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Introducing The Metaverse Series

The Metaverse Series is a forthcoming series of books from Taylor & Francis which will explore the role, opportunities and challenges of...

Wednesday 13 March 2024

First manuscripts off to production

 


The final manuscripts for both The Metaverse: A Critical Introduction, and The Metaverse for Learning and Education have now been handed over to the production team, and we're hoping they'll both be out in September. David is now in the home straight on the manuscript for The Military Metaverse which will go off for peer review in May. Once that is gone we can start to focus on this web site and get that ready for the launch, and also start work on the microverse to support the series. With the sad demise of Mozilla's Hubs the microverse will almost certainly be on VirBela's Frame virtual world as its the best of the current crop of WebXR platforms which means that you won't need ot download any software to enter it - you can just use your web or HMD-VR browser.

The picture above is from the GoXR virtual world - a 3D model of Taiwan.


Monday 6 November 2023

First Manuscripts Done


 

Maggi and I have now completed the manuscripts for the first two books in the series:

  • The Metaverse: A Critical Introduction
  • The Metaverse for Learning and Education

These are now with the publishers and peer-reviewers. We hope to get feedback later in November and assuming there aren't too many issues to submit final versions of both manuscripts before Christmas. It's then over to the production engine at Taylor and Francis and hopefully the books will be out towards the end of 2Q24.

Once we get the revised manuscripts in we'll start to look at building not only the web presence here but also the VR presence.

Our other authors are also hard at work on their books, which should be released later into 2024 and on into 2025. We are also signing up new authors to further extend the series.

The picture is of David taking time out from writing to play with his new Quest 3 and the Arkio Mixed Reality application which can put a city model on his table.




Wednesday 5 April 2023

The Metaverse Series Update - Apr 2023

Just a very quick update on the progress of The Metaverse Series. We're about half way through with the first draft of the initial book, The Metaverse: A Critical Introduction. All is on schedule to deliver the manuscript to the publishers by the end of August.

We have contracts in place for 2 other books with writing underway by their authors. We also have 2 more books just going through the contracts process, and writing will hopefully be underway by the end of the month.

Finally we have a further 3 authors writing up proposals, and are having initial discussions with other authors beyond that.

There are lots of topics that we don't have authors for yet, including Literature and the Media, Business and Collaboration, Society, Climate Change, Anthropology, Economics, Marketing, Global South/Digital Divide/Digital Poverty, Children and Childhood, Fashion and Sexuality. 

If you think that you could write a book for the Series on any of these topics, or something we haven't explicitly mentioned, and have a good writing style and experience then please get in touch for an informal chat.





Thursday 5 January 2023

Series Topics

 As well as our initial book, The Metaverse: A Critical Introduction, the topics that we are planning, or are interested in for the series, include:

  • Education, Learning and Training
  • The Military Metaverse
  • Religion
  • Decision Making
  • Law
  • Therapy and Health
  • Identity & Sexuality
  • Philosophy & Ethics
  • Accessibility
  • Literature and the Media
  • Business and Collaboration
  • Society and Anthropology
  • Climate Change
  • Governments and Governance
  • Digital Amortality
  • Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
  • Economics
  • Marketing
  • Entertainment and Gaming
  • Arts and Fashion
  • Cybersecurity
  • The Global South
  • Spatial Environments
  • Politics, Campaigning and Extremism

If you are interested in knowing more about the series, or would even like to propose a book or chapter for the series, then please contact one of the series editors:

Prof. Maggi Savin-Baden:  m.savinbaden@worc.ac.uk
Eur. Ing. David Burden: david.burden@daden.co.uk

Introducing The Metaverse Series

The Metaverse Series is a forthcoming series of books from Taylor & Francis which will explore the role, opportunities and challenges of the Metaverse in the present and near future, from business and entertainment to our personal lives and to humanity’s future.

Social virtual worlds such as Active Worlds and Second Life gave an early glimpse of the possibilities of the Metaverse two decades ago. In recent years the widespread availability of virtual reality headsets, the pronouncements of companies like Meta and the increasing popularity of environments such as Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite and VRChat suggest that the Metaverse is a concept whose time may finally have come. 

The Metaverse Series will take a critical view of the potential and opportunities, dangers and challenges of the Metaverse. The series intends to focus more on the consensual social virtual space that the Metaverse creates rather than any specific technology used to build it. The value of the Metaverse  is that it offers people opportunities  to transcend and blur personal, cultural, geographic and temporal barriers, and even physical existence. Equally, inappropriate use may result in unimaginative education, unproductive collaboration, intolerance and psychological abuse, corporate greed and profiteering, and even government surveillance and control. Whilst many of its features are already finding their way into everyday activities, these early manifestations give little sense of the long term impact that the Metaverse could have on the future of humanity. Yet, even the form and scope of the “metaverse” are subject to debate, and this series will aim to ensure that such discussion is well informed.


Monday 19 December 2022

Forthcoming in 2023


This is a holding page ready for an exciting new Metaverse project coming in 2023. We hope to post more information in January, 2023, but in the meantime please contact metaverse@daden.co.uk for more information.