Virtual Worlds News

Cube3 Releases Virtual Office On 3DXplorer

Cube3 has announced the launch of OfficePodz, a new virtual office tool for collaboration, meetings, and more. The competition for this sort of application is heating up as organizations look to cut costs for travel. One advantage for OfficePodz is the lack of any need for an installation. Running on Altadyn's 3DXplorer, OfficePodz is ready to go on just about any computer with Java and Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari already installed.

Visual Purple And BTS Partner To Transition Computer-Based Training For Virtual Worlds

Earlier this month, Visual Purple and BTS partnered to release a demo of a virtual world training environment developed from an existing computer-based training (CBT) module. For those not familiar with the difference, in many ways it comes down to push versus pull. 

CBT programs typcially push users down one path, like a tutorial. Translating that into a virtual world puts users in an immersive environment, often one typical of a real life work environment,  where he or she can roam free (with a bit of guidance) and encounter lessons in a more natural fashion. It encourages exploration rather than rote learning. Together BTS and Visual Purple are working to help companies make that transition from existing CBT lessons  to virtual environments.

Qwaq Simplifies Virtual Work With Forums 2.0, Announces Navy And Chevron As Customers

Today Qwaq announced the release of Forums 2.0, its latest offering for secure virtual workspaces and collaboration. I had a chance last week to go through a demo and interview in Forums with CEO Greg Nuyens. Between the ease of use, range of applications, and flexibility it's easy to see why big names are signing on as clients. According to the company, Qwaq has surpassed 100 enterprise customers, including, as announced today, the U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center and Chevron.

Large swathes of the update were driven by customer requests, said Nuyens. The goal is to make Forums both simple and robust--and available across a wide variety of environments. The basics (a virtual world with document sharing and editing, avatars built to follow each other and reduce the need for training, instantaneous desktop sharing, etc.) are impressive enough, but Forums 2.0 is all about "fitting in to real workflows," said Nuyens.

3Di Launches Browser-Based Viewer And Enterprise Platform For OpenSim

Today 3Di announced the release of its browser-based viewer and Enterprise Version 1.0 server software for OpenSim. 3Di is based in Tokyo and largely funded by ngi group and NTT Investment Partners, both with strong interests in the virtual worlds space. The company originally announced its viewer project last September with plans to move past OpenSim to Second Life and other worlds. 3Di OpenSim was also announced that fall. 

IBM Brings Conversive's Automated Conversation To Second Life

One of IBM's more public-facing efforts in virtual worlds is its Virtual Green Data Center in Second Life. The company uses the interactive platform to show off its green-themed technologies. It's a great opportunity for one-to-one connection, but that can be a resource drain. As an alternative for when human guides can't be there to man an avatar, IBM announced today that it had integrated Conversive's Live Automation solution.

Gartner Video: Economy Driving Innovation

Steve Prentice, vice president and Gartner fellow, has been following virtual worlds for some time and tracking the progression of the medium on Gartner's Hype Cycle. In a video discussion from earlier this week, Prentice briefly touches on the state of virtual worlds and how the economy is driving innovation.

ThinkBalm Conducting New Study On Business Value Of Virtual Worlds

ThinkBalm opened up a new study today on the business value of virtual worlds in the workplace. Sponsored by Altadyn, Forterra Systems, Linden Lab, ProtonMedia, Qwaq, and Tandem Learning, the study will consist of two parts, an anonymous online survey and in-depth interviews. The team at ThinkBalm is now scheduling interviews with people personally involved in using immersive environments for work and has opened up the survey as well--no solution providers, sales, or marketing staff allowed.

One of the major challenges facing virtual worlds for work this year is the lack of publicly available data and information about ROI and hard results. Businesses are looking for ways to cut costs from travel and meetings budgets, but they want to know they're buying in to the right solution as well. The results will be freely available in May, so I encourage you to go ahead and chip in your two cents if you fit the criterion. You can find info about the project here and the survey here.

Cisco's Holly A Personalized Avatar Concierge

Cisco was one of the early enterprise drivers of virtual worlds, promoting them for collaboration and community building. The company has become a little less publicly involved over the last year, but virtual worlds are still in the mix for its research and development teams. Today at UT's Virtual World Conferenc, Anne Lange, Director of Public Sector WW operations and Media at Cisco, said that the company is working to be ready for virtual worlds when consumers are.

But virtual worlds are only one part of of the Web 2.0 mix the company is experimenting with. They're an important part, though, or at least one avatar named Holly is.

9 Partners Using Alpha Of Second Life In A Box

One of the major barriers to using Second Life as a tool for business or general collaboration is the open nature. While some prefer to have their assets and sims connected to the rest of the virtual world, anyone working with proprietary information is a little more sensitive about privacy. Linden Lab, in an effort to bring in the business world, is trying to remedy that with a sim in a box solution, letting organizations bring their virtual environments behind the firewall.  

Today on the Second Life blog, the company announced that it was currently in alpha with nine partners and moving towards general availability this year.

Green Phosphor Introduces Glasshouse For 3D Data Visualization

Green Phosphor has begun showing off its first product, Glasshouse, a solution aimed at turning data and database queries into interactive 3D objects in a virtual world. The end result, Ben Lindquist, Founder and CEO, explains on CyberTech News, is a new and, ideally, more useful way of interacting with our data and programs by treating them as avatars. In the long run, that could mean things like interacting with a search engine through a librarian avatar, a la "Snowcrash." For now, it's an improvement on the static spreadsheet.

"Much of the value of looking at data has to do with getting in touch with history rather than trying to look at realtime feeds with everfiner granularity," Lindquist wrote in one example. "There is tremendous value in looking at the past in objective ways - and the best objectivity comes from hard, unadulterated data. Combine data visualization and visible process simulation with massive collaboration - crowdsourcing, masterminds formed by teams - and the human race can be more intelligent."

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