Metaverse One

So Friday Sept.25 on the heels of the Engage Expo was FountainBlue's Annual Virtual World Conference " Virtual Worlds: Where We Were, Where We're Going, What Does It Mean to You? " The conference, held down at the Sun Microsystems campus , showcased presentations and panel discussions that featured key stakeholders, including entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, and investors in the virtual world space. The event kicked off with a presentation from host Michael Gialis, New Business Development for Sun Microsystem's Lab and Chief Technology Office. Michael is also one of the founders of the Virtual Worlds Roadmap Group and his presentation included results from a recent Virtual Worlds Roadmap industry survey. After Michael was CTO of Masher Media Barry Holroyd. Later in the day, Masher Media's virtual world was presented and I must say that it has a great art direction, looks fun for those of all ages (I will play it), and is another great example of Unity3D te...

Wednesday March 4 th was the Web3D Consortium's 2009 Outreach/Member meeting at NASA Ames research facility. The focus of the event was to reach out to those industries that use web3D, educate, and continue dialogue for how the 3D web open standard X3D and the Web3D Consortium can assist with some of the issues they are having and collaborate to advance the growth of these domains. A quick recap, web3D is any form of real-time interactive 3D. This includes virtual worlds, mirror worlds, augmented reality, simulation, web3D/mixed reality applications, and more. The Outreach event had a good turnout with those from both the web3D space, the virtual worlds industry, mirror worlds, and several web3D students. Guest Speaker Jay Cee Straley from Sprint, presented us his insight on Web3D technology and standards for the mobile platform. He demonstrated some very cool applications of web3D and augmented reality for mobile devices. Don Brutzman ( NPS ) and I ran the X3D plugfest tha...

Last week I donned my Web3D Consortium hat and participated in the second meeting of the Virtual Worlds Roadmap . Sponsored by Intel, Samsung, Electric Sheep Company , NGI Group , and Digital Space , the Virtual Worlds Roadmap seeks to increase the success rate of virtual world-based ventures and the productivity of investment through the publication and distribution of state-of-the-art thinking and analysis on: Visions of what value virtual world technology will bring to specific applications Technical and business barriers to achieving that value Case studies on successes to date A roadmap and timeline for achieving mass adoption of specific applications. This was an intimate group full of familiar faces from the virtual worlds space. The 3D web open standard (X3D) had great representation at the event from both the Web3D Consortium and Exit Reality . Many in the crowd were impressed by the power of the open standard. A series of various industry demos and applications I showed thro...