How Mobile Devices Popped the Virtual World Bubble

Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
Sign up Log in
1 reply · 3K views
Greg Bernhardt
Admin
Insights Author
Messages
19,952
Reaction score
11,044
This is was just a quick post to share a link to an very insightful editorial on the rise and fall of the 3D Web and the virtual revolution. Although it focuses more on virtual worlds as a component of the videogame industry, it definitely captures the way they burst onto the scene as a contender for the “next big thing” only to be overshadowed by services that reduced their appeal to the barest possible component, social interaction.

More...
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Not convinced that virtual worlds won't make it - but on smartphones.
People txt, not because that's the best way of communicating but because it's the lowest common denominator - everybody has text.
When all the kids have smartphones with GPS/cameras/3G/motion sensors then it's not clear that they won't want a richer environment, and the phones/pads now have the CPU+graphics+bandwidth to allow it.

The main problem is that the environment has to add something. Currently all the virtual worlds - except for the games - made things harder. You had to walk into the virtual post office to send an email in one system.