Some Serious Virtual WorldsA Portfolio of Non-Game Virtual Worlds

Applications 1996-2008Presented by Bruce Damer

Founder-Contact Consortium, CEO-DigitalSpaceA special presentation to Serious Virtual Worlds 2008, Sept 11,

2008

1996: Sherwood Forest TowneFirst Sociological Study of Live Online Virtual World

Contact Consortium, Cabrillo College, UC Santa Cruz

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

Innovations: Talking Circle, Shared Collaborative Group Building

1997: Nerve Garden: Generative Virtual SpacesLearning about Biology

Biota.org, Nerve Garden, Siggraph, Ars Electronica

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

1998: VLearn3DFirst serious Pedagogical uses of Virtual Worlds

VLearn3D SIG and annual cyberconference, Cornell, UC Santa Cruz, U Indiana

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

1998: IHI WorldFirst use of a virtual world as a corporate support space

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

1998: Experimental Collaboration Spaces Datafusion “war room”

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

1999: Experimental Learning SpacesA virtual walk on the moon

Narrative by Russell Schweickart, Apollo IX astronaut

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

Some Serious Virtual Worlds1999: Experimental Learning Spaces

A virtual walk on the moonNarrative by Russell Schweickart, Apollo IX astronaut

Some Serious Virtual Worlds1999: Experimental Learning Spaces

A virtual walk on the moonNarrative by Russell Schweickart, Apollo IX astronaut

2002-07: DoToLearn: reaching the autistic childNIH funded project with Dr. Dorothy Strickland and Galen Brandt

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

2002-07: DoToLearn: Songs and Games, learning spaces for Autistic and FAS children (www.do2learn.com)

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

2003: Avatars and Fashion(Fashion Institute of Technology, NY, with Daria Dorosh, Galen Brandt and

Steve DiPaola)

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

Some Serious Virtual Worlds2003: Avatars and Fashion

(Fashion Institute of Technology, NY, with Daria Dorosh, Galen Brandt and Steve DiPaola)

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

2007: Cyberwearz iDoubletStreet World <-> Virtual World

1996

The Avatars Cyber-ConferencesFirst experiments in large scale in-world events

2004

1998 1999

2000

2001

2002 2003

1997

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

Avatars ’98 Inside Cyberspace!Creating the first large scale inworld cyber-conference

event - planning & architecture…

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

…building, event schedule, speakers, art gallery,

webcam wall, avvy awards, policing, reportage.

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

Going live, November 20, 1998 with 1,000 simultaneous

users in 5 platforms, all on dial-up connections

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

Some Serious Virtual WorldsAvatars ’99 Colonizing Cyberspace

Avatars 2000 – Cyberspace for a New Millennium: Metaphor of the Space Station: easier cognitive navigability

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

Avatars 2001 - A Cyberspace OdysseySome Serious Virtual

Worlds

2008: Virtual Worlds and Space @ NASASecond Life/CoLab, Will Wright/Spore

Some Serious Virtual Worlds-NASA

Virtual Worlds and Space – DigitalSpace (open source 3D)

2000-2008 Human and Robotic Spaceflight Design Simulations

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

2004: Telerobotically build a Lunar base.

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

2005-2006: Design simulation of lunar rover for ice exploration.

2007: Design for a human mission to an asteroid

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

2008: Hubble Servicing Mission Public Learning Simulation

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

2008: Hubble Servicing Mission Public Learning Simulation

Some Serious Virtual Worlds

Some Questions to Consider:What does the future hold for Serious Virtual

Worlds? Vertical Markets, Small Budgets? Use Specialized or Common Platforms? Role of Open Source? Will Game Play Worlds always dominate? Are they really useful in business? Fighting the

dominant (convenient) paradigms of 2D webex? What do VWs bring to learning, to

communicating, to expression that other media don’t?

How to overcome VWs high cognitive overload, learning and brain processing curves?

Acknowledgements and ResourcesWe would like to thank our funding agencies

and institutions including NASA, Adobe, Xerox, Boeing, Raytheon, European Space Agency, SGI, Microsoft, Intel, The Banff Center, Cambridge University, UCSC, Cornell, USC, and numerous other collaborators.

www.digitalspace.com DigitalSpace www.ccon.org Contact Consortium www.biota.org Biota Special Interest Group www.vlearn3d.org VLearn3D Special Interest

Group www.cyberwearz.com Cyberwearz Fashions www.do2learn.com Learning Games DigiBarn Computer Museum:

www.digibarn.com