I think if you want to see what things could be like with a merge of reality and virtual (augmented) reality, you will enjoy this. Many connections can be made with current gaming and this novel.

http://www.amazon.com/MetaGame-Sam-Landstrom/dp/1935597167/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

Computerworld should just close up shop for this worthless piece of journalism, or at least give their author the boot for doing any work with Craig Barth who represents a team of morons. samzenpus should be given a troll rating for getting this to Slashdot.

AOL/TWC have gone through so many reorganizations and consolidations, the best and brightest have been gone from the company for quite some time. This is just a result of continuing to run a failing course.

It seems that people are missing the point with this technology.

Think about all the enterprise services that this spans. I'm seeing a Sharepoint, Exchange, and LCS killer here at a minimum. I was hoping to see Google Video/Voice chat mixed with this, but I would say that it's probably not too far off. If it had that, goodbye to WebEx, Genesys, etc.

This is a collaboration tool, and that's it. There's no spam in a controlled audience. Even where this thing can be exposed like blogs and wiki sites, you have complete control over what gets included and published.

Of course you want to go to grad school! Isn't it the ultimate escape from reality?