Good morning, per crypto data site Dapp, virtual land worth more than USD100 million has sold in the last 7 days across the four largest metaverse sites, The Sandbox, Decentraland, CryptoVoxels, and Somnium Space.
If that does not rattle the industry professional in you, you are a certified virtual-land-believer.
However, this only goes to show that whichever side of reality you may dwell in, you will need a trusted, friendly newsletter every morning. Hint, hint.
Let the week begin.
Most Affordable Starter Homes In The World
While we were writing blurbs on the housing crisis, number crunchers at Investing Reviews were ranking countries according to their overall property affordability, and the results are out.
India Takes #1 Slot
Per this report, India is the top country in the world where homebuyers find it easier to purchase their first home and get on the property ladder.
Countries were ranked based on their overall 'Property Affordability Score', with 1 being the most affordable and 50 being the least.
🏆 Turns out, with a score of 9.33, India has the most affordable housing of all the G20, OECD and European Union countries.
What's Making Us So Affordable?
The survey found that in India, relatively low average salaries are offset by equally low property costs per square metre.
To top that up, very affordable utility costs in India helped it score big time in the rankings.
Tell Me More. . .
Per the final scoresheet, in India, the average. . .
- rent for a 915 sq. ft. apartment was around INR 3000
- internet cost (60 mbs minimum) was around INR 800
- price tag on a 495 sq. ft. apartment was around INR 31 lakh
- annual net salary was around INR 3.7 lacs, and
- the house price as a percentage of salary was 825%.
FYI, Turkey was at second place and Bulgaria at third.
The top-3 least affordable countries in the rankings were Luxembourg, Switzerland and South Korea.
Windmills Of Change
To be honest, it took us a while to accept that this winding road, with windmills for company snakes through Tamil Nadu.
Nitin Gadkari posted this image and explained on Twitter:
Nagercoil to Kavalkinaru section of NH-47B (New NH-944) is an important 4-lane road of Kanyakumari District that connects Nagercoil, to the 4-lane NH-44 (Srinagar to Kanyakumari) and inter connects NH-44 & NH-47 (Trivandrum to Kanyakumari).
5% At A Time
Last week, Google announced that it was indefinitely pushing back the mandated return-to-office date for employees due to concerns over Omicron.
However, many Googlers are returning to offices of their own free will.
Per Reuters, about 40% of Google's U.S. employees came in to the office daily in recent weeks, up from 20-25% three months ago.
And across its global locations, 5% more employees are returning to offices week after week.
🎙 David Radcliffe, Google's vice president for real estate and workplace services, said, "People are actually showing voluntarily that they want to be back in the office. We're moving in the right direction."
Grey Vs. Blue
Dear Monday Morning Blues,
Meet this cold, grey, death ray blast from the past. 😅
This undated image of the Crawford Market, Mumbai, shared by Vishal Bhargava on twitter, put us right back on track - quite like that tram.
Real Estate And Digital Twins
In 1970, a short while after being launched, a busted rocket fuel tank threatened the lives of three astronauts aboard Apollo 13. (Yes, that Tom Hanks movie by the same name.)
To save them, NASA engineers on the ground turned to a replica of Apollo 13, used resources they knew were available to the astronauts, to devise a safe method and got them back home safely.
Say Hello To Digital Twins
The re-creations or reconstructions of real-world objects, allowing everyone from developers to government officials to harness the power of sensors, AI, and connectivity to create real-time replications or simulations of real-world objects, networks, and constructions.
Real World Please
Okay, Rolls-Royce uses digital twins to help it manage thousands of commercial aircraft engines.
Embedded in all of them are hundreds of sensors that provide telemetry for each engine, including insight into engine health, performance, fuel usage, service needs, and more.
As the engines run in the real world, their digital twins create virtual thrust on servers concurrently, and sitting on a computer alone, engineers can tell exactly what is going on inside the real engines as they haul people and cargo across the skies.
Digital Twins In Real Estate
Those working with digital twin tech say the pandemic has increased demand for these solutions, particularly from the real estate, town planning and construction sectors.
It’s kind of important today because what the construction sector wants to do is add more and more remote employees. The fewer people they can actually bring to the job site, the safer the job site is.
The idea is to visually monitor the job site from their home in real time, in this virtual digital-twin environment.
Proof Of Concept?
Bentley Systems, a digital twin technology firm has already delivered a digital-twin project in 2016 - a 3D model of the entire city of Helsinki.
This digital twin of the real city is publicly available and is used to facilitate collaboration between government offices and the general public interested in the development of the city.
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Wishing you a great week ahead.
More blurbs tomorrow. 💚
☕ The Crew@Ginger Chai