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Opening the Metaverse

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Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual

Part of the book series: Human-Computer Interaction Series ((HCIS))

Abstract

Virtual worlds (VWs) have the ability to deliver enhanced visualization and simulation capabilities, and to support contextualized copresence, so they have the potential to serve large numbers of work organizations, educators, trainers, and scholars. To accomplish this, they must evolve into a metaverse that would make it easy for anyone to create and distribute 3D virtual information spaces that are collaborative, persistent, and interoperable, and that provide a shared social context for unifying and integrating resources, multimedia content, along with grid and cloud-based computing services on demand. On the basis of the example of the Web, the new global metamedium supporting the open metaverse must (1) be open and nonproprietary, (2) include a VW browser analogous to today’s open source web browsers for viewing and interacting with VWs, and (3) provide 3D hyperlink capability for traversing VW contexts. The Open Cobalt project seeks to accomplish this revolution by building and deploying a virtual-machine-based technology that functions as a VW browser and construction toolkit, and as an integrated development environment for accessing, creating, and publishing hyperlinked VWs.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Second Life usage statistics. See http://secondlife.com

  2. 2.

    http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_projects.nsf/pages/virtualworlds.index.html

  3. 3.

    Second Life Economic Statistics (raw data files) retrieved from http://secondlife.com (now removed).

  4. 4.

    http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

  5. 5.

    Ted Leonsis (personal communication)

  6. 6.

    http://opencobalt.org

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Duke University, Durham, USA

    Julian Lombardi & Marilyn Lombardi

Authors
  1. Julian Lombardi
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  2. Marilyn Lombardi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Julian Lombardi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Div. Information & Intelligent, National Science Foundation, Wilson Blvd. 4201, Arlington, 22230, U.S.A.

    William Sims Bainbridge

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© 2010 Springer-Verlag London Limited

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Lombardi, J., Lombardi, M. (2010). Opening the Metaverse. In: Bainbridge, W. (eds) Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual. Human-Computer Interaction Series. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-825-4_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-825-4_9

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-84882-824-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-84882-825-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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