The New Media Consortium (NMC) and Sun Microsystems announced a two-year, $250,000 commitment to the Open Virtual Worlds Project "aimed at making it easier to learn, work, and exchange ideas in virtual space." The NMC has been working in Second Life for some time, but now it will expand its work to Sun's Project Darkstar and Project Wonderland. NMC will accordingly begin to develop X3D- and Collada-compatible content for education. Right now it's supporting content creation in-world, but the NMC hopes to make it easier to import content as well, promoting standards-based, open-source 3D content tools. NMC CEO Larry Johnson explained the goals of the project as an expansion of the NMC's previous work in Second Life, but it sounds as if the company is ready to move on: "At the same time, we believe that Sun’s open-source platforms will meet the needs that many institutions have for higher levels of security, clear ownership of intellectual property, and portability. Adding a suite of open-content, open-source services will add an important dimension to NMC Virtual Worlds that we hope will help members continue to explore the evolving range of options unfolding in the virtual world arena." Additionally, the NMC will join the Sun Immersion Special Interest Group, and Sun Microsystems will become a Platinum partner, the highest level of corporate cooperation, with the NMC. The whole project sounds very similar to efforts announced by the Immersive Education Initiative to create an Education Grid across Second Life, Wonderland, and Croquet. Both look to create portable, educational spaces across virtual worlds with open-source, standards-based content, but Sun's partnership is certainly a boost for the NMC. [via NMC] Check the video here, www.youtube.com/watch?v=c20P3Vd3RD4
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