Tim Wang's eLearning Blog

Not that World of Warcraft needs more attention, but the new US leader Obama just announced Kevin Werbach to be one of the transition team members in January 2009. Kevin Werbach AKA "Supernovan Jenkins" in the World of Warcraft game, is a level 70 "Shaman". He is also a professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. A level 70 in the game WOW means Werbach has invested a huge amount of time and should be a pretty skilled and yet active player in the game.

In a blog post written by Werbach praised massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) for fostering a sense of community. Himself of course is a well known figure in the real world, but try to chat on "Supernovan Jenkins" in WOW! The following are some of his blog postings:

What (Warcraft) does is provide an incentive for people to develop new software and ideas for collaborative production," he wrote.

Many of those ideas will translate to other group activities, including those within the business world. I think MMOGs will be, at a minimum, a significant testbed for these new technologies, because users see a direct benefit and are willing to experiment with new things.

One thing you can bet on is his WOW experience will help the new administration to reshape the virtual worlds.

Remember how Tom Cruise navigated the "special computer interface" which would tell him the future crimes? Well, the future telling machine is not yet invented, but the hand/glove based navigation system is out. Mouse was the key to the computer revolution in the past century. However, more and more researchers are experimenting with finger navigation systems which turns the users' hands into a complex input device. G-Speak seems to be one of the pioneers in the field. John Underkoffler is the chief scientist behind the G-Speak OS development. Using special Input/Output bulbs, the computer may detect the movement from the specially made gloves hence execute certain command in the computer. I think this is going to emerge with the 3D virtual world project in the near future. Because once a new input device being widely adopted, new user interfaces will be followed. The current 2D based web simply won't cut it.