Bernard Horan works as a member of the +Spaces EU Project as a researcher investigating the use of virtual worlds to engage with policy makers. Prior to joining the University of Essex, Horan was a senior staff engineer for Sun Microsystems Laboratories, where he was the Principal Investigator for the Meeting Echoes project, collaborating closely with members of the Open Wonderland project. Horan was also the instigator and technical lead of the successful collaborative project that used Wonderland to create a Mixed Reality Teaching & Learning Environment (MiRTLE).
A couple of years ago, I described how we were using the Open Wonderland virtual environment platform to host polls for users to express their opinions about proposed governmental policies, as part of  the +Spaces project. In the next stage of the project, we have taken a look at another way of engaging citizens: debates. TheRead More →
One of the great features of Open Wonderland is its application-sharing facility. And one of the benefits this provides is the ability to use OpenOffice in-world to create and edit documents that are compatible with Microsoft’s ubiquitous Office suite. But what if you just want to show a document in-worldRead More →