Technology firms look for 'visas' for virtual residents

Meanwhile, players can convert avatars between Second Life and Three.com communities. They were also allowed to buy World of Warcraft armor and gold to bring back to EverQuest II or bring 3D characters in the Multiverse world to Gaia Online.

Each virtual world today is like a closed garden, internal realities, external realities. Therefore, the "garden owners" are looking to open the door to trade, exchange currencies, share content . together.

Representatives of several major technology companies, including Cisco Systems, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, Google and Sony, are working with leading virtual world developers such as Linden Lab, Multiverse Network, Mindark . hope is coming true in the near future.

When will virtual residents get a travel document to travel anywhere?Photo: Cross-media

The first shot was when Second Life game provider Linden Lab and IBM confirmed on October 10 that they are looking for ways to help players take their characters from this virtual world to another world. ' We had discussions with many different companies as well as customers and found the common desire to be interoperability between virtual worlds together, ' Peter Hagger, IBM technology expert, said.

Removing barriers surrounding virtual communities is not a new idea. Since 1989, the founder of Electronic Arts is Trip Hawkins and a number of colleagues have introduced applications that allow converting avatars, but after years, dream of using a single character anywhere still how much is progress.

Besides, what few people think about is that this idea is being stirred up by technology companies like IBM and Cisco when no one really builds an online community.

' There are about 456 million virtual world participants and the purpose of alliances among services is to prevent users from falling into the same confrontation as the Betamax and VHS video formats the day before. If our efforts fail, the battle between online communities sooner or later will happen , 'said Cisco expert Christian Renauld.

However, no one has yet made a specific plan and it will take many years for suppliers to fulfill this goal.

Phuong Thuy