Ed recently blogged about some work by IBM research, "Sametime 3D". Well it's cute, it will make a press release or two, be of interest for about a week then what ?

Remember IBM's "Forbiden City" ? There was a twitter hash tag "#ibmvfc" which seems to be defunct now. So it appears interest is waning. Well, this looks like the same thing again but with a different flavour. Sorry to be so brutal, but technology without a demonstable need is still pointless. How many people are gonna use Sametime AND Second-life to conduct meetings in the business world ? Alot of the business world barely uses email competently and Uni's aren't really a cash cow now are they ? This sort of stuff is strictly experimental for Universities. I'm all for exploring potential of technology, but it's a typical mistake by technologists to design solutions that are perpetually on a quest for a problem to fulfil...