August 1, 2007 1:55 PM PDT

The Future of Virtual Worlds

At the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit 07, the virtual world was under scrutiny. Virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier led a panel with Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Labs (Second Life); Irving Wladawksy-Berger of IBM; Chris Sherman, CEO of Gaia Online and Chris Melissinos, chief gaming officer at Sun.

The big question was whether virtual worlds would be a real business. "Meetings, learning and training may be killer apps of virtual world. Don't underestimate any technologies that help us do that in a more human way," said Wladawsky-Berger.

See the full report over at ZDNet.

Dan Farber is editor in chief of CBS Interactive News, which includes CBSNews.com and CNET News. He has more than 25 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. E-mail Dan.

Topics:: Browsers and extensions,; Games and entertainment

Tags:: Always On Stanford,; Virtual Worlds

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