Metaverse One

Back in November, China officially launched the China Recreation District (CRD). An initiative to create a virtual economy providing infrastructure and platforms through which any business from anywhere can come in "world" and sell their real-world products and services. CRD is a partnership between private industry and the Chinese government operating in an 80-square-kilometer complex in West Beijing that is still under development. This huge facitily houses 200 game and multimedia content producers, incubators, room for virtual worlds partners (China Mobile, Everbright Bank), data centers, entrepreneurship centers, training facilities, in time a real-world amusement park, a game center, and more. I had a chance to interview CRD's Chief Scientist Robert Lai at the Virtual Worlds Expo and Conference 2007 in San Jose,Ca to find out what he thinks about virtual worlds. CRD operates under the "DOTMAN" brand with six virtual spaces: DOTLIFE - provides 3D models and...

Lets time travel back to Oct. 10 2007. Perhaps you remember this headline: IBM and Linden Lab Launch Collaboration to Further Advance the 3D Internet . IBM and LL plan to collaborate on: 1. "Universal" Avatars: Exploring technology and standards for users of the 3D Internet to seamlessly travel between different virtual worlds. Users could maintain the same “avatar” name, appearance and other important attributes (digital assets, identity certificates, and more) for multiple worlds. The adoption of a universal “avatar” and associated services are a possible first step toward the creation of a truly interoperable 3D Internet. 2. Security-rich Transactions: Collaborating on the requirements for standards-based software designed to enable the security-rich exchange of assets in and across virtual worlds. This could allow users to perform purchases or sales with other people in virtual worlds for digital assets including 3D models, music, and media, in an environment with robust ...