Title: Microsoft Research's Virtual Worlds Group: An Overview
                Linda Stone and Steve Drucker
           Virtual Worlds Group, Microsoft Research

Abstract:
	The Virtual Worlds Group (VWG) conducts research and develops
technologies for online social interaction and experiments with technologies
that support the use of the Internet as a social medium. The group attempts
to blend technology, sociology and design while exploring the nature of
online interactions and has developed a toolkit that facilitates the
development of a variety of user interfaces for shared environments. 
	It is a general-purpose system that allows researchers to quickly
program and prototype shared environments on the Internet. These shared
environments allow multiple users to interact, while maintaining persistent,
changeable, world-state. In addition, users can perform live editing of
behaviors and content.  Customized user interfaces and the creation and
modification of object behavior via DHTML, VBscript, and Javascript are all
supported.  Through its scripting model, researchers can easily integrate
other web- and Internet-based services. Ultimately, developers and designers
will be able to use the platform to integrate social virtual worlds with
activities such as information delivery, commerce, and entertainment. 
	This talk will present an overview of the group, its research,
discuss the architecture of the Virtual Worlds Platform, and show several
examples of work created on top of it.
 
Bios:
Linda Stone:

		Linda Stone is the director of Microsoft Research's Virtual
Worlds Group. For over a decade, Stone has been a leader in the effort to
create both community and content on the computer. Since joining Microsoft
Corporation in December of 1993, she has focused on improving human social
interactions in cyberspace. She created and now directs Microsoft's virtual
worlds team, a joint effort by engineers, artists, and animators to develop
multi-user, multimedia, technologies for the construction of social
environments that really work on a human level. Her group's approach to
virtual worlds blends sociology, design and technology with the goal of
enhancing net-based relationships.
		Stone's team is a product incubation group that blends
research and development, creative and technical efforts. The first
offerings from the virtual worlds group were multimedia chat services:
V-Chat and Comic Chat. The group is now developing virtual worlds
technologies that go beyond chat.

		Background:
		Prior to joining Microsoft in December of 1993, Stone worked
for Apple Computer as that company's key person in building the multimedia
marketplace. She was instrumental in forging the first significant
relationships between a technology firm, Apple, and the traditional creative
media, such as book publishers. 
		Well known in both the creative and technical communities,
Stone is a frequent speaker at conferences and has been repeatedly quoted
and profiled in the news media. In 1996, Upside magazine has named her one
of the 100 leaders of the digital revolution. She is also featured in John
Brockman's book, "The Digerati," which describes her as "a visionary both
within Microsoft and to the industry at large." 

Steven Drucker
		Dr. Steven M. Drucker is a research lead in the Microsoft
Research's Virtual Worlds Group. Steven received his Ph.D. from the Computer
Graphics and Animation Group at the MIT Media Lab in May 1994. His thesis
research is on intelligent camera control interfaces for graphical
environments. Dr. Drucker graduated Magna Cum Laude with Honors in
Neurosciences from Brown University and went on to complete his masters at
the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT doing research in robot
learning. His published papers have been in such areas as hypermedia
research, human and robot perceptual capabilities, robot learning, parallel
computer graphics, and human interfaces for camera control.
		Currently, Steven is investigating ways in which computers
can enhance online interactions between people. A research platform has been
built by the group which provides persistent, distributed objects,
synchronous updates, and end user extensibility. Using this, the virtual
worlds group has been examining different representations for users and
environments in order to facilitate social interaction.