The term "METAVERSE" (META= BEYOND) and (VERSE=UNIVERSE) can be regarded as the evolution of the Internet where there will be almost no separation between digital and physical. This will be made possible thanks to the convergence of key emerging technologies such as Extended Reality (XR) (the umbrella term for Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR)), Mulsemedia as well as Hologram Type Communication (HTC). In this talk, the XR, Mulsemedia, HTC technologies are explored and according research challenges concerning wireless communications for the next decade are presented. XR, Mulsemedia and HTC provide truly immersive experiences for a plethora of use cases for the Networking 2030 and Beyond. They face great challenges in transmitting high volume data with high throughput and guaranteed end-to-end latency which cannot be addressed by existing/current communication technologies. In this talk, a roadmap towards wireless ultimate XR, Mulsemedia and HTC technologies is presented. The basics, existing products and use cases of these technologies are reviewed. Upon which technical requirements and bottlenecks of realizing these technologies within wireless communication systems are identified.

I.F. Akyildiz (Life Fellow, IEEE) received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Erlangen–Nürnberg, Germany, in 1978, 1981, and 1984, respectively. He served as the Ken Byers Chair Professor in Telecommunications, the Past Chair of the Telecom Group at the ECE, and the Director of the Broadband Wireless Networking Laboratory, Georgia Institute of Technology, from 1985 to 2020. He is the Founder and President of the Truva Inc, a consulting company) since 1989. He is also an Advisory Board member at the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, since June 2020. He is the Founder and the Editor-in-Chief of the newly established of International Telecommunication Union Journal on Future and Evolving Technologies (ITU J-FET) since August 2020. He had many international affiliations during his career and established research centers in Spain, South Africa, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Russia and India. Dr. Akyildiz is an IEEE Fellow since 1996, and ACM Fellow since 1997. He received numerous awards from IEEE, ACM, and other professional organizations, including Humboldt Award from Germany and Tubitak Award from Turkey. In April 2023, according to Google Scholar his h-index is 136 and the total number of citations to his articles is more than 140+K. His current research interests include Networking 2030, Metaverse, Mulsemedia Communication, Hologram and Extended Reality Communication, 6G/7G wireless systems, TeraHertz Communication, Underwater Communication.

In this talk, the novel concept of simultaneously transmitting and reflecting surfaces (STARS) will be introduced. First, the STAR basics will be introduced. In particular, the fundamental signal modelling, performance limit characterization, practical operating protocols, and joint beamforming design will be discussed. Then, the coupled phase-shift STAR model, AI enabled STARS, and channel estimation methods will be focused. Furthermore, several promising case studies of employing STARS will be put forward, including STAR-NOMA, spatial analysis for STARS, federated learning with STARS, and STARS enabled integrated sensing and communications (ISAC). Finally, research opportunities and problem as well as commercial progress of STARS.

Yuanwei Liu is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in  School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) , London, U.K. (Aug. 2021-present), where he started as a Lecturer at Sept. 2017. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at King's College London (KCL) , London, U.K. (Sep. 2016- Aug. 2017). He received the Ph.D. degree from QMUL in 2016. He currently serves as a Senior Editor of IEEE Communications Letters, an Editor of IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Transactions on Communications. He is a IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Distinguished Lecturer and a Senior Member of the IEEE. Dr. Liu is the recipient of the 2020 [IEEE ComSoc Outstanding Young Researcher Award for the Europe, Middle East and Africa Region], the [2020 Early Achievement Award of the IEEE ComSoc - Signal Processing and Computing for Communications (SPCC) Technical Committee], and the recipient of the [2021 IEEE CTTC Early Achievement Awards]. More information can be found in Google Scholar and Linkedin.

The Internet is not just 'a network of networks' but the societal fabric of the 21st century. This dual nature creates specific challenges both on a technical and societal level. In the networking community we are seeing a trend to change the perspective from purely technical enhancements towards the broader needs of the networked society. One way to address these demands is to look at the current Internet architecture, the protocols that govern the data transmission and change them so that we can provide additional transparency, accountability and controllability of Internet services. These three aspects are what we call the TAC triad of a Responsible Internet. In my talk I will present my current research effort in this direction, and show how moving towards more trustable infrastructures enables data sharing applications and services that comply with the desired security levels of the data owners.