High Fidelity Massively Updates Website, Adds Renowned Futurist Think Tank & NATO to Domain Registry

High Fidelity, Philip Rosedale's new virtual reality metaverse (i.e., Second Life, second edition) recently got a huge update to its website, transforming what has been for years a pokey, super-geeky thing into a sleek, consumer-facing site. (Very early adopter developer/consumers, at least.) Among them are two renowned organizations which already have domains listed on High Fidelity's metaverse network: The Institute for the Future, a Silicon Valley-based think tank founded by people who literally helped found the Internet, and a research arm of NATO, i.e. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, i.e. with the jets and the tanks and the explodey things. I guess that could just be an early High Fidelity user who named his or her domain NATO for the laughs, but then Googling that specific sub-group brings up this:

The workshop discussed all areas of immersive learning but concentrated on the product Virtual Battlespace 2 from Bohemia International which is used by over 19 NATO and 11 partner nations. NATO have negotiated a distribution licence allowing NATO nations and partner nations (with approval) to use free of charge the VBS NATO product via their license server. This version although not having all the features of the commercial version allows nations to experiment with this technology and more importantly have a NATO standard model to build from and work together with... Virtual training is a fast growing area in all nations and the GBR for example, have mandated that over 50% of training will be simulated by 2020.

That's from 2012, so I wouldn't be surprised if NATO is already experimenting with the latest in VR technology as well. Who could blamed them, with a promise on the website like this:

Explore around on the updated site, see what else you see.

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Comments

[Eddi Haskell]

I just checked out High Fidelity -- I have not been in in many months. I could be doing things incorrectly but it looks the same as it did a year ago, and the graphics are juvenile compared to Second Life. Only 38 domains were online, and I visited 5 -- they all looked two dimensional and were difficult to navigate. Perhaps the new additions will be tremendous, but as things stand now, I will quote Gertrude Stein's famous quote about Oakland --"there is no there there". On the other hand, perhaps the content creation tools are tremendous, and perhaps Mark Zuckerberg is meeting with them regularly saying things like "gee, if it has this and gets off the ground, maybe I'll but it to go along with my headset".

[Clara Seller]

Eddi's post inspired me to go check it out. I feel that his assessment was kind.

I had trouble and conflict with everything. After a couple of minutes inworld, I just didn't care enough to try to figure anything out. Luckily, I didn't have to try to navigate the choppy graphics much longer before the whole thing crashed and my antivirus program swallowed up what was left of the dust. Control Panel: Uninstall and that experience is behind me.

I'm making some creme-filled red velvet cupcakes for Christmas, but right now they are still in alpha stage. Currently, I have a slab of lard with some sprinkles that I'd love everyone to taste.