New Media Consortium and Sun Microsystems to launch the Open Virtual Worlds Project

Via this announcement:

...Today the New Media Consortium (NMC) announced a $250,000 two-year collaboration with Sun Microsystems to launch the Open Virtual Worlds Project, an effort that is aimed at making it easier to learn, work, and exchange ideas in virtual space. The project will develop a range of standards-based, portable open-source educational spaces, content, and objects, and use them to extend Sun Microsystems’s open source Project Darkstar and Project Wonderland virtual world platforms.

In launching the Open Virtual Worlds project, the NMC will build on its extensive presence in Second Life and add to the services it offers educational institutions with a suite of services aimed at those who need a secure extensible platform or simply prefer an open solution. Open Virtual Worlds will be a new project housed within NMC Virtual Worlds, along with its extensive Second Life project...

They reference this movie, which the image of editing a document inworld is captured from.

What is interesting is some of the wording. Consider this paragraph (emphasis mine):

...The NMC remains deeply committed to the Second Life platform, and plans to continue to offer comprehensive services for it for the long term. At the same time, we believe that Sun’s open-source platforms will meet the needs that many institutions have for higher levels of security, clear ownership of intellectual property, and portability. Adding a suite of open-content, open-source services will add an important dimension to NMC Virtual Worlds that we hope will help members continue to explore the evolving range of options unfolding in the virtual world arena...

It is hard not to read the implicit criticism of Second Life in that.

They later mention Project Darkstar, a true open source project, and Project Wonderland, billed as:

Project Wonderland is a toolkit for creating collaborative 3D virtual worlds. Within those worlds, users can communicate with high-fidelity, immersive audio, and can share live applications such as web browsers, OpenOffice documents, and games.

While the avatars aren't as good looking as in Second Life, the dealing with documents and other data inworld is certainly noteworthy and something to look at. I'll be looking into these alternatives synthetic worlds more. For educational institutions, as well as many other use cases, the ability to edit documents and manipulate information inworld is very important.

Will these projects live up to expectations? It is hard to say, but it is always good to explore options.

The official press release, available here (PDF, 48.2 KB), is the source document for most of this.