Technology Review: Creating a Web of Worlds 

Many of today's virtual worlds have been influenced by science-fiction writer Neal Stephenson's vision of a Metaverse, described in his novel Snow Crash . Stephenson's Metaverse swallows up the Web and ... Internet into a 3-D space that users navigate with avatars. But Raph Koster , president of Metaplace , based in San Diego, and former creative lead for the influential game Ultima Online, believes that the Metaverse should look decidedly different. Metaplace is building a system that's designed to treat virtual worlds like other content on the Web, Koster says. A virtual world, he explains, is simply a place where multiple users can interact with one another or with objects built for that world. Metaplace is designed to allow users to host these places on the Web the way they might host embedded video, and to build them the way they might build other content on the Web. "We think virtual worlds are just a new medium," Koster says. "That means that like other media--like pictures, audio,   [More...] [Less...]

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'Virtual watercooler' makes workplace more fun - CNN.com 

Story Highlights Beehive is an online portal for employees to describe their expertise, and to connect 27,000 IBMers using Beehive can post pictures, video and one-sentence updates Including a dose of ... Facebook and MySpace "can make work suck less" Now Intel is exploring whether virtual-world software will help employees collaborate Next Article in Technology » OK, so those days aren't gone yet. But as big companies parcel Information Age work to people in widely dispersed locations, it's getting harder for colleagues to develop the camaraderie that comes from being in the same place. Beyond making work less fun, feeling disconnected from comrades might be a drag on productivity. Now technology researchers are trying to replicate old-fashioned office interactions by transforming everyday business software for the new era of work. The historically dry-as-sawdust products are borrowing elements from video games and social-networking Web sites. You can tell just from looking at the Beehive   [More...] [Less...]