ExitReality 3D browser launches - it's new, and it's Australian

By Scott Fitzgerald

Down the bottom of this page, under the subheading ‘The ExitReality company line’, is material from the ExitReality press release – edited, but still, it’s the ExitReality company line. This morning on Sunrise Peter Blasina, the Gadget Guy, appeared talking about this newly released software from an Australian company. Now 3D is an emerging area, with for instance some very interesting developments in 3D TVs on the way soon. And if you’ve seen movies like ‘Minority Report’, or had a play with the Apple’s iPhone or iPod Touch, a shift in the way we interact with computers, or computer-like devices, is a very enticing idea.

But, if you’re expecting an exciting, and satisfying, new online experience with the ExitReality browser, you are going to be very, very disappointed. Now the download itself is quite quick. And I hope you like downloading, because based on our experience, you are going to have to download, or ‘upgrade’. every time you fire up the browser. Even though you might have downloaded the program only a matter of a few hours before, you will be asked to upgrade.

Now that itself might just be an easily-fixed bug. Let’s move on to the actual use of the thing. Before launching into that, let me tell you that we used a pretty souped-up little notebook computer to look at ExitReality, so we don’t believe our issues stem from the hardware. So, time passes, and you’ve struggled through the downlaod/upgrade stumbling blog, sworn a fair bit, and finally have the Exit Reality homepage on your screen, your avatar in place front and centre, and you’re ready to type in the URL of a site in the search box. What happens next? Well, to paraphrase that old novelty song “Star Trekkin'”, it’s a web page Jim, but not as we know it. It breaks down the page, in the manner of how a cubist might break down a representation of a cow into a series of blocky shapes – you kind of see the structure. You know, if you squint, turn your head to one side, jump up and down on your left foot while singing ‘The Venga Bus Is Coming’.

So, you move your avatar, just like you move a character in a videogame. And you’ll pass by/through/past what would normally be the various aspects of the navigation of the website, or the featured stories, ads, etc – all the components of any website homepage or website page. So, you’re ExitReality-ing the GadgetGuy homepage for example, your avatar breezes past the Plasma and LCD TVs, a major section of our site that appears in our left-hand navigation. You click it, and what happens? Something 3D or new or flashy? No, you are taken to that page on our site. So, in essence, you’ve added a pointless layer of interface over the site.

Maybe this will get better, maybe its early days (though its been 13 years in development). Maybe a big fish like Google will buy the company and do something interesting, or add mystery ingredient ‘X’ to it – where X equals a valid reason to bother using the thing. Anyway, that’s our experience of it. Download it, have a play, and see what you think.

The ExitReality company line

Now, here’s the edited press release from Exit Reality…

In a world’s first, ExitReality is revolutionising the internet by instantly turning every single website into a global 3D virtual world.

“ExitReality goes far and beyond any other 3D destination ever created. With Second Life and World of Warcraft, users visit the one destination for a virtual experience, but ExitReality allows you to view not just that one website, but the entire World Wide Web in 3D,” said founder of ExitReality, 36-year-old Australian Danny Stefanic.

“The free internet plug-in takes only 20 seconds to download, but opens up the user to a whole new universe. It transports you to a world where social network pages such as Facebook become 3D apartments users are able to decorate; a world where YouTube is transformed into the world’s largest 3D cinema where people can watch movies with their friends; a world where photo albums become virtual galleries and music is played out of a jukebox. And it’s not a solo experience – the user can see and share experiences with their friends while chatting with them and other people at either their own website or the other billion web pages,” added Danny.

First conceived by Danny 13 years ago, the team at ExitReality has worked steadily since then to develop the concept into a staggering phenomenon that forges the way to the future of the internet.

The ExitReality 3D search engine operates in a similar way to other keyword-based search engines; however, ExitReality allows users the ability to search for 3D content. Users enter a keyword or a keyword phrase into the ExitReality search engine, and based on the relevancy of the keywords entered, a list of 3D content will appear as images on the screen. The search criteria can be narrowed down to 3D objects, 3D themes (3D apartment interior, 3D office space), 3D backgrounds (landscapes), 3D virtual worlds (3D worlds that have been created by others) etc.

In essence, the users are now able to enter any 2D webpage, transform it into a 3D webspace, and search for objects and themes to completely rearrange the environment that surrounds their 3D avatar.

Through the ExitReality 3D search engine, users can now search for 3D objects, find 3D objects, collect them and save them in their favourites, called ‘My Stuff’, for later use. The 3D internet search engine is part of the ExitReality user interface. This same search engine is also integrated into the ExitReality homepage.