FCVW (Day 1)

I attended the Federal Consortium on Virtual Worlds last week, and apart from several technical/sound glitches, the conference went very well. There was a large contingent of Federal agencies interested in leveraging the potentials of virtual worlds for improving training, education, collaboration, etc. These are a few notes from Day 1.

Larry Johnson from New Media Consortium (NMC) was the keynote speaker. He emphasized that the community was gathered to discuss "worlds" (not "games"), and that many saw VW's as the evolution of the 3D Internet. He highlighted that VW's would develop in ways that we have not even imagined yet (think back to the early 90's and how many didn't see the potential of the Internet for sharing music, international calls, etc.). The Internet capture our attention...we just had to think outside of the box. Trends that (will) lead to the success of VW's include:

1. Putting people at the center of the network
2. Increasing computing power to represent 3D visualizations and data
3. Allowing users to generate content

Over the next 4-5 years, Larry encouraged the audience to watch for the following:

1. Moving flatweb to 3D web - there will be a continuance of this (including leveraging mash-ups).
2. Keep an eye on Linden - with a new CEO and lower costs, they are aware of the shortcomings of SL and are actively looking to overcome and partner with solution providers. Also need to watch for open source solutions...long-term, this tends to be the solution that wins out.
3. Security, Privacy, and Intellectual Property are critical - these are major issues that need to be overcome with in virtual worlds.

Maj Gen Erwin Lessel (USAF) provided an excellent talk on the future of Air Force education and training. The current move is towards USAF 2.0 (which means more of a focus on KM, Continuous Learning, and Precision Learning). The USAF is also working on a concept called MyBase which is a virtual 3D portal (exploratory and interactive) for the purposes of recruiting, education, training, and operations.

There were also a few good panel discussions with members from the private sector and government members. One interesting list from Curtis Conkey (NAWC) was on the difference between games and VW's (as a side note, I think some of these categories are limiting as games do not necessarily fit the descriptions provided):

• VW's are "24/7" while Games are "as needed"
• VW's are "persistent" while Games are "clean slate at start"
• VW's are "moderate fidelity" while Games are "high fidelity"
• VW's are "large teams" while Games are "small teams"
• VW's are "security issues" while Games are "isolated"
• VW's are "remote presence" while Games are "physical presence"
• VW's are "Internet" while Games are "local net"