Steve Ranger
BT is developing services that could allow users of virtual worlds to call or text out to their colleagues and friends in the real world.
To test the technology it has built a private island in Second Life, which it has dubbed Area 21 -- a play on the ultra-secret Area 51 and BT's 21CN network technology, which is being used in the service.
Matthew Brotherton, project manager at the Applied Technology Centre in BT's chief technology office, told CNET.co.uk's sister site silicon.com: "This is about how we integrate BT's communications services that are exposed as part of the Web21C platform, into virtual environments."
He said Second Life is great a platform for this as it allows users to create the environment around them.
Credit: BT
For example, BT has demonstrated an SMS station (right) that allows avatars to send a text to any global mobile number and receive an SMS from the real world. At the moment it looks like a cashpoint, but there's no reason why it couldn't be a mobile phone, Brotherton said.
Credit: BT
This phone box allows avatars to make a call out to the real world on their phone.
"Maybe in two or three years time these environments might be even more immersive. You might have gloves or a headset and it might be easier to make a call from in here than on your actual mobile," Brotherton predicted.
Most of the services are currently just demonstrations of the possibilities of the technology, although BT is planning to launch the phone box as a beta trial to collect usage statistics. "The idea is we'd launch these phone boxes in popular areas of Second Life and then we can start to understand the consumer need," he said.
"The consumer need we recognise is that people play Second Life but they have many friends and contacts that don't play Second Life and it's about providing that real world/virtual world interconnectivity."
Credit: BT
BT has also developed a conferencing service that could be used to connect up members of a group -- some of whom could be logged into a virtual world and some on the road.
"If you have businesses that wanted to exploit conferencing in Second Life as a rich 3D environment to show off products and save on travel costs, the problem is everyone has to have Second Life running so you don't have that reach to all employees," Brotherton said.
"By using conferencing as exposed by our Web21C Platform everyone that can join Second Life can do but you can still [conference in] everyone else who is on a train or doesn't have a powerful enough PC [to run Second Life]."
Credit: BT
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