SCIENCE

LOS ANGELES, CA -- DALi (Distributed Artificial Life, Inc.), a software company that builds infrastructure to support massively scaled Networked Entertainment(TM), today announced the global success of its first creation, DALiWorld. Only available for the first time last week, the beta-version of DALiWorld has already been downloaded in more than 50 countries on six continents. DALiWorld is a virtual ocean of artificial life, distributed across millions of users' computers. Founded by some of the brightest minds in distributed systems and artificial intelligence, DALi is fulfilling the promise of the Internet by creating a platform that enables millions of users to simultaneously inhabit, interact and/or passively observe within the same virtual environment. "It is extremely gratifying to receive such an overwhelming response after working so hard on the technology for the past two years," said Donnie Pinkston, DALi co-founder. "The global response demonstrates both the consumers' interest in artificial life and that peer-to-peer technology will be used to create exciting, new technology applications." Within the first week of availability, users from the following countries have become part of the DALiWorld artificial life environment: American Samoa, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Cocos (Keeling) Island, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Federal State of Micronesia, Mongolia, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States of America. "We had no idea that the level of interest in the first beta version of DALiWorld would be this pervasive. In fact, DALiWorld may have spread to even more countries had our Web site not crashed on Wednesday, due to a much higher than expected volume of downloads," said Todd Papaioannou, DALi co-founder. "It is important to note however, that the Web site service interruption did not affect any participants running DALiWorld due to DALi's peer-to-peer architecture. This is a great advert for the power of peer-to-peer technology!" Consumers who become part of the DALiWorld community will find themselves part of the largest, distributed artificial-life environment ever created. Modeled after the Indonesian Ocean, DALiWorld is a virtual ocean of artificial life, distributed across millions of users' computers. Users who download the company's software obtain plots in DALiWorld where they are able to view and interact with completely autonomous, artificial life entities that are free to travel within DALiWorld. The DALiWorld plot and software download are free to consumers. DALiWorld is a global community, where millions of users are able to participate in building a virtual ocean, and creating the ecology and the lifeforms that inhabit it. Each artificial life form in DALiWorld is fully autonomous, continually perceiving its environment and making decisions based on its own individual goals. Life forms are free to eat, mate and breed on their own, allowing the ocean to organically grow and mature. Because DALiWorld is distributed across the computers of all the participants, life forms are free to swim, crawl, or float between all devices with a network connection. As a fish swims to an adjacent plot and disappears from one computer, the computer on which it seamlessly reappears may be on the other side of the world. As new fish appear on their screens, users can peruse passports to see who owns the fish and where it has recently traveled. Not only will users have a 360-degree view of their plots, but also additional functionality is in development that will allow participants to find and follow their favorite fish and sea creatures anywhere in DALiWorld. DALi is hoping that gaming businesses will find the company's platform for Networked Entertainment exciting because it allows millions of participants to interact simultaneously from any device. Additionally, DALi's peer-to-peer computing approach combined with the use of mobile agents provides an opportunity for companies faced with large-scale distribution and large-scale content creation problems. DALi's new platform solves the scalability problems that current client/server architectures and existing content creation methodologies impose on developers of Networked Entertainment programming. Consumers interested in being among the first to own a plot in DALiWorld should point their browsers to www.daliworld.net/ for a free download. DALiWorld currently requires both Java and Java3D to function in 3D mode. This means that DALiWorld currently works on all Windows versions, Solaris, Linux and AIX machines. To get the best out of DALiWorld, a 3D-Graphics Card is also useful, but not essential. In the future, DALiWorld will be accessible by any computing device. DALiWorld is written in 100 percent pure Java. The underlying networking infrastructure is an advanced peer-to-peer framework, while mobile intelligent agents live above that framework, swimming through the network.