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Worlds

A few of the virtual worlds, and their associated technologies, used and developed by UK academics and educators.

Blue Mars: http://www.bluemars.com/
A 3D social platform featuring class leading fidelity, scalability, security, and connectivity. Requires high-end tech.
Wikipedia entry.

OLIVE (On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment): http://www.saic.com/products/simulation/olive/
A virtual world software platform delivering interactive multimedia communication capabilities for collaboration, training, operations, and education.

OpenSim (Open Simulator): http://opensimulator.org/
An open source multi-platform, multi-user 3D application server. Despite requiring technical skills, has been gaining in popularity over the last few years.
Wikipedia entry.

Open Wonderland: http://openwonderland.org/
A 100% Java open source toolkit for creating collaborative 3D virtual worlds.
Wikipedia entry.

Second Life: http://secondlife.com/
A 3D virtual world where users can socialise, connect and create using free voice and text chat. The most popular contemporary virtual world in academia.
Wikipedia entry.

Twinity: http://www.twinity.com/
Twinity offers its population, called Twinizens, to navigate around virtual (outdated) versions of real-world cities.
Wikipedia entry.

Unity 3D: http://unity3d.com/
Unity 3D is a tool for video game development, architectural visualizations, and interactive media installations.
Wikipedia entry.

Though these aren’t full-blown virtual worlds, or stand-alone world development kits, you might want to check out the following functionality-enhancing technologies which were developed in the UK and are widely used.

PIVOTE (PREVIEW Immersive Virtual Training Environment): http://www.pivote.info/
A virtual learning authoring system for virtual worlds.

SLOODLE (Simulation Linked Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment): http://www.sloodle.org/
SLOODLE is a free and open source project which integrates the multi-user virtual environments of Second Life and/or OpenSim with the Moodle learning-management system.