Immersive virtual environments - An opportunity for future interactive multimedia retrieval services

With the explosive growth of on-line interactive services just beginning, f inding the required information is becoming increasingly difficult. User in terfaces do not enable the majority of people to derive much benefit from t hese services. To entice mass appeal for such services an enhanced user par adigm is necessary which can be implemented on a diverse range of user plat forms from PCs to television sets. This article examines a: multi-user inte rface to on-line multimedia retrieval services that utilises a three-dimens ional virtual world technology from Active Worlds(1). This example is being developed as part of a BT Laboratories research project to develop a gener ic platform to support future interactive multimedia services, with deliver y via a range of flexible end-user clients.