About This Report

This report highlights some of the issues in two virtual-worlds–related events at Stanford University during 15–17 February 2008 and includes some comments and observations by SRIC-BI's VWC team. The first event continued the discussion of and updated the materials for the Metaverse Roadmap event at SRI International in May 2006.

The Metaverse Roadmap Web site (www.metaverseroadmap.org) described the May SRI Summit as follows: "There, a diverse group of industry leaders, technologists, analysts, policy makers, academics and creatives outlined key 3D web visions, scenarios, forecasts, plans, opportunities, uncertainties, and challenges, for both a ten year planning horizon (2006–2016) and twenty year speculation horizon (2006–2025)."

The SRI meeting generated a great deal of information that resulted in a 23-page Metaverse Roadmap Overview, with descriptions of four scenarios—Virtual Worlds, Mirror Worlds, Lifelogging, and Augmented Reality—for how the metaverse would evolve. The Stanford meeting was to stimulate discussion of these scenarios and to hear what participants believed were some of the most interesting and important developments since the May 2006 Summit.

The MetaverseU conference took place the following two days after the Roadmap Summit. It was organized and led by a team at the Humanities Lab at Stanford University (see http://shl.stanford.edu). Henrik Bennetsen, the research director of the lab, facilitated the two-day meeting. The MetaverseU conference addressed a wider range of issues than those of the Metaverse Summit, with a more academic and humanities orientation. But the conference built on and continued some of the discussions that started at the summit. The conference attracted about 120 people—more than twice the number at the summit. It included many more academic researchers than did the summit.

Table of Contents

Metaverse Roadmap Summit	3
Summit Background and Facts	3
Metaverse Scenarios Summary	4
Selected Discussion Topics	6
Mitch Kapor: 3-D Cameras as Next-Generation User Interface	10
Ralph Koster: A Cynic's Views on Virtual-Worlds Industry Trends and Developments	11
Sidney Verbeck: Some Perspectives from Electric Sheep	12
Tools and Technologies	13
MetaverseU Conference	15
Conference Background and Facts	15
Virtual Worlds and Work	16
Selected Discussion Topics	19
Tools and Technologies	21