Visit to D|Lab, Institute of Digital Innovation

Last week I was lucky enough to visit Philip McClenaghan and Dan Riley at D|Lab:

a multi-disciplinary team of designers, researchers and digital specialists located within the Institute of Digital Innovation (IDI) which, in addition to developing product and service innovations for a range of industry clients, works extensively with business partners wishing to explore the potential of virtual worlds on the internet.

It was a very interesting meeting, and good to get reinvigorated about Virtual Worlds etc.! :-)

From my notes, & as I understand it:

• D|Lab is a commercial venture, and it is developing a next generation VW platform which they plan to release later this year
• They created Meta-Mole as a comparative database of virtual worlds platforms
• I think Dan mentioned this Frost & Sullivan report which quoted a 465% rise in productivity [would be great to get a link to this]
• D|Lab is interested in being able to import CAD & 3ds Max files / diagrams
• They also mentioned the move to more commercial applications for VWs, e.g. Twinity
• We discussed who’s doing what with VWS in the Region
  • I have found the link to an SL support desk on Tyneside (although not sure whether the desk or the contract are still in operation).
  • Interesting nevertheless!
• In terms of how D|Lab differentiates itself:
  • Strong R&D activities
  • Developing applications & technology for VWs
  • As well as VW builds etc.
• Re Machinima
• Dan was able to confirm that D|Lab is able to produce Machinima
• We discussed Pixel Palace – this is the link to the Tyneside Event, although I can’t remember the names of the presenters
• UPDATE: Bill Thompson has tweeted:

@justingsouter Moviestorm crew – Hugh Hancock and Johnnie Ingram – are the machinima dudes you are looking for :-)

• UPDATE #2: Check out http://www.machinimafordummies.com/ for Hugh & Johnnie’s blog
• Working together
  • The potential business opportunity is for me / SCL to act as an informed & impartial recommender for those interested in Virtual Worlds to builders like D|Lab.
  • Clearly, being able to articulate what VWs, why people should care, what the benefits are etc. would be my stock-in-trade.

And that’s it really. :-D

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