A Brief History of the Metaverse: DIY Metaverse

Mark Pesce - The Next Billion Seconds

Tony and Mark - supported by a global community of technologists, enthusiasts and dreamers - brought 3D to the brand-new Web with VRML, creating the foundations for the “DIY Metaverse”. Featuring Owen Rowley, Linda Jacobson, John McCrea, Coco Conn and Neal Stephenson.

Read the interview with Jaron Lanier in MONDO 2000 issue 2 that changed Mark’s life. “Homebrew VR“, written by Linda Jacobson, in WIRED magazine, issue 1. Use Windows? Have a play with ‘Labyrinth’, the world’s first 3D Web browser, here. You can explore the ‘Cyberbanana’ – and ‘Daniel’s Room’, the first public demonstration of VRML, for SIGKIDS 1994. “Coco’s Channel” a WIRED article about Coco Conn’s work creating SIGKIDS. Read it here. Read ‘Cyberspace’, the paper describing VRML that Mark presented at the First International Conference on the World Wide Web. Read the VRML 1.0 spec here.

At the end of the episode, Neal Stephenson recounts the story of a panel he sat through – which inspired him to write Snow Crash. Read it here.

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This podcast is sponsored by the Digital Skills Organisation.

The DSO is championing an employer-led, skills-based approach to digital literacy. Our offering is designed to support future-proofing the country, growing jobs, supporting our economic growth and ensuring that Australia remains a global leader in digital. If we are to equip our workforce with the skills to meet a rapidly changing, technological future, we need a new approach. We’re working in collaboration with employers, trainers and employees. Their involvement is vital. We believe it’s a better way to create consistent journey pathways and build relevant digital skills. We define the problem this way - digital skills training must:

Create value both internally and externally.
Improve customer experience.
Build operational capabilities.

To deliver on these objectives we need to strengthen Australia’s digital workforce. It’s that simple.

DSO - Digitally Upskilling Australia To find out more, visit the DSO website: https://digitalskillsorg.com.au

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