Virtual World Archives

President Obama's European trip this week began in the United Kingdom and while there, he focused some attention on science and technology issues of global interest.

In a joint press conference, United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron and Obama both spoke on a key collaboration initiative between the two nations: Science education. Obama spoke in generalities, but called science education "critical to our future prosperity" and said that the U.S. and U.K could continue to emphasize "investments in education, science, technology, infrastructure -- things that help our economies grow"

Interestingly, Obama was asked about the extradition case of Gary McKinnon. McKinnon, a Scottish hacker accused of breaking into 97 NASA and Defense networks, is alleged to have deleted several critical files from government operating systems. Obama said McKinnon "is now in the hands of the British legal system," though Cameron said the U.K must follow "the proper processes and make sure this case is dealt with in the proper way."

During an historic speech to Parliament, Obama also mentioned the changing landscape of the 21st Century, including business and scientific innovation and discovery.

That gives nations like the United States and the United Kingdom an inherent advantage. For from Newton and Darwin to Edison and Einstein, from Alan Turing to Steve Jobs, we have led the world in our commitment to science and cutting-edge research, the discovery of new medicines and technologies. We educate our citizens and train our workers in the best colleges and universities on Earth. But to maintain this advantage in a world that's more competitive than ever, we will have to redouble our investments in science and engineering, and renew our national commitments to educating our workforces.

Obama also emphasized the importance of free thought and rights in a digital age, with the caveat that security from cybercrime is a shared responsibility for developed nations like those in the NATO alliance.

Indeed, our efforts in this young century have led us to a new concept for NATO that will give us the capabilities needed to meet new threats -- threats like terrorism and piracy, cyber attacks and ballistic missiles. But a revitalized NATO will continue to hew to that original vision of its founders, allowing us to rally collective action for the defense of our people, while building upon the broader belief of Roosevelt and Churchill that all nations have both rights and responsibilities, and all nations share a common interest in an international architecture that maintains the peace.

Besides emphasizing broad cooperation between the United Kingdom and the United States, Obama also appears to be promoting greater collaboration on science and technology issues.

At George Washington University Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a major policy speech to announce support for Internet freedom across the world. The diplomatic agency will provide $25 million to help promote online activism worldwide, she said. Clinton cited freedoms and cyberfreedoms, such as "expression, assembly and association" in the speech.

"The United States supports this freedom for people everywhere," Clinton said, "And we have called on other nations to do the same."

Citing American "commitment to protecting civil liberties and human rights," Clinton praised the Internet as a foundation for free expression, calling it the world's "town square, classroom, marketplace, coffee house and nightclub." In addition to the funding, Clinton said the State Department will continue daily work monitoring Internet freedom worldwide, and will launch Twitter feeds in Chinese, Russian and Hindi. The department started an Arabic twitter feed earlier this month and already has Spanish, French and Farsi feeds.

Clinton's remarks come as Internet- and social media-based protests and revolutions are generating global attention. The recent protests in Egypt, as well as the 2009 Iranian elections, have been cited as key points in the evolution of the Internet and social media. Clinton noted that in Egypt, the attempt by the former government of outsted dictator Hosni Mubarak to shut down the country's international Internet connections was ultimately unsuccessful in silencing the protesters.

Virtual worlds may be the way of the future, but government isn't quite ready to cede its methods to this particular technology.

At a conference hosted by the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds, panelists from government and industry highlighted the opportunities for collaboration in Second Life-like platforms but said that the adoption of these technologies is still in an early stage.

According to Michael Piller, who works at National Defense University's iCollege, virtual worlds still have a very small market in government, with most platforms receiving investments between $50,000 and $100,000. Training, education, collaboration and research are the most common uses for virtual worlds, he added.

Piller noted that 60 percent of government's virtual space belongs to the Defense Department. One platform currently in use is Military Lands, or MiLands, a series of Second Life islands launched in November 2008 to boost collaboration around military science. Military organizations that had purchased space in Second Life were allowed to join, and participants now meet monthly in the virtual world.

"Collaboration is much more difficult [at Defense] -- because of security issues. It doesn't magically happen and you have to have the tools to access networks," said Steven Aguiar, virtual worlds technical program manager at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center.

Aguiar said that MiLands could represent a body of knowledge in which Defense can invest, a sort of one-stop shop for what the military is up to. And it allows the department to experiment where it might not in real life due to risks or budget constraints.

The key to virtual world success is taking action, said Tami Griffith, a researcher at the U.S. Army Simulation & Training Technology Center. "You don't learn about virtual worlds by reading a book about it--you have to get in there."

Today I'm covering the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds conference here in Washington. Sure, it's being held just a few miles away from Nextgov's offices, but I decided to try attending the conference about virtual worlds virtually. I had high expectations for this experience -- after all, isn't Second Life, one of the more widely used platforms for virtual interaction, cool?

In the end, the "virtual" attendance component was just live streaming video (and, to be fair, the conference hadn't promised anything more), so I'll have to wait a little bit longer to create my Second Life avatar. But a minor technical glitch -- at a tech conference, no less -- did catch my ear and provide a few laughs.

I launched the conference webcast between two of this morning's sessions and discovered that the organizers had not turned off the stage microphones. Participants in the next panel were milling around on stage, and their conversations were being picked up for all to hear. A few snippets:

• "Aren't you gonna be spiffy?"
• "I wouldn't even make you sleep on the couch!"
• "We're starting at 10:10 whether people are in here or not."

Someone must have realized that this was happening, because the next break brought complete silence. Such are the perils of virtual life.

In her blog on Thursday, Paulette Robinson, the assistant dean for teaching, learning and technology at the National Defense University, posted an item on Thursday about her effort to create a group in the federal government to talk about the use of virtual worlds in the federal government. It started out slow she said, but now the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds has 1,600 members - and a conference starting May 13.

In government, virtual worlds are used for information delivery to the citizens, meetings/conferences, education/training, rapid prototyping, and analytical workspaces.

One of the biggest challenges to the use of virtual worlds in government is a secure, and trusted hosted environment. The vGov project, co-led by Chris Smith (US Dept of Agriculture) and myself (NDU iCollege), is creating this environment. I am finally getting closer to my goal of using virtual worlds in our courses.

Here's the consortium's video collage for this year:

Citizens who enter innovation contests that the government plans to launch this year could rake in cash on top of the prize money that agencies are allowed to award. The White House on Monday released a legal framework for giving away money and other incentives during competitions aimed at improving open government, spurring research and development and addressing national priorities.

In addition to collecting cash for their endeavors, winners also can make money from their intellectual property. Just because the government is entitled to use the winning ideas, the government does not have exclusive rights to the inventions, say some IT industry officials.

Guido Jouret, chief technology officer for Cisco's emerging technologies group, noted that the government's intellectual property guidelines are similar to the non-binding agreements Cisco uses during its own innovation competition. Cisco runs the I Prize contest, which challenges entrepreneurs to submit proposals that have the potential to become billion-dollar business ideas for the networking provider. The grand prize for the winning team is $250,000.

In return, Cisco gets a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to distribute the winning product. Because the terms of the agreement are non-exclusive, the winners retain the right to sell the application to other companies.

"A lot of the debates we had with our lawyers were around the intellectual property angle," he said. "We want to be able to come up with great ideas, but not exclusively."

Participants in the virtual online world of Second Life have proven that such free enterprise can unleash a flood of creativity in communities.

"Users control the intellectual property rights to whatever they build, giving them economic incentive to create things. And create they do," the Washington Post reported on Monday. "Newbies show up in Second Life without so much as 40 acres and a mule, so their avatars need hair, and fancy shoes for a concert or suits for business meetings, and a house, and art for the house, and maybe a waterfall for the living room -- virtual goods that cost real money."

The Washington Post also said that Second Life participants "cashed out $55 million of their Second Life earnings last year" in the real world.

Researchers have worked to find a link between violence in video games and aggressive behavior. The findings can be conflicting and confusing.

But that hasn't stopped Venezuela from passing a law banning violent video games and toys that can be used in violent play. The penalty for being found guilty of selling or playing a violent video game? A fine and up to two and a half years in prison.

The law demands video games "promote respect for life, creativeness, safe entertainment, friendship, tolerance, understanding and peaceful coexistence."

No word yet from Venezuelan teenage boys - or their parents who have to listen to the whining.

Live, on-the-ground battlefield preparation is difficult to come by outside of the battlefield itself. Enter UrbanSim, a prototype virtual simulation currently being used to train U.S. Army personnel in complex urban counterinsurgency and stability operations.

Simply put, UrbanSim is a computer game, said Andrew Gordon, a research associate professor at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies, which is leading the project. But it also is a tool that applies the best practices, components and developers of computer game technologies towards the Army's training needs.

Gordon said one of the key research objectives is story-driven simulation. In other words, the game is modeled on the real-world experiences of commanders on the ground. The goal? To train adaptive leaders capable of handling the primary, secondary and tertiary effects of decisions on a local environment. As an educational tool, the game instructs in civil security, information dissemination and other relevant skills.

The simulation, currently being used at the School for Command Preparation, the Command and General Staff College and numerous operational units, was developed with Army research dollars.

The Agriculture Department is going virtual, and employees may soon be able to conduct business through 3-D avatars rather than traditional teleconferencing, email or good old-fashioned staff meetings.

According to a posting on Federal Business Opportunities, the department seeks a Second Life-like system that can be used behind a secure firewall rather than by the general public. The virtual world would allow several agencies to collaborate easily yet securely, integrate old and new technology and create a network for "collaboration, training, rehearsal, analysis, simulation, experimentation, and socialization."

Virtual worlds aren't new, but the idea that business can be conducted through lookalike avatars in a 3-D conference room is a more recent manifestation of this technology. World of Warcraft is a fantasy fighting game, while Second Life and There.com allow users to create their virtual equivalent and then shop, build houses, get jobs and develop relationships. Second Life's Work Solutions program helps companies conduct sales trainings, simulate emergency evacuations and run virtual meetings. But the platform isn't more forgiving than the real world--if you fall asleep during the boss' speech, your avatar does too.

Agriculture's solicitation closes on Feb. 24.

Do you know a federal manager who recently took risks to push through a bold idea, policy or program that uses technology to make government work better or improve public services? If so, we'd like to hear your story by nominating your colleague for a Nextgov Award.

The Nextgov Award program, developed in partnership with O'Reilly Media Inc. and TechWeb, will recognize government executives who stepped outside their comfortable confines to think and manage differently. They acted boldly to push through an innovative program, policy or new management practice that relied on technology to move government in a new direction, to challenge employees to think and work differently, and that ultimately improved the lives of citizens.

We know there are many managers who have done just that, and we want you to tell us about them by nominating them for a Nextgov Award. The deadline is March 12, but we suggest you don't wait. Visit the nomination page and spend just a few minutes filling out the form. We'll tell the stories of the winners later this spring on Nextgov.

A panel of respected judges will make choose the winners, who will be honored at a luncheon on May 27 at the Gov 2.0 Expo at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The expo is co-sponsored by O'Reilly Media Inc. and TechWeb, and Nextgov is the premier media sponsor.