The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
An overview of the Metaverse1 Initiative
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (1)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Introduction by: Yesha, the Metaverse1 Architect
1.
Metaverse will be big.
Big for Business
Even bigger for society
2.
Metaverse defined: 3D3C
3D, Community, Creation, Commerce
3.
Standards are THE key for the Metaverse
Hence: Metaverse1 project
More Info:
 Blog: www.dryesha.com
 Site www.metaverse-labs.com
 If anyone wants lab space in SL
please send me email.
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (2)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1 Initiative Major Challenge
Metaverse1
Global standards among real and virtual
worlds
Bridging the gaps
 within virtual worlds &
 between virtual and real worlds
Creating your next life
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (3)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1 is proposed to ITEA2
 ITEA: Information Technology for European Advancement
 ITEA is an
EUREKA Cluster Project
 Aim: Stimulate and support the development of software
technology for the benefit of the European industry
 ITEA (1);
 Eight year program divided in 8 calls for proposals
 At the end of 2005: 85 projects (duration between 2 and 3
years) with in total some 400+ partners from 23 countries
 Some 10,000 person-years have been invested so far
 Funding is by National Authorities
 Normally pre-competitive industrial R&D is funded with 50%
ITEA-2 started in 2006, again for eight years aiming at doubling the
investment compared to ITEA
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (4)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1: Abstract
 The Metaverse1 project will provide:
a standardized global framework enabling the
interoperability between:
 Virtual worlds (as for example Second Life, World of Warcraft, IMVU,
Active Worlds, Google Earth and many others) and the
 Real world (sensors, actuators, vision and rendering, social and welfare
systems, banking, insurance, travel, real estate and many others).
 Metaverse1 “for all’ will pay special attention at
,
the eInclusion * ** of minorities in the society …
*
eInclusion is about making sure that everyone in society can benefit from the opportunities offered by
new information and communications technologies inclusive of the emerging virtual worlds
**
The project will focus on specific scenarios, such as: tourism, eInclusion, support for elderly /
disabled / minorities and entertainment, infotainment & edutainment. These application scenarios will
be specified in the beginning of the project
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (5)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1: Metaverse1 Laboratory in SL
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (6)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1: Goals and Showstoppers
The Metaverse1 goal is to offer the power to reshape the way companies
interact with their environments (markets, customers, suppliers,
stakeholders, etc.) in a fashion comparable to the Internet did
As such Metaverse1 allows for the development of new (breakthrough)
business models, services, applications and devices
Unfortunately, currently there are a number of showstoppers*:
 No feedback-interfaces exist into / from real world
 No security, trust and privacy management
 Metaverse content cannot be ported between virtual worlds
 Metaverses are limited to “chat / text” oriented interaction
 Metaverses are imperfect and incomplete
 Metaverses are fragmented
 Metaverses use different and cumbersome technology
 No profound and sound knowledge on business models
 No knowledge on who, how and why do people engage
 No mechanisms to balance viral brand enhancement
* Order indicates descending relevance for standardization
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (7)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1: Market Relevance
The concepts behind the Metaverse1 project potentially have a high market
value in terms of the social and economic impact:

The social aspects, including the eInclusion, are important from the
point of view that more processes and services move from the ‘real’ to
the virtual world.



The societal and sociable values will be taken into account on an equal
basis as the value proposition for the entertainment & gaming business.
Making the eInclusion functionalities available for all segments and
groups of the European citizens, without excluding groups with limited
social, cultural, economic or technical abilities, is a major theme.
From an economic point of view the emerging virtual market has a high
growth potential. It will certainly replace for some part existing markets
but will also certainly create new market opportunities.

It’s very important in this context that agreements / interfaces /
standards are being developed to guide the economy, privacy, security,
fairness, inclusion, ethics and the like in and between the virtual worlds
and the ‘real’ world.
Note that the anticipated social and economic impact require good
interoperability between the very many and independently developed and
exploited virtual worlds and the ‘real’ world.
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (8)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1: interfacing real & virtual worlds …
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (9)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1: Anticipated Tech. Innovations
The Metaverse1 project will develop a global framework, driven by the
selected application domains*, to achieve interoperability between the
various technologies that are being applied in the existing and evolving
virtual worlds as well as the associated ‘real’ worlds.
Some of these essential technology innovations can already be identified at
this stage like for instance: **
 Interfaces for displays, control devices, sensors, robotics, …
 Definition of a framework for security, trust, privacy, …
 Interfaces supporting avatar mobility and platform diversification
 User profile characterization
 Combining the new media paradigm with the best of traditional media
 Application & service development platform
 Business-models
 Development of avatar based marketing strategies
* Please refer to next slide for the ‘selected application domains’
** Order indicates descending relevance for standardization
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (10)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1: Selected Application Domains


Training/Learning/Simulation (serious games for training, learning & simulation)

Serious Games for Disaster management

VR/AR based remote cooperative maintenance systems

Language Learning
Tourism (including virtual travel to bypass practical obstacles of any kind) *, **



eInclusion (local, country, European government, cultural, historical, political, religious)


Virtual Traces of Real Places
Support for Elderly / Disabled / Minorities (including social presence, medical support ..)


Interplay of Virtual and Real World Social Behavior
Social Presence (being at ‘home’ while away, content sharing, experience sharing ..)


Virtual Travel
Virtual museum
Serious gaming for Ambient Assisted Living
Entertainment, Infotainment & Edutainment

Interplay of Virtual and Real World Social Behavior
* Supported by the Patronato de Turismo de Gran Canaria.
** Supported by the Technical County Museum Mecklenburg-Vorpommern TCM
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (11)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1: use case illustrations …
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (12)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1: Major Expected Results
The major visible results of the Metaverse1 project will be the following*:










Standards for the global framework and specific interfaces for existing and
Metaverse1 technologies
Global Framework requirements (SOTA and use cases based)
Global Framework design, implementation
(Missing) essential technologies definition
 SOTA and use cases derived
State of the art overview (SOTA) inventory
Use cases addressing specific customer target groups
Metaverse1 technology extensions design and implementation
Integration of Global Framework
 with existing and Metaverse1 developed technologies
Use case driven demonstrators for focused user groups
(with the Virtual European Cities as user interaction metaphor)
Use Case driven validation with the focused user groups for all targeted
application domains
* Order indicated descending relevance for standardization
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (13)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1: Exploitation & Dissemination
For the dissemination and exploitation of the results of the Metaverse1
project several mechanisms will be used:

Standardization and dissemination related to ISO/IEC MPEG*, TC37/SC4
and / or W3C's SMIL with contributions in the area of the definition of
architecture, interoperability interfaces and meta-data

Conferences in the domain of virtual worlds, internet standards and
meta-data
Tutorials at related conference to disseminate the ideas and seek
corporation with other projects, consortia, companies and initiatives
Demonstrators at conferences and (trade) shows to show the benefits
of the use of the global framework with the use case driven
demonstrators within the Virtual European Cities
Workshops & courses organized by the Metaverse1 project to create
awareness and educate in the application of the global framework and
the Metaverse1 technologies



* Initial discussion with MPEG have already taken place, an MPEG output document
“w9196 Metaverse: Context & Objectives” has been published.
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (14)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1: Virtual City Metaphor …
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (15)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1: Consortium Overview
The Metaverse1 consortium, 47 partners, is build from participants of
large and small & medium industry as well as academia / institutes
from 8 participating countries




The large industry representatives are: Philips Research, Philips I-lab, Philips
Design, Forthnet S.A., Alcatel-Lucent Bell N.V., Innovalia, Telefonica I&D, ESI,
FAST, Siemens IT, arvato systems GmbH and Alcatel-Lucent France.
The small & medium enterprises are representative by: DevLab, UsableWeb,
Nazooka, CBT, Nextel, Carsa, Avantalia, I&IMS, VicomTECH, E-PYME, SiteOS,
Radon Labs, Metaverse Labs, Geosim Systems Ltd., IRS[N], EMI and Centre Henri
Tudor.
The academia & institutes are represented by: Technical University Eindhoven,
Utrecht University, University of Twente, Stg. EPN, VU Economics & BA, VU
CAMeRA, Ellinogermaniki Agogi, IBBT-SMIT, UPF-MTG, University of Rostock, CLAB / University of Paderborn, Fraunhofer IGD RostockC-Lab, TCM MecklenburgVorpommern, CEA List, CNRS – LIFL, Loria/Inria Lorraine, GIE INTRA and
ENSOSP.
The participating counties are: The Netherlands (10 partners), Greece (3 partner),
Belgium (3 partners), Spain (11 partners), Germany (9 partners),
Israel (2 partners), France (8 partners) and Luxembourg (1 partner).
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (16)
The ITEA2 Call2 Metaverse1 Initiative
- Global standards among real and virtual worlds; your next life -
Metaverse1: Consortium Overview (Cont.)
A large number and variety of capabilities are required to complete this
challenging task, the consortium has all these capabilities on board:



Domain oriented: implication of information and communication technology
for society in healthcare and virtual worlds, economics and law focusing on
the interwoven physical and virtual reality, well-being, e-Tourism, real estate
management, city planning, homeland security, serious games for the
security & crisis management, tourism, learning, training (for instance for
firefighters), edutainment, entertainment, elderly care, ambient assisted living,
creation of precise and realistic 3D-models of actual cities, integrating of 3Dmodels city-related content …
Technology oriented: physical avatars, high level interfaces & programming
for avatars, embodied & multi-agents, mobile robotics, mobile motion
tracking, wireless sensor networks, Metaverse information security and
security framework, authoring environments, Metaverse service development
platforms & tools …
Business / Operational oriented: Metaverse business models, business
management strategies, seamless crossing virtual and real worlds, usability
engineering, human media interaction, multimodal interaction,
recommendation and user profiling, service-oriented architectures, service
management for fixed/mobile service, service personalization and adaptation,
new security and trust concepts the Metaverse …
ITEA2 07016 Metaverse1 (17)