Open Source Platform

for interconnected virtual worlds

realXtend Newsletter 18.1.2008

Virtual worlds - why realXtend?

Year 2007 was a remarkable year for virtual worlds, as their popularity and business expectations rose to an entirely new level. The greatest success story so far has been Second Life with hundreds of thousands of active users, although Active Worlds' decade-long existence is not an insignificant achievement either. Instead of wiping out the others, Second Life still co-exists with several other environments. In fact, it seems that the lift generated by Second Life's hype has revived interest in older worlds, such as the venerable veteran Active Worlds, with There and Kaneva receiving their share of interest as well. The new players on the market are all reaching for their share of success.

realXtend - where the virtual and real worlds merge

Coherent worlds - our contribution

Is there a need for so many different virtual reality worlds? We think the answer is yes and no. For professional purposes, such as industry and medicine, the answer is obviously yes, because different worlds can be tailored for very specific needs. In addition, for professional purposes, the demand for interconnectivity is not great - yet. In business, communicational and recreational uses that rely heavily on bringing people together, we would be better off with one virtual world. With the present trend of separate worlds it is likely that a few of the best proprietary systems will reach a dominating position, but eventually will face scalability problems.

We at realXtend think different virtual reality worlds can coexist peacefully, as long as they are compatible and moving between them is as easy as - or preferably even easier than - browsing web pages. Like the Internet, the network of connected virtual worlds will be greater than the sum of its parts and all the participants will benefit from it. Unique in realXtend is a separate avatar service that can be used by any virtual world. This enables the users to take their virtual persona with them wherever they go.

realXtend - fragmented virtual worlds are history

Virtual universe - the dream

We at realXtend think the virtual environment should function parallel to reality. Reality should be only the starting point - just about everything done in real life could be supported by the virtual world. Recreation has been the first step. The next step is to use the virtual world in unison with the real world. The borders of ordinary life will extend. The complete separation of the real and the virtual must come to an end.

realXtend - technical solutions

realXtend is developed as an open source product free to use for everyone. This maximizes the development possibilities of our platform and enables companies and consumers to create applications using our platform as a base for their own ideas and thus provide content.

Server installation and content creation are easy, so all users can create their virtual worlds and contribute to the success of the platform. It is essential that the virtual worlds function well, even on a very large scale. A massive multi-user platform must be able to cater for different customers. We create technology to serve this purpose.

realXtend collaborates with OpenSim

OpenSim is a BSD-licensed, open source -based project. Open Sim develops a functional virtual worlds server platform, which is capable of supporting multiple clients and servers in a heterogeneous grid structure. realXtend develops an interface for reality and extended reality by creating an open source -based platform for virtual worlds. We at realXtend have invited the core development team of the OpenSim project to discuss mutual interests. The meeting will be held at the end of this month. A summary of the meeting will be published in the forthcoming issues of this newsletter - stay tuned!

Coming soon...

We will launch a realXtend demo within a couple of months and you will be the first on the list to see it, test it, live in it.

Some screenshots from the realXtend development versions: http://www.realxtend.org/pics/