Guest Editorial: Networking Challenges and Opportunities for Multi-UserXR and the Metaverse

Bo Han, Tristan Braud, Mario Di Francesco, Maria Gorlatova, Luyang Liu, Gábor Sörös, Pengyuan Zhou

Abstract: The articles in this special issue focus on the latest research and identify future opportunities for multi-user extended reality and the Metaverse. Immersive technologies, such as virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR, AR, and MR), which are often referred to as a universal term - extended reality (XR), have enabled numerous appealing applications in education, training, entertainment, healthcare, etc. While recent research on immersive computing and communication has focused mainly on improving the quality of experience for single-user scenarios, the emerging applications enabled by XR, especially the burgeoning Metaverse, naturally involve multiple geographically distributed users.