings that exist in traditional games. In-game assets are completely owned by players, monetizable, and transferable. Rather than focusing on releasing a single game, this project wants to cultivate a vibrant ecosystem that'll endure beyond the life cycle of any one title. Catheon says it currently boasts a large and growing portfolio of 25 games — and this will be further enriched with the development of its very own …

United Arab Emirates (UAE) has emerged as one of the fastest-growing destinations for Web3 projects, thanks to the initiatives taken by its government. A recent research report published by the Web3 platform Crypto Oasis Ecosystem highlighted the dominance of UAE in the Web3 economy as it identified more than 1,450 active Web3 organizations with nearly 7,000 individuals. The report divided Web3-based projects into two categories, namely native blockchain projects and non-native ones. The native blockchain projects are those which are solely based on the native decentralized technology and currently, there are 950 organizations (65%) working towards it while 35% or …

While public interest in the Metaverse has not been completely lost, brands are trying to make the most of its popularity. Many luxury brands have already jumped on the gamification bandwagon, selling branded skins and buying land in the Metaverse. We have already visited Decentraland Fashion Week, played the Balenciaga game and regularly watched digital collections move from the mass market to luxury markets. In addition, in Web3, there is a serious beef between the Hermès brand and artist Mason Rothchild, the man behind the nonfungible token (NFT) MetaBirkins furry bags. This event has attracted public attention to the fact …

Some critics deem nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to be totally worthless. They don’t see the point. Why should they? The industry hasn’t covered itself in glory with countless rug pulls and celebrity endorsements with prompt pump-and-dumps. But, this is missing the point. Already most of the digital and physical objects we use in real life are unique, they are not fungible: this means they cannot be copied, substituted or subdivided. Detractors might still say, well, what’s the point? NFTs are immutable and verifiable assets on the blockchain — these sound like industry buzzwords with little meaning. However, they go a long …

We're all familiar with the concept of play-to-earn — but now, there's a thrilling new crypto trend on the block: party-to-earn. But what exactly does party-to-earn mean… and how does it differ? In Cointelegraph's latest live AMA, we're joined by three experts from the world of electronic music. They'll tell us how this vibrant genre can thrive in the Metaverse — and attract a new legion of fans in the 21st century — through a project called Klubcoin. ClubbingTV's CEO Stephane Schweitzer will be on hand to answer your questions during the broadcast — alongside the company's COO Laureline Teste …

Increasing interest in the Metaverse has been seen as a reason for Decentraland native token MANA and memecoin Shiba Inu's (SHIB's) outpaced growth on retail trading platform eToro over the past 12 months. In an Oct. 7 report shared with Cointelegraph, eToro stated that MANA and SHIB saw the biggest year-on-year surge in hodlers in the most recent quarter, rising 437% and 269% apiece compared to Q3 2021. Other notable hodler increases on eToro platform included Enjin (ENJ), Polygon (MATIC), and Basic Attention Token (BAT) with increases 229%, 107% and 107%, respectively. eToro crypto market analyst Simon Peters said that …

Paris Fashion Week 2022 consisted of 64 shows and 42 presentations, many of which demonstrated the future of fashion. From the sprayed-on dress worn by supermodel Bella Hadid at the Coperni show to upcycled fresh looks consisting of recycled garments, Paris Fashion Week brilliantly highlighted trends for upcoming seasons. While the majority of Fashion Week attendees and designers celebrated physical elements — such as in-person fashion shows and tangible designs — a handful of creators incorporated Web3 features to demonstrate fashion’s enormous digital potential. Web3 democratizes fashion Shedding light on this, Victor Weinsanto, a French designer who launched his brand …

Australian-based Web3 game studio Ninja Syndicate's CEO and founder believes GameFi could usher in a new era where users can earn a living wage through blockchain games. Speaking to Cointelegraph, founder John Nguyen and CEO Alex Dunmow say that traditional jobs are increasingly at risk through factors such as automation. According to the game developers, blockchain games can and are playing a vital role for people to earn a living in the digital world through play-to-earn (P2E) and move-to-earn. The process often requires significant work, but Dunmow says many mainstream triple-A games already feature "grinding for hundreds of hours," though …