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Rare Tour of Sun Microsystems' "Wonderland"

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the back-to-dumb-terminals dept.

Surinder Kahai writes "Last week I had the rare opportunity to see an emerging virtual world called Wonderland, the product of an open source project, Project Wonderland, sponsored by Sun Microsystems. The tour was given by Nicole Yankelovich, Principal Investigator of the Collaborative Environments Project at Sun Microsystems. Some of the key aspects of this dynamic virtual world are voice communication with distance attenuation, the ability to join a Wonderland meeting through a regular phone if a computer is not handy, and the sharing of applications such as Open Office. Wonderland is currently being used by educational facilities and can be used by other organizations for virtual collaboration. Since the project is an Open Source project, users can tweak the tools available to suit their particular purpose."

15 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Why? by clang_jangle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Aside from the obvious fact that the name is more "theme park" than business-like, what can it really do that can't be done (with fewer resources) via teleconferencing, and/or chat, and/or version control? Seems to me it's just teleconferencing with eye candy.

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    1. Re:Why? by Kingrames · · Score: 3, Informative

      That sounds pretty useful to me. It'd be nice to be able to show 3d images in a business presentation, and that's something videoconferencing doesn't quite get down right.

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    2. Re:Why? by psbrogna · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Hey I'm the first one to scoff at complexity creep. It's usually bad news for business. But some percentage of today's tech toys are tomorrow's sine qua non's... I gotta say I'm feelin' this one.

      A lot of people laughed at the concept of a commercial web not too long ago...

    3. Re:Why? by benevixit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The big reason for 3d virtual worlds in business is the same as for gaming: They have the potential to be a richer, more natural and engaging user experience. Imagine trying to sustain participants' attention in a 30-minute SMS business meeting.

    4. Re:Why? by Jon_E · · Score: 3, Funny

      i think you're confusing this with neverland ranch you perv ..

    5. Re:Why? by lostmongoose · · Score: 4, Funny

      Your use of the word 'almost' has me both disturbed and curious at the same time...

  2. oh joy by ILuvRamen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You know, people might have said this was a ridiculous waste of time a couple years ago cuz you might as well just do it all in real life. But these days if you can have a Stargate convention in a virtual world without having to spend $700 on travel or having to leave your house or having to put on clothes, that's a good idea :D

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    1. Re:oh joy by PrescriptionWarning · · Score: 3, Funny

      well you could hitchhike your way there naked, but it might be weird

    2. Re:oh joy by vertinox · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You know, people might have said this was a ridiculous waste of time a couple years ago cuz you might as well just do it all in real life.

      Considering the increasing costs of driving and airline tickets, teleconferencing is going to get real popular real soon for many people.

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  3. no way this is going to be used as intended by JazzyMusicMan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I work at a software firm and a good chunk of the QA staff and even some product strategy folk can't work LiveMeeting and you're trying to tell me that this is easier and more intuitive to the point of wide adoption?

  4. Re:huh? by nathan.fulton · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's been in early development, and many people view it as a futile waste of time. It's not inaccessible though, you can download it here: https://lg3d-wonderland.dev.java.net/binary-builds.html There are also links to extensive documentation on that page.

  5. Re:JAVA by mhall119 · · Score: 3, Informative

    For those interested, Wonderland is written in Java.

    And presumably you'd only need to start the Virtual World once. It's not like we'll have to flood the servers and start all over from scratch.

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  6. how many of you by jacquesm · · Score: 5, Funny

    clicked the bio link to see if she's hot and didn't bother to click the article ?

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  7. Re:A Wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I take it you just grab whatever hogwash was true when you hated the company and continue to spout it off. Sun actually booked a PROFIT last year, they had revenues up 6.2% (13.87 Billion) and a better than expected 8.5% operating margin.

  8. Re:JAVA by myowntrueself · · Score: 3, Funny

    For those interested, Wonderland is written in Java.

    and will go down in history as the first virtual world which requires all the RAM in the known universe.

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