This is mindblowing. Take a bit of time to read about it and let your head wrap around the idea for a bit.

At first, it looks like another one of those hokey “three-dimensional OS” ideas — but the architecture behind it is anything but. Essentially, it’s a peer-to-peer generated massively shared metaverse-as-operating-system. The implications make my brain hurt.

The Croquet Project

Croquet was built to answer a simple question. “If we were to create a new operating system and user interface knowing what we know today, how far could we go?” Further, what kinds of decisions would we make that we might have been unable to even consider 20 or 30 years ago, when the current operating systems were first created? We decided that it was time for an existence proof that innovation could still continue and succeed on the personal computer. We felt that the very definition of the personal computer and its role needed to be shifted from a single-user closed system to a next generation broadband communication device.

More here as well: http://www.opencroquet.org/about_croquet/index.html

Also, Microsoft’s John Scoble blogs about it, open-mouthed.

Evidently the company behind this is called Qwaq … and it’s funded by modern-OS grandfather, Alan Kay.

(found via 3pointD)