Presentation:Virtual Worlds Timeline: The Origins and Evolution of Virtual Worlds
Bruce Damer will present the past, present, and future of virtual worlds as part of his Virtual Worlds Timeline project http://www.vwtimeline.org. The project will create a Wiki-based graphical timeline to represent the origins and evolution of virtual worlds, and archive related documents. This presentation will start off with the first multi player games of the early 1970’s, then through the progenitor worlds (MUD’s and Habitat), and onward to the explosion of the first generation Internet worlds in the mid 1990s.

This extensive history, in context with today’s exciting new developments, should permit a sweeping view towards the future of virtual worlds as a medium.

As mobile computing moves towards enabling a “digital persona”, Bruce will explain why “your avatar may become you.”

Discussion will center on likely pathways that avatarized spaces will take in the coming decades.

About the Presenter:

Bruce Damer
Bruce Damer designed some of the first graphical user interfaces for the PC as the chief technologist at Elixir Technologies in the 1980’s. There, he developed the Elixir Desktop which was launched worldwide with the Xerox Corporation. Bruce is also the founder of the Contact Consortium, the first nonprofit forum for virtual world topics which has held a dozen conferences on, and in the medium.

His DigitalSpace Corporation developed a successful for-profit business in building content and hosting events in virtual world platforms. The company has been funded by NASA for the past six years to develop an open source 3D platform for simulations of space mission design and training. Author of the 1997 book “Avatars!”, Bruce has also created the DigiBarn, computer history museum near Santa Cruz, CA.

Event Logistics

Location
Pillsbury Winthrop Office Silicon Valley
2475 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1114
Directions

Agenda
6:30 PM Registration and Networking
7:00 PM -8:40 PM Presentations

Price
$15 at the door for non-SDForum members
No charge for SDForum members
No registration required

Media:

Slides(HTML)
other formats

Blog and media coverage:

http://www.djcline.com/?p=988